His son, therefore, was to waste no time in the society of pedants, but accompanied by a travelling tutor, was to begin studying life first-hand at the Courts.  His book-learning was to go side by side with the study of manners: 

“Courts and Camps are the only places to learn the world in.  There alone all kinds of characters resort, and human nature is seen in all the various shapes and modes ... whereas, in all other places, one local mode generally prevails."[366]

Moreover, the earl did not think that a company wholly composed of men of learning could be called good company.  “They cannot have the easy manners and tournure of the world, as they do not live in it.”  And an engaging address, “an insinuating behaviour,” was to be sought for early in life, and, at the same time, with the solid parts of learning.  “The Scholar, without good breeding, is a Pedant:  the Philosopher, a Cynic:  the Soldier, a Brute:  and every man disagreeable."[367]

The five years of young Stanhope’s travel were carefully distributed as follows:  a year in Lausanne,[368] for the rudiments of languages; a year in Leipsic, for a thorough grounding in history and jurisprudence; a year spent in visits to such cities as Berlin, Dresden, and Vienna, for a view of the different Courts; one in Italy, to get rid of the manners of Germany; and one in Paris, to give him the final polish, the supreme touch, of gentlemanly complaisance, politeness, and ease.

We may pass over the years in Germany, as the earl did, without much comment.  Young Stanhope was quite satisfactory in the more solid parts of learning, and it was not until he reached Italy, there to begin his courtly training, that Chesterfield’s interest was fully aroused.

“The manners of Leipsig must be shook off,” he says emphatically.  “No scramblings at your meals as at a German ordinary:  no awkward overturns of glasses, plates, and salt-cellers."[369]

He is to mind the decent mirth of the courtiers—­their discreet frankness, their natural, careless, but genteel air; in short, to acquire the Graces.  Chesterfield sent letters of introduction to the best company in Venice, forwarded his own diamond shoe buckles for his son, and began to pour forth advice on the possible social problems confronting a young Englishman in Rome.  With a contemptuous tolerance for Papists, Protestants, and all religious quarrels as obstructions to the art of pleasing, he bade Stanhope be civil to the Pope, and to kneel down while the Host was being carried through the streets.  His tutor, though, had better not.  With wonderful artistic insight, the earl perceives that the fitting attitude for Mr Harte is simple, ungracious honesty.[370]

On the subject of the Pretender, then resident in Rome, his advice is; never meet a Stuart at all if you can help it; but if you must, feign ignorance of him and his grievances.  If he begins to talk politics, disavow any knowledge of events in England, and escape as soon as you can.[371]