“Since your affairs proceed so prosperously with the Russells,” said the king, “I will acquaint you that you are delivered from another rival, much more dangerous, if he were not already married:  my brother has lately fallen in love with Lady Chesterfield.”  “How many blessings at once!” exclaimed the Chevalier de Grammont:  “I have so many obligations to him for this inconstancy, that I would willingly serve him in his new amour, if Hamilton was not his rival:  nor will your majesty take it ill, if I promote the interests of my mistress’s brother, rather than those of your majesty’s brother.”  “Hamilton, however,” said the king, “does not stand so much in need of assistance, in affairs of this nature, as the Duke of York; but I know Lord Chesterfield is of such a disposition, that he will not suffer men to quarrel about his wife, with the same patience as the complaisant Shrewsbury; though he well deserves the same fate.”  Here follows a true description of Lord Chesterfield.

[Philip, the second Earl of Chesterfield.  He was constituted, in 1662, lord-chamberlain to the queen, and colonel of a regiment of foot, June 13, 1667.  On November 29, 1679, he was appointed lord- warden and chief-justice of the king’s forests on this side Trent, and sworn of the privy-council, January 26, 1680.  On November 6, 1682, he was made colonel of the third regiment of foot, which, with the rest of his preferments, he resigned on the accession of James it.  He lived to the age of upwards of 80, and died, January 28, 1713, at his house, in Bloomsbury-square.]

He had a very agreeable face, a fine head of hair, an indifferent shape, and a worse air; he was not, however, deficient in wit:  a long residence in Italy had made him ceremonious in his commerce with men, and jealous in his connection with women:  he had been much hated by the king; because he had been much beloved by Lady Castlemaine:  it was reported that he had been in her good graces prior to her marriage; and as neither of them denied it, it was the more generally believed.

He had paid his devoirs to the eldest daughter of the Duke of Ormond, while his heart was still taken up with his former passion:  the king’s love for Lady Castlemaine, and the advancement he expected from such an alliance, made him press the match with as much ardour as if he had been passionately in love:  he had therefore married Lady Chesterfield without loving her, and had lived some time with her in such coolness as to leave her no room to doubt of his indifference.  As she was endowed with great sensibility and delicacy, she suffered at this contempt:  she was at first much affected with his behaviour, and afterwards enraged at it; and, when he began to give her proofs of his affection, she had the pleasure of convincing him of her indifference.

They were upon this footing, when she resolved to cure Hamilton, as she had lately done her husband, of all his remaining tenderness for Lady Castlemaine.  For her it was no difficult undertaking:  the conversation of the one was disagreeable, from the unpolished state of her manners, her ill-timed pride, her uneven temper, and extravagant humours Lady Chesterfield, on the contrary, knew how to heighten her charms with all the bewitching attractions in the power of a woman to invent who wishes to make a conquest.