Sparrow's Nest," with fine yet surprising confidence in the future of his own verse :

And in this bush our sparrow built her nest,

Of which I sang one song that will not die.

On landing at Dover from France, one of the first things that forcibly persuades him he is once again in his own country is "the cock that crows," and admirable in all respects is the wave of patriotism that thrills him at the thought:

The cock that crows, the smoke that curls, that sound

Of bells; those boys who in yon meadow-ground
In white-sleeved shirts are playing; and the roar
Of the waves breaking on the chalky shore;
All, all are English.

Enough has been written to show how attentive to the feathered songsters Wordsworth was. One passage-perhaps most familiar of all—has not been referred to, but it is surely worth double emphasis in these days when most men are ashamed if they are not known to be what are called "bookmen":

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:

Come, hear the woodland linnet,

How sweet his music! on my life,

There's more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!

He, too, is no mean preacher :

Come forth into the light of things,

Let nature be your teacher.

As his faith was that every flower enjoys the air it breathes, so his belief was that the least motion of the birds was accompanied by a thrill of pleasure.

This paper may very fitly close with a passage from "The Prelude," which, no doubt, has more than surface-meaning-one of those exquisite confessions of the poet's great indebtedness to his sister :

But for thee, dear friend!

My soul, too reckless of mild grace, had stood

In her original self too confident,

Retained too long a countenance severe;
A rock with torrents roaring, with the clouds
Familiar, and a favourite with the stars:
But thou didst plant its crevices with flowers,
Hang it with shrubs that winkle in the breeze,
And teach the little birds to build their nests
And warble in its chambers.

JOHN HOGBEN.

THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD.

My wishes and my plan were to make you shine and distinguish yourself equally in the learned and the polite world.—Chesterfield.

"CH

HESTERFIELD was one of the most shining characters of the age" is a dictum which has become a proverb. There is a literal justice in the eulogy, and with the admission one might be content that it should pass in a mere gallery of traditionary portraits.

But the theory upon which it was based, the system according to which it was formed, have been elaborately unfolded by Lord Chesterfield himself with epistolary art; and although he never designed publicly to advocate them, yet the fact that his letters have been for many years considered a manual of deportment, and his name a synonym for attractive elegance, is sufficient reason for applying to him and the school he represents the test of that impartial scrutiny challenged by whatever practically acts upon society and exercises more or less prescriptive influence.

His name is almost exclusively associated with his letters to his natural son-letters written in the most entire parental confidence, and with the vain hope of converting by specific instructions an awkward and apparently honest-hearted and sensible fellow into an accomplished and shrewd man of the world. It has been urged in excuse for the importance attached to external qualities in these letters, that the youth to whom they were addressed was lamentably deficient in these respects. Be this as it may, there can be no doubt that they form the most genuine expression of Chesterfield's mind, the more so that they were never intended for the public eye.

By a not uncommon fortune in literary venture, these estrays and waifs of private correspondence alone keep alive the name and perpetuate the views of Lord Chesterfield.

It would be unjust not to ascribe the worldly spirit and absence of natural enthusiasm in those epistles in a degree to the period that gave them birth. It was an age when intrigue flourished, and wit rather than sentiment was in vogue. There was a league between letters and politics based wholly on party interests. It was the age

of Swift, Pope, and Bolingbroke. The Queen governed George II., Lady Yarmouth governed the Queen, and Chesterfield, for a time, Lady Yarmouth. Agreeable conversation, an insinuating manner, and subtlety of observation were then very efficient weapons. High finish, point, verbal felicity, the costume rather than the soul of literature, won the day. Neither the frankness and undisguised overflow of thought and feeling that distinguished the Shakespearean era, nor the earnest utterance and return to truth ushered in by the first French Revolution existed; but, on the contrary, that neutral ground between the two periods, whereon there was the requisite space, leisure and absence of lofty purpose to give full scope to the courtier, the wit, and the intrigante. It was comparatively a timid, partisan, and showy epoch. The spirit of the times is caught up and transmitted in Horace Walpole's letters, and quite as significantly embodied, in a less versatile manner, in those of Lord Chesterfield.

Instead, therefore, of regarding courteous manners as a mere necessary adjunct to a man's character-desirable in itself-Chesterfield attempts to elevate them into the highest practical significance. This is emphasised by him throughout his letters, where he invariably applies the word "shining" to oratory, character, and manners with an obvious relish; this suggests the nature of his philosophy of life. It may be a fanciful idea, but it is frequently confirmed by experience, that the constant use of the word designating a quality is an instinctive sign of its predominance in character.

