Earl Stanhope

“ In 1795 appeared in a small volume, divided into three books, The Poems of Walter Savage Landor, and, in pamphlet form of nineteen pages, an anonymous Moral Epistle, respectfully dedicated to Earl Stanhope. No poet at the age of twenty ever had more vigour of style and fluency of verse; nor perhaps has any ever shown such masterly command of epigram and satire, made vivid and vital by the purest enthusiasm and most generous indignation. Three years later appeared the first edition of the first great work which was to inscribe his name for ever among the great names in English poetry. ”

“ Pitt,” says Mr. Stanhope in a paper drawn up by him, and of which Earl Stanhope has availed himself in his Life of Pitt. “His mind seemed fixed on the affairs of the country, and he expressed his thoughts aloud, though sometimes incoherently. He spoke a good deal concerning a private letter from Lord Harrowby, and frequently inquired the direction of the wind; then said, answering himself, ‘East; ah! that will do; that will bring him quick.’ At other times he seemed to be in conversation with a messenger, and sometimes cried out ‘Hear, hear,’ as if in the House of Commons. ”

“ But he found time for study, and developed an ambition to become an orator. His rank and connections secured for him a ready welcome in the best society at The Hague. At Antwerp he was the guest of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, and his ease of manner especially ingratiated him with the duchess. The death of Queen Anne brought his tour, which was planned to extend to Italy, to an abrupt conclusion. His kinsman, General James Stanhope, afterwards first earl Stanhope [q. v.] , offered to introduce him to the new king, and a political career was thus opened to him under promising auspices. ”

“ The defects of his character were an incapacity to work with others and a lack of sympathy towards his children, all of whom he disinherited after subjecting them to much ill-treatment. But Stanhope's mother left everything to her 'dearly beloved son, Charles, Earl Stanhope, from my approbation of his private and public conduct' (Gent. Mag. 1812, i. 673) . By his will, made in 1805, Stanhope left all his disposable estate, after payment of a few legacies, among ten executors, of whom the best known were Lord Holland, Lord Grantley, Joseph Jekyll, George Dyer, and the Rev. ”

“ Oh! we can innovate as well as neighbouring nations. If an Earl Stanhope, though he cannot be a tribune, is ambitious of being a plebeian, he may without law be as vulgar as heart can wish; and, though we have not a national assembly to lay the axe to the root of nobility, the peerage have got a precedent for laying themselves in the kennel. Last night the Earl of Barrymore was so humble as to perform a buffoon-dance and act Scaramouch in a pantomime at Richmond for the benefit of Edwin, Jun. ”

“ Stanhope, without being a model of grace, had the air of a man who had been well brought up, and was polite and agreeable. But do you not think that that is the most grievous part of all? It would have been better worth while, almost, to have totally failed, and to have only succeeded in making an original in the inverse sense, rather than with so much care and expense to have produced nothing more than an ordinary and insignificant man of the world, one of those about whom it suffices to say, there is nothing to be said of them ”

“ Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope [q. v.] was his aunt. His father, eldest son of Charles Stanhope, third earl Stanhope [q. v.] , was born on 7 Dec. 1781, sat in parliament for Wendover in 1806–7, Hull in 1807–12, and Midhurst from 1812 till his succession to the peerage on 15 Dec. 1816. He was elected F.R.S. on 8 Jan. 1807, was a president of the Medico-Botanical Society, and a vice-president of the Society of Arts ”

“ Stanhope's widow, Anne, daughter of Nicholas Rawson of Aveley, Essex, was allowed to retain the priory of Shelford during life. She died on 20 Feb. 1587-8 (see Archæologia, xxxi. 212-4) , and was buried in Shelford church, where there are monuments to her and her husband. She left, among other issue: (1) Sir Thomas Stanhope (d. 1596) , father of Sir John Stanhope (1560-1611) , who was father of Philip Stanhope, first earl of Chesterfield [q. v.] ; (2) John, first baron Stanhope [q. v.] , and two sons named Edward who are confused by Strype [see Stanhope, Sir Edward, d. 1608] . ”

