Beschreibung:

CHESTERFIELD, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of (1694-1773). Two autograph letters signed to Thomas, 1st Viscount Southwell Blackheath and London, 21 August and 12 December 1769, 3½ pages, 4to ; autograph address leaf for letter of 12 December 1769. In praise of Ireland, and confronting the ills of old age. In the first letter, Southwell has just arrived in Dublin, and Chesterfield conjures him to 'mend your draught' (i.e. drinking habits): 'England is my native, and Ireland my adopted Country, and I love them both so well that I often wish that Heaven would in compassion to them, blast all the vineyards in the world, and leave them only the Natural and salutary drink of the Thames the Humber, the Severn, the Liffy, the Boyne and the Shannon &ra'. Chesterfield complains that his eyes are 'still very bad, but I think they will last my time here, which I am convinced will be very short, all the Physical Ills of old age crowd upon me, which though they are the Taxes that Nature lays upon age, are I confess very burthensome, but I must pay them', and gracefully wishes they may fall more lightly upon the recipient and his wife in thirty years' time. In the letter of 12 December, reiterates his affection for Ireland: 'I love that Country, and I flatter my self, that it has a good opinion of me tho' I only deserve it negatively, for not having done them any harm; I wish every Lord Lieutenant could say as much'; commentating unfavourably on the augmentation of the Irish militia, because of the dangers of arming Catholics -- 'But the Military Madness has infected every Nation of Europe'; the standing army in England too he regards as 'Enemys to the civil rights of their country'. In spite of such pessimism, he himself is in better health. Chesterfield was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland from 1745-46, where he pursued a generally tolerant policy and encouraged industry. (2)