Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield:
(22 September 1694 – 24 March 1773).
British statesman, diplomat, man of letters, and an acclaimed wit of his time.
He was born in London to Philip Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Chesterfield, and Lady Elizabeth Savile, and known by the courtesy title of Lord Stanhope until the death of his father in 1726. Following the death of his mother in 1708, Stanhope was raised mainly by his grandmother, the Marchioness of Halifax. Educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he left just over a year into his studies, after focusing on languages and oration. He subsequently embarked on the Grand Tour, to complete his education as a nobleman, by exposure to the cultural legacies of Classical antiquity and the Renaissance, and to become acquainted with his aristocratic counterparts and the polite society of Continental Europe.
A man’s own good breeding is the best security against other people’s ill manners.
Advice is seldom welcome, and those who need it the most, like it the least.