“ Young Stanhope’s Character.—In the strict scrutiny which I have made into you, I have (thank God) hitherto not discovered any vice of the heart, or any peculiar weakness of the head: but I have discovered laziness, inattention, and indifference; faults which are only pardonable in old men, who, in the decline of life, when health and spirits fail, have a kind of claim to that sort of tranquillity. But a young man should be ambitious to shine, and excel; alert, active, and indefatigable in the means of doing it; and, like Cæsar, “Nil actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum.” ”

“ Stanhope can tell us. Second-rate knowledge, and middling talents, carry a man farther at courts, and in the busy part of the world, than superior knowledge and shining parts. Tacitus very justly accounts for a man’s having always kept in favor, and enjoyed the best employments, under the tyrannical reigns of three or four of the very worst emperors, by saying that it was not propter aliquam eximiam artem, sed quia par negotiis neque supra erat. Discretion is the great article; all those things are to be learned and only learned by keeping a great deal of the best company. ”

“ In this country the stock of the National Assembly IS fallen down to bankruptcy. Their only renegade, aristocrat Earl Stanhope, has, with D. W. Russel, scratched his name out of the Revolution Club; but the fatal blow has been at last given by Mr. Burke. His pamphlet (708) came out this day se'nnight, and is far superior to what was expected, even by his warmest admirers. I have read it twice; and though of three hundred and fifty pages, I wish I could repeat every page by heart. It is sublime, profound, and gay. The wit and satire are equally brilliant ”

“ Another portrait of her was painted by Reynolds and engraved by Val. Green; and one was also engraved by Cooper.
Charles Stanhope, fourth Earl of Harrington (1780-1851) , eldest son of the third earl, was born at Harrington House, St. James's, on 8 April 1780. He obtained an ensigncy in the Coldstream guards in December 1795, and in November 1799 became captain in the Prince of Wales's light dragoons. In February 1803 he was gazetted major in the queen's rangers, and on 25 June 1807 lieutenant-colonel of the 3rd West India regiment. ”

“ Canning’s place, which he might have been, he became nothing.”
Lady Hester went on: “When Charles and James left Chevening, [7] Mr. Pitt said to Mahon (the present Earl Stanhope) , ‘You know that, when your father dies, you will be heir to a large property—whether £15,000 a-year or £25,000 it does not much signify. 78 Now, as far as a house goes and having a table where your brothers may dine, I have got that to offer. But young men in the army have a number of wants, for their equipment, regimentals, &c., and for all this I have not the means. You, therefore, Mahon, must do that for them ”

“ Henrietta Maria, eldest daughter and co-heir of Robert Vernon Atherton, Esq., of Atherton Hall, Co. Lancaster, married, 1797, Thomas, Baron Lilford, and had six sons and six daughters.
[12] Charles Bankes, Major in the Army, second son of Philip, 2nd Earl Stanhope, born 1785, killed at the Battle of Corunna, January 16th, 1809.
[13] Lord James Murray, son of the 4th Duke of Athol, a Major-General in the Army, who in 1821 became Lord Glenlyon. He then resided in Cumberland Place. He died in 1837, and his son succeeded as 6th Duke of Athol in 1846. ”

“ Not half of you can distinguish between people’s nijems [stars] , and what you do often does more harm than good. The constitution you take in hand you do not well examine; and then how can you apply proper remedies for it?”
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Lady Hester, soon after she went to live with Mr. Pitt, was anxious that her three half-brothers should be removed from their father’s roof, to be under her own guidance: fearing that the line of politics which Earl Stanhope then followed might be injurious to their future welfare and prospects. ”

“ You are, I know, exceedingly improved in your air, address, and manners, since you have been at Paris; but still there is, I believe, room for further improvement before you come to that perfection which I have set my heart upon seeing you arrive at; and till that moment I must continue filing and polishing. In a letter that I received by last post, from a friend of yours at Paris, there was this paragraph: "I have the honor to assure you, without flattery, that Mr. Stanhope succeeds beyond what might be expected from a person of his age. He goes into very good company ”

