dignity, an amiable candour, an elevation of fentiment, and a real good-nature were the arts he practifed; and they procured him more respect and attentions in a fortnight, than Lord Chefterfield's tricks and cunning, and all his other pitiful littleneffes, would have done in a century. He was fimple in his manners, and noble in all his proceedings; and he had every fuffrage at Vienna. I cannot help naming him. It was Lord John Clinton.

LET

LETTER XIX.

COMEWHAT too much of Lord

SOME

Chesterfield. Permit me a few words upon his tafte; and then we have done with him for ever. Of the arts, in general, it is clear, he knew nothing; fo we have only to examine his literary tafte.

There is little materially falfe or wrong in what this elegant and agreeable writer has faid upon literature. But all The fays is common. However, what we have read in twenty books, and what of confequence appears old to us, was new to the perfon to whom thefe letters were

addreffed;

addreffed; and that, I think, excufes

their author.

I like to have a man write upon literary fubjects; for, at the fame time that he fhews me his tafte, he generally gives me the measure of his abilities; and I think I know the altitude of Lord Chesterfield's underftanding, as well by two or three of his Letters, as if I had heard him fpeak an entire winter in the Houfe of Lords. One knows a man by the people he looks up to. And whe are the objects of Lord Chesterfield's admiration? Why Waller, Ovid, and Voltaire. This laft, above all, was his hero. Now what is Voltaire? An ingenious, brilliant, agreeable, graceful, frivolous,

VOL. II.

L'

'volous, (1) falfe writer. I pity the man who has not a certain relifh for thefe authors; but I think him infinitely more to be pitied who confiders them as the firft of poets; and who prefers them to Homer, Milton, and Shakspeare.

Of Shakspeare he has faid but little; and not a fingle fentence in his favour. I have often been tempted to guess that Voltaire had inftructed him in the value. he was to fet upon this poet. I have

(1) It may be thought that I have prejudices against Voltaire. The first year I was in France, when I knew him only by his bright fides, by the love of toleration, of humanity and juftice, that appears in his works, I admired him both as a writer and as a man. I was one of his warmeft advocates. Since I have known him better, I have changed my opinion.

alfo

་

also suspected that the editor of his letters must have fuppreffed paffages relative to this author. For how can any man conceive that an Englishman could write fome hundreds of letters to his fon, in which he should talk a great deal on literature and poetry; and that he should scarce ever mention the firft poet of the nation, if that poet had been to his tafte?

To refume the whole of this noble author, as appears from his Letters. His parts, were above mediocrity; his ftyle, is pleasant and eafy; his ideas upon air, manners, and addrefs, excellent; his po litics, beyond my power of judging; his worldly maxims, false; his tafte, little; and his morals, infamous.