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 Chesterfield mentioned by De Grammont resided; but the accomplished Chesterfield chose a site near Audley Street, which had been built on what was called Mr. Audley’s land, lying between Great Brook Field and the ‘Shoulder of Mutton Field.’  And near this locality with the elegant name, Chesterfield chose his spot, for which he had to wrangle and fight with the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, who asked an exorbitant sum for the ground.  Isaac Ware, the editor of ‘Palladio,’ was the architect to whom the erection of this handsome residence was intrusted.  Happily it is still untouched by any renovating hand.  Chesterfield’s favourite apartments, looking on the most spacious private garden in London, are just as they were in his time; one especially,