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Title: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 3
Author: Walpole, Horace
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 3" ***
The Letters of Horace Walpole,
Earl of Orford:
Including Numerous letters Now First Published
From The Original Manuscripts.
In Four Volumes.
Vol. III.
1759-1769.
Contents Of Vol. III.
[Those Letters now first collected are marked N.]
1759.
1. To George Montagu, Esq. Nov. 17.-Lord Temple's resignation of
the privy-seal. Lady Carlisle's marriage with Sir William
Musgrave.--25
2. To the Right Hon. William Pitt, Nov. 19.-Congratulations on
the
lustre of his administration--[N.] 26
3. To Sir Horace Mann, Nov. 30.-Sir Edward Hawke's victory over
Conflans. Lord Kinnoul's mission to Portugal--27
4. To the same, Dec. 13.-Regretting his own ignorance of
mathematics and common figures. Victory of Prince Henry--28
5. To George Montagu, Esq. Dec. 23.-Tumults in Ireland. Story of
Lord Lyttelton and Mr. Shelley--30
6. To the Rev. Henry Zouch, Dec. 23.-"Life of Lord Clarendon."
"Lucan"--31
1760.
7. To George Montagu, Esq. Jan. 7.-Visit to Princess Emily.
Commotions in Ireland--32
8. To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey, Jan. 12.-Apologizing for an
unintentional offence--34
9. To George Montagu, Esq. Jan. 14.-Severity of the weather.
Military preparations. Prince Edward's party. Edwards's "History
of
Birds"--35
10. To Sir Horace Mann, Jan. 26.-Severity of the winter. Death of
Lady Besborough. Ward's drops--36
11. To George Montagu, Esq. Jan. 28.-Death of Lady Besborough.
Lord
Ferrers's murder of his steward. Visit to the Magdalen. Dr.
Dodd--
37
12. To Sir David Dalrymple. Feb. 3.-Macpherson's fragments or
Erse
poetry. Mary Queen of Scots. Dyer's "Fleece." Pepys's collection
of
ballads. Faction--[N.] 40
13. To Sir Horace Mann, Feb. 3.-Caserta. Character of Mr. Thomas
Pitt. Death of the Duchess of Bolton. Lord George Sackville's
court-martial. Lord Charles Hay. Lord Ferrers's murder of his
steward. Dutch mud-quake--41
14. To the Rev. Henry Zouch, Feb. 4.-"Anecdotes of Painting."
Character of Dr. Hurd. Warburton's "Shakspeare." Edwards's
"Canons
of Criticism"--44
15. To Sir Horace Mann, Feb. 28.-M. Thurot's expedition. Siege of
Carrickfergus. Lord Ferrers--45
16. To the same, March 4.-M. Thurot's expedition. Duke of
Bedford's
Irish administration. General Flobert and Mr. Mallet. Ward's
drops--48
17. To the same, March 26.-Lord George Sackville's
court-martial--
49
18. To George Montagu, Esq. March 27.-Lord George Sackville's
court-martial. Miss Chudleigh's public breakfast--50
19. To Sir David Dalrymple, April 4.-Erse Poetry; Gray's queries
concerning Macpherson. Home's "Siege of Aquileia." "Tristram
Shandy"--[N.] 51
20. To George Montagu, Esq. April 19.-Lord George Sackville's
sentence. Lord Ferrers's trial. Duel between the Duke of Bolton
and
Mr. Stewart--52
21. To Sir Horace Mann, April 20.-Lord George Sackville's
sentence.
Trial of Lord Ferrers--54
22. To the Rev. Henry Zouch, May 3.-Lord Bath's ,Rhapsody."
"Anecdotes of Painting"--55
23. To George Montagu, Esq. May 6.-Execution of Lord Ferrers--56
24. To Sir Horace Mann, May 7,--Execution of Lord Ferrers. Lady
Huntingdon. Death of Lord Charles Hay. King of Prussia's poems.
General Clive--57
25. To Sir David Dalrymple, May 15.-Erse poetry. Lord Lyttelton's
"Dialogues of the Dead." King of Prussia's poems--[N 63
26. To Sir Horace Mann, May 24.-Lord Lyttelton's "Dialogues of
the
Dead." Anecdotes of lord Ferrers--64
27. To the Earl of Strafford, June 7.-Description of Miss
Chudleigh's ball. Death of Lady Anson--66
28. To Sir Horace Mann, June 20.-Siege of Quebec. The house of
Fuentes. Pope's house and garden--68
29. To Sir David Dalrymple, June 20.-Authenticity of the Erse
poems. Lord Lyttelton's "Dialogues of the Dead." Isaac Walton's
"Complete Angler."--[N.] 69
30. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, June 21.-Story of Sir Robert
Walpole
and his man John. George Townshend's absurdities. "Tant mieux
pour
Elle."--[N.] 70
31. To the same, June 28.-Siege of Quebec raised. Lady
Stormont--72
32. To George Montagu, Esq. July 4:.-Visit to Chaffont. Gray's
taciturnity--73
33. To Sir Horace Mann, July 7.-Siege of Quebec raised--74
34. To George Montagu, Esq. July 19.-Visit to Oxford. Holbein's
portraits. Blenheim. Ditchley. --75
35. To the same, July 20.--76
36. To Sir Horace Mann, Aug. 1.-Wolfe's tomb. Death of Lady
Lincoln. Arrival of General Clive--77
37. To the Earl of Strafford, Aug. 7.-Fit of the gout--78
38. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Aug. 7-Fit of the gout--79
39. To George Montagu, Esq. Aug. 12.-Reflections on his
illness--80
40. To the Countess of Ailesbury, Aug. 23.-Visit to Whichnovre.
Advises her ladyship to claim the flitch of bacon--81
41. To Sir Horace Mann, Aug. 28.-Duke of Cumberland's illness--82
42. To George Montagu, Esq, Sept. 1.-Account of his tour to the
north. Whichnovre. Litchfield cathedral. Sheffield. Chatsworth.
Hardwicke. Bess of Hardwicke. Newstead Abbey--83
43. To the Earl of Strafford, Sept. 4.-Visit to Hardwicke.
Newstead. Althorpe. Mad dogs. An adventure--87
44. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Sept. 19--88
45. To the same, Sept. 30--89
46. To George Montagu, Esq. Oct. 2.-Marriage of his niece
Charlotte
to Lord Huntingtower--90
47. To Sir Horace Mann, Oct. 5.-Capture of Montreal. Projected
expedition. Lord Dysart. His niece's marriage. Death of Lady
Coventry--91
48. To George Montagu, Esq. Oct. 14.-Duke of York's visit to
Strawberry Hill. Intended expedition--92
49. To the same, Oct. 25.-Death of George the Second--95
50. To the Earl of Straford, Oct. 26.-Death of George the
Second--
96
51. To George Montagu, Esq. Oct. 28.-The new court. Manners of
the
young King. Capture of Berlin--97
52. To Sir Horace Mann, Oct. 28.-Death of George the Second.
Capitulation of Berlin. Political movements--98
53. To George Montagu, Esq. Oct. 31.-Conduct of the young
King--99
54. To the same, Nov. 4.-Bequests of the late King. Court and
ministerial changes. George Townshend's challenge to Lord
Albemarle--100
55. To the same, Nov. 13.-Personal conduct of the new King.
Funeral
of George the Second. King of Prussia's victory over Marshal
Daun--
102
56. To the same, Nov. 22.-Appointment of the King's
household--104
57. To the same, Nov. 24.-The King's first visit to the theatre.
Seditious papers. "Anecdotes of Painting." Foote's "Minor."
Voltaire's "Peter the Great"--104
58. To the Rev. Henry Zouch, Nov. 27.-"lucan." "Anecdotes of
Painting"--106
59. To George Montagu, Esq. Dec. 11.-State of the ministry.
Threatened resignations--106
1761.
60. To the Rev. Henry Zouch, January 3.-State of the arts.
Booksellers. Dr. Hill's works. Architects--107
61. To George Montagu, Esq. Jan. 22.-A party at
Northumberland-house. Account of a play performed at
Holland-house-
-108
62. To the same, Feb. 7.-Ball at Carlton-house. Death of Wortley
Montagu. Miss Ford's letter to Lord Jersey--109
63. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Feb. 8.-Mr. Conway's speech on the
Qualification-bill --110
64. To George Montagu, Esq. March 7.-On Mr. Montagu's being
appointed usher of the black rod in Ireland. Prospect of Peace.
Rumours of the King's marriage. Lord Pembroke's "Treatise on
Horsemanship"--111
65. To the Rev. Henry Zouch, March 7.-Voltaire's letter to Lord
Lyttelton. Colman's "Jealous Wife." "Tristram Shandy." Voltaire's
"Tancred"--111
66. To George Montagu, Esq. March 17.-Changes in the King's
household--112
67. To the same, March 19.-Ministerial resignations and changes.
Militia disturbances. Lord Hardwicke's verses to Lord Lyttelton.
Death of Lady Gower--113
68. To the same, March 21.-Speaker Onslow's retirement--115
69. To the same, March 25.-Feelings and reflections occasioned by
a visit to Houghton. Electioneering at Lynn. Aunt Hammond--115
70. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, April 10.-Prospect of peace. Death
of
Sir Harry Bellendine--118
71. To Sir David Dalrymple, April 14.-Macpherson's
"Fingal."--[N.)
119
72. To the Countess of Suffolk, April 15.-Election
arrangements.--
[N) 120
73. To George Montagu, Esq. April 16.-Anacreontic upon Sir Harry
Bellendine--121
74. To the same, April 28.-Lady Suffolk. Account of a fire near
Sackville-street--122
75. To the same, May 5.-Death of Sir William Williams. Gray and
Mason at Strawberry Hill. Conversation with Hogarth--123
76. To the same, May 14.-Jemmy Lumley's battle with Mrs.
Mackenzy.
Party at Bedford-house. Anecdotes--125
77. To the Countess of Ailesbury, June 13.-Thanks for a
snuff-box.
New opera. Murphy's "All in the Wrong." Lines on the Duchess of
Grafton--126
78. To George Montagu, Esq., June 18.-Mr. Bentley's play of The
Wishes, or Harlequin's mouth opened"--128
79. To the same, July 5.--130
80. To the Earl of Strafford, July 5.-Anecdote of Whitfield and
Lady Huntingdon--130
81. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, July 14.-Apologies for not having
written. Approaching marriage of the King--131
82. To George Montagu, Esq. July 16.-The King's approaching
marriage. The Queen's household--133
83. To the Countess of Ailesbury, July 20.-Thanks for a present
of
some china. Congratulations on Mr. Conway's escape at the battle
of
Kirkdenckirk--134
84. To the Earl of Strafford, July 2)@.-Battle of
Kirkdenckirk--136
85. To George Montagu, Esq. July 22.-The King's marriage.
Victories. Single-speech Hamilton. "Young Mr. Burke"--136
86. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, July 23.-Congratulations on the
success of the army. Taking of Pondicherry--138
87. To George Montagu, Esq. July 28.-First night of Mr. Bentley's
play. Singular instance of modesty--138
88. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Aug.,5.-Tomb of the Earl of
Pembroke.
Wolfe's monument. Rapacity of the chapter of Westminster--140
89. To George Montagu, Esq. Aug. 20.-offer of a seat at the
coronation. The Queen's arrival--142
90. To the Earl of Strafford, Aug. 21.-Arrival of the Queen.
Tripoline ambassador. Disputes about rank and precedence--143
91. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Sept. 9.-Arrival of the queen. Her
person and manners--144
92. To George Montagu, Esq. Sept. 24.-Description of the
coronation--145
93. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Sept. 25.-Delays in the treaty of
peace. The coronation--147
94. To the Countess of Ailesbury, Sept. 27.-Pedigrees. The
coronation. The treaty broken off--149
95. To George Montagu, Esq. Oct. 8.-Resignation of Mr. Pitt--151
96. To the same, Oct. 10.-Mr. Pitt's pension and peerage--152
97. To the Countess of Ailesbury, Oct. 10.-Mr. Pitt's
resignation,
pension, and peerage--153
98. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Oct. 12.-Mr. Pitt's pension and
peerage. Ministerial changes--154
99. To George Montagu, Esq. Oct. 24.-City address to Mr. Pitt.
Glover's "Medea"--156
100. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Oct. 26.-Civic agitations. London
address to Mr. Pitt. Differences in the cabinet. State of
parties--
157
101. To George Montagu, Esq. Nov. 7.-Sir John Cust's nose.
Caricature of Hogarth--159
102. To the same, Nov. 28.-Private ball at court. Marriages.
Political changes--159
103. To the Countess of Ailesbury, Nov. 28.-Politics. Opera.
Burlettas. Private ball at court. Pamphlets on Mr. Pitt. Gray's
"Thyrsis, when we parted"--160
104. To Sir David Dalrymple, Nov. 30.-The best picture of an age
found in genuine letters. One from Anne of Denmark to the Marquis
of Buckingham. Hume's "History." "Hau Kiou Choaan;" a Chinese
history.--[N.] 161
105. To George Montagu, Esq. Dec. 8.-Hume's "History." "Fingal."
Doubts Of its authenticity. "Cymbeline"--162
106. To Sir David Dalrymple, Dec. 21.-Complaints of printers.
Difficulties of literature.--[N.] 163
107. To George Montagu, Esq. Dec. 23.-Irish revivification.
Effects
of age. Mistakes of life. Tricks of his printer. Mrs. Dunch's
auction. Losing at loo. Death of Lady Pomfret. Bon-mot of M. de
Choiseul. Lines on Lady Mary Coke's having St. Anthony's fire in
her cheek--164
108. To the same, Dec. 30.-Indifference to politics. Progress of
"Anecdotes of Painting." Death of Jemmy Pelham--165
1762.
(109. To the same, Jan. 26.-Upbraiding for not writing--167
110. To the same, Feb. 2.-Arrival of' Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
Her dress and personal appearance. Mr. Macnaughton's murder of
Miss
Knox. Visit to the Cock-Lane Ghost--168
111. To the same, Feb. 6.-Effects of Hamilton's eloquence--169
112. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Feb. 7.-Anecdotes of polite
literature--
170
113. To the Rev. Henry Zouch, Feb. 13.-Lamentation on the
tediousness of engravers, and tricks of printers--171
114. To the Earl of Bute, Feb. 15.-On the Earl's suggesting to
him
a work Similar to Montfaucon's "Monuments de la Monarchie
Fran`caise."--[N.] 171
115. To George Montagu, Esq. Feb. 22.-Violent storms. Elopement
of
Lord Pembroke and Kitty Hunter--173
116. To Dr. Ducarel, Feb. 24.-English Montfaucon. Medals. Errors
in
Vertue and others--174
117. To George Montagu, Esq. Feb. 25.-Lely's picture of Madame
Grammont. Harris's "Hibernica." The recent elopement--175
118. To the Countess of Ailesbury, March 5.-Prospect of Peace.
dresses--176
119. To George Montagu, Esq. March 9.-Epitaph for Lord Cutts--177
120. To the Rev. Henry Zouch, March 20.-"Anecdotes of Painting."
Advice to antiquaries. Bishop of Imola. Resemblance between
Tiberius and Charles the Second. Caution on the care of his
eyesight--178
121. To George Montagu, Esq. March 22.-Capture of Martinico.
Fatal
accident at a concert at Rome--179
122. To the same, April 29.-Death of Lady Charlotte Johnstone.
Efficacy of James's powders. New batch of peers--180
123. To the same, May 14.-Attack of the gout. Visit to Audley
Inn--
181
124. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, May 20.-"Anecdotes of Painting."
Knavery
of his printer--183
125. To George Montagu, Esq. May 25.-Duke of Newcastle's
resignation. Ministerial changes--184
126. To the same, June 1.-Lord Melcomb. Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu.
The Cherokee Indian chiefs. Anecdotes and bon-mots--185
127. To the same, June 8.-Account of Lady Northumberland's
festino.
Bon-mots. Death of Lord Anson--185
128. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, July 29.-Invitation to Strawberry
Hill--
186
129. To the Countess of Ailesbury, July 31.-Congratulation on the
taking of the Castle of Waldeck--187
130. To the Earl of Strafford, Aug. 5.-Revolution in Russia.
Taking
of the Castle of Waldeck--187
131. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Aug. 5.--188
132. To George Montagu, Esq. Aug. 10.-Great drought. Revolution
in
Russia. Count Biren--189
133. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Aug. 19.-Object in publishing the
"Anecdotes of Painting"--190
134. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Sept. 9.-Prospect of peace.
Christening of the Prince of Wales. Fire at Strawberry Hill. "The
North Briton."--191
135. To George Montagu, Esq. Sept. 24.-Prospect of peace--192
136. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Sept. 28.-Negotiations for peace.
Capture of the Havannah--193
137. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Sept. 30.--195
138. To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey, Oct. 1.-Congratulations on
her
son's safe return from the Havannah--196
139. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Oct. 4.-Love of fame. Capture of
the
Havannah. State of public feeling--196
140. To George Montagu, Esq. Oct. 14.-Ministerial changes--197
141. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Oct. 29.-Change of the ministry.
State of the opposition. Anticipation of the history of the
present
age--198
142. To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey, Oct. 31.--200
143. To George Montagu, Esq. Nov. 4.-The Duke of Devonshire's
name
erased out of the council-book--200
144. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Nov. 13.--201
145. To George Montagu, Esq. Dec. 20.-His illness. Political
squabbles. A scene at Princess Emily's loo. Mr. Pitt--201
146. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Dec. 23.--203
1763.
147. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Feb. 28.-Restoration to health.
Determination to retire from public life. Wilkes and "The North
Briton." Riots at Drury-lane Theatre. George Selwyn and Lord
Dacre's footman--203
148. To George Montagu, Esq. March 29.-Wilkes and "The North
Briton." Dedication to "The Fall of Mortimer." Lord and Lady
Pembroke's reconciliation, A song made in a postchaise--205
149. To the same, April 6.-Illness of Lord Waldegrave. And of Mr.
Thomas Pitt. Mr. Bentley's epistle to Lord Melcomb. Lines by Lady
Temple on Lady Mary Coke. Opposition to the Cider-tax--206
150. To the same, April 8.-Death of lord Waldegrave. Lord Bute's
resignation. New ministry. Quarrel among the Opposition--208
151. To the same, April 14.-Lady Waldegrave. Botched-up
administration. Grants and reversions--210
152. To the same, April 22,-Lady Waldegrave. The new
administration. Lord Pulteney's extravagance. Sir Robert Brown's
parsimony. Lord Bath's vault in Westminster-abbey. Lord Holland.
Charles Townshend--212
153. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, May 1.-Severity of the weather.
Committal of Wilkes to the Tower--213
154. To Sir David Dalrymple, May 2.-Political revolutions. Mr.
Grenville.--[N.] 215
155. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, May 6.-Prerogative. Wilkes's
release from the Tower. Dreadful fire at Lady Molesworth's. Lady
M. W. Montagu's Letters--216
156. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, May 16.--217
157. To George Montagu, Esq. May 17.-F`ete at Strawberry Hill.
Madame de Boufflers. Madame Dusson. Miss Pelham's entertainment
at Esher. Mrs. Anne Pitt--218
158. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, May 21.-French and English
vivacity compared. Miss chudleigh's f`ete--221
159. To the same, May 28.-Masquerade at the Duke of
Richmond's--223
160. To George Montagu, Esq. May 30.-Visit to Kimbolton.
Hinchinbrook--223
161. To the same, June 16.--225
162. To the same, July 1.-Improvements at Strawberry Hill--226
163. To Sir David Dalrymple, July 1.-Mr. Grenville.--[N.] 227
164. To the Rev. Mr, Cole, July 1.--228
165. To the same, July 12.--228
166. To George Montagu, Esq. July 23.-Visit to Stamford. Castle
Ashby. Easton Maudit. Boughton. Drayton. Fotheringhay--229
167. To the same, July 25.-Visit to Burleigh. Peterborough.
Huntingdon. Cambridge--231
168. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Aug. 8.--232
169. To Dr. Ducarel, Aug. 8.--232
170. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Aug. 9.-Reported marriages. Dupery
of Opera undertakers--232
171. To the Earl of Strafford, Aug. 10.-Inclemency of the
weather- -233
172. To George Montagu, Esq. Aug. 15.-Singular appearance of the
Thames--233
173. To the same, Sept. 3.-Crowds of visitors to see Strawberry.
Comforts of keeping a gallery--235
(174. To the same, Sept. 7. Invitation. Character of Mr. Thomas
Pitt--236
175. To the same, Oct. 3.-Mrs. Crosby's pictures. Death of Mr.
Child. Visit to Sir Thomas Reeves--236
176. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Oct. 8.-" Anecdotes of Engravers"--239
177. To the Earl of Hertford, Oct. 18.-Death of the King of
Poland. Expulsion of the Jesuits--239
178. To George Montagu, Esq. Nov. 12.-Irish politics. Death of
Sir Michael Foster--242
179. To the Earl of Hertford, Nov. 17.-Debates on the King's
Speech. Wilkes at the Cockpit. Privileges of Parliament. "North
Briton." Duel between Martin and Wilkes. "Essay on Woman."
Bon-mots. Lord Sandwich's piety. Wilkes and Churchill. M. de
Guerchy--243
180. To George Montagu, Esq. Nov. 20.-Political squabbles.
Wilkes's "Essay on Woman"--250
181. To the Earl of Hertford, Nov. 25.-Mr. Conway's voting
against the court. Unpopularity of the ministry. Debates on
privilege. Quarrel between Mr. James Grenville and Mr Rigby. M.
de Guerchy and M. D'Eon--251
182. To the same, Dec. 2.-Dismission of officers. Opera quarrel.
Lord Clive's Jaghire. State of the Opera. Prince de Masserano.
Count de Soleirn. Irish politics--254
183. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Dec. 6.-Thanks for literary
information--256
184. To the Earl of Hertford, Dec. 9.-Transactions between
General Conway and Mr. Grenville. Dismissal of Lord Shelburne and
Colonel Barr`e. Riot at the burning of "The North Briton."
Wilkes's suit against Mr. Wood--257
185. To the same, Dec. 16.-City politics. Unpopularity of the
ministry. Dismissals. Intended assassination of Wilkes. Mrs.
Sheridan's comedy of "The Dupe"--261
186. To the same, Dec. 29.-Debates on privilege. Lord Clive's
jaghire. Anecdotes. The King at Drury-lane. Prize in the lottery.
la Harpe's "Comte de Warwic"--263
1764.
187. To George Montagu, Esq. Jan. 11.-Visit to Lady Suffolk. A
New-year's gift. Lady Temple. Portrait of Lady Suffolk at
seventy-six.--266
188. To the Earl of Hertford, Jan. 22.-Mr. Conway's opposition to
the ministry. Feelings of the government towards his lordship.
Ministerial disunion. State of the opposition. Marriage of Prince
Ferdinand with the Princess Augusta. His reception in England.
Wilkes. Churchill's "Dueller." Ball at Carlisle house.
Proceedings against Wilkes. Dismissals. The Duc de Pecquigny's
quarrel with Lord Garlies.--270
189. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Jan. 31.--277
190. To Sir David Dalrymple,, Jan. 31.-Thanks for corrections of
the "Anecdotes of Painting." London booksellers--[N.) 278
191. To the Earl of Hertford, Feb. 6.-The Cider-bill. Debates on
privilege. Charles Townshend's bon-mot. East India affairs. Duc
de Pecquigny's episode--279
192. To the same, Feb. 15.-Great debates in the House of Commons
on general warrants. Duel between the Duc de Pecquigny and M.
Virette. Formidable condition of the Opposition. City rejoicings.
Expected changes in the ministry--283
193. To Sir David Dalrymple, Feb. 23.-" Anecdotes of Painting."
Complaints of the carelessness of artists and rapacity of
booksellers--[N.] 292
194. To the Earl of Hertford, Feb. 24.-Complaint in the House of
Lords of a book called "Droit le Roy." Wilkes's trials for "The
North Briton" and the "Essay on Woman." Tottering state of the
ministry. Mrs. Anne Pitt's ball--294
195. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, March 3.-Thanks for some prints and
the loan of manuscripts--296
196. To the Earl of Hertford, March 11.-Cambridge University
election for high-steward. Debate on the budget. Lord Bute's
negotiations. The Duchess of Queensbury's ball. Affairs of India.
M. Helvetius--297
197. To the same, March 18.-Death of Lord Malpas and of Lord
Townshend. Lord Clive's jaghire. George Selwyn's accident--300
198. To the same, March 27.-Uncertain state of politics. D'Eon's
publication of the Duc de Nivernois's private letters. Liberty of
the press. Lady Cardigan's ball. Bon-mot of Lady Bell Finch--302
199. To Charles Churchill, Esq. March 27.-Death of Lord Malpas.
M. de Guerchy. D'Eon's pamphlet. Efficacy of James's powder.
Reappearance of Lord Bute--306
200. To the Earl of Hertford, April 5.-Wilkes's suspected libel
on the Earl. Cambridge University election. Jemmy Twitcher. Lord
Lyttelton's reconciliation with Mr. Pitt. Lord Bath at court.
Bishop Warburton and Helvetius--308
201. To the same, April 12.-Party abuse. Character. Lady Susan
Fox's marriage with O'Brien the actor. East India affairs.
Projected marriages. Expected changes. Confusion at the
India-house--310
202. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, April 12.--313
203. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, April 19.-On Mr. Conway's
dismissal from all his employments--313
204. To the Earl of Hertford, April 20.-On Mr. Conway's dismissal
from all his employments. Political promotions and changes.
Prosecution of D'Eonn. East India affairs--314
205. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, April 21.-On Mr. Conway's
dismissal. Offers him half his fortune--316
206. The Hon. H. S. Conway to the Earl of Hertford, April
23.-Giving his brother an account of his total dismissal from the
King's service for his vote in the House of Commons--317
207. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, April 24.-On Mr. Conway's
dismissal- -320
208. The Hon. H. S. Conway To the Earl of Hertford, May
1.-Conjectures as to the cause of his dismissal--320
209. To George Montagu, Esq. May 10.--322
210. To the Earl of Hertford, May 27.-On the Earl's position, in
consequence of Mr. Conway's dismissal. Promotions and
changes--322
211. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, June 5.-On Mr. Conway's dismissal.
Answer to the "Address to the Public"--325
212. To the Earl of Hertford, June 8.-Lord Tavistock's courtship
and marriage. The Mecklenburgh Countess. Bon-mot--326
213. To George Montagu, Esq. June 18.-Account of a party at
Strawberry--328
214. To the same, July 16.-"life of Lord Herbert." Lady Temple's
poems--329
215. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, July 16.-"Lord Herbert's Life"--330
216. To the Rev. Henry Zouch, July 21.-Harte's "Gustavus"--330
217. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, July 21.-"Life of Lord Herbert"--331
218. To the Earl of Hertford, Aug. 3. Instability of the
ministry. Determination to quit party. Regrets that the Earl did
not espouse mr. Conway's cause. Consequences of Lord Bute's
conduct. The Queen's intended visit to Strawberry. A dinner with
the Duke of Newcastle. Fracas at Tunbridge Wells. on Mr. Conway's
dismission. Walpole's Counter "Address"--332
219. To George Montagu, Esq. Aug. 16.--337
220. To the Earl of Hertford, Aug. 27.-Death of Mr. Legge.
Seizure of Turk's Island. Visit to Sion. Ministerial changes.
Murder of the Czar Ivan. Mr. Conway's dismission. Generous offer
of the Earl. Farewell to politics. Lord Mansfield's violence
against the press. Conduct of the Duke of Bedford. Overtures to
Mr. Pitt. Recluse life of their Majesties. Court economy.
Dissensions in the house of Grafton. Nancy Parsons. Death of Sir
John Barnard. Conduct of Mr. Grenville--338
221. To the Right Hon. William Pitt, Aug. 29.-"Life of Lord
Herbert of Cherbury"--343
222. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Aug. 29.--343
223. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Sept. 1.-Enclosing a reply to
Walpole's "Counter Address." Lady Ailesbury's picture, executed
in worsteds--344
224. To the Rev. Dr. Birch, Sept. 3.-Thanks for an original
picture of Sir William Herbert--345
225. To the Earl of Hertford, Oct. 5.-Madame de Boufflers and
Oliver Cromwell. James the Second's Journal. Illness of the Duke
of Devonshire. Folly of being unhappy--345
226. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Oct. 5.-Unfavourable state of
public affairs. Reflections on his birthday--347
227. To the same, Oct. 13.-Death of the Duke of Devonshire. His
bequest to Mr. Conway. Virtue rewarded in this world--348
228. To the same, Oct. 29.-Mourning for the Duke of Devonshire.
Reply of a poor man in Bedlam. Story of Sir Fletcher Norton and
his mother--348
229. To the Earl of Hertford, Nov. 1.-Duke of Devonshire's legacy
to Mr. Conway. Lady Harriot Wentworth's marriage with her
footman. Unpopularity of the court--350
230. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Nov. 8.--352
231. To the Earl of Hertford, Nov. 9.-Announcing his intended
visit to Paris. Adieu to politics--353
232. To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey, Nov. 10.-Thanks for some
pilchards--355
233. To the Earl of Hertford, Nov. 25.-The Opera. Manzoli. Elisi.
Tenducci. D'Eon's flight. Wilkes's outlawry. Churchill's death.
Ministerial changes. Objects of his intended journey to
Paris--356
234. To the same, Dec. 3.-Ministerial changes. Separation in the
house of Grafton. The Duke of Kingston and Miss Chudleigh.
Correspondence between Mr. Legge and Lord Bute. Mr. Dunning's
pamphlet on the "Doctrine of Libels." Mrs. Ann Pitt's ball--358
235. To George Montagu, Esq. Dec. 16.-State of the town. Mr.
Dunning's pamphlet. "Lord Herbert's Life"--362
236. To the same, Dec. 24.-With a present of some books--364
1765.
237. To the Earl of Hertford, Jan. 10.-Meeting of Parliament.
Debate in the House of Commons on the Address--364
238. To the same, Jan. 20.-Sir William Pynsent's bequest to Mr.
Pitt. Reported death of Lady Hertford. Death of Lady Harcourt.
Conduct of Charles Townshend. Couplet on Charles Yorke--367
239. To the same, Jan. 27.-Debates on the army estimates. Sir
William Pynsent's legacy to Mr. Pitt. Duel between Lord Byron and
Mr. Chaworth. Lady Townshend's arrest. "Castle of Otranto." Mrs.
Griffiths's "Platonic Wife"--370
240. To the same, Feb. 12.-Debates on the American Stamp-act.
Petition of the perriwig-makers. Almack's new assembly-room.
Williams the reprinter of "The North Briton" pilloried. Wretched
condition of The administration.--373
241. To George Montagu, Esq. Feb. 19.-Congratulations on his
health and cheerful spirits. Recommends him to quit his country
solitude. Contemplated visit to Paris. And retirement from
Parliament and political connexions. Runic poetry. Mallet's
"Northern Antiquities." Lord Byron's trial. Antiquarian
Society--376
242. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Feb. 28.-Planting and gardening.
Publication of "The Castle of Otranto"--377
243. To the same, March 9.-Origin of "The Castle of Otranto."
Caution to his friend respecting his MSS. Consequences of the
Droit d'Aubaine. Dr. Percy's "Reliques of Ancient English
Poetry." Old Ballads. Rosamond's Bower. Ambition and Content--378
244. To Monsieur Elie de Beaumont, March 18.-"The Castle of
Otranto." Madame de Beaumont's "Letters of the Marquis de
Roselle." Churchill and Dryden. Effects of Richardson's
novels--381
245. To the Earl of Hertford, March 26.-Count de Guerchy's
pretended conspiracy to murder M. D'Eon. The King's illness.
Count de Caraman. "Siege of Calais." Duc de Choiseul's reply to
Mademoiselle Clairon. French admiration of Garrick. Quin in
Falstaff. Old Johnson. Mrs. Porter. Cibber and O'Brien, Mrs.
Clive. Garrick's chief characters. The wolf of the Gevaudan.
Favourable reception of "The Castle of Otranto." Bon-mot. Strait
of Thermopylae--382
246. To George Montagu, Esq. April 5.-"Siege of Calais."
Bon-mots. Quin and Bishop Warburton. Prerogative.
Preferments--384
247. To the Earl of Hertford, April 7.-The King's rapid recovery.
Fire at Gunnersbury. Count Schouvaloff. Count de Caraman. Mrs.
Anne Pitt. Mr. Pitt the, first curiosity of foreigners. French
encroachments. Parliament. Poor bill. A late dinner--385
248. To the same, April 18.-The King's recovery. Proceedings on
the Regency-bill. Enmity between Lord Bute and Mr. Grenville.
Rumoured changes. State of parties. Lord Byron's acquittal. The
Duke of Cumberland's illness. Daffy's Elixir. Poor-bill. lord
Hinchinbrook's marriage--388
249. To Sir David Dalrymple, April 21.-"The Castle of Otranto."
Old Ballads. Consolations of authorship--[N.] 391
To the Earl of Hertford, May 5.-Proceedings in the House of Lords
on the Regency-bill--391
251. To the same, May 12.-Proceedings in the House of Commons on
the Regency bill. The Princess Dowager excluded from the
Regency--395
252. To the same, May 20.-The King forbids the Parliament to be
prorogued. The Duke of Cumberland ordered to form a new
administration. Failure of the Duke's negotiation with Mr. Pitt.
Ministerial resignations. Humiliations of the Crown. Riots.
Attack on Bedford-house. General spirit of mutiny and
dissatisfaction.
Extraordinary conduct of Mr. Pitt. Second tumult at
Bedford-house.
The King compelled to take back his ministers. Reconciliation
between Lord Temple and George Grenville. Mr. Conway restored to
the King's favour. Extravagant terms dictated by the ministers to
the King. Stuart Mackenzie's removal. Ministerial changes and
squabbles--399
253. To George Montagu, Esq. May 26.-Proceedings on the
Regency-bill. Ministerial squabbles and changes. Mr. Bentley's'
poem. Danger of writing political panegyrics or satires. Lines on
the Fountain Tree in the Canary Islands--405
254. To the same, June 10.-A party at Strawberry. General
Schouvaloff. Felicity of being a private man. Ingratitude of
sycophants--407
255. To the right Hon. Lady Hervey, June 11.-Apology for not
writing. Regrets at being carried backward.,; and forwards to
balls and suppers. Resolutions of growing old and staid at
fourscore--408
256. To George Montagu, Esq.-Contradicting a report of his
dangerous illness--409
257. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, July 3.-Progress of his illness.
Effects of the gout. Dreams and reveries. Madame de Bentheim--410
258. To the Countess of Suffolk, July 3,-State of his health.
Lady Blandford--[N.] 411
259. To the same, July 9.--The new ministry, Conduct of Charles
Townshend.--(N) 411
260. To George Montagu, Esq. July 11.-Change of the ministry. The
Rockingham administration--412
261. To the same, July 28.-Reflections on loss of youth. Entrance
into old age through the gate Of infirmity. A month's confinement
to a sick bed a stinging lesson. Whiggism--413
262. To George Montagu, Esq. Aug. 23.-Death of Lady Barbara
Montagu. Old friends and new faces. A strange story. Motives for
revisiting Paris. The French reformation. Churches and convents.
Adieu to politics--414
263. To the same, Aug. 31.-Dropping off and separation of
friends. Pleasant anticipations from his visit to Paris. Revival
of old ideas. Stupefying effects of richardson's novels on the
Frenchmnation--416
264. To the Earl of Strafford, Sept. 3.-Motives of his journey to
Paris. Death of the Emperor of Germany. "My last sally into the
world"--418
265. To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey, Sept. 3.-Thanks for letters
of introduction. Modern French literature--419
266. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Sept. 5.-Inviting him to visit Paris--
420
267. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Sept. 11.-Journey to Amiens.
Meeting with Lady mary Coke. Boulogne. Duchess of Douglas. A
droll way of being chief mourner. A French absurdity.
Walnut-trees. Clermont. The Duc de Fitz-James. Arrival at
Paris--421
268. To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey, Sept. 14.-Salutary effects OF
his journey. French gravity. Parisian dirt. French Opera. Italian
comedy Chantilly. Illness of the Dauphin. Mr. David Hume the mode
at Paris. Mesdames de Monaco, d'Egmont, and de Brionne. Nymphs of
the theatres--423
269. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Sept. 18.-Advice respecting his
journey to Paris--424
270. To George Montagu, Esq. Sept. 22.-Ingratitude. Amusements.
French society. Mode of living. Music. Stage. Le Kain. The
Dumenil. Grandval. Italian comedy. Harlequin. Freethinking.
Conversation. Their savans. Admiration of Richardson and Hume.
Dress and equipages. Parliaments and clergy. Effects of company
--425
271. To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey, Oct. 3.-H`otel de Carnavalet.
Madame Geoffrin. His own defects the sole cause of his not
enjoying Paris. Duc de Nivernois. Colonel Drumgold. Duchesse de
Coss`e. Presentations at Versailles. The King and Queen. The
Mesdames. The Dauphin and Dauphiness. Wild beast of the Gevaudan.
Mr. hans Stanley--427
272. To John Chute, Esq. Oct. 3.-French manners. Their authors.
Style of conversations. English and French manners contrasted.
Presentation at Versailles. Duc de Berri. Count de Provence.
Count d'Artois. Duc and Duchesse de Praslin. Duc and Duchesse de
Choiseul. Duc de Richelieu--429
273. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Oct. 6.-French society. A supper
at Madame du Deffand's. President Henault. Walpole's blunders
against French grammar. Sir James Macdonald's mimicry of Mr.
David Hume. Mr. Elliot's imitation of Mr. Pitt. Presentation to
the Royal Family. Dinner at the Duc de Praslin's with the corps
diplomatique. Visit to the State Paper Office. M. de Marigny's
pictures. Mada mede Bentheim. Duc de Duras. Wilkes at Paris--431
274. To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey, Oct. 13.-Attack of the gout.
Cupid and death. Allan Ramsay the painter. Madame Geoffrin.
Common sense. Duc de Nivernois. Lady Mary Chabot. Politics--434
275. To George Montagu, Esq. Oct. 16.-Illness at Paris. Visit
from Wilkes. The Dumenil. Grandval. President Henault--436
276. To the Countess of Suffolk, Oct. 16.-Fontainbleau. Duc de
Richelieu. Lady Mary Chabot. Lady Browne. Visit to Mrs. Hayes.
Joys of the gout--[N.-) 437
277. To Thomas Brand, Esq. Oct. 19.-Laughter out of fashion at
Paris. "God and the King to be Pulled down." Admiration of whist
and Richardson. Freethinking. Wilkes, Sterne, and Foote at Paris.
Lord Ossory. Mesdames de Rochefort, Monaco, and Mirepoix. The
Mar`echalle d'Estr`ees--438
278. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Oct. 29.-Probable death of the
Dauphin. Description of the Philosophers. Their object the
destruction of regal power.--440
279. To Mr. Gray, Nov. 19.-State of his health. Infallible
specific for the gout. Picture of Paris. French society. The
Philosophers. Dumenil. Preville. Visit to the Chartreuse--441
280. To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey, Nov. 21.-Recovery from a fit
of the gout. "Le nouveau Richelieu." Indifference to politics.
Squabbles about the French Parliaments. Bigotry. Logogriphe by
Madame du Deffand--444
281. To George Montagu, Esq. Nov. 21.-A simile. Sameness of llife
at Paris. Invites him to transplant himself to Roehampton.
Reflections on coming old age. Object of all impostors.
Rabelais-- 445
282. To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey, Nov. 28.-Thanks for her
introductions. Duchesse d'Aiguillon. French women of quality.
Duchesse de Nivernois. "L'Orpheline Legu`egu`ee." Count
Grammont's picture--447
283. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Nov. 29.-Tea-drinking. Dissuades
him from going to Italy. Advice for his political conduct.
"L'Orpheline Legu`ee." Count Caylus's auction. Portrait of Count
Grammont. French painters--448
284. To the Hon. H. S. Conway. Dec. 5.-The Dauphin. French
politics. M. de Maurepas. Marshal Richelieu. French parliaments--
450
285. To the Countess of Suffolk, Dec. 5.-Fret)ch society. The
Comtesse d'Egmont. The Dauphin--[N.] 451
1766.
286. To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey, Jan. 2.-Comtesse d'Egmont.
Severity of the Frost. Dread of being thought charming.
Rousseau's visit to England. Great parts. Charles Townshend--452
287. To John Chute, Esq. Jan.-Severity of the weather. Ill-
accordance of the French manners and climate. Presentation to the
Comtesse de la Marche. Douceur in the society of the Parisiennes
of fashion. Charlatanerie of the Savans and Philosophes. Count
St. Germain. Rousseau in England. Walpole's pretended letter of
the King of Prussia to Rousseau--453
288. To George Montagu, Esq. Jan, 5.-Robin Hood reform`e and
Little John. Dreams of life superior to its realities. Politics.
Lord Temple and George Grenville. Goody Newcastle. Helvetius's
"Esprit" and Voltaire's "Pucelle"--455
289. To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey, Jan. 11.-A supper at the
Duchesse d'Aiguillon's. Picture of the Duchesse de Choiseul.
Madame Geoffrin. Verses on Madame Forcalquier speaking English.
The Italians. The gout preferable to all other disorders--457
290. To The Hon. H. S. Conway, Jan. 12.-Regrets on leaving Paris.
Honours and distinctions. Invitation from Madame de Brionne.
Pretended letter from the King of Prussia to Rousseau--458
291. To the Rev. mr. Cole, Jan. 18.-Severity of the weather.
Cathedral of Amiens. The Sainte Chapelle. Rousseau in England.
King of Prussia's letter--460
292. To Mr. Gray, Jan. 25.-State of his health. "Making oneself
tender." Change in French manners. Their religious opinions. The
Parliaments. The men dull and empty. Wit, softness, and good
sense of the women. Picture of Madame Geoffrin. madame du
Deffand. M. Pontdeveyle. Madame de Mirepoix. Anecdote of M. de
Maurepas. Madame de Boufflers. Madame de Rochefort. Familiarities
under the veil of friendship. Duc de Nivernois. Madame de Gisors.
Duchesse de Choiseul. Duchesse de Grammont. Mar`echale de
Luxembourg. Pretended letter to Rousseau. Walpole at the head of
the fashion. Carried to the Princess de Talmond--461
293. To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey, Feb. 3.-Madame de Geoffrin's
secret mission to Poland. The Comtesse d'Egmont--468
294. To George Montagu, Esq. Feb. 4.-Madame Roland. Marriages.
Duc and Duchesse de Choiseul--469
295. To the Same, Feb. 23.-French Parliaments --470
296. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Feb. 28.-Pretended letter to Rousseau.
A French horse-race--470
297. To George Montagu, Esq. March 3.-Preparations for leaving
Paris. Defeat of George Grenville. Repeal of the American
Stamp-act. Lit de justice. Remonstrances of the Parliaments--471
298. To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey, March 10.-Watchings and
revellings. A supper at the Mar`echale de Luxembourg's. Funeral
sermon on the Dauphin. The Abb`e Coyer's pamphlet on
Preaching--472
299. To George Montagu, Esq. March 12.-Colman and Garrick. Mrs.
Clive--474
300. To the same, March 21.-Madame Roland. A French woman's first
visit to Paris contrasted with his own. The Princess of Talmond's
pug-dogs. A commission--474
301. To the same, April 3.-Visit to Livry. The Abb`e de Malherbe.
Madame de S`evign`e's Sacred pavilion. Old trees--475
302. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, April 6.-Insurrection at Madrid on
the attempt of the Court to introduce the French dress in
Spain--476
303. To the same, April 8.-Further particulars of the
insurrection at Madrid. Change in the French ministry. Lettres de
cachet. Insurrections at Bordeaux and Toulouse--478
304. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, May 10.-Return to England--479
305. To the same, May 13.-Apology for accidentally opening one of
his letters--479
306. To George Montagu, Esq. May 25.-Ministerial appointments.
Duke of Richmond. Lord North. Death of Lord Grandison. Lady
Townshend turned Roman Catholic. Mrs. Clive's bon-mot--480
307. To the same, June 20.-Anstey's New Bath Guide. Swift's
Correspondence, and Journal to Stella. Bon-mot of George Selwyn.
Pun of the King of France--481
308. To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey, June 28.-Madame du Deffand's
present of a snuff-box, with a portrait of Madame de S`evign`e.
Translation of a tale from the "Dictionnaire d'Anecdotes."--482
309. To George Montagu, Esq. July 10.-Expected change in the
ministry. The King's letter to Mr. Pitt--485
310. To the same, July 21.-Change of the ministry. Ode on the
occasion--485
311. To David Hume, Esq. July 26.-Quarrel between David Hume, and
Rousseau--486
312. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Sept. 18.-Contradicting a newspaper
report of his illness--487
313. To George Montagu, Esq. Sept. 18.--488
314. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Oct. 2.-Journey to Bath. Great
dislike of the place. The new buildings. Lord Chatham--488
315. To George Montagu, Esq. Oct. 5.-Recovery. Tired to death of
Bath. Lord Chatham. Watering places--489
316. To John Chute, Esq. Oct. 10.-Visit to Wesley's meeting.
Hymns to ballad tunes. Style of Wesley's preaching. Countess of
Buchan. Lord Chatham--489
317. To George Montagu, Esq. Oct. 18.-Reasons for leaving Bath.
Inefficacy of the waters. "Good hours"--490
318. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Oct. 18.-Lord Chatham wishes him
to second the Address on the King's Speech. Life at Bath. Motives
for leaving the place. Old age. Dread of ridicule--491
319. To George Montagu, Esq. Oct. 22.-Satisfaction at his return
to Strawberry Hill. Visit to Bristol. Its buildings. Abbey church
of Bath. Batheaston--492
320. To Sir David Dalrymple, (Lord Hailes,) Nov. 5.-Thanks for
his "Memorials and Letters." Folly of burying in oblivion the
faults and crimes of princes--[N.] 494
321. To David Hume, Esq. Nov. 6.-On his quarrel with Rousseau.
Folly of literary squabbles--494
322. To the same, Nov. 11.-The same subject. Omissions by
D'Alembert in a published letter of Walpole's. Picture of modern
philosophers--496
323. To George Montagu, Esq. Dec. 12.-Politics. Ministerial
negotiations. Deaths and marriages. Caleb Whitefoord's
Cross-readings from the newspapers--499
324. To the same, Dec. 16.-Thanks for a present of venison--500
1767.
325. To George Montagu, Esq. Jan. 13.-Death of his servant Louis.
Quarrel of Hume and Rousseau. High tide--501
326. To Dr. Ducarel, April 25.-Thanks for his "Anglo Norman
Antiquities"--501
327. To the Earl of Strafford, July 29.-Death and character of
Lady Suffolk--502
328. To George Montagu, Esq. July 31.-State of the ministry.
Intended trip to Paris. Death of Lady Suffolk. Lord Lyttelton's
"Henry the Second." Lean people. Mrs. Clive--503
329. To the same, Aug. 7.-Motives for revisiting Paris--503
330. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Sept. 9.-Death and character of
Charles Townshend. State of the ministry. Lord Chatham. Dinner at
the Duc de Choiseul's--[N.] 504
331. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Oct. 24.-Return to England--505
332. To George Montagu, Esq. Nov. 1.-General Conway's refusal of
the appointment to secretary of state. Old Pulteney--506
333. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Dec. 19.-Intended retirement from
Parliament. State of his health. Roman Catholic religion--506
1768.
334. To Sir David Dalrymple, Jan. 17.-Advice on sending a young
artist to Italy. "Historic Doubts." Coronation roll of Richard
the Third --[N.] 507
335. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Feb. 1.-On Sending a copy of his
"Historic Doubts"--508
336. To Sir David Dalrymple, Feb. 2.-On sending him his "Historic
Doubts." Rapid sale of the first impression--(N.] 509
337. To Mr. Gray, Feb. 18.-New edition of Gray's poems. On his
own writings. King of Prussia. Lord Clarendon's "History."
"Historic Doubts." Disculpation of Richard the Third. "Turned of
fifty." Garrick's prologues and epilogues. Boswell's "Corsica."
General Paoli--509
338. To the same, Feb. 26.-"Historic Doubts." Guthrie's answer
thereto. Thanks for notes on the "Noble, Authors"--512
339. To George Montagu, Esq. March 12.-Reflections on his
retirement from Parliament. Guthrie's answer to the "Historic
Doubts." Sterne's Sentimental Journey." Gray's "Odes"--514
340. To the same, April 15.-Wit as temporary as dress and
manners. Fate of George Selwyn's bon-mots. Completion of his
tragedy of "The Mysterious Mother." Mrs. Pritchard. Garrick.
President Henault's tragedy of "Corn elie"--516
341. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, April 16.--Rous's rolls of the Earls
of Warwick. Projects a History of the Streets of London. St.
Foix's Rues de Paris. The Methodists. Whitfield's funeral sermon
on Gibson the forger--517
342. To the same, June 6.-History of Ely cathedral. Cardinal
Lewis de Luxembourg. Cardinal Morton. Painted glass--519
343. To George Montagu, Esq. June 15.-Inclemency of the weather.
English summers. Description of the climate by our poets.
Hot-house of St. Stephen's chapel. Indifference to parties. The
country going to ruin--520
344. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, June 16.-Wilkes and liberty.
Ministerial changes. Conduct of the Duke of Grafton. Distressed
state of the country. Lord Chatham. Foote's "Devil upon Two
Sticks." Subject of "The Mysterious Mother"--[N.] 521
345. To Monsieur de Voltaire, June 21.-On his soliciting a copy
of the "Historic Doubts." Reply to Voltaire's criticisms on
Shakspeare--523
346. To the Earl of Strafford, June 25.-Wilkes and Number 45. The
King of Denmark. Lady Rockingham and the Methodist Pope Joan
Huntingdon. Brentford election--524
347. To Monsieur de Voltaire, July 27.-Reply to Voltaire's
vindication of his criticism on Shakspeare. Story of M. de
jumonville. "Historic Doubts"--525
348. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Aug. 9.-Lord Botetourt. New
Archbishop of Canterbury. King of Denmark. Augustus Hervey's
divorce from the Chudleigh. Gray appointed professor of modern
history. Efficacy of ice-water--527
349. To George Montagu, Esq. Aug. 13.-Arrival of the King of
Denmark. His person and manners. His suite--529
350. To the Earl of Strafford, Aug. 16.-Personal description of
the King of Denmark. His cold reception at Court. the first
favourite, Count Holke. His prime minister, Count Bernsdorff--529
351. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Aug. 25.-Disturbance in America.
Coffee-house politicians. King of Denmark. Lady Bel
Stanhope--(N.] 531
352. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Aug. 30.-Thanks for some prints and
some notices. Improvements at Strawberry. Mr. Granger's
"Catalogue of English Heads." Dr. Robertson's writings. Scotch
puffing--532
353. To the Earl of Strafford, Oct. 10.-Health and sickness.
quiet of his present illness contrasted with the inquiries after
him when his friends were coming into power--534
354. To George Montagu, Esq. Nov. 10.-Benefits from bootikins and
water-drinking. Elections--535
355. To the same, Nov. 15.-Separation of old friends in old age.
Moroseness of retirement. Evils of solitude. Death of the Duke of
Newcastle, and of Lady Hervey--535
356. To the same, Dec. 1.-Arlington-street. Reconciliation
between Lord Chatham, Earl Temple, and Mr. George Grenville.
Wilkes and the House of Commons--536
1769.
357. To George Montagu, Esq. March 26.-City riot. Brentford
election. Wilkes and Luttrell. Marriages--538
358. To the same, April 15.-Temperance the best physician. Easy
mode of preserving the teeth. Advice on wine drinking. Middlesex
election. Wilkes and the House of Commons--539
359. To the same, May 11.-Grand festino at Strawberry. Ridotto al
fresco at Vauxhall--540
360. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, May 27.-Granger's Catalogue of Prints
and Lives down to the Revolution. Intended visit to Paris.
Gough's British Topography--541
361. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, June 14.-Proposed painted window for
Ely cathedral. Bishop Mawson. Granger's dedication. Shenstone's
Letters. His unhappy passion for fame. The Leasowes. Instructions
on domestic privacy--542
362. To the same, June 26.-Intended visit to Ely. English
summers. Advice to quit Marshland. Joscelin de Louvain--545
363. To the Earl of Strafford, July 3.-Disinterestedness and
length of their friendship. Three years' absence of summer.
Emptiness of London. City politics. Angling. Methuselah--546
364. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, July 7.-Lord Chatham at the King's
levee--547
365. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, July 15.-Return from Ely. East window
of the cathedral. Bishop Luda's tomb--548
366. To the same, Aug. 12.-Thanks for some prints. Advice
respecting a History of Gothic Architecture. Tyson's "History of
Fashions and Dresses"--549
367. To George Montagu, Esq. Aug. 18.-Calais. Complaint of his
friend's long silence. Journey to Paris--551
368. To John Chute, Esq. Aug. 30.-Journey to Paris. Lord Dacre
and Dr. Pomme. Account of Madame du Deffand. Madame du Barry.
French theatre. Hamlet. The Dumenil. Voltaire's tragedy of "Les
Gu`ebres"- -552
(369. To George Montagu, Esq. Sept. 7.-Character of Madame du
Deffand. Uncertainty of life. A five-and-thirty years'
friendship. Visit to the Abbess of Panthemont--553
370. To the Earl of Strafford, Sept. 8.-Affected admiration of
the French government. Lettres de cachet. Students in
legislature. French treatment Of trees--555
371. To George Montagu, Esq. Sept. 17.-Visit to Versailles,
Madame du Barry. The Dauphin. Count de Provence. Count d'Artois.
The King. Visit to St. Cyr. Madame de Maintenon. Madame de
Cambise. Trait of Madame de Mailly --557
372. To the same, Oct. 13.-Return to England. Congratulations on
his friend's being appointed Lord North's private secretary--560
373. To the same, Oct. 16.-Return to Strawberry. His tragedy of
"The Mysterious Mother." Bad taste of the public. Garrick's
prologues and epilogues. French chalk and dirt contrasted with
English neatness and greenth--560
374. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Nov. 14.-Lord Temple's dinner with
the Lord Mayor. Tottering position of the Duc de Choiseul. "Trip
to the Jubilee." Literature and politics of the day. Milton's
prose writings. Heroes and orators--561
375. To George Montagu, Esq. Dec. 14.-Condolence on the death of
Mrs. Trevor. Loss of friends and connexions. Cumberland's comedy
of "The Brothers." Alderman Backwell--562
376. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Dec. 21.-Thanks for communications.
Mr. Tyson's etchings. Madame du Deffand--[N.] 563
Letter 1 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 17, 1759. (page 25)
I rejoice over your brother's honours, though I certainly had no
hand in them. He probably received his staff from the board of
trade. If any part of the consequences could be placed to
partiality for me, it would be the prevention of your coming to
town, which I wished. My lady Cutts(1) is indubitably your own
grandmother: the Trevors would once have had it, but by some
misunderstanding the old Cowslade refused it. Mr. Chute has
twenty more corroborating circumstances, but this one is
sufficient.
Fred. Montagu told me of the pedigree. I shall take care of all
your commissions. Felicitate yourself on having got from me the
two landscapes; that source is stopped. Not that Mr. M`untz is
eloped to finish the conquest of America, nor promoted by Mr.
Secretary's zeal for my friends, nor because the ghost of Mrs.
Leneve has appeared to me, and ordered me to drive Hannah and
Ishmael into the wilderness. A cause much more familiar to me
has separated US--nothing but a tolerable quantity of ingratitude
on his side, both to me and Mr. Bentley. The story is rather too
long for a letter: the substance was most extreme impertinence to
me, concluded by an abusive letter against Mr. Bentley, who sent
him from starving on seven pictures for a guinea to One hundred
pounds a year, my house, table, and utmost countenance. In
short, I turned his head, and was forced to turn him out of
doors. You shall see the documents, as it is the fashion to call
proof papers. Poets and painters imagine they confer the Honour
when they are protected, and they set down impertinence to the
article of their own virtue, when you dare to begin to think that
an ode or a picture is not a patent for all manner of insolence.
My Lord Temple, as vain as if he was descended from the stroller
Pindar, or had made up card-matches at the siege of Genoa, has
resigned the privy seal, because he has not the garter.(2) You
cannot imagine what an absolute prince I feel myself with knowing
that nobody can force me to give the garter to M`untz.
My Lady Carlisle is going to marry a Sir William Musgrave, who is
but three-and-twenty; but, in consideration of the match, and of
her having years to spare, she has made him a present of ten, and
calls them three-and-thirty. I have seen the new Lady Stanhope.
I assure you her face will introduce no plebeian charms into the
faces of the Stanhopes, Adieu!
(1) Lady Cutts was the mother of Mrs. Montagu, by her second
husband, John Trevor, Esq. and grandmother of George Montagu.-E.
(2) See vol. ii. p. 522, letter 344.
Letter 2 TO THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM PITT.(3)
Arlington Street, Nov. 19, 1759. (page 26)
Sir,
On coming to town, I did myself the honour of waiting on you and
Lady Hester Pitt: and though I think myself extremely
distinguished by your obliging note, I shall be sorry for having
given you the trouble of writing it, if it did not lend me a very
pardonable opportunity of saying what I much wished to express,
but thought myself too private a person, and of too little
consequence, to take the liberty to say. In short, Sir, I was
eager to congratulate you on the lustre you have thrown on this
country; I wished to thank you for the security you have fixed to
me of enjoying the happiness I do enjoy. You have placed England
in a situation in which it never saw itself--a task the more
difficult, as you had not to improve, but recover.
In a trifling book, written two or three years ago,(4) I said
(speaking of the name in the world the most venerable to me),
"sixteen unfortunate and inglorious years since his removal have
already written his eulogium." It is but justice to you, Sir, to
add, that that period ended when your administration began.
Sir, do not take this for flattery: there is nothing in your
power to give that I would accept; nay, there is nothing I could
envy, but what I believe you would scarce offer me--your glory.
This may seem very vain and insolent: but consider, Sir, what a
monarch is a man who wants nothing! consider how he looks down
on one who is only the most illustrious man in England! But Sir,
freedoms apart, insignificant as I am, probably it must be some
satisfaction to a great mind like yours to receive incense, when
you are sure there is no flattery blended with it; and what must
any Englishman be that could give you a moment's satisfaction and
would hesitate?
Adieu! Sir. I am unambitious, I am uninterested, but I am vain.
You have, by your notice, uncanvassed, unexpected, and at a
period when you certainly could have the least temptation to
stoop down to me, flattered me in the most agreeable manner. If
there could arrive the moment when you could be nobody, and I any
body, you cannot imagine how grateful I would be. In the mean
time, permit me to be, as I have been ever since I had the honour
of knowing you, Sir, your most obedient humble servant.
(3) Now first collected.
(4) His "Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors."-E.
Letter 3 To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Nov. 30th of the Great Year. (page 27)
here is a victory more than I promised you! For these thirteen
days we have been in the utmost impatience for news. The Brest
fleet had got out; Duff, with three ships, was in the utmost
danger--Ireland ached--Sir Edward Hawke had notice in ten hours,
and sailed after Conflans--Saunders arrived the next moment from
Quebec, heard it, and sailed after Hawke, without landing his
glory. No express arrived, storms blow; we knew not what to
think. This morning at four we heard that, on the 20th, Sir
Edward Hawke came in sight of the French, who were pursuing Duff.
The fight began at half an hour past two--that is, the French
began to fly, making a running fight. Conflans tried to save
himself behind the rocks of Belleisle, but was forced to burn his
ship of eighty guns and twelve hundred men. The Formidable, of
eighty, and one thousand men, is taken; we burned the Hero of
seventy-four, eight hundred and fifteen men. The Thes`ee and
Superbe of seventy-four and seventy, and of eight hundred and
fifteen and eight hundred men, were sunk in the action, and the
crews lost. Eight of their ships are driven up the Vilaine,
after having thrown over their guns; they have moored two
frigates to defend the entrance, but Hawke hopes to destroy them.
Our loss is a scratch, one lieutenant and thirty-nine men killed,
and two hundred and two wounded. The Resolution of seventy-four
guns, and the Essex of sixty-four, are lost, but the crews saved;
they, it is supposed, perished by the tempest, which raged all
the time, for
"We rode in the whirlwind and directed the storm."
Sir Edward heard guns of distress in the night, but could not
tell whether of friend or foe, nor could assist them.(5)
Thus we wind up this wonderful year! Who that died three years
ago and could revive, would believe it! Think, that from
Petersburgh to the Cape of Good Hope, from China to California,
De Paris `a Perou,
there are not five thousand Frenchmen in the world that have
behaved well! Monsieur Thurot is piddling somewhere on the coast
of Scotland, but I think our sixteen years of fears of invasion
are over--after sixteen victories. if we take Paris, I don't
design to go thither before spring. My Lord Kinnoul is going to
Lisbon to ask pardon for Boscawen's beating De la Clue in their
House; it will be a proud supplication, with another victory in
bank.(6) Adieu! I would not profane this letter with a word of
any thing else for the world.
(5) This was Hawke's famous victory, for which he received the
thanks of Parliament, and a pension of two thousand pounds
a-year. In 1765, he was created a peer.-D.
(6) The object of Lord Kinnoul's mission to the court of Portugal
was to remove the misunderstanding between the two crowns, in
consequence of Admiral Boscawen's having destroyed some French
ships under the Portuguese fort in the bay of Lagos.-E.
Letter 4 TO SIR HORACE MANN.
Arlington Street, Dec. 13, 1759. (page 28)
That ever you should pitch upon me for a mechanic or geometric
commission! How my own ignorance has laughed at me since I read
your letter! I say, your letter, for as to Dr. Perelli's, I know
no more of a Latin term in mathematics than Mrs. Goldsworthy(7)
had an idea of verbs. I will tell you an early anecdote in my
own life, and you shall judge. When I first went to Cambridge, I
was to learn mathematics of the famous blind professor Sanderson.
I had not frequented him a fortnight, before he said to me,
"Young man, it is cheating you to take your money: believe me,
you never can learn these things; you have no capacity for
them."- I can smile now, but I cried then with mortification.
The next step, in order to comfort myself, was not to believe him
: I could not conceive that I had not talents for any thing in
the world. I took, at my own expense, a private instructor,(8)
who came to me once a-day for a year. Nay, I took infinite
pains, but had so little capacity, and so little attention, (as I
have always had to any thing that did not immediately strike my
inclination) that after mastering any proposition,
when the man came the next day, it was as new to me as if I had
never heard of it ; in short, even to common figures, I am the
dullest dunce alive. I have often said it of myself, and it is
true, that nothing that has not a proper Dame of a man or
a woman to it, affixes any idea upon my mind. I could
remember who was King Ethelbald's great aunt, and not be sure
whether she lived in the year 500 or 1500. I don't know whether I
ever told you, that when you sent me the seven gallons of drams,
and they were carried to Mr. Fox by mistake for Florence wine, I
pressed @im to keep as much as he liked: for, said I, I have seen
the bill of lading, and there is a vast quantity. He asked how
much? I answered seventy gallons; so little idea I have of
quantity. I will tell you one more story of myself, and you will
comprehend what sort of a head I have! Mrs. Leneve said to me
one day, "There is a vast waste of coals in your house ; you
should make the servants take off the fires at night." I
recollected this as I was going to bed, and, out of economy, put
my fire out with a bottle of Bristol water! However, as I
certainly will neglect nothing to oblige you, I went to Sisson
and gave him the letter. He has undertaken both the engine and
the drawing, and has promised the utmost care in both. The
latter, he says, must be very large, and that it will take some
time to have it performed very accurately. He has promised me
both in six or seven weeks. But another time, don't imagine,
because I can bespeak an enamelled bauble, that I am fit to be
entrusted with the direction of the machine at Marli. It is not
to save myself trouble, for I think nothing so for you, but
I would have you have credit, and I should be afraid of
dishonouring you.
There! there is the King of Prussia has turned all our war and
peace topsy-turvy ! If Mr. Pitt Will conquer
Germany too, he must go and do it himself. Fourteen thousand
soldiers and nine generals taken, as it were, in a partridge net!
and what is worse, I have not heard yet that the monarch owns his
rashness.(9) As often as he does, indeed, he is apt to repair
it. You know I have always dreaded Daun--one cannot make a
blunder but he profits of it-and this ' just at the moment that
we heard of nothing but new bankruptcy in France. I want to know
what a kingdom is to do when it is forced to run away?
14th.--Oh! I interrupt my reflections--there is another bit of a
victory! Prince Henry, who has already succeeded to his
brother's crown, as king of the fashion, has
beaten a parcel of Wirternberghers and taken four battalions.
Daun is gone into Bohemia, and Dresden is still to be ours. The
French are gone into winter quarters--thank God! What weather is
here to be lying on the ground! Men should be statues, or will
be so, if they go through it. Hawke is enjoying himself in
Quiberon Bay, but I believe has done no more execution. Dr. Hay
says it will soon be as shameful to beat a Frenchman as to beat a
woman. Indeed, one is
forced to ask every morning what victory there is, for fear of
missing one. We talk of a con(,,ress at Breda, and some think
Lord Temple will go thither: if he does, I shall really believe
it will be peace; and a good one, as it will then be of Mr.
Pitt's making.
I was much pleased that the watch succeeded so triumphantly, and
beat the French watches, though they were two to one. For the
Fugitive pieces: the Inscription for the Column(10) was written
when I was with you at Florence, though I don't wonder that you
have forgotten it after so many yeirs. I would not have it
talked of, for I find some grave personages are offended -with
the liberties I have taken with so imperial a head. What could
provoke them to give a column Christian burial? Adieu!
(7) Wife of the English consul at Leghorn, where, when she was
learning Italian by grammar, she said, "Oh! give me a language in
which there are no verbs!" concluding, as she had not learnt her
own language by grammar, that there were no verbs in English.
(8) Dr. Treviger.
(9) It was not Frederick's fault; he was not there ; but that of
General Finek, who had placed himself so injudiciously, that he
was obliged to capitulate to the Austrians with fourteen thousand
men.
(10) The inscription for the neglected Column in St. Mark's Place
at Florence.-E.
Letter 5 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Dec. 23, 1759. (page 30)
How do you do? are you thawed again? how have you borne the
country in this bitter weather? I have not been here these three
weeks till to-day, and was delighted to find it so pleasant, and
to meet a comfortable southeast wind, the fairest of all winds,
in spite of the scandal that lies on the east; though it is the
west that is parent of all ugliness. The frost was succeeded by
such fogs, that I could not find my way out of London.
Has your brother told you of the violences in Ireland? There
wanted nothing but a Massaniello to overturn the government; and
luckily for the government and for Rigby, he, who was made for
Massaniello, happened to be first minister there. Tumults, and
insurrections, and oppositions,
"Like arts and sciences, have travelled west."
Pray make the general collect authentic accounts of those civil
wars against he returns--you know where they will find their
place, and that you are one of the very few that will profit of
them. I will grind and dispense to you all the corn you bring to
my mill.
We good-humoured souls vote eight millions with as few questions,
as if the whole House of Commons was at the club at Arthur's; and
we live upon distant news, as if London was York or Bristol.
There is nothing domestic, but that Lord George Lennox, being
refused Lord Ancram's consent, set out for Edinburgh with Lady
Louisa Kerr, the day before yesterday; and Lord Buckingham is
going to be married to our Miss Pitt of Twickenham, daughter of
that strange woman who had a mind to be my wife, and who sent Mr.
Raftor to know why I did not marry her. I replied, "Because I
was not sure that the two husbands, that she had at once, were
both dead." Apropos to my wedding, Prince Edward asked me at the
Opera, t'other night, when I was to marry Lady Mary Coke: I
answered, as soon as I got a regiment; which, you know, is now
the fashionable way.
The kingdom of beauty is in as great disorder as the kingdom of
Ireland. My Lady Pembroke looks like a ghost-poor Lady Coventry
is going to be one; and the Duchess of Hamilton is so altered I
did not know her. Indeed, she is bid with child, and so big,
that as my Lady Northumberland says, it is plain she has a camel
in her belly, and my Lord Edgecumbe says, it is as true it did
not go through the eye of a needle. That Countess has been laid
up with a hurt in her leg; Lady Rebecca Paulett pushed her on the
birthnight against a bench: the Duchess of Grafton asked if it
was true that Lady Rebecca kicked her? "Kick me, Madam! When did
you ever hear of a Percy that took a kick?"
I can tell you another anecdote of that house, that will not
divert you less. Lord March making them a visit this summer at
Alnwick Castle, my lord received him at the gate, and said, "I
believe, my lord, this is the first time that ever a Douglas and
a Percy met here in friendship." Think of this from a Smithson to
a true Douglas!
I don't trouble my head about any connexion; any news into the
country I know is welcome, though it comes out higlepigledy, just
as it happens to be packed up. The cry in Ireland has been
against Lord Hilsborough, supposing him to mediate an union of
the two islands; George Selwyn, seeing him set t'other night
between my Lady Harrington and Lord Barrington, said, "Who can
say that my Lord Hilsborough is not an enemy to an union?"
I will tell you one more story, and then good night. Lord
Lyttelton(11) was at Covent Garden; Beard came on: the former
said, "How comes Beard here? what made him leave Drury Lane?"
Mr. Shelley, who sat next him, replied, "Why, don't you know he
has been such a fool as to go and marry a Miss Rich? He has
married Rich's daughter." My lord coloured; Shelley found out
what he had said, and ran away.
I forgot to tell you, that you need be in no disturbance about
M`untz's pictures; they were a present I made you. Good night!
(11) Lord Lyttelton married a daughter of Sir Robert Rich.
Letter 6 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.
Strawberry Hill, Dec. 23, 1759. (page 31)
Sir,
I own I am pleased, for your sake as well as my own, at hearing
from you again. I felt sorry at thinking that you was displeased
with the frankness and sincerity of my last. You have shown me
that I made a wrong judgment of you, and I willingly correct it.
You are extremely obliging in giving yourself the least trouble
to make collections for me. I have received so much assistance
and information from you, that I am sure I cannot have a more
useful friend. For the Catalogue, I forgot it, as in the course
of things I suppose it is forgot. For the Lives of English
Artists I am going immediately to begin it, and shall then fling
it into the treasury of the world, for the amusement of the world
for a day, and then for the service of any body who shall happen
hereafter to peep into the dusty drawer where it shall repose.
For my Lord Clarendon's new work(12) of which you ask me, I am
charmed with it. It entertains me more almost than any book I
ever read. I was told there was little in it that had not
already got abroad, or was not known by any other channels. If
that is true, I own I am so scanty an historian as to have been
ignorant of many of the facts but sure, at least, the
circumstances productive of, or concomitant on several of them,
set them in very new lights. The deductions and stating of
arguments are uncommonly fine. His language I find much
censured--in truth, it is sometimes involved, particularly in the
indistinct usage of he and him. But in my opinion his style is
not so much inferior to the former History as it seems. But this
I take to be the case; when the former part appeared, the world
was not accustomed to a good style as it is now. I question if
the History of the Rebellion had been published but this summer,
whether it would be thought so fine in point of style as it has
generally been reckoned. For his veracity, alas! I am sorry to
say, there is more than one passage in the new work which puts
one a little upon one's guard in lending him implicit credit.
When he says that Charles I. and his queen were a pattern of
conjugal affection, it makes one stare. Charles was so, I verily
believe; but can any man in his historical senses believe, that
my Lord Clarendon did not know that, though the Queen was a
pattern of affection, it was by no means of the conjugal
kind.(13) Then the subterfuges my Lord Clarendon uses to avoid
avowing that Charles II. was a Papist, are certainly no grounds
for corroborating his veracity.(14) In short, I don't believe
him when he does not speak truth; but he has spoken so much
truth, that it is easy to see when he does not.
Lucan is in poor forwardness. I have been plagued with a
succession of bad printers, and am not got beyond the fourth
book. It will scarce appear before next winter. Adieu! Sir. I
have received so much pleasure and benefit from your
correspondence, that I should be sorry to lose it. I will not
deserve to lose it, but endeavour to be, as you will give me
leave to be, your, etc.
(12) The life of Edward Earl of Clarendon, etc. Dr. Johnson, in
the sixty-fifth number of the Idler, has also celebrated the
appearance of this interesting and valuable work.-C.
(13) Mr. Walpole had early taken up this opinion; witness that
gross line in his dull epistle to Aston, written in 1740, "The
lustful Henrietta's Romish shade;" but we believe that no good
authority for this imputation can be produced: there is strong
evidence the other way: and if we were even to stand on mere
authority, we should prefer that of Lord Clarendon to the
scandalous rumours of troublesome times, which were, we believe,
the only guides of Mr. Walpole.-C.
(14) Nor for impugning it; for, the very fact, brought to light
in later times, of Charles's having, with great secrecy and
mystery, reconciled himself to the church of Rome on his
deathbed, proves that up to that extreme hour he was not a
Papist.-C.
Letter 7 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Jan. 7, 1760. (page 32)
You must wonder I have not written to you a long time; a person
of my consequence! I am now almost ready to say, We, instead of I
In short, I live amongst royalty--considering the plenty, that is
no great wonder. All the world lives with them, and they with
all the world. Princes and Princesses open shops in every corner
of the town, and the whole town deals with them. As I have gone
to one, I chose to frequent all, that I night not be particular,
and seem to have views; and yet it went so much against me, that
I came to town on purpose a month ago for the Duke's levee, and
had engaged brand to go with me, and then could not bring myself
to it. At last, I went to him and the Princess Emily yesterday.
It was well I had not flattered myself with being still in my
bloom; I am grown so old since they saw me, that neither of them
knew me. When they were told, he just spoke to me (I forgive
him; he is not out of my debt, even with that) - she was
exceedingly gracious, and commended Strawberry to the skies.
TO-night, I was asked to their party at Norfolk House. These
parties are wonderfully select and dignified one might sooner be
a knight of Malta than qualified for them; I don't know how the
Duchess of Devonshire, Mr. Fox, and I, were forgiven some of our
ancestors. There were two tables at loo, two at whist, and a
quadrille. I was commanded to the Duke's loo; he was sat down:
not to make him wait, I threw my hat upon the marble table, and
broke four pieces off a great crystal chandelier. I stick to my
etiquette, and treat them with great respect; not as I do my
friend, the Duke of York. But don't let us talk any more of
Princes. My Lucan appears to-morrow; I must say it is a noble
volume. Shall I send it you--or won't you come and fetch it?
There is nothing new of public, but the violent commotions in
Ireland,(15) whither the Duke of Bedford still persists in going.
AEolus to quell a storm!
I am in great concern for my old friend, poor Lady Harry
Beauclerc; her lord dropped down dead two nights ago, as he was
sitting with her and all their children. Admiral Boscawen is
dead by this time.(16) Mrs. Osborne and I are not much
afflicted; Lady Jane Coke too is dead, exceedingly rich; I have
not heard her will yet.
If you don't come to town soon, I give you warning, I will be a
lord of the bedchamber, or a gentleman usher. If you will, I
will be nothing but what I have been so many years-my own and
yours ever.
(15) Walpole, in his Memoires, vol. ii. p. 401, gives a
particular account of these commotions. Gray, in a letter to Dr.
Wharton, of the 23d of January, says, "They placed an old woman
on the throne, and called for pipes and tobacco; made my Lord
Chief Justice administer an oath (which they dictated) to my Lord
Chancellor; beat the Bishop of Killaloe black and blue; at
foot-ball with Chenevix, the old refugee Bishop of Waterford;
rolled my Lord Farnham in the kennel; pulled Sir Thomas
Prendergast by the nose (naturally large) till it was the size of
a cauliflower-; and would have hanged Rigby if he had not got out
of a window. At last the guard was obliged to move (with orders
not to fire), but the mob threw dirt at them. then the horse
broke in upon them, cutting and slashing, and took seventeen
prisoners. The notion that had possessed the crowd was, that a
union was to be voted between the two nations, and they should
have no more parliaments there." Works, vol. iii. p. 233.-E.
(16) This distinguished admiral survived till January 1761.-E.
(17) Daughter of lord Torrington, and sister of the unfortunate
Admiral Byng. She was married to the son of sir John Osborn of
Chicksand Priory.-E.
Letter 8 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
Jan. 12, 1760. (page 34)
I am very sorry your ladyship could doubt a moment on the cause
of my concern yesterday. I saw you much displeased at what I had
said; and felt so innocent of the least intention of offending
you, that I could not help being struck at my own ill-fortune,
and wit[) the sensation raised by finding you mix great goodness
with great severity.
I am naturally very impatient under praise; I have reflected
enough on myself to know I don't deserve it; and with this
consciousness you ought to forgive me, Madam, if I dreaded that
the person Whose esteem I valued the most in the world, should
think, that I was fond of what I know is not my due. I meant to
express this apprehension as respectfully as I could, but my
words failed me-a misfortune not too common to me, who am apt to
say too much, not too little! Perhaps it is that very quality
which your ladyship calls wit, and I call tinsel, for which I
dread being praised. I wish to recommend myself to you by more
essential merits-and if I can only make you laugh, it will be
very apt to make me as much concerned as I was yesterday. For
people to whose approbation I am indifferent, I don't care
whether they commend or condemn me for my wit; in the former case
they Will not make me admire myself for it, in the latter they
can't make me think but what I have thought already. But for the
few whose friendship I wish, I would fain have them see, that
under all the idleness of my spirits there are some very serious
qualities, such as warmth, gratitude, and sincerity, which @ill
returns may render useless or may make me lock up in my breast,
but which will remain there while I have a being.
having drawn you this picture of myself, Madam, a subject I have
to say so much upon, will not your good-nature apply it as it
deserves, to what passed yesterday? Won't you believe that my
concern flowed from being disappointed at having offended one
whom I ought by so many ties to try to please, and whom, if I
ever meant any thing, I had meaned to please? I intended you
should see how much I despise wit, if I have any, and that you
should know my heart was void of vanity and full of gratitude.
They -are very few I desire should know so much; but my passions
act too promptly and too naturally, as you saw, when I am with
those I really love, to be capable of any disguise. Forgive me,
Madam, this tedious detail but of all people living, I cannot
bear that you should have a doubt about me.
Letter 9 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Jan. 14, 1760. (page 35)
How do you contrive to exist on your mountain in this rude
season! Sure you must be become a snowball! As I was not in
England in forty-one, I had no notion of such cold. The streets
are abandoned; nothing appears in them: the Thames is almost as
solid. Then think what a campaign must be in such a season! Our
army was under arms for fourteen hours on the twenty-third,
expecting the French and several of the men were frozen when they
should have dismounted. What milksops the Marlboroughs and
Ttirennes, the Blakes and the Van Tromps appear now, who whipped
into winter quarters and into port, the moment their noses looked
blue. Sir Cloudesly Shovel said that an admiral would deserve to
be broke, who kept great ships out after the end of September,
and to be shot if after October. There is Hawke(18) in the bay
weathering this winter, after conquering in a storm. For my
part, I scarce venture to make a campaign in the Opera-house; for
if I once begin to freeze, I shall be frozen through in a moment.
I am amazed, with such weather, such ravages, and distress, that
there is any thing left in Germany, but money; for thither half
the treasure of Europe goes: England, France, Russia, and all the
Empress can squeeze from Italy and Hungary, all is sent thither,
and yet the wretched people have not subsistence. A pound of
bread sells at Dresden for eleven-pence. We are going to send
many more troops thither; and it Is so much the fashion to raise
regiments, that I wish there were such a neutral kind of beings
in England as abb`es, that one might have an excuse for not
growing military mad, when one has turned the heroic corner of
one's age. I am ashamed of being a young rake, when my seniors
are covering their gray toupees with helmets and feathers, and
accoutering their pot-bellies with cuirasses and martial
masquerade habits. Yet rake I am, and abominably so, for a
person that begins to wrinkle reverently. I have sat up twice
this week till between two and three with the Duchess of Grafton,
at loo, who, by the way, has got a pam-child this morning; and on
Saturday night I supped with Prince Edward at my Lady Rochford's,
and we stayed till half an hour past three. My favour with that
Highness continues, or rather increases. He makes every body
make suppers for him to meet me, for I still hold out against
going to court. In short, if he were twenty years older, or I
could make myself twenty years younger, I might carry him to
Camden-house, and be as impertinent as ever my Lady Churchill
was; but, as I dread being ridiculous, I shall give my Lord Bute
no uneasiness. My Lady Maynard, who divides the favour of this
tiny court with me,- supped with us. Did you know she sings
French ballads very prettily? Lord Rochford played on the guitar,
and the Prince sung; there were my two nieces, and Lord
Waldegrave, Lord Huntingdon, and Mr. Morrison the groom, and the
evening was pleasant; but I had a much more agreeable supper last
night at Mrs. Clive's, with Miss West, my niece Cholmondeley, and
Murphy, the writing actor, who is very good company, and two or
three more. Mrs. Cholmondeley is very lively; you know how
entertaining the Clive is, and Miss West is an absolute original.
There is nothing new, but a very dull pamphlet, written by Lord
Bath, and his chaplain Douglas, called a Letter to Two Great Men.
It is a plan for the peace, and much adopted by the city, and
much admired by all who are too humble to judge for themselves.
I was much diverted the other morning with another volume on
birds, by Edwards, who has published four or five. The poor man,
who is grown very old and devout, begs God to take from him the
love of natural philosophy; and having observed some heterodox
proceedings among bantam cocks, he proposes that all schools of
girls and boys should be promiscuous, lest, if separated, they
should learn wayward passions. But what struck me most were his
dedications, the last was to God; this is to Lord Bute, as if he
was determined to make his fortune in one world or the other.
Pray read Fontaine's fable of the lion grown old; don't it put
you in mind of any thing? No! not when his shaggy majesty has
borne the insults of the tiger and the horse, etc. and the ass
comes last, kicks out his only remaining fang, and asks for a
blue bridle? Apropos, I will tell you the turn Charles Townshend
gave to this fable. "My lord," said he, "has quite mistaken the
thing; he soars too high at first: people often miscarry by not
proceeding by degrees; he went and at once asked for my Lord
Carlisle's garter-if he would have been contented to ask first
for my Lady Carlisle's garter, I don't know but he would have
obtained it." ' Adieu!
(18) Sir Edward Hawke had defeated the French fleet, commanded by
Admiral Conflans, in the beginning of this winter. [A graphical
description of this victory is given by Walpole in his Memoires.
"It was," he says, "the 20th of November: the shortness of the
day prevented the total demolition of the enemy; but neither
darkness, nor a dreadful tempest that ensued, could call off Sir
Edward from pursuing his blow. The roaring of the element was
redoubled by the thunder from our ships; and both concurred, in
that scene of horror, to put a period to the navy and hopes of
France."--E.]
Letter 10 To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, Jan. 20, 1760. (page 36)
I am come hither in the bleakest of all winters, not to air and
exercise, but to look after my gold-fish and orange-trees. We
import all the delights of hot countries, but as we cannot
propagate their climate too, such a season as this is mighty apt
to murder rarities. And it is this very winter that has been
used for the invention of a campaign in Germany! where all fuel
is so destroyed that they have no fire but out of the mouth of a
cannon. If I were writing to an Italian as well as into Italy,
one might string concetti for an hour, and describe how heroes
are frozen on their horses till they become their own statues.
But seriously, does not all this rigour of warfare throw back an
air of effeminacy on the Duke of Marlborough and the brave of
ancient days, who only went to fight as one goes out of town in
spring, and who came back to London with the first frost'@ Our
generals are not yet arrived, though the Duke de Broglio's last
miscarriage seems to determine that there shall at last be such a
thing as winter quarters; but Daun and the King of Prussia are
still choosing King and Queen in the field.
There is a horrid scene of distress in the family of Cavendish;
the Duke's sister,(19) Lady Besborough, died this morning of the
same fever and sore throat of which she lost four children four
years ago. It looks as if it was a plague fixed in the walls of
their house: it broke out again among their servants, and carried
off two, a year and a half after the children. About ten days
ago Lord Besborough was seized with it, and escaped with
difficulty; then the eldest daughter had it, though slightly: my
lady, attending them, is dead of it in three days. It is the
same sore throat which carried off Mr. Pelham's two only sons,
two daughters, and a daughter of the Duke of Rutland, at once.
The physicians, I think, don't know what to make of it.
I am sorry you and your friend Count Lorenzi(20) are such
political foes, but I am much more concerned for the return of
your headaches. I don't know what to say about Ward's(21)
medicine, because the cures he does in that complaint are
performed by him in person. He rubs his hand with some
preparation and holds it upon your forehead, from which several
have found instant relief. If you please, I will consult him
whether he will send you any preparation for it; but you must
first send me the exact symptoms and circumstances of your
disorder and constitution, for I would not for the world venture
to transmit to you a blind remedy for an unexamined complaint.
You cannot figure a duller season: the weather bitter, no party,
little money, half the world playing the fool in the country with
the militia, others raising regiments or with their regiments; in
short, the end of a war and of a reign furnish few episodes.
Operas are more in their decline than ever. Adieu!
(19) Caroline, eldest daughter of William third Duke of
Devonshire, and wife of William Ponsonby, Earl of Besborough.
(20) Minister of France at Florence, though a Florentine.
(21) Ward, the empiric, whose pill and drop were supposed, at
this time, to have a surprising effect. He is immortalized by
Pope-
"See Ward by batter'd beaux invited over."
There is a curious statue of him in marble at the Society of
Arts, in full dress, and a flowing wig.-D.
Letter 11 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Jan. 28, 1760. (page 37)
I shall almost frighten you from coming to London, for whether
you have the constitution of a horse or a man, you will be
equally in danger. All the horses in town are laid up with sore
throats and colds, and are so hoarse you cannot hear them speak,
I, with all my immortality, have been -half killed; that violent
bitter weather was too much for me; I have had a nervous fever
these six or seven weeks every night, and have taken bark enough
to have made a rind for Daphne; nay, have even stayed at home two
days; but I think my eternity begins to bud again. I am quite of
Dr. Garth's mind, who, when any body commended a hard frost to
him, used to reply, "Yes, Sir, 'fore Gad, very fine weather, Sir,
very wholesome weather, Sir; kills trees, Sir; very good for man,
Sir." There has been cruel havoc among the ladies; my Lady Granby
is dead; and the famous Polly, Duchess of Bolton, and my Lady
Besborough. I have no great reason to lament the last, and yet
the circumstances of her death, and the horror of it to her
family, make one shudder. It was the same sore throat and fever
that carried off four of their children a few years ago. My lord
now fell ill of it, very ill, and the eldest daughter slightly:
my lady caught it, attending her husband, and concealed it as
long as she could. When at last the physician insisted on her
keeping her bed, she said, as she went into her room, "Then, Lord
have mercy on me! I shall never come out of it again," and died
in three days. Lord Besborough grew outrageously impatient at
not seeing her, and would have forced into her room, when she had
been dead about four days. They were obliged to tell him the
truth: never was an answer that expressed so much horror! he
said, "And how many children have I left?"not knowing how far
this calamity might have reached. Poor Lady Coventry is near
completing this black list.
You have heard, I suppose, a horrid story of another kind, of
Lord Ferrers murdering his steward in the most barbarous and
deliberate manner. He sent away all his servants but one, and,
like that heroic murderess Queen Christina, carried the poor man
through a gallery and several rooms, locking them after him, and
then bid the man kneel down, for he was determined to kill him.
The poor creature flung himself at his feet, but in vain; was
shot, and lived twelve hours. Mad as this action was from the
consequences, there was no frenzy in his behaviour; he got drunk,
and, at intervals, talked of it coolly; but did not attempt to
escape, till the colliers beset his house, and were determined to
take him alive or dead. He is now in the gaol at Leicester, and
will soon be removed to the Tower, then to Westminster Hall, and
I suppose to Tower Hill; unless, as Lord Talbot prophesied in the
House of Lords, "Not being thought mad enough to be shut up, till
he had killed somebody, he will then be thought too mad to be
executed;" but Lord Talbot was no more honoured in his vocation,
than other prophets are in their own country.
As you seem amused with my entertainments, I will tell you how I
passed yesterday. A party was made to go to the Magdalen-house.
We met at Northumberland-house at five, and set off in four
coaches. Prince Edward, Colonel Brudenel his groom, Lady
Northumberland, Lady Mary Coke, Lady Carlisle, Miss Pelham, Lady
Hertford, Lord Beauchamp, Lord Huntingdon. old Bowman, and I.
This new convent is beyond Goodman's-fields, and I assure you
would content any Catholic alive. We were received by--oh!
first, a vast mob, for princes are not so common at that end of
the town as at this. Lord Hertford, at the head of the governors
with their white staves, met us at the door, and led the Prince
directly into the chapel, where, before the altar, was an
arm-chair for him, with a blue damask cushion, a prie-Dieu, and a
footstool of black cloth with gold nails. We set on forms near
him. There were Lord and Lady Dartmouth in the odour of
devotion, and many city ladies. The chapel is small and low, but
neat, hung with Gothic paper, and tablets of benefactions. At
the west end were enclosed the sisterhood, above an hundred and
thirty, all in grayish brown stuffs, broad handkerchiefs, and
flat straw hats, with a blue riband, pulled quite over their
faces. As soon as we entered the chapel, the organ played, and
the Magdalens sung a hymn in parts; you cannot imagine how well,
The chapel was dressed with orange and myrtle, and there wanted
nothing but a little incense to drive away the devil-or to invite
him. Prayers then began, psalms, and a sermon: the latter by a
young clergyman, one Dodd,(22) who contributed to the Popish idea
one had imbibed, by haranguing entirely in the French style, and
very eloquently and touchingly. He apostrophized the lost sheep,
who sobbed and cried from their souls; so did my Lady Hertford
and Fanny Pelham, till I believe the city dames took them both
for Jane Shores. The confessor then turned to the audience, and
addressed himself to his Royal Highness, whom he called most
illustrious Prince, beseeching his protection. In short, it was
a very pleasing performance, and I got the most illustrious to
desire it might be printed. We had another hymn, and then were
conducted to the parloir, where the governors kissed the Prince's
hand, and then the lady abbess, or matron, brought us tea. From
thence we went to the refectory, where all the nuns, without
their hats, were ranged at long tables, ready for supper. A few
were handsome, many who seemed to have no title to their
profession, and two or three of twelve years old; but all
recovered, and looking healthy. I was struck and pleased with
the modesty of two of them, who swooned away with the confusion
of being stared at. We were then shown their work, which is
making linen, and bead-work; they earn ten pounds a-week. One
circumstance diverted me, but amidst all this decorum, I kept it
to myself. The wands of the governors are white, but twisted at
top with black and white, which put me in mind of Jacob's rods,
that he placed before the cattle to make them breed. My Lord
Hertford would never have forgiven me, if I had joked on this; so
I kept my countenance very demurely, nor even inquired, whether
among the pensioners there were any novices from Mrs. Naylor's.
The court-martial on Lord George Sackville is appointed: General
Onslow is to be Speaker of it. Adieu! till I see you; I am glad
it will be so soon.
(22) The unfortunate Dr. Dodd, who suffered at Tyburn, in June
1770, for forgery.-E.
Letter 12 To Sir David Dalrymple.(23)
Strawberry Hill, Feb. 3, 1760. (page 40)
I am much obliged to you, Sir! for the Irish poetry.(24) they
are poetry, and resemble that of the East; that is, they contain
natural images and natural sentiment elevated, before rules were
invented to make poetry difficult and dull. The transitions are
as sudden as those in Pindar, but not so libertine; for they
start into new thoughts on the subject, without wandering from
it.' I like particularly the expression of calling Echo, "Son of
the Rock." The Monody is much the best.
I (cannot say I am surprised to hear that the controversy on the
Queen of Scots is likely to continue. Did not somebody write a
defence of Nero, and yet none of his descendants remained to
pretend to the empire? If Dr. Robertson could have said more, I
am sorry it will be forced from him. He had better have said it
voluntarily. You will forgive me for thinking his subject did
not demand it. Among the very few objections to his charming
work, one was, that he seemed to excuse that Queen more than was
allowable, from the very papers he has printed in his Appendix;
and some have thought, that though he could not disculpate her,
he has diverted indignation from her, by his art in raising up
pity for her and resentment against her persecutress, and by much
overloading the demerits of Lord Darnley. For my part, Dr.
Mackenzie, or any body else, may write what they please against
me: I meaned to speak my mind, not to write controversy-trash
seldom read but by the two opponents who write it. Yet were I
inclined to reply, like Dr. Robertson, I could say a little more.
You have mentioned, Sir, Mr. Dyer's Fleece. I own I think it a
very insipid poem.(25) His Ruins of Rome had great picturesque
spirit, and his Grongar Hill was beautiful. His Fleece I could
never get through; and from thence I suppose never heard of Dr.
Mackenzie.
Your idea of a collection of ballads for the cause of liberty is
very public-spirited. I wish, Sir, I could say I thought it
would answer your view. Liberty, like other good and bad
principles, can never be taught the people but when it is taught
them by faction. The mob will never sing lilibullero but in
opposition to some other mob. However, if you pursue the
thought, there is an entire treasure of that kind in the library
of Maudlin College, Cambridge. It was collected by Pepys,
secretary of the admiralty, and dates from the battle of
Agincourt. Give me leave to say, Sir, that it is very
comfortable to me to find gentlemen of your virtue and parts
attentive to what is so little the object of public attention
now. The extinction of faction, that happiness to which we owe
so much of our glory and success, may not be without some
inconveniences. A free nation, perhaps, especially when arms are
become so essential to our existence as a free people, may want a
little opposition: as it is a check that has preserved us so
long, one cannot wholly think it dangerous; and though I would
not be one to tap new resistance to a government with which I
have no fault to find, yet it may not be unlucky hereafter, if
those who do not wish so well to it, would a little show
themselves. They are not strong enough to hurt; they may be of
service by keeping ministers in awe. But all this is
speculation, and flowed from the ideas excited in me by your
letter, that is full of benevolence both to public and private.
Adieu! Sir; believe that nobody has more esteem for you than is
raised by each letter.
(23) Now first collected.
(24) "Fragments of Ancient Poetry, collected in the Highlands of
Scotland, and translated from the Gaelic, or Erse Language," the
production of James Macpherson; the first presentation to the
world of that literary novelty, which was afterwards to excite so
much discussion and dissension in the literary world.-E.
(25) Dr. Johnson was pretty much of Walpole's opinion. "Of The
Fleece," he says, "which never became popular, and is now
universally neglected, I can say little that is likely to call it
to attention. The woolcomber and the poet appear to me such
discordant natures, that an attempt to bring them together is to
couple the serpent with the fowl."-E.
Letter 13 To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, Feb. 3, 1760 (page 41)
herculaneum is arrived; Caserta(26) is arrived: what magnificence
You Send me! My dear Sir, I can but thank you, and thank you--
oh! yes, I can do more; greedy creature, I can put you in mind,
that you must take care to send me the subsequent volumes of
Herculaneum as they appear, if ever they do appear, which I
suppose is doubtful now that King Carlos(27) is gone to Spain.
One thing pray observe, that I don't beg these scarce books of
you, as a bribe to spur me on to obtain for you your
extra-extraordinaries. Mr. Chute and I admire Caserta; and he at
least is no villanous judge of architecture; some of our English
travellers abuse it; but there are far from striking faults: the
general idea seems borrowed from Inigo Jones's Whitehall, though
without the glaring uglinesses, which I believe have been lent to
Inigo; those plans, I think, were supplied by Lord Burlington,
Kent, and others, to very imperfect sketches of the author. Is
Caserta finished and furnished? Were not the treasures of
Herculaneum to be deposited there?
I am in the vein of drawing upon your benevolence, and shall
proceed. Young Mr. Pitt,(28) nephew of the Pitt, is setting out
for Lisbon with Lord Kinnoul, and will proceed through Granada to
Italy, with his friend Lord Strathmore;(29) not the son, I
believe, of that poor mad Lady Strathmore(30) whom you remember
at Florence. The latter is much commended; I don't know him: Mr.
Pitt is not only a most ingenious Young man, but a most amiable
one: he has already acted in the most noble style-I don't mean
that he took a quarter of Quebec, or invaded a bit of France, or
has spoken in the House of Commons better than DemostheneS'S
nephew: but he has an odious father, and has insisted on glorious
cuttings off of entails on himself, that his father's debts might
be paid and his sisters provided for. My own lawyer,(31) who
knew nothing of my being acquainted with him, spoke to me of him
in raptures--no small merit in a lawyer to comprehend virtue in
cutting off an entail when it was not to cheat; but indeed this
lawyer was recommended to me by your dear brother --no wonder he
is honest. You will now conceive that a letter I have given Mr.
Pitt is not a mere matter of form, but an earnest suit to you to
know one you will like so much. I should indeed have given it
him, were it only to furnish you with an opportunity of
ingratiating yourself with Mr. Pitt's nephew: but I address him
to your heart. Well! but I have heard of another honest lawyer!
The famous Polly, Duchess of Bolton,(32) is dead, having, after a
life of merit, relapsed into her Pollyhood. Two years ago, at
Tunbridge, she picked up an Irish surgeon. When she was dying,
this fellow sent for a lawyer to make her will, but the man,
finding who was to be her heir, instead of her children, refused
to draw it. The Court of Chancery did furnish one other, not
quite so scrupulous, and her three sons have but a thousand
pounds apiece; the surgeon about nine thousand.
I think there is some glimmering of peace! God send the world
some repose from its woes! The King of Prussia has writ to
Belleisle to desire the King of France will make peace for him:
no injudicious step, as the distress of France will make them
glad to oblige him. We have no other news, but that Lord George
Sackville has at last obtained a court-martial. I doubt much
whether he will find his account in it. One thing I know I
dislike-a German aide-de-camp is to be an evidence! Lord George
has paid the highest compliment to Mr. Conway's virtue. Being
told, as an unlucky circumstance for him, that Mr. Conway was to
be one of his judges, (but It is not so,) he replied, there was
no man in England he should so soon desire of that number. And
it is no mere compliment, for Lord George has excepted against
another of them--but he knew whatever provocation he may have
given to Mr. Conway, whatever rivalship there has been between
them, nothing could bias the integrity of the latter. There is
going to be another court-martial on a mad Lord Charles Hay,(33)
who has foolishly demanded it; but it will not occupy the
attention of the world like Lord George's. There will soon be
another trial of another sort on another madman, an Earl Ferrers,
who has murdered his steward. He was separated by Parliament
from his wife, a very pretty woman, whom he married with no
fortune, for the most groundless barbarity, and now killed his
steward for having been evidence for her; but his story and
person are too wretched and despicable to give you the detail.
He will be dignified by a solemn trial in Westminster-hall.
Don't you like the impertinence of the Dutch? They have lately
had a mudquake, and giving themselves terrafirma airs, call it an
earthquake! Don't you like much more our noble national charity?
Above two thousand pounds has been raised in London alone,
besides what is collected in the country, for the French
prisoners, abandoned by their monarch. Must not it make the
Romans blush in their Appian-way, who dragged their prisoners in
triumph? What adds to this benevolence is, that we cannot
contribute to the subsistence of our own prisoners in France;
they conceal where they keep them, and use them cruelly to make
them enlist. We abound in great charities: the distress of war
seems to heighten rather than diminish them. There is a new one,
not quite so certain of its answering, erected for those wretched
women, called abroad les filles repenties. I was there the other
night, and fancied myself in a convent.
The Marquis of Buckingham and Earl Temple are to have the two
vacant garters to-morrow. Adieu!
Arlington Street, 6th.
I am this minute come to town, and find yours of Jan. 12. Pray,
my dear child, don't compliment me any more upon my learning;
there is nobody so superficial. Except a little history, a
little poetry, a little painting, and some divinity, I know
nothing. How should I? I, who have always lived in the big busy
world; who lie abed all the morning, calling it morning as long
as you please; who sup in company; who have played at pharaoh
half my life, and now at loo till two and three in the morning;
who have always loved pleasure haunted auctions--in short, who
don't know so much astronomy as would carry me to Knightsbridge,
nor more physic than a physician, nor in short any thing that is
called science. If it were not that I lay up a little provision
in summer, like the ant, I should be as ignorant as all the
people I live with. How I have LAUGHED when some of the
magazines have called me the learned gentleman! Pray don't be
like THE Magazines.
I see by your letter that you despair of peace; I almost do:
there is but a gruff sort of answer from the woman of' Russia
to-day in the papers; but how should there be peace? If We are
victorious, what is the King of Prussia? Will the distress of
France move the Queen of Hungary? When we do make peace, how few
will it content! The war was made for America, but the peace
will be made for Germany; and whatever geographers may pretend,
Crown-point lies somewhere in Westphalia. Again adieu! I don't
like your rheumatism, and much less your plague.
(26) Prints of the palace of Caserta.
(27) Don Carlos, King of Naples, who succeeded his half-brother
Ferdinand in the crown of Spain. An interesting picture of the
court of the King of the Two Sicilies at the time of his leaving
Naples, will be found in the Chatham Correspondence, in a letter
from Mr. Stanier Porten to Mr. Pitt. See vol. ii. p. 31.-E.
(28) Thomas, only son of Thomas Pitt of boconnock, eldest brother
of the famous William Pitt. [Afterwards Lord Camelford. (Gray,
in a letter to Dr. Wharton, of the 23d of January, says, "Mr.
Pitt (not the great, but the little one, my acquaintance) is
setting out on his travels. He goes with my Lord Kinnoul to
Lisbon; then (by sea still) to Cates; then up the Guadalquiver to
Seville and Cordova, and so perhaps to Toledo, but certainly to
Grenada; and, after breathing the perfumed air of Andalusia, and
contemplating the remains of Moorish magnificence, re-embarks at
Gibraltar or Malaga, and sails to Genoa. Sure an extraordinary
good way of passing a few winter months, and better than dragging
through Holland, Germany, and Switzerland, to the same place." A
copy of Mr. Thomas Pitt's manuscript Diary of his tour to Spain
and Portugal is in the possession of Mr. Bentley, the proprietor
of this Correspondence.-E.]
(29) John Lyon, ninth Earl of Strathmore. He married in 1767
Miss Bowes, the great heiress, whose disgraceful adventures are
so well known.-D.
(30) Lady Strathmore, rushing between her husband and a
gentleman, with whom he had quarrelled and was fighting, and
trying to hold the former, the other stabbed him in her -arms, on
which she went mad, though not enough to be confined.
(31) His name was Dagge.
(32) Miss Fenton, the first Polly of the Beggar's Opera. Charles
Duke of Bolton took her off the stage, had children by her, and
afterwards married her.
(33) Lord Charles Hay, brother of the Marquis of Tweedale.
Letter 14 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.
Strawberry Hill, February 4th, 1760. (page 44)
Sir,
I deferred answering your last, as I was in hopes of BEING able
to send you a SHEET or two of my new work, but I find so many
difficulties and so much darkness attending the beginning, that I
can scarce say I have begun. I can only say in general, that I
do not propose to go further back than I have sure footing; that
is, I shall commence with what Vertue had collected from our
records, which, with regard to painting, do not date before Henry
III.; and then from him there is a gap to Henry VII. I shall
supply that with a little chronology of intervening paintings,
THOUGH, hitherto, I can find none of the two first Edwards. From
Henry VIII. there will be a regular succession of painters, short
lives of whom I am enabled by Vertue's MSS. to write, and I shall
connect them historically. I by no means Mean to touch on
foreign Artists, unless they came over hither; but they are
essential, for we had scarce any others tolerable. I propose to
begin with the anecdotes of painting only, because, in that
branch, my materials are by far most considerable. If I shall be
able to publish this part, perhaps it may induce persons of
curiosity and knowledge to assist me in the darker parts of the
story touching our architects, statuaries, and engravers. But it
is from the same kind friendship which has assisted me so
liberally already, that I expect to draw most information; need I
specify, Sir, that I mean yours, when the various hints in your
last letter speak so plainly for me?
It is a pleasure to have any body one esteems agree with one's
own sentiments, as you do strongly with mine about Mr. Hurd.(34)
It is impossible not to own that he has sense and great
knowledge--but sure he is a most disagreeable writer! He loads
his thoughts with so many words, and those couched in so hard a
style, and so void of all veracity, that I have no patience to
read him. In one point. in the dialogues you mention, he is
perfectly ridiculous. He takes infinite pains to make the world
believe, upon his word, that they are the genuine productions of
the speakers, and yet does not give himself the least trouble to
counterfeit the style of any one of them. What was so easy as to
imitate Burnet? In his other work, the notes on Horace, he is
still more absurd. He cries up Warburton's preposterous notes on
Shakspeare, which would have died of their own folly, though Mr.
Edwards had not put them to death with the keenest wit in the
world.(35) But what signifies any sense, when it takes Warburton
for a pattern, who, with much greater parts, has not been able to
save himself from, or rather has affectedly involved himself in
numberless absurdities?--who proved Moses's legation by the sixth
book of Virgil;--a miracle (Julian's Earthquake), by proving it
was none;--and who explained a recent poet (Pope) by metaphysical
notes, ten times more obscure than the text! As if writing were
come to perfection, Warburton and Hurd are going back again; and
since commentators, obscurity, paradoxes, and visions have been
so long exploded, ay, and pedantry too, they seem to think that
they shall have merit by reviving what was happily forgotten -,
and yet these men have their followers, by that balance which
compensates to one for what he misses from another. When an
author writes clearly, he is imitated; and when obscurely, he is
admired. Adieu!
(34) Who died Bishop of Worcester in 1808. He was the author of
many works, most of which are now little read, although they had
a great vogue in their day. There is a great deal of justice in
Mr. Walpole's criticism of him and his patron.-C.
(35) In the "Canons of Criticism."--E.
Letter 15 To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Feb. 28, 1760. (page 45)
The next time you see Marshal Botta, and are to act King of Great
Britain, France, and Ireland, you must abate about an hundredth
thousandth part of the dignity of your crown. You are no more
monarch of all Ireland, than King O'Neil, or King Macdermoch is.
Louis XV. is sovereign of France, Navarre, and Carrickfergus.
You will be mistaken if you think the peace is made, and that we
cede this Hibernian town, in order to recover Minorca, or to keep
Quebec and Louisbourg. To be sure, it is natural you should
think so: how should so victorious and heroic nation cease to
enjoy any of its possessions, but to save Christian blood? Oh! I
know, you will suppose there has been another insurrection, and
that it is King John(36) of Bedford, and not King George of
Brunswick, that has lost this town. Why, I own you are a great
politician, and see things in a moment-and no wonder, considering
how long you have been employed in negotiations; but for once all
your sagacity is mistaken. Indeed, considering the total
destruction of the maritime force of France, and that the great
mechanics and mathematicians of this age have not invented a
flying bridge to fling over the sea and land from the coast of
France to the north of Ireland, it was not easy to conceive how
the French should conquer Carrickfergus--and yet they have. But
how I run on! not reflecting that by this time the old Pretender
must have hobbled through Florence on his way to Ireland, to take
possession of this scrap of his recovered domains; but I may as
well tell you at once, for to be sure you and the loyal body of
English in Tuscany will slip over all this exordium to come to
the account of so extraordinary a revolution. Well, here it is.
Last week Monsieur Thurot--oh! now you are au fait!--Monsieur
Thurot, as I was saying, landed last week in the isle of Islay,
the capital province belonging to a great Scotch King,(37) who is
so good as generally to pass the winter with his friends here in
London. Monsieur Thurot had three ships, the crews of which
burnt two ships belonging to King George, and a house belonging
to his friend the King of Argyll--pray don't mistake; by his
friend(38) I mein King George's, not Thurot's friend. When they
had finished this campaign, they sailed to Carrickfergus, a
poorish town, situated in the heart of the Protestant cantons.
They immediately made a moderate demand of about twenty articles
of provisions, promising to pay for them; for you know it is the
way of modern invasions(39) to make them cost as much as possible
to oneself, and as little to those one invades. If this was not
complied with, they threatened to burn the town, and then march
to Belfast, which is much richer. We were sensible of this civil
proceedings and not to be behindhand, agreed to it; but somehow
or other this capitulation was broken; on which a detachment (the
whole invasion consists of one thousand men) attack the place.
We shut the gates, but after the battle of Quebec it is
impossible that so great a people should attend to such trifles
as locks and bolts, accordingly there were none--and as if there
were no gates neither, the two armies fired through them--if this
is a blunder, remember I am describing an Irish war. I forgot to
give you the numbers of the Irish army. It consisted but Of
seventy-two, under lieut.-colonel Jennings, a wonderful brave
man--too brave, in short, to be very judicious. Unluckily our
ammunition was soon spent, for it is not above a year that there
have been any apprehensions for Ireland, and as all that part of
the country are most protestantly loyal, it was not thought
necessary to arm people who would fight till they die for their
religion. When the artillery was silenced, the garrison thought
the best way of saving the town was by flinging it at the heads
of the besiegers; accordingly they poured volleys of brickbats at
the French, whose commander, Monsieur Flobert, was mortally
knocked down, and his troops began to give way. However, General
Jennings thought it most prudent to retreat to the castle, and
the French again advanced. Four or five raw recruits still
bravely kept the gates, when the garrison, finding no more
gunpowder in the castle than they had had in the town, and not
near so good a brick-kiln, sent to desire to surrender. General
Thurot accordingly made them prisoners of war, and plundered the
town.
END OF THE SIEGE OF CARRICKFERGUS.
You will perhaps ask what preparations have been made to recover
this loss. The, viceroy immediately despatched General
Fitzwilliam with four regiments of foot and three of horse
against the invaders, appointing to overtake them in person at
Newry; but -@is I believe he left Bladen's Caesar, and Bland's
Military Discipline behind him in England, which he used to study
in the camp at Blandford, I fear he will not have his campaign
equipage ready soon enough. My Lord Anson too has sent nine
ships, though indeed he does not think they will arrive time
enough. Your part, my dear Sir, will be very easy: you will only
have to say that it is nothing, while it lasts; and the moment it
is over, you must say it was an embarkation of ten thousand men.
I will punctually let you know how to vary your dialect. Mr.
Pitt is in bed very ill with the gout.
Lord George Sackville was put under arrest to-day. His trial
comes on to-morrow, but I believe will be postponed, as the
court-martial will consult the judges, whether a man who is not
in the army, may be tried as an officer. The judges will answer
yes, for how can a point that is not common sense, not be common
law!
Lord Ferrers is in the Tower; so you see the good-natured people
of England will not want their favourite amusement, executions-
-not to mention, that it will be very hard if the Irish war don't
furnish some little diversion.
My Lord Northampton frequently asks me about you. Oh! I had
forgot, there is a dreadful Mr. Dering come over, who to show
that he has not been spoiled by his travels, got drunk the first
day he appeared, and put me horridly out of countenance about my
correspondence with you--for mercy's sake take care how you
communicate my letters to such cubs. I will send you no more
invasions, if you read them to bears and bear-leaders.
Seriously, my dear child, I don't mean to reprove you; I know
your partiality to me, and your unbounded benignity to every
thing English; but I sweat sometimes, when I find that I have
been corresponding for two or three months with young Derings.
For clerks and postmasters, I can't help it, and besides, they
never tell one they have seen One's letters; but I beg you will
at most tell them my news, but without my name, or my words.
Adieu! If I bridle you, believe that I know that it is only your
heart that runs away with you.
(36) John Duke of Bedford, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
(37) Archibald Earl of Islay and Duke of Argyle.
(38) The Duke of argyle had been suspected of temporizing in the
last rebellion.
(39) Alluding to our expensive invasions on the coast of France.
Letter 16 To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, March 4, 1760. (page 48)
never was any romance of such short duration as Monsieur
Thurot's! Instead of the waiting for the viceroy's army, and
staying to see whether it had any ammunition, or was only armed
with brickbats `a la Carrickfergienne, he re-embarked on the
28th, taking along with him the mayor and three others--I
suppose, as proofs of his conquest. The Duke of Bedford had sent
notice of' the invasion to Kinsale, where lay three or four of
our best frigates. They instantly sailed, and came up with the
flying invaders in the Irish Channel. You will see the short
detail of the action in the Gazette; but, as the letter was
written by Captain Elliot himself, you will not see there, that
he with half the number of Thurot's crew, boarded the latter's
vessel. Thurot was killed, and his pigmy navy all taken and
carried into the Isle of Man. It is an entertaining episode; but
think what would have happened, if the whole of the plan had
taken place -it the destined time. The negligence of the Duke of
Bedford's administration has appeared so gross, that one may
believe his very kingdom would have been lost, if Conflans had
not been beat. You will see, by the deposition of Ensign hall,
published in all our papers, that the account of the siege of
Carrickfergus, which I sent you in my last, was not half so
ridiculous as the reality--because, as that deponent said, I was
furnished with no papers but my memory. The General Flobert, I
am told, you may remember at Florence; he was then very mad, and
was to have fought Mallet.--but was banished from Tuscany. Some
years since he was in England; and met Mallet at lord
Chesterfield's, but without acknowledging one another. The next
day Flobert asked the Earl if Mallet had mentioned him?--No-"Il a
donc," said Flobert, "beaucoup de retenue, car surement ce qu'il
pourroit dire de moi, ne seroit pas `a mon avantage."--it was
pretty, and they say he is now grown an agreeable and rational
man.
The judges have given their opinion that the court-martial on
lord George Sackville is legal; so I suppose it will proceed on
Thursday.
I receive yours of the 16th of last month: I wish you had given
me any account of your headaches that I could show to Ward. He
will no more comprehend nervous, than the physicians do who use
the word. Send me an exact description; if he can do you no
good, at least it will be a satisfaction to me to have consulted
him. I wish, my dear child, that what you say at the end of your
letter, of appointments and honours, was not as chronical as your
headaches-that is a thing you may long complain of-indeed there I
can consult nobody. I have no dealings with either our
state-doctors or statequacks. I only know that the political
ones are so like the medicinal ones, that after the doctors had
talked nonsense for years, while we daily grew worse, the quacks
ventured boldly, and have done us wonderful good. I should not
dislike to have you state your case to the latter, though I
cannot advise it, for the regular physicians are daintily
jealous; nor could I carry it, for when they know I would take
none of their medicines myself, they would not much attend to me
consulting them for others, nor would it be decent, nor should I
care to be seen in their shop. Adieu!
P. S. There are some big news from the East Indies. I don't know
what, except that the hero Clive has taken Mazulipatam and the
Great Mogul's grandmother. I suppose she will be brought over
and put in the Tower with the Shahgoest, the strange Indian beast
that Mr. Pitt gave to the King this winter.
.Letter 17 To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, March 26, 1760. (page 49)
I have a good mind to have Mr. Sisson tried by a court-martial,
in order to clear my own character for punctuality. It is time
immemorial since he promised me the machine and the drawing in
six weeks. After above half of time immemorial was elapsed, he
came and begged for ten guineas. Your brother and I called one
another to a council of war, and at last gave it him nemine
contradicente. The moment your hurrying letter arrived, I issued
out a warrant and took Sisson up, who, after all his promises,
was guilty by his own confession, of not having begun the
drawing. However, after scolding him black and blue, I have got
it from him, have consigned it to your brother James, and you
will receive it, I trust, along With this. I hope too time
enough for the purposes it is to serve, and correct; if it is
not, I shall be very sorry. You shall have the machine as soon
as possible, but that must go by sea.
I shall execute your commission about Stoschino(40) much better;
he need not fear my receiving him well, if he has virt`u to
sell,--I am only afraid, in that case, of receiving him too well.
You know what a dupe I am when I like any thing.
I shall handle your brother James as roughly as I did Sisson--six
months without writing to you! Sure he must turn black in the
face, if he has a drop of brotherly ink in his veins. As to your
other brother,(41) he is so strange a man, that is, so common a
one;, that I am not surprised at any thing he does or does not
do.
Bless your stars that you are not here, to be worn out with the
details of lord George's court-martial! One hears of nothing
else. It has already lasted much longer than could be conceived,
and now the end of it is still at a tolerable distance. The
colour of it is more favourable for him than it looked at first.
Prince Ferdinand's narrative has proved to set out with a heap of
lies. There is an old gentleman(42) of the same family who has
spared no indecency to give weight to them--but, you know,
general officers are men of strict honour, and nothing can bias
them. Lord Charles Hay's court-martial is dissolved, by the
death of one of the members--and as no German interest is
concerned to ruin him, it probably will not be re-assumed. Lord
Ferrers's trial is fixed for the 16th of next month. Adieu!
P. S. Don't mention it from me, but if you have a mind you may
make your court to my Lady Orford, by announcing the ancient
barony of Clinton, which is fallen to her, by the death of the
last incumbentess.(43)
(40) Nephew of Baron Stosch, a well-known virtuoso and antiquary,
who died at Florence.
(41) Edward Louisa Mann, the eldest brother.
(42) George the Second.
(43) Mrs. Fortescue, sister of Hugh last Lord Clinton.
