About Philip Dormer Stanhope:
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield was a British statesman, and man of letters, and wit. He was born in London, and known as Lord Stanhope until the death of his father, in 1726. After being educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he went on the Grand Tour of the Continent, 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.