Letters to His Son, 1756-58: On the Fine Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a GentlemanChesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of
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Letters to His Son, 1756-58: On the Fine Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman
Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of
Conduct of life
The meeting of the parliament will certainly be very numerous, were it
only from curiosity: but the majority on the side of the Court will, I
dare say, be a great one. The people of the late Captain-general, however
inclined to oppose, will be obliged to concur. Their commissions, which
they have no desire to lose, will make them tractable; for those
gentlemen, though all men of honor, are of Sosia's mind, 'que le vrai
Amphitrion est celui ou l'on dine'. The Tories and the city have engaged
to support Pitt; the Whigs, the Duke of Newcastle; the independent and
the impartial, as you well know, are not worth mentioning. It is said
that the Duke intends to bring the affair of his Convention into
parliament, for his own justification; I can hardly believe it; as I
cannot conceive that transactions so merely electoral can be proper
objects of inquiry or deliberation for a British parliament; and,
therefore, should such a motion be made, I presume it will be immediately
quashed. By the commission lately given to Sir John Ligonier, of General
and Commander-in-chief of all his Majesty's forces in Great Britain, the
door seems to be not only shut, but bolted, against his Royal Highness's
return; and I have good reason to be convinced that that breach is
irreparable. The reports of changes in the Ministry, I am pretty sure,
are idle and groundless. The Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pitt really agree
very well; not, I presume, from any sentimental tenderness for each
other, but from a sense that it is their mutual interest: and, as the
late Captain-general's party is now out of the question, I do not see
what should produce the least change.
The visit made lately to Berlin was, I dare say, neither a friendly nor
an inoffensive one. The Austrians always leave behind them pretty lasting
monuments of their visits, or rather visitations: not so much, I believe,
from their thirst of glory, as from their hunger of prey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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