That is especially true of women, of whom he always speaks with the true aristocratic contempt. A man of sense will humour them and flatter them; he will never consult them seriously, nor really trust them, but he will make them believe that he does both. They are invaluable as tools, though contemptible in themselves. This, of course, represents the tone too characteristic of the epicurean British nobleman. Yet with all this cynicism, Chesterfield's morality is perfectly genuine in its way. He has the sense of honour and the patriotic feeling of his class. He has the good nature which is compatible with, and even congenial to, a certain cynicism. He is said to have achieved the very unusual success of being an admirable Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. In fact he had the intellectual vigour which implies a real desire for good administration, less perhaps from purely philanthropic motives than from respect for efficiency. 'For forms of government let fools contest Whate'er is best administered, is best,' says Pope, and that was Chesterfield's view. Like Frederick of Prussia, whom he admires above all rulers, he might not be over-scrupulous in his policy, but wishes the machinery for which he is responsible to be in thoroughly good working order. He most thoroughly sees the folly, if he does not sufficiently despise the motives, of the lower order of politicians to whom bribery and corruption represented the only political forces worth notice. In practice he might be forced to use such men, but he sees them to be contemptible, and appreciates the mischiefs resulting from their rule. The development of this morality in the aristocratic class, which was still predominant although the growing importance of the House of Commons was tending to shift the centre of political gravity to a lower point, is, I think, sufficiently intelligible to be taken for granted. Pope, I have said, represents the literary version. The problem, then, is how this view of life is to be embodied in poetry. One answer is the _Essay on Man_, in which Pope versified the deism which he learned from Bolingbroke, and which was characteristic of the upper circle generally. I need not speak of its shortcomings; didactic poetry of that kind is dreary enough, and the smart couplets often offend one's taste. I may say that here and there Pope manages to be really impressive, and to utter sentiments which really ennobled the deist creed; the aversion to narrow superstition; to the bigotry which 'dealt damnation round the land'; and the conviction that the true religion must correspond to a cosmopolitan humanity. I remember hearing Carlyle quote with admiration the Universal Prayer-- 'Father of all, in every age, In every clime adored, By Saint, by Savage, and by Sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord,'