ibit and move all the
gaudy machines; and I have seen and smelt the tallow candles which
illuminate the whole decoration, to the astonishment and admiration of
the ignorant multitude.... My horse, my books, and my friends will
divide my time pretty equally.'

He still interested himself in what was useful; and carried a Bill in
the House of Lords for the Reformation of the Calendar, in 1751. It
seems a small matter for so great a mind as his to accomplish, but it
was an achievement of infinite difficulty. Many statesmen had shrunk
from the undertaking; and even Chesterfield found it essential to
prepare the public, by writing in some periodical papers on the subject.
Nevertheless the vulgar outcry was vehement: 'Give us back the eleven
days we have been robbed of!' cried the mob at a general election. When
Bradley was dying, the common people ascribed his sufferings to a
judgment for the part he had taken in that 'impious transaction,' the
alteration of the calendar. But they were not less _bornes_ in their
notions than the Duke of Newcastle, then prime minister. Upon Lord
Chesterfield giving him notice of his Bill, that bustling premier, who
had been in a hurry for forty years, who never 'walked but always ran,'
greatly alarmed, begged Chesterfield not to stir matters that had been
long quiet; adding, that he did not like 'new-fangled things.' He was,
as we have seen, overruled, and henceforth the New Style was adopted;
and no special calamity has fallen on the nation, as was expected, in
consequence. Nevertheless, after Chesterfield had made his speech in the
House of Lords, and when every one had complimented him on the clearness
of his explanation--'God knows,' he wrote to his son, 'I had not even
attempted to explain the Bill to them; I might as soon have talked
Celtic or Sclavonic to them as astronomy. They would have understood it
full as well.' So much for the 'Lords' in those days!

After his _furore_ for politics had subsided, Chesterfield returned to
his ancient passion for play. We must linger a little over the still
brilliant period of his middle life, whilst his hearing was spared;
whilst his wit remained, and the charming manners on which he had formed
a science, continued; and before we see him in the mournful decline of a
life wholly given to the world.

He had now established himself in Chesterfield House. Hitherto his
progenitors had been satisfied with Bloomsbury Square, in which the Lord
Chesterf