We could have wished perhaps that Lord Chesterfield’s affection and character had prevented him from falling--especially so soon after the affair at The Hague--into so unpraiseworthy an undertaking as a _mariage de convenance_. Yet whether it was to spite his royal enemy, or because in financial difficulties he remembered the existence of the will of George I.--or even from love; at any rate in the following year he married, in lawful wedlock, Melusina de Schulenberg, whom, though merely the “niece” of the Duchess of Kendale, George the First had thought fit to create Lady Walsingham and the possessor by his will of £20,000. Scandal or truth has been very busy about the relationship of Lady Walsingham and her aunt. Posterity openly declares her to have been the daughter of that lady by a royal sire. But good Dr. Maty, as though by the quantity of his information, wishing to override its quality, tells us that her father was none other than one “Frederick Achatz de Schulenburg, privy counsellor to the Duke of Brunswick-Lunenburg, Lord of Stehler, Bezendorff, Angern,” etc. But we may well remember Lord Chesterfield’s own words here: “It is a happy phrase that a lady has presented her husband with a son, for this does not admit anything of its parentage.” Anyhow Lord Chesterfield lost the money, for George the Second, on being shown his father’s will by the Archbishop of Canterbury, put it in his pocket and walked hastily out of the room. It never was seen again. But to have quarrelled with George II. had one recommendation. It made him a friend of the Prince of Wales. No sooner was Lord Chesterfield married than the Prince and Princess sent round their cards, and the rest of their Court, of course, followed them. It seems to have been Lord Chesterfield’s fate to be opposed to the reigning power. His opposition now, however, was quite spontaneous. We need not follow him through all the political entanglements of the time. Smollet said of him that he was the only man of genius employed under Walpole, and though history has hardly justified such praise, yet it certainly illustrates a truth. We may take his speech in 1737 against the Playhouse Bill as a sample of his oratory. I borrow from Lord Mahon: