He Began While Stanhope Was At Leipsic To Point Out The
Deficiences Of English Boys:
"They are commonly twenty years old before they have spoken to anybody
above their schoolmaster, and the Fellows of their college.
If they
happen to have learning, it is only Greek and Latin; but not one word of
modern history, or modern languages. Thus prepared, they go abroad as
they call it; but in truth, they stay at home all that while; for being
very awkward, confoundedly ashamed, and not speaking the languages, they
go into no foreign company, at least none good, but dine and sup with
one another only, at the tavern.[373]...
"The life of les Milords Anglais is regularly, or if you will,
irregularly, this. As soon as they rise, which is very late, they
breakfast together to the utter loss of two good morning hours. Then
they go by coachfuls to the Palais, the Invalides, and Notre-Dame; from
thence to the English coffee-house where they make up their tavern party
for dinner. From dinner, where they drink quick, they adjourn in
clusters to the play, where they crowd up the stage, drest up in very
fine clothes, very ill made by a Scotch or Irish tailor. From the play
to the tavern again, where they get very drunk, and where they either
quarrel among themselves, or sally forth, commit some riot in the
streets, and are taken up by the watch."[374]
To avoid these monsters, and to cultivate the best French society, was
what a wise young man must do in Paris. He must establish an intimacy
with the best French families. If he became fashionable among the
French, he would be fashionable in London.
Chesterfield considered it best to show no erudition at Paris before the
rather illiterate society there. As the young men were all bred for and
put into the army at the age of twelve or thirteen, only the women had
any knowledge of letters. Stanhope would find at the academy a number of
young fellows ignorant of books, and at that age hasty and petulant, so
that the avoidance of quarrels must be a young Englishman's great care.
He will be as lively as these French boys, but a little wiser; he will
not reproach them with their ignorance, nor allow their idlenesses to
break in on the hours he has laid aside for study.
Such was the plan of a Grand Tour laid down by one of the first
gentlemen of Europe. It remains one of the best expressions of the
social influence of France upon England, and for that reason properly
belongs to the seventeenth century more than to the Georgian era in
which the letters were written. Chesterfield might be called the last of
the courtiers. He believed in accomplishments and personal elegance as a
means of advancing oneself in the world, long after the Court had ceased
to care for such qualities, or to be of much account in the destinies of
leading Englishmen.
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