laboured to prepare him for the prominent part he would in all probability be called upon to play, both in public and private life. These letters were carefully preserved, and had been perused by Dr. Maty, who alludes to them in his 'Memoirs of Chesterfield.' They have not yet appeared,' says the Doctor, ' under any sanction of authority, but the principle of them is so noble, and the end proposed so becoming the dignity of a great name, that it is hoped they will not always be withheld from the public.' It is curious that Maty should have made no allusion to the fact that fourteen of these letters-the letters namely on the Art of Pleasing'-numbers CXXIX. to CXLI. in Lord Carnarvon's edition—had already been printed in a very incorrect and garbled form, and no doubt surreptitiously, in the Edinburgh Magazine and Review' for February, March, April, and May 1774. Their appearance in this magazine accounts for their subsequent appearance in a Dublin reprint of the Letters to the Son,' among which they are erroneously classed, and for their reproduction in the supplementary volume to Maty's 'Memoirs of Chesterfield,' published in 1778. How the letters got into print it would be interesting to know: that they were pirated is certain, and we are very much inclined to agree with the writer of a preface to a subsequent edition of them, that the pirate was Dr. Dodd. With the exception of these fourteen letters, the rest of the Correspondence remained in manuscript till Lord Carnarvon, in accordance with the wishes of the late Earl of Chesterfield, gave it to the world in the present volume. To the letters now for the first time published, Lord Carnarvon has not only incorporated the letters to which we have referred, but he has, in this second edition, very judiciously added Chesterfield's Correspondence with Mr. Arthur Charles Stanhope, his godson's father, originally printed in 1817, as well as the admirable testamentary letter which was to be delivered to Philip Stanhope after the Earl's death, first printed by Lord Stanhope. To these letters he has prefixed a scholarly and gracefully-written introduction, partly historical and partly biographical, sketching rapidly the course of political events during the first half of the eighteenth century, and recapitulating the chief incidents of Chesterfield's public career and private life. He has also added notes to the letters themselves. An excellent Index, the work of Mr. Doble of the Clarendon Press, concludes the book. In all that concerns adornment, the volume before us certainly leaves nothing to be desired. On the distinguished Press from which it has issued it reflects, indeed, the highest credit. The collotypes, collotypes, particularly the portrait of Chesterfield, fronting the title-page, the paper, and the type, are excellent; the facsimile letter is perfect. The binder might perhaps have been a little less profuse in heraldic insignia. It was no doubt quite in accordance with the becoming, that the most aristocratic and fastidious of English writers should make his re-appearance amongst us in an édition de luxe, but we all know how strongly Chesterfield objected to emphasis being laid on distinctions of the kind to which we refer. 'Wear your title as if you had it not,' he writes to Philip Stanhope, and no sentiment is more frequently repeated by him. As it is possible that this work may run into another edition, and as it is certain that it will take its place among the works which every student of English eighteenth-century literature will consider it his duty to read, we are sure we are doing nothing more than would have met with the approval—the cordial approval of Lord Carnarvon himself, if we venture to point out what seem to us blemishes in his editorial work-the few errors which we should like to see corrected, the deficiencies-there are more of these-which we should like to see supplied. Had life and health been granted him, the whole work would no doubt have been carefully revised; for a more conscientious scholar, or one to whom anything approaching inaccuracy and unthoroughness were more oppugnant, never contributed to Literature. In drawing attention, therefore, to what ought to be added and rectified if a third edition of these letters should be called for, we feel that so far from being guilty of any discourtesy to the memory of one who has a personal claim to our respect and protection, we are, in fact, fulfilling what would have been his own wish. notes. The most unsatisfactory part of Lord Carnarvon's work is the He appears to have thought at first-and assuredly to have thought quite rightly—that it was his duty as an editor to explain Chesterfield's allusions, to trace his quotations, and to correct his errors. And this up to a certain point he has done. He then appears to have changed his mind. It is possible that he thought the insertion of notes at the bottom of the pages had an unpleasantly pedantic appearance; and this seems probable from the fact, that many of the quotations are left untraced at the foot of the text in which they occur; the reference, however, being tacitly given in the Index. This we discovered quite accidentally, and if it is discovered at all, every other reader must discover it in the same way, for there is nothing to indicate it. Thus, on page 198, the reference for a quotation from Ovid's' Fasti' is duly given at the foot of the page; but there is nothing to indicate the source of a quotation from the 'Metamorphoses' morphoses' on the same page. On turning, however, to the heading 'Ovid' in the Index, we noticed that the reference is duly given. It is not very easy to see what possible end can be served by such capricious inconsistencies as these, unless it be a device for disguising the fact that many of the quotations have not been traced at all, either at the foot of the pages or in the index, a subterfuge of which we are very sure Lord Carnarvon was quite incapable. In any case, this is a defect which needs remedy. If an editor undertakes to trace quotations, he ought of course to spare no pains to trace all, though he cannot be blamed if he is unsuccessful. But there is surely no reason why he should give the references to some at the bottom of the page, and relegate the references to others to the index. The explanatory notes have the same peculiarity. Allusions for which we should have been grateful for an explanation are passed silently over; allusions so obvious, that we should scarcely think it necessary to explain them to a fourthform schoolboy, are explained at length. Thus, in commenting on a proverb so common as 'post est occasio calva,' we are amazed to find the editor stopping to notice that De Foe has quoted it in one of his pamphlets, and that Chesterfield must have had in his mind five lines of Phædrus,' which are transcribed at length. Two or three of Chesterfield's slips, at which we should have expected so accomplished a scholar as Lord Carnarvon to have winced, are passed unnoticed. Thus, on page 275, Chesterfield observes, that Cicero reproaches Clodia with dancing better than a modest woman should.' He was of course thinking of what Sallust, not Cicero, said of Sempronia, not of Clodia. 