Chesterfield's idea of excellence was essentially superficial, for his praise of solid acquirement and genuine principles is always coupled with the assertion of their entire inutility if unaccompanied by grace, external polish, and an agreeable manifestation. He omits all consideration of their intrinsic worth and absolute dignity; their value to the individual, according to him, is wholly proportioned to his skill in using them in a social form. In one of his earlier letters to Philip Stanhope he writes: "What an advantage has a graceful speaker with genteel motions, a handsome figure, over one who shall speak full as much good sense, but who is destitute of these ornaments! In business how prevalent are the graces! how detrimental is the want of them! If you should not acquire manners, all the rest will be of little use to you. By manners I mean engaging, insinuating, shining manners, a distinguished politeness, an almost irresistible address, a superior gracefulness in all you say and do." He would have manners overlay individuality, and goes so far as to declare that a soldier is a brute, a scholar a pedant, and a philosopher a cynic without good breeding.

"Moral virtues are the foundation of society in general, and of friendship in particular, but attentions, manners and graces both adorn and strengthen them. I cannot help recommending to you the utmost attention and care to acquire les manières, la tournure et les grâces d'un galant homme et d'un homme de cour. They should appear in every look, in every action, in your address, if you would please or rise in the world. The understanding is the voiture of life;" and Lord Chesterfield apparently insists that it shall be put at random on any track and made to move at any speed which the will of an elegant majority dictate-an axiom wholly at variance with that true independence which has been declared to be the positive test of a gentleman. His conceit of knowledge of human nature was based upon most inadequate and one-sided observation.

Associating chiefly with women of fashion and men of State, he saw only the calculating and vain, not the impulsive and unconventional play of character. Character may be divided into two great classes, the one based upon details, and the other upon general principle. The philosopher differs from the petit maître and the poet from the dilettante by virtue of the same law-the view of the one being comprehensive and the other minute. In art also we recognise true efficiency only where general effects are aptly seized and justly embodied; the artist of mere detail ranks only as a mechanician in form and colour. But the most striking truth involved in these distinctions is that the greater includes the less; the man of sound general principles in literature, art, or life, is in point of fact master of all essential details; he combines them at a glance, or rather they insensibly arrange themselves at his will; he can afford to let them take. care of themselves. The great sculptors and painters busied themselves only about the design and finish of their work, the intermediate details were wrought by their pupils. If we apply this principle to social life, the sphere which Chesterfield regarded as the most important, a like result is obvious. No one even in that artificial world called Society ever achieved a satisfactory triumph by exclusive mastery of details.

All that is involved in the term "manners" is demonstrative, symbolic; and only when this outward manifestation springs from an inward source, when it is a natural product and not a graft, does it sustain any real significance. Hence the absurdity of the experiment of Chesterfield to inculcate a graceful address by maxims, secure a winsome behaviour by formal minute directions, as if to learn how to enter a room, bow well, dispose of unoccupied hands, and go inoffensively through the other external details of social intercourse,

were to ensure the realisation of a gentleman. That character, as it was understood in chivalry by the old dramatists, and according to the intelligent sentiment of mankind everywhere, is as much the product of nature as any other species of human development. Art modifies only its technical details; its spirit comes from blood more than breeding, and its formula, attached by prescription to the body without analogous inspiration of the soul, is as awkward and inefficient as would be proficiency in military tactics to a coward, or great philological acquisitions to an idiot. Yet Lord Chesterfield, with the obstinacy that belongs to the "artificial" race of men, persisted in his faith in detail, and apparently lived and died in the belief that the "art of pleasing" was the greatest interest of life. He writes: "I expect a gracefulness in all your motions and something particularly engaging in your address. A distinguished politeness of manners, a genteel carriage with the air of a man of fashion. When I was of your age I desired to shine as far as I was able in every part of life, and was as attentive to my Manner, my Dress, and my Air in company as to my books and my tutor. A young fellow should be ambitious to shine in everything, and of the two always rather overdo than underdo. For God's sake, therefore, now, think of nothing but shining and distinguishing yourself in the most polite courts by your air, your address, your manners, your politeness, your graces!"

All his views, habits, and career were impregnated with this artificial creed. Phrenologically speaking, he was an incarnation of approbativeness, and his zest of life came through this his predominant organ. Everywhere and always he consulted explicitly the oracle of public opinion, and conformed to it with a fanaticism unworthy his intelligence. He confesses to the very son whom he strove with such zeal to make the "glass of fashion" that in college he was an absolute pedant, and thought great classical knowledge the test of all excellence; that emancipated from the atmosphere of learning and thrown among young men of fashion, he led a life of slavery by conforming to habits which were alien not only to his constitution and tastes but even to his desires, and that in mature years the requisitions of the beau monde held him in equal vassalage; while his old age "was cheerless and desolate."

It is not too much to say that in the case of Lord Chesterfield the artificial was deliberately advocated as a general principle; it influenced not only his theory of manners but his literary taste, political opinions, and entire philosophy. Writing to his son at Venice, he says: "Les manières nobles et aisées, la tournure d'un homme de