[Lord] Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield

Life
1694-1773; Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1745-46; considerable patron of arts and recipient of many Irish dedications, as well as the memorial opposite the National Gallery rededicated to Mrs. Sybil le Brocquy; of Chesterfield, Samuel Johnson famously wrote that he only ‘threw a rope to him when he was already on dry land’. ODNB.

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References
Dictionary of National Biography, Chesterfield, Philip Dormer, 4the Earl (1694-1773), Hague embassy, 1728; intimate with Mlle du Bochet, mother of his natural son; negotiated marriage of Prince of Arange[?] with Anne; lord Stewart, 1730; signed treaty with Spain and Holland agreeing pragmatic sanction; retired embassy, 1732; dismissed stewardship; witty speech against licensing of theatres, 1737 (printed 1749); visited Voltaire, 1741;denounced plan to hire Hanoverian troops; attacked new ministers as Ge[o]ffrey Broadbottom, 1743; bequest from Lady Marlborough for political conduct; entered Pelham min. in retirement of Carteret; as Viceroy of Ireland, 1745-46, kept country quiet by tolerant policy and encouraged national industry; ... the prospectus of Dr Johnson’s Dictionary addressed to him, 1747; eulogised Dictionary in the World, 1754; satirised as Sir John Chester in Barnaby Rudge; his prophecy of French Revolution, 1753; letters to natural son published by son’s widow, Eugenia Stanhope, 1774; Supplement, 1787;, Fr. version, 1775, German, 1774-76; Misc. Works,. incl. Memoirs of his Life, prepared by Maty, and suppl. letter, with Chars. of Eminent Personages, 1777; Misc. Works, collected 1779; Letters relative to education of his godson Publ., 1817; collected editions of letters and lit. works, ed. Lord Mahon, 1845-53; John Bradshaw, 1892; extracts from unpubl. letters, in Ernst’s Life of Chesterfield, 1893.

Roy Foster, Modern Ireland (1988), p.176, Philip Dormer Stanhope (1694-1773); 4th Earl of Chesterfield, 1726; Irish Viceroy, 1745-46, employed tact in keeping Ireland quiet in 1745; planned Phoenix Park; claimed he wished to be remembered as ‘the Irish Lord Lieutenant’ though it was his letters [to his son] which immortalised him. His viceroyalty was characterised by a softening in the social tone of Ascendancy Dublin. Richard Chenevix, supra, was his chaplain. See also Robert Dodsley, infra.

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Notes
His monument in Dublin, opposite the present National Gallery, was refurbished and rededicated to Sybil Le Brocquy.

that Chesterfield received a copy of O’Conor’s Dissertations (2nd edn., 1766), and wrote with thanks but confessed, ‘it is a great deal above me, and I now am too old to learn Celtic’ (Letter to Faulkner, 22 May 1766; quoted in Ward and Ward, eds., Letters of Charles O’Conor, 1988, p.183, n.5.)

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