“ His position as an historian was already established when he succeeded to the earldom in 1855, and in 1872 he was made an honorary associate of the Institute of France. He was president of the Literary Fund from 1863 until his death. He died on the 24th of December 1875, being succeeded as 6th earl by his son Arthur Philip (1838–1905) , father of the 7th earl. His second son, Edward Stanhope (1840–1803) , was a well-known Conservative politician, who filled various important offices, and was finally secretary of state for war (1886–1892) . ”

“ Stanhope, Philip Henry, Earl, historian, born at Walmer, only son of the fourth Earl of Stan hope; graduated at Oxford in 1827, and three years later entered Parliament as a Conservative; held office as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in Peel's Ministry of 1834-35, and as Secretary to the Indian Board of Control during 1845-46; succeeded his father in 1855, before which he was known by the courtesy title of Lord Mahon; literature was his chief interest, and as a historian and biographer he has a deservedly high reputation for industry and impartial judgment ”

“ As you seem to dread the approach of a German winter, I would advise you to write to General Conway, for leave of absence for the three rigorous winter months, which I dare say will not be refused. If you choose a worse climate, you may come to London; but if you choose a better and a warmer, you may go to Nice en Provence, where Sir William Stanhope is gone to pass his winter, who, I am sure, will be extremely glad of your company there. ”

“ King's 'best friend' (or, as a MS. gives it, 'worthiest') was Katharine Stanhope, daughter of John Lord Stanhope of Harrington. Her husband, Robert Cholmondeley, successively created an Irish Viscount, an English Baron (his surname serving as title in each case) , and Earl of Leinster, died very shortly after her and before the Restoration. There is a MS. sermon on her death attributed to King, but doubted by Hannah. The poem itself, unlike the next but like the three which follow that, appears printed in the 1664 issue. ”

“ HARRINGTON, EARLS OF. The first earl of Harrington was the diplomatist and politician, William Stanhope (c. 1690-1756) , a younger son of John Stanhope of Elvaston, Derbyshire, and a brother of Charles Stanhope (1673-1760) , an active politician during the reign of George I. His ancestor, Sir John Stanhope (d. 1638) , was a half-brother of Philip Stanhope, 1st earl of Chesterfield. Educated at Eton, William Stanhope entered the army and served in Spain, but soon he turned his attention to more peaceful pursuits, went on a mission to Madrid and represented his country at Turin. ”

“ Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, was a slight-made man, of the middle [Pg 64] size; rather genteel than handsome either in face or person: but there was a certain suavity in his countenance, which, accompanied with a polite address and pleasing elocution, obtained him in a wonderful degree the admiration of both sexes, and made his suit irresistible with either. He was naturally possessed of a fine sensibility ”

“ How harmless is the sound of words when not understood!
[43] “Report, but I do not give it as at all authentic, says that Pitt is to marry Eleanor Eden.”—Diaries and Correspondence of the Earl of Malmesbury, v. iii. p. 370.—Letter to Sir G. Elliott, Dec. 18, 1790.
[44] In 1837, when I visited Lady Hester Stanhope again, I was reading Wraxall’s Memoirs, where he says, “There was something about Mr. E***, that one could not feel confidence in him;” and Lady Hester Stanhope interrupted me by saying, “That was the reason that Mr. Pitt would not marry his daughter. ”

“ Lady Anna Maria Stanhope, eldest daughter of Charles, 3rd Earl of Harrington, married Francis, 7th Duke of Bedford.
[16] Lord Alvanley, 1789-1849, entered the Coldstream Guards at an early age; but being possessed of a large fortune, he subsequently left the army, and gave himself up entirely to the pursuit of pleasure. He eventually dissipated his fortune, but throughout his life remained noted for his wit, his good humour, and his prominence in the world of fashion. ”

“ Stanhope brought up Pitt, portentous but unconvincing, with perhaps a unique expression, for he addressed the Speaker as 'dear Sir.' 'They (the Grenvilles) desire the assizes may be sometimes held at Buckingham; the point he (Stanhope) espouses is that they should be always held at Aylesbury. Which, dear Sir, looks most like a monopoly?' Then he proceeds to defend the Grenvilles. ”

“ The milder morning and evening light and heat of that planet soothe and calm our minds. Good sense, complaisance, gentleness of manners, attentions and graces are the only things that truly engage, and durably keep the heart at long run. Never seek for wit ”