All, however, of Chesterfield’s time was not passed in this serene dissipation.  He began to compose ’The History of the Reign of George II.’ at this period.  About only half a dozen chapters were written.  The intention was not confined to Chesterfield:  Carteret and Bolingbroke entertained a similar design, which was completed by neither.  When the subject was broached before George II., he thus expressed himself; and his remarks are the more amusing as they were addressed to Lord Hervey, who was, at that very moment, making his notes for that bitter chronicle of his majesty’s reign, which has been ushered into the world by the late Wilson Croker—­’They will all three,’ said King George II., ’have about as much truth in them as the Mille et Une Nuits.  Not but I shall like to read Bolingbroke’s, who of all those rascals and knaves that have been lying against me these ten years has certainly the best parts, and the most knowledge.  He is a scoundrel, but he is a scoundrel of a higher class than Chesterfield.  Chesterfield is a little, tea-table scoundrel, that tells little womanish lies to make quarrels in families:  and tries to make women lose their reputations, and make their husbands beat them, without any object but to give himself airs; as if anybody could believe a woman could like a dwarf baboon.’

Lord Hervey gave the preference to Bolingbroke; stating as his reason, that ’though Lord Bolingbroke had no idea of wit, his satire was keener than any one’s.  Lord Chesterfield, on the other hand, would have a great deal of wit in them; but, in every page you see he intended to be witty:  every paragraph would be an epigram. Polish, he declared, would be his bane;’ and Lord Hervey was perfectly right.

In 1732 Lord Chesterfield was obliged to retire from his embassy on the plea of ill-health, but probably, from some political cause.  He was in the opposition against Sir Robert Walpole in the Excise Bill; and felt the displeasure of that all-powerful minister by being dismissed from his office of High Steward.

Being badly received at court he now lived in the country; sometimes at Buxton, where his father drank the waters, where he had his recreations, when not persecuted by two young brothers.  Sir William Stanhope and John Stanhope, one of whom performed ’tolerably ill upon a broken hautboy, and the other something worse upon a cracked flute.’  There he won three half-crowns from the curate of the place, and a shilling from ’Gaffer Foxeley’ at a cock-match.  Sometimes he sought relaxation in Scarborough, where fashionable beaux ‘danced with the pretty ladies all night,’ and hundreds of Yorkshire country bumpkins ’played the inferior parts; and, as it were, only tumble, whilst the others dance upon the high ropes of gallantry.’  Scarborough was full of Jacobites:  the popular feeling was then all rife against Sir Robert Walpole’s excise scheme.  Lord Chesterfield thus wittily satirized that famous measure:—­