seizes on two or three obviously ridiculous circumstances, talks a great deal about them, and passes over all the valuable parts that may still be found in the work or in the character they are criticizing. I have heard persons laugh at the noble writer’s laying weight upon such trifling matters as paring nails, or opening a dirty pocket handkerchief in company. Yet trifling as these instructions are, I have observed these very people greatly negligent in those very particulars.
Lord Chesterfield however by his perpetual attention to propriety, decorum, bienséance, &c, had so veneered his manners, that though he lived on good terms with all the world he had not a single friend. The fact was I believe that he had no warm affections. His excessive and unreasonable attention to decorum and studied manner attended him almost to his last hour. Nearly the last words he spoke were, “Fetch Derolles a chair.” Derolles had been patronized by him, and came to see him and sit by his bedside in his last illness.
The heart, however, is a much better preceptor for politeness (which is nothing but attention to others, and preferring them often to yourself) than all his lordship’s lessons. I have never met with a really good-natured man that was not perfectly polite and well-bred in the true sense of those words though he had never seen St. James’s. Lord Charlemont is the politest man I have ever seen. In him politeness is no effort. It arises naturally and necessarily from his warm and affectionate heart.