Letter 18 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, March 27, 1760. (page 50)
I should have thought that you might have learnt by this time,
that when a tradesman promises any thing on Monday, Or Saturday,
or any particular day of the week, he means any Monday or any
Saturday of any week, as nurses quiet children and their own
consciences by the refined salvo of to-morrow is a new day. When
Mr. Smith's Saturday and the frame do arrive, I will pay the one
and send you the other.
Lord George's trial is not near being finished. By its draggling
beyond the term of the old Mutiny-bill, they were forced to make
out a new warrant: this lost two days, as all the depositions
were forced to be read over again to, and resworn by, the
witnesses; then there will be a contest, whether Sloper(44) shall
re-establish his own credit by pawning it farther. Lord Ferrers
comes on the stage on the sixteenth of next month.
I breakfasted the day before yesterday at Elia laelia
Chudleigh's. There was a concert for Prince Edward's birthday,
and at three, a vast cold collation, and all the town. The house
is not fine, nor in good taste, but loaded with finery.
Execrable varnished pictures, chests, cabinets, commodes, tables,
stands, boxes, riding on One another's backs, and loaded with
terrenes, filigree, figures, and every thing upon earth. Every
favour she has bestowed is registered by a bit of Dresden china.
There is a glass-case full of enamels, eggs, ambers, lapis
lazuli, cameos, toothpick-cases, and all kinds of trinkets,
things that she told me were her playthings; another cupboard,
full of the finest japan, and candlesticks and vases of rock
crystal, ready to be thrown down, in every corner. But of all
curiosities, are the conveniences in every bedchamber: great
mahogany projections, with brass handles, cocks, etc. I could
not help saying, it was the loosest family I ever saw. Adieu!
(44) Lieutenant-colonel Sloper, of Bland's dragoons.
Letter 19 To Sir. David Dalrymple.(45)
Strawberry Hill, April 4, 1760. (page 51)
Sir,
As I have very little at present to trouble you with myself, I
should have deferred writing, till a better opportunity, if it
were not to satisfy the curiosity of a friend; a friend whom you,
Sir, will be glad to have made curious, as you originally pointed
him out as a likely person to be charmed with the old Irish
poetry you sent me. It is Mr. Gray, who is an enthusiast about
those poems, and begs me to put the following queries to you;
which I will do in his own words, and I may say truly, Poeta
loquitur.
"I am so charmed with the two specimens of Erse poetry, that I
cannot help giving you the trouble to inquire a little farther
about them, and should wish to see a few lines of the original,
that I may form some slight idea of the language, the measure,
and the rhythm.
"Is there any thing known of the author or authors, and of what
antiquity are they supposed to be?
"Is there any more to be had of equal beauty, or at all
approaching to it?
"I have been often told, that the poem called Hardykanute (which
I always admired and still admire) was the work of somebody that
lived a few years ago.(46) This I do not at all believe, though
it has evidently been retouched in places by some modern hand;
but, however, I am authorized by this report to ask, whether the
two poems in question are certainly antique and genuine. I make
this inquiry in quality of an antiquary, and am not otherwise
concerned about it; for if I were sure that any one now living in
Scotland had written them, to divert himself and laugh at the
credulity of the world, I would undertake a journey into the
Highlands only for the pleasure of seeing him."
You see, Sir, how easily you may make our greatest southern bard
travel northward to visit a brother. young translator had
nothing to do but to own a forgery, and Mr. Gray is ready to pack
up his lyre, saddle Pegasus, and set out directly. But
seriously, he,' Mr. Mason, my Lord Lyttelton, and one or two
more, whose taste the world allows, are in love with your Erse
elegies - I cannot say in general they are so much admired--but
Mr. Gray alone is worth satisfying.
The "Siege of Aquileia," of which you ask, pleased less than Mr.
Home's other plays.(47) In my own opinion, Douglas far exceeds
both the other. Mr. Home seems to have a beautiful talent for
painting genuine nature and the manners of his country. There
was so little nature in the manners of both Greeks and Romans,
that I do not wonder at his success being less brilliant when he
tried those subjects; and, to say the truth, one is a little
weary of them. At present, nothing is talked of, nothing
admired, but what I cannot help calling a very insipid and
tedious performance: it is a kind Of novel, called "The Life and
Opinions of Tristram Shandy;" the great humour of which consists
in the whole narration always going backwards. I cannot conceive
a man saying that it would be droll to write a book in that
manner, but have no notion of his persevering in executing it.
It makes one smile two or three times at the beginnings but in
recompense makes one yawn for two hours. The characters are
tolerably kept up, but the humour is for ever attempted and
missed. The best thing in it is a Sermon, oddly coupled with a
good deal of bawdy, and both the composition of a clergyman. The
man's head, indeed, was a little turned before, now topsy-turvy
with his success and fame.(48) Dodsley has given him six hundred
and fifty pounds for the second edition and two more volumes
(which I suppose will reach backwards to his
great-great-grandfather); Lord Falconberg, a donative of one
hundred and sixty pounds a-year; and Bishop Warburton gave him a
purse of gold and this compliment (which happened to be a
contradiction), "that it was quite an original composition, and
in the true Cervantic vein:" the only copy that ever was an
original, except in painting, where they all pretend to be so.
Warburton, however, not content with this, recommended the book
to the bench of bishops, and told them Mr. Sterne, the author,
was the English Rabelais. They had never heard of such a writer.
Adieu!
(45) Now first collected.
(46) It was written by Mrs. Halket of Wardlaw. Mr. Lockhart
stated, that on the blank leaf of his copy of Allan Ramsay's
"Evergreen," Sir Walter Scott has written "Hardyknute was the
first poem that I ever learnt, the last that I shall forget."-E.
(47) It came out at Drury-Lane, but met with small success.-E.
(48) Gray, in a letter to Wharton, of the 22d of April, says,
"Tristram Shandy is an object of admiration, the man as well as
the book. One is invited to dinner, where he dines, a fortnight
beforehand. His portrait is done by Reynolds, and now
engraving." He adds, in another letter, "There is much good fun
in Tristram, and humour sometimes hit and sometimes missed. Have
you read his Sermons (with his own comic figure at the head of
them)? They are in the style, I think, most proper for the
pulpit, and show a very strong imagination and a sensible heart:
but you see him often tottering on the verge of laughter, and
ready to throw his periwig in the face of his audience."-E.
Letter 20 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, April 19, 1760. (page 52)
Well, this big week is over! Lord George's sentence, after all
the communications of how terrible it was, is ended in
proclaiming him unfit for the King's service. Very moderate, in
comparison of what was intended and desired, and truly not very
severe, considering what was proved. The other trial, Lord
Ferrers's, lasted three days. You have seen the pomp and
awfulness of such doings, so I will not describe it to you. The
judge and criminal were far inferior to those you have seen. For
the Lord High Steward(49) he neither had any dignity nor affected
any; nay, he held it all so cheap, that he said at his own table
t'other day, "I will not send for Garrick and learn to act a
part." At first I thought Lord Ferrers shocked, but in general
he behaved rationally and coolly; though it was a strange
contradiction to see a man trying by his own sense, to prove
himself out of his senses. It was more shocking to see his two
brothers brought to prove the lunacy in their own blood; in order
to save their brother's life. Both are almost as ill-looking men
as the Earl; one of them is a clergyman, suspended by the Bishop
of London for being a Methodist; the other a wild vagabond, whom
they call in the country, ragged and dangerous. After Lord
Ferrers was condemned, he made an excuse for pleading madness, to
which he said he was forced by his family. He is respited till
Monday-fortnight, and will then be hanged, I believe in the
Tower; and, to the mortification of the peerage, is to be
anatomized, conformably to the late act for murder. Many peers
were absent; Lord Foley and Lord Jersey attended only the first
day; and Lord Huntingdon, and my nephew Orford (in compliment to
his mother), as related to the prisoner, withdrew without voting.
But never was a criminal more literally tried by his peers, for
the three persons, who interested themselves most in the
examination, were at least as mad as he; Lord Ravensworth, Lord
Talbot, and Lord Fortescue. Indeed, the first was almost
frantic. The seats of the peeresses were not near full, and most
of the beauties absent; the Duchess of Hamilton and my niece
Waldegrave, you know, lie in; but, to the amazement of every
body, Lady Coventry was there; and what surprised me much more,
looked as well as ever. I sat next but one to her, and should
not have asked if she had been ill--yet they are positive she has
few weeks to live. She and Lord Bolingbroke seemed to have
different thoughts, and were acting over all the old comedy of
eyes. I sat in Lord Lincoln's gallery; you and I know the
convenience of it; I thought it no great favour to ask, and he
very obligingly sent me a ticket immediately, and ordered me to
be placed in one of the best boxes. Lady Augusta was in the same
gallery; the Duke of York and his young brothers were in the
Prince of Wales's box, who was not there, no more than the
Princess, Princess Emily, nor the Duke. It was an agreeable
humanity in my friend--the Duke of York; he would not take his
seat in the House before the trial, that he might not vote in it.
There are so many young peers, that the show was fine even in
that respect; the Duke of Richmond was the finest figure; the
Duke of Marlborough, with the best countenance in the world,
looked clumsy in his robes; he had new ones, having given away
his father's to the valet de chambre. There were others not at
all so indifferent about the antiquity of theirs; Lord
Huntingdon's, Lord Abergavenny's, and Lord Castlehaven's scarcely
hung on their backs; the former they pretend were used at the
trial of the Queen of Scots. But all these honours were a little
defaced by seeing Lord Temple, as lord privy seal, walk at the
head of the peerage. Who, at the last trials, would have
believed a prophecy, that the three first men at the next should
be Henley the lawyer, Bishop Secker, and Dick Grenville.
The day before the trial, the Duke of Bolton fought a duel at
Marylebone with Stewart who lately stood for Hampshire; the
latter was wounded in the arm, and the former fell down.(50)
Adieu!
(49) Robert Henley, afterwards Earl of Northington.-E.
(50) "Here has just been a duel between the Duke of Bolton and
Mr. Stewart, a candidate for the county of Hampshire at the late
election: what the quarrel was I do not know; but, they met near
Marylebone, and the Duke, in making a pass, overreached himself,
fell down, and hurt his knee. The other bid him get up, but he
could not; then he bid him ask his life, but he would not; so he
let him alone, and that's all. Mr. Stewart was slightly
wounded." Gray, vol. iii. p. 238.-E.
Letter 21 To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, April 20, 1760. (page 54)
The history of Lord George Sackville, which has interested us so
much and so long, is at last at an end-,gently enough,
considering who were his parties, and what has been proved. He
is declared unfit to serve the King in a military capacity-but I
think this is not the last we shall hear of Whatever were his
deficiencies in the day of battle, he has at least showed no want
of spirit, either in pushing on his trial or during it. His
judgment in both was perhaps a little more equivocal. He had a
formal message that he must abide the event whatever it should
be. He accepted that issue, and during the course of the
examination, attacked judge, prosecutor and evidence. Indeed, a
man cannot be said to want spirit, who could show so much in his
circumstances.(51) I think, without much heroism, I could sooner
have led up the cavalry to the charge, than have gone to
Whitehall to be worried as he was; nay, I should have thought
with less danger of my life. But he is a peculiar man; and I
repeat it, we have hot heard the last of him. You will find that
by serving the King he understands in a very literal sense; and
there is a young gentleman(52) who it is believed intends those
words shall not have a more extensive one.
We have had another trial this week, still more solemn, though
less interesting, and with more serious determination: I mean
that of Lord Ferrers. I have formerly described this solemnity
to you. The behaviour, character, and appearance of the
criminal, by no means corresponded to the dignity of the show.
His figure is bad and villanous, his crime shocking. He would
not plead guilty, and yet had nothing to plead; and at last to
humour his family, pleaded madness against his inclination: it
was moving to see two of his brothers brought to depose the
lunacy in their blood. After he was condemned, he excused
himself for having used that plea. He is to be hanged in a
fortnight, I believe, in the Tower, and his body to be delivered
to the surgeons, according to the tenour of the new act of
parliament for murder. His mother was to present a petition for
his life to the King to-day. There were near an hundred and
forty peers present; my Lord Keeper was lord high steward, but
was not at all too dignified a personage to sit on such a
criminal: indeed he gave himself no trouble to figure. I will
send you both trials as soon as they are published. It is
astonishing with what order these shows are conducted. Neither
within the hall nor without was there the least disturbance,(53)
though the one so full, and the whole way from Charing-cross to
the House of Lords was lined with crowds. The foreigners were
struck with the awfulness of the proceeding-it is new to their
ideas, to see such deliberate justice, and such dignity of
nobility, mixed with no respect for birth in the catastrophe, and
still more humiliated by anatomizing the criminal.
I am glad you received safe my history of Thurot: as the accounts
were authentic, they must have been useful and amusing to you. I
don't expect more invasions, but I fear our correspondence will
still have martial events to trade in, though there are such
Christian professions going about the world. I don't believe
their Pacific Majesties will waive a campaign, for which they are
all prepared, and by the issue of which they will all hope to
improve their terms.
You know we have got a new Duke of York(54) and were to have had
several new peers, but hitherto it has stopped at him and the
lord keeper. Adieu!
P. S. I must not forget to recommend to you a friend of Mr.
Chute, who will ere long be at Florence, in his way to Naples for
his health. It is Mr. Morrice, clerk of the green cloth, heir of
Sir William Morrice, and of vast wealth. I gave a letter lately
for a young gentleman whom I never saw, and consequently not
meaning to incumber you with him, I did not mention him
particularly in my familiar letters.
(51) Gray, in a letter of the 22d, gives the following account of
the result of this trial. "The old Pundles that sat on Lord
George Sackville have at last hammered out their sentence. He is
declared disobedient, and unfit for all military command. What
he will do with himself, nobody guesses. The unembarrassed
countenance, the looks of revenge, contempt, and superiority that
he bestowed on his accusers were the admiration of all, but his
usual talent and art did not appear; in short, his cause would
not support him. You may think, perhaps, he intends to go abroad
and hide his head; au contraire, all the world visits him on his
condemnation." Works, vol. iii. p. 239.-E.
(52) George Prince of Wales.
(53) "I was not present," says Gray, "but Mason was in the Duke
of Ancaster's gallery. and in the greatest danger; for the cell
underneath him (to which the prisoner retires) was on fire during
the trial, and the Duke, with the workmen, by sawing away some
timbers, and other assistance, contrived to put it out without
any alarm to the Court." Works, vol. iii. p. 240.-E.
(54) Prince Edward, second son of Frederic Prince of Wales.-D.
Letter 22 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.
Strawberry Hill, May 3, 1760. (page 55)
Indeed, Sir, you have been misinformed; I had not the least hand
in the answer to my Lord Bath's Rhapsody: it is true the
booksellers sold it as mine, and it was believed so till people
had 'read it, because my name and that of Pulteney had been apt
to answer one another, and because that war was dirtily revived
by the latter in his libel; but the deceit soon vanished; the
answer a appeared to have much more knowledge of the subject than
I have, and a good deal more temper than I should probably have
exerted, if I had thought it worth while to proceed to an answer;
but though my Lord Bath is unwilling to enter lists in which he
has suffered so much shame, I am by no means fond of entering
them; nor was there any honour to be acquired, either from the
contest or the combatant.
My history of artists proceeds very leisurely; I find the subject
dry and uninteresting, and the materials scarce worth arranging:
yet I think I shall execute my purpose, at least as far as
relates to painters. It is a work I can scribble at any time,
and on which I shall bestow little pains; things that are so soon
forgotten should not take one up too much. I had consulted Mr.
Lethinkai, who told me he had communicated to Mr. Vertue what
observations he had made. I believe they were scanty, for I find
small materials relating to architects among his manuscripts.
Adieu!
Letter 23 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, May 6, 1760. (page 56)
The extraordinary history of Lord Ferrers is closed: he was
executed yesterday. Madness, that in other countries is a
disorder, is here a systematic character; it does not hinder
people from forming a plan of conduct, and from even dying
agreeably to it. You remember how the last Ratcliffe died with
the utmost propriety; so did this horrid lunatic, coolly and
sensibly. His own and his wife's relations had asserted that he
would tremble at last. No such thing; he shamed heroes. He bore
the solemnity of a pompous and tedious procession of above two
hours, from the Tower to Tyburn, with as much tranquillity as if
he was only going to his own burial, not to his own execution.
He even talked on indifferent subjects in the passage; and if the
sheriff and the chaplains had not thought that they had parts to
act, too, and had not consequently engaged him in most particular
conversation, he did not seem to think it necessary to talk on
the occasion; he went in his wedding-clothes, marking the only
remaining impression on -his mind. The ceremony he was in a
hurry to have over: he was stopped at the gallows by the vast
crowd, but got out of his coach as soon as he could, and was but
seven minutes on the scaffold, which was hung with black, and
prepared by the undertaker of his family at their expense. There
was a new contrivance for sinking the stage under him, which did
not play well; and he suffered a little by the delay, but was
dead in four minutes. The mob was decent, and admired him, and
almost pitied him; so they would Lord George, whose execution
they are so angry at missing. I suppose every highwayman will
now preserve the blue handkerchief he has about his neck when he
is married, that he may die like a lord. With all his madness,
he was not mad enough to be struck with his aunt Huntingdon's
sermons. The Methodists have nothing to brag of his conversion,
though Whitfield prayed for him and preached about him. Even
Tyburn has been above their reach. I have not heard that Lady
Fanny dabbled with his soul; but I believe she is prudent enough
to confine her missionary zeal to subjects where the body may be
her perquisite.
When am I likely to see you? The delightful rain is come--we look
and smell charmingly. Adieu!
Letter 24 To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, May 7, 1760. (page 57)
What will your Italians say to a peer of England, an earl of one
of the best of families, tried for murdering his servant, with
the utmost dignity and solemnity, and then hanged at the common
place of execution for highwaymen, and afterwards anatomized?
This must seem a little odd to them, especially as they have not
lately had a Sixtus Quinttis. I have hitherto spoken of Lord
Ferrers to you as a mad beast, a mad assassin, a low wretch,
about whom I had no curiosity. If I now am going to give you a
minute account of him, don't think me so far part of an English
mob, as to fall in love with a criminal merely because I have had
the pleasure of his execution. I certainly did not see it, nor
should have been struck with more intrepidity--I never adored
heroes, whether in a cart or a triumphal car--but there has been
Such wonderful coolness and sense in all this man's last
behaviour, that it has made me quite inquisitive about him --not
at all pity him. I only reflect, what I have often thought, how
little connexion there is between any man's sense and his
sensibility--so much so, that instead of Lord Ferrers having any
ascendant over his passions, I am disposed to think, that his
drunkenness, which was supposed to heighten his ferocity, has
rather been a lucky circumstance-what might not a creature of
such capacity, and who stuck at nothing, have done, if his
abilities had not been drowned in brandy? I will go back a little
into his history. His misfortunes, as he called them, were dated
from his marriage, though he has been guilty of horrid excesses
unconnected with Matrimony, and is even believed to have killed a
groom -,,,he died a year after receiving a cruel beating from
him. His wife, a very pretty woman, was sister of Sir William
Meredith,(55) had no fortune, and he says, trepanned him into
marriage, having met him drunk at an assembly in the country, and
kept him so till the ceremony was over. As he always kept
himself so afterwards, one need not impute it to her. In every
other respect, and one scarce knows how to blame her for wishing
to be a countess, her behaviour was unexceptionable.(56) He had
a mistress before and two or three children, and her he took
again after the separation from his wife. He was fond of both
and used both ill: his wife so ill, always carrying pistols to
bed, and threatening to kill her before morning, beating her, and
jealous without provocation, that she got separated from him by
act of Parliament, which appointed receivers of his estate in
order to secure her allowance. This he could not bear. However,
he named his steward for one, but afterwards finding out that
this Johnson had paid her fifty pounds without his knowledge, and
suspecting him of being in the confederacy against him, he
determined, when he failed of opportunities of murdering his
wife, to kill the steward, which he effected as you have heard.
The shocking circumstances attending the murder, I did not tell
you-indeed, while he was alive, I scarce liked to speak my
opinion even to you; for though I felt nothing for him, I thought
it wrong to propagate any notions that might interfere with
mercy, if he could be then thought deserving it--and not knowing
into what hands my letter might pass before it reached yours, I
chose to be silent, though nobody could conceive greater horror
than I did for him at his trial. Having shot the steward at
three in the afternoon, he persecuted him till one in the
morning, threatening again to murder him, attempting to tear off
his bandages, and terrifying him till in that misery he was glad
to obtain leave to be removed to his own house; and when the earl
heard the poor creature was dead, he said he gloried in having
killed him. You cannot conceive the shock this evidence gave the
court-many of the lords were standing to look at him-at once they
turned from him with detestation. I had heard that on the former
affair in the House of Lords, he had behaved with great
shrewdness--no such thing appeared at his trial. It is now
pretended, that his being forced by his family against his
inclination to plead madness, prevented his exerting his parts-
-but he has not acted in any thing as if his family had influence
over him--consequently his reverting to much good sense leaves
the whole inexplicable. The very night he received sentence, he
played at picquet with the warders and would play for money, and
would have continued to play every evening, but they refuse.
Lord Cornwallis, governor of the Tower, shortened his allowance
of wine after his conviction, agreeably to the late strict acts
on murder. This he much disliked, and at last pressed his
brother the clergyman to intercede that at least he might have
more porter; for, said he, what I have is not a draught. His
brother represented against it, but at last consenting (and he
did obtain it)--then said the earl, "Now is as good a time as any
to take leave of you--adieu!" A minute journal of his whole
behaviour has been kept, to see if there was any madness in it.
Dr. Munro since the trial has made -,in affidavit of his lunacy.
The Washingtons were certainly a very frantic race, and I have no
doubt of madness in him, but not of a pardonable sort. Two
petitions from his mother and all his family were presented to
the King, who said, as the House of Lords had unanimously found
him guilty, he would not interfere. Last week my lord keeper
very good-naturedly got out of a gouty bed to present another:
the King would not hear him. "Sir," said the keeper, "I don't
come to petition for mercy or respite; but that the four thousand
pounds which Lord Ferrers has in India bonds may be permitted to
go according to his disposition of it to his mistress' children,
and the family of the murdered man." "With all my heart," said
the King, "I have no objection; but I will have no message
carried to him from me." However, this grace was notified to him
and gave him great satisfaction: but unfortunately it now appears
to be law, that it is forfeited to the sheriff of the county
where the fact was committed; though when my Lord Hardwicke was
told that he had disposed of it, he said, to be sure he may
before conviction.
Dr. Pearce, Bishop of Rochester,(57) offered his service to him:
he thanked the Bishop, but said, as his own brother was a
clergyman, he chose to have him. Yet he had another relation who
has been much more busy about his repentance. I don't know
whether you have ever heard that one of the singular characters
here is a Countess of Huntingdon,(58) aunt of Lord Ferrers. She
is the Saint Theresa of the Methodists. Judge how violent
bigotry must be in such mad blood! The Earl, by no means
disposed to be a convert, let her visit him, and often sent for
her, as it was more company; but he grew sick of her, and
complained that she was enough to provoke any body. She made her
suffragan, Whitfield, pray for and preach about him, and that
impertinent fellow told his enthusiasts in his sermon, that my
Lord's heart was stone. The earl wanted much to see his
mistress: my Lord Cornwallis, as simple an old woman as my Lady
Huntingdon herself, consulted her whether he should permit it.
"Oh! by no means; it would be letting him die in adultery!" In
one thing she was more sensible. He resolved not to take leave
of his children, four girls, but on the scaffold, and then to
read to them a paper he had drawn up, very bitter on the family
of Meredith, and on the House of Lords for -the first
transaction. This my Lady Huntingdon persuaded him to drop, and
he took leave of his children the day before. He wrote two
letters in the preceding week to Lord Cornwallis on some of these
requests - they were cool and rational, and concluded with
desiring him not to mind the absurd requests of his (Lord
Ferrers's) family in his behalf. On the last morning he dressed
himself in his wedding clothes, and said, he thought this, at
least, as good an occasion of putting them on as that for which
they were first made. He wore them to Tyburn. This marked the
strong impression on his mind. His mother wrote to his wife in a
weak angry Style, telling her to intercede for him as her duty,
and to swear to his madness. But this was not so easy; in all
her cause before the lords, she had persisted that he was not
mad.
Sir William Meredith, and even Lady Huntingdon had prophesied
that his courage would fail him at last, and had so much
foundation, that it is certain Lord Ferrers had often been beat:-
-but the Methodists were to get no honour by him. His courage
rose where it was most likely to fail,-an unlucky circumstance to
prophets, especially when they have had the prudence to have all
kind of probability on their side. Even an awful procession of
above two hours, with that mixture of pageantry, shame, and
ignominy, nay, and of delay, could not dismount his resolution.
He set out from the Tower at nine, amidst crowds, thousands.
First went a string of constables; then one of the sheriffs, in
his chariot and six, the horses dressed with ribands; next Lord
Ferrers, in his own landau and six, his coachman crying all the
way; guards at each side; the other sheriffs chariot followed
empty, with a mourning coach-and-six, a hearse, and the Horse
Guards. Observe, that the empty chariot was that of the other
sheriff, who was in the coach with the prisoner, and who was
Vaillant, the French bookseller in the Strand. How will you
decipher all these strange circumstances to Florentines? A
bookseller in robes and in mourning, sitting as a magistrate by
the side of the Earl; and in the evening, every -body going to
Vaillant's shop to hear the particulars. I wrote to him '. as he
serves me, for the account: but he intends to print it, and I
will send it you with some other things, and the trial. Lord
Ferrers at first talked on indifferent matters, and observing the
prodigious confluence of people, (the blind was drawn up on his
side,) he said,--"But they never saw a lord hanged, and perhaps
will never see another;" One of the dragoons was thrown by his
horse's leg entangling in the hind wheel: Lord Ferrers expressed
much concern, and said, "I hope there will be no death to-day but
mine," and was pleased when Vaillant told him the man was not
hurt. Vaillant made excuses to him on his office. "On the
contrary," said the Earl, "I am much obliged to you. I feared
the disagreeableness of the duty might make you depute your
under-sheriff. As you are so good as to execute it yourself, I
am persuaded the dreadful apparatus will be conducted with more
expedition." The chaplain of the Tower, who sat backwards, then
thought it his turn to speak, and began to talk on religion; but
Lord Ferrers received it impatiently. However, the chaplain
persevered, and said, he wished to bring his lordship to some
confession or acknowledgment of contrition for a crime so
repugnant to the laws of God and man, and wished him to endeavour
to do whatever could be done in so short a time. The Earl
replied, "He had done every thing he proposed to do with regard
to God and man; and as to discourses on religion, you and I,
Sir," said he to the clergyman, "shall probably not agree on that
subject. The passage is very short: you will not have time to
convince me, nor I to refute you; it cannot be ended before we
arrive." The clergyman still insisted, and urged, that. at
least, the world would expect some satisfaction. Lord Ferrers
replied, with some impatience, "Sir, what have I to do with the
world? I am going to pay a forfeit life, which my country has
thought proper to take from me--what do I care now what the world
thinks of me? But, Sir, since you do desire some confession, I
will confess one thing to you; I do believe there is a God. As
to modes of worship, we had better not talk on them. I always
thought Lord Bolingbroke in the wrong, to publish his notions on
religion: I will not fall into the same error." The chaplain,
seeing sensibly that it was in vain to make any more attempts,
contented himself with representing to him, that it would be
expected from one of his calling, and that even decency required,
that some prayer should be used on the scaffold, and asked his
leave, at least to repeat the Lord's Prayer there. Lord Ferrers
replied, "I always thought it a good prayer; you may use it if
you please."
While these discourses were passing, the procession was stopped
by the crowd. The Earl said he was dry, and wished for some wine
and water. The Sheriff said, he was sorry to be obliged to
refuse him. By late regulations they were enjoined not to let
prisoners drink from the place of imprisonment to that of
execution, as great indecencies had been formerly committed by
the lower species of criminals getting drunk; "And though," said
he, "my Lord, I might think myself excusable in overlooking this
order out of regard to a person of your lordship's rank, yet
there is another reason which, I am sure, will weigh with
you;-your Lordship is sensible of the greatness of the crowd; we
must draw up to some tavern; the confluence would be so great,
that it would delay the expedition which your Lordship seems so
much to desire." He replied, he was satisfied, adding, "Then I
must be content with this," and took some pigtail tobacco out of
his pocket. As they went on, a letter was thrown into his coach;
it was from his mistress, to tell him, it was impossible, from
the crowd, for her to get up to the spot where he had appointed
her to meet and take leave of him, but that she was in a
hackney-coach of such a number. He begged Vaillant to order his
officers to try to get the hackney-coach up to his, "My Lord,"
said Vaillant, you have behaved so well hitherto, that I think it
is pity to venture unmanning yourself." He was struck, and was
satisfied without seeing her. As they drew nigh, he said, "I
perceive we are almost arrived; it is time to do what little more
I have to do;" and then taking out his watch, gave it to
Vaillant, desiring him to accept it as a mark of his gratitude
for his kind behaviour, adding, "It is scarce worth Your
acceptance; but I have nothing else; it is a stop-watch, and a
pretty accurate one." He gave five guineas to the chaplain, and
took out as much for the executioner. Then giving Vaillant a
pocket-book, he begged him to deliver it to Mrs. Clifford his
mistress, with what it contained, and with his most tender
regards, saying, "The key of it is to the watch, but I am
persuaded you are too much a gentleman to open it." He destined
the remainder of the money in his purse to the same person, and
with the same tender regards.
When they came to Tyburn, his coach was detained some minutes by
the conflux of people; but as soon as the door was opened, he
stepped out readily and mounted the scaffold: it was hung with
black, by the undertaker, and at the expense of his family.
Under the gallows was a new invented stage, to be struck from
under him. He showed no kind of fear or discomposure, only just
looking at the gallows with a slight motion of dissatisfaction.
He said little, kneeled for a moment to the prayer, said, "Lord
have mercy upon me, and forgive me my errors," and immediately
mounted the upper stage. He had come pinioned with a black sash,
and was unwilling to have his hands tied, or his face covered,
but was persuaded to both. When the rope was put round his neck,
he turned pale, but recovered his countenance instantly, and was
but seven minutes from leaving the coach, to the signal given for
striking the stage. As the machine was new, they were not ready
at it: his toes touched it, and he suffered a little, having had
time, by their bungling, to raise his cap; but the executioner
pulled it down again, and they pulled his legs, so that he was
soon out of pain, and quite dead in four minutes. He desired not
to be stripped and exposed, and Vaillant promised him, though his
clothes must be taken off, that his shirt should not. This
decency ended with him: the sheriffs fell to eating and drinking
on the scaffold, ran and helped up one of their friends to drink
with them, as he was still hanging, which he did for above an
hour, and then was conveyed back with the same pomp to Surgeons'
Hall, to be dissected. The executioners fought for the rope, and
the one who lost it cried. The mob tore off the black cloth as
relics; but the universal crowd behaved with great decency and
admiration, as they well might; for sure no exit was ever made
with more sensible resolution and with less ostentation.
If I have tired you by this long narrative, you feel differently
from me. The man, the manners of the country, the justice of so
great and curious a nation, all to me seem striking, and must, I
believe, do more so to you, who have been absent long enough to
read of your own country as history.
I have run into so much paper, that I am ashamed at going on, but
having a bit left, I must say a few more words. The other
prisoner, from whom the mob had promised themselves more
entertainment, is gone into the country, having been forbid the
court, with some barbarous additions to the sentence, as you Will
see in the papers. It was notified, too, to the second
court,(59) who have had the prudence to countenance him no
longer. The third prisoner, and second madman, Lord Charles Hay,
is luckily dead, and has saved much trouble.
Have you seen the works of the philosopher of Sans Souci, or
rather of the man who is no philosopher, and who had more Souci
than any man now in Europe? How contemptible they are! Miserable
poetry; not a new thought, nor an old one newly expressed.(60) I
say nothing of the folly of publishing his aversion to the
English, at the very time they are ruining themselves for him;
nor of the greater folly of his irreligion. The epistle to Keith
is puerile and shocking. He is not so sensible as Lord Ferrers,
who did not think such sentiments ought to be published. His
Majesty could not resist the vanity of showing how disengaged he
can be even at this time.
I am going to give a letter for you to Strange, the engraver, who
is going to visit Italy. He is a very first-rate artist, and by
far our best. Pray countenance him, though you will not approve
his politics.(61) I believe Albano(62)) is his Loretto.
I shall finish this vast volume with a very good story, though
not so authentic as my sheriff's. It is said that General
Clive's father has been with Mr. Pitt, to notify, that if the
government will send his son four hundred thousand pounds, and a
certain number of ships, the heaven-born general knows of a part
of India, where such treasures are buried, that he will engage,
to send over enough. to pay the national debt. "Oh!" said the
minister, "that is too much; fifty millions would be sufficient."
Clive insisted on the hundred millions,--Pitt, that half would do
as well. "Lord, Sir!" said the old man, "consider, if your
administration lasts, the national debt will soon be two hundred
millions." Good night for a twelvemonth!
(55) Sir William Meredith, Bart. of Hanbury, in Cheshire. The
title is now extinct.-D.
(56) She afterwards married Lord Frederick Campbell, brother of
the Duke of Argyle, and was an excellent woman. (She was
unfortunately burned to death at Lord Frederick's seat, Combe
Bank, in Kent.-D.)
(57) Zachariah Pearce, translated from the see of Bangor in 1756.
He was an excellent man, and later in life, in the year 1768,
finding himself growing infirm, he presented to the world the
rare instance of disinterestedness, of wishing to relinquish all
his pieces of preferment. These consisted of the deanery of
Westminster and bishopric of Rochester. The deanery he gave up,
but was not allowed to do so by the bishopric, which was said, as
a peerage, to be inalienable.-D.
(58) Lady Selina Shirley, daughter of an Earl of Ferrers.
(Selina Shirley, second daughter and coheiress of Washington Earl
Ferrers, and widow of Theophilus Hastings, ninth Earl of
Huntingdon. She was the peculiar patroness of enthusiasts of all
sorts in religion.-D.)
(59) The Prince of Wales's.
(60) "The town are reading the King of Prussia's poetry, and I
have done like the town; they do not seem so sick of it as I am.
It is all the scum of Voltaire and Bolingbroke, the crambe
recocta of our worst freethinkers tossed up in German-French
rhyme." Gray, vol. iii. p. 241.
(61) Strange was a confirmed Jacobite.
(62) The residence of the Pretender.
Letter 25 To Sir David Dalrymple.(63)
Arlington Street, May 15, 1760. (page 63)
Sir,
I am extremely sensible of your obliging kindness in sending me
for Mr. Gray the account of Erse poetry, even at a time when you
were so much out of order. That indisposition I hope is entirely
removed, and your health perfectly reestablished. Mr. Gray is
very thankful for the information.(64)
I have lately bought, intending it for Dr. Robertson, a Spanish
MS. called "Annals del Emperador Carlos V. Autor, Francisco Lopez
de Gornara." As I am utterly ignorant of the Spanish tongue, I
do not know whether there is the least merit in my purchase. It
is not very long; if you will tell me how to convey it, I will
send it to him.
We have nothing new but some Dialogues of the Dead by Lord
Lyttelton. I cannot say they are very lively or striking. The
best I think, relates to your country, and is written with a very
good design: an intention of removing all prejudices and disUnion
between the two parts of our island. I cannot tell you how the
book is liked in general, for it appears but this moment.
You have seen, to be sure, the King of Prussia's Poems. If he
intended to raise the glory of his military capacity by
depressing his literary talents, he could not, I think,. have
succeeded better. One would think a man had been accustomed to
nothing but the magnificence of vast armies, and to the tumult of
drums and trumpets. who is incapable of seeing that God is as
great in the most minute parts of creation as in the most
enormous. His Majesty does not seem to admire a mite, unless it
is magnified by a Brobdignag microscope! While he is struggling
with the force of three empires, he fancies that it adds to his
glory to be unbent enough to contend for laurels with the
triflers of a French Parnassus! Adieu! Sir.
(63) Now first collected.
(64) The following is Gray's description of these poems, in a
letter to Wharton.--"I am gone mad about them. They are said to
be translations (literal and in prose) from the Erse tongue, done
by one Macpherson, a young clergyman in the Highlands. He means
to publish a collection he has of these specimens of antiquity;
but what plagues me is, I cannot come at any certainty on that
head. I was so struck, so extasi`e, with their infinite beauty,
that I writ into Scotland to make a thousand inquiries. The
letters I have in return are ill-wrote, ill-reasoned,
unsatisfactory, calculated (one would imagine) to deceive one,
and yet not cunning enough to do it cleverly: in short, the whole
external evidence would make one believe these fragments (for so
he calls them, though nothing can be more entire) counterfeit;
but the internal is so strong on the other side, that I am
resolved to believe them genuine, spite of the devil and the
kirk. It is impossible to convince me, that they were invented
by the same man that writes me these letters. On the other hand,
it is almost as hard to suppose, if they are original, that he
should be able to translate them so admirably. In short, this
man is the very demon of poetry, or he has lighted on a treasure
hid for ages." In another letter, be says,--"As to their
authenticity, I have many enquiries, and have lately procured a
letter from Mr. David Hume, the historian, which is more
satisfactory than any thing I have yet met with on that subject.
He says, 'Certain it is, that these poems are in every body's
mouth in the Highlands, have been handed down from father to son,
and are of an age beyond all memory and tradition.'" Works vol.
iii. pp. 249, 257.-E.
Letter 26 To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, May 24, 1760. (page 64)
Well! at last Sisson's machine sets out-but, my dear Sir, how you
still talk of him! You seem to think him as grave and learned as
a professor of Bologna--why, he is an errant, low, indigent
mechanic, and however Dr. Perelli found him out, is a shuffling
knave, and I fear, no fitter to execute his orders than to write
the letter you expect. Then there was my ignorance and your
brother James's ignorance to be thrown into the account. For the
drawing, Sisson says Dr. Perelli has the description of it
already; however, I have insisted on his making a reference to
that description in a scrawl we have with much ado extorted from
him. I pray to Sir Isaac Newton that the machine may answer: It
costs, the stars know what! The whole charge comes to upwards of
threescore pounds! He had received twenty pounds, and yet was so
necessitous, that on our hesitating, he wrote me a most
impertinent letter for his money. I dreaded at first undertaking
a commission for which I was so unqualified, and though I have
done all I could, I fear you and your friend will be but ill
satisfied.
Along with the machine I have sent you some new books; Lord
George's trial, Lord Ferrers's, and the account of him; a
fashionable thing called Tristram Shandy, and my Lord Lyttelton's
new Dialogues of the Dead, or rather Dead Dialogues; and
something less valuable still than any of these, but which I
flatter myself you will not despise; it is my own print, done
from a picture that is reckoned very like--you must allow for the
difference that twenty years since you saw me have made. That
wonderful creature Lord Ferrers, of whom I told you so much in my
last, and with whom I am not going to plague you much more, made
one of his keepers read Hamlet to him the night before his death
after he was in bed-paid all his bills in the morning, as if
leaving an inn, and half an hour before the sheriffs fetched him,
corrected some verses he had written in the Tower in imitation of
the Duke of Buckingham's epitaph, dublus sed ron improbus
vin.(65) What a noble author have I here to add to my Catalogue!
For the other noble author, Lord Lyttelton, you will find his
work paltry enough; the style, a mixture of bombast, poetry, and
vulcarisms. Nothing new in the composition, except making people
talk out of character is so. Then he loves changing sides so
much, that he makes Lord Falkland and Hampden cross over and
figure in like people in a country dance; not to mention their
guardian angels, who deserve to be hanged for murder. He is
angry too at Swift, Lucian, and Rabelais, as if they had laughed
at him of all men living, and he seems to wish that one would
read the last's Dissertation 1 on Hippocrates instead of his
History of Pantagruel. But I blame him most, when he was
satirizing too free writers, for praising the King of Prussia's
poetry, to which any thing of Bayle is harmless. I like best the
Dialogue between the Duke of argyll and the Earl of Angus, and
the character of his own first wife under that of Penelope. I
need not tell you that Pericles is Mr. Pitt.
I have had much conversation with your brother James, and intend
to have more with your eldest, about your nephew. He is a sweet
boy, and has all the goodness of dear Gal. and dear you in his
countenance. They have sent him to Cambridge under that
interested hog the Bishop of Chester,(66) and propose to keep him
there three years. Their apprehension seems to be of his growing
a fine gentleman. I could not help saying, "Why, is he not to be
one?" My wish is to have him with you--what an opportunity of
his learning the world and business under such a tutor and such a
parent! but they think he will dress and run into diversions. I
tried to convince them that of all spots upon earth dress is
least necessary at Florence, and where one can least divert
oneself. I am answered with the necessity of Latin and
mathematics-the one soon forgot, the other never got to any
purpose. I cannot bear his losing the advantage of being brought
up by you, with all the advantages of such a situation, and where
he May learn in perfection living languages, never attained after
twenty. I am so earnest on this, for I doat on him for dear
Gal.'s sake, that I will insist to rudeness on his remaining at
Cambridge but two years; and before that time you shall write to
second My motions.
The Parliament is up, and news are gone out of town: I expect
none but what we receive from Germany. As to the Pretender, his
life or death makes no impression here when a real King is so
soon forgot, how should an imaginary one be remembered? Besides,
since Jacobites have found the way to St. James's, it is grown so
much the fashion to worship Kings, that people don't send their
adorations so far as Rome. He at Kensington is likely long to
outlast his old rival. The spring is far from warm, yet he wears
a silk coat and has left off fires.
Thank you for the entertaining history of the Pope and the
Genoese. I am flounced again into building--a round tower,
gallery, cloister, and chapel, all starting up--if I am forced to
run away by ruining myself, I will come to Florence, steal your
nephew, and bring him with me. Adieu!
(65) The following verses are said to have been found in Lord
Ferrers's apartment in the Tower:
"In doubt I lived, in doubt I die,
Yet stand Prepared the vast abyss to try.
And undismay'd expect eternity!"-E.
(66) Dr. Edmund Keene, brother of Sir Benjamin, and afterwards
Bishop of Ely.
Letter 27 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, June 7, 1760. (page 66)
My dear lord,
When at my time of day one can think a ball worth going to London
for on purpose, you will not wonder that I am childish enough to
write an account of it. I could give a better reason, your
bidding me send you any news; but I scorn a good reason when I am
idle enough to do any thing for a bad one. You had heard, before
you left London, of Miss Chudleigh's intended loyalty on the
Prince's birthday. Poor thing, I fear she has thrown away above
a quarter's salary! It was magnificent and well-understood--no
crowd--and though a sultry night, one was not a moment
incommoded. The court was illuminated on the whole summit of the
wall with a battlement of lamps; smaller ones on every step, and
a figure of lanterns on the outside of the house. The
virgin-mistress began the ball with the Duke of York, who was
dressed in a pale blue watered tabby, which, as I told him, if he
danced much, would soon be tabby all over, like the man's
advertisement,(67) but nobody did dance much. There was a new
Miss Bishop from Sir Cecil's endless hoard of beauty daughters,
who is still prettier than her sisters. The new Spanish embassy
was there--alas! Sir Cecil Bishop has never been in Spain!
Monsieur de Fuentes is a halfpenny print of my Lord Huntingdon.
His wife homely, but seems good-humoured and civil. The son does
not degenerate from such high-born ugliness; the daughter-in-law
was sick, and they say is not ugly, and has as good set of teeth
as one can have, when one has but two and those black. They seem
to have no curiosity, sit where they are placed, and ask no
questions about so strange a country. Indeed, the ambassadress
could see nothing; for Doddington(68) stood before her the whole
time, sweating Spanish at her, of which it was evident, by her
civil nods without answers, she did understand a word. She
speaks bad French, danced a bad minuet, and went away--though
there was a miraculous draught of fishes for their supper, for it
was a fast-day--but being the octave of their f`ete-dieu, they
dared not even fast plentifully. Miss Chudleigh desired the
gamblers would go up into the garrets--"Nay, they are not
garrets-it is only the roof of the house hollowed for upper
servants-but I have no upper servants." Every body ran up: there
is a low gallery with bookcases, and four chambers practised
under the pent of the roof, each hung with the finest Indian
pictures on different colours, and with Chinese chairs of the
same colours. Vases of flowers in each for nosegays, and in one
retired nook a most critical couch!
The lord of the Festival(69) was there, and seemed neither
ashamed nor vain of the expense of his pleasures. At supper she
offered him Tokay, and told him she believed he would find it
good. The supper was in two rooms and very fine, and on the
sideboards, and even on the chairs, were pyramids and troughs of
strawberries and cherries you would have thought she was kept by
Vertumnus. Last night my Lady Northumberland lighted up her
garden for the Spaniards: I was not there, having excused myself
for a headache, which I had not, but ought to have caught the
night before. Mr. Doddington entertained these Fuentes's at
Hammersmith; and to the shame of our nation, while they were
drinking tea in the summer-house, some gentlemen, ay, my lord,
gentlemen, went into the river and showed the ambassadress and
her daughter more than ever they expected to see of England.
I dare say you are sorry for poor Lady Anson. She was
exceedingly good-humoured, and did a thousand good-natured and
generous actions. I tell you nothing of the rupture of Lord
Halifax's match, of which you must have heard so much; but you
will like a bon-mot upon it. They say, the hundreds of Drury
have got the better of the thousands of Drury.(70) The pretty
Countess(71) is still alive, was I thought actually dying on
Tuesday night, and I think will go off very soon. I think there
will soon be a peace: my only reason is, that every body seems so
backward at making war. Adieu! my dear lord!
(67) A staymaker of the time, who advertised in the newspapers
that he made stays at such a price, "tabby all over."
(68) Dodington had been minister in Spain.
(69) The Duke of Kingston.
(70) Lord Halifax kept an actress belonging to Drury Lane
Theatre; and the marriage broken off was with a daughter of Sir
Thomas Drury, an heiress.-E.
(71) The Countess of Coventry. She survived till the 1st of
October.-E.
Letter 28 To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, June 20, 1760. (page 68)
Who the deuce was thinking of Quebec? America was like a book one
has read and done with; or at least, if one looked at the book,
one just recollected that there was a supplement promised, to
contain a chapter on Montreal, the starving and surrender of it-
-but here are we on a sudden reading our book backwards. An
account came two days ago that the French on their march to
besiege Quebec, had been attacked by General Murray, who got into
a mistake and a morass, attacked two bodies that were joined,
when he hoped to come up with one of them before the junction,
was enclosed, embogged,'and defeated. By the list of officers
killed and wounded, I believe there has been a rueful slaughter-
-the place, too, I suppose will be retaken. The year 1760 is not
the year 1759. Added to the war we have a kind of plague too, an
epidemic fever and sore throat: Lady Anson is dead of it; Lord
Bute and two of his daughters were in great danger; my Lady
Waldegrave has had it, and I am mourning for Mrs. Thomas
Walpole,(72) who died of it--you may imagine I don't come much to
town; I had some business here to-day, particularly with Dagge,
whom I have sent for to talk about Sophia;(73) he will be here
presently, and then I will let you know what he says.
The embassy and House of Fuentes are arrived-many feasts and
parties have been made for them, but they do not like those out
of town, and have excused themselves rather ungraciously. They
were invited to a ball last Monday at Wanstead, but did not go:
yet I don't know where they can see such magnificence. The
approach, the coaches, the crowds of spectators to see the
company arrive, the grandeur of the fa`cade and apartments, were
a charming sight; but the town is so empty that that great house
appeared so too. He, you know, is all attention, generosity, and
good breeding.
I must tell you a private wo that has happened to me in my
neighbourhood--Sir William Stanhope bought Pope's house and
garden. The former was so small and bad, one could not avoid
pardoning his hollowing out that fragment of the rock Parnassus
into habitable chambers--but would you believe it, he has cut
down the sacred groves themselves! In short, it was a little bit
of ground of five acres, inclosed with three lanes, and seeing
nothing. Pope had twisted and twirled, and rhymed and harmonized
this, till it appeared two or three sweet little lawns opening
beyond one another, and the whole surrounded with thick
impenetrable woods. Sir William, by advice of his
son-in-law,(74) Mr. Ellis, has hacked and hewed these groves,
wriggled a winding-gravel walk through them with an edging of
shrubs, in what they call the modern taste, and in short, has
designed the three lanes to walk in again--and now is forced to
shut them out again by a wall, for there was not a Muse could
walk there but she was spied by every country fellow that went by
with a pipe in his mouth.
It is a little unlucky for the Pretender to be dying just as the
Pope seems to design to take Corsica into his hands, and might
give it to so faithful a son of the church.
I have heard nothing yet of Stosch.
Presently.
Mr. Dagge has disappointed me, and I am obliged to go out of
town, but I have writ to him to press the affair, and will press
it, as it is owing to his negligence. Mr. Chute, to whom I
spoke, says he told Dagge he was ready to be a trustee, and
pressed him to get it concluded.
(72) Daughter of Sir Gerard Vanneck.
(73) Natural daughter of Mr. Whitehed, mentioned in preceding
letters, by a Florentine woman.
(74) Welbore Ellis, afterwards*Lord Mendip, married the only
daughter of Sir William Stanhope; in right of whom he afterwards
enjoyed Pope's villa at Twickenham.-E.
Letter 29 To Sir David Dalrymple.(75)
June 20th, 1760. (page 69)
I am obliged to you, Sir, for the volume of Erse poetry - all of
it has merit; but I am sorry not to see in it the six
descriptions of night, with which you favoured me before, and
which I like as much as any of the pieces. I can, however, by no
means agree with the publisher, that they seem to be parts of an
heroic poem; nothing to me can be more unlike. I should as soon
take all the epitaphs in Westminster Abbey, and say it was an
epic poem on the History of England. The greatest part are
evidently elegies; and though I should not expect a bard to write
by the rules of Aristotle, I would not, on the other hand, give
to any work a title that must convey so different an idea to
every common reader. I could wish, too, that the authenticity
had been more largely stated. A man who knows Dr. Blair's
character, will undoubtedly take his word; but the gross of
mankind, considering how much it is the fashion to be sceptical
in reading, will demand proofs, not assertions.
I am glad to find, Sir, that we agree so much on the Dialogues of
the Dead; indeed, there are very few that differ from us. It is
well for the author, that none of his critics have undertaken to
ruin his book by improving it, as you have done in the lively
little specimen you sent me., Dr. Brown has writ a dull dialogue,
called Pericles and Aristides, which will have a different effect
from what yours, would have. One of the most objectionable
passages in lord Lyttelton's book is, in my opinion, his
apologizing for 'the moderate government of Augustus. A man who
had exhausted tyranny in the most lawless and Unjustifiable
excesses is to be excused, because, out of weariness or policy,
he grows less sanguinary at last!
There is a little book coming Out, that will amuse you. It is a
new edition of Isaac Walton's Complete Angler,. full of anecdotes
and historic notes. It is published by Mr. Hawkins,(76) a very
worthy gentleman in my neighbourhood, but who, I could wish, did
not think angling so very innocent an amusement. We cannot live
without destroying animals, but shall-we torture them for our
sport--sport in their destruction?(77) I met a rough officer at
his house t'other day, who said he knew such a person was turning
Methodist; for, in the middle of conversation, he rose, and
opened the window to let out a moth. I told him I did not know
that the Methodists had any principle so good, and that I, who am
certainly not on the point of becoming one, always did so too.
One of the bravest and best men I ever knew, Sir Charles Wager, I
have often heard declare he never killed a fly willingly. It is
a comfortable reflection to me, that all the victories of last
year have been gained since the suppression of the bear garden
and prize-fighting; as it is plain, and nothing else would have
made it so, that our valour did not, singly and solely depend
upon, those two universities. Adieu.!
(75) Now first collected.
(76) Afterwards Sir John Hawkins, Knight, the executor and
biographer of Dr. Johnson.-E.
(77) Lord Byron, like Walpole, had a mortal dislike to angling,
and describes it as " the cruelest, the coldest, and the
stupidest of pretended sports." Of good Isaac Walton he says,
"The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb,. in his gullet
Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it."-E.
Letter 30 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(78)
Strawberry Hill, June 21, 1760. (page 70)
There is nothing in the world so tiresome as a person that always
says they will come to one and never does; that is a mixture of
promises and excuses; that loves one better than anybody, and yet
will not stir a step to see one; that likes nothing but their own
ways and own books, and that thinks the Thames is not as charming
in one place as another, and that fancies Strawberry Hill is the
only thing upon earth worth living for-all this you would say, if
even I could make you peevish: but since you cannot be provoked,
you see I am for you, and give myself my due. It puts me in mind
of General Sutton, who was one day sitting by my father at his
dressing. Sir Robert said to Jones, who was shaving him, "John,
you cut me"--presently afterwards, "John, you cut me"--and again,
with the same patience or Conway-ence, "John, you cut me."
Sutton started up and cried, "By God! if he can bear it, I can't;
if you cut him once more, damn my blood if I don't knock you
down!" My dear Harry, I will knock myself down-but I fear I
shall cut you again. I wish you sorrow for the battle of Quebec.
I thought as much of losing the duchies of Aquitaine and Normandy
as Canada.
However, as my public feeling never carries me to any great
lengths of reflection, I bound all my Qu`ebecian meditations to a
little diversion on George Townshend's absurdities. The Daily
Advertiser said yesterday, that a certain great officer who had a
principal share in the reduction of Quebec had given it as his
opinion, that it would hold out a tolerable siege. This great
general has acquainted the public to-day in an advertisement
with--what do you think?--not that he has such an opinion, for he
has no opinion at all, and does not think that it can nor cannot
hold out a siege,--but, in the first place, that he was luckily
shown this paragraph, which, however, he does not like; in the
next, that he is and is not that great general, and yet that
there is nobody else that is; and, thirdly, lest his silence,
till he can proceed in another manner with the printer, (and
indeed it is difficult to conceive what manner of proceeding
silence is,) should induce anybody to believe the said paragraph,
he finds himself under a necessity of giving the public his
honour, that there is no more truth in this paragraph than in
some others which have tended to set the opinions of some general
officers together by the ears--a thing, however, inconceivable,
which he has shown may be done, by the confusion he himself has
made in the King's English. For his another manner with the
printer, I am impatient to see how the charge will lie against
Matthew Jenour, the publisher of the Advertiser, who, without
having the fear of God before his eyes, has forcibly, violently,
and maliciously, with an offensive weapon called a hearsay, and
against the peace of our sovereign Lord the King, wickedly and
traitorously assaulted the head of George Townshend, general, and
accused it of having an opinion, and him the said George
Townshend, has slanderously and of malice prepense believed to be
a great general; in short, to make Townshend easy, I wish, as he
has no more contributed to the loss of Quebec than he did to the
conquest of it, that he was to be sent to sign this capitulation
too.
There is a delightful little French book come out, called "Tant
Mieux pour elle." It is called Cr`ebillon's, and I should think
was so. I only borrowed it, and cannot get one; tant pis pour
vous. By the way, I am not sure you did not mention it to me;
somebody did.
Have you heard that Miss Pitt has dismissed Lord Buckingham?
Tant mieux pour lui. She damns her eyes that she will marry some
captain--tant mieux pour elle. I think the forlorn earl should
match with Miss Ariadne Drury; and by the time my Lord Halifax
has had as many more children and sentiments by and for Miss
Falkner, as he can contrive to have. probably Miss Pitt may be
ready to be taken into keeping. Good night!
P. S. The Prince of Wales has been in the greatest anxiety for
Lord Bute; to whom he professed to Duncombe, and Middleton, he
has the greatest obligations; and when they pronounced their
patient out of danger, his Royal Highness gave to each of them a
gold modal of himself, as a mark of his sense of their care and
attention.
(78) Now first printed.
Letter 31 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, June 28, 1760. (page 72)
The devil is in people for fidgetting about! They can neither be
quiet in their own houses, nor let others be at peace in theirs!
Have not they enough of one another in winter, but they must
cuddle in summer too? For your part, you are a very priest: the
moment one repents, you are for turning it to account. I wish
you was in camp--never will I pity you again. How did you
complain when you was in Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, and I don't
know where, that you could never enjoy Park-place! Now you have a
whole summer to yourself, and you are as junkettaceous as my Lady
Northumberland. Pray, what horse-race do you go to next? For my
part, I can't afford to lead such a life: I have Conway-papers to
sort; I have lives of the painters to write; I have my prints to
paste, my house to build, and every thing in the world to tell
posterity. How am I to find time for all this? I am past forty,
and may 'not have above as many more to live; and here I am to go
here and to go there--well, I will meet you at Chaffont on
Thursday; but I positively will stay but one night. I have
settled with our brother that we will be at Oxford on the 13th of
July, as Lord Beauchamp is only loose from the 12th to the 20th.
I will be at Park-place on the 12th, and we will go together the
next day. If this is too early for you, we may put it off to the
15th: determine by Thursday, and one of us will write to Lord
Hertford.
Well! Quebec(79) is come to life again. Last night I went to see
the Holdernesses, who by the way are in raptures with Park-in
Sion-lane; as Cibber says of the Revolution, I met the Raising of
the Siege; that is, I met my lady in a triumphal car, drawn by a
Manks horse thirteen little fingers high, with Lady Emily:
et sibi Countess
Ne placeat, ma'amselle curru portatur eodem-
Mr. Milbank was walking in ovation by himself after the car; and
they were going to see the bonfire at the alehouse at the corner.
The whole procession returned with me; and from the countess's
dressing-room we saw a battery fired before the house, the mob
crying "God bless the good news!"--These are all the particulars
I know of the siege: my lord would have showed me the journal,
but we amused ourselves much better in going to eat peaches from
the new Dutch stoves.
The rain is come indeed, and my grass is as green as grass; but
all my hay has been cut and soaking this week, and I am too much
in the fashion not to have given Up gardening for farming; as
next I suppose We shall farming and turn graziers and hogdrivers.
I never heard of such a Semele as my Lady Stormont(80) brought to
bed in flames. I hope Miss Bacchus Murray will not carry the
resemblance through, and love drinking like a Pole. My Lady
Lyttelton is at Mr. Garrick's, and they were to have breakfasted
here this morning; but somehow or other they have changed their
mind. Good Night!
(79) Quebec was besieged by the French in the spring of this
year, with an army of fifteen thousand men, under the command of
the Chevalier de Levis, assisted by a naval force. They were,
however, repulsed by General Murray, who was supported by Lord
Colville and the fleet under his command; and on the night of the
16th of May raised the siege very precipitately, leaving their
cannon, small arms, stores, etc. behind them.-E.
(80) See vol. ii. p. 513, letter 336.-E.
