* * * * * Chesterfield's _Letters to his Son_, the subject of these two burlesques, were announced as published on April 7, 1774, scarcely a year after his death; that they became an immediate best seller, every schoolboy knows. Reaction to the letters took several modes of expression. These included comments in conversation by Dr. Johnson and by George III, as reported by Boswell and by Fanny Burney; in letters, from Walpole, Mrs. Delaney, Voltaire, and Mrs. Montagu; and in diaries, such as those of Fanny Burney and John Wesley. Reviewers sprang to words if not into action. Entire books came to the defence of morality. A sermon announced "The Unalterable Nature of Vice and Virtue" (a second edition placed Virtue before Vice); the _Monthly Review_ for December 1775 praised it: "This sensible and well written discourse is chiefly directed against the letters of the late Lord Chesterfield, though his Lordship is not mentioned." All of these approached the subject directly. Indirect reactions included an ironic _Apology for Mrs. Stanhope_ (the son's widow, who had sold the letters to James Dodsley the publisher for £1575 and was represented as the editor), two novels showing the pernicious effects of the Chesterfieldean "system"--_The Pupil of Pleasure_, by Courtney Melmoth (Samuel Jackson Pratt), and _The Two Mentors_, by Clara Reeve--and a parody by Horace Walpole of the first three letters (published years later in his _Works_). The _Westminster Magazine_ carried a "Petition of the Women of Pleasure" and the _London Chronicle_ a farcical skit on Lord Chesterfield's refined manners.[1] In a play called _The Cozeners_, Samuel Foote took advantage of current interest in Chesterfield to ridicule the graces. Not the least interesting examples of the indirect reaction to the _Letters_ are the two verse caricatures or burlesques here reprinted. * * * * * The earlier of the two poems, _The Graces_, bears the date 1774 on the title page. A second edition of 1775 at first glance appears to be a reissue with new title page, but minor changes and the straightedge test are evidence of resetting. The authorship was soon known: _The London Chronicle_ for February 16-18, quoting 88 lines of the total 170 and working from the first edition, mentioned that the piece was written by Mr. Woty, but so far as bibliography was concerned this attribution remained hidden until recently, for Woty's obituary in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for March 1791 omitted mention of _The Graces_, as did the _DNB_ and its additional sources, John Nichols' _Leicestershire_ and David Erskine Baker's _Biographia Dramatica_ (1812 ed.).[2] That Woty did indeed write _The Graces_ one may assume from his including it in 1780, with minor changes, in _Poems on Several Occasions_. He too used the first edition.