c of the woman who had her own
views of female propriety, and of the right method of love-making. To
escape from the man she hated, she eloped with Wortley, and if, in
story-book phrase, the curiously-matched couple 'lived happily ever
afterwards,' it was probably because for more than twenty years they
lived apart.

Of the following letter, written in her old age, it has been aptly said
that 'the graceful cynicism of Horace and Pope has perhaps never been
more successfully reproduced in prose.'[55]

'Daughter, daughter! Don't call names; You are always abusing my
pleasures, which is what no mortal will bear. Trash, lumber and
stuff are the titles you give to my favourite amusement. If I
called a white staff a stick of wood, a gold key gilded brass,
and the ensigns of illustrious orders coloured strings, this
may be philosophically true, but would be very ill received. We
have all our playthings; happy are they that can be contented
with those they can obtain; those hours are spent in the wisest
manner that can easiest shade the ills of life, and are the
least productive of ill-consequences.... The active scenes are
over at my age. I indulge with all the art I can my taste for
reading. If I would confine it to valuable books, they are
almost as rare as valuable men. I must be content with what I
can find. As I approach a second childhood, I endeavour to enter
into the pleasures of it. Your youngest son is perhaps at this
very moment riding on a poker with great delight, not at all
regretting that it is not a gold one, and much less wishing it
an Arabian horse which he would not know how to manage. I am
reading an idle tale, not expecting wit or truth in it, and am
very glad it is not metaphysics to puzzle my judgment, or
history to mislead my opinion. He fortifies his health by
exercise; I calm my cares by oblivion. The methods may appear
low to busy people; but if he improves his strength, and I
forget my infirmities, we both attain very desirable ends.'

Lady Mary, it may be added, deserves to be remembered for her courage in
trying inoculation on her own children, and then introducing it into
this country. This was in 1721, seventy-eight years before Jenner
discovered a more excellent way of grappling with the small pox.

[Sidenote: Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773).]

Lord Chesterfield's positi