Letter 32 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 4, 1760. (page 73)
I am this minute returned from Chaffont, where I have been these
two days. Mr. Conway, Lady Ailesbury, Lady Lyttelton, and Mrs.
Shirley are there; and Lady Mary is going to add to the number
again. The house and grounds are still in the same dislocated
condition; in short, they finish nothing but children; even Mr.
Bentley's Gothic stable, which I call Houynhm castle, is not
roughcast yet. We went to see More-park, but I was not much
struck with it, after all the miracles I had heard Brown had
performed there. He has undulated the horizon in so many
artificial mole-hills, that it is full as unnatural as if it was
drawn with a rule and compasses. Nothing is done to the house;
there are not even chairs in the great apartment. My Lord Anson
is more slatternly than the Churchills, and does not even finish
children. I am going to write to Lord Beauchamp, that I shall be
at Oxford on the 15th, where I depend upon meeting you. I design
to see Blenheim, and Rousham, (is not that the name of Dormer's?)
and Althorp, and Drayton, before I return--but don't be
frightened, I don't propose to drag you to all or any of these,
if you don't like it.
Mr. Bentley has sketched a very pretty Gothic room for Lord
Holderness, and orders are gone to execute it directly in
Yorkshire. The first draught was Mason's; but as he does not
pretend to much skill, we were desired to correct it. I say we,
for I chose the ornaments. Adieu! Yours ever.
P. S. My Lady Ailesbury has been much diverted, and so will you
too. Gray is in @their neighbourhood. My Lady Carlisle says,
"he is extremely like me in his manner." They went a party to
dine on a cold loaf, and passed the day; Lady A. protests he
never opened his lips but once, and then only said, "Yes, my
lady, I believe so."(81)
(81) Gray, in a letter to Dr. Clarke, of the 12th of August,
says, "For me, I am come to my resting-place, and find it very
necessary, after living for a month in a house with three women
that laughed from morning till night, and would allow nothing to
the sulkiness of my disposition. Company and cards at home,
parties by land and water abroad, and (what they call) doing
something, that is, racketting about from morning to night, are
occupations, I find, that wear out my spirits." Works, vol. iii.
p. 253.-E.
Letter 33 To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, July 7, 1760. (page 74)
I shall write you but a short letter myself, because I make your
brother, who has this moment been here, write to-night with all
the particulars relating to the machine. The ten guineas are
included in the sixty; and the ship, which is not yet sailed, is
insured. My dear child, don't think of making me any excuses
about employing me; I owe you any trouble sure that I can
possibly undertake, and do it most gladly; in this one instance I
was sorry you had pitched upon me, because it was entirely out of
my sphere, and I could not even judge whether I had served you
well or not. I am here again waiting for Dagge, whom it is more
difficult to see than a minister; he disappointed me last time,
but writ to me afterwards that he would immediately settle the
affair for poor Sophia.
Quebec, you know, is saved; but our German histories don't go on
so well as our American. Fouquet is beat, and has lost five out
of twelve thousand men, after maintaining himself against thirty
for seven hours--he is grievously wounded, but not prisoner. The
Russians are pouring on--adieu the King of Prussia, unless Prince
Ferdinand's battle, of which we have expected news for these four
days, can turn the scale a little--we have settled that he is so
great a general, that you must not wonder if We expect that he
should beat all the world in their turns.
There has been a woful fire at Portsmouth; they say occasioned by
lightning; the shipping was saved, but vast quantities of stores
are destroyed.
I shall be more easy about your nephew, since you don't adopt my
idea; and yet I can't conceive with his gentle nature and your
good sense but you would have sufficient authority over him. I
don't know who your initials mean, Ld. F. and Sr. B. But don't
much signify, but consider by how many years I am removed from
knowing the rising generation.
I shall some time hence trouble you for some patterns of
brocadella of two or three colours: it is to furnish a round
tower that I am adding, with a gallery, to my castle: the
quantity I shall want will be pretty large; it is to be a
bedchamber entirely hung bed, and eight armchairs; the dimensions
thirteen feet high, and twenty-two diameter. Your Bianca Capello
is to be over the chimney. I shall scarce be ready to hang it
these two years, because I move gently, and never begin till I
have the money ready to pay, which don't come very fast, as it is
always to be saved out of my income, subject, too, to twenty
other whims and expenses. I only mention it now, that you may at
your leisure look me out half a dozen patterns; and be so good as
to let me know the prices. Stosch is not arrived yet as I have
heard.
Well,--at last, Dagge is come, and tells me I may assure you
positively that the money will be paid in- two months from this
time; he has been at Thistlethwait's,(82) which is nineteen miles
from town, and goes again this week to make him sign a paper, on
which the parson(82) will pay the money. I shall be happy when
this is completed to your satisfaction, that is, when your
goodness is rewarded by being successful; but till it is
completed, with all Mr. Dagge's assurances, I shall not be easy,
for those brothers are such creatures, that I shall always expect
some delay or evasion, when they are to part with money. Adieu!
(82) Brother and heirs of Mr. Whithed, who had changed his name
for an estate.
(Transcriber's note: this note really is cited twice in the above
paragraph.)
Letter 34 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 19, 1760. (page 75)
Mr. Conway, as I told you, was With me at Oxford, and I returned
with him to Park-place, and to-day hither. I am sorry you could
not come to us; we passed four days most agreeably, and I believe
saw more antique holes and corners than Tom Hearne did in
threescore years. You know my rage for Oxford; if King's-college
would not take it ill,. I don't l(now but I should retire
thither, and profess Jacobitism, that I might enjoy some
venerable set of chambers. Though the weather has been so
sultry, I ferreted from morning to night, fatigued that strong
young lad Lord Beauchamp, and harassed his tutors till they were
forced to relieve one another.' With all this, I found nothing
worth seeing, except the colleges themselves, painted glass, and
a couple of crosiers. Oh, yes! in an old buttery at Christ-
church I discovered two of the most glorious portraits by Holbein
in the world. They call them Dutch heads. I took them down,
washed them myself, and fetched out a thousand beauties. We went
to Blenheim and saw all Vanbrugh's quarries, all the acts of
parliament and gazettes on the Duke in inscriptions, and all the
old flock chairs, wainscot tables, and gowns and petticoats of
Queen Anne, that old Sarah could crowd among blocks of marble.
It looks like the palace of an auctioneer, who has-been chosen
King of Poland, and furnished his apartments with obsolete
trophies, rubbish that nobody bid for, and a dozen pictures, that
he had stolen from the inventories of different families. The
place is as ugly as the house, and the bridge, like the beggars
at the old Duchess's gate, begs for a drop of water, and is
refused. We went to Ditchley, which is a good house, well
furnished, has good portraits, a wretched saloon, and one
handsome scene behind the house. There are portraits of the
Litchfield hunt, in true blue frocks, with ermine capes. One of
the colleges has exerted this loyal pun, and made their east
window entirely of blue glass. But the greatest pleasure we had,
was in seeing Sir Charles Cotterel's at Housham; it reinstated
Kent with me; he has nowhere shown so much taste. The house is
old, and was bad; he has improved it, stuck as close as he could
to Gothic, has made a delightful library, and the whole is
comfortable. The garden is Daphne in little; the sweetest little
groves, streams, glades, porticoes, cascades, and river,
imaginable; all the scenes are perfectly classic. Well, if I had
such a house, such a library, so pretty a place, and so pretty a
wife, I think I should let King George send to Herenhausen for a
master of the ceremonies.
Make many compliments to all your family for me; Lord Beauchamp
was much obliged by your invitation. I shall certainly accept
it, as I return from the north; in the mean time, find out how
Drayton and Althorp lie according to your scale. Adieu! Yours
most sincerely.
Letter 35 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 20, 1760. (page 76)
I shall be very sorry if I don't see you at Oxford on Tuesday
next: but what can I say if your Wetenhalls will break into my
almanack, and take my very day, can I help it! I must own I
shall be glad if their coach-horse is laid up with the
fashionable sore throat and fever can you recommend no coachman
to them like Dr. Wilmot, who will despatch it in three days? If
I don't see you at Oxford, I don't think I shall at Greatworth
till my return from the north, which will be about the 20th or
22d of August. Drayton,(83) be it known to you, is Lady Betty
Germain's., is in your own county, was the old mansion of the
Mordaunts, and is crammed with whatever Sir John could get from
them and the Norfolks. Adieu!
(83) The seat of Sir John Germain, Bart.; by whose will, and that
of his widow, Lady Betty, his property devolved upon Lord George
Sackvillc; who, in consequence, assumed, in 1770, the name of
Germain.-E.
Letter 36 To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Aug. 1, 1760. (page 77)
I came to town to-day on purpose to see Stosch, who has been
arrived some days; and to offer him all manner, of civilities on
your account--when indeed they can be of no use to him, for there
is not a soul in town. There was a wild report last week of the
plague being in St. Thomas's Hospital, and to be sure Stosch must
believe there is some truth in it, for there is not a coach to be
seen, the streets are new paving, and the houses new painting,
just as it is always at this season. I told him if he had a mind
to see London, he must go to Huntingdon races, Derby races,
Stafford races, Warwick races-that is the fashionable route this
year-alas! I am going part of it; the Duchess of Grafton and Loo
are going to the Duke of Devonshire's, Lord Gower's, and Lord
Hertford's; but I shall contrive to arrive after every race is
over. Stosch delivered me the parcel safe, and I should have
paid him for your Burgundy, but found company with him, and
thought it not quite so civil to offer it at the first interview,
lest it should make him be taken for a wine-merchant. He dines
with me on Tuesday at Strawberry Hill, when I shall find an
opportunity. He is going for a few days to Wanstead, and then
for three months to a clergyman's in Yorkshire, to learn English.
Apropos, you did not tell me why he comes; is it to sell his
uncle's collection? Let me know before winter on what foot I
must introduce him, for I would fain return a few of the thousand
civilities you have showed at my recommendation.
The hereditary Prince has been beaten, and has beaten, with the
balance on his side; but though the armies are within a mile of
one another, I don't think it clear there will be a battle, as we
may lose much more than we can get. A defeat will cost Hanover
and Hesse; a victory cannot be vast enough to leave us at liberty
to assist the King of Prussia. He gave us a little advantage the
other day; outwitted Daun, and took his camp and magazines, and
aimed at Dresden; but to-day the siege is raised. Daun sometimes
misses himself, but never loses himself. It is not the fashion
to admire him, but for my part, I should think it worth while to
give the Empress a dozen Wolfes and Dauns, to lay aside the
cautious Marshal. Apropos to Wolfe, I cannot Imagine what you
mean by a design executing at Rome for his tomb. The designs
have been laid before my lord chamberlain several months; Wilton,
Adam, Chambers, and others, all gave in their drawings
immediately; and I think the Duke of Devonshire decided for the
first. Do explain this to me, or get a positive explanation. of
it-and whether any body is drawing for Adam or Chambers.
Mr. Chute and Mr. Bentley, to whom I showed your accounts of the
Papa-Portuguese war, were infinitely diverted, as I was too, with
it. The Portuguese, "who will turn Jews not Protestants," and the
Pope's confession, "which does more honour to his sincerity than
to his infallibility," are delightful. I will tell you who will
neither, turn Jew nor Protestant, Day, nor Methodist, which is
much more in fashion than either--Monsieur Fuentes will not; he
has given the Virgin Mary (who he fancies hates public places,
because he never met her at one,) his honour that he never will
go to any more. What a charming sort of Spanish Ambassador! I
wish they always sent us such-the worst they can do, is to buy
half a dozen converts.
My Lady Lincoln,(84) who was ready to be brought to bed, is dead
in three hours of convulsions. It has been a fatal year to great
ladies: within this twelvemonth have gone off Lady Essex, Lady
Besborough, Lady Granby, Lady Anson, and Lady Lincoln. My Lady
Coventry is still alive, sometimes at the point of death,
sometimes recovering. They fixed the spring: now the autumn is
to be critical for her.
I set out for my Lord Strafford's to-morrow se'nnight, so shall
not be able to send you any victory this fortnight.
General Clive(85) is arrived all over estates and diamonds. If a
beggar asks charity, be says, "Friend, I have no small brilliants
about me."
I forgot to tell you that Stosch was to dine with General
Guise.(86) The latter has notified to Christ Church, Oxford,
that in his will he has given them his collection of pictures.
Adieu!
(84) Catherine, eldest daughter of Henry Pelham, wife of Henry
Clinton, Earl of Lincoln, afterwards Duke of newcastle.
(85) Afterwards created Lord Clive in Ireland. It is to him that
we in great measure owe our dominion in India; in the acquisition
of which he is, however, reproached with having exercised great
cruelties.-D.
(86) General Guise did leave his collection as he promised; but
the University employing the son of Bonus, the cleaner of
pictures, to repair them, he entirely repainted them, and as
entirely spoiled them.
Letter 37 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 7, 1760. (page 78)
My dear lord,
You will laugh, but I am ready to cry, when I tell you that I
have no notion when I shall be able to wait on you.-Such a
calamity!--My tower is not fallen down, nor Lady Fanny Shirley
run away with another printer; nor has my Lady D * * * * insisted
on living with me as half way to Weybridge. Something more
disgraceful than all these, and wofully mortifying for a young
creature, who is at the same time in love with Lady Mary Coke,
and following the Duchess of Grafton and Loo all over the
kingdom. In short, my lord, I have got the gout-yes, the gout in
earnest. I was seized on Monday morning, suffered dismally all
night, am now wrapped in flannels like the picture of a Morocco
ambassador, and am carried to bed by two servants. You see
virtue and leanness are no preservatives. I write this now to
your lordship, because I think it totally impossible that I
should be able to set out the day after to-morrow, as I intended.
The moment I can, I will, but this is a tyrant that will not let
one name a day. All I know is, that it may abridge my other
parties, but shall not my stay at Wentworth Castle. The Duke of
Devonshire was so good as to ask me to be at Chatsworth
yesterday, but I did not know it time enough. As it happens, I
must have disappointed him. At present I look like Pam's father
more than one of his subjects; only one of my legs appears: The
rest my parti.colour'd robe conceals. Adieu! my dear lord.
Letter 38To The Hon. H. S/ Conway.
Strawberry Hill, August 7, 1760. (page 79)
I can give you but an unpleasant account of myself, I mean
unpleasant for me; every body else I suppose it will make laugh.
Come, laugh at once! I am laid up with the gout, am an absolute
cripple, am carried up to bed by two men, and could walk to China
as soon as cross the room. In short, here is my history: I have
been out of order this fortnight, without knowing what was the
matter with me; pains in my head, sicknesses at my stomach,
dispiritedness, and a return of the nightly fever I had in the
winter. I concluded a northern journey would take all this off-
-but, behold! on Monday morning I was seized as I thought with
the cramp in my left foot; however, I walked about all day:
towards evening it discovered itself by its true name, and that
night I suffered a great deal. However, on Tuesday I was -,again
able to go about the house; but since Tuesday I have not been
able to stir, and am wrapped in flannels and swathed like Sir
Paul Pliant on his wedding-night. I expect to hear that there is
a bet at Arthur's, which runs fastest, Jack Harris(87) or I.
Nobody would believe me six years ago when I said I had the gout.
They would do leanness and temperance honours to which they had
not the least claim.
I don't yet give up my expedition; as my foot is much swelled, I
trust this alderman distemper is going: I shall set out the
instant I am able; but I much question whether it will be soon
enough for me to get to Ragley by the time the clock strikes Loo.
I find I grow too old to make the circuit with the charming
Duchess.(88)
I did not tell you about German skirmishes, for I knew nothing of
them: when two vast armies only scratch one another's faces it
gives me no attention. My gazette never contains above one or
two casualties of foreign politics:-overlaid, one king; dead of
convulsions, an electorate; burnt to death, Dresden.
I wish you joy of all your purchases; why, you sound as rich as
if you had had the gout these ten years. I beg their pardon; but
just at present, I am very glad not to be near the vivacity of
either Missy or Peter. I agree with you much about the
Minor:(89) there are certainly parts and wit in it. Adieu!
(87) John Harris, of Hayne in Devonshire, married to Mr. Conway's
eldest sister.
(88) Anne Liddell, Duchess of Grafton.
(89) Foote's comedy of The Minor came out at the Haymarket
theatre, and, though performed by a young and unpractised
company, brought full houses for many nights. In the character
of Mrs. Cole and Mr. Smirk, the author represented those of the
notorious Mother Douglas, and Mr. Langford, the auctioneer. In
the epilogue, spoken by Shift, which the author himself
performed, together with the other two characters, he took off,
to a degree of exactness, the manner and person of the celebrated
George Whitfield.-E.
Letter 39 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, August 12, 1760. (page 80)
In what part of the island you are just now, I don't know; flying
about some where or other, I suppose. Well, it is charming to be
so young! Here I am, lying upon a couch, wrapped up in flannels,
with the gout in both feet--oh yes, gout in all the terms. Six
years ago I had it, and nobody would believe me--now they may
have proof. My legs are as big as your cousin Guildford's and
they don't use to be quite so large. I was seized yesterday
se'nnight; have had little pain in the day, but most
uncomfortable nights; however, I move about again a little with a
stick. If either my father or mother had had it, I should not
dislike it so much. I am bound enough to approve it if descended
genealogically: but it is an absolute upstart in me, and what is
more provoking, I had trusted to my great abstinence for keeping
me from it: but thus it is, if 1 had had any gentlemanlike
virtue, as patriotism or loyalty, I might have got something by
them: I had nothing but that beggarly virtue temperance, and she
had not interest enough to keep me from a fit of the gout.
Another plague is, that every body that ever knew any body that
had it, is so good as to come with advice, and direct me how to
manage it; that is, how to contrive to have it for a great many
years. I am very refractory; I say to the gout, as great
personages do to the executioners, "Friend, do your work
as quick as you can." They tell me of wine to keep it out of my
stomach; but I will starve temperance itself; I will be virtuous
indeed--that is, I will stick to virtue, though I find it is not
its own reward.
This confinement has kept me from Yorkshire; I hope, however, to
be at Ragley by the 20th, from whence I shall still go to Lord
Strafford's and by this delay you may possibly be at Greatworth
by my return, which will be about the beginning of September.
Write me a line as soon as you receive this; direct it to
Arlington Street, it will be sent after me. Adieu.
P. S. My tower erects its battlements bravely; my Anecdotes of
Painting thrive exceedingly: thanks to the gout, that has pinned
me to my chair: think of Ariel the sprite in a slit shoe!
Letter 40 To The Countess Of Ailesbury.(90)
Whichnovre, August 23, 1760. (page 81)
Well, madam, if I had known whither I was coming, I would not
have come alone! Mr. Conway and your ladyship should have come
too. Do you know, this is the individual manor-house,(91) where
married ladies may have a flitch of bacon upon the easiest terms
in the world? I should have expected that the owners would be
ruined in satisfying the conditions of the obligation, and that
the park would be stocked with hogs instead of deer. On the
contrary, it is thirty years since the flitch was claimed, and
Mr. Offley was never so near losing one as when you and Mr.
Conway were at Ragley. He so little expects the demand, that the
flitch is only hung in effigie over the hall chimney, carved in
wood. Are not you ashamed, Madam, never to have put in your
claim? It is above a year and a day that you have been married,
and I never once heard either of you mention a journey to
Whichnovre. If you quarrelled at loo every night, you could not
quit your pretensions with more indifference. I had a great mind
to take my oath, as one of your witnesses, that you neither of
you would, if you were at liberty, prefer any body else, ne
fairer ne fouler, and I could easily get twenty persons to swear
the same. Therefore, unless you will let the world be convinced,
that all your apparent harmony is counterfeit, you must set out
immediately for Mr. Offley's, or at least send me a letter of
attorney to claim the flitch in your names; and I will send it up
by the coach, to be left at the Blue Boar, or wherever you will
have it delivered. But you had better come in person; you will
see one of the prettiest spots in the world; it is a little
paradise, and the more like the antique one, as, by all I have
said, the married couple seems to be driven out of it. The house
is very indifferent: behind is a pretty park; the situation, a
brow of a hill commanding sweet meadows, through which the Trent
serpentizes in numberless windings and branches. The spires of
the cathedral of Litchfield are in front at a distance, with
variety of other steeples, seats, and farms, and the horizon
bounded by rich hills covered with blue woods. If you love a
prospect, or bacon, you will certainly come hither.
Wentworth Castle, Sunday night.
I had writ thus far yesterday, but had no opportunity of sending
my letter. I arrived here last night, and found only the Duke of
Devonshire, who went to Hardwicke this morning: they were down at
the menagerie, and there was a clean little pullet, with which I
thought his grace looked as if he should be glad to eat a slice
of Whichnovre bacon. We follow him to Chatsworth tomorrow, and
make our entry to the public dinner, to the disagreeableness of
which I fear even Lady Mary's company will not reconcile me.
My Gothic building, which tiny lord Strafford has executed in the
menagerie, has a charming effect. There are two bridges built
besides; but the new front is very little advanced. Adieu,
Madam!
(90) Daughter of the Duke of Argyle, first married to the Earl of
Ailesbury, and afterwards to the Hon. H. S. Conway.
(91) Of Whichnovre, near Litchfield. Sir Philip de Somerville,
in the 10th of Edward III., held the manor of Whichnovre, etc. of
the Earls of Lancaster, lords of the honour of Tutbury, upon two
small fees, but also upon condition of his keeping ready
"arrayed, at all time of the year but Lent, one bacon flyke
hanging in his hall at Whichnovre, to be given to every man or
woman who demanded it a year and a day after the marriage upon
their swearing they would not have changed for none other, fairer
nor fouler, richer nor poorer, nor for no other descended of a
great lineage, sleeping nor waking, at no time," etc.-E.
Letter 41 To Sir Horace Mann.
Chatsworth, Aug. 28, 1760. (page 82)
I am a great way out of the world, and yet enough in the way of
news to send you a good deal. I have been here but two or three
days, and it has rained expresses. The most important
intelligence I can give you is that I was stopped from coming
into the north for ten days by a fit of the gout in both feet,
but as I have a tolerable quantity of resolution, I am now
running about with the children and climbing hills--and I intend
to have only just as much of this wholesome evil as shall carry
me to a hundred. The next point of consequence is, that the Duke
of Cumberland has had a stroke of the palsy-- As his courage is
at least equal to mine, he makes nothing of it; but being above
an inch more in the girth than I am, he is not Yet arrived at
skipping about the house. In truth, his case is melancholy: the
humours that have fallen upon the wound in his leg have kept him
lately from all exercise-. as he used much, and is so corpulent,
this must have bad consequences. Can one but pity him? A hero,
reduced by injustice to crowd all his fame into the supporting
bodily ills, and to looking upon the approach of a lingering
death with fortitude, is a real object of compassion. How he
must envy, what I am sure I don't, his cousin of Prussia risking
his life every hour against Cossacks and Russians! Well! but this
risker has scrambled another victory: he has beat that pert
pretender Laudon(92)--yet it looks to me as if he was but new
gilding his coffin; the undertaker Daun will, I fear, still have
the burying of him!
I received here your letter of the 9th, and am glad Dr. Perelli
so far justifies Sisson as to disculpate me. I trust I shall
execute Sophia's business better.
Stosch dined with me at Strawberry before I set out. He is a
very rational creature. I return homewards to-morrow; my
campaigns are never very long; I have great curiosity for seeing
places, but I despatch it soon, and am always impatient to be
back with my own Woden and Thor, my own Gothic Lares. While the
lords and ladies are at skittles, I just found a moment to write
you a line. Adieu!
Arlington Street, Sept. 1.
I had no opportunity of sending my letter to the secretary's
office, so brought it myself. You will see in the Gazette
another little victory of a Captain Byron over a whole diminutive
French squadron. Stosch has had a fever. He is now going to
establish himself at Salisbury.
(92) This was the battle of Licgnitz, fought on the 15th of
August, 1760, and in which the King of Prussia signally defeated
the Austrians under Marshal Laudon, and thereby saved Silesia.-D.
Letter 42 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, September 1, 1760. (page 83)
I was disappointed at your not being at home as I returned from
my expedition; and now I fear it must be another year before I
see Greatworth, as I have two or three more engagements on my
books for the residue of this season. I go next week to Lord
Waldegrave, and afterwards to George Selwyn, and shall return by
Bath, which I have never yet seen. Will not you and the general
come to Strawberry in October?
Thank you for your lamentations on my gout; it was, in proportion
to my size, very slender--my feet are again as small as ever they
were. When I had what I called big shoes, I could have danced a
minuet on a silver penny.
My tour has been extremely agreeable. I set out with winning a
good deal at loo at Ragley; the Duke of Grafton was not so
successful. and had some high words with Pam. I went from thence
to Offley's at Whichnovre, the individual manor of the flitch of
bacon, which has been growing rusty for these thirty years in his
hall. I don't wonder; I have no notion that one could keep in
good humour with one's wife for a year and a day, unless one was
to live on the very spot, which is one of the sweetest scenes I
ever saw. It is the brink of a high hill; the Trent wriggles
through at the foot; Litchfield and twenty other churches and
mansions decorate the view. Mr. Anson has bought an estate close
by, whence my lord used to cast many a wishful eye, though
without the least pretensions even to a bit of lard.
I saw Litchfield cathedral, which has been rich, but my friend
Lord Brook and his soldiery treated poor St. Chadd(93) with so
little ceremony, that it is in a most naked condition. In a
niche ,it the very summit they have crowded a statue of Charles
the Second, with a special pair of shoo-strings, big enough for a
weathercock. As I went to Lord Strafford's I passed through
Sheffield, which is one of the foulest towns in England in the
most charming situation there are two-and-twenty thousand
inhabitants making knives and scissors; they remit eleven
thousand pounds a week to London. One man there has discovered
the art of plating copper with silver; I bought a pair of
candlesticks for two guineas that are quite pretty. Lord
Strafford has erected the little Gothic building, which I got Mr.
Bentley to draw; I took the idea from Chichester-cross. It
stands on a high bank in the menagerie, between a pond and a
vale, totally bowered over with oaks. I went with the Straffords
to Chatsworth, and stayed there four days; there were Lady Mary
Coke, Lord Besborough and his daughters, Lord Thomond, Mr.
Boufoy, the Duke, the old Duchess,(94) and two of his brothers.
Would you believe that nothing was ever better humoured than the
ancient grace? She stayed every evening till it was dark in the
skittle-ground, keeping the score: and one night, that the
servants had a ball for Lady Dorothy'S(95) birthday, we fetched
the fiddler into the drawing-room, and the dowager herself danced
with us! I never was more disappointed than at Chatsworth, which,
ever since I was born, I have condemned. It is a glorious
situation; the vale rich in corn and verdure, vast woods hang
down the hills, which are green to the top, and the immense rocks
only serve to dignify the prospect. The river runs before the
door, and serpentizes more than you can conceive in the vale.
The duke is widening it, and will make it the middle of his park;
but I don't approve an idea they are going to execute, of a fine
bridge with statues under a noble cliff. If they will have a
bridge (which by the way will crowd the scene), it should be
composed of rude fragments, such as the giant of the Peak would
step upon, that he might not be wet-shod. The expense of the
works now carrying on will amount to forty thousand pounds. A
heavy quadrangle of stables is part of the plan,. is very
cumbrous, and standing higher than the house, is ready to
overwhelm it. The principal front of the house is beautiful, and
executed with the neatness of wrought-plate; the inside is most
sumptuous, but did not please me; the heathen gods, goddesses,
Christian virtues, and allegoric gentlefolks, are crowded into
every room, as if Mrs. Holman had been in heaven and invited
every body she saw. The great apartment is first; painted
ceilings, inlaid floors, and unpainted wainscots make every room
sombre. The tapestries are fine, but, not fine enough, and there
are few portraits. The chapel is charming. The great jet d'eau
I like, nor would I remove it; whatever is magnificent of the
kind in the time it was done, I would retain,
else all gardens and houses wear a tiresome resemblance. I
except that absurdity of a cascade tumbling down marble steps,
which reduces the steps to be of no use at all. I saw
Haddon,(96) an abandoned old castle of the Rutlands, in a
romantic situation, but which never could have composed a
tolerable dwelling. The Duke sent Lord John with me to
Hardwicke, where I was again disappointed; but I will not take
relations from others; they either don't see for themselves, or
can't see for me. How I had been promised that I should be
charmed with Hardwicke, and told that the Devonshires ought to
have established there! never was I less charmed in my life. The
house is not Gothic, but of that betweenity, that intervened when
Gothic declined and Palladian was creeping in--rather, this is
totally naked of either. It has vast chambers--aye, vast, such
as the nobility of that time delighted in, and did not know how
to furnish. The great apartment is exactly what it was when the
Queen of @Scots was kept there. Her council-chamber, the
council-chamber of a poor woman, who had only two secretaries, a
gentleman usher, an apothecary, a confessor, and three maids, is
so outrageously spacious, that you would take it for King
David's, who thought, contrary to all modern experience, that in
the multitude of counsellors there is wisdom. At the upper
end is the state, with a long table, covered with a sumptuous
cloth, embroidered and embossed with gold, -at least what was
gold: so are all the tables. Round the top of the chamber runs a
monstrous frieze, ten or twelve feet deep, representing
stag-hunting in miserable plastered relief. The next is her
dressing-room, hung with patchwork on black velvet; then her
state bedchamber. The bed has been rich beyond description, and
now hangs in costly golden tatters. The hangings, part of which
they say her Majesty worked, are composed of figures as large as
life, sewed and embroidered on black velvet, white satin, etc.
and represent the virtues that were necessary for her, or that
she was forced to have, as patience and temperance, etc. The
fire-screens are particular; pieces of yellow velvet, fringed
with gold, hang on a cross-bar of wood, which is fixed on the top
of a single stick, that rises from the foot. The only furniture
which has any appearance of taste are the table and cabinets,
which are all of oak, richly carved. There is a privata chamber
within, where she lay, her arms and style over the door; the
arras hangs over all the doors; the gallery is sixty yards long,
covered with bad tapestry, and wretched pictures of Mary herself,
Elizabeth in a gown of sea-monsters, Lord Darnley, James the
Fifth and his Queen, curious, and a whole history of Kings of
England, not worth sixpence apiece. There is an original of old
Bess(97) of Hardwicke herself, who built the house. Her estates
were then reckoned at sixty thousand pounds a-year, and now let
for two hundred thousand pounds. Lord John Cavendish told me,
that the tradition in the family was that it had been prophesied
to her that she should never die as long as she was building; and
that at last she died in a hard frost, when the labourers could
not work. There is a fine bank of old oaks in the park over a
lake; nothing else pleased me there. However, I was so diverted
with this old beldam and her magnificence, that I made this
epitaph for her:
Four times the nuptial bed she warm'd,
And every time so well perform'd,
That when death spoil'd each husband's billing,
He left the widow every shilling.
Fond was the dame, but not dejected;
Five stately mansions she erected
With more than royal pomp, to vary
The prison of her captive
When Hardwicke's towers shall bow their head,
Nor mass be more in Worksop said;
When Bolsover's fair fame shall tend,
Like Olcotes, to its mouldering end;
When Chatsworth tastes no Can'dish bounties,
Let fame forget this costly countess.
As I returned, I saw Newstead and Althorpe: I like both. The
former is the very abbey.(98) The great east window(99) of the
church remains, and connects with the house; the hall entire, the
refectory entire, the cloister untouched, with the ancient
cistern of the convent, and their arms on it; a private chapel
quite perfect. The park, which is still charming, has not been
so much unprofaned; the present lord has lost large sums, and
paid part in old oaks, five thousand pounds of which have been
cut near the house. In recompense he has built two baby forts,
to pay his country in castles for the damage done to the navy,
and planted a handful of Scotch firs, that look like plough-boys
dressed in old family liveries for a public day. In the hall is
a very good collection of pictures, all animals; the refectory,
now the great-drawing-room, is full of Byrons; the vaulted roof
remaining, but the windows have new dresses making for them by a
Venetian tailor.(100) Althorpe(101) has several very fine
pictures by the best Italian hands, and a gallery of all one's
acquaintance by Vandyke and Lely. I wonder you never saw it; it
is but six miles from Northampton. Well, good night; I have writ
you such a volume, that you see I am forced to page it. The Duke
has had a stroke of the palsy, but is quite recovered, except in
some letters, which he cannot pronounce; and it is still visible
in the contraction of one side of his mouth. My compliments to
your family.
(93) The patron saint Of the town. The imagery and carved work
on the front of the cathedral was much injured in 1641. The
cross upon the west window is said to have been frequently aimed
at by Cromwell's soldiery.-E.
(94) Daughter of John Hoskins, Esq. and widow of William the
third Duke of Devonshire.
(95) Afterwards Duchess of Portland.
(96) Anciently the seat of the Vernons. Sir George Vernon, in
Queen Elizabeth's time, was styled King of the Peak," and the
property came into the Manners family by his daughter marrying
Thomas, son of the first Earl of Rutland.-E.
(97) She was daughter of John Hardwicke, of Hardwicke in
Derbyshire. Her first husband was Robert Barley, Esq. who
settled his large estate on her and hers. She married, secondly,
Sir William Cavendish; her third husband was Sir William St. Lo;
and her fourth was George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, whose
daughter, Lady Grace, married her son by Sir William Cavendish.
(98) Evelyn, who visited Newstead in 1654, says of it:--"It is
situated much like Fontainbleau, in France, capable of being made
a noble seat, accommodated as it is with brave woods and streams;
it has yet remaining the front of a glorious abbey church." Lord
Byron thus beautifully describes the family seat, in the
thirteenth canto of Don Juan:
"An old, old monastery once, and now
Still older mansion-of a rich and rare
Mix'd Gothic, much as artists all allow
Few specimens yet left us can compare.
"Before the mansion lay a lucid lake,
Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed
By a river, which its soften'd way did take
In currents through the calmer water spread
Around: the wildfowl nestled in the brake
And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed:
The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood
With their green faces fix'd upon the flood."-E.
(99) A mighty window, hollow in the centre,
Shorn of its glass of thousand colourings,
Through which the deepen'd glories once could enter,
Streaming from off the sun like seraph's wings,
Now yawns all desolate."-E.
(100) "----The cloisters still were stable,
The cells, too, and refectory, I ween:
An exquisite small chapel had been able
Still unimpaired to decorate the scene
The rest had been reform'd, replaced, or sunk,
And spoke more of the baron than the monk."-E.
(101) The seat of Earl Spencer.-E.
Letter 43 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 4, 1760. (87)
My dear lord,
You ordered me to tell you how I liked Hardwicke. To say the
truth, not exceedingly. The bank of oaks over the ponds is fine,
and the vast lawn behind the house: I saw nothing else that is
superior to the common run of parks. For the house, it did not
please me at all; there is no grace, no ornament, no Gothic in
it. I was glad to see the style of furniture of that age; and my
imagination helped me to like the apartment of the Queen of
Scots. Had it been the chateau of a Duchess of Brunswick, on
which they had exhausted the revenues of some centuries, I don't
think I should have admired it at all. In short, Hardwicke
disappointed me as much as Chatsworth surpassed my expectation.
There is a richness and vivacity of prospect in the latter; in
the former, nothing but triste grandeur.
Newstead delighted me. There is grace and Gothic indeed--good
chambers and a comfortable house. The monks formerly were the
only sensible people that had really good mansions.(102) I saw
Althorpe too, and liked it very well: the pictures are fine. In
the gallery I found myself quite at home; and surprised the
housekeeper by my familiarity with the portraits.
I hope you have read Prince Ferdinand's thanksgiving, where he
has made out a victory by the excess of his praises. I supped at
Mr. Conway's t'other night with Miss West'(103) and we diverted
ourselves with the encomiums on her Colonel Johnston. Lady
Ailesbury told her, that to be sure next winter she would burn
nothing but laurel-faggots. Don't you like Prince Ferdinand's
being so tired with thanking, that at last he is forced to turn
God over to be thanked by the officers?
In London there is a more cruel campaign than that waged by the
Russians: the streets are a very picture of the murder of the
innocents--one drives over nothing but poor dead dogs!(104) The
dear, good-natured, honest, sensible creatures! Christ! how can
anybody hurt them? Nobody could but those Cherokees the English,
who desire no better than to be halloo'd to blood:--one day
Admiral Byng, the next Lord George Sackville, and to-day the poor
dogs!
I cannot help telling your lordship how I was diverted the night
I returned hither. I was sitting with Mrs. Clive, her sister and
brother, in the bench near the road at the end of her long walk.
We heard a violent scolding; and looking out, saw a pretty woman
standing by a high chaise, in which was a young fellow, and a
coachman riding by. The damsel had lost her hat, her cap, her
cloak, her temper, and her senses; and was more drunk and more
angry than you can conceive. Whatever the young man had or had
not done to her. she would not ride in the chaise with him, but
stood cursing and swearing in the most outrageous style: and when
she had vented all the oaths she could think of, she at last
wished perfidion might seize him. You may imagine how we
laughed. The fair intoxicate turned round, and cried "I am
laughed at!--Who is it!--What, Mrs. Clive? Kitty Clive?--No:
Kitty Clive would never behave so!" I wish you could have seen
My neighbour's confusion. She certainly did not grow paler than
ordinary. I laugh now while I repeat it to you.
I have told Mr. Bentley the great honour you have done him, my
lord. He is happy the Temple succeeds to please you.
(102) "----It lies perhaps a little low, Because the monks
preferred a hill behind To shelter their devotion from the wind."
Byron.-E.
(103) Lady Henrietta-Cecilia, eldest daughter of John, afterwards
Lord de la Warr. In 1763, she was married to General James
West.-E.
(104) In the summer of this year the dread of mad dogs' raged
like an epidemic: the periodical publications of the time being
filled with little else of domestic interest than the squabbles
of the dog-lovers and dog-haters. The Common Council of London,
at a meeting on the @6th August, issued an order for killing all
dogs found in the street., or highways after the 27th, and
offered a reward of two shillings for every dog that should be
killed and buried in the skin. In Goldsmith's Citizen of the
World there is an amusing paper in which he ridicules the fear of
mad dogs as one of those epidemic terrors to which our countrymen
are occasionally prone.-E.
Letter 44 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, September 19, 1760. (page 88)
thank you for your notice, though I should certainly have
contrived to see you without it. Your brother promised he would
come and dine here one day with you and Lord Beauchamp. I go to
Navestock on Monday, for two or three days; but that Will not
exhaust your waiting.(105) I shall be in town on Sunday; but- as
that is a court-day, I will not--so don't propose it--dine with
you at Kensington; but I will be with my Lady Hertford about six,
where your brother and you will find me if you please. I cannot
come to Kensington in the evening, for I have but one pair of
horses in the world, and they will have to carry me to town in
the morning.
I wonder the King expects a battle; when Prince Ferdinand can do
as well without fighting, why should he fight? Can't he make the
hereditary Prince gallop into a mob of Frenchmen, and get a
scratch on the nose; and Johnson straddle across a river and come
back with six heads of hussars in his fob, and then can't he
thank all the world, and assure them he shall never forget the
victory they have not gained? These thanks are sent over: the
Gazette swears that this no-success was chiefly owing to General
Mostyn; and the Chronicle protests, that it was achieved by my
Lord Granby's losing his hat, which he never wears; and then his
lordship sends over for three hundred thousand pints of porter to
drink his own health; and then Mr. Pitt determines to carry on
the war for another year; and then the Duke of Newcastle hopes
that we shall be beat, that he may lay the blame on Mr. Pitt, and
that then he shall be minister for thirty years longer; and then
we shall be the greatest nation in the universe. Amen! My dear
Harry, you see how easy it is to be a hero. If you had but taken
impudence and Oatlands in your way to Rochfort, it would not have
signified whether you had taken Rochfort or not. Adieu! I don't
know who Lady Ailesbury's Mr. Alexander is. If she curls like a
vine with any Mr. Alexander but you, I hope my Lady Coventry will
recover and be your Roxana.
(105) Mr. Conway, as groom of the bedchamber to the King, was
then in waiting at Kensington.
Letter 45 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill. (page 89)
You are good for nothing; you have no engagement, you have no
principles; and all this I am not afraid to tell you,. as you
have left your sword behind you. If you take it ill, I have
given my nephew, who brings your sword, a letter of attorney to
fight you for me; I shall certainly not see you: my Lady
Waldegrave goes to town on Friday, but I remain here. You lose
Lady Anne Connolly and her forty daughters, who all dine here
to-day upon a few loaves and three small fishes. I should have
been glad if you would have breakfasted here on Friday on your
way; but as I lie in bed rather longer than the lark, I fear our
hours would not suit one another. Adieu!
Letter 46 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, October 2, 1760. (page 90)
I announce my Lady Huntingtower(106) to you. I hope you will
approve the match a little more than I Suppose my Lord Dysart
will, as he does not yet know, though they have been married
these two hours, that, at ten o'clock this morning, his son
espoused my niece Charlotte at St. James's church. The moment
my Lord Dysart is dead, I will carry you to see the Ham-house;
it is pleasant to call cousins with a charming prospect over
against one. Now you want to know the detail: there was none.
It is not the style of Our Court to have long negotiations; we
don't fatigue the town with exhibiting the betrothed for six
months together in public places. Vidit, venit, vicit;--the
young lord has liked her some time; on Saturday se'nnight He
came to my brother, and made his demand. The princess did not
know him by sight, and did not dislike him when she did; she
consented. and they were married this morning. My Lord Dysart
is such a - that nobody will pity him; he has kept his son till
six-and-twenty, and would never make the least settlement on
him; "Sure," said the young man, "if he will do nothing for me,
I may please myself; he cannot hinder me of ten thousand pounds
a-year, and sixty thousand that are in the funds, all entailed
on me"--a reversion one does not wonder the bride did not
refuse, as there is present possession too of a very handsome
person; the only thing his father has ever given him. His
grandfather, Lord Granville, has always told him to choose a
gentlewoman, and please himself; yet I should think the ladies
Townshend and Cooper would cackle a little.
I wish you could have come here this October for more reasons
than one. The Teddingtonian history is grown wofully bad.
Mark Antony, though no boy, persists in losing the world two or
three times over for every gipsy that be takes for a Cleopatra.
I have laughed, been scolded, represented, begged, and at last
spoken very roundly--all with equal success; at present we do
not meet. I must convince him of ill usage, before I can make
good usage of any service. All I have done is forgot, because
I will not be enamoured of Hannah Cleopatra too. You shall
know the whole history when I see you; you may trust me for
still being kind to him; but that he must not as yet suspect;
they are bent on going to London, that she may visit and be
visited, while he puts on his red velvet and ermine, and goes
about begging in robes.
Poor Mr. Chute has had another very severe fit of the gout; I
left him in bed, but by not hearing he is worse, trust on
Saturday to find him mended. Adieu!
(106) Charlotte, third daughter of Sir Edward Walpole, and
sister to Lady Waldegrave, and to Mrs. Keppel.
Letter 47 To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Oct. 5, 1760. Page 91)
I am afraid you will turn me off from being your gazetteer. Do
you know that I came to town to-day by accident, and was here
four hours before I heard that Montreal was taken? The express
came early this morning. I am so posthumous in my intelligence,
that you must not expect any intelligence from me--but the same
post that brings you this, will convey the extraordinary gazette,
which of late is become the register of the Temple of Fame. All
I know is, that the bonfires and squibs are drinking General
Amherst's(107) health.
Within these two days Fame and the Gazette have laid another egg;
I wish they may hatch it themselves! but it is one of that
unlucky hue which has so often been addled; in short, behold
another secret expedition. It was notified on Friday, and
departs in a fortnight. Lord Albemarle, it is believed, will
command it. One is sure at least that it cannot be to America,
for we have taken it all. The conquest of Montreal may perhaps
serve in full of all accounts, as I suspect a little that this
new plan was designed to amuse the City of London at the
beginning of the session, who would not like to have wasted so
many millions on this campaign, without any destruction of friend
or foe.(108) Now, a secret expedition may at least furnish a
court-martial, and the citizens love persecution even better than
their money. A general or in admiral to be mobbed either by
their applause or their hisses, is all they desire.-Poor Lord
Albemarle!
The charming Countess(109) is dead at last; and as if the whole
history of both sisters was to be extraordinary, the Duchess of
Hamilton is in a consumption too, and going abroad directly.
Perhaps you may see the remains of these prodigies, you will see
but little remains; her features were never so beautiful as Lady
Coventry's, and she has long been changed, though not yet I think
above six-and-twenty. The other was but twenty-seven.
As all the great ladies are mortal this year, my family is forced
to recruit the peerage. My brother's last daughter is married;
and, as Biddy Tipkin(110) says, though their story is too short
for a romance, it will make a very pretty novel--nay, it is
almost brief enough for a play, and very near comes within one of
the unities, the space of four-and-twenty hours. There is in the
world, particularly in my world, for he lives directly over
against me across the water, a strange brute called Earl of
Dysart.(111) Don't be frightened, it is not he. His son, Lord
Huntingtower, to whom he gives but four hundred pounds a year, is
a comely young gentleman of twenty-six, who has often had
thoughts of trying whether his father would not like
grandchildren better than his own children, as sometimes people
have more grand-tenderness than paternal. All the answer he
could ever get was, that the Earl could not afford, as he has
five younger children, to make any settlement, but he offered, as
a proof of his inability and kindness, to lend his son a large
sum of money at low interest. This indigent usurer has thirteen
thousand pounds a year, and sixty thousand pounds in the funds.
The money and ten of the thirteen thousand in land are entailed
on Lord Huntingtower. The young lord, it seems, has been in love
with Charlotte for some months, but thought so little of
inflaming her, that yesterday fortnight she did not know him by
sight. On that day he came and proposed himself to my brother,
who with much surprise heard his story, but excused himself from
giving an answer. He said, he would never force the inclinations
of his children; he did not believe his daughter had any
engagement or attachment, but she might have: he would send for
her and know her mind. She was at her sister Waldegrave's, to
whom, on receiving the notification, she said very sensibly, "if
I was but nineteen, I would refuse pointblank; I do not like to
be married in a week to a man I never saw. But I am
two-and-twenty; some people say I am handsome, some say I am not;
I believe the truth is, I am likely to be at large and to go off
soon-it is dangerous to refuse so great a match." Take notice of
the married in a week; the love that was so many months in
ripening, could not stay above a week. She came and saw this
impetuous lover, and I believe was glad she had not refused
pointblank-for they were married last Thursday. I tremble a
little for the poor girl; not to mention the oddness of the
father, and twenty disagreeable things that may be in the young
man, who has been kept and lived entirely out of the world; @
takes her fortune, ten thousand pounds, and cannot settle another
shilling upon her till his father dies, and then promises Only a
thousand a year. Would one venture one's happiness and one's
whole fortune for the chance of being Lady Dysart?@if Lord
Huntingtower dies before his father, she will not have sixpence.
Sure my brother has risked too much!
Stosch, who is settled at Salisbury, has writ to me to recommend
him to somebody or other as a travelling governor or companion.
I would if I knew any body: but who travels now? He says you
have notified his intention to me-so far from it, I have not
heard from you this age: I never was SO long without a letter-
-but you don't take Montreals and Canadas every now and then.
You repose like the warriors in Germany-at least I hope so--I
trust no ill health has occasioned your silence. Adieu!
(107) General Sir Jeffrey Amherst distinguished himself in the
war with the French in America. He was subsequently created a
peer, and made commander-in-chief.-D.
(108) The large armament, intended for a secret expedition and
collected at Portsmouth, was detained there the whole summer, but
the design was laid aside.-E.
(109) Maria Gunning, Countess of Coventry.
(110) In Steele's "Tender Husband"
(111) Lionel Tolmache, Earl of Dysart, lived at Ham House, over
against Twickenham.
Letter 48 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 14, 1760. (page 92)
If you should see in the newspapers, that I have offered to raise
a regiment at Twickenham, am going with the expedition, and have
actually kissed hands, don't believe it; though I own, the two
first would not be more surprising than the last. I will tell
you how the calamity befell me, though you will laugh instead of
pitying me. Last Friday morning, I was very tranquilly writing
my Anecdotes of Painting,--I heard the bell at the gate ring--I
called out, as usual, "Not at home;" but Harry, who thought it
would be treason to tell a lie, when he saw red liveries, owned I
was, and came running up: "Sir, the Prince of Wales is at the
door, and says he is come on purpose to make you a visit!" There
was I, in the utmost confusion, undressed, in my slippers, and my
hair about my ears; there was no help, insanunt vetem aspiciet-
-and down I went to receive him. Him was the Duke of York.
Behold my breeding of the old court; at the foot of the stairs I
kneeled down, and kissed his hand. I beg your uncle Algernon
Sidney's pardon, but I could not let the second Prince of the
blood kiss my hand first. He was, as he always is, extremely
good-humoured; and I, as I am not always, extremely respectful.
He stayed two hours, nobody with him but Morrison; I showed him
all my castle, the pictures of the Pretender's sons, and that
type of the Reformation, Harry the Eighth's ----, moulded into a
to the clock he gave Anne Boleyn. - But observe my luck; he would
have the sanctum sanctorum in the library opened: about a month
ago I removed the MSS. in another place. All this is very well;
but now for the consequences; what was I to do next? I have not
been in a court these ten years, consequently have never kissed
hands in the next reign. Could I let a Duke of York visit me,
and never go to thank him? I know, if I was a great poet, I might
be so brutal, and tell the world in rhyme that rudeness is
virtue; or, if I was a patriot, I might, after laughing at Kings
and Princes for twenty years, catch at the first opening of
favour and beg a place. In truth, I can do neither; yet I could
not be shocking; I determined to go to Leicester-house, and
comforted myself that it was not much less meritorious to go
there for nothing, than to stay quite away; yet I believe I must
make a pilgrimage to Saint Liberty of Geneva, before I am
perfectly purified, especially as I am dipped even at St.
James's. Lord Hertford, at my request, begged my Lady Yarmouth
to get an order for my Lady Henry to go through the park, and the
countess said so many civil things about me and my suit, and
granted it so expeditiously, that I shall be forced to visit,
even before she lives here next door to my Lady Suffolk. My
servants are transported; Harry expects to see me first minister,
like my father, and reckons upon a place in the Custom-house..
Louis, who drinks like a German, thinks himself qualified for a
page of the back stairs--but these are not all my troubles. As I
never dress in summer, I had nothing upon earth but a frock,
unless I went in black, like a poet, and pretended that a cousin
was dead, one of the muses. Then I was in panics lest I should
call my Lord Bute, your Royal Highness. I was not indeed in much
pain at the conjectures the Duke of Newcastle would make on such
an apparition, even if he should suspect that a new opposition
was on foot, and that I was to write some letters to the Whigs.
Well, but after all, do you know that my calamity has not
befallen me yet? I could not determine to bounce over head and
ears into the drawing-room at once, without one soul knowing why
I cane thither. I went to London on Saturday night, and Lord
Hertford was to carry me the next Morning; in the meantime I
wrote to Morrison, explaining my gratitude to one brother, and my
unacquaintance with t'other, and how afraid I was that it would
be thought officious and forward if I was presented now, and
begging he would advise me what to do; and all this upon my
bended knee, as if Schutz had stood over me and dictated every
syllable. The answer was by order from the Duke of York, that he
smiled at my distress, wished to put me to no inconvenience, but
desired, that as the acquaintance had begun without restraint, it
might continue without ceremony. Now I was in more perplexity
than ever! I could not go directly, and yet it was not fit it
should be said I thought it an inconvenience to wait on the
Prince of Wales. At present it is decided by a jury of court
matrons, that is, courtiers, that I must write to my Lord Bute
and explain the whole, and why I desire to come now--don't fear;
I will take care they shall understand how little I come for. In
the mean time, you see it is my fault if I am not a favourite,
but alas! I am not heavy enough to be tossed in a blanket, like
Doddington; I should never come down again; I cannot be driven in
a royal curricle to wells and waters: I can't make love now to my
contemporary Charlotte Dives; I cannot quit Mufti and my
parroquet for Sir William Irby,(112) and the prattle of a
drawing-room, nor Mrs. Clive for Aelia Lalia Chudleigh; in short,
I could give up nothing but an Earldom of EglingtOn; and yet I
foresee, that this phantom of the reversion of a reversion will
make me plagued; I shall have Lord Egmont whisper me again; and
every tall woman and strong man, that comes to town, will make
interest with me to get the Duke of York to come and see them.
Oh! dreadful, dreadful! It is plain I never was a patriot, for I
don't find my virtue a bit staggered by this first glimpse of
court sunshine.
Mr. Conway has pressed to command the new Quixotism on foot, and
has been refused; I sing a very comfortable te Deum for it.
Kingsley, Craufurd, and Keppel, are the generals, and Commodore
Keppel the admiral. The mob are sure of being pleased; they will
get a conquest, or a court-martial. A very unpleasant thing has
happened to the Keppels; the youngest brother, who had run in
debt at Gibraltar, and was fetched away to be sent to Germany,
gave them the slip at the first port they touched at in Spain,
surrendered himself to the Spanish governor, has changed his
religion, and sent for a ---- that had been taken from him at
Gibraltar; naturam expellas fure`a. There's the true blood of
Charles the Second sacrificing every thing for popery and a
bunter.
Lord Bolingbroke, on hearing the name of Lady Coventry at
Newmarket, affected to burst into tears, and left the room, not
to hide his crying, but his not crying.
Draper has handsomely offered to go on the expedition, and goes.
Ned Finch, t'other day, on the conquest of Montreal, wished the
King joy of having lost no subjects, but those that perished in
the rabbits. Fitzroy asked him if he thought they crossed the
great American lakes in such little boats as one goes to
Vauxhall? he replied, "Yes, Mr. Pitt said the rabbits"--it was
in the falls, the rapids.
I like Lord John almost as well as Fred. Montagu; and I like your
letter better than Lord John; the application of Miss Falkener
was charming. Good night.
P. S. If I had been told in June, that I should have the gout,
and kiss hands before November, I don't think I should have given
much credit to the prophet.
(112) In 1761, created Baron Boston.-E.
Letter 49 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street. October 25, 1760. (page 95)
I tell a lie: I am at Mr. Chute's.
Was ever so agreeable a man as King George the Second, to die the
very day it was necessary to save me from a ridicule? I was to
have kissed hands to-morrow-but you will not care a farthing
about that now; so I must tell you all I know of departed
majesty. He went to bed well last night, rose at six this
morning as usual, looked, I suppose, if all his money was in his
purse, and called for his chocolate. A little after seven, he
went into the water-closet; the German valet de chambre heard a
noise, listened, heard something like a groan, ran in, and found
the hero of Oudenarde and Dettingen on the floor, with a gash on
his right temple, by falling against the corner of a bureau. He
tried to speak, could not, and expired. Princess Emily was
called, found him dead, and wrote to the Prince. I know not a
syllable, but am come to see and hear as much as I can. I fear
you will cry and roar all night, but one could not keep it from
you. For my part, like a new courtier, I comfort myself,
considering what a gracious Prince comes next. Behold my luck.
I wrote to Lord Bute, just in all the unexpecteds, want Of
ambition, disinteresteds, etc. that I could amass, gilded with as
much duty affection, zeal, etc. as possible, received a very
gracious and sensible answer, and was to have been presented
to-morrow, and the talk of the few people, that are in town, for
a week. Now I shall be lost in the crowd, shall be as well there
as I desire to be, have done what was right, they know I want
nothing, may be civil to me very cheaply, and I can go and see
the puppet-show for this next month at my ease: but perhaps you
will think all this a piece of art; to be sure, I have timed my
court, as luckily as possible, and contrived to be the last
person in England that made interest with the successor. You see
virtue and philosophy always prone to know the world and their
own interest. However, I am not so abandoned a patriot yet, as
to desert my friends immediately; you shall hear now and then the
events of this new reign--if I am not made secretary of state--if
I am, I shall certainly take care to let you know it.
I had really begun to think that the lawyers for once talked
sense, when they said the King never dies. He probably cot his
death, as he liked to have done two years ago, by viewing the
troops for the expedition from the wall of Kensington Garden. My
Lady Suffolk told me about a month ago that he had often told
her, speaking of the dampness of Kensington, that he would never
die there. For my part, my man Harry will always be a favourite:
he tells me all the amusing news; he first told me of the late
Prince of Wales's death, and to-day of the King's.
Thank you, Mr. Chute is as well as can be expected--in this
national affliction. Sir Robert Brown has left every thing to my
Lady--aye, every thing, I believe his very avarice.
Lord Huntingtower wrote to offer his father eight thousand pounds
of Charlotte's fortune, if he would give them one thousand a-year
in present, and settle a jointure on her. The Earl returned this
truly laconic, for being so unnatural, an answer. "Lord
Huntingtower, I answer your letter as soon as I receive it; I
wish you joy; I hear your wife is very accomplished. Yours,
Dysart." I believe my Lady Huntingtower must contrive to make it
convenient for me, that my Lord Dysart should die--and then he
will. I expect to be a very respectable personage in time, and
to have my tomb set forth like the Lady Margaret Douglas, that I
had four earls to my nephews, though I never was one myself.
Adieu! I must go govern the nation.
Letter 50 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Arlington Street, October 26, 1760. (page 96)
My dear lord,
I beg your pardon for so long a silence in the late reign; I knew
nothing worth telling you; and the great event of this morning
you Z, will certainly hear before it comes to you by so sober and
regular a personage as the postman. The few circumstances known
yet are, that the King went well to bed last night; rose well at
six this morning; went to the water-closet a little after seven
-, had a fit, fell against a bureau, and gashed his right temple:
the valet de chambre heard a noise and a groan, and ran in: the
King tried to speak, but died instantly. I should hope this
would draw you southward: such scenes are worth looking at, even
by people who regard them with such indifference as your lordship
and I. I say no more, for what will mix in a letter with the
death of a King! I am my lady's and your lordship's most
faithful servant.