6 The well-known saying, 'nemo fere saltat sobrius,' twice misquoted by Chesterfield, occurs not as is (p. 292) asserted in the Offices,' but in the Pro Murænâ,' cap. vi. On p. 208 we have no doubt that in the famous couplet of Martial on Mutius Scævola (Epig. I. 21 (22)), 'Major deceptæ fama est et gloria dextræ: Si non errasset, fecerat illa minus,' 'illa' is the right reading, but it is quite clear from Chesterfield's version that he read 'ille.' We are surprised, too, that so accurate a scholar as Lord Carnarvon should have allowed another error to pass unnoticed, more especially as it has, in consequence of Chesterfield's authority, become so generally current that it may now be said to hold a conspicuous place among 'pseudodoxia epidemica.' It is repeatedly asserted both in these letters and in the 'Letters to the Son,' that Socrates exhorted his disciples to sacrifice to the Graces. The saying has nothing whatever to do with Socrates. It was the advice given by Plato to Xenocrates simply on account of his pompous demeanour and sullen aspect; and the anecdote is related by Plutarch in his 'Life of Marius,' and by Diogenes Laertius, in his notice of Xenocrates. The phrase appears afterwards to have become proverbial.* But nothing has surprised us so much as that Lord Carnarvon should have allowed the following passage to stand without a note : "Voicy une jolie epigramme faitte par le célébre Cardinal du Perron sur une belle dame qui avoit un enfant d'une beauté égale a la sienne mais, ils etoient tous deux borgnes 'Parve puer quod habes lumen concede parenti We need scarcely say that the original runs thus :— 'Lumine Acon dextro, capta est Leonilla sinistro, Whether there is any authority for saying that it refers to the Princess Eboli, the mistress of Philip II. of Spain, and to Maugiron, the favourite of Henry III. of France, each of whom is said to have lost an eye, we do not know. But it was certainly not written by the Cardinal du Perron, for it was published thirty years before Du Perron was born, though it has often been attributed to him, as it has been attributed also to Ménage. It was written by Girolamo Amalteo, and will be found in any of the editions of the 'Trium Fratrum Amaltheorum Carmina,' under the title of 'De gemellis, fratre et sorore, luscis.' We are surprised that neither Chesterfield nor Lord Carnarvon appears to know the origin of the Italian phrase so often quoted, not only in these letters but generally-volto sciolto, pensieri stretti,' though it is to be found in Wotton's letter to Milton prefixed to some of the editions of Comus,' where it is attributed to one Alberto Scipione. The passage in Boileau referred to on p. 158 will be found in the 8th Satire, line 99. On p. 197 there is evidently a reference to Longinus (De. Subl. c. ix.). The words 'Facere digna scribi vel scribere digna legi,' quoted on p. 164, and again on p. 217, are obviously a reminiscence of a passage in the Letters of the younger Pliny. Equidem beatos puto, quibus Deorum munere * See the notes of Causaubon and Ménage on 'Diogenes Laertius,' iv. 11. datum G. datum est aut facere scribenda, aut scribere legenda.' (Epist. Lib. vi., Ep. xvi.) The fine lines quoted from Voltaire, Répandez vos bienfaits, avec magnificence. are from the Précis de L'Ecclésiaste,' and from the same poem are the lines quoted on p. 11. The words in the last letter, "You would fall like setting stars to rise no more,' is the adaptation of a line in Rowe's 'Jane Shore' (Act i. sc. 2), 'She sets like stars that fall to rise no more.' We hope that, if these letters are republished, the references made to contemporary plays will be traced. In what play, for example, does the character of John Trott, known to us from Goldsmith's epigram, and alluded to over and over again by Chesterfield, appear? Who was Nell Johnson the Cobler's wife in the comical transformation scene,' p. 244? To most readers of the present day it would certainly not have been superfluous to explain that the author of 'Tamerlane,' of which an account is given in Letter CXXIV., was Nicholas Rowe. For the Introduction we have nothing but praise. On three points, and on three points only, are we inclined to dissent from Lord Carnarvon's conclusions. We cannot at all agree with him that Chesterfield's 'respectable Hottentot' was intended for Johnson. We think that Dr. Birkbeck Hill has conclusively shown that such was not the case. To say nothing of Johnson's assertion that Chesterfield had never seen him eat in his life, there seems little doubt that the person who sat for that picture was the person described in the 122nd and 170th Letters to the Son,' and who may possibly be alluded to in the 30th Letter of vol. i., all of which prove that he must have been some one moving in Chesterfield's circle, one of which proves that the initial letter of his name was L. It is of course possible that the four passages may not refer to the same person; if they do, there can be no reasonable doubt of the correctness of Dr. Hill's conjecture, that the Hottentot was Lyttelton, a man whose slovenliness, awkwardness, and absence of mind, were proverbial among his contemporaries. On p. xxxviii there is the following note: Lord Chesterfield also offended Smollett; but Smollett's day and literary influence are of the past, and it is scarcely worth while, except as an historical fact, to mention the circumstance.' In this extra ordinary |