Letter 51 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Tuesday, October 28. (page 97)
The new reign dates with great propriety and decency; the
civilest letter to Princess Emily; the greatest kindness to the
duke; the utmost respect to the dead body. No changes to be made
but those absolutely necessary, as the household, etc.--and what
some will think the most unnecessary, in the representative of
power. There are but two new cabinet counsellors named; the Duke
of York and Lord Bute, so it must be one of them. The Princess
does not remove to St. James's, so I don't believe it will be
she. To-day England kissed hands, so did I, and it is more
comfortable to kiss hands with all England, than to have all
England ask why one kisses hands. Well! my virtue is safe; I had
a gracious reception, and yet I am almost as impatient to return
to Strawberry, as I was to leave it on the news. There is great
dignity and grace in the King's manner. I don't say this, like
my dear Madame de S`evign`e, because he was civil to me but the
part is well acted. If they do as well behind the scenes, as
upon the stage, it will be a very complete reign. Hollinshed, or
Baker, would think it begins well, that is, begins ill; it has
rained without intermission, and yesterday there came a cargo of
bad news, all which, you know, are similar omens to a man who
writes history upon the information of the clouds. Berlin is
taken by the Prussians, the hereditary Prince beaten by the
French. Poor Lord Downe has had three wounds. He and your
brother's Billy Pitt are prisoners. Johnny Waldegrave was shot
through the hat and through the coat; and would have been shot
through the body, if he had had any. Irish Johnson is wounded in
the hand; Ned Harvey somewhere; and Prince Ferdinand mortally in
his reputation for sending this wild detachment. Mr. Pitt has
another reign to set to rights. The Duke of Cumberland has taken
Lord Sandwich's, in Pall-mall; Lord Chesterfield has offered his
house to Princess Emily; and if they live at Hampton-court, as I
suppose his court will, I may as well offer Strawberry for a
royal nursery; for at best it will become a cakehouse; 'tis such
a convenient airing for the maids of honour. If I was not forced
in conscience to own to you, that my own curiosity is exhausted,
I would ask you, if you would not come and look at this new
world; but a new world only reacted by old players is not much
worth seeing; I shall return on Saturday. The Parliament is
prorogued till the day it was to have met; the will is not
opened; what can I tell you more? Would it be news that all is
hopes and fears, and that great lords look as if they dreaded
wanting bread? would this be news? believe me, it all grows
stale soon. I had not seen such a sight these three-and-thirty
years: I came eagerly to town; I laughed for three days-. I am
tired already. Good night!
P. S. I smiled to myself last night. Out of excess of attention,
which costs me nothing, when I mean it should cost nobody else
any thing, I went last night to Kensington to inquire after
Princess Emily and Lady Yarmouth: nobody knew me, they asked my
name. When they heard it, they did not seem ever to have heard
it before, even in that house. I waited half an hour in a lodge
with a footman of Lady Yarmouth's; I would not have waited so
long in her room a week ago; now it only diverted me. Even
moralizing is entertaining, when one laughs at the same time; but
I pity those who don't moralize till they cry.
Letter 52 To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Oct. 28, 1760. (page 98)
The deaths of kings travel so much faster than any post, that I
cannot expect to tell you news, when I say your old master is
dead. But I can pretty well tell you what I like best to be
able to say to you on this occasion, that you are in no danger.
Change Will scarce reach to Florence when its hand is checked
even in the capital. But I will move a little regularly, and
then you will form your judgment more easily--This is Tuesday;
on Friday night the King went to bed in perfect health, and
rose so the next morning at his usual hour of six; he called
for and drank his chocolate. At seven, for every thing with
him was exact and periodic, he went into the closet to dismiss
his chocolate. Coming from thence, his valet de chambre heard
a noise; waited a moment, and heard something like a groan. He
ran in, and in a small room between the closet and bedchamber
he found the King on the floor, who had cut the right side of
his face against the edge of a bureau, and who after a gasp
expired. Lady Yarmouth was called, and sent for Princess
Amelia; but they only told the latter that the King was ill and
wanted her. She had been confined for some days with a
rheumatism, but hurried down, ran into the room without farther
notice, and saw her father extended on the bed. She is very
purblind, and more than a little deaf They had not closed his
eyes: she bent down close to his face, and concluded he spoke
to her, though she could not hear him-guess what a shock when
she found the truth. She wrote to the Prince of Wales--but so
had one of the valets de chambre first. He came to town and
saw the Duke(113) and the privy council. He was extremely kind
to the first--and in general has behaved with the greatest
propriety, dignity, and decency. He read his speech to the
council with much grace, and dismissed the guards on himself to
wait on his grandfather's body. It is intimated, that he means
to employ the same ministers, but with reserve to himself of
more authority than has lately been in fashion. The Duke of
York and Lord Bute are named of the cabinet council. The late
King's will is not yet opened. To-day every body kissed hands
at Leicester-house, and this week, I believe, the King will go
to St. James's. The body has been opened; the great ventricle
of the heart had burst. What an enviable death! In the
greatest period of glory of this country, and of his reign, in
perfect tranquillity at home, at seventy-seven, growing blind
and deaf, to die without a pang, before any reverse of fortune,
or any distasted peace, nay, but two days before a ship load of
bad news: could he have chosen such another moment? The news is
bad indeed! Berlin taken by capitulation, and yet the Austrians
behaved so savagely that even the Russians(114) felt delicacy,
were shocked, and checked them! Nearer home, the hereditary
Prince(115) has been much beaten by Monsieur de Castries, and
forced to raise the siege of Wesel, whither Prince Ferdinand
had Sent him most unadvisedly: we have scarce an officer
unwounded. The secret expedition will now, I conclude, sail,
to give an `eclat to the new reign. Lord Albemarle does not
command it, as I told you, nor Mr. Conway, though both applied.
Nothing is settled about the Parliament; not even the necessary
changes in the household. Committees of council are regulating
the mourning and the funeral. The town, which between armies,
militia, and approaching elections, was likely to be a desert
all the winter, is filled in a minute, but every thing is in
the deepest tranquility. People stare; the only expression.
The moment any thing is declared, one shall not perceive the
novelty of the reign. A nation without parties is soon a
nation without curiosity. You may now judge how little your
situation is likely to be affected. I finish; I think I feel
ashamed of tapping the events of a new reign, of which probably
I shall not see half. If I was not unwilling to balk your
curiosity, I should break my pen, as the great officers do
their white wands, over the grave of the old King. Adieu!
(113) William Duke of Cumberland.
(114) The Russians and Austrians obtained possession of Berlin,
while Frederick was employed in watching the great Austrian
army. They were, however, soon driven from it.-D.
(115) Of Brunswick; afterwards the celebrated duke of that
name.-D.
Letter 53 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Oct. 31, 1760. (page 99)
When you have changed the cipher of George the Second into that
of George the Third. and have read the addresses, and have
shifted a few lords and grooms of the bedchamber, you are master
of the history of the new reign, which is indeed but a new lease
of the old one. The favourite took it up in a
high style; but having, like my Lord Granville, forgot to ensure
either house of Parliament, or the mob, the third house of
Parliament, he drove all the rest to unite. They have united,
and have notified their resolution of governing as
before: not but the Duke of Newcastle cried for his old
master, desponded for himself, protested he would retire,
consulted every body whose interest it was to advise him to stay,
and has accepted to-day, thrusting the dregs of his ridiculous
life into a young court, which will at least be saved from the
imputation of childishness, by being governed by folly of seventy
years growth.
The young King has all the appearance of being amiable. There is
great grace to temper much dignity and extreme good-nature, which
breaks out on all occasions. Even the household is not settled
yet. The greatest difficulty is the master of the horse. Lord
Huntingdon is so by all precedent; Lord Gower, I believe, will be
so. Poor Lord Rochford is undone - nobody is unreasonable to
save him. The Duke of Cumberland has taken Schomberg-house in
Pall-mall; Princess Emily is dealing for Sir Richard Lyttelton's
in Cavendish-square. People imagined the Duke of Devonshire had
lent her Burlington-house; I don't know why, unless they supposed
she was to succeed my Lady Burlington in every thing.
A week has finished my curiosity fully; I return to Strawberry
to-morrow, and I fear go next week to Houghton, to make an
appearance of civility to Lynn, whose favour I never asked, nor
care if I have or not; but I don't know how to refuse this
attention to Lord Orford, who begs it.
I trust you will have approved my behaviour at court, that is, my
mixing extreme politeness with extreme indifference. Our
predecessors, the philosophers of ancient days, knew not how to
be disinterested without brutality; I pique myself on founding a
new sect. My followers are to tell kings, with excess of
attention, that they don't want them, and to despise favour with
more good breeding than others practise in suing for it. We are
a thousand times a greater nation than the Grecians: why are we
to imitate them! Our sense is as great, our follies greater; sure
we have all the pretensions to superiority! Adieu!
P. S. As to the fair widow Brown, I assure you the devil never
sowed two hundred thousand pounds in a more fruitful soil: every
guinea has taken root already. I saw her yesterday; it shall be
some time before I see her again.
Letter 54 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 4, 1760. (page 100)
I am not gone to Houghton, you see: my Lord Orford is come to
town, and I have persuaded him to stay and perform decencies.
King George the Second is dead richer than Sir Robert Brown,
though perhaps not so rich as my Lord Hardwicke. He has left
fifty thousand pounds between the Duke, Emily, and Mary; the Duke
has given up his share. To Lady Yarmouth a cabinet, with the
contents; they call it eleven thousand pounds. By a German deed,
he gives the Duke to the value of one hundred and eighty thousand
pounds, placed on mortgages, not immediately recoverable. e had
once given him twice as much more, then revoked it, and at last
excused the revocation, on the pretence of the expenses of the
war; but owns he was the best son that ever lived, and had never
offended him; a pretty strong comment on the affair of
Closterseven! He gives him, besides, all his jewels in England;
but had removed all the best to Hanover, which he makes crown
jewels, and his successor residuary legatee. The Duke, too, has
some uncounted cabinets. My Lady Suffolk has given me a
particular of his jewels, which plainly amount to one hundred and
fifty thousand pounds. It happened oddly to my Lady Suffolk.
Two days before he died, she went to make a visit at Kensington,
not knowing of the review; she found herself hemmed in by
coaches, and was close to him, whom she had not seen for so many
years, and to my Lady Yarmouth; but they did not know her: it
struck her, and has made her very sensible to his death.
The changes hang back. Nothing material has been altered yet.
Ned Finch, the only thing my Lady Yarmouth told the new King she
had to ask for, is made surveyor of the roads, in the room of Sir
Harry Erskine, who is to have an old regiment. He excuses
himself from seeing company, as favourite of the favourite.
Arthur is removed from being clerk of the wine-cellar, a
sacrifice to morality The Archbishop has such hopes of the young
King, that he is never out of the circle. He trod upon the
Duke's foot on Sunday, in the haste of his zeal; the Duke said to
him, "My lord, if your grace is in such a hurry to make your
court, that is the way." Bon-mots come thicker than changes.
Charles Townshend, receiving an account of the impression the
King's death had made, was told Miss Chudleigh cried. "What,"
said he, "Oysters?" And last night, Mr. Dauncey, asking George
Selwyn if Princess Amelia would have a guard? he replied, "Now
and then one, I suppose."
An extraordinary event has happened to-day; George Townshend sent
a challenge to Lord Albemarle, desiring him to be with a second
in the fields. Lord Albemarle took Colonel Crawford, and went to
Mary-le-bone; George Townshend bespoke Lord Buckingham, who loves
a secret too well not to tell it: he communicated it to Stanley,
who went to St. James's, and acquainted Mr. Caswall, the captain
on guard. The latter took a hackney-coach, drove to
Mary-le-bone, and saw one pair. After waiting ten minutes, the
others came; Townshend made an apology to Lord Albemarle for
making him wait. "Oh," said he, "men of spirit don't want
apologies: come, let us begin what we came for." At that
instant, out steps Caswall from his coach, and begs their pardon,
as his superior officers, but told them they were his prisoners.
He desired Mr. Townshend and Lord Buckingham to return to their
coach; he would carry back Lord Albemarle and Crawford in his.
He did, and went to acquaint the King, who has commissioned some
of the matrons of the army to examine the affair, and make it up.
All this while, I don't know what the quarrel was, but they hated
one another so much on the Duke's account, that a slight word
would easily make their aversions boil over. Don't you, nor even
your general come to town on this occasion? Good night.
Letter 55 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 13, 1760. (page 102)
Even the honeymoon of a new reign don't produce events every day.
There is nothing but the common Paying of addresses and kissing
hands. The chief difficulty is settled; Lord Gower yields the
mastership of the horse to Lord Huntingdon, and removes to the
great wardrobe, from whence Sir Thomas Robinson was to have gone
into Ellis's place, but he is saved. The city, however, have a
mind to be out of humour; a paper has been fixed on the Royal
Exchange, with these words, "No petticoat government, no Scotch
minister, no Lord George Sackville;" two hints totally unfounded,
and the other scarce true. No petticoat ever governed less, it
is left at Leicester-house; Lord George's breeches are as little
concerned; and, except Lady Susan Stuart and Sir Harry Erskine,
nothing has yet been done for any Scots. For the King himself,
he seems all good-nature, and wishing to satisfy every body; all
his speeches are obliging. I saw him again yesterday, and was
surprised to find the levee-room had lost so entirely the air of
the lion's den. This sovereign don't stand in one spot, with his
eyes fixed royally on the ground, and dropping bits of German
news; he walks about, and speaks to every body- I saw him
afterwards on the throne, where he is graceful and genteel, sits
with dignity, and reads his answers to addresses well; it was the
Cambridge address, carried by the Duke of Newcastle in his
doctor's gown, and looking like the M`edecin malgr`e lui. He had
been vehemently solicitous for attendance, for fear my Lord
Westmoreland, who vouchsafes himself to bring the address from
Oxford, should outnumber him. Lord Litchfield and several other
Jacobites have kissed hands; George Selwyn says, "They go to St.
James's, because now there are so many Stuarts there."
Do you know, I had the curiosity to go to the burying t'other
night; I had never seen a royal funeral; nay, I walked as a rag
of quality, which I found would be, and so it was, the easiest
way of seeing it. It is absolutely a noble sight. The Prince's
chamber, hung with purple, and a quantity of silver lamps, the
coffin under a canopy of purple velvet, and six vast chandeliers
of silver on high stands, had a very good effect. The ambassador
from Tripoli and his son were carried to see that chamber. The
procession through a line of foot-guards, every seventh man
bearing a torch, the horse-guards lining the outside, their
officers with drawn sabres and crape sashes on horseback, the
drums muffled, the fifes, bells tolling, and minute guns,--all
this was very solemn. But the charm was the entrance of the
abbey, where we were received by the dean and chapter in rich
robes, the choir and almsmen bearing torches; the whole abbey so
illuminated, that one saw it to greater advantage than by day;
the tombs, long aisles, and fretted roof, all appearing
distinctly, and with the happiest chiaro scuro. There wanted
nothing but incense, and little chapels here and there, with
priests saying mass for the repose of the defunct; yet one could
not complain of its not being Catholic enough. I had been in
dread of' being coupled with some boy of ten years old; but the
heralds were not very accurate, and I walked with George
Grenville, taller and older, to keep me in countenance. When we
came to the chapel of Henry the Seventh, all solemnity and
decorum ceased; no order was observed, people sat or stood where
they could or would; the yeomen of the guard were crying out for
help, oppressed by the immense weight of the coffin; the bishop
read sadly, and blundered in the prayers; the fine chapter, Man
that is born of a woman, was chanted, not read; and the anthem,
besides being immeasurably tedious, would have served as well for
a nuptial. The real serious part was the figure of the Duke of
Cumberland, heightened by a thousand melancholy circumstances.
He had a dark brown adonis, and a cloak of black cloth, with a
train of five yards. Attending the funeral of a father could not
be pleasant: his leg extremely bad, yet forced to stand upon it
near two hours; his face bloated and distorted with his late
paralytic stroke, which has affected, too, one of his eyes, and
placed over the mouth of the vault, into which, in all
probability, he must himself so soon descend; think how
unpleasant a situation! he bore it all with a firm and
unaffected countenance. This grave scene was fully contrasted by
the burlesque Duke of Newcastle. He fell into a fit of crying
the moment he came into the chapel, and flung himself back in a
stall, the archbishop hovering over him with a smelling-bottle;
but in two minutes his curiosity got the better of his hypocrisy,
and he ran about the chapel with his glass to spy who was or was
not there, spying with one hand, and mopping his eyes with the
other. Then returned the fear of catching cold; and the Duke of
Cumberland, who was sinking with heat, felt himself weighed down,
and turning round, found it was the Duke of Newcastle standing
upon his train, to avoid the chill of the marble. It was very
theatric to look down into the vault, where the coffin lay,
attended by mourners with lights. Clavering, the groom of the
bedchamber, refused to sit up with the body, and was dismissed by
the King's order.
I have nothing more to tell you, but a trifle, a very trifle.
The King of Prussia has totally defeated Marshal Daun.(116)
This, which would have been prodigious news a month ago, is
nothing to-day; it only takes its turn among the questions, "Who
is to be groom of the bedchamber? what is Sir T. Robinson to
have?" I have been to Leicester-fields to-day; the crowd was
immoderate; I don't believe it will continue so. good night.
Yours ever.
(116) At Torgau, on the 3d of November. An animated description
of this desperate battle is given by Walpole in his Memoires,
vol. ii. p. 449.-E.
Letter 56 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Thursday, 1760. (page 104)
As a codicil to my letter, I send you the bedchamber. There are
to be eighteen lords, and thirteen grooms; all the late King's
remain, but your cousin Manchester, Lord Falconberg, Lord Essex,
and Lord Flyndford, replaced by the Duke of Richmond, Lord
Weymouth, Lord March, and Lord Eglinton: the last at the request
of the Duke of York. Instead of Clavering, Nassau, and General
Campbell, who is promised something else, Lord Northampton's
brother and Commodore Keppel are grooms. When it was offered to
the Duke of Richmond, he said he could not accept it, unless
something was done for Colonel Keppel, for whom he has interested
himself; that it would look like sacrificing Keppel to his own
views. This is handsome; Keppel is to be equery.
Princess Amelia goes every where, as she calls it; she was on
Monday at Lady Holderness's, and next Monday is to be at
Bedford-house; but there is only the late King's set, and the
court of Bedford so she makes the houses of other people as
triste as St. James's was. Good night.
Not a word more of the King of Prussia: did you ever know a
victory mind the wind so?
Letter 57 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Monday, Nov. 24, 1760. (page 104)
Unless I were to send you journals, lists, catalogues,
computations of the bodies, tides, swarms of people that go to
court to present addresses, or to be presented, I can tell you
nothing new. The day the King went to the House, I was three
quarters of an hour getting through Whitehall; there were
subjects enough to set up half-a-dozen petty kings: the Pretender
would be proud to reign over the footmen only; and, indeed,
unless he acquires some of them, he will have no subjects left;
all their masters flock to St. James's. The palace is so
thronged, that I will stay tilt some people are discontented.
The first night the King went to the play, which was civilly on a
Friday, not on the opera-night, as he used to do, the whole
audience sung God save the King in chorus. For the first act,
the press was so great at the door, that no ladies could go to
the boxes, and only the servants appeared there, who kept places:
at the end of the second act, the whole mob broke in, and seated
themselves; yet all this zeal is not likely to last, though he so
well deserves it. Seditious papers are again stuck up: one
t'other day in Westminster Hall declared against a Saxe-Gothan
Princess. The Archbishop, who is never out of the drawing-room,
has great hopes from the King's goodness, that he shall make
something of him, that is something bad of him. On the Address,
Pitt and his zany Beckford quarrelled, on the latter's calling
the campaign languid. What is become of our magnanimous ally and
his victory, I know not. It) eleven days, no courier has arrived
from him; but I have been these two days perfectly indifferent
about his magnanimity. I am come to put my Anecdotes of Painting
into the press. You are one of the few that I expect will be
entertained with it. It has warmed Gray's coldness so much, that
he is violent about it; in truth, there is an infinite quantity
of new and curious things about it; but as it is quite foreign
from all popular topics, I don't suppose it will be much attended
to. There is not a word of Methodism in it, it says nothing of
the disturbances in Ireland, it does not propose to keep all
Canada, it neither flattered the King of Prussia nor Prince
Ferdinand, it does not say that the city of London are the wisest
men in the world, it is silent about George Townshend, and does
not abuse my Lord George Sackville; how should it please? I want
you to help me in a little affair, that regards it. I have found
in a MS. that in the church of Beckley, or Becksley, in Sussex,
there are portraits on glass, In a window, of Henry the Third and
his Queen. I have looked in the map, and find the first name
between Bodiham and Rye, but I am not sure it is the place. I
will be much obliged to you if you will write directly to your
Sir Whistler, and beg him to inform himself very exactly if there
is any such thing in such a church near Bodiham. Pray state it
minutely; because if there is, I will have them drawn for the
frontispiece to my work.
Did I tell you that the Archbishop tried to hinder the "Minor"
from being played at Drury Lane? for once the Duke of Devonshire
was firm, and would only let him correct some passages, and even
of those the Duke has restored some. One that the prelate
effaced was, "You snub-nosed son of a bitch." Foote says, he
will take out a license to preach Tam. Cant, against Tom.
Cant.(117)
The first volume of Voltaire's Peter the Great is arrived. I
weep over it. It is as languid as the campaign; he is grown old.
He boasts of the materials communicated to him by the Czarina's
order--but alas! he need not be proud of them. They only serve
to show how much worse he writes history with materials than
without. Besides, it is evident how much that authority has
cramped his genius. I had heard before, that when he sent the
work to Petersburgh for imperial approbation, it was returned
with orders to increase the panegyric. I wish he had acted like
a very inferior author. Knyphausen once hinted to me, that I
might have some authentic papers, if I was disposed to write the
life of his master; but I did not care for what would lay me
under such restrictions. It is not fair to use weapons against
the persons that lend them; and I do not admire his master enough
to commend any thing in him, but his military actions. Adieu!
(117) The following anecdote is related in the Biographia
Dramatica:--"Our English Aristophanes sent a copy of the Minor to
the Archbishop of Canterbury, requesting that, if his grace
should see any thing objectionable in it, he would exercise the
free use of his pen, either in the way of erasure or correction.
The Archbishop returned it untouched; observing to a confidential
friend, that he was sure the wit had only laid a trap for him,
and that if he had put his pen to the manuscript, by way of
correction or objection, Foote would have had the assurance to
have advertised the play as 'corrected and prepared for the press
by his grace the Archbishop of Canterbury.'"-E.
Letter 58 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.
Arlington Street, Nov. 27, 1760. (page 106)
You are extremely kind, Sir, in remembering my little commission
I troubled you with. As I am in great want of some more painted
glass to finish a window in my round tower, I should be glad,
though it may not be a Pope, to have the piece you mentioned, if
it can be purchased reasonably.
My Lucan is finished, but will not be published till after
Christmas, when I hope you will do me the favour of accepting
one, and let me know how I shall Convey it. The Anecdotes of
Painting have succeeded to the press: I have finished two
volumes, but as there will at least be a third, I am not
determined whether I shall not wait to publish the whole
together. You will be surprised, I think, to see what a quantity
of materials the industry of one man (Vertue) could amass and how
much he retrieved at this late period. I hear of nothing new
likely to appear; all the world is taken up in penning addresses,
or in presenting them;(118) and the approaching elections will
occupy the thoughts of men so much that an author could not
appear at a worse era.
(118) On the then recent accession of George III.-E.
letter 59 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 11, 1760. (page 106)
I thank you for the inquiries about the painted glass, and shall
be glad if I prove to be in the right.
There is not much of news to tell you; and yet there is much
dissatisfaction. The Duke of Newcastle has threatened to resign
on the appointment of Lord Oxford and Lord Bruce without his
knowledge. His court rave about Tories, which you know comes
with a singular grace from them, as the Duke never preferred any.
Murray, Lord Gower, Sir John Cotton, Jack Pitt, etc. etc. etc.
were all firm whigs. But it is unpardonable to put an end to all
faction, when it is not for factious purposes. Lord
Fitzmaurice,(119) made aide-de-camp to the King, has disgusted
the army. The Duke of Richmond, whose brother has no more been
put over others than the Duke of Newcastle has preferred Tories,
has presented a warm memorial in a warm manner, and has resigned
the bedchamber, not his regiment-another propriety.
Propriety is so much in fashion, that Miss Chudleigh has called
for the council books of the subscription concert, and has struck
off the name of Mrs. Naylor.(120) I have some thoughts of
remonstrating, that General Waldegrave is too lean for to be a
groom of the bedchamber. Mr. Chute has sold his house to Miss
Speed for three thousand pounds, and has taken one for a year in
Berkeley Square.
This is a very brief letter; I fear this reign will soon furnish
longer. When the last King could be beloved, a young man with a
good heart has little chance of being so. Moreover, I have a
maxim, that the extinction of party is the origin of faction."
Good night.
(119) Afterwards Earl of Shelburne, and in 1784 created Marquis
of Lansdowne.-E.
(120) A noted procuress.-E.
Letter 60 To The Rev. Henry Zouch
Arlington Street, Jan. 3, 1761. (page 107)
Sir,
I stayed till I had the Lucan ready to send you, before I thanked
you for your letter, and for the pane of glass, about which you
have given yourself so much kind trouble, and which I have
received; I think it is clearly Heraclitus weeping over a globe.
Illuminated MSS., unless they have portraits of particular
persons, I do not deal in; the extent of my collecting is already
full asgreat as I can afford. I am not the less obliged to you,
Sir, for thinking Of me. Were my fortune larger, I should go
deeper into printing, and having engraved curious MSS. and
drawings; as I cannot, I comfort myself with reflecting on the
mortifications I avoid, by the little regard shown by the world
to those sort of things. The sums laid out on books one should,
at first sight, think an indication of encouragement to letters;
but booksellers only are encouraged, not books. Bodies of
sciences, that is, compilations and mangled abstracts, are the
only saleable commodities. Would you believe, what I know is
fact, that Dr. Hill(121) earned fifteen guineas a-week by working
for wholesale dealers: he was at once employed on six voluminous
works of Botany, Husbandry, etc. published weekly. I am sorry to
say, this journeyman is one of the first men preferred in the new
reign: he is made gardener of Kensington, a place worth two
thousand pounds a-year.(122) The King and lord Bute have
certainly both of them great propensity to the arts; but Dr.
Hill, though undoubtedly not deficient in parts, has as little
claim to favour in this reign, as Gideon, the stock-jobber, in
the last; both engrossers without merit. Building, I am told, is
the King's favourite study; I hope our architects will not be
taken from the erectors of turnpikes.
(121) Dr. Hill's were among the first works in which scientific
knowledge was put in a popular shape, by the system of number
publishing. The Doctor's performances in this way are not
discreditable, and are still useful as works of reference.-C.
(122) This was an exaggeration of the emoluments of a place,
which, after all was not improperly bestowed on a person of his
pursuits and merits.-C.
Letter 61 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Jan. 22, 1761. (page 108)
I am glad you are coming, and now the time is over, that you are
coming so late, as I like to have you here in the spring. You
will find no great novelty in the new reign. Lord Denbigh(123)
is made master of the harriers, with two thousand a-year. Lord
Temple asked it, and Newcastle and Hardwicke gave into it for
fear of Denbigh's brutality in the House of Lords. Does this
differ from the style of George the Second?
The King designs to have a new motto; he will not have a French
one; so the Pretender may enjoy Dieu et mon droit in quiet.
Princess Amelia is already sick of being familiar: she has been
at Northumberland-house, but goes to nobody more. That party was
larger, but still more formal than the rest, though the Duke of
York had invited himself and his commerce-table. I played with
Madam and we were mighty well together; so well, that two nights
afterwards she commended me to Mr. Conway and Mr. Fox, but
calling me that Mr. Walpole, they did not guess who she meant.
For my part, I thought it very well, that when I played with her,
she did not call me that gentleman. As she went away, she
thanked my Lady Northumberland, like a parson's wife, for all her
civilities.
I was excessively amused on Tuesday night; there was a play at
Holland-house, acted by children; not all children, for Lady
Sarah Lenox(124) and Lady Susan Strangways(125) played the women.
It was Jane Shore; Mr. Price, Lord Barrington's nephew, was
Gloster, and acted better than three parts of the comedians.
Charles Fox, Hastings; a little Nichols, who spoke well, Belmour;
Lord Ofaly,,(126) Lord Ashbroke, and other boys did the rest: but
the two girls were delightful, and acted with so much nature and
simplicity, that they appeared the very things they represented.
Lady Sarah was more beautiful than you can conceive, and her very
awkwardness gave an air of truth to the shame of the part, and
the antiquity of the time, which was kept up by her dress, taken
out of Montfaucon. Lady Susan was dressed from Jane Seymour; and
all the parts were clothed in ancient habits, and with the most
minute propriety. I was infinitely more struck with the last
scene between the two women than ever I was when I have seen it
on the stage. When Lady Sarah was in white, with her hair about
her ears, and on the ground, no Magdalen by Corregio was half so
lovely and expressive. You would have been charmed too with
seeing Mr. Fox's little boy of six years old, who is beautiful,
and acted the Bishop of Ely, dressed in lawn sleeves and with a
square cap; they had inserted two lines for him, which he could
hardly speak plainly. Francis had given them a pretty prologue.
Adieu!
(123) Basil Fielding, sixth Earl of Denbigh, and fifth Earl of
Desmond. He died in 1800.-E.
(124) daughter of the Duke of Richmond, afterwards married to Sir
Thomas Charles Bunbury, Bart.-E.
(125) Daughter of Stephen Fox, first Earl of Ilchester; married,
in 1764, to William O'Brien, Esq.-E.
(126) Eldest son of the Marquis of Kildare.-E.
Letter 62 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Feb. 7, 1761. (page 109)
I have not written to you lately, expecting your arrival. As you
are not come yet, you need not come these ten days if you please,
for I go next week into Norfolk, that my subjects of Lynn may at
least once in their lives see me. 'Tis a horrible thing to dine
with a mayor! I shall profane King John's cup, and taste nothing
but water out of it, as if it were St. John Baptist's.
Prepare yourself for crowds, multitudes. In this reign all the
world lives in one room: the capital is as vulgar as a country
town in the season of horse-races. There were no fewer than four
of these throngs on Tuesday last, at the Duke of Cumberland's,
Princess Emily's, the Opera, and Lady Northumberland's; for even
operas, Tuesday's operas, are crowded now. There is nothing else
new. Last week there was a magnificent ball at Carleton-house:
the two royal Dukes and Princess Emily were there. He of York
danced; the other and his sister had each their table at loo. I
played at hers, and am grown a favourite; nay, have been at her
private party, and was asked again last Wednesday, but took the
liberty to excuse myself, and am yet again summoned for Tuesday.
It is triste enough: nobody sits till the game begins, and then
she and the company are all on stools. At Norfolk-house were two
armchairs placed for her and the Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of
York being supposed a dancer, but they would not use them. Lord
Huntingdon arrived in a frock, pretending he was just come out of
the country; unluckily, he had been at court, full-dressed, in
the morning. No foreigners were there but the son and
daughter-in-law of Monsieur de Fuentes: the Duchess told the
Duchess of Bedford, that she had not invited the ambassadress,
because her rank is disputed here. You remember the Bedford took
place, of madame de Mirepoix; but Madame de Mora danced first,
the Duchess of Norfolk saying she supposed that was of no
consequence.
Have you heard what immense riches old Wortley has left? One
million three hundred and fifty thousand pounds.(127) It is all
to centre in my Lady Bute; her husband is one of Fortune's
prodigies. They talk of a print, in which her mistress is
reprimanding Miss Chudleigh; the latter curtsies, and replies,
"Madame, chacun a son but."
Have you seen a scandalous letter in print, from Miss Ford,(128)
to lord Jersey, with the history of a boar's head? George Selwyn
calls him Meleager. Adieu! this is positively my last.
(127) "You see old Wortley Montagu is dead at last, at eighty-
three. It was not mere avarice and its companion abstinence, that
kept him alive so long. He every day drank, I think it was,
half-a-pint of tokay, which he imported himself from Hungary in
greater quantity than he could use, and sold the overplus for any
price he chose to set upon it. He has left better than half a
million of money." Gray, Works, vol. iii. p. 272.-E.
(128) Miss Ford was the object of an illicit, but unsuccessful
attachment, on the part of Lord Jersey, whose advances, if not
sanctioned by the lady, appear to have been sanctioned by her
father, who told her "she might have accepted the settlement his
lordship offered her, and yet not have complied" with his terms.
The following extract from the letter will explain the history
above alluded to:--"However, I must do your lordship the justice
to say, that as you conceived this meeting [one with a noble
personage which Lord Jersey had desired her not to make] would
have been most pleasing to me, and perhaps of some ,advantage,
your lordship did (in consideration of so great a disappointment)
send me, a few days after, a present of a boar's head, which I
had often had the honour to meet at your lordship's table before.
It was rather an odd first and only present from a lord to his
beloved mistress; but as coming from your lordship gave it an
additional value, which it had not in itself; and I received it
with the regard I thought due to every thing coming from your
lordship, and would have eat it, had it been eatable. I am''
impatient to acquit your lordship and myself, by showing that as
your lordship's eight hundred pounds a-year did not purchase my
person, the boar's head did not purchase my silence."-E.
Letter 63 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Monday, five o'clock, Feb. 1761. (page 110)
I am a little peevish with you-I told you on Thursday night that
I had a mind to go to Strawberry on Friday without staying for
the Qualification bill. You said it did not signify--No! What if
you intended to speak on it? Am I indifferent to hearing you?
More-Am I indifferent about acting with you? Would not I follow
you in any thing in the world?--This is saying no profligate
thing. Is there any thing I might not follow you in? You even
did not tell me yesterday that you had spoken. Yet I will tell
you all I have heard; though if there was a Point in the world in
which I could not wish you to succeed where you wish yourself,
perhaps it would be in having you employed. I cannot be cool
about your danger; yet I cannot know any thing that concerns you,
and keep it from you. Charles Townshend called here just after I
came to town to-day. Among other discourse he told me of your
speaking on Friday, and that your speech was reckoned hostile to
the Duke of Newcastle. Then talking of regiments going abroad,
he said, * * * * * With regard to your reserve to me, I
can easily believe that your natural modesty made you unwilling
to talk of yourself to me. I don't suspect you of any reserve to
me: I only mention it now for an occasion of telling you, that I
don't like to have any body think that I would not do whatever
you do. I am of no consequence: but at least it would give me
some, to act invariably with you; and that I shall most certainly
be ever ready to do. Adieu!
Letter 64 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, March 7, 1761. (page 111)
I rejoice, you know, in whatever rejoices you, and though I am
not certain what your situation(129) is to be, I am glad you go,
as you like it. I am told it is black rod. lady Anne
Jekyll(130) said, she had written to you on Saturday night. I
asked when her brother was to go, if before August; she answered:
"Yes, if possible." long before October you may depend upon it;
in the quietest times no lord lieutenant ever went so late as
that. Shall not you come to town first? You cannot pack up
yourself, and all you will want, at Greatworth.
We are in the utmost hopes of a peace; a Congress is agreed upon
at Augsbourg, but yesterday's mail brought bad news. Prince
Ferdinand has been obliged to raise the siege of Cassel, and to
retire to Paderborn; the hereditary prince having been again
defeated, with the loss of two generals, and to the value of five
thousand men, in prisoners and exchanged. If this defers the
peace it will be grievous news to me, now Mr. Conway is gone to
the army.
The town talks of nothing but an immediate Queen, yet I am
certain the ministers know not of it. Her picture is come, and
lists of her family given about; but the latter I do not send
you, as I believe it apocryphal. Adieu!
P.S. Have you seen the -,advertisement of a new noble author? A
Treatise of Horsemanship, by Henry Earl of Pembroke!(131) As
George Selwyn said of Mr. Greville, "so far from being a writer,
I thought he was scarce a courteous reader."
(129) Mr. Montagu was appointed usher of the black rod in
Ireland.
(130) sister of the Earl of Halifax.
(131) Tenth Earl of Pembroke and seventh Earl of Montgomery. The
work was entitled "Military Equitation; or a Method of breaking
Horses, and teaching Soldiers to ride." A fourth edition, in
quarto, appeared in 1793.-E.
Letter 65 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.
Arlington Street, March 7, 1761. (page 111)
Just what I supposed, Sir, has happened; with your good breeding,
I did not doubt but you would give yourself the trouble of
telling me that you had received the Lucan, and as you did not, I
concluded Dodsley had neglected it: he has in two instances. The
moment they were published, I delivered a couple to him, for you,
and one for a gentleman in Scotland. I received no account of
either, and after examining Dodsley a fortnight ago, I learned
three days since from him, that your copy, Sir, was delivered to
Mrs. Ware, bookseller, in Fleet Street, who corresponds with Mr.
Stringer, to be sent in the first parcel; but, says he, as they
send only once a month, it probably was not sent away till very
later),. I am vexed, Sir, that you have waited so long
for this trifle: if you neither receive it, nor get information
of it, I will immediately convey another to you. It would be
very ungrateful in me to neglect what would give you a moment's
amusement, after your thinking so obligingly of the painted glass
for me. I shall certainly be in Yorkshire this summer, and as I
flatter myself that I shall be more lucky in meeting you, I will
then take what you shall be so good as to bestow on me, without
giving you the trouble of sending it.
If it were not printed in the London Chronicle, I would
transcribe for you, Sir, a very weak letter of Voltaire to Lord
Lyttelton,(132) and the latter's answer: there is nothing else
new, but a very indifferent play,(133) called The Jealous Wife,
so well acted as to have succeeded greatly. Mr. Mason, I
believe, is going to publish some elegies: I have seen the
principal one, on Lady Coventry; it was then only an unfinished
draft. The second and third volumes of
Tristram Shandy, the dregs of nonsense, have universally met the
contempt they deserve: genius may be exhausted;--I see that
folly's invention may be so too.
The foundations of my gallery at Strawberry are laying. May I
not flatter myself, Sir, that you will see the whole even before
it is quite complete?
P. S. Since I wrote my letter, I have read a new play of
Voltaire's, called Tancred, and I am glad to say that it repairs
the idea of his decaying parts, which I had conceived from his
Peter the Great, and the letter I mentioned. Tancred did not
please at Paris, nor was I charmed with the two first acts; in
the three last are great flashes of genius, single lines, and
starts of passion of the first fire: the woman's part is a little
too Amazonian.
(132) An absurd letter from Voltaire to the author of the
Dialogues of the Dead, remonstrating against a statement, that
"he, Voltaire, was in exile, on account of some blamable freedoms
in his writings." He denies both the facts and the cause
assigned; but he convinced nobody, for both were notoriously
true. Voltaire was, it is true, not banished by sentence; but he
was not permitted to reside in France, and that surely may be
called exile, particularly as he was all his life endeavouring to
obtain leave to return to Paris.-C.
(133) The Jealous Wife still keeps the stage, and does not
deserve to be so slightingly spoken of: but there were private
reasons which might possibly warp Mr. Walpole's judgment on the
works of Colman. He was the nephew of lord Bath, and The Jealous
Wife was dedicated to that great rival of Sir Robert Walpole.-C.
[Dr. Johnson says.-that the Jealous Wife, "though not written
with much genius, was yet so well exhibited by the actors, that
it was crowded for near twenty nights."]
Letter 66 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, March 17, 1761. (page 112)
If my last letter raised your wonder, this Will not allay it.
Lord Talbot is lord steward! The stone, which the builders
refused, is become the head-stone of the corner. My Lady Talbot,
I suppose, would have found no charms in Cardinal Mazarin. As
the Duke of Leeds was forced to give way to Jemmy Grenville, the
Duke of Rutland has been obliged to make room for this new Earl.
Lord Huntingdon is groom of the stole, and the last Duke I have
named, master of the horse; the red liveries cost Lord Huntingdon
a pang. Lord Holderness has the reversion of the Cinque-ports
for life, and I think may pardon his expulsion.
If you propose a fashionable assembly, you must send cards to
Lord Spenser, Lord Grosvenor, Lord Melcomb, Lord Grantham, Lord
Boston, Lord Scarsdale, Lady Mountstuart, the Earl of TyrConnell,
and Lord Wintertown. The two last you will meet in Ireland. No
joy ever exceeded your cousin's or Doddington's: the former came
last night to Lady Hilsborough's to display his triumph; the
latter too was there, and advanced to me. I said, ":I was coming
to wish you joy." "I concluded so," replied he, "and came to
receive it." He left a good card yesterday at Lady Petersham's, a
very young lord to wait on Lady Petersham, to make her ladyship
the first offer of himself. I believe she will be content with
the exchequer: Mrs. Grey has a pension of eight hundred pounds
a-year.
Mrs. Clive is at her villa for Passion week; I have written to
her for the box, but I don't doubt of its being (,one; but,
considering her alliance, why does not Miss Price bespeak the
play and have the stage box?
I shall smile if Mr. Bentley, and M`Untz, and their two Hannahs
meet at St. James's; so I see neither of them, I care not where
they are.
Lady Hinchinbrook and Lady Mansel are at the point of death; Lord
Hardwicke is to be poet-laureate; and, according to modern usage,
I suppose it will be made a cabinet-counsellor's place. Good
night!
Letter 67 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, March 19, 1761. (page 113)
I can now tell you, with great pleasure, that your cousin(134) is
certainly named lord-lieutenant. I wish you joy. You will be
sorry too to hear that your Lord North is much talked of for
succeeding him at the board of' trade. I tell you this with
great composure, though today has been a day of amazement. All
the world is staring, whispering, and questioning. Lord
Holderness has resigned the seals,(135) and they are given to
Lord Bute. Which of the two secretaries of state is first
minister? the latter or Mr. Pitt? Lord Holderness received the
command but yesterday, at two o'clock, till that moment thinking
himself extremely well at court; but it seems the King said he
was tired of having two secretaries, of which one would do
nothing, and t'other could do nothing; he would have a secretary
who both could act and would. Pitt had as
short a notice of this resolution as the sufferer, and was little
better pleased. He is something softened for the present by the
offer of cofferer for Jemmy Grenville, which is to be ceded by
the Duke of Leeds, who returns to his old post of justice in
eyre, from whence Lord Sandys is to be removed, some say to the
head of the board of trade. Newcastle, who enjoys this fall of
Holderness's, who had deserted him for Pitt, laments over the
former, but seems to have made his terms with the new favourite:
if the Bedfords have done so too, will it surprise you? It will
me, if Pitt submits to this humiliation; if he does not, I take
for granted the Duke of Bedford will have the other seals. The
temper with which the new reign has hitherto proceeded, seems a
little impeached by this sudden act, and the Earl now stands in
the direct light of a minister-, if the House of Commons should
cavil at him. Lord Delawar kissed hands to-day for his earldom;
the other new peers are to follow on Monday.
There are horrid disturbances about the militia(136) in
Northumberland, where the mob have killed an officer and three of
the Yorkshire militia, who, in return, fired and shot twenty-one.
Adieu! I shall be impatient to hear some consequences of my first
paragraph.
P. S. Saturday.--I forgot to tell you that Lord Hardwicke has
written some verses to Lord Lyttelton, upon those the latter made
on Lady Egremont.(137) If I had been told that he had put on a
bag, and was gone off with Kitty Fisher,(138) I should not have
been more astonished.
Poor Lady Gower(139) is dead this morning of a fever in her
lying-in. I believe the Bedfords arc very sorry; for there is a
new opera(140) this evening.
(134) The Earl of Halifax.
(135) Lord Barrington, in a letter to Mr. Mitchell, of the 23d
says, "Our friend Holderness is finally in harbour; he has four
thousand a-year for life, with the reversionship of the Cinque-
ports, after the Duke of Dorset; which he likes better than
having the name of pensioner. I never could myself understand
the difference between a pension and a synecure place."-E.
(136) In consequence of the expiration of the three years' term
of service, prescribed by the Militia-act, and the new ballot
about to take place.-E.
(137) The following are the lines alluded to, "Addition extempore
to the verses on Lady Egremont:
"Fame heard with pleasure--straight replied,
First on my roll stands Wyndham's bride,
My trumpet oft I've raised to sound
Her modest praise the world around;
But notes were wanting-canst thou find
A muse to sing her face, her mind?
Believe me, I can name but one,
A friend of yours-'tis Lyttelton."
(138) A celebrated courtesan of the day.-E.
(139) Daughter of Scroope Duke of Bridgewater.
(140) The serious opera of Tito Manlio, by Cocchi. By a letter
from Gray to Mason, of the 22d of January, the Opera appears at
this time to have been in a flourishing condition--"The Opera is
crowded this year like any ordinary theatre. Elisi is finer than
any thing that has been here in your memory; yet, as I suspect,
has been finer than he is: he appears to be near forty, a little
potbellied and thick-shouldered, otherwise no bad figure; has
action proper, and not ungraceful. We have heard nothing, since
I remember operas, but eternal passages, divisions, and flights
of execution: of these he has absolutely none; whether merely
from judgment, or a little from age, I will not affirm: his point
is expression, and to that all the ornaments he inserts (which
are few and short) are evidently directed. He gets higher, they
say, than Farinelli; but then this celestial note you do not hear
above once in a whole opera; and he falls from this altitude at
once to the mellowest, softest, Strongest tones (about the middle
of his compass) that can be heard. The Mattei, I assure you, is
much improved by his example, and by her great success this
winter; but then the burlettas and the Paganina, I have not been
so pleased with any thing these many years. She is too fat, and
above forty, yet handsome withal, and has a face that speaks the
language of all nations. She has not the invention, the fire,
and the variety of action that the Spiletta had; yet she is
light, agile, ever in motion, and above all, graceful; but then,
her voice, her ear, her taste in singing; good God! as Mr.
Richardson, the painter, says." Works, vol. iii. p. 268.-E.
Letter 68 To George Montagu, Esq.
March 21, 1761. (page 115)
Of the enclosed, as you perceive, I tore off the seal, but it has
not been opened. I grieve at the loss of your suit, and for the
injustice done you, but what can one expect but injury, when
forced to have recourse to law! Lord Abercorn asked me this
evening, if it was true that you are going to Ireland? I gave a
vague answer, and did not resolve him how much I knew of it. I
am impatient for the answer to your compliment.
There is not a word of newer news than what I sent you last. The
Speaker has taken leave, and received the highest compliments,
and substantial ones too; he did not over-act, and it was really
a handsome scene.(141) I go to my election on Tuesday, and, if I
do not tumble out of the chair, and break my neck, you shall hear
from me at my return. I got the box for Miss Rice; Lady
Hinchinbrook is dead.
(141) Mr, Onslow held the office of Speaker of the House of
Commons for above thirty-three years, and during part of that
time enjoyed the lucrative employment of treasurer of the navy:
"notwithstanding which," says Mr Hatsell, "it is an anecdote
perfectly well known, that on his quitting the Chair, his income
from his private fortune, which had always been inconsiderable,
Was rather less than it had been in 1727, when he was first
elected into it. Superadded to his great and accurate knowledge
of the history of this country, and of the minuter forms and
proceedings of Parliament, the distinguishing features of his
character were a regard and veneration for the British
constitution, as it was declared at and established at the
Revolution."-E.
letter 69 To George Montagu, Esq.
Houghton, March 25, 1761. (page 115)
Here I am at Houghton! and alone! in this spot, where (except two
hours last month) I have not been in sixteen years! Think what a
crowd of reflections! No; Gray, and forty churchyards, could not
furnish so many: nay, I know one must feel them with greater
indifference than I possess, to have the patience to put them
into verse. Here I am, probably for the last time of my life,
though not for the time: every clock that strikes tells me I am
an hour nearer to yonder church--that church, into which I have
not yet had courage to enter, where lies that mother on whom I
doated, and who doated on me! There are the two rival mistresses
of Houghton, neither of whom ever wished to enjoy it! There too
lies he who founded its greatness; to contribute to whose fall
Europe was embroiled; there he sleeps in quiet and dignity, while
his friend and his foe, rather his false ally and real enemy,
Newcastle and Bath, are exhausting the dregs of their pitiful
lives in squabbles and pamphlets.
The surprise the pictures(142) gave me is again renewed;
accustomed for many years to see nothing but wretched daubs and
varnished copies at auctions, I look at these as enchantment. My
own description of them seems poor; but shall I tell you truly,
the majesty of Italian ideas almost sinks before the warm nature
of Flemish colouring. Alas! don't I grow old? My young
imagination was fired with Guido's ideas; must they be plump and
prominent as Abishag to warm me now? Does great youth feel with
poetic limbs, as well as see with poetic eyes? In one respect I
am very young, I cannot satiate myself with looking: an incident
contributed to make me feel this more strongly. A party arrived
just as I did, to see the house, a man and three women In riding
dresses, and they rode post through the apartments. I could not
hurry before them fast enough; they were not so long in seeing
for the first time, as I could have been in one room, to examine
what I knew by heart. I remember formerly being often diverted
with this kind of seers; they come, ask what such a room is
called, in which Sir Robert lay, write it down, admire a lobster
on a cabbage in a market-piece, dispute whether the last room was
green or purple, and then hurry to the inn for fear the fish
should be over-dressed. How different my sensations! not a
picture here but recalls a history; not one, but I remember in
Downing-street or Chelsea, where queens and crowds admired them,
though seeing them as little as these travellers!
When I had drank tea, I strolled into the garden; they told me it
was now called the pleasure-ground. What a dissonant idea of
pleasure! those groves, those all`ees, where I have passed so
many charming moments, are now stripped up or over-grown--many
fond paths I could not unravel, though with a very exact clew in
my memory: I met two gamekeepers, and a thousand hares In the
days when all my soul was tuned to pleasure and vivacity (and you
will think, perhaps, it is far from being out of tune yet), I
hated Houghton and its solitude; yet I loved this garden, as now,
with many regrets, I love Houghton; Houghton, I know not what to
call it, monument of grandeur or ruin! How I have wished this
evening for Lord Bute! how I could preach to him! For myself, I
do not want to be preached to; I have long considered, how every
Balbec must wait for the chance of a Mr. Wood. The servants
wanted to lay me in the great apartment-what, to make me pass my
night as I have done my evening! It were like Proposing to
Margaret Roper(143) to be a duchess in the court that cut off her
father's head, and imagining it would please her. I have chosen
to sit in my father's little dressing-room, and am now by his
scrutoire, where, in the heights of his fortune, he used to
receive the accounts of his farmers, and deceive himself, or us,
with the thoughts of his economy. How wise a man at once, and
how weak! For what has he built Houghton? for his grandson to
annihilate, or for his son to mourn over. If Lord Burleigh could
rise and view his representative driving the Hatfield stage, he
would feel as I feel now.(144) Poor little Strawberry! at least
it will not be stripped to pieces by a descendant! You will find
all these fine meditations dictated by pride, not by philosophy.
Pray consider through how many mediums philosophy must pass,
before it is purified--
"how often must it weep, how often burn!"
My mind was extremely prepared for all this gloom by parting with
Mr. Conway yesterday morning; moral reflections or commonplaces
are the livery one likes to wear, when one has just had a real
misfortune. He is going to Germany: I was glad to dress myself
up in transitory Houghton, in lieu of very sensible concern.
To-morrow I shall be distracted with thoughts, at least images of
very different complexion. I go to Lynn, and am to be elected on
Friday. I shall return hither on Saturday, again alone, to
expect Burleighides on Sunday, whom I left at Newmarket. I must
once in my life see him on his grandfather's throne.
Epping, Monday night, thirty-first.-No, I have not seen him; he
loitered on the road, and I was kept at Lynn till yesterday
morning. It is plain I never knew for how many trades I was
formed, when at this time of day I can begin electioneering, and
succeed in my new vocation.. Think of me, the subject of a mob,
who was scarce ever before in a mob, addressing them in the
town-hall, riding at the head of two thousand people through such
a town as Lynn, dining with above two hundred of them, amid
bumpers, huzzas, songs, and tobacco, and finishing with country
dancing at a ball and sixpenny whisk! I have borne it all
cheerfully; nay, have sat hours in conversation, the thing upon
earth that I hate; have been to hear misses play on the
harpsichord, and to see an alderman's copies of Rubens and Carlo
Marat. Yet to do the folks justice, they are sensible, and
reasonable, and civilized; their very language is polished since
I lived among them. I attribute this to their more frequent
intercourse with the world and the capital, by the help of good
roads and postchaises, which, if they have abridged the King's
dominions, have at least tamed his subjects. Well, how
comfortable it will be to-morrow, to see my parroquet, to play at
loo, and not be obliged to talk seriously! The Heraclitus of the
beginning of this letter will be overjoyed on finishing it to
sign himself your old friend, Democritus.
P. S. I forgot to tell you that my ancient aunt Hammond came over
to Lynn to see me; not from any affection, but curiosity. The
first thing she said to me, though we have not met these sixteen
years, was, ,Child, you have done a thing to-day, that your
father never did in all his life; you sat as they carried you,--
he always stood the whole time." "Madam," said I, "when I am
placed in a chair, I conclude I am to sit in it; besides, as I
cannot imitate my father in great things, I am not at all
ambitious of mimicking him in little ones." I am sure she
proposes to tell her remarks to my uncle Horace's ghost, the
instant they meet.
(142) This magnificent collection of pictures was sold to the
Empress of Russia, and some curious particulars relative to the
sale will be found in Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature. A series
Of engravings was likewise made from them, which was published in
1788, under the title of "The Houghton Gallery: a collection of
prints, from the best pictures in the possession of the Earl of
Orford."-E.
(143) Wife,, of William Roper, Esq. and eldest and favourite
daughter of Sir Thomas More. She bought the head of her
ill-fated parent, when it was about to be thrown into the Thames,
after having been affixed to London bridge, and on being
questioned by the Privy Council about her conduct, she boldly
replied, that she had done so that "it might not become food for
fishes." She survived her father nine years, and died at the age
of thirty-six, in 1544, and was buried at St. Dunstan's church,
Canterbury; the box containing her father's head being placed on
her coffin.-E.
(144) the prayer of Sir Robert Walpole, recorded on the
foundation-stone, was, that "after its master, to a mature old
age, had long enjoyed it in perfection, his latest descendants
might safely possess it to the end of time."-E.
Letter 70 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, April 10, 1761. (page 118)
If Prince Ferdinand had studied how to please me, I don't know
any method he could have lighted upon so likely to gain my heart,
as being beaten out of the field before you joined him. I
delight in a hero that is driven so far that nobody can follow
him. He is as well at Paderborn, as where I have long wished the
King of Prussia, the other world. You may frown if you please at
my imprudence, you who are gone with all the disposition in the
world to be well with your commander; the peace is in a manner
made, and the anger of generals will not be worth sixpence these
ten years. We peaceable folks are now to govern the world, and
you warriors must in your turn tremble at our Subjects the mob,
as we have done before your hussars and court-martials.
I am glad you had so pleasant a passage.(145) My Lord Lyttelton
would say, that Lady Mary Coke, like Venus, smiled over the
waves, et mare prestabat eunti. in truth, when she could tame
me, she must have had little trouble with the ocean. Tell me how
many burgomasters she has subdued, or how many would have fallen
in love with her if they had not fallen asleep! Come, has she
saved two-pence by her charms? Have they abated a farthing of
their impositions for her being handsomer than any thing in the
seven provinces? Does she know how political her journey is
thought? Nay, my Lady Ailesbury, you are not out of the scrape;
you are both reckoned des Mar`echale de Guebriant,(146) going to
fetch, and consequently govern the young queen. There are more
jealousies about your voyage, than the Duke of Newcastle would
feel if Dr. Shaw had prescribed a little ipecacuanha to my Lord
Bute.
I am sorry I must adjourn my mirth, to give Lady Ailesbury a
pang; poor Sir Harry Bellendine(147) is dead; he made a great
dinner at Almac's for the House of Drummond, drank very hard,
caught a violent fever, and died in a very few days. Perhaps you
will have heard this before; I shall wish so; I do not like, even
innocently, to be the cause of sorrow.
I do not at all lament Lord Granby's leaving the army, and your
immediate succession. There are persons in the world who would
gladly ease you of this burden. As you are only to take the
vice-royalty of a coop, and that for a few weeks, I shall but
smile if you are terribly distressed. Don't let Lady Ailesbury
proceed to Brunswick: you might have had a wife who would not
have thought it so terrible to fall into the hands [arms] of
hussars; but as I don't take that to be your Countess's turn,
leave her with the Dutch, who are not so boisterous as Cossacks
or chancellors of the exchequer.
My love, my duty, my jealousy, to Lady Mary, if she is not sailed
before you receive this--if she is, I shall deliver them myself
Good night! I write immediately on the receipt of your letter,
but you see I have nothing yet new to tell you.
(145) From Harwich to Holvoetsluys.
(146) The Mar`echale de Gu`ebriant was sent to the King of Poland
with the character of ambassadress by Louis Xiii. to accompany
the Princess Marie de Gonzague, who had been married by proxy to
the King of Poland at Paris.
(147) Uncle to the Countess of Ailesbury.
Letter 71 To Sir David Dalrymple.(148)
Arlington Street, April 14, 1761. (page 119)
Sir, I have deferred answering the favour of your last, till I
could tell you that I had seen Fingal. Two journeys into Norfolk
for my election, and other accidents, prevented my seeing any
part of the poem till this last week, and I have yet only seen
the first book. There are most beautiful images in it, and it
surprises one how the bard could strike out so many shining ideas
from a few so very simple objects, as the moon, the storm, the
sea, and the heath, from whence he borrows almost all his
allusions. The particularizing of persons, by "he said," "he
replied," so much objected to in Homer, is so wanted in
Fingal,(149) that it in some measure justifies the Grecian
Highlander; I have even advised Mr. Macpherson (to prevent
confusion) to have the names prefixed to the speeches, as in a
play. It is too obscure without some such aid. My doubts of the
genuineness are all vanished.
I fear, sir, from Dodsley's carelessness, you have not received
the Lucan. A gentleman in Yorkshire, for whom I consigned
another copy at the same time with yours, has got his but within
this fortnight. I have the pleasure to find, that the notes are
allowed the best of Dr. Bentley's remarks on poetic authors.
Lucan was muscular enough to bear his rough hand.
Next winter I hope to be able to send you Vertue's History of the
Arts, as I have put it together from his collections. Two
volumes are finished, the first almost printed and the third
begun. There will be a fourth, I believe, relating solely to
engravers. You will be surprised, sir, how the industry of one
man could at this late period amass so near a complete history of
our artists. I have no share in it, but in arranging his
materials. Adieu!
(148) Now first collected.
(149) "For me," writes Gray, it this time, to Dr. Wharton, "I
admire nothing but Fingal; yet I remain still in doubt about the
authenticity of these poems, though inclining rather to believe
them genuine in spite of the worio. Whether they are the
inventions of antiquity, or of a modern Scotchman, either case to
me is alike unaccountable. Je m'y perds." Dr. Johnson, on the
contrary, all along denied their authenticity. "The subject,"
says Boswell, "having been introduced by Dr. Fordyce, Dr. Blair,
relying on the external evidence of their antiquity, asked
Johnson whether he thought any man of modern age could have
written such poems? Johnson replied, 'Yes, Sir, many men, many
women, and many children.' He, at this time, did not know that
Dr. Blair had just published a dissertation, not only defending
their authenticity, but seriously ranking them with the poems of
Homer and Virgil; and when he was afterwards informed of this
circumstance, he expressed some displeasure at Dr. Fordyce's
having suggested the topic, and said, 'I am not sorry that they
got thus much for their pains: Sir, it was like leading one to
talk of a book, when the author is concealed behind the
door.'"-E.
Letter 72 To The Countess Of Suffolk.(150)
Friday night, April 1761. (page 120)
We are more successful, Madam, than I could flatter myself we
should be. Mr. Conway--and I need say no more--has negotiated so
well, that the Duke of Grafton is disposed to bring Mr.
Beauclerk(151) in for Thetford. It will be expected, I believe,
that Lord Vere should resign Windsor in a handsome manner to the
Duke of Cumberland. It must be your ladyship's part to prepare
this; which I hope will be the means of putting an end to these
unhappy differences. My only fear now is, lest the Duke should
have promised the Lodge.' Mr. Conway writes to Lord Albemarle,
who is yet at Windsor, to prevent this, if not already done, till
the rest is ready to be notified to the Duke of Cumberland. Your
ladyship's good sense and good heart make it unnecessary for me
to say more.
(150) Now first collected.
(151) The Hon. Aubrey Beauclerk, son of Lord Vere; afterwards
Duke of St. Albans.
Letter 73 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, April 16, 1761. (page 121)
You are a very mule; one offers you a handsome stall and manger
in Berkeley Square, and you will not accept it. I have chosen
your coat, a claret colour, to suit the complexion of the country
you are going to visit; but I have fixed nothing about the lace.
Barrett had none of gauze, but what were as broad as the Irish
Channel. Your tailor found a very reputable one at another
place, but I would not determine rashly; it will be two or
three-and-twenty shillings the yard: you might have a very
substantial real lace,' which would wear like your buffet, for
twenty. The second order of gauzes are frippery, none above
twelve shillings, and those tarnished, for the species are out of
fashion. You will have time to sit in judgment upon these
important points; for Hamilton(152) your secretary told me at the
Opera two nights ago, that he had taken a house near Busby, and
hoped to be in my neighbourhood for four months.
I was last night at your plump Countess's who is so shrunk, that
she does not seem to be composed of above a dozen hassocs. Lord
Guildford rejoiced mightily over your preferment. The Duchess of
Argyle was playing there, not knowing that the great Pam was just
dead,, to wit, her brother-in-law. He was abroad in the morning,
was seized with a palpitation after dinner, and was dead before
the surgeon could arrive. There's the crown of Scotland too
fallen upon my Lord Bute's head! Poor Lord Edgecumbe is still
alive, and may be so for some days; the physicians, who no longer
ago than Friday se'nnight persisted that he had no dropsy, in
order to prevent his having Ward,(153) on Monday last proposed
that Ward should be called in, and at length they owned they
thought the mortification begun. It is not clear it is yet; at
times he is in his senses, and entirely so, composed, clear, and
most rational; talks of his death, and but yesterday, after such
a conversation with his brother, asked for a pencil to amuse
himself with drawing. What parts, genius, agreeableness thrown
away at a hazard table, and not permitted the chance of being
saved by the villainy of physicians!
You will be pleased with the Anacreontic, written by Lord
Middlesex upon Sir Harry Bellendine: I have not seen any thing so
antique for ages; it has all the fire, poetry, and simplicity of
Horace.
"Ye sons of Bacchus, come and join
in solemn dirge, while tapers shine
Around the grape-embowered shrine
Of honest Harry Bellendine.
Pour the rich juice of Bourdeaux's wine,
Mix'd with your falling tears of brine,
In full libation o'er the shrine
Of honest Harry Bellendine.
Your brows let ivy chaplets twine,
While you push round the sparkling wine,
And let your table be the shrine
Of honest Hairy Bellendine."
He died in his vocation, of a high fever, after the celebration
of some orgies. Though but six hours in his senses, he gave a
proof of his usual good humour, making it his last request to the
sister Tuftons to be reconciled; which they are. His pretty
villa, in my neighbourhood, I fancy he has left to the new Lord
Lorn. I must tell you an admirable bon-mot of George Selwyn,
though not a new one; when there was a malicious report that the
eldest Tufton was to marry Dr. Duncan, Selwyn said, "How often
will she repeat that line of Shakspeare,
"Wake Duncan with this knocking--would thou couldst!"
I enclose the receipt from your lawyer. Adieu!
(152) William Gerard Hamilton, commonly called Single-speech
Hamilton, was, on the appointment of Lord Halifax to the
viceroyalty of Ireland, selected as his secretary, and was
accompanied thither by the celebrated Edmund Burke, partly as a
friend and partly as his private secretary.-E.
(153) The celebrated empiric, see ant`e, p. 37, letter 10. His
drops were first introduced in 1732, by Sir Thomas Robinson; upon
which occasion, Sir C. H. Williams addressed to him his poem,
commencing,
"Say, knight, for learning most renown'd,
What is this wondrous drop?"-E.
Letter 74 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, April 28, 1761. (page 122)
I am glad you will relish June for Strawberry; by that time I
hope the weather will have recovered its temper. At present it
is horridly cross and uncomfortable; I fear we shall have a cold
season; we cannot eat our summer and have our summer.
There has been a terrible fire in the little traverse street, at
the upper end of Sackville Street. Last Friday night, between
eleven and twelve, I was sitting with Lord Digby in the
coffee-room at Arthur's; they told us there was a great fire
somewhere about Burlington Gardens. I, who am as constant at a
fire as George Selwyn at an execution, proposed to Lord Digby to
go and see where it was. We found it within two doors of that
pretty house of Fairfax, now General Waldegrave's. I sent for
the latter, who was at Arthur's; and for the guard, from St.
James's. Four houses were in flames before they could find a
drop of water; eight were burnt. I went to my Lady Suffolk, in
Saville Row, and passed the whole night, till three in the
morning, between her little hot bedchamber and the spot up to my
ancles in water, without catching cold.(154) As the wind, which
had sat towards Swallow Street, changed in the middle of the
conflagration, I concluded the greater part of Saville Row would
be consumed. I persuaded her to prepare to transport her most
valuable effects--"portantur avari Pygmalionis opes miserae."
She behaved with great composure, and observed to me herself how
much worse her deafness grew with the alarm. Half the people of
fashion in town were in the streets all night, as it happened in
such a quarter of distinction. In the crowd, looking on with
great tranquillity, I saw a Mr. Jackson, an Irish gentleman, with
whom I had dined this winter, at Lord Hertford's. He seemed
rather grave; I said, "Sir, I hope you do not live hereabouts."
"Yes, Sir," said he, "I lodged in that house that is Just burnt."
Last night there was a mighty ball at Bedford-house; the royal
Dukes and Princess Emily were there; your lord-lieutenant, the
great lawyer, lords, and old Newcastle, whose teeth are tumbled
out, and his mouth tumbled in; hazard very deep; loo, beauties,
and the Wilton Bridge in sugar, almost as big as the life. I am
glad all these joys are near going out of town. The Graftons go
abroad for the Duchess's health; Another climate may mend that--I
will not answer for more. Adieu! Yours ever.
(154) This accident was owing to a coachman carrying a lighted
candle into the stable, and, agreeably to Dean Swift's Advice to
Servants, sticking it against the rack; the straw being set in a
flame in his absence, by the candle falling. Eight or nine
horses perished, and fourteen houses were burnt to the ground.
Walpole was, most probably, not an idle spectator for the
newspapers relate, that the "gentlemen in the neighbourhood,
together with their servants, formed a ring, kept off the mob,
and handed the goods and movables from one another, till they
secured them in a place of safety; a noble instance of
neighbourly respect and kindness."-E.
Letter 75 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, May 5, 1761. (page 123)
We have lost a young genius, Sir William Williams;(155) an
express from Belleisle, arrived this morning, brings nothing but
his death. He was shot very unnecessarily, riding too near a
battery; in sum, he is a sacrifice to his own rashness, and to
ours. For what are we taking Belleisle? I rejoiced at the little
loss we had on landing; for the glory, I leave it to the common
council. I am very willing to leave London to them too, and do
pass half the week at Strawberry, where my two passions, lilacs
and nightingales, are in full bloom. I spent Sunday as if it
were Apollo's birthday -. Gray and Mason were with me, and we
listened to the nightingales till one o'clock in the morning.
Gray has translated two noble incantations from the Lord knows
who, a Danish Gray, who lived the Lord knows when. They are to
be enchased in a history of English bards, which Mason and he are
Writing; but of which the former has not written a word yet, and
of which the latter, if he rides Pegasus at his usual foot-pace,
will finish the first page two years hence.
But the true frantic OEstus resides at present with Mr. Hogarth;
I went t'other morning to see a portrait he is painting of Mr.
Fox. Hogarth told me he had promised, if Mr. Fox would sit as he
liked, to make as good a picture as Vandyke or Rubens could. I
was silent--"Why now," said he, "you think this very vain, but
why should not one speak the truth?" This truth was uttered in
the face of his own Sigismonda, which is exactly a maudlin w----,
tearing off the trinkets that her keeper had given her, to fling
at his head. She has her father's picture in a bracelet on her
arm, and her fingers are bloody with the heart, as if she had
just bought a sheep's pluck in St. James's Market. As I was
going, Hogarth put on a very grave face, and said, "Mr. Walpole,
I want to speak to you." I sat down, and said I was ready to
receive his commands. For shortness, I will mark this wonderful
dialogue by initial letters.
H. I am told you are going to entertain the town with something
in our way. W. Not very soon, Mr. Hogarth. H. I wish you would
let me have it to correct; I should be very sorry to have you
expose yourself to censure; we painters must know more of those
things than other people. W. Do you think nobody understands
painting but painters? H. Oh! so far from it, there's Reynolds,
who certainly has genius; why but t'other day he offered a
hundred pounds for a picture, that I would not hang in my cellar;
and indeed, to say truth I have generally found, that persons who
had studied painting least were the best judges of it; but what I
particularly wished to say to you was about Sir James Thornhill
(you know he married Sir James' daughter): I would not have you
say any thing against him; there was a book published some time
ago, abusing him, and it gave great offence. He was the first
that attempted history in England, and, I assure you, some
Germans have said that he was a very great painter. W. My work
will go no lower than the year one thousand seven hundred, and I
really have not considered whether Sir J. Thornhill will come
within my plan or not; if he does, I fear you and I shall not
agree upon his merits. H. I wish you would let me correct it;
besides; I am writing something of the same kind myself; I should
be sorry we should clash. W. I believe it is not much known what
my work is, very few persons have seen it. H. Why, it is a
critical history of painting , is it not? W. No, it is an
antiquarian history of it in England; I bought Mr. Vertue's MSS.
and, I believe, the work will not give much offence; besides, if
it does, I cannot help it: when I publish any thing, I give it to
the world to think of it as they please. H. Oh! if it is an
antiquarian work, we shall not clash; mine is a critical work; I
don't know whether I shall ever publish it. It is rather an
apology for painters. I think it is owing to the good sense of
the English that they have not painted better. W. My dear Mr.
Hogarth, I must take my leave of you, you now grow too wild--and
I left him. If I had stayed, there remained nothing but for him
to bite me. I give you my honour, this conversation is literal,
and, perhaps, as long as you have known Englishmen and painters,
You never met with any thing so distracted. I had consecrated a
line to his genius (I mean, for wit) in my preface; I shall not
erase it; but I hope nobody will ask me if he is not mad. Adieu!
(155) Sir William Pere Williams, Bart. member for Shoreham, and a
captain in Burgoyne's Dragoons. He was killed in reconnoitring
before Belleisle. Gray wrote his epitaph, at the request of Mr.
Frederick Montagu, who intended to have it inscribed on a
monument at Belleisle:--
"Here, foremost in the dangerous paths of fame,
Young Williams fought for England's fair renown;
His mind each Muse, each Grace adornd his frame,
Nor Envy dared to view him with a frown," etc.-E.
Letter 76 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, May, 14, 1761. (page 125)
As I am here, and know nothing of our poor heroes at Belleisle,
who are combating rocks, mines, famine, and Mr. Pitt's obstinacy,
I will send you the victory of a heroine, but must preface it
with an apology, as it was gained over a sort of relation of
yours. Jemmy Lumley last week had a party of whist at his own
house; the combatants, Lucy Southwell, that curtseys like a bear,
Mrs. Prijean, and a Mrs. Mackenzy. They played from six In the
evening till twelve next day; Jemmy never winning one rubber, and
rising a loser of two thousand pounds. How it happened I know
not, nor why his suspicions arrived so late, but he fancied
himself cheated, and refused to pay. However, the bear had no
share in his evil surmises: on the contrary, a day or two
afterwards, he promised a dinner at Hampstead to Lucy and her
virtuous sister. As he went to the rendezvous his chaise was
stopped by somebody, who advised him not to proceed. Yet no whit
daunted, he advanced. In the garden he found The gentle
conqueress, Mrs. MacKenzy, Who accosted him in the most friendly
manner. After a few compliments, she asked if he did not intend
to pay her. "No, indeed I shan't, I shan't; your servant, your
servant."--"Shan't you?" said the fair virago; and taking a
horsewhip from beneath her hoop, she fell upon him with as much
vehemence as the Empress-queen would upon the King of Prussia, if
she could catch him alone in the garden at Hampstead. Jemmy
cried out murder; his servant,- rushed in, rescued him from the
jaws of the lioness, and carried him off in his chaise to town.
The Southwells, were already arrived, and descended on the noise
of the fray, finding nobody to pay for the dinner, and fearing
they must, set out for London too without it, though I suppose
they had prepared tin pockets to carry off all that should be
left. Mrs. Mackenzy is immortal, and in the crown-office.(156)
The other battle in my military journal happened between the
Duchess of Argyle and Lord Vere. The Duchess, who always talks
of puss and pug, and who, having lost her memory, forgets how
often she tells the same story, had tired the company at
Dorset-house with the repetition of the same story; when the
Duke's spaniel reached up into her lap, and placed his nose most
critically: "See," said she, "see, how fond all creatures are of
me." Lord Vere, who was at cards, and could not attend to them
for her gossiping, said peevishly, without turning round or
seeing where the dog was, "I suppose he smells PUSS." "What!"
said the Duchess of Argyle, in a passion, "Do you think my puss
stinks?" I believe you have not two better stories in
Northamptonshire.
Don't imagine that my gallery will be prance-about-in-able, as
you expect, by the beginning of June; I do not propose to finish
it till next year, but you will see some glimpse of it, and for
the rest of Strawberry, it never was more beautiful, You must now
begin to fix your motions: I go to Lord Dacre's at the end of
this month, and to Lord Ilchester's the end of the next; between
those periods I expect you.
Saturday morning, Arlington Street.
I came to town yesterday for a party at Bedford-house, made for
Princess Amelia; the garden was open, with French horns and
clarionets, and would have been charming with one single zephyr,
that had not come from the northeast; however, the young ladies
found it delightful. There was limited loo for the Princess,
unlimited for the Duchess of Grafton, to whom I belonged, a table
of quinze, and another of quadrille. The Princess ha(f heard of
our having cold meat upon the loo-table, and would have some. A
table was brought in, she was served so, others rose by turns and
went to the cold meat; in the outward room were four little
tables for the rest of the company. Think, if King George the
Second could have risen and seen his daughter supping pell-mell
with men, as if it were in a booth! The tables were removed, the
young people began to dance to a tabor and pipe; the Princess sat
down again, but to unlimited loo; we played till three, and I won
enough to help on the gallery. I am going back to it, to give my
nieces and their lords a dinner.
We were told there was a great victory come from Pondicherry, but
it came from too far to divert us from liking our party better.
Poor George Monson has lost his leg there. You know that Sir W.
Williams has made Fred. Montagu heir to his debts. Adieu!
(156) "Sure Mr. Jonathan, or some one, has told you how your good
friend Mr. L. has been horsewhippcd, trampled, bruised, and p--d
upon, by a Mrs. Mackenzie, a sturdy Scotchwoman. it was done in
an inn-yard at Hampstead, in the face of day, and he has put her
in the crown-office. it is very true." Gray to Wharton.
Letter 77 To The Countess Of Ailesbury.
Strawberry Hill, June 13, 1761. (page 126)
I never ate such good snuff, nor smelt such delightful bonbons,
as your ladyship has sent me. Every time you rob the Duke's
dessert, does it cost you a pretty snuff-box? Do the pastors at
the Hague(157) enjoin such expensive retributions? If a man
steals a kiss there, I suppose he does penance in a sheet of
Brussels lace. The comical part is, that you own the theft, ind
sending me, but say nothing of the vehicle of your repentance.
In short, Madam, the box is the prettiest thing I ever saw, and I
give you a thousand thanks for it.
When you comfort yourself about the operas, you don't know what
you have lost; nay, nor I neither; for I was here, concluding
that a serenata for a birthday would be -is dull and as vulgar as
those festivities generally are: but I hear of nothing but the
enchantment of it.(158) There was a second orchestra in the
footman's gallery, disguised by clouds, and filled with the music
of the King'S chapel. The choristers behaved like angels, and
the harmony between the two bands was in the most exact time.
Elisi piqued himself, and beat both heaven and earth. The joys
of the year do not end there. The under-actors open at
Drury-lane to-night with a new comedy by Murphey, called "All in
the Wrong."(159) At Ranelagh, all is fireworks and skyrockets.
The birthday exceeded the splendour of Haroun Alraschid and the
Arabian Nights, when people had nothing to do but to scour a
lantern and send a genie for a hamper of diamonds and rubies. Do
you remember one of those stories, where a prince has eight
statues of diamonds, which he overlooks, because he fancies he
wants a ninth; and to his great surprise the ninth proves to be
pure flesh and blood, which he never thought of? Some how or
other, Lady Sarah(160 is the ninth statue; and, you will allow,
has better white and red than if she was made of pearls and
rubies. Oh! I forgot, I was telling you of the birthday: my Lord
P * * * * had drunk the King's health so often at dinner, that at
the ball he took Mrs. * * * * for a beautiful woman, and, as she
says, "made an improper use of his hands." The proper use of
hers, she thought, was to give him a box on the ear, though
within the verge of the court. He returned it by a push, and she
tumbled off the end of the bench; which his Majesty has accepted
as sufficient punishment, and she is not to lose her right
hand.(161)
I enclose the list your ladyship desired: you will see that the
Plurality of Worlds" are Moore's, and of some I do not know the
authors. ' There is a late edition with these names to them.
My duchess was to set out this morning. I saw her for the last
time the day before yesterday at Lady Kildare's: never was a
journey less a party of pleasure. She was so melancholy, that
all Miss Pelham's oddness and my spirits could scarce make her
smile. Towards the end of the night, and that was three in the
morning, I did divert her a little. I slipped Pam into her lap,
and then taxed her with having it there. She was quite
confounded; but, taking it up, saw he had a Telescope in his
hand, which I had drawn, and that the card, which was split, and
just waxed together, contained these lines:
"Ye simple astronomers, lay by your glasses;
The transit of Venus has proved you all asses:
Your telescopes signify nothing to scan it;
'Tis not meant in the clouds, 'tis not meant of a planet:
The seer who foretold it mistook or deceives us,
For Venus's transit is when Grafton leaves us."
I don't send your ladyship these verses as good, but to show you
that all gallantry does not centre at the Hague.
I wish I could tell you that Stanley(162) and Bussy, by crossing
over and figuring in, had forwarded the peace. It is no more
made than Belleisle is taken. However, I flatter myself that you
will not stay abroad till you return for the coronation, which is
ordered for the beginning of October. I don't care to tell you
how lovely the season is; how my acacias are powdered with
flowers, and my hay just in its picturesque moment. Do they ever
make any other hay in Holland than bulrushes in ditches? My new
buildings rise so swiftly, that I shall have not a shilling left,
so far from giving commissions on Amsterdam. When I have made my
house so big that I don't know what to do with it, and am
entirely undone, I propose, like King Pyrrhus, who took such a
roundabout way to a bowl of punch, to sit down and enjoy myself;
but with this difference, that it is better to ruin one's self
than all the world. I am sure you would think as I do, though
Pyrrhus were King of Prussia. I long to have you bring back the
only hero that ever I could endure. Adieu, Madam! I sent you
just such another piece of tittle-tattle as this by General
Waldegrave: you are very partial to me, or very fond of knowing
every thing that passes in your own country, if you can be amused
so. If you can, 'tis surely my duty to divert you, though at the
expense of my character; for I own I am ashamed when I look back
and see four sides of paper scribbled over with nothings.
(157) Lady Ailesbury remained at the Hague while Mr. Conway was
with the army during the campaign in 1761.
(158) The music was by Cocchi. Dr. Burney says it was not
sufficiently admired to encourage the manager to perform it more
than twice.-E.
(159) 'This comedy, which came out in the summer-season at
Drury-lane, under the conduct of Foote and the author, met with
considerable success. Some of the hints are acknowledged to have
been borrowed from Moli`ere's "Cocu Imaginaire."-E.
(160) Lady Sarah Lenox.-E.
(161) The old punishment for giving a blow in the King's
presence.
(162) Mr. Hans Stanley was at this time employed in negotiating a
peace at Paris.-E.
Letter 78 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, June 18, 1761. (page 128)
I am glad you will come on Monday, and hope you will arrive in a
rainbow and pair, to signify that we are not to be totally
drowned. It has rained incessantly, and floated all my new
works; I seem rather to be building a pond than a gallery. My
farm too is all under water, and what is vexatious, if Sunday had
not thrust itself between, I could have got in my hay on Monday.
As the parsons will let nobody else make hay on Sundays, I think
they ought to make it on that day themselves.
By the papers I see Mrs. Trevor Hampden is dead of the smallpox.
Will he be much concerned? If you will stay with me a fortnight
or three weeks, perhaps I may be able to carry you to a play of
Mr. Bentley's--you stare, but I am in earnest: nay, and de par le
roy. In short, here is the history of it. You know the passion
he always had for the Italian comedy; about two years ago he
wrote one, intending to get it offered to Rich, but without his
name. He would have died to be supposed an author, and writing
for gain. I kept this an inviolable secret. Judge then of my
surprise, when about a fortnight or three weeks ago, I found my
Lord Melcomb reading this very Bentleiad in a circle at my Lady
Hervey's. Cumberland had carried it to him with a recommendatory
copy of verses, containing more incense to the King and my Lord
Bute, than the magi brought in their portmanteaus to Jerusalem.
The idols were propitious, and to do them justice, there is a
great deal of wit in the piece, which is called "The Wishes, or
Harlequin's Mouth Opened."(163) A bank note of two hundred
pounds was sent from the treasury to the author, and the play
ordered to be performed by the summer company. Foote was
summoned to Lord Melcomb's, where Parnassus was composed of the
peer himself, who, like Apollo, as I am going to tell you, was
dozing, the two chief justices, and Lord B. Bubo read the play
himself, "with handkerchief and orange by his side." But the
curious part is a prologue, which I never saw. It represents the
god of verse fast asleep by the side of Helicon: the race of
modern bards try to wake him, but the more they repeat their
works, the louder he snores. At last "Ruin seize thee, ruthless
King!" is heard, and the god starts from his trance. This is a
good thought, but will offend the bards so much, that I think Dr.
Bentley's son will be abused at least @as much as his father was.
The prologue concludes with young Augustus, and how much he
excels the ancient one by the choice of his friend. Foote
refused to act this prologue, and said it was too strong.
"Indeed," said Augustus's friend, "I think it is." They have
softened it a little, and I suppose it will be performed. You
may depend upon the truth of all this; but what is much more
credible is, that the comely young author appears every night in
the Mall in a milk-white coat with a blue cape, disclaims any
benefit, and says he has done with the play now it is out of his
own hands, and that Mrs. Hannah Clio, alias Bentley, writ the
best scenes in it. He is going to write a tragedy, and she, I
suppose, is going--to court.
You will smile when I tell you that t'other day a party went to
Westminster Abbey, and among the rest saw the ragged regiment.
They inquired the names of the figures. "I don't know them," said
the man, "but if Mr. Walpole was here he could tell you every
one." Adieu! I expect Mr. John and you with impatience.
(163) This piece, founded on Fontaine's "Trois Souhaits," was
written in imitation of the Italian comedy; Harlequin, Pantaloon,
Columbine, etc. being introduced into it as speaking characters.
"Many parts of it," says the Biographia Dramatica, "exhibit very
just satire and solid sense, and give evident testimony of the
author's learning, knowledge, understanding, and critical
judgment; yet the deficiency of incident which appears in it, as
well as of that lively kind of wit which is one of the essentials
of perfect comedy, seem, in great measure, to justify that
coldness with which the piece was received by the town."-E.
Letter 79 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 5, 1761. (page 130)
You are a pretty sort of a person to come to one's house and get
sick, only to have an excuse for not returning to it. Your
departure is so abrupt, that I don't know but I may expect to
find that Mrs. Jane Truebridge, whom you commend so much, and
call Mrs. Mary, will prove Mrs. Hannah. Mrs. Clive is still more
disappointed: she had proposed to play at quadrille with you from
dinner till supper, and to sing old Purcell to you from supper to
breakfast next morning.(164) If you cannot trust yourself from
Greatworth for a whole fortnight, how will you do in Ireland for
six months? Remember all my preachments, and never be in spirits
at supper. Seriously I am sorry you are out of order, but am
alarmed for you at Dublin, and though all the bench of bishops
should quaver Purcell's hymns, don't let them warble you into a
pint of wine. I wish you were going among catholic prelates, who
would deny you the cup. Think of me and resist temptation.
Adieu!
(164) Dr. Burney tells us, that Mrs. Clive's singing, "which was
intolerable when she meant to be fine, in ballad-farces and songs
of humour, was, like her comic acting, every thing it should
be."-E.
Letter 80 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, July 5, 1761. (page 130)
My dear lord,
I cannot live at Twickenham and not think of you: I have long
wanted to write, and had nothing to tell you. My Lady D. seems
to have lost her sting; she has neither blown up a house nor a
quarrel since you departed. Her wall, contiguous to you, is
built, but so precipitate and slanting that it seems hurrying to
take water. I hear she grows sick of her undertakings. We have
been ruined by deluges; all the country was under water. Lord
Holderness's new foss`e(165) was beaten in for several yards -
this tempest was a little beyond the dew of Hermon, that fell on
the Hill of Sion. I have been in still more danger by water: my
parroquet was on my shoulder as I was feeding my gold-fish, and
flew into the middle of the pond: I was very near being the
Nouvelle Eloise, and tumbling in after him; but with much ado I
ferried him out with my hat.
Lord Edgecumbe has had a fit of apoplexy; your brother
Charles(166) a bad return of his old complaint; and Lord Melcombe
has tumbled down the kitchen stairs, and--waked himself.
London is a desert; no soul in it but the king. Bussy has taken
a temporary house. The world talks of peace-would I could
believe it! every newspaper frightens me: Mr. Conway would be
very angry if he knew how I dread the very name of the Prince de
Soubise.
We begin to perceive the tower of Kew(167) from Montpellier in a
fortnight you will see it in Yorkshire.
The Apostle Whitfield is come to some shame: he went to Lady
Huntingdon lately, and asked for forty pounds for some distressed
saint or other. She said she had not so much money in the house,
but would give it him the first time she had. He was very
pressing, but in vain. At last he said, "There's your watch and
trinkets, you don't want such vanities; I will have that." She
would have put him off- but he persisting, she said, "Well, if
you must have it, you must." About a fortnight afterwards, going
to his house, and being carried into his wife's chamber, among
the paraphernalia of the latter the Countess found her own
offering. This has made a terrible schism: she tells the story
herself--I had not it from Saint Frances,(168) but I hope it is
true. Adieu, my dear lord!
P. S. My gallery sends its humble duty to your new front, and all
my creatures beg their respects to my lady.
(165) At Sion-hill, near Brentford.
(166) Charles Townshend, married to Lady Greenwich, eldest sister
to Lady Strafford.
(167) The pagoda in the royal garden at Kew.
(168) Lady Frances Shirley.
Letter 81 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, July 14, 1761. (page 131)
My dearest Harry,
How could you write me such a cold letter as I have just received
from you, and beginning Dear sir! Can you be angry with me, for
can I be in fault to you? Blamable in ten thousand other
respects, may not I almost say I am perfect with regard to you'?
Since I was fifteen have I not loved you unalterably? Since I
was capable of knowing your merit, has not my admiration been
veneration? For what could so much affection and esteem change?
Have not your honour, your interest, your safety been ever my
first objects? Oh, Harry! if you knew what I have felt and am
feeling about you, would you charge me with neglect? If I have
seen a person since you went, to whom my first question has not
been, "What do you hear of the peace?" you would have reason to
blame me. You say I write very seldom: I will tell you what, I
should almost be sorry to have you see the anxiety I have
expressed about you in letters to every body else. No; I must
except Lady Ailesbury, and there is not another on earth who
loves you so well, and is so attentive to whatever relates to
you.
With regard to writing, this is exactly the case.- I had nothing
to tell you; nothing has happened; and where you are I was
cautious of writing. Having neither hopes nor fears, I always
write the thoughts of the moment, and even laugh to divert the
person I am writing to, without any ill will on the subjects I
mention. But in your situation that frankness might be
prejudicial to you: and to write grave unmeaning letters, I
trusted you was too secure of' me either to like them or desire
them. I knew no news, nor could: I have lived quite alone at
Strawberry; am connected with no court, ministers, or party;
consequently heard nothing, and events there have been none. I
have not even for this month heard my Lady Townshend's extempore
gazette. All the morning I play with my workmen or animals, go
regularly every evening to the meadows with Mrs. Clive, or sit
with my Lady Suffolk, and at night scribble my Painters-What a
journal to send you! I write more trifling letters than any man
living; am ashamed of them, and yet they are expected of me.
You, my Lady Ailesbury, your brother, Sir Horace Mann, George
Montagu, Lord Strafford-all expect I should write--Of what? I
live less and less in the world, care for it less and less, and
yet am thus obliged to inquire what it is doing. Do make these
allowances for me, and remember half your letters go to my Lady
Ailesbury. I writ to her of the King's marriage, concluding she
would send it to you: tiresome as it would be, I will copy my own
letters, if you it; for I will do any thing rather than disoblige
you. I will send you a diary of the Duke of York's balls and
Ranelaghs, inform you of how many children my Lady Berkeley is
with child, and how many races my nephew goes to. No; I will
not, you do not want such proofs of my friendship.
The papers tell us you are retiring, and I was glad? You seem to
expect an action--Can this give me spirits? Can I write to you
joyfully, and fear? Or is it fit Prince Ferdinand should know
you have a friend that is as great a coward about you as your
wife? The only reason for my silence that can not be true, is,
that I forget you. When I am prudent or cautious, it is no
symptom of my being indifferent. Indifference does not happen in
friendships, as it does in passions; and if I was young enough,
or feeble enough to cease to love you, I would not for my own
sake let it be known. Your virtues are my greatest pride; I have
done myself so much honour by them, that I will not let it be
known you have been peevish with me unreasonably. Pray God we
may have peace, that I may scold you for it!
The King's marriage was kept the profoundest secret till last
Wednesday, when the privy council was extraordinarily summoned,
and it was notified to them. Since that, the new Queen's mother
is dead, and will delay it a few days; but Lord Harcourt is to
sail on the 27th, and the coronation will certainly be on the 22d
of September. All that I know fixed is, Lord Harcourt master of
the horse, the Duke of Manchester chamberlain, and Mr. Stone
treasurer. Lists there are in abundance; I don't know the
authentic: those most talked of, are Lady Bute groom of the
stole, the Duchesses of Hamilton and Ancaster, Lady
Northumberland, Bolingbroke, Weymouth, Scarborough, Abergavenny,
Effingham, for ladies; you may choose any six of them you please;
the four first are most probable. Misses Henry Beauclerc, M.
Howe, Meadows, Wrottesley, Bishop, etc. etc. Choose your maids
too. Bedchainber women, Mrs. Bloodworth, Robert Brudenel,
Charlotte Dives, Lady Erskine; in short, I repeat a mere
newspaper.
We expect the final answer of France this week. Bussy(169) was
in great pain on the fireworks for quebec, lest he should be
obliged to illuminate his house: you see I ransack my memory for
something to tell you.
Adieu! I have more reason to be angry than you had; but I am not
so hasty: you are of a violent, impetuous, jealous temper--I,
cool, sedate, reasonable. I believe I must subscribe my name, or
you will not know me by this description.
(169) The Abb`e de Bussy, sent here with overtures of peace. Mr.
Stanley was at the same time sent to Paris.
Letter 82 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Friday night, July 16, 1761. (page 133)
I did not notify the King's marriage to you yesterday, because I
knew you would learn as much by the evening post as I could tell
you. The solemn manner of summoning the council was very
extraordinary: people little imagined, that the urgent and
important business in the rescript was to acquaint them that his
Majesty was going to * * * * * * * *. All I can tell you of
truth is, that Lord Harcourt goes to fetch the Princess, and
comes back her master of the horse. She is to be here in August,
and the coronation certainly on the 22d of September. Think of
the joy the women feel; there is not a Scotch peer in the fleet
that might not marry the greatest fortune in England between this
and the 22d of September. However, the ceremony will lose its
two brightest luminaries, my niece Waldegrave for beauty, and the
Duchess of Grafton for figure. The first will be lying-in, the
latter at Geneva; but I think she will come, if she walks to It
as well as at it. I cannot recollect but Lady Kildare and Lady
Pembroke of great beauties. Mrs. Bloodworth and Mrs. Robert
Brudenel, bedchamber women, Miss Wrottesley and Miss Meadows,
maids of honour, go to receive the Princess at Helvoet; what lady
I do not hear. Your cousin's Grace of Manchester, they say, is
to be chamberlain, and Mr. Stone, treasurer; the Duchess of
Ancaster and Lady Bolingbroke of her bedchamber: these I do not
know are certain, but hitherto all seems well chosen. Miss Molly
Howe, one of the pretty Bishops, and a daughter of Lady Harry
Beauclerc, are talked of for maids of honour. The great
apartment at St. James's is enlarging, and to be furnished with
the pictures from Kensington : this does not portend a new
palace.
In the midst of all this novelty and hurry, my mind is very
differently employed. They expect every minute the news of a
battle between Soubise and the hereditary Prince. Mr. Conway, I
believe, is in the latter army; judge if I can be thinking much
of espousals and coronations! It is terrible to be forced to sit
still, expecting such an event; in one's own room one is not
obliged to be a hero; consequently, I tremble for one that is
really a hero.
Mr. Hamilton, your secretary, has been to see me to-day; I am
quite ashamed not to have prevented him. I will go to-morrow
with all the speeches I can muster.
I am sorry neither you nor your brother are quite well, but shall
be content if my Pythagorean sermons have any weight with you.
You go to Ireland to make the rest of your life happy; don't go
to fling the rest of it away. Good night!
Mr. Chute is gone to his Chutehood.
Letter 83 To The Countess Of Ailesbury.
Strawberry Hill, July 20, 1761. (page 134)
I blush, dear Madam, on observing that half my letters to your
ladyship are prefaced with thanks for presents:-don't mistake; I
am not ashamed of thanking you, but of having so many occasions
for it. Monsieur Hop has sent me the piece of china: I admire it
as much as possible, and intend to like him as much as ever I can
but hitherto I have not seen him, not having been in town since
he arrived.
Could I have believed that the Hague would so easily compensate
for England? nay, for Park-place! Adieu, all our agreeable
suppers! Instead of Lady Cecilia's(170) French songs, we shall
have Madame Welderen(171) quavering a confusion of d's and t's,
b's and p's--Bourquoi s`cais du blaire?(172)--Worse than that, I
expect to meet all my relations at your house, and Sir Samson
Gideon instead of Charles Townshend. You will laugh like Mrs.
Tipkin(173) when a Dutch Jew tells you that he bought at two and
a half per cent. and sold at four. Come back, if you have any
taste left: you had better be here talking robes, ermine, and
tissue, Jewels and tresses, as all the world does, than own you
are corrupted. Did you receive my notification of the new Queen?
Her mother is dead, and she will not be here before the end of
August.
My mind is much more at peace about Mr. Conway than it was.
Nobody thinks there will be a battle, as the French did not
attack them when both armies shifted camps; and since that,
Soubise has entrenched himself up to the whiskers:--whiskers I
think he has, I have been so afraid of him! Yet our hopes of
meeting are still very distant: the peace does not advance; and
if Europe has a stiuer left in its pockets, the war will
continue; though happily all parties have been so scratched, that
they only sit and look anger at one another, like a dog and cat
that don't care to begin again.
We are in danger of losing our sociable box at the Opera. The
new Queen is very musical, and if Mr. Deputy Hodges and the city
don't exert their veto, will probably go to the Haymarket.
George Pitt, in imitation of the Adonises in Tanzai's retinue,
has asked to be her Majesty's grand harper. Dieu s`cait quelle
raclerie il y aura! All the guitars are untuned; and if Miss
Conway has a mind to be in fashion at her return, she must take
some David or other to teach her the new twing twang, twing twing
twang. As I am still desirous of being in fashion with your
ladyship, and am, over and above, very grateful, I keep no
company but my Lady Denbigh and Lady Blandford, and learn every
evening, for two hours, to mask my English. Already I am
tolerably fluent in saying she for he.(174)
Good night, Madam! I have no news to send you: one cannot
announce a royal wedding and a coronation every post.
P. S. Pray, Madam, do the gnats bite your legs? Mine are swelled
as big as one, which is saying a deal for me.
July 22.
I HAD writ this, and was not time enough for the mail, when I
receive your charming note, and this magnificent victory!(175)
Oh! my dear Madam, how I thank you, how I congratulate you, how I
feel for you, how I have felt for you and for myself! But I
bought it by two terrible hours to-day--I heard of the battle two
hours before I could learn a word of Mr. Conway--I sent all round
the world, and went half around it myself. I have cried and
laughed, trembled and danced, as you bid me. If you had sent me
as much old china as King Augustus gave two regiments for, I
should not be half so much obliged to you as for your note. How
could you think of me, when you had so much reason to think of
nothing but yourself?--And then they say virtue is not rewarded
in this world. I will preach at Paul's Cross, and quote you and
Mr. Conway; no two persons were ever so good and happy. In
short, I am serious in the height of all my joy. God is very
good to you, my dear Madam; I thank him for you; I thank him for
myself: it is very unalloyed pleasure we taste at this moment!-
-Good night! My heart is so expanded, I could write to the last
scrap of my paper; but I won't. Yours most entirely.
(170) Lady Cecilia West, daughter of John Earl of Delawar,
afterwards married to General James Johnston.
(171) Wife of the Count de Welderen, one of the lords of the
States of Holland.-E.
(172) The first words of a favourite French air, with Madame
Welderen's confusion of p's, t's' etc.
(173) A character in Steele's comedy of The Tender Husband, or
the Accomplished Fools brought out at Drury-lane in 1709.-E.
(174) A mistake which these ladies, who were both Dutch women,
constantly made.
(175) The battle of Kirckdenckirck, on the 15th and 16th of July,
in which the allied army, under Prince Ferdinand, gained a great
victory over the French, under the Prince of Soubise.-E.
Letter 84 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, July 22, 1761. (page 136)
My dear lord,
I love to be able to contribute to your satisfaction, and I think
few things would make you happier than to hear that we have
totally defeated the French combined armies, and that Mr. Conway
is safe. The account came this morning: I had a short note from
my poor Lady Ailesbury, who was waked with the good news before
she had heard there had been a battle. I don't pretend to send
you circumstances, no more than I do of the wedding and
coronation, because you have relations and friends in town nearer
and better informed. indeed, only the blossom of victory is come
yet. Fitzroy is expected, and another fuller courier after him.
Lord Granby, to the mob's heart's content, has the chief honour
of the day--rather, of the two days. The French behaved to the
mob's content too, that is, shamefully: and all this glory
cheaply bought on our side. Lieutenant-colonel Keith killed, and
Colonel Marlay and Harry Townshend wounded. If it produces a
peace, I shall be happy for mankind--if not, shall content myself
with the single but pure joy of Mr. Conway's being safe.
Well! my lord, when do you come? You don't like the question, but
kings will be married and must be crowned-and if people will be
earls, they must now and then give up castles and new fronts for
processions and ermine. By the way, the number of peeresses that
propose to excuse themselves makes great noise; especially as so
many are breeding, or trying to breed, by commoners, that they
cannot walk. I hear that my Lord Delawar, concluding all women
would not dislike the ceremony, is negotiating his peerage in the
city, and trying if any great fortune will give fifty thousand
pounds for one day, as they often do for one night. I saw Miss
this evening at my Lady Suffolk's, and fancy she does not think
my Lord quite so ugly as she did two months ago. Adieu, my lord!
This is a splendid year!
Letter 85 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 22, 1761. (page 136)
For my part, I believe Mademoiselle Scuderi drew the plan of this
year. It is all royal marriages, coronations, and victories;
they come tumbling so over one another from distant parts of the
globe, that it looks just like the handywork of a lady romance
writer, whom it costs nothing but a little false geography to
make the Great Mogul in love with a Princess of Mecklenburg, and
defeat two marshals of France as he rides post on an elephant to
his nuptials. I don't know where I am. I had scarce found
Mecklenburg Strelitz(176) with a magnifying-glass before I am
whisked to Pondicherri(177)--well, I take it, and raze it. I
begin to grow acquainted with Colonel Coote, and to figure him
packing up chests and diamonds, and sending them to his wife
against the King's wedding--thunder go the Tower guns, and
behold, Broglio and Soubise are totally defeated; if the mob have
not much stronger heads and quicker conceptions than I have, they
-will conclude my Lord Granby is become nabob. How the deuce in
two days can one digest all this? Why is not Pondicherri in
Westphalia? I don't know how the Romans did, but I cannot
support two victories every week. Well, but you will want to
know the particulars. Broglio and Soubise united, attacked our
army on the 15th, but were repulsed; the next day, the Prince
Mahomet Alli d Cawn--no, no, I mean Prince Ferdinand, returned
the attack, and the French threw down their arms and fled, run
over my Lord Harcourt, who was going to fetch the new Queen; in
short, I don't know how it was, but Mr. Conway is safe, and I am
as happy as Mr. Pitt himself. We have only lost a
Lieutenant-colonel Keith; Colonel Marlay and Harry Townshend are
wounded.
I could beat myself for not having a flag ready to display on my
round tower, and guns mounted on all m@battlements. Instead of
that, I have been foolishly trying on My new pictures upon my
gallery. However, the oratory of our Lady of Strawberry shall be
dedicated next year on the anniversary of Mr. Conway's safety.
Think with his intrepidity, and delicacy of honour wounded, what
I had to apprehend; you shall absolutely be here on the sixteenth
of next July. Mr. Hamilton tells me your King does not set out
for his new dominions till the day after the coronation; if you
will come to it, I can give you a very good place for the
procession; which is a profound secret, because, if known, I
should be teased to death, and none but my first friends shall be
admitted. I dined with your secretary yesterday; there were
Garrick and a young Mr. Burke, who wrote a book in
the style of Lord Bolingbroke, that was much admired.(178) He is
a sensible man, but has not worn off his authorism yet, and
thinks there is nothing so charming as writers, and to be one.
He will know better one of these days. I like Hamilton's little
Marly; we walked in the great all`ee, and drank tea in the arbour
of treillage; they talked of Shakspeare and Booth, of Swift and
my Lord Bath, and I was thinking of Madame S`evign`e,-. Good
night! I have a dozen other letters to write; I must tell my
friends how happy I am--not as an Englishman, but as a cousin.
(176) The King had just announced his intention of demanding in
marriage the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg Strelitz.-E.
(177) the news of the capture of Pondicherry had only arrived on
the preceding day.-E.
(178) Mr. Burke's "Vindication of Natural Society," in imitation
of Lord Bolingbroke's style, which came out in the spring of
1756, was his first avowed production.-E.
Letter 86 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, July 23, 1761. (page 138)
Well, mon beau cousin! you may be as cross as you please now.
when you beat two Marshals of France and cut their armies to
pieces, I don't mind your pouting; but in good truth, it was a
little vexatious to have you quarrelling with me, when I was in
greater pain about you than I can express. I Will Say no more;
make a peace, under the walls of Paris if you please, and I will
forgive you all--but no more battles: consider, as Dr. Hay said,
it is cowardly to beat the French now.
Don't look upon yourselves as the only conquerors in the world.
Pondicherri is ours, as well as the field of KirkDenckirk. The
park guns never have time to cool; we ruin ourselves in gunpowder
and skyrockets. If you have a mind to do the gallantest thing in
the world after the greatest, you must escort the Princess of
Mecklenburgh through France. You see what a bully I am; the
moment the French run away, I am sending you on expeditions. I
forgot to tell you that the King has got the isle of Dominique
and the chickenpox, two trifles that don't count in the midst of
all these festivities. No more does your letter of the 8th,
which I received yesterday: it is the one that is to come after
the 16th, that I shall receive graciously.
Friday 24th.
Not satisfied with the rays of glory that reached Twickenham, I
came to town to bask in your success; but am most disagreeably
disappointed to find you must beat the French once more, who seem
to love to treat the English mob with subjects for bonfires. I
had got over such an alarm, that I foolishly ran into the other
extreme, and concluded there was not a French battalion left
entire upon the face of Germany. Do write to me; don't be out of
humour, but tell me every motion you make: I assure you I have
deserved you should. Would you were out of the question, if it
were only that I might feel a little humanity! There is not a
blacksmith or linkboy in London that exults more than I do, upon
any good news, since you went abroad. What have I to do to hate
people I never saw, and to rejoice in their calamities? Heaven
send us peace, and you home! Adieu!
Letter 87 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, July 28, 1761. (page 138)
No, I shall never cease being a dupe, till I have been undeceived
round by every thing that calls itself a virtue. I came to town
yesterday, through clouds of dust, to see The Wishes, and went
actually feeling for Mr. Bentley, and full of the emotions he
must be suffering. What do you think, in a house crowded, was
the first thing I saw? Mr. and Madame Bentley, perched up in the
front boxes, and acting audience at his own play! No, all the
impudence of false patriotism never came up to it. Did one ever
hear of an author that had courage to see his own first night in
public'? I don't believe Fielding or Foote himself ever did; and
this was the modest, bashful Mr. BenTley, that died at the
thought of being known for an author even by his own
acquaintance! In the stage-box was Lady Bute, Lord Halifax, and
Lord Melcombe. I must say, the two last entertained the house as
much as the play; your King was prompter, and called out to the
actor every minute to speak louder. The other went backwards,
behind the scenes, fetched the actors into the box, and was
busier than Harlequin. The curious prologue was not spoken, the
whole very ill acted. It turned out just what I remembered it;
the good extremely good, the rest very flat and vulgar; the
genteel dialogue, I believe, might be written by Mrs. Hannah.
The audience were extremely fair: the first act they bore with
patience, though it promised very ill; the second is admirable,
and was much applauded; so was the third; the fourth-woful; the
beginning of the fifth it seemed expiring, but was revived by a
delightful burlesque of the ancient chorus, which was followed by
two dismal scenes, at which people yawned, but were awakened on a
sudden by Harlequin's being drawn up to a gibbet, nobody knew why
or wherefore - this raised a prodigious and continued hiss,
Harlequin all the while suspended in the air,--at last they were
suffered to finish the play, but nobody attended to the
conclusion.(179) Modesty and his lady all the while sat with the
utmost indifference; I suppose Lord Melcombe had fallen asleep
before he came to this scene, and had never read it. The
epilogue was the King and new queen, and ended with a personal
satire on Garrick: not very kind on his own stage To add to the
judgment of his conduct, Cumberland two days ago published a
pamphlet to abuse him. It was given out for to-night with rather
more claps than hisses, but I think will not do unless they
reduce it to three acts.
I am sorry you will not come to the coronation. The place I
offered I am not sure I can get for any body else; I cannot
explain it to you, because I am engaged to secrecy: if I can get
it for your brother John I will, but don't tell him of it,
because it is not sure. Adieu!
(179) The piece was coldly received by the town. Cumberland says
that, "when the last of the three Wishes produced the ridiculous
catastrophe of the hanging of Harlequin in full view of the
audience, my uncle, the author, then sitting by me, whispered in
my ear, 'If they don't damn this they deserve to be damned
themselves;' and whilst he was yet speaking the roar began, and
The Wishes were irrevocably damned."-E.
Letter 88 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill. (page 140)
This is the 5th of August, and I just receive your letter of the
17th of last month by Fitzroy.(180) I heard he had lost his
pocket-book with all his despatches, but had found it again. He
was a long time finding the letter for me.
You do nothing but reproach me; I declare I will bear it no
longer, though you should beat forty more Marshals of France. I
have already writ you two letters that would fully justify me if
you receive them; if you do not, it is not I that am in fault for
not writing, but the post-offices for reading my letters, content
if they would forward them when they have done with them. They
seem to think, like you that I know more news than any body.
What is to be known in the dead of summer, when all the world is
dispersed? Would you know who won the sweepstakes at Huntingdon?
what parties are at Woburn? what officers upon guard in Betty's
fruit-shop? whether the peeresses are to wear long, or short
tresses at the coronation? how many jewels Lady Harrington
borrows of actresses? All this is your light summer wear for
conversation; and if my memory were as much stuffed with it as my
ears, I might have sent you Volumes last week. My nieces, Lady
Waldegrave and Mrs. Keppel, were here five days, and discussed
the claim or disappointment of every miss in the kingdom for maid
of honour. Unfortunately this new generation is not at all my
affair. I cannot attend to what Concerns them. Not that their
trifles are less important than those of one's own time, but my
mould has taken all its impressions, and can receive no more. I
must grow old upon the stock I have. I, that was so impatient at
all their chat, the moment they were gone, flew to my Lady
Suffolk, and heard her talk with great satisfaction of the late
Queen's coronation-petticoat. The preceding age always appears
respectable to us (I mean as one advances in years), one's own
age interesting, the coming age neither one nor t'other.
You may judge by this account that I have writ all my letters, or
ought to have written them; and yet, for occasion to blame Me,
you draw a very pretty picture of my situation: all which tends
to prove that I ought to write to you every day, whether I have
any thing to say or not. I am writing, I am building--both works
that will outlast the memory of battles and heroes! Truly, I
believe, the one will as much as t'other. My buildings are
paper, like my writings, and both will be blown away in ten years
after I am dead; if they had not the substantial use of amusing
me while I live, they would be worth little indeed. I will give
you one instance that will sum up the vanity of great men,
learned men, and buildings altogether. I heard lately, that Dr.
Pearce, a very learned personage, had consented to let the tomb
of Aylmer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, a very great personage,
be removed for Wolfe's monument; that at first he had objected,
but was wrought upon by being told that hight Aylmer was a knight
templar, a very wicked set of people, as his lordship had heard,
though he knew nothing of them, as they are not mentioned by
Longinus. I own I thought this a made story, and wrote to his
lordship, expressing my concern that one of the finest and most
ancient monuments in the abbey should be removed, and begging, if
it was removed, that he would bestow it on me, who would erect
and preserve it here. After a fortnight's deliberation, the
bishop sent me an answer, civil indeed, and commending my zeal
for antiquity! but avowing the story under his own hand. He
said, that at first they had taken Pembroke's tomb for a knight
templar's. Observe, that not only the man who shows the tombs
names it every day, but that there is a draught of it at large in
Dart's Westminster; that upon discovering whose it was, he had
been very unwilling to consent to the removal, and at last had
obliged Wilton to engage to set it up within ten feet of where it
stands at present. His lordship concluded with congratulating me
on publishing learned authors at my press. don't wonder that a
man who thinks Lucan a learned author, should mistake a tomb in
his own cathedral. If I had a mind to be angry, I could complain
with reason; as, having paid forty pounds for ground for my
mother's tomb, that the Chapter of Westminster sell their church
over and over again; the ancient monuments tumble upon one's head
through their neglect, as one of them did, and killed a man at
Lady Elizabeth Percy's funeral; and they erect new waxen dolls of
Queen Elizabeth, etc. to draw visits and money from the mob. I
hope all this history is applicable to some part or other of my
letter; but letters you will have, and so I send you one, very
like your own stories that you tell your daughter-. There was a
King, and he had three daughters, and they all went to see the
tombs; and the youngest, -who was in love with Aylmer de Valence,
etc.
Thank you for your account of the battle; thank Prince Ferdinand
for giving you a very Honourable post, which, in spite of his
teeth and yours, proved a very safe one; and above all, thank
Prince Soubise, whom I love better than all the German Princes in
the universe. Peace, I think, we must have at last, if you beat
the French, or at least hinder them from beating you, and
afterwards starve them. Bussy's last last courier is expected;
but as he may have a last last last courier, I trust more to this
than to all the others. He was complaining t'other day to Mr.
Pitt of our haughtiness, and said it would drive the French to
some desperate effort, "Thirty thousand men," continued he,
"would embarrass you a little, I believe!" "Yes," replied Pitt,
"for I am so embarrassed with those we have already, I don't know
what to do with them."
Adieu! Don't fancy that the more you scold, the more I will
write: it has answered three times, but the next cross word you
give me shall put an end to our correspondence. Sir Horace
Mann's father used to say, "Talk, Horace, you have been abroad:"-
-You cry, "Write, Horace, you are at home." No, Sir. you can
beat an hundred and twenty thousand French, but you cannot get
the better of me. I will not write such foolish letters as this
every day, when I have nothing to say. Yours as you behave.
(180) George Fitzroy, afterwards created Lord Southampton.
Letter 89 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 20, 1761. (page 142)
A few lines before you go; your resolutions are good, and give me
great pleasure; bring them back unbroken; I have no mind to lose
you; we have been acquainted these thirty years, and to give the
devil his due, in all that time I never knew a bad, a false, a
mean, or ill-natured thing in the devil--but don't tell him I say
so, especially as I cannot say the same of myself. I am now
doing a dirty thing, flattering you to preface a commission.
Dickey Bateman(181) has picked up a whole cloister full of old
chairs in Herefordshire. He bought them one by one, here and
there in farmhouses, for three-and-sixpence, and a crown apiece.
They are of' wood, the seats triangular, the backs, arms, and
legs loaded with turnery. A thousand to one but there are plenty
up and down Cheshire too. If Mr. and Mrs. Wetenhall, as they
ride or drive out would now and then pick up such a chair, it
would oblige me greatly. Take notice, no two need be of the same
pattern.
Keep it as the secret of your life; but if your brother John
addresses himself to me a day or two before the coronation, I can
place him well to see the procession: when it is over, I will
give you a particular reason why this must be such a mystery. I
was extremely diverted t'other day with my mother's and my old
milliner; she said she had a petition to me--"What is it, Mrs.
Burton?" "It Is in behalf of two poor orphans." I began to feel
for my purse. "What can I do for them, Mrs. Burton?" "Only if
your honour would be so compassionate as to get them tickets for
the coronation." I could not keep my countenance, and these
distressed orphans are two and three-and-twenty! Did you ever
hear a more melancholy case?
The Queen is expected on Monday. I go to town on Sunday. Would
these shows and your Irish journey were over, and neither of us a
day the poorer!
I am expecting Mr. Chute to hold a chapter on the cabinet. A
barge-load of niches, window-frames, and ribs, is arrived. The
cloister is paving, the privy garden making, painted glass
adjusting to the windows on the back stairs - with so many irons
in the fire, you may imagine I have not much time to write. I
wish you a safe and pleasant voyage.
(181) Richard Bateman, brother of Viscount Bateman. In Sir
Charles Hanbury Williams's Poems he figures as "Constant
Dickey."-E.
Letter 90 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Arlington Street, Tuesday morning. (page 143)
My dear lord,
Nothing was ever equal to the bustle and uncertainty of the town
for these three days. The Queen was seen off the coast of Sussex
on Saturday last, and is not arrived yet-nay, last night at ten
o'clock it was neither certain when she landed, nor when she
would be in town. I forgive history for knowing nothing, when so
public an event as the arrival of a new Queen is a mystery even
at the very moment in St. James's Street. The messenger that
brought the letter yesterday morning, said she arrived ,it half
an hour after four at Harwich. This was immediately translated
into landing, and notified in those words to the ministers. Six
hours afterwards it proved no such thing, and that she was only
in Harwich-road; and they recollected that an hour after four
happens twice in twenty-four hours, and the letter did not
specify which of the twices it was. Well! the bridemaids whipped
on their virginity; the new road and the parks were thronged; the
guns were choking with impatience to go off; and Sir James
Lowther, who was to pledge his Majesty was actually married to
Lady Mary Stuart.(182) Five, six, seven, eight o'clock came, and
no Queen--She lay at Witham at Lord Abercorn's, who was most
tranquilly in town; and it is not certain even whether she will
be composed enough to be in town to-night. She has been sick but
half an hour; sung and played on the harpsicord all the voyage,
and been cheerful the whole time. The coronation will now
certainly not be put off-so I shall have the pleasure of seeing
you on the 15th. The weather is close and sultry; and if the
wedding is to-night, we shall all die.
They have made an admirable speech for the Tripoline ambassador
that he said he heard the King had sent his first eunuch to fetch
the Princess. I should think he meaned Lord Anson.
You will find the town over head and ears in disputes about rank,
and precedence, processions, entr`ees, etc. One point, that of
the Irish peers, has been excellently liquidated: Lord Halifax
has stuck up a paper in the coffee-room at Arthur's, importing, ,
That his Majesty, not having leisure to determine a point of such
great consequence, permits for this time such Irish peers as
shall be at the marriage to walk in the procession." Every body
concludes those personages will understand this order as it is
drawn up in their own language; otherwise it is not very clear
how they are to walk to the marriage, if they are at it before
they come to it.
Strawberry returns its duty and thanks for all your lordship's
goodness to it, and though it has not got its wedding-clothes
yet, will be happy to see you. Lady Betty Mackenzie is the
individual woman she was--she seems to have been gone three
years, like the Sultan in the Persian Tales, who popped his head
into a tub of water, pulled it up again, and fancied he had been
a dozen years in bondage in the interim. She is not altered a
tittle. Adieu, my dear lord!
Twenty minutes past three in the afternoon, not in the middle of
the night.
Madame Charlotte is this instant arrived. The noise of coaches,
chaises, horsemen, mob, that have been to see her pass through
the parks, is so prodigious that I cannot distinguish the guns.
I am going to be dressed, and before seven shall launch into the
crowd. Pray for me!
(182) Eldest daughter of the Earl of Bute.-E.
Letter 91 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, Sept. 9, 1761. (page 144)
The date of my promise is now arrived, and I fulfil it--fulfil it
with great satisfaction, for the Queen is come; and I have seen
her, have been presented to her--and may go back to Strawberry.
For this fortnight I have lived upon the road between Twickenham
and london: I came, grew inpatient, returned; came again, still
to no purpose. The yachts made the coast of Suffolk last
Saturday, on Sunday entered the road of Harwich, and on Monday
morning the King's chief eunuch, as the Tripoline ambassador
calls Lord Anson, landed the Princess. She lay that night at
Lord Abercorn's at Whitham, the palace of silence; and yesterday
at a quarter after three arrived at St. James's. In half an hour
one heard nothing but proclamations of her beauty: every body was
content, every body pleased. At seven one went to court. The
night was sultry. About ten the procession began to move towards
the chapel, and at eleven they all came up into the drawing-room.
She looks very sensible, cheerful, and is remarkably genteel.
Her tiara of diamonds was very pretty, her stomacher sumptuous;
her violet-velvet mantle and ermine so heavy, that the spectators
knew as much of her upper half as the King himself. You will
have no doubts of her sense by what I shall tell you. On the
road they wanted to curl her toupet; she said she thought it
looked as well as that of any of the ladies sent to fetch her; if
the King bid her, she would wear a periwig, otherwise she would
remain as she was. When she caught the first glimpse of the
palace, she grew frightened and turned pale; the Duchess of
Hamilton smiled--the Princess said, "My dear Duchess, you may
laugh, you have been married twice, but it is no joke to me."
Her lips trembled as the coach stopped, but she jumped out with
spirit, and has done nothing but with good-humour and
cheerfulness. She talks a great deal--is easy, civil, and not
disconcerted. At first, when the bridemaids and the court were
introduced to her, she said, "Mon Dieu, il y en a tant, il y en a
tant!" She was pleased when she was to kiss the peeresses; but
Lady Augusta was forced to take her hand and give it to those
that were to kiss it, which was prettily humble and good-natured.
While they waited for supper, she sat down, sang, and played.
Her French is tolerable, she exchanged much both of that and
German with the King, and the Duke of York. They did not get to
bed till two. To-day was a drawing-room: every body was
presented to her; but she spoke to nobody, as she could not know
a soul. The crowd was much less than at a birthday, the
magnificence very little more. The King looked very handsome,
and talked to her continually with great good-humour.- It does
not promise as if they two would be the two most unhappy persons
in England, from this event. The bridemaids, especially Lady
Caroline Russel, Lady Sarah Lenox, and Lady Elizabeth Keppel,
were beautiful figures. With neither features nor air, Lady
Sarah was by far the chief angel. The Duchess of Hamilton was
almost in possession of her former beauty today: and your other
Duchess, your daughter, was much better dressed than ever I saw
her. Except a pretty Lady Sutherland, and a most perfect beauty,
an Irish Miss Smith,(183) I don't think the Queen saw much else
to discourage her: my niece,(184) Lady Kildare, Mrs. Fitzroy,
were none of them there. There is a ball to-night, and two more
drawing-rooms; but I have done with them. The Duchess of
Queensbury and Lady Westmoreland were in the procession, and did
credit to the ancient nobility.
You don't presume to suppose, I hope, that we are thinking of
you, and wars, and misfortunes, and distresses, in these festival
times. Mr. Pitt himself Would be mobbed if he talked of any
thing but clothes, and diamonds, and bridemaids. Oh! yes, we
have wars, civil wars; there is a campaign opened in the
bedchamber. Every body is excluded but the ministers; even the
lords of the bedchamber, cabinet counsellors, and foreign
ministers: but it has given such offence that I don't know
whether Lord Huntingdon must not be the scapegoat. Adieu! I am
going to transcribe most of this letter to your Countess.
(183) Afterwards married to Lord Llandaff.
(184) The Countess of Waldegrave.
Letter 92 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Sept. 24, 1761. (page 145)
I am glad you arrived safe in Dublin, and hitherto like it so
well; but your trial is not begun yet. When your King comes;,
the ploughshares will be put into the fire. Bless your stars
that your King is not to be married or crowned. All the vines of
Bordeaux, and all the fumes of Irish brains cannot make a town so
drunk as a regal wedding and coronation. I am going to let
London cool, and will not venture into it again this fortnight.
O! the buzz, the prattle, the crowds, the noise, the hurry! Nay,
people are so little come to their senses, that though the
coronation was but the day before yesterday, the Duke of
Devonshire had forty messages yesterday, desiring tickets for a
ball, that they fancied was to be at court last night. People
had sat up a night and a day, and yet wanted to see a dance. If
I was to entitle ages, I would call this the century of crowds.
For the coronation, if a puppet-show could be worth a million,
that is. The multitudes, balconies, guards, and processions,
made Palace-yard the liveliest spectacle in the world - the hall
was the most glorious. The blaze of lights, the richness and
variety of habits, the ceremonial, the benches of peers, and
peeresses, frequent and full, was as awful as a pageant can be -.
and yet for the King's sake and my own, I never wish to see
another; nor am impatient to have my Lord Effingham's promise
fulfilled. The King complained that so few precedents were kept
for their proceedings. Lord Effingham owned, the earl marshal's
office had been strangely neglected; but he had taken such care
for the future, that the next coronation would be regulated in
the most exact manner imaginable. The number of peers and
peeresses present was not very great; some of the latter, with no
excuse in the world, appeared in Lord Lincoln's gallery, and even
walked about the hall indecently in the intervals of the
procession. My Lady Harrington, covered with all the diamonds
she could borrow, hire, or seize, and with the air of Roxann, was
the finest figure at a distance; she complained to George Selwyn
that she was to walk with Lady Portsmouth, who would have a wig
and a stick--"Pho," said he, "you will only look as if you were
taken up by the constable." She told this everywhere, thinking
the reflection was on my Lady Portsmouth. Lady Pembroke, alone
at the head of the countesses, was the picture of majestic
modesty; the Duchess of Richmond as pretty as nature and dress,
with no pains of her own, could make her; Lady Spencer, Lady
Sutherland, and Lady Northampton, very pretty figures. Lady
Kildare, still beauty itself, if not a little too large. The
ancient peeresses were by no means the worst party: Lady
Westmoreland, still handsome, and with more dignity than all; the
Duchess of Queensbury looked well, though her locks were
milk-white; Lady Albemarle very genteel; nay, the middle age had
some good representatives in lady Holderness, Lady Rochford, and
Lady Strafford, the perfectest little figure of all. My Lady
Suffolk ordered her robes, and I dressed part of her head, as I
made some of my Lord Hertford's dress; for you know, no
profession comes amiss to me, from a tribune of the people to a
habit-maker. Don't imagine that there were not figures as
excellent on the other side: old Exeter, who told the King he was
the handsomest man she ever saw; old Effingham and a Lady Say and
Seale, with her hair powdered and her tresses black, were in
excellent contrast to the handsome. Lord B * * * * put on rouge
upon his wife and the Duchess of Bedford in the painted chamber;
the Duchess of Queensbury told me of the latter, that she looked
like an orange-peach, half red, and half yellow. The coronets of
the peers and their robes disguised them strangely; it required
all the beauty of the Dukes of Richmond and Marlborough to make
them noticed. One there was, though of another species, the
noblest figure I ever saw, the high-constable of Scotland, Lord
Errol; as one saw him in a space capable of containing him, one
admired him. At the wedding, dressed in tissue, he looked like
one of the giants in Guildhall, new gilt. It added to the energy
of his person, that one considered him acting so considerable a
part in that very hall, where so few years ago one saw his
father, Lord Kilmarnock, condemned to the block. The champion
acted his part admirably, and dashed down his gauntlet with proud
defiance. His associates, Lord Effingham, Lord Talbot, and the
Duke of Bedford, were woful: Lord Talbot piqued himself on his
horse backing down the hall, and not turning its rump towards the
King; but he had taken such pains to dress it to that duty, that
it entered backwards, and at his retreat the spectators clapped,
a terrible indecorum, but suitable to such Bartholomew-fair
doings. He had twenty demel`es and came out of none creditably.
He had taken away the table of the knights of the Bath, and was
forced to admit two in their old place, and dine the others in
the court of requests. Sir William Stanhope said, "We are
ill-treated, for some of us are gentlemen." beckford told the
Earl, it was hard to refuse a table to the city of london Whom it
would cost ten thousand pounds to banquet the King, and his
lordship would repent it if they had not a table in the Hall;
they had. To the barons of the Cinque-ports, who made the same
complaint, he said, "If you come to me as lord-steward, I tell
you it is impossible; if, as Lord Talbot, I am a match for any of
you:" and then he said to Lord Bute, "If I were a minister, thus
I would talk to France, to Spain, to the Dutch--none of your half
measures." This has brought me to a melancholy topic. Bussy
goes tomorrow, a Spanish war is hanging in the air, destruction
is taking a new lease of mankind--of the remnant of mankind. I
have no prospect of seeing Mr. Conway. Adieu! I will not disturb
you with my forebodings. You I shall see again in spite of war,
and I trust in spite of Ireland. I was much disappointed at not
seeing your brother John: I kept a place for him to the last
minute, but have heard nothing of him. Adieu!
Letter 93 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, Sept. 25, 1761. (page 147)
This is the most unhappy day I have known of years: Bussy goes
away! Mankind is again given up, to the sword! Peace and you are
far from England!
Strawberry Hill.
I was interrupted this morning, just as I had begun my letter, by
Lord Waldegrave; and then the Duke of Devonshire sent for me to
Burlington-house to meet the Duchess of Bedford, and see the old
pictures from Hardwicke. If my letter reaches you three days
later, at least you are saved from a lamentation. Bussy has put
off his journey to Monday (to be sure, you know this is Friday):
he says this is a strange country, he can get no Waggoner to
carry his goods on a Sunday. I am Clad a Spanish war waits for a
conveyance, and that a wagoner's veto is as good as a tribune's
of Rome, and can stop Mr. Pitt on his career to Mexico. He was
going post to conquer it--and Beckford, I suppose, would have had
a contract for remitting all the gold, of which Mr. Pitt never
thinks, unless to serve a city friend. It is serious that we
have discussions with Spain, who says France is humbled enough,
but must not be ruined: Spanish gold is actually coining in
frontier towns of France; and the privilege which Biscay and two
other provinces have of fishing on the coast of Newfoundland, has
been demanded for all Spain. It was refused peremptorily; and
Mr. Secretary Cortez(185) insisted yesterday se'nnight on
recalling Lord Bristol.(186) The rest of the council, who are
content with the world they have to govern, without conquering
Others, prevailed to defer this impetuosity. However, if France
or Spain are the least untractable, a war is inevitable: nay, if
they don't submit by the first day of the session, I have no
doubt but Mr. Pitt will declare it himself on the address. I
have no opinion of Spain intending it: they give France money to
protract a war, from which they reap such advantages in their
peaceful capacity; and I should think would not give their money
if they were on the point of having occasion for it themselves.
In spite of you, and all the old barons our ancestors, I pray
that we may have done with glory, and would willingly burn every
Roman and Greek historian who have don nothing but transmit
precedents for cutting throats.
The coronation is over: 'tis even a more gorgeous sight than I
imagined. I saw the procession and the hall; but the return was
in the dark. In the morning they had forgot the sword of state,
the chairs for King and Queen, and their canopies. They used the
Lord Mayor's for the first, and made the last in the hall so they
did not set forth till noon; and then, by a childish compliment
to the King, reserved the illumination of the hall till his
entry; by which means they arrived like a funeral, nothing being
discernible but the plumes of the knights of the Bath, which
seemed the hearse. Lady Kildare the Duchess of Richmond, and
Lady Pembroke were the capital beauties. Lady Harrington, the
finest figure at a distance; old Westmoreland, the most majestic.
Lady Hertford could not walk, and indeed I think is in a way to
give us great anxiety. She is going to Ragley to ride. Lord
Beauchamp was one of the King's train-bearers. Of all the
incidents of the day, the most diverting was what happened to the
Queen. She had a retiring-chamber, with all conveniences,
prepared behind the altar. She went thither--in the most
convenient what found she, but--the Duke of Newcastle! Lady
Hardwicke died three days before the Ceremony, Which kept away
the whole house of Yorke. Some of the peeresses were dressed
overnight, slept in armchairs, and were waked if they tumbled
their heads. Your sister Harris's maid, Lady Peterborough, was a
comely figure. My Lady Cowper refused, but was forced to walk
with Lady Macclesfield. Lady Falmouth was not there on which
George Selwyn said, "that those peeresses who were most used to
walk, did not." I carried my Lady Townshend, Lady Hertford, Lady
Anne Connolly, my Lady Hervey, and Mrs. Clive, to my deputy's
house at the gate of Westminster-hall. My Lady Townshend said
she should be very glad to see a coronation, as she never had
seen one. "Why," said I, "Madam, you walked at the last?" "Yes,
child," said she, "but I saw nothing of it: I only looked to see
who looked at me." The Duchess of Queensbury walked! her
affectation that day was to do nothing preposterous. The Queen
has been at the Opera, and says she will go once a week. This is
a fresh disaster to our box, where we have lived so harmoniously
for three years. We can get no alternative but that over Miss
Chudleigh's; and Lord Strafford and Lady Mary Coke will not
subscribe, unless we can. The Duke of Devonshire and I are
negotiating with all our -art to keep our party together. The
crowds at the Opera and play when the King and Queen go, are a
little greater than what I remember. The late royalties went to
the Haymarket, when it was the fashion to frequent the other
opera in Lincoln's-inn-fields. Lord Chesterfield one night came
into the latter, and was asked, if he had been at the other
house? "Yes," said he, "but there was nobody but the King and
Queen; and as I thought they might be talking business, I came
away."
Thank you for your journals: the best route you can send me in
would be of your Journey homewards. Adieu!
P. S. If you ever hear from, or write to, such a person as Lady
Ailesbury, pray tell her she is worse to me in point of
correspondence than ever you said I was to you, and that she
sends me every thing but letters!
(185) Mr. Pitt, then secretary of state.
(186) The English ambassador at the court of Madrid.
Letter 94 To The Countess Of Ailesbury.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 27, 1761. (page 149)
You are a mean mercenary woman. If you did not want histories of
weddings and coronations, and had not jobs to be executed about
muslins, and a bit of china, and counterband goods, one should
never hear of you. When you don't want a body, you can frisk
about with greffiers and burgomasters. and be as merry in a dyke
as my lady frog herself. The moment your curiosity is agog, or
your cambric seized, you recollect a good cousin in England, and,
as folks said two hundred years ago, begin to write "upon the
knees of your heart." Well! I am a sweet-tempered creature, I
forgive you. I have already writ to a little friend in the
customhouse, and will try what can be done; however, by Mr.
Amyand's report to the Duchess of Richmond, I fear your case is
desperate. For the genealogies, I have turned over all my books
to no purpose; I can meet with no Lady Howard that married a
Carey, nor a Lady Seymour that married a Canfield. Lettice
Canfield, who married Francis Staunton, was a daughter of Dr.
James (not George) Canfield, younger brother of the first Lord
Charlemont. This is all I can ascertain. For the other
pedigree; I can inform your friend that there was a Sir Nicholas
Throckmorton, who married an Anne Carew, daughter of Sir Nicholas
Carew, knight of the garter, not Carey. But the Sir Nicholas
Carew married Joan Courtney--not a Howard: and besides, the
Careys and Throckmortons you wot of were just the reverse, your
Carey was the cock, and Throckmorton the hen-mine are vice
versa:--otherwise, let me tell your friend, Carews and Courtneys
are worth Howards any day of the week, and of ancienter blood;-
-so, if descent is all he wants, I advise him to take up with the
pedigree as I have refitted it. However, I will cast a figure
once more, and try if I can conjure up the dames Howard and
Seymour that he wants.
My heraldry was much more offended at the coronation with the
ladies that did walk, than with those that walked out of their
place; yet I was not so perilously angry as my Lady Cowper, who
refused to set a foot with my Lady Macclesfield; and when she was
at last obliged to associate with her, set out on a round trot,
as if she designed to prove the antiquity of her family by
marching as lustily as a maid of honour of Queen Gwiniver. It
was in truth a brave sight. The sea of heads in palace-yard, the
guards, horse and foot, the scaffolds, balconies, and procession,
exceeded imagination. The hall, when once illuminated, was
noble; but they suffered the whole parade to return in the dark,
that his Majesty might be surprised with the quickness with which
the sconces catched fire. The champion acted well; the other
Paladins had neither the grace nor alertness of Rinaldo. Lord
Effingham and the Duke of Bedford were but untoward knights
errant; and Lord Talbot had not much more dignity than the figure
of General Monk in the abbey. The habit of the peers is
unbecoming to the last degree; but the peeresses made amends for
all defects. Your daughter Richmond, Lady Kildare, and Lady
Pembroke were as handsome as the Graces. Lady Rochford, Lady
Holderness, and Lady Lyttelton looked exceedingly well in that
their day; and for those of the day before, the Duchess of
Queensbury, Lady Westmoreland, and Lady Albemarle were
surprising. Lady Harrington was noble at a distance, and so
covered with diamonds, that you would have thought she had bid
somebody or other, like Falstaff, rob me the exchequer. Lady
Northampton was very magnificent too, and looked prettier than I
have seen her of late. Lady Spencer and Lady Bolingbroke were
not the worst figures there. The Duchess of Ancaster marched
alone after the Queen with much majesty; and there were two new
Scotch peeresses that pleased every body, Lady Sutherland and
Lady Dunmore. Per contra, were Lady P * * *, who had put a wig
on, and old E * * * *, who had scratched hers off, Lady S * * *,
the Dowager E * * *, and a Lady Say and Sele, with her tresses
coal-black, and her hair coal-white. Well! it was all delightful,
but not half so charming as its being over. The gabble one heard
about it for six weeks before, and the fatigue of the day, could
not well be compensated by a mere puppet-show; for puppet-show it
was, though it cost a million. The Queen is so gay that we shall
not want sights; she has been at the Opera, the Beggar's Opera
and the Rehearsal, and two nights ago carried the King to
Ranelagh. In short, I am so miserable with losing my
Duchess,(187) and you and Mr. Conway, that I believe, if you
should be another six weeks without writing to me, I should come
to the Hague and scold you in person--for, alas! my dear lady, I
have no hopes of seeing you here. Stanley is recalled, is
expected every hour. Bussy goes tomorrow ; and Mr. Pitt is so
impatient to conquer Mexico, that I don't believe he will stay
till my Lord Bristol can be ordered to leave Madrid. I tremble
lest Mr. Conway should not get leave to come--nay, are we sure he
would like to ask it? he was so impatient to get to the army,
that I should not be surprised if he stayed there till every
suttler and woman that follows the camp was come away. You ask
me if we are not in admiration of Prince Ferdinand. In truth, we
have thought very little of him. He may outwit Broglio ten
times, and not be half so much talked of as lord Talbot' backing
his horse down Westminster-hall. The generality are not struck
with any thing under a complete victory. If you have a mind to
be well with the mob of England, you must be knocked on the head
like Wolfe, or bring home as many diamonds as Clive. We live in
a country where so many follies or novelties start forth every
day, that we have not time to try a (general's capacity by the
rules of Polybius.
I have hardly left room for my obligations-to your ladyship, for
my commissions at Amsterdam; to Mrs. Sally,(188) for her teapots,
which are to stay so long at the Hague, that I fear they will
have begot a whole set of china; and to Miss Conway and Lady
George, for thinking of me. Pray assure them of my re-thinking.
Adieu, dear Madam! Don't You think we had better write oftener
and shorter.
(187) The Duchess of Grafton, who was abroad.
(188) Lady Ailesbury's woman.
Letter 95 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Oct. 8, 1761. (page 151)
I cannot swear I wrote to you again to offer your brother the
place for the coronation; but I was Confident I did, nay, I think
so still: my proofs are, the place remained vacant, and I sent to
old Richard to inquire if Mr. John was not arrived. He had no
great loss, as the procession returned in the dark.
Your King(189) will have heard that Mr. Pitt resigned last
Monday.(190) Greater pains have been taken to recover him than
were used to drive him out. He is inflexible, but mighty
peaceable. Lord Egremont is to have the seals to-morrow. It is
a most unhappy event--France and Spain will soon let us know we
ought to think so. For your part, you will be invaded; a blacker
rod than you will be sent to Ireland. Would you believe that the
town is a desert'! The wedding filled it, the coronation crammed
it; Mr. Pitt's resignation has not brought six people to London.
As they could not hire a window and crowd one another to death to
see him give up the seals, it seems a matter of perfect
indifference. If he will accuse a single man of checking our
career of glory, all the world will come to see him hanged; but
what signifies the ruin of a nation, if no particular man ruins
it?
The Duchess of Marlborough died the night before last. Thank you
for your descriptions; pray continue them. Mrs. Delany I know a
little, Lord Charlemont's villa is in Chambers's book.(191)
I have nothing new to tell you; but the grain of mustard seed
sown on Monday will soon produce as large a tree as you can find
in any prophecy. Adieu!
P. S. Lady Mary Wortley is arrived.
(189) The Earl of Halifax, lord-lieutenant of Ireland.
(190) The following is Mr. Pitt's own account of this
transaction, in a letter to Alderman Beckford:--"A difference of
opinion with regard to measures to be taken against Spain, of the
highest importance to the Honour of the crown and to the most
essential national interests, and this founded on what Spain had
already done, not on what that court may further intend to do,
was the cause of my resigning, the seals. Lord Temple and I
submitted in writing, and urged our most humble sentiments to his
Majesty; which being overruled by the united opinion of the rest
of the King's servants, I resigned, on Monday the 5th, in order
not to remain responsible for measures which I was no longer
allowed to guide." Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 158.-E.
(191) Sir William Chambers's "Treatise on Civil Architecture," a
work which Walpole describes as "the most sensible book, and the
most exempt from prejudices, that was ever written on that
science." It first appeared in 1759. A fourth edition, edited by
Mr. Gwin was published in 1825.-E.
letter 96 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 10, 1761. (page 152)
Pray, sir, how does virtue sell in Ireland now? I think for a
province they have now and then given large prices. Have you a
mind to know what the biggest virtue in the world is worth? If
Cicero had been a drawcansir instead of a coward, and had carried
the glory of Rome to as lofty a height as he did their eloquence,
for how much do you think he would have sold all that reputation?
Oh! sold it! you will cry, vanity was his predominant passion; he
would have trampled on sesterces like dirt, and provided the
tribes did but erect statues enough for him, he was content with
a bit of Sabine mutton; he would have preferred his little
Tusculan villa, or the flattery of Caius Atticus at Baia, to the
wealth of Croesus, or to the luxurious banquets of Lucullus.
Take care, there is not a Tory gentleman, if there is one left,
who would not have laid the same wager twenty years ago on the
disinterestedness of my Lord Bath. Come, u tremble, you are so
incorrupt yourself you will give the world Mr. Pitt was so too.
You adore him for what he has done for us; you bless him for
placing England at the head of Europe, and you don't hate him for
infusing as much spirit into us, as if a Montague, Earl of
Salisbury, was still at the head of our enemies. Nothing could
be more just. We owe the recovery of our affairs to him, the
splendour of our country, the conquest of Canada, Louisbourg,
Guadaloupe, Africa, and the East. Nothing is too much for such
services; accordingly, I hope you will not think the barony of
Chatham, and three thousand pounds a-year for three lives too
much for my Lady Hester. She has this pittance: good night!
P. S. I told you falsely in my last that Lady Mary Wortley was
arrived--I cannot help it if my Lady Denbigh cannot read English
in all these years, but mistakes Wrottesley for Wortley.
Letter 97 To The Countess Of Ailesbury.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 10, 1761. (page 153)
I don't know what business I had, madam, to be an economist: it
was out of' character. I wished for a thousand more drawings in
that sale at Amsterdam, but concluded they would be very dear;
and not having seen them, I thought it too rash to trouble your
ladyship with a large commission. I wish I could give you as
good an account of your commission; but it is absolutely
impracticable. I employed one of the most sensible and
experienced men in the customhouse; and all the result was, he
could only recommend me to Mr. Amyand as the newest, and
consequently the most polite of the commissioners--but the
Duchess of Richmond had tried him before--to no purpose. There
is no way of recovering any of your goods, but purchasing them
again at the sale.
What am I doing, to be talking to you of drawings and chintzes,
when the world is all turned topsy-turvy! Peace, as the poets
would say, is not only returned to heaven, but has carried her
sister Virtue along with her!--Oh! no, peace will keep no such
company--Virtue is an errant strumpet, and loves diamonds as well
as my Lady Harrington, and is as fond of a coronet as my Lord
Melcombe.(192) Worse! worse! She will set men to cutting
throats, and pick their pockets at the same time. I am in such a
passion, I cannot tell you what I am angry about--why, about
Virtue and Mr. Pitt; two errant cheats, gipsies! I believe he
was a comrade of Elizabeth Canning, when he lived at
Enfield-wash. In short, the council were for making peace;
"But he, as loving his own pride, and purposes,
Evades them with a bombast circumstance,
horribly stuffed with epithets of war,
And in conclusion--nonsuits my mediators."
He insisted on a war with Spain, was resisted, and last Monday
resigned. The city breathed vengeance on his opposers, the
council quailed, and the Lord knows what would have happened; but
yesterday, which was only Friday, as this giant was stalking to
seize the tower of London, he stumbled over a silver penny,
picked it up, carried it home to Lady Hester, and they are now as
quiet, good sort of people, as my Lord and Lady Bath who lived in
the vinegar-bottle. In fact, Madam, this immaculate man has
accepted the Barony of Chatham for his wife, with a pension of
three thousand pounds a year for three lives; and though he has
not quitted the House of Commons, I think my Lord Anson would now
be as formidable there. The pension he has left us, is a war for
three thousand lives! perhaps, for twenty times three thousand
lives!--But--
"Does this become a soldier? this become
Whom armies follow'd, and a people loved?"
What! to sneak out of the scrape, prevent peace, and avoid the
war! blast one's character, and all for the comfort of a Paltry
annuity, a long-necked peeress, and a couple of Grenvilles! The
city looks mighty foolish, I believe, and possibly even Beckford
may blush. Lord Temple resigned yesterday: I suppose his virtue
pants for a dukedom. Lord Egremont has the seals; Lord
Hardwicke, I fancy, the privy seal; and George Grenville, no
longer Speaker, is to be the cabinet minister in the House of
Commons. Oh! Madam, I am glad you are inconstant to Mr. Conway,
though it is only with a Barbette! If you piqued yourself on
your virtue, I should expect you would sell it to the master of a
Trechscoot.
I told you a lie about the King's going to Ranelagh--No matter;
there is no such thing as truth. Garrick exhibits the
coronation, and, opening the end of the stage, discovers a real
bonfire and real mob: the houses in Drury-lane let their windows
at threepence a head. Rich is going to produce a finer
coronation, nay, than the real one; for there is to be a dinner
for the Knights of the Bath and the Barons of the Cinque-ports,
which Lord Talbot refused them.
I put your Caufields and Stauntons into the hands of one of the
first heralds upon earth, and who has the entire pedigree of the
Careys; but he cannot find a drop of Howard or Seymour blood in
the least artery about them. Good night, Madam!
(192) Bubb Doddington, having for many years placed his ambition
on the acquisition of a coronet, obtained the long-wished-for
prize in the preceding April.-E.
Letter 98 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, Oct. 12, 1761. (page 154)
It is very lucky that you did not succeed in the expedition to
Rochfort. Perhaps you might have been made a peer; and as
Chatham is a naval title, it might have fallen to your share.
But it was reserved to crown greater glory: and lest it should
not be substantial pay enough, three thousand pounds a year for
three lives go along with it. Not to Mr. Pitt--you can't suppose
it. Why truly, not the title, but the annuity does, and Lady
Hester is the baroness; that, if he should please, he may earn an
earldom himself. Don't believe me, if you have not a mind. I
know I did not believe those who told me. But ask the gazette
that swears it--ask the King, who has kissed Lady Hester--ask the
city of London, who are ready to tear Mr. Pitt to pieces--ask
forty people I can name, who are overjoyed at it--and then ask me
again, who am mortified, and who have been the dupe of his
disinterestedness. Oh, my dear Harry! I beg you on my knees,
keep your virtue: do let me think there is still one man upon
earth who despises money. I wrote you an account last week of his
resignation. Could you have believed that in four days he would
have tumbled from the conquest of Spain to receiving' a quarter's
pension from Mr. West?(193) To-day he has advertised his seven
coach-horses to be sold--Three thousand a year for three lives,
and fifty thousand pounds of his own, will not keep a coach and
six. I protest I believe he is mad, and Lord Temple thinks so
too; for he resigned the same morning that Pitt accepted the
pension. George Grenville is minister of the House of Commons.
I don't know who will be Speaker. They talk of Prowse, Hussey,
Bacon, and even of old Sir John Rushout. Delaval has said an
admirable thing: he blames Pitt not as you and I do; but calls
him fool; and says, if he had gone into the city, told them he
had a poor wife and children unprovided for, and had opened a
subscription, he would have got five hundred thousand pounds,
instead of three thousand pounds a year. In the mean time the
good man has saddled us with a war which we can neither carry on
nor carry off. 'Tis pitiful! 'tis wondrous pitiful! Is the
communication stopped, that we never hear from you? I own 'tis
an Irish question. I am out of humour: my visions are dispelled,
and you are still abroad. As I cannot put Mr. Pitt to death, at
least I have buried him: here is his epitaph:
Admire his eloquence--it mounted higher
Than Attic purity or Roman fire:
Adore his services-our lions view
Ranging, where Roman eagles never flew:
Copy his soul supreme o'er Lucre's sphere;
--But oh! beware three thousand pounds a-year!(194)
October 13.
Jemmy Grenville resigned yesterday. Lord Temple is all
hostility; and goes to the drawing-room to tell every body how
angry he is with the court-but what is Sir Joseph Wittol, when
Nol Bluff is pacific? They talk of erecting a tavern in the city,
called The Salutation: the sign to represent Lord Bath and Mr.
Pitt embracing. These are shameful times. Adieu!
(193) Secretary to the treasury.
(194) Gray also appears to have been greatly offended at this
acceptance of the title and the pension: "Oh!" he exclaim, "that
foolishest of great men, that sold his inestimable diamond for a
paltry peerage and pension! The very night it happened was I
swearing that it was a d-d lie, and never could be: but it was
for want of reading Thomas `a Kempis, who knew mankind so much
better than I." Works, vol. iii. p. 265. Mr. Burke took a very
different view of Mr. Pitt's conduct on this occasion. "With
regard to the pension and title, it is a shame," he says, "that
any defence should be necessary. What eye cannot distinguish, at
the first glance, between this and the exceptionable case of
titles and pensions? What Briton, with the smallest sense of
honour and gratitude, but must blush for his country, if such a
man retired unrewarded from the public service, let the motives
for that retirement be what they would? It was not possible that
his sovereign could let his eminent services pass unrequited: the
sum that was given was inadequate to his merits; and the quantum
was rather regulated by the moderation of the great mind that
received it, than by the liberality of that which bestowed it."-
E.
Letter 99 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, October 24, 1761. (page 156)
I have got two letters from you, and am sensibly pleased with
your satisfaction. I love your cousin for his behaviour to you;
he will never place his friendship better. His parts and
dignity, I did not doubt, would bear him out. I fear nothing but
your spirits and the frank openness of your heart; keep them
within bounds, and you will return in health, and with the
serenity I wish you long to enjoy.
You have heard our politics; they do not mend, sick of glory,
without being tired of war, and surfeited with unanimity before
it had finished its work, we are running into all kinds of
confusion. The city have bethought themselves, and have voted
that they will still admire Mr. Pitt; consequently, be, without
the cheek of seeming virtue, may do what he pleases. An address
of thanks to hit-() has been carried by one hundred and nine
against fifteen, and the city are to instruct their members; that
is, because we are disappointed of a Spanish war, we must have
one at home. Merciful! how old I am grown! here am I, not liking
a civil war! Do you know me? I am no longer that Gracchus, who,
when Mr. Bentley told him something or other, I don't know what,
would make a sect, answered quickly, "Will it make a party?" In
short, I think I am always to be in contradiction; now I am
loving my country.
Worksop(195) is burnt down; I don't know the circumstances; the
Duke and Duchess are at Bath; it has not been finished a month;
the last furniture was brought in for the Duke of York; I have
some comfort that I had seen it, and, except the bare chambers,
in which the Queen of Scots lodged, nothing remained of ancient
time.
I am much obliged to Mr. Hamilton's civilities; but I don't take
too much to myself; yet it is no drawback to think that he sees
an compliments your friendship for me. I shall use his
permission of sending you any thing that I think will bear the
sea; but how must I send it! by what conveyance to the sea, and
where deliver it? Pamphlets swarm already; none very good, and
chiefly grave; you would not have them. Mr. Glover has published
his long-hoarded Medea,(196) as an introduction to the House of
Commons; it had been more proper to usher him from school to the
University. There are a few good lines, not much conduct, and a
quantity of iambics, and trochaics, that scarce speak English,
and yet have no rhyme to keep one another in countenance. If his
chariot is stopped at Temple-bar, I suppose he will take it for
the Straits of Thermopylae, and be delivered of his first speech
before its time.
The catalogue of the Duke of Devonshire's collection is only in
the six volumes of the Description of London. I did print about
a dozen, and gave them all away so totally that on searching, I
had not reserved one for myself. When we are at leisure, I will
reprint a few more, and you shall have one for your Speaker. I
don't know who is to be ours: Prowse, they say, has refused; Sir
John Cust was the last I heard named: but I am here and know
nothing; sorry that I shall hear any thing on Tuesday se'nnight.
Pray pick me up any prints of lord-lieutenants, Irish bishops,
ladies --nay, or patriots; but I will not trouble you for a
snuff-box or toothpick-case, made of a bit of the Giant's
Causeway.
My anecdotes of Painting will scarcely appear before Christmas.
My gallery and cabinet are at a full stop till spring. but I
shall be sorry to leave it all in ten days; October, that scarce
ever deceived one before, has exhibited a deluge; but it was
recovered, and promised to behave well as long as it lives, like
a dying sinner. Good night!
P. S. My niece lost the coronation for only a daughter. It makes
me smile, when I reflect that you are come into the world again,
and that I have above half left it.
(195) The Duke of norfolk's seat at Worksop Manor,
Nottinghamshire, was burnt down on the 20th of October 1761. The
damage was estimated at one hundred thousand pounds. When the
Duke heard of it, he exclaimed, "God's will be done!" and the
Duchess, "How many besides us are sufferers by the like
calamity!" Evelyn, who visited Worksop in 1654, says, "The manor
belongs to the Earle of Arundel, and has to it a faire house at
the foote of an hill, in a park that affords a delicate
prospect."-E.
(196) Glover's tragedy of Medea was performed several times at
Drury-lane and Covent-garden, for the benefit of Mrs. Yates,
whose spirited acting Gave it considerable effect.-E.
Letter 100 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 26, 1761. (page 157)
and how strange it seems! You are talking to me of the King's
wedding, while we are thinking of a civil war. Why, the King's
wedding was a century ago, almost two months; even the coronation
things that happened half an age ago, is quite forgot. The post
to Germany cannot keep pace with our revolutions. Who knows but
you may still be thinking that Mr. Pitt is the most disinterested
man in the world? Truly, as far as the votes of a common-council
can make him so, he is. Like Cromwell, he has always promoted
the self-denying ordinance, and has contrived to be excused from
it himself. The city could no longer choose who should be their
man of virtue; there was not one left - by all rules they ought
next to have pitched upon one who was the oldest offender:
instead of that, they have reelected the most recent; and, as if
virtue was a borough, Mr. Pitt is rechosen for it, on vacating
his seat. Well, but all this is very serious: I shall offer a
prophetic picture, and shall be very glad if I am not a true
soothsayer. The city have voted an address of thanks to Mr.
Pitt, and given instructions to their members; the chief articles
of which are, to promote an inquiry into the disposal of the
money that has been granted, and to consent to no peace, unless
we are to retain all, or near all, our conquests. Thus the city
of London usurp the right of making peace and war. But is the
government to be dictated to by one town? By no means. But
suppose they are not -what is the consequence? How will the
money be raised? If it cannot be raised without them, Mr. Pitt
must again be minister: that you think would be easily
accommodated. Stay, stay; he and Lord Temple have declared
against the whole cabinet council. Why, that they have done
before now, and yet have acted with them again. It is very true;
but a little word has escaped Mr. Pitt, which never entered into
his former declarations; nay, nor into Cromwell's, nor Hugh
Capet's, nor Julius Caesar's, nor any reformer's of ancient time.
He has happened to say, he will guide. Now, though the cabinet
council are mighty willing to be guided, when they cannot help
it, yet they wish to have appearances saved: they cannot be fond
of being told they are to be guided still less, that other people
should be told so. Here, then, is Mr. Pitt and the
common-council on one hand, the great lords on the other. I
protest, I do not see but it will come to this. Will it allay
the confusion, if Mr. Fox is retained on the side of the court?
Here are no Whigs and Tories, harmless people, that are content
with worrying one another for i hundred and fifty years together.
The new parties are, I will, and you shall not; and their
principles do not admit delay. However, this age is of suppler
mould than some of its predecessors; and this may come round
again, by a coup de baguette, when one least expects it. If it
should not, the honestest part one can take is to look on, and
try if one can do any good if matters go too far.
I am charmed with the Castle of Hercules;(197) it is the boldest
pile I have seen since I travelled in Fairyland. You ought to
have delivered a princess imprisoned by enchanters in his club:
she, in gratitude, should have fallen in love with you; your
constancy should have been immaculate. The devil knows how it
would have ended--I don't--and so I break off my romance.
You need not beer the French any more this year: it cannot be
ascribed to Mr. Pitt; and the mob won't thank you. If we are to
have a warm campaign in Parliament, I hope you will be sent for.
Adieu! We take the field tomorrow se'nnight.
P. S. You will be sorry to hear that Worksop is burned. My Lady
Waldegrave has got a daughter, and your brother an ague.
(197) Alluding to a description of a building in Hesse Cassel,
given by Mr. Conway in one of his letters.
Letter 101 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 7, 1761. (page 159)
You will rejoice to hear that your friend Mr. Amyand is going to
marry the dowager Lady Northampton; she has two thousand pounds
a-year, and twenty thousand in money. Old Dunch(198) is dead,
and Mrs. Felton Hervey(199) was given over last night, but is
still alive.
Sir John Cust is Speaker, and bating his nose, the chair seems
well filled. There are so many new faces in this Parliament,
that I am not at all acquainted with it.
The enclosed print will divert you, especially the baroness in
the right-hand corner--so ugly, and so satisfied: the Athenian
head was intended for Stewart; but was so like, that Hogarth was
forced to cut off the nose. Adieu!
(198) Widow of Edmund Dunch, Esq. comptroller of the household of
George the First.-E.
(199) Wife of the Hon. Felton Hervey, ninth son of John, first
Earl of Bristol.-E.
Letter 102 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 28, 1761. (page 159)
I am much obliged for the notice of Sir Compton's illness; if you
could send me word of peace too, I should be completely satisfied
on Mr. Conway's account. He has been in the late action, and
escaped, at a time that, I flattered myself, the campaign -was at
an end. However, I trust it is now. You will have been
concerned for young Courtney. The war, we hear, is to be
transferred to these islands; most probably to yours. The
black-rod I hope, like a herald, is a sacred personage.
There has been no authentic account of the coronation published;
if there should be, I will send it. When I am at Strawberry, I
believe I can make you out a list of those that walked; but I
have no memorandum in town. If Mr. Bentley's play is printed in
Ireland, I depend on your sending me two copies.
There has been a very private ball at court, consisting of not
above twelve or thirteen couple; some of the lords of the
bedchamber, most of the ladies, the maids of honour, and six
strangers, Lady Caroline Russell, Lady Jane Stewart, Lord
Suffolk, Lord Northampton, Lord Mandeville, and Lord Grey.
Nobody sat by, but the Princess, the Duchess of Bedford, and Lady
Bute. They began before seven, danced till one, and parted
without a supper.
Lady Sarah Lenox has refused Lord Errol; the Duke of Bedford is
privy seal; Lord Thomond cofferer; Lord George Cavendish
comptroller; George Pitt goes minister to Turin; and Mrs. Speed
must go thither, as she is marrying the Baron de Perrier, Count
Virry's son.(200) Adieu! Commend me to your brother.
(200) "My old friend Miss SPeed has done what the world calls a
very foolish thing; she has married the Baron de la Poyri`ere,
son to the Sardinian minister, the Count de Viry. He is about
twenty-eight years old (ten years younger than herself), but
looks nearer This is not the effect of debauchery; for he is a
very sober and good-natured man honest and no conjurer." Gray to
Wliarton. Works, vol. iii. p. 263.-E.
Letter 103 To The Countess Of Ailesbury.
Arlington Street, Nov. 28, 1761. (page 160)
Dear Madam,
You are so bad and so good, that I don't know how to treat you.
You give me every mark of kindness but letting me hear from you.
You send me charming drawings the moment I trouble you with a
commission, and you give Lady Cecilia(201) commissions for
trifles of my writing, in the most obliging manner. I have taken
the latter off her hands.- The Fugitive Pieces, and the Catalogue
of Royal and Noble Authors shall be conveyed to you directly.
Lady Cecilia and I agree how we lament the charming suppers
there, every time we pass the corner of Warwick Street! We have
a little comfort for your sake and our own, in believing that the
campaign is at an end, at least for this year--but they tell us,
it is to recommence here or in Ireland. You have nothing to do
with that. Our politics, I think, will soon be as warm as our
war. Charles Townshend is to be lieutenant-general to Mr. Pitt.
The Duke of Bedford is privy seal; Lord Thomond, cofferer; Lord
George Cavendish, comptroller.
Diversions, you know, Madam, are never at high watermark before
Christmas: yet operas flourish pretty well: those on Tuesdays are
removed to Mondays, because the Queen likes the burlettas, and
the King cannot go on Tuesdays, his postdays. On those nights we
have the middle front box railed in, where Lady Mary(202) and I
sit in triste state like a Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress. The
night before last there was a private ball at court, which began
at half an hour after six, lasted till one, and finished without
a supper. The King danced the whole time with the Queen, Lady
Augusta with her four younger brothers. The other performers
were: the two Duchesses of Ancaster and Hamilton, who danced
little; Lady Effingham, and Lady Egremont who danced much; the
six maids of honour; Lady Susan Stewart, as attending Lady
Augusta; and Lady Caroline Russel, and Lady Jane Stewart, the
only women not of the family. Lady Northumberland is at Bath;
Lady Weymouth lies in; Lady Bolingbroke was there in Waiting, but
in black gloves, so did not dance. The men, besides the royals,
were Lords March and Lord Eglinton, of the bedchamber: Lord
Cantalope, vice-chamberlain; Lord Huntingdon; and four strangers,
Lord Mandeville, Lord Northampton, lord Suffolk, and lord Grey.
No sitters-by, but the Princess, the Duchess of Bedford, and Lady
Bute.
If it had not been for this ball, I don't know how I should have
furnished a decent letter. Pamphlets on Mr. Pitt are the whole
conversation, and none of them worth sending cross the water: at
least I, who am said to write some of them, think so; by which
you may perceive I am not much flattered with the imputation.
There must be new personages at least, before I write on any
side. Mr. Pitt and the Duke of Newcastle! I should as soon think
of informing the world that Miss Chudleigh is no vestal. You
will like better to see some words which Mr. Gray has writ, at
Miss Speed's request, to an old air of Geminiani: the thought is
from the French.
Thyrsis, when we parted, swore
Ere the spring he would return.
Ah! what means yon violet flower,
And the buds that deck the thorn?
'Twas the lark that upward sprung,
'Twas the nightingale that sung.
Idle notes! untimely green!
Why this unavailing haste?
Western gales and skies serene
Speak not always winter past.
Cease my doubts, my fears to move;
Spare the Honour of my love.
Adieu, Madam, your most faithful servant.
(201) Lady Cecilia Johnston.
(202) lady Mary Coke.
Letter 104 To Sir David Dalrymple.(203)
Nov. 30, 1761. (page 161)
I am much obliged to you, Sir, for the specimen of letters(204)
you have been so good as to send me. The composition is
touching, and the printing very beautiful. I am still more
pleased with the design of the work; nothing gives so just an
idea of an age as genuine letters; nay, history waits for its
last seal from them. I have an immense collection in my hands,
chiefly of the very time on which you are engaged: but they are
not my own.
If I had received your commands in summer when I was at
Strawberry Hill, and at leisure, I might have picked you out
something to your purpose; at present I have not time, from
Parliament and business, to examine them: yet to show you, Sir,
that I have great desire to oblige you and contribute to your
work, I send you the following singular paper, which I have
obtained from Dr. Charles lyttelton, Dean of Exeter, whose name I
will beg you to mention in testimony of his kindness, and as
evidence for the authenticity of the letter, which he copied from
the original in the hands of Bishop Tanner, in the year 1733. It
is from Anne of Denmark, to the Marquis of Buckingham.
"Anna R.,
"My kind dogge, if I have any power or credit with you, let me
have a trial of it at this time, in dealing sincerely and
earnestly with the King, that Sir Walter Raleigh's life may not
be called in question. If you do it, so that the success answer
my expectation, assure yourself that I will take it
extraordinarily kindly at your hands, and rest one that wisheth
you well, and desires you to continue still as you have been, a
true servant to your master."
I have begun Mr. Hume's history, and got almost through the first
volume. It is amusing to one who ]knows a little of his own
country, but I fear would not teach much to a beginner; details
are so much avoided by him, and the whole rather skimmed than
elucidated. I cannot say I think it very carefully performed.
Dr. Robertson's work I should expect would be more accurate.
P. S. There has lately appeared, in four little volumes, a
Chinese Tale, called Hau Kiou Choaan,(205) not very entertaining
from the incidents, but I think extremely so from the novelty of
the manner and the genuine representation of their customs.
(203) Now first collected.
(204) Probably Sir David's "Memorials and Letters relating to the
History of Britain in the Reigns of James the First and Charles
the First," which were published in 1766, from the originals in
the Advocates' Library.-E.
(205) This pleasing little novel, in which the manners of the
Chinese are painted to the life, was a translation from the
Chinese by Mr. Wilkinson, and revised for publication by Dr.
Percy.-E.
Letter 105 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 8, 1761. (page 162)
I return you the list of prints, and shall be glad you will bring
me all to which I have affixed this mark X. The rest I have; yet
the expense of the whole list would not ruin me. Lord Farnham,
who, I believe, departed this morning, brings you the list of the
Duke of Devonshire's pictures.
I have been told that Mr. Bourk's history was of England, not of
Ireland; I am glad it is the latter, for I am now in Mr. Hume's
England, and would fain read no more. I not only know what has
been written, but what would be written. Our story is so
exhausted, that to make it new, they really make it new. Mr.
Hume has exalted Edward the Second and depressed Edward the
Third. The next historian, I suppose, will make James the First
a hero, and geld Charles the Second.
Fingal is come out; I have not yet got through it; not but, it is
very fine-yet I cannot at once compass an epic poem now. It
tires me to death to read how many ways a warrior is like the
moon, or the sun, or a rock, or a lion, or the ocean. Fingal is
a brave collection of similes, and will serve all the boys at
Eton and Westminster for these twenty years. I will trust you
with a secret, but you must not disclose it; I should be ruined
with my Scotch friends; in short, I cannot believe it genuine; I
cannot believe a regular poem of six books has been preserved,
uncorrupted, by oral tradition, from times before Christianity
was introduced into the island. What! preserved unadulterated by
savages dispersed among mountains, and so often driven from their
dens, so wasted by wars civil and foreign! alas one man ever got
all by heart? I doubt it; were parts preserved by some, other
parts by others? Mighty lucky, that the tradition was never
interrupted, nor any part lost-not a verse, not a measure, not
the sense! luckier and luckier. I have been extremely qualified
myself lately for this Scotch memory; we have had nothing but a
coagulation of rains, fogs, and frosts, and though they have
clouded all understanding, I suppose, if I had tried, I should
have found that they thickened, and gave great consistence to my
remembrance.
You want news--I must make it, if I send it. To change the
dulness of the scene I went to the play, where I had not been
this winter. They are so crowded, that though I went before six,
I got no better place than a fifth row, where I heard very ill,
and was pent for five hours without a soul near me that I knew.
It was Cymbeline, and appeared to me as long as if every body in
it went really to Italy in every act,, and came back again. With
a few pretty passages and a scene or two, it is so absurd and
tiresome, that I am persuaded Garrick(206) * * * * *
(206) The rest of this letter is lost.
Letter 106 To Sir David Dalrymple.(207)
December 21, 1761. (page 163)
Your specimen pleases me, and I give you many thanks for
promising me the continuation. You will, I hope, find less
trouble with printers than I have done. Just when my book was, I
thought, ready to appear, my printer ran away, and has left it
very imperfect. This is the fourth I have tried, and I own it
discourages me. Our low people are so corrupt and such knaves,
that being cheated and disappointed are all the fruits of
attempting to amuse oneself or others. Literature must struggle
with many difficulties. They who print for profit print only for
profit; we, who print to entertain or instruct others, are the
bubbles of our designs, defrauded, abused, pirated--don't you
think, Sir, one need have resolution? Mine is very nearly
exhausted.
(207) Now first collected.
Letter 107 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 23, 1761. Past midnight. (page 164)
I am this minute come home, and find such a delightful letter
from you, that I cannot help answering it, and telling you so
before I sleep. You need not affirm, that your ancient wit and
pleasantry are revived; your letter is but five and twenty, and I
will forgive any vanity, that is so honest, and so well founded.
Ireland I see produces wonders of more sorts than one; if my Lord
Anson was to go lord-lieutenant, I suppose he would return a
ravisher. How different am I from this state of revivification!
Even such talents as I had are far from blooming again; and while
my friends, or contemporaries, or predecessors, are rising to
preside over the fame of this age, I seem a mere antediluvian;
must live upon what little stock of reputation I had acquired,
and indeed grow so indifferent, that I can only wonder how those,
whom I thought as old as myself, can interest themselves so much
about a world, whose faces I hardly know. You recover your
spirits and wit, Rigby is grown a speaker, Mr. Bentley a poet,
while I am nursing one or two gouty friends, and sometimes
lamenting that I am likely to survive the few I have left.
Nothing tempts me to launch out again; every day teaches me how
much I was mistaken in my own parts, and I am in no danger now
but of thinking I am grown too wise; for every period of life has
its mistake.
Mr. Bentley's relation to Lord Rochester by the St. Johns is not
new to me, and you had more reason to doubt of their affinity by
the former marrying his mistress, than to ascribe their
consanguinity to it. I shall be glad to see the epistle: are not
"The Wishes" to be acted? remember me, if they are printed; and I
shall thank you for this new list of prints.
I have mentioned names enough in this letter to lead me naturally
to new ill usage I have received. Just when I thought my book
finished, my printer ran away, and had left eighteen sheets in
the middle of the book untouched, having amused me with sending
proofs. He had got into debt, and two girls with child; being
two, he could not marry two Hannahs. You see my luck; I had been
kind to this fellow; in short, if the faults of my life had been
punished as severely as my merits have been, I should be the most
unhappy of beings; but let us talk of something else.
I have picked up at Mrs. Dunch's auction the sweetest Petitot in
the world-the very picture of James the Second, that he gave Mrs.
Godfrey,(208) and I paid but six guineas and a half for it. I
will not tell you how vast a commission I had given; but I will
own, that about the hour of sale, I drove about the door to find
what likely bidders there were. The first coach I saw was the
Chudleighs; could I help concluding, that a maid of honour, kept
by a duke, would purchase the portrait of a duke kept by a maid
of honour-but I was mistaken. The Oxendens reserved the best
pictures; the fine china, and even the diamonds, sold for
nothing; for nobody has a shilling. We shall be beggars if we
don't conquer Peru within this half year.
If you are acquainted with my lady Barrymore, pray tell her that
in less than two hours t'other night the Duke of Cumberland lost
four hundred and fifty pounds at loo; Miss Pelham won three
hundred, and I the rest. However, in general, loo is extremely
gone to decay; I am to play at Princess Emily's to-morrow for the
first time this winter, and it is with difficulty she has made a
party.
My Lady Pomfret is dead on the road to Bath; and unless the
deluge stops, and the fogs disperse, I think we shall all die. A
few days ago, on the cannon firing for the King going to the
House, some body asked what it was? M. de Choiseul replied,
"Apparemment, c'est qu'on voit le soleil."
Shall I fill up the rest of my paper with some extempore lines
that I wrote t'other night on Lady Mary Coke having St. Anthony's
fire in her cheek! You will find nothing in them to contradict
what I have said in the former part of my letter; they rather
confirm it.
No rouge you wear, nor can a dart
>From Love's bright quiver wound your heart.
And thought you, Cupid and his mother
Would unrevenged their anger smother?
No, no, from heaven they sent the fire
That boasts St. Anthony its sire;
They pour'd it on one peccant part,
Inflamed your cheek, if not your heart.
In vain-for see the crimson rise,
And dart fresh lustre through your eyes
While ruddier drops and baffled pain
Enhance the white they mean to stain.
Ah! nymph, on that unfading face
With fruitless pencil Time shall trace
His lines malignant, since disease
But gives you mightier power to please.
Willis is dead, and Pratt is to be chief justice; Mr. Yorke
attorney general; solicitor, I don't know who. Good night! the
watchman cries past one!
(208) Arabella Churchill, sister of the great Duke of
Marlborough, was the mistress of James the Second while Duke of
York, by whom she had four children; the celebrated Duke of
Berwick, the Duke of Albemarle, and two daughters. She
afterwards became the wife of Colonel Charles Godfrey, master of
the jewel office, and died in 1714, leaving by him two daughters,
Charlotte Viscountess Falmouth, and Elizabeth, wife of Edmund
Dunch, Esq.-E.
Letter 108 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 30, 1761. (page 165)
I have received two more letters from You since I wrote last
week, and I like to find by them that you are so well and so
happy. As nothing has happened of change in my situation but a
few more months passed, I have nothing to tell you new of myself.
Time does not sharpen my passions or pursuits, and the experience
I have had by no means prompts me to make new connexions. 'Tis a
busy world, and well adapted to those who love to bustle in it; I
loved it once, loved its very tempests--now I barely open my
windows to view what course the storm takes. The town, who, like
the devil, when one has once sold oneself' to him, never permits
one to have done playing the fool, believe I have a great hand in
their amusements; but to write pamphlets, I mean as a volunteer,
one must love or hate, and I have the satisfaction of doing
neither. I Would not be at the trouble of composing a distich to
achieve a revolution. 'Tis equal to me what names are on the
scene. In the general view, the prospect is very dark: the
Spanish war, added to the load, almost oversets our most sanguine
heroism: and now we have in opportunity of conquering all the
world, by being at war with all the world, we seem to doubt a
little of our abilities. On a survey
of our situation, I comfort myself with saying, "Well, what is it
to me?" A selfishness that is far from anxious, when it is the
first thought in one's constitution; not so agreeable when it is
the last, and adopted by necessity alone.
You drive your expectations much too fast, in thinking my
Anecdotes of Painting are ready to appear, in demanding three
volumes. You will see but two, and it will be February first.
True, I have written three, but I question whether the third will
be published at all; certainly not soon; it is not a work of
merit enough to cloy the town with a great deal at once. My
printer ran away, and left a third part of the two first volumes
unfinished. I suppose he is writing a tragedy himself, or an
epistle to my Lord Melcomb, or a panegyric on my Lord Bute.
Jemmy Pelham(209) is dead, and has left to his servants what
little his servants had left him. Lord Ligonier was killed by
the newspapers, and wanted to prosecute them; his lawyer told him
it was impossible--a tradesman indeed might prosecute, as such a
report might affect his credit. "Well, then," said the old man,
"I may prosecute too, for I can prove I have been hurt by this
'report I was going to marry a great fortune, who thought I was
but seventy-four; the newspapers have said I am eighty, and she
will not have me."
Lord Charlemont's Queen Elizabeth I know perfectly; he outbid me
for it; is his villa finished? I am well pleased with the design
in Chambers. I have been my out-of-town with Lord Waldecrave,
Selwyn, and Williams; it was melancholy the missing poor
Edgecombe, who was constantly of the Christmas and Easter
parties. Did you see the charming picture Reynolds painted for
me of him, Selwyn, and Gilly Williams? It is by far one of the
best things he has executed. He has just finished a pretty
whole-length of Lady Elizabeth Keppel,(210) in the bridemaid's
habit, sacrificing to Hymen.
If the Spaniards land in Ireland, shall you make the campaign?
No. no, come back to England; you and I will not be patriots,
till the Gauls are in the city, and we must take our great chairs
and our fasces, and be knocked on the head with decorum in St.
James's market. Good night!
P. S. I am told that they bind in vellum better at Dublin than
any where; pray bring me one book of their binding, as well as it
can be done, and I will not mind the price. If Mr. Bourk's
history appear,-, before your return, let it be that.
(209) The Hon. James Pelham, of Crowhurst, Sussex. He had been
principal secretary to Frederick Prince of Wales, and for nearly
forty years secretary to the several lords-chamberlain.-E.
(210) She was daughter of the Earl of Albemarle, and married to
the Marquis of Tavistock.
Letter 109 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Jan. 26, 1762. (page 167)
We have had as many mails due from Ireland as you had from us. I
have at last received a line from you; it tells me you are well,
which I am always glad to hear; I cannot say you tell me much
more. My health is so little subject to alteration, and so
preserved by temperance, that it is not worth repetition; thank
God you may conclude it is good, if I do not say to the contrary.
Here is nothing new but preparations for conquest, and approaches
to bankruptcy; and the worst is, the former will advance the
latter at least as much as impede it. You say the Irish will
live and die with your cousin: I am glad they are so well
disposed. I have lived long enough to doubt whether all, who
like to live with one, would be so ready to die with one. I know
it is not pleasant to have the time arrived when one looks about
to see whether they would or not; but you are in a country of
more sanguine complexion, and where I believe the clergy do not
deny the laity the cup.
The Queen's brother arrived yesterday; your brother, Prince John,
has been here about a week; I am to dine with him to-day at Lord
Dacre's with the Chute. Our burlettas are gone out of fashion;
do the Atnicis come hither next year, or go to Guadaloupe, as is
said? I have been told that a lady Kingsland(211) at Dublin has
a picture of Madame Grammont by Petitot; I don't know who Lady
Kingsland is, whether rich or poor, but I know there is nothing I
would not give for such a picture. I wish you would hunt it; and
if the dame is above temptation, do try if you could obtain a
copy in water colours, if there is any body in Dublin could
execute it.
The Duchess of Portland has lately enriched me exceedingly; nine
portraits of the court of Louis quatorze! Lord Portland brought
them over; they hung in the nursery at Bulstrode, the children
amused themselves with shooting at them. I have got them, but I
will tell you no more, you don't deserve it; you write to me as
if I were your godfather: "Honoured Sir, I am brave and well, my
cousin George is well, we drink your health every night, and beg
your blessing." This is the sum total of all your letters. I
thought in a new country, and with your spirits and humour, you
could have found something to tell me. I shall only ask you now
when you return; but I declare I will not correspond with you: I
don't write letters to divert myself, but in expectation of
returns; in short, you are extremely in disgrace with me; I have
measured my letters for sometime, and for the future will answer
you paragraph for paragraph. You yourself don't seem to find
letter-writing so amusing as to pay itself. Adieu!
(211) Nicholas Barnewall, third Viscount Kingsland, married Mary,
daughter of Frances Jennings, sister to the celebrated Sarah
Duchess of Marlborough, by George Count Hamilton: "by which
marriage," says Walpole, "the pictures I saw at Tarvey, Lord
Kingsland's house, came to him: I particularly recollect the
portraits of Count Hamilton and his brother Anthony, and two of
Madame Grammont; one taken in her youth, the other in advanced
age."-E.
Letter 110 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Feb. 2, 1762. (page 168)
I scolded YOU in my last, but I shall forgive you if you return
soon to England, as you talk of doing; for though you are an
abominable correspondent, and only write to beg letters, you are
good company, and I have a notion I shall still be glad to see
You.
Lady Mary Wortley is arrived;(212) I have seen her; I think her
avarice, her dirt, and her vivacity, are all increased. Her
dress, like her languages, is a gralimatias of several countries;
the groundwork rags, and the embroidery nastiness. She needs no
cap, no handkerchief, no gown, no petticoat, no shoes. An old
black-laced hood represents the first; the fur of a horseman's
coat, which replaces the third, serves for the second; a dimity
petticoat is deputy, and officiates for the fourth; and slippers
act the part of the last. When I was at Florence, and she was
expected there, we were drawing Sortes Virgili-anas for her; we
literally drew
Insanam vatem aspicies.
It would have been a stronger prophecy now, even than it was
then.
You told me not a word of Mr. Macnaughton,(213) and I have a
great mind to be as coolly indolent about our famous ghost in
Cock-lane. Why should one steal half an hour from one's
amusements to tell a story to a friend in another island? I
could send you volumes on the ghost, and I believe if I were to
stay a little, I might send its life, dedicated to my Lord
Dartmouth, by the ordinary of Newgate, its two great patrons. A
drunken parish clerk set it on foot out of revenge, the
Methodists have adopted it, and the whole town of london think of
nothing else. Elizabeth Canning and the Rabbit-woman were modest
impostors in comparison of this, which goes on Without saving the
least appearances. The Archbishop, who would not suffer the
Minor to be acted in ridicule of the Methodists, permits this
farce to be played every night, and I shall not be surprised if
they perform in the great hall at Lambeth. I went to hear it,
for it is not an apparition, but an audition. We set out from
the Opera, changed our clothes at Northumberland-house, the Duke
of York, Lady Northumberland, Lady Mary Coke, Lord Hertford, and
I, all in one hackney coach, and drove to the spot: it rained
torrents; yet the lane was full of mob, and the house so full we
could not get in; at last they discovered it was the Duke of
York, and the company squeezed themselves into one another's
pockets to make room for us. The house, which is borrowed, and
to which the ghost has adjourned, is wretchedly small and
miserable; when we opened the chamber, in which were fifty
people, with no light but one tallow candle at the end, we
tumbled over the bed of the child to whom the ghost comes,
and whom they are murdering by inches in such insufferable heat
and stench. At the top of the room are ropes to dry clothes. I
asked, if we were to have rope-dancing between the acts? We had
nothing; they told us, as they would at a puppet-show, that it
would not come that night till seven in the morning, that is,
when there are only 'prentices and old women. We stayed however
till half an hour after one. The Methodists have promised them
contributions; provisions are sent in like forage, and all the
taverns and alehouses in the neighbourhood make fortunes. The
most diverting part is to hear people wondering when it will be
found out--as if there was any thing to find out--as if the
actors would make their noises when they can be discovered.
However, as this pantomime cannot last much longer, I hope Lady
Fanny Shirley will set up a ghost of her own at Twickenham, and
then you shall hear one. The Methodists, as Lord Aylesford
assured Mr. Chute two nights ago at Lord Dacre's have attempted
ghosts three times in Warwickshire. There, how good I am!
(212) Lady Mary Wortley Montagu remained at Venice till the death
of Mr. Wortley in this year when she yielded to the solicitations
of her daughter, the Countess of Bute, and, after an absence of
two-and-twenty years, began her journey to England, where she
arrived in October.-E.
(213) john Macnaughton, Esq. executed in December, 1761, for the
murder of Miss Knox, daughter of Andrew Knox, Esq. of Prehen,
member of parliament for Donegal. macnaughton, who had ruined
himself by gambling, sought to replenish his fortune by marriage
with this young lady, who had considerable expectations; but as
her friends would not consent to their union, and he failed both
in inveigling her into a secret marriage, and in compelling her
by the suits which he commenced in the ecclesiastical courts to
ratify an alleged promise of marriage, he revenged himself by
shooting her while riding in a carriage with her father.-E.
Letter 111 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Feb. 6, 1762. (PAGE 169)
You must have thought me very negligent of your commissions; not
only in buying your ruffles, but in never mentioning them; but my
justification is most ample and verifiable. Your letters of Jan.
2d arrived but yesterday with the papers of Dec. 29. These are
the mails that have so long been missing, and were shipwrecked or
something on the Isle of Man. Now you see it was impossible for
me to buy you a pair of ruffles for the 18th of January, when I
did not receive the orders till the 5th of February.
You don't tell me a word (but that is not new to you) of Mr.
Hamilton's wonderful eloquence, which converted a whole House of
Commons on the five regiments. We have no such miracles here;
five regiments might work such prodigies, but I never knew mere
rhetoric gain above one or two proselytes at a time in all my
practice.
We have a Prince Charles here, the Queen's brother; he is like
her, but more like the Hows; low, but well made, good eyes and
teeth. Princess Emily is very ill, has been blistered, and been
blooded four times.
My books appear on Monday se'nnight: if I can find any quick
conveyance for them, you shall have them; if not, as you are
returning soon, I may as well keep them for you. Adieu! I grudge
every word I write to you.
Letter 112To The Rev. Mr. Cole.(214)
Tuesday, Feb. 7, 1762. (PAGE 170)
Dear Sir,
The little leisure I have to-day will, I trust, excuse my saying
very few words in answer to your obliging letter, of which no
part touches me more than what concerns your health, which,
however, I rejoice to hear is reestablishing itself.
I am sorry I did not save you the trouble of cataloguing Ames's
beads, by telling you that another person has actually done it,
and designs to publish a new edition ranged in a different
method. I don't know the gentleman's name, but he is a friend of
Sir William Musgrave, from whom I had this information some
months ago.
You will oblige me much by the sight of the volume you mention.
Don't mind the epigrams you transcribe on my father. I have been
inured to abuse on him from my birth. It is not a quarter of an
hour ago since, cutting the leaves of a new dab called Anecdotes
of Polite Literature, I found myself abused for having defended
my father. I don't know the author, and suppose I never shall,
for I find Glover's Leonidas is one of the things he admires--and
so I leave them to be forgotten together, Fortunati Ambo!
I sent your letter to Ducarel, who has promised me those poems--I
accepted the promise to get rid of him t'other day, when he would
have talked me to death.
(214) A distinguished antiquary, better known by the assistance
he gave to others than by publications of his own. He was vicar
of Burnham, in the county of Bucks; and died December 16th, 1782,
in his sixty-eighth year.-E.
Letter 113 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.
Arlington Street, Feb. 13, 1762. (PAGE 171)
Sir,
I should long ago have given myself the pleasure of writing to
you, if I had not been constantly in hope of accompanying my
letter with the Anecdotes of Painting, etc.; but the tediousness
of engraving, and the roguery of a fourth printer, have delayed
the publication week after week- for months: truly I do not
believe that there is such a being as an honest printer in the
world.
I Sent the books to Mr. Whiston, who, I think you told me, was
employed by you: he answered, he knew nothing of the matter. Mr.
Dodsley has undertaken now to convey them to you, and I beg your
acceptance of them: it will be a very kind acceptance if you will
tell me of any faults, blunders ,omissions, etc. as you observe
them. In a first sketch of this nature, I cannot hope the work
is any thing like complete. Excuse, Sir, the brevity Of this. I
am much hurried at this instant of publication, and have barely
time to assure you how truly I am your humble servant.
Letter 114To The Earl Of Bute.(215)
Strawberry Hill, Feb. 15, 1762. (PAGE 171)
My lord,
I am sensible how little time your lordship can have to throw
away on reading idle letters of compliment; yet as it would be
too great want of respect to your lordship, not to make some sort
of reply to the note(216) you have done me the honour to send me,
I thought I could couch what I have to say in fewer words by
writing, than in troubling you with a visit, which might come
unseasonably, and a letter you may read at any moment when you
are most idle. I have already, my lord, detained you too long by
sending you a book, which I could not flatter myself you would
turn over in such a season of business: by the manner in 'Which
you have considered it, you have shown me that your very minutes
of amusement you try to turn to the advantage of your country.
It was this pleasing prospect of patronage to the arts that
tempted me to offer you my pebble towards the new structure. I
am flattered that you have taken notice' of the only ambition I
have: I should be more flattered if I could contribute to the
smallest of your lordship's designs for illustrating Britain.
The hint your lordship is so good as to give me for a work like
Montfaucon's Monuments de la Monarchie Francaise, has long been a
subject that I have wished to see executed, nor, in point of
materials, do I think it would be a very difficult one. The
chief impediment was the expense, too great for a private
fortune. The extravagant prices extorted by English artists is a
discouragement to all public undertakings. Drawings from
paintings, tombs, etc. would be very dear. To have them engraved
as they ought to be, would exceed the compass of a much ampler
fortune than mine; which though equal to my largest wish, cannot
measure itself with the rapacity of our performers.
But, my lord, if his Majesty was pleased to command such a work,
on so laudable an idea as your lordship's, nobody would be more
ready than myself to give his assistance. I own I think I could
be of use in it, in collecting or pointing out materials, and I
would readily take any trouble in aiding, supervising, or
directing such a plan. Pardon me, my lord, if I offer no more; I
mean, that I do not undertake the part of composition. I have
already trespassed too much upon the indulgence of the public; I
wish not to disgust them with hearing of me, and reading me. It
is time for me to have done; and when I shall have completed, as
I almost have, the History of the Arts on which I am now engaged,
I did not purpose to tempt again the patience of mankind. But
the case is very different with regard to my trouble. My whole
fortune is from the bounty of the crown, and from the public: it
would ill become me to spare any pains for the King's glory, or
for the honour and satisfaction of my country; and give me leave
to add, my lord, it would be an ungrateful return for the
distinction with which your lordship has condescended to honour
me if I withheld such trifling aid as mine, when it might in the
least tend to adorn your lordship's administration. From me, my
lord, permit me to say, these are not words of course or of
compliment, this is not the language of flattery; your lordship
knows I have no Views, perhaps knows that, insignificant as it
is, my praise is never detached from my esteem: and when you have
raised, as I trust you will, real monuments of glory, the most
contemptible characters in the inscription dedicated by your
country, may not be the testimony of, my lord, etc.(217)
(215) Now first collected.
(216) This letter is in reply to the following note, which
Walpole had, a few days before, received from the Earl of Bute:--
"Lord Bute presents his compliments to Mr. Walpole, and returns
him a thousand thanks for the very agreeable present he has made
him. In looking over it, Lord Bute observes Mr. Walpole has
mixed several curious remarks on the customs, etc. of the times
he treats of; a thing much wanted, and that has never yet been
executed, except in parts, by Peck, etc. Such a general work
would be not only very agreeable, but instructive: the French
have attempted it; the Russians are about it; and Lord Bute has
been informed Mr. Walpole is well furnished with materials for
such a noble work."-E.
(217) The following passage, in a letter from Gray to Walpole, of
the 28th of February, has reference to that work projected by
Lord Bute:--"I rejoice in the good disposition of our court, and
in the propriety of their application to you: the work is a thing
so much to be wished; has so near a connexion with the turn of
your studies and of your curiosity, and might find such ample
materials among your hoards and in your head, that it will be a
sin if you let it drop and come to nothing, or worse than
nothing, for want of your assistance. The historical part should
be in the manner of Herault, a mere abridgment; a series of facts
selected with judgment, that may serve as a clue to lead the mind
along in the midst of those ruins and scattered monuments of art
that time has spared. This would be sufficient, and better than
Montfaucon's more diffuse narrative." Works, vol. iii. p. 293.
Before Walpole had received Gray's letter, he had already adopted
the proposed method; a large memorandum book of his being extant,
with this title page, Collections for a History of the Manners,
Customs, Habits, Fashions, Ceremonies, etc. of England; begun
February 21, 1762, by Horace Walpole." For a specimen of it, see
his Works, vol. v. p. 400.-E.
Letter 115 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Feb. 22, 1762. (PAGE 173)
My scolding does you so much good. that I will for the future
lecture you for the most trifling peccadillo. You have written
me a very entertaining letter, and wiped out several debts; not
that I will forget one of them if you relapse.
As we have never had a rainbow to assure us that the world shall
not be snowed to death, I thought last night was the general
connixation. We had a tempest of wind and snow for two hours
beyond any thing I remember: chairs were blown to pieces, the
streets covered with tassels and glasses and tiles, and coaches
and chariots were filled like reservoirs. Lady Raymond's house
in Berkeley-square is totally unroofed; and Lord Robert Bertie,
who is going to marry her, may descend into it like a Jupiter
Pluvius. It is a week of wonders, and worthy the note of an
almanack-maker. Miss Draycott, within two days of matrimony, has
dismissed Mr. Beauclerc; but this is totally forgotten already in
the amazement of a new elopement. In all your reading, true or
false, have you ever heard of a young Earl, married to the most
beautiful woman in the world, a lord of the bedchamber, a general
officer, and with a great estate, quitting every thing, resigning
wife and world, and embarking for life in a pacquetboat with a
Miss? I fear your connexions will but too readily lead you to
the name of the peer; it is Henry Earl of Pembroke,(218) the
nymph Kitty Hunter. The town and Lady Pembroke were but too much
witnesses to this intrigue, last Wednesday, at a great ball at
Lord Middleton's. On Thursday they decamped. However, that the
writer of their romance, or I, as he is a noble author, might not
want materials, the Earl has left a bushel of letters behind him;
to his mother, to Lord Bute, to Lord Ligonier, (the two last to
resign his employments,) and to Mr. Stopford, whom he acquits of
all privity to his design. In none he justifies himself, unless
this is a justification, that having long tried in vain to make
his wife hate and dislike him, he had no way left but this, and
it is to be hoped will succeed; and then it may not be the worst
event that could have happened to her. You may easily conceive
the hubbub such an exploit must occasion. With ghosts,
elopements, abortive motions, etc., we can amuse ourselves
tolerably well, till the season arrives for taking the field and
conquering the Spanish West Indies.
I have sent YOU my books by a messenger; Lord Barrington was so
good as to charge himself with them. They barely saved their
distance; a week later, and no soul could have read a line in
them, unless I had changed the title-page, and called them the
loves of the Earl of Pembroke and Miss Hunter.
I am sorry Lady Kingsland is so rich. However, if the Papists
should be likely to rise, pray disarm her of the enamel, and
commit it to safe custody in the round tower at Strawberry. Good
night! mine is a life of letter-writing; I pray for a peace that
I may sheath my Pen.
(218) Henry Herbert, tenth Earl of Pembroke, married, 13th March
1756, Lady Elizabeth Spencer, second daughter of Charles, third
Duke of Marlborough, by whom he had a son, George, eleventh Earl,
born 19th September 1759: and some years afterwards, when he ran
away with her, which he actually did, after they had lived for
some time separated, a daughter, born in 1773, who died in 1784,
unmarried.
Letter 116 To Dr. Ducarel.(219)
Feb. 24, 1762. (PAGE 174)
Sir, I am glad my books have at all amused you, and am much
obliged to you for your notes and communications. Your thought
of an English Montfaucon accords perfectly with a design I have
long had of attempting something of that kind, in which too I
have been lately encouraged; and therefore I will beg you at your
leisure, as they shall occur, to make me little notes of customs,
fashions, and portraits, relating to our history and manners.
Your work on vicarages, I am persuaded, will be very useful, as
every thing you undertake is, and curious.--After the medals I
lent Mr. Perry, I have a little reason to take it ill, that he
has entirely neglected me; he has published a number, and sent it
to several persons,-and never to me.(220) I wanted to see him
too, because I know of two very curious medals, which I could
borrow for him. He does not deserve it at my hands, but I will
not defraud the public of any thing valuable; and therefore, if
he will call on me any morning, but a Sunday or Monday, between
eleven and twelve, I will speak to him of them.--With regard to
one or two of your remarks, I have not said that real lions were
originally leopards. I have said that lions in arms, that is,
painted lions, were leopards; and it is fact, and no inaccuracy.
Paint a leopard yellow, and it becomes a lion.--YOU say, colours
rightly prepared do not grow black. The art would be much
obliged for such a preparation. I have not said that oil-colours
would not endure with a glass; on the contrary, I believe they
would last the longer.
I am much amazed at Vertue's blunder about my marriage of Henry
VII.; and afterwards, he said, "Sykes, knowing how to give names
to pictures to make them sell," called this the marriage of Henry
VII.; and afterwards, he said, Sykes had the figures in an old
picture of a church. He must have known little Indeed, Sir, if
he had not known how to name a picture that he had painted on
purpose that he might call it so! That Vertue, on the strictest
examination, could not be convinced that the man was Henry VII.,
not being like any of his pictures. Unluckily, he is extremely
like the shilling, which is much more authentic than any picture
of Henry VII. But here Sykes seems to have been extremely
deficient in his tricks. Did he order the figure to be painted
like Henry VII., and yet could not get it painted like him, which
was the easiest part of the task? Yet how came he to get the
Queen painted like, whose representations are much scarcer than
those of her husband? and how came Sykes to have pomegranates
painted on her robe, only to puzzle the cause! It is not worth
adding, that I should much sooner believe the church was painted
to the figures, than the figures to the church. They are hard
and antique: the church in a better style, and at least more
fresh. If Vertue had made no better criticisms than these, I
would never have taken so much trouble with his MS. Adieu!
(219) Librarian at Lambeth Palace, and a well-known antiquary.
He died in 1785.
(220) A series of English Medals, by Francis Perry, 4to. with
thirteen plates.
Letter 117 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Feb. 25, 1762. (PAGE 175)
I sent you my gazette but two days ago; I now write to answer a
kind long letter I have received from you since.
I have heard of my brother's play several years ago; but I never
understood that it was completed, or more than a few detached
scenes. What is become of Mr. Bentley's play and Mr. Bentley's
epistle?
When I go to Strawberry, I will look for where Lord Cutts was
buried; I think I can find it. I am disposed to prefer the
younger picture of Madame Grammont by Lely; but I stumbled at the
price; twelve guineas for a copy in enamel is very dear. Mrs.
Vezey tells me, his originals cost sixteen, and are not so good
as his copies. I will certainly have none of his originals.
His, what is his name'! I would fain resist his copy; I would
more fain excuse myself for having it. I say to myself, it Would
be rude not to have it, now Lady Kingsland and Mr. Montagu have
had so much trouble--well--"I think I must have it," as my Lady
Wishfort says, "Why does not the fellow take me?" Do try if he
will not take ten; remember it is the younger picture: and, oh!
now you are remembering, don't forget all my prints and a book
bound in vellum. There is-a thin folio too I want, called
"Hibernica;"(221) it is a collection of curious papers, one a
translation by Carew Earl of Totness: I had forgot that you have
no books in Ireland; however, I must have this, and your pardon
for all the trouble I give you.
No news yet of the runaways: but all that comes out antecedent to
the escape, is more and more extraordinary and absurd. The day
of the elopement he had invited his wife's family and other folk
to dinner with her, but said he must himself dine at a tavern;
but he dined privately in his own dressing-room, put on a
sailor's habit, and black wig, that he had brought home with him
in a bundle, and threatened the servants he would murder them if
they mentioned it to his wife. He left a letter for her, which
the Duke 'of Marlborough was afraid to deliver to her, and
opened. It desired that she would not write to him, as it would
make him completely mad. He desires the King would preserve his
rank of major-general, as some time or other he may serve again.
Here is an indifferent epigram made on the occasion: I send it to
you, though I wonder any body could think it a subject to joke
upon.
As Pembroke a horseman by most is accounted,
'Tis not strange that his lordship a Hunter has mounted.
Adieu! yours ever.
(221) Hibernica; or, some Ancient Pieces relating to Ireland,"
published at Dublin in 1757, by Walter Harris.-E.
Letter 118 To The Countess Of Ailesbury.
Strawberry Hill, March 5, 1762. (PAGE 176)
Madam,
one of your slaves, a fine young officer, brought me two days ago
a very pretty medal from your ladyship. Amidst all your triumphs
you do not, I see, forget your English friends, and it makes me
extremely happy. He pleased me still more, by assuring me that
you return to England when the campaign opens. I can pay this
news by none so good as by telling you that we talk of nothing
but peace. We are equally ready to give law to the world, or
peace. MartiniCO has not made us intractable. We and the new
Czar are the best sort of people upon earth: I am sure, Madam,
you must adore him; he is ,,, to resign all his conquests, that
you and Mr. Conway may be settled again at Park-place. My Lord
Chesterfield, with the despondence of an old man and the wit of a
young one, thinks the French and Spaniards must make some attempt
upon these islands, and is frightened lest we should not be so
well prepared to repel invasions as to make them: he says, "What
will it avail us if we gain the whole world, and lose our own
soul!"
I am here alone, Madam, and know nothing to tell you. I came
from town on Saturday for the worst cold I ever had in my life,
and, what I care less to own even to myself, a cough. I hope
Lord Chesterfield will not speak more truth in what I have
quoted, than in his assertion, that one need not cough if one did
not please. It has pulled me extremely, and you may believe I do
not look very plump, when I am more emaciated that usual.
However, I have taken James's powder for four nights, and have
found great benefit from it; and if Miss Conway does not come
back with soixante et douze quartiers, and the hauteur of a
landgravine, I think I shall still be able to run down the
precipices at Park-place with her-This is to be understood,
supposing that we have any summer. Yesterday was the first
moment that did not feel like Thule: not a glimpse of spring or
green, except a miserable almond tree, half opening one bud, like
my Lord PowersCOurt'S eye.
It will be warmer, I hope, by the King's birthday, or the old
ladies will catch their deaths. There is a court dress to be
instituted--(to thin the drawing-rooms)--stiff-bodied gowns and
bare shoulders. What dreadful discoveries will be made both on
fat and lean! I recommend to you the idea of Mrs. Cavendish,
when half-stark; and I might fill the rest of my paper with such
images, but your imagination will supply them; and you shall
excuse me, though I leave this a short letter: but I wrote merely
to thank your ladyship for the medal, and, as you perceive, have
very little to say, besides that known and lasting truth, how
much I am Mr. Conway's and your ladyship's faithful humble
servant.
Letter 119 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, March 9, 1762. (PAGE 177)
I am glad you have received my books safe, and are content with
them. I have little idea of Mr. Bentley's; though his
imagination is sufficiently Pindaric, nay obscure, his numbers
are not apt to be so tuneful as to excuse his flights. He should
always give his wit, both in verse and prose, to somebody else to
make up. If any of his things are printed at Dublin, let me have
them; I have no quarrel with his talents. Your cousin's
behaviour has been handsome, and so was his speech, which is
printed in our papers. Advice is arrived to-day, that our troops
have made good their landing at Martinico; I don't know any of
the incidents yet.
You ask me for an epitaph for Lord Cutts;(222) I scratched out
the following lines last night as I was going to bed; if they are
not good enough, pray don't take them: they were written in a
minute, and you are under no obligation to like them.
Late does the muse approach to Cutts's grave,
But ne'er the grateful muse forgets the brave;
He gave her subjects for the immortal lyre,
And sought in idle hours the tuneful choir;
Skilful to mount by either path to fame,
And dear to memory by a double name.
Yet if ill known amid the Aonian groves,
His shade a stranger and unnoticed roves,
The dauntless chief a nobler band may join:
They never die who conquer'd at the Boyne.
The last line intends to be popular in Ireland; but you must take
care to be certain that he was at the battle of the Boyne; I
conclude so; ind it should be specified the year, when you erect
the monument-The latter lines mean to own his having been but a
moderate poet, and to cover that mediocrity under his valour; all
which is true. Make the sculptor observe the steps.
I have not been at Strawberry above a month, nor ever was so long
absent - but the weather has been cruelly cold and disagreeable.
We have not had a single dry week since the beginning of
September; a great variety of weather, all bad. Adieu!
(222) John Lord Cutts, a soldier of most hardy bravery in King
William's wars. He died at Dublin in 1707. Swift's epigram on a
Salamander alluded to this lord, who was called by the Duke of
Marlborough the Salamander, on account of his always being in the
thickest of the fire. He published, in 1687, "Poetical
Exercises, written upon several Occasions."-E.
Letter 120 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.
Arlington Street, March 20, 1762. (PAGE 178)
I am glad you are pleased, Sir, with my "Anecdotes of Painting;"
but I doubt you praise me too much: it was an easy task when I
had the materials Collected. and I would not have the labours of
forty years, which was Vertue's case, depreciated in compliment
to the work of four months, which is almost my whole merit.
Style is become, in a manner, a mechanical affair,--and if to
much ancient lore our antiquaries would add a little modern
reading, to polish their language and correct their prejudices, I
do not see why books of antiquities should not be made as amusing
as writings on any other subject. If Tom Herne had lived in the
world, he might have writ an agreeable history of dancing; at
least, I am sure that many modern volumes are read for no reason
but for their being penned in the dialect of the age.
I am much beholden to you, dear Sir, for your remarks; they shall
have their due place whenever the work proceeds to a second
edition, for that the nature of it as a record will ensure to it.
A few of your notes demand a present answer: the Bishop of Imola
pronounced the nuptial benediction at the marriage of Henry VII.,
which made me suppose him the person represented.(223)
Burnet, who was more a judge of characters than statues, mentions
the resemblance between Tiberius and Charles II.; but, as far as
countenances went, there could not be a more ridiculous
prepossession; Charles had a long face, with very strong lines,
and a narrowish brow; Tiberius a very square face, and flat
forehead, with features rather delicate in proportion. I have
examined this imaginary likeness, and see no kind of foundation
for it. It is like Mr. Addison's travels, of which it was so
truly said, he might have composed them without stirring out of
England. There are a kind of naturalists who have sorted out the
qualities of the mind, and allotted particular turns of features
and complexions to them. It would be much easier to prove that
every form has been endowed with every vice. One has heard much
of the vigour of Burnet himself; yet I dare to say, he did not
think himself like to Charles II.
I am grieved, Sir, to hear that your eyes suffer; take care of
them; nothing can replace the satisfaction they afford: one
should hoard them, as the only friend that will not be tired of
one when one grows old, and when one should least choose to
depend on others for entertainment. I most sincerely wish you
happiness and health in that and every other instance.
(223) In the picture by Mabuse of the marriage of Henry VII.
Whatever was Mr. Zouch's correction (in which Mr. Walpole seems
to acquiesce), no alteration seem,- to have been made in the
passage about the Bishop of Imola. This curious picture is at
Strawberry Hill, and should be in the Royal Collection.-C.
Letter 121 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, March 22, 1762. (PAGE 179)
You may fancy what you -will, but the eyes of all the world are
not fixed upon Ireland. Because you have a little virtue, and a
lord-lieutenant(224) that refuses four thousand pounds a-year,
and a chaplain(225) of a lord-lieutenant that declines a huge
bishopric, and a secretary(226) whose eloquence can convince a
nation of blunderers, you imagine that nothing is talked of but
the castle of Dublin. In the first place, virtue may sound its
own praises, but it never is praised; and in the next place,
there are other feats besides self-denials; and for eloquence, we
overflow with it. Why, the single eloquence of Mr. Pitt, like an
annihilated star, can shine many months after it has set. I tell
you it has conquered Martinico.(227) If you will not believe me,
read the Gazette; read Moncton's letter; there is more martial
spirit in it than in half Thucydides, and in all the grand Cyrus.
Do you think Demosthenes or Themistocles ever raised the Grecian
stocks two per cent. in four-and-twenty hours? I shall burn all
my Greek and Latin books; they are histories of little people.
The Romans never conquered the world, till they had conquered
three parts of it, and were three hundred years about it; we
subdue the globe in three campaigns; and a globe, let me tell
you, as big again as It was in their days. Perhaps you may think
me proud; but you don't know that I had some share in the
reduction of Martinico; the express was brought to my godson, Mr.
Horatio Gates; and I have a very good precedent for attributing
some of the glory to myself - I have by me a love-letter, written
during my father's administration, by a journeyman tailor to my
brother's second chambermaid; his offers Honourable; he proposed
matrimony, and to better his terms, informed her of his
pretensions to a place; they were founded on what he called,
"some services to the government." As the nymph could not read,
she carried the epistle to the housekeeper to be deciphered, by
which means it came into my hands. I inquired what were the
merits of Mr. Vice Crispin, was informed that he had made the
suit of clothes for a figure of Lord Marr, that was burned after
the rebellion. I hope now you don't hold me too presumptuous for
pluming myself on the reduction of Martinico. However, I shall
not aspire to a post, nor to marry my Lady Bute's Abigail. I
only trust my services to you as a friend, and do not mean under
your temperate administration to get the list of Irish pensions
loaded with my name, though I am godfather to Mr. Horatio Gates.
The Duchess of Grafton and the English have been miraculously
preserved at Rome by being at loo, instead of going to a great
concert, where the palace fell in, and killed ten persons and
wounded several others. I shall send orders to have an altar
dedicated in the Capitol.
Pammio O. M.
Capitolino
Annam Ducisam de Grafton
Merito Incolumem.
I tell you of it now, because I don't know whether it will be
worth while to write another letter on purpose. Lord Albemarle
takes up the victorious grenadiers at Martinico, and in six weeks
will conquer the Havannah.- Adieu!
(224) The Irish House of Commons having voted an address to the
King to increase the salary of the lord-lieutenant, the Earl of
Halifax declined having any augmentation.
(225) Dr. Crane, chaplain to the Earl of Halifax, had refused the
bishopric of Elphin.
(226) Single-speech Hamilton.
(227) Sir Richard Lyttelton, in a letter to Mr. Pitt, written
from Rome on the 14th of April, says, " I cannot forbear
congratulating you on the glorious conquest of Martinico, which,
whatever effect it may have on England, astonishes all Europe,
and fills every mouth with praise and commendation of the noble
perseverance and superior ability of the planner of this great
and decisive undertaking. His Holiness told Mr. Weld, that, were
not the information such as left no possibility of its being
doubted, the news of our success could not have been credited;
and that so great was the national glory and reputation all over
the world, that he esteemed it the highest honour to be born an
Englishman. If this, sir, be the end of your administration, I
shall only say finis coronet opus." Chatham Correspondence, vol.
ii. p. 173-E.
Letter 122 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, April 29, 1762. (PAGE 180)
I am most absurdly glad to hear you are returned well and safe,
of which I have at this moment received your account from
Hankelow, where you talk of staying a week. However, not knowing
the exact day of your departure, I direct this to Greatworth,
that it may rather wait for you, than you for it, if it should go
into Cheshire and not find you there. As I should ever be sorry
to give you any pain, I hope I shall not be the first to tell you
of the loss of poor Lady Charlotte Johnstone,(228) who, after a
violent fever of less than a week, was brought to bed yesterday
morning of a dead child, and died herself at four in the
afternoon. I heartily condole with you, as I know your
tenderness for all your family, and the regard you have for
Colonel Johnstone. The time is wonderfully sickly; nothing but
sore throats, colds, and fevers. I got rid of one of the worst
of these disorders, attended with a violent cough, by only taking
seven grains of James's powder for six nights. It was the first
cough I ever had, and when coughs meet with so spare a body as
mine, they are not apt to be so easily conquered. Take great
care of yourself, and bring the fruits of your expedition in
perfection to Strawberry. I shall be happy to see you there
whenever you please. I have no immediate purpose of settling
there yet, as they are laying floors, which is very noisy, and as
it is uncertain when the Parliament will rise, but I would go
there at any time to meet you. The town will empty instantly
after the King's birthday; and consequently I shall then be less
broken in upon, which I know you do not like. If, therefore, it
suits you, any time you will name after the 5th of June will be
equally agreeable; but sooner if you like it better.
We have little news at present, except a profusion of new
peerages, but are likely I think to have much greater shortly.
The ministers disagree, and quarrel with as much alacrity as
ever; and the world expects a total rupture between Lord Bute and
the late King's servants. This comedy has been so often
represented, it scarce interests one, especially one who takes no
part, and who is determined to have nothing to do with the world,
but hearing and seeing the scenes it furnishes.
The new peers, I don't know their rank, scarce their titles, are
Lord Wentworth and Sir William Courtenay, Viscounts; Lord Egmont,
Lord Milton, Vernon of Sudbury, old Foxiane, Sir Edward Montagu,
Barons; and Lady Caroline Fox, a Baroness; the Duke of Newcastle
is created Lord Pelham, with an entail to Tommy Pelham; and Lord
Brudenel is called to the House of lords, as Lord Montagu. The
Duchess of Manchester was to have had the peerage alone, and
wanted the latter title: her sister, very impertinently, I think,
as being the younger, objected and wished her husband Marquis of
Monthermer. This difference has been adjusted, by making Sir
Edward Montagu Lord Beaulieu, and giving the title of the family
to Lord Brudenel. With pardon of your Cu-blood, I hold, that
Lord Cardigan makes a very trumpery figure by so meanly
relinquishing all Brudenelhood. Adieu! let me know soon when you
will keep your Strawberry tide.
P. S. Lord Anson is in a very bad way;(229) and Mr. Fox, I think,
in not a much better.
(228) Sister of the Earl of Halifax.
(229) His lordship, who was at this time first lord of the
admiralty, died on the 6th of June.-E.
Letter 123 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, May 14, 1762. (page 181)
It is very hard, when you can plunge over head and ears in Irish
claret, and not have even your heel vulnerable by the gout, that
such a Pythagorean as I am should yet be subject to it! It is
not two years since I had it last, and here am I with My foot
again upon cushions. But I will not complain; the pain is
trifling, and does little more than prevent my frisking about.
If I can bear the motion of the chariot, I shall drive to
Strawberry tomorrow, for I had rather only look at verdure and
hear my nightingales from the bow-window, than receive visits and
listen to news. I can give you no certain satisfaction relative
to the viceroy, your cousin. It is universally said that he has
no mind to return to his dominions, and pretty much believed that
he will succeed to Lord Egremont's seals, who will not detain
them long from whoever is to be his successor.
I am sorry you have lost another Montagu, the Duke of
Manchester.(230) Your cousin Guilford is among the competitors
for chamberlain to the Queen. The Duke of Chandos, Lord
Northumberland, and even the Duke of Kingston, are named as other
candidates; but surely they will not turn the latter loose into
another chamber of maids of honour! Lord Cantelupe has asked to
rise from vice-chamberlain, but met with little encouragement.
It is odd, that there are now seventeen English and Scotch dukes
unmarried, and but seven out of twenty-seven have the garter.
It is comfortable to me to have a prospect of seeing Mr. Conway
soon; the ruling part of the administration are disposed to
recall our troops front Germany. In the mean time our officers
and their wives are embarked for Portugal-what must Europe think
of us when we make wars and assemblies all over the world?
I have been for a few days this week at Lord Thomond's; by making
a river-like piece of water, he has converted a very ugly spot
into a tolerable one. As I was so near, I went to see Audley
Inn(231) once more; but it is only the monument now of its former
grandeur. The gallery is pulled down, and nothing remains but
the great hall, and an apartment like a tower at each end. In
the church I found, still existing and quite fresh, the
escutcheon of the famous Countess of Essex and Somerset.
Adieu! I shall expect you with great pleasure the beginning of
next month.
(230) Robert Montagu, third Duke of Manchester, lord-chamberlain
to the Queen, died on the 10th of May.-E.
(231) In Essex; formerly the largest palace in England. It was
built out of the ruins of a dissolved monastery, near Saffron
Walden, by Thomas, second son of Thomas Duke of Norfolk, who
married the only daughter and heir of Lord Audley, chancellor to
King Henry VIII. This Thomas was summoned to parliament in Queen
Elizabeth's time as Lord Audley of Walden, and was afterwards
created Earl of Suffolk by James I., to whom he was lord
chancellor and lord high treasurer. It was intended for a royal
palace for that King, who, when it was finished, was invited to
see it, and lodged there one night on his way to Newmarket; when,
after having viewed it with astonishment, he was asked how he
approved of it, he answered, "Very well; but troth, man, it is
too much for a king, but it may do for a lord high treasurer;"
and so left it upon the Earl's hands. It was afterwards
purchased by Charles II.; but, as he had never been able to pay
the purchase-money, it was restored to the family by William
III.-E.
Letter 124 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
strawberry Hill, May 20, 1762. (page 183)
Dear Sir,
You have sent me the most kind and obliging letter in the world,
and I cannot sufficiently thank you for it; but I shall be very
glad to have an opportunity of acknowledging it in person, by
accepting the agreeable visit you are so good as to offer me, and
for which I have long been impatient.
I should name the earliest day possible; but besides having some
visits to make, I think it will bi more pleasant to you a few
weeks hence (I mean, any time in July,) when the works, with
which I am finishing my house, will be more advanced, and the
noisy part, as laying floors and fixing wainscots, at an end, and
which now make me a deplorable litter. As you give me leave, I
will send You notice.
I am glad my books amused you;(232) yet you, who are so much
deeper an antiquarian, must have found more faults and emissions,
I fear, than your politeness suffers you to reprehend; yet you
will, I trust, be a little more severe. We both labour, I will
not say for the public (for the public troubles its head very
little about our labours),. but for the few of posterity that
shall be curious; and therefore, for their sake, you must assist
me in making my works as complete as possible. This sounds
ungrateful, after all the trouble you have given yourself; but I
say it to prove MY gratitude, and to show you how fond I am of
being corrected.
For the faults of impression, they were owing to the knavery of a
printer, who, when I had corrected the sheets, amused me with
revised proofs, and never printed off the whole number, and then
ran away. This accounts, too, for the difference of the ink in
various sheets, and for some other blemishes; though there are
still enough of my own, which I must not charge on others.
Ubaldini's book I have not, and shall be pleased to see it; but I
cannot think of robbing your collection, and am amply obliged by
the offer. The Anecdotes of Horatio Palavacini are extremely
entertaining.
In an Itinerary of the late Mr. Smart Lethiullier, I met the very
tomb of Gainsborough this winter that you mention; and, to be
secure, sent to Lincoln for an exact draught of it. But what
vexed me then, and does still, is, that by the defect at the end
of the inscription, one cannot be certain whether he lived in
CCC. or CCCC. as another C might have been there. Have you any
corroborating circumstance, Sir, to affix his existence to 1300
more than 1400? Besides, I don't know any proof of his having
been architect of the church: his epitaph only calls him
Caementarius, which, I suppose, means mason.
I have observed, since my book was published, what you mention of
the tapestry in Laud's trial; yet as the Journals were by
authority, and certainly cannot be mistaken, I have concluded
that Hollar engraved his print after the restoration. Mr. Wight,
clerk of the House of Lords, says, that Oliver placed them in the
House of Commons. I don't know on what grounds he says so. I
am, Sir, with great gratitude, etc.
(232) Anecdotes of Painting.
Letter 125 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, May 25, 1762. (page 184)
I am diverted with your anger at old Richard. Can you really
suppose that I think it any trouble to frank a few covers for
you? Had I been with you, I should have cured you and your whole
family in two nights with James's powder. If you have any
remains of the disorder, let me beg you to take seven or eight
grains when you go to bed: if you have none, shall I send you
some? For my own part, I am released -again, though I have been
tolerably bad, and one day had the gout for several hours in my
head. I do not like such speedy returns. I have been so much
confined that I could not wait on Mrs. Osborn, and I do not take
it unkindly that she will not let me have the prints without
fetching them. I met her, that is, passed her, t'other day as
she was going to Bushy, and was sorry to see her look much older.
Well! tomorrow is fixed for that phenomenon, the Duke of
Newcastle's resignation.(233) He has had a parting lev`ee; and
as I suppose all bishops are prophets, they foresee that he will
never come into place again, for there was but one that had the
decency to take leave of him after crowding his rooms for forty
years together; it was Cornwallis. I hear not even Lord Lincoln
resigns. Lord Bute succeeds to the treasury, and is to have the
garter too On Thursday with Prince William. Of your cousin I hear
no more mention, but that he returns to his island. I cannot
tell you exactly even the few changes that are to be made, but I
can divert you with a bon-mot, which they give to my Lord
Chesterfield. The new peerages being mentioned, somebody said,
"I suppose there will be no duke made," he replied, "Oh yes,
there is to be one."--"Is? who?"--"Lord Talbot: he is to be
created Duke Humphrey, and there is to be no table kept at court
but his." If you don't like this, what do you think of George
Selwyn, who asked Charles Boone if it is true that he is going to
be married to the fat rich Crawley? Boone denied it. "Lord!"
said Selwyn, "I thought you were to be Patrick Fleming on the
mountain, and that gold and silver you were counting!" * * * *
P.S. I cannot help telling you how comfortable the new
disposition of the court is to me-, the King and Queen are
settled for good and all at Buckingham-house, and are stripping
the other palaces to furnish it. In short, they have already
fetched pictures from Hampton Court, which indicates their never
living there; consequently Strawberry Hill will remain in
possession of its own tranquillity, and not become a cheesecake
house to the palace. All I ask of Princes is, not to live within
five miles of me.
(233) The Duke of Newcastle, finding himself, on the subject of a
pecuniary aid to the King of Prussia, only supported in the
council by the Duke of Devonshire and Lord Hardwicke, resigned on
the 26th of May, and Lord Bute became prime minister.-E.
Letter 126 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Wednesday night, June 1. (page 185)
Since you left Strawberry, the town (not the King of Prussia) has
beaten Count Daun, and made the peace, but the benefits of either
have not been felt beyond Change Alley. Lord Melcomb is
dying(234) of a dropsy in his stomach,' and Lady Mary Wortley of
a cancer in her breast.(235)
Mr. Hamilton was here last night, and complained of your not
visiting him. He pumped me to know if Lord Hertford has not
thoughts of the crown of Ireland, and was more than persuaded
that I should go with him: I told him what was true, that I knew
nothing of the former; and for the latter, that I would as soon
return with the King of the Cherokees.(236) When England has
nothing that can tempt me, it would be strange if Ireland had.
The Cherokee Majesty dined here yesterday at Lord Macclesfield's,
where the Clive sang to them and the mob; don't imagine I was
there, but I heard so at my Lady Suffolk's.
We have tapped a little butt of rain to-night, but my lawn is far
from being drunk yet. Did not you find the Vine in great beauty?
My compliments to it, and to your society. I only write to
enclose the enclosed. I have consigned your button to old
Richard. Adieu!
(234) Lord Melcombe died on the 28th of July: upon which event
the title became extinct.-E.
(235) Lady Mary Wortley Montagu died on the 21st August, in the
seventy-third year of her age.-E.
(236) Three Cherokee Indian chiefs arrived this month in London,
from South Carolina, and became the lions of the day.-E.
Letter 127 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, June 8, 1762. (page 185)
Well, you have had Mr. Chute. I did not dare to announce him to
you, for he insisted on enjoying all your ejaculations. He gives
me a good account of your health and spirits, but does not say
when you come hither. I hope the General, as well as your
brother John, know how welcome they would be, if they would
accompany you. I trust it will be before the end of this month,
for the very beginning of July I am to make a little visit to
Lord Ilchester, in Somersetshire, and I should not like not to
see you before the middle or end of next month.
Mrs. Osborn has sent me the prints; they are woful; but that is
my fault and the engraver's, not yours, to whom I am equally
obliged; you don't tell me whether Mr. Bentley's play was acted
or not, printed or not.
There is another of the Queen's brothers come over. Lady
Northumberland made a pompous festino for him t'other night; not
only the whole house, but the garden, was illuminated, and was
quite a fairy scene. Arches and pyramids of lights alternately
surrounded the enclosure; a diamond necklace of lamps edged the
rails and descent, with a spiral obelisk of candles on each hand;
and dispersed over the lawn were little bands of kettle-drums,
clarionets, flutes, etc., and the lovely moon, who came without a
card. The birthday was far from being such a show; empty and
unfine as possible. In truth, popularity does not make great
promises to the new administration, and for fear it should
hereafter be taxed with changing sides, it lets Lord Bute be
abused every day, though he has not had time to do the least
wrong. His first levee was crowded. Bothmer, the Danish
minister, said, "La chaleur est excessive!" George Selwyn
replied, "Pour se mettre au froid, il faut aller chez Monsieur le
Duc de Newcastle!" There was another George not quite SO tender.
George Brudenel was passing by; somebody in the mob said, "What
is the matter here?" Brudenel answered, "Why, there is a
Scotchman got into the treasury, and they can't get him out."
The Archbishop, conscious of not having been at Newcastle's last
levee, and ashamed of appearing at Lord Bute's, first pretended
he had been going by in his way from Lambeth, and, Upon inquiry,
found it was Lord Bute's levee, and so had thought he might as
well go in-I am glad he thought he might as well tell it.
The mob call Buckingham-house, Holyrood-house; in short, every
thing promises to be like times I can remember. Lord Anson is
dead; poor Mrs. Osborn will not break her heart; I should think
Lord Melcomb will succeed to the admiralty. Adieu!
Letter 128 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, July 29, 1762. (page 186)
Sir,
I fear you will have thought me neglectful of the visit you was
so good as to offer me for a day or two at this place; the truth
is, I have been in Somersetshire on a visit, which was protracted
much longer than I intended. I am now returned, and shall be
glad to see you as soon as you please, Sunday or Monday next, if
you like either, or any other day you will name. I cannot defer
the pleasure of seeing you any longer, though to my mortification
you will find Strawberry Hill with its worst looks-not a blade of
grass! My workmen too have disappointed me; they have been in the
association for forcing their masters to raise their wages, and
but two are yet returned--so you must excuse litter and shavings.
Letter 129 To The Countess Of Ailesbury.
Strawberry Hill, July 31, 1762 (page 187)
Madam,
Magnanimous as the fair soul of your ladyship is, and plaited
with superabundanCe of Spartan fortitude, I felicitate my own
good fortune who can circle this epistle with branches of the
gentle olive, as well as crown it with victorious laurel. This
pompous paragraph, Madam, which in compliment to my Lady
Lyttelton I have penned in the style of her lord, means no more,
them that I wish you joy of the castle of Waldeck,(237) and more
joy on the peace,
which I find every body thinks is concluded. In truth, I have
still my doubts; and yesterday came news, which, if my Lord Bute
does not make haste, may throw a little rub in the way. In
short, the Czar is dethroned. Some give the honour to his wife;
others, who add the little circumstance of his being murdered
too, ascribe the revolution to the Archbishop of Novogorod, who,
like other priests, thinks assassination a less affront to Heaven
than three Lutheran churches. I hope the latter is the truth;
because, in the honeymoonhood of Lady Cecilia's tenderness, I
don't know but she might miscarry at the thought of a wife
preferring a crown, and scandal says a regiment of grenadiers, to
her husband.
I have a little meaning in naming Lady Lyttelton and Lady
Cecilia, who I think are at Park-place. Was not there a promise
that you all three would meet Mr. Churchill and Lady Mary here in
the beginning of August! Yes, indeed was there, and I put in my
claim. Not confining your heroic and musical ladyships to a day
or a week; my time is at your command: and I wish the rain was at
mine; for, if you or it do not come soon, I shall not have a leaf
left. Strawberry is browner than Lady Bell Finch.
I was grieved, Madam, to miss seeing you in town on Monday,
particularly as I wished to settle this party. If you will let
me know when it will be your pleasure, I will write to my sister.
(237) At the taking of which Mr. Conway had assisted.
Letter 130 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, August 5, 1762. (page 187)
My dear lord,
As you have correspondents of better authority in town, I don't
pretend to send you great events, and I know no small ones.
Nobody talks of any thing under a revolution. That in Russia
alarms me,.lest Lady Mary should fall in love with the Czarina,
who has deposed her Lord Coke, and set out for Petersburgh. We
throw away a whole summer in writing Britons and North Britons;
the Russians change sovereigns faster than Mr. Wilkes can choose
a motto for a paper. What years were spent here in controversy
on the abdication of King James, and the legitimacy of the
Pretender! Commend me to the Czarina. They doubted, that is,
her husband did, whether her children were of genuine
blood-royal. She appealed to the Preobazinski guards, excellent
casuists; and, to prove Duke Paul heir to the crown, assumed it
herself. The proof was compendious and unanswerable.
I trust you know that Mr. Conway has made a figure by taking the
castle of Waldeck. There has been another action to Prince
Ferdinand's advantage, but no English were engaged.
You tantalize me by talking of the verdure of Yorkshire; we have
not had a teacupfull of rain till to-day for these six weeks.
Corn has been reaped that never wet its lips; not a blade of
grass; the leaves yellow and falling as in the end of October.
In short, Twickenham is rueful; I don't believe Westphalia looks
more barren. Nay, we are forced to fortify ourselves too.
Hanworth was broken open last night, though the family was all
there. Lord Vere lost a silver standish, an old watch, and his
writing-box with fifty pounds in it. They broke it open in the
park, but missed a diamond ring which was found, and the
telescope, which by the weight of the case they had fancied full
of money. Another house in the middle of Sunbury has had the
same fate. I am mounting cannon on my
battlements.
Your chateau, I hope, proceeds faster than mine. The carpenters
are all associated for increase of wages; I have had but two men
at work these five weeks. You know, to be sure, that Lady Mary
Wortley cannot live. Adieu, my dear Lord!
Letter 131 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, August 5, 1762. (page 188)
Sir,
As I had been dilatory in accepting your kind offer of coming
hither, I proposed it as soon as I returned. As we are so burnt,
and as my workmen have disappointed me, I am not quite sorry that
I had not the pleasure of seeing you this week. Next week I am
obliged to be in town on business. If you please, therefore, we
will postpone our meeting till the first of September; by which
time, I flatter myself we shall be green, and I shall be able to
show you my additional apartment to more advantage. Unless you
forbid me, I shall expect you, Sir, the very beginning of next
month. In the mean time, I will only thank you for the obliging
and curious notes you have sent me, which will make a great
figure in my second edition.
Letter 132 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, August 10, 1762. (page 189)
I have received your letter from Greatworth since your return,
but I do not find that you have got one, which I sent you to the
Vine, enclosing one directed for you: Mr. Chute says you did
mention hearing from me there. I left your button too in town
with old Richard to be transmitted to you. Our drought
continues, though we have had one handsome storm. I have been
reading the story of Phaeton in the Metamorphoses; it is a
picture of Twickenham. Ardet
Athos, taurusque Cilix, etc.; Mount Richmond burns, parched is
Petersham: Parnassusque biceps, dry is Pope's grot, the nymphs of
Clievden are burning to blackmoors, their faces are already as
glowing as a cinder, Cycnus is changed into a swan: quodque suo
Tagus amne vehit, fluit ignibus aurum; my gold fishes are almost
molten. Yet this conflagration is nothing to that in Russia;
what do you say to a czarina mounting her horse, and marching at
the head of fourteen thousand men, with a large train of
artillery, to dethrone her husband? Yet she is not the only
virago in that country; the conspiracy was conducted by the
sister of the Czar's mistress, a heroine under twenty! They have
no fewer than two czars now in coops-that is, supposing these
gentle damsels have murdered neither of them. Turkey Will become
a moderate government; one must travel to frozen climates if one
chooses to see revolutions in perfection. Here's room for
meditation even to madness:" the deposed Emperor possessed
Muscovy, was heir to Sweden, and the true heir of Denmark; all
the northern crowns centered in his person; one hopes he is in a
dungeon, that is, one hopes he is not assassinated. You cannot
crowd more matter into a lecture of morality, than is
comprehended in those few words. This is the fourth czarina that
you and I have seen: to be sure, as historians, we have not
passed our time ill. Mrs. Anne Pitt, who, I suspect, envies the
heroine of twenty a little, says, "The Czarina has only robbed
Peter to pay Paul;" and I do not believe that her brother, Mr.
William Pitt, feels very happy, that he cannot immediately
despatch a squadron to the Baltic to reinstate the friend of' the
King of Prussia. I cannot afford to live less than fifty years
more; for so long, I suppose, at least, it will be before the
court of Petersburgh will cease to produce amusing scenes. Think
of old Count Biren, former master of that empire, returning to
Siberia, and bowing to Bestucheff, whom he may meet on the road
from thence. I interest myself now about nothing but Russia;
Lord Bute must be sent to the Orcades before I shall ask a
question in English politics; at least I shall expect that Mr.
Pitt, at the head of the Preobazinski guards, will seize the
person of the prime minister for giving up our conquests to the
chief enemy of this nation.
My pen is in such a sublime humour, that it can scarce condescend
to tell you that Sir Edward Deering is going to marry Polly Hart,
Danvers's old mistress; and three more baronets, whose names
nobody knows, but Collins, are treading in the same steps.
My compliments to the House of' Montagu-upon my word I
congratulate the General and you, and your viceroy, that you
escaped being deposed by the primate of Novogorod.
Letter 133 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, August 19, 1762. (page 190)
Sir,
I am very sensible of the obligations I have to you and Mr.
Masters, and ought to make separate acknowledgments to both; but,
not knowing how to direct to him, I must hope that you will
kindly be once more the channel of our correspondence; and that
you will be so good as to convey to him an answer to what you
communicated from him to me, and in particular my thanks for the
most obliging offer he has made me of a picture of Henry VII.; of
which I will by no means rob him. My view in publishing the
Anecdotes was, to assist gentlemen in discovering the hands of
pictures they possess: and I am sufficiently rewarded when that
purpose is answered. If there is another edition, the mistake in
the calculation of the tapestry shall be rectified, and any
others, which any gentleman will be so good as to point out.
With regard to the monument of Sir Nathaniel Bacon, Vertue
certainly describes it as at Culford; and in looking Into the
place to which I am referred, in Mr. Master's History of Corpus
Christi College, I think he himself allows in the note, that
there is such a monument at Culford. Of Sir Balthazar Gerber
there are several different prints. Nich. Lanicre purchasing
pictures at the King's sale, is undoubtedly a mistake for one of
his brothers--I cannot tell now whether Vertue's mistake or my
own. At Longleafe is a whole-length of Frances Duchess of
Richmond, exactly such as Mr. Masters describes, but in
oil. I have another whole-length of the same duchess, I believe
by Mytins, but younger than that at Longleafe. But the best
picture of her is in Wilson's life of King James, and very
diverting indeed. I Will not trouble you, Sir, or Mr. Masters,
with any more at present; but, repeating my thanks to both, will
assure you that I am, etc.
Letter 134 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 9, 1762. (page 191)
Nondurn laurus erat, longoque decentia crine
Tempera cingebat de qualibet arbore Phoebus.(238)
This is a hint to you, that Phoebus, who was certainly your
superior, could take up with a chestnut garland, or any crown he
found, you must have the humility to be content without laurels,
when none are to be had: you have hurried far and near for them,
and taken true pains to the last in that old nursery-garden
Germany, and by the way have made me shudder with your last
journal: but you must be easy with qu`alibet other arbore; you
must come home to your own plantations. The Duke of Bedford is
gone in a fury to make peace, for he cannot be even pacific with
temper; and by this time I suppose the Duke de Nivernois is
unpacking his portion of olive dans la rue de Suffolk-street. I
say, I suppose- -for I do not, like my friends at Arthur's, whip
into my postchaise to see every novelty. My two sovereigns, the
Duchess of Grafton and Lady Mary Coke, are arrived, and yet I
have seen neither Polly nor Lucy. The former, I hear, is
entirely French; the latter as absolutely English.
Well! but if you insist on not doffing your cuirass, you may find
an opportunity of wearing it. The storm thickens. The city of
London are ready to hoist their standard; treason is the bon-ton
at that end of the town; seditious papers pasted up at every
corner: nay, my neighbourhood is not unfashionable; we have had
them at Brentford and Kingston. The Peace is the cry; but to
make weight, they throw in all the abusive ingredients they can
collect. They talk of your friend the Duke of Devonshire's
resigning; and, for the Duke of Newcastle, it puts him so much in
mind of the end of Queen Anne's time, that I believe he hopes to
be minister again for another forty years.
In the mean time. there are but dark news from the Havannah; the
Gazette, who would not fib for the world, says, we have lost but
four officers; the World, who is not quite so scrupulous, says,
our loss is heavy. But whit shocking notice to those who have
Harry Conways there! The Gazette breaks off with saying, that
they were to storm the next day! Upon the whole, it is regarded
as a preparative to worse news.
Our next monarch was christened last night, George Augustus
Frederick; the Princess, the Duke of Cumberland, and the Duke of
Mecklenburgh, sponsors,; the ceremony performed by the Bishop of
London. The Queen's bed, magnificent, and they say in taste, was
placed in the great drawing-room: though she is not to see
company in form, yet it looks as if they had intended people
should have been there, as all who presented themselves were
admitted, which were very few, for it had not been notified; I
suppose to prevent too great a crowd: all I have heard named,
besides those in waiting, were the Duchess of Queensbury, Lady
Dalkeith, Mrs. Grenville, and about four more ladies.
My Lady Ailesbury is abominable: she settled a party to come
hither, and Put it off a month; and now she has been here and
seen my cabinet, she ought to tell you what good reason I had not
to stir. If she has not told you that it is the finest, the
prettiest, the newest and the oldest thing in the world, I will
not go to Park-place on the 20th, as I have promised. Oh! but
tremble you may for me, though you will not for yourself--all my
glories were on the point of vanishing last night in a flame!
The chimney of the new gallery, which chimney is full of
deal-boards, and which gallery is full of shavings was on fire at
eight o'clock. Harry had quarrelled with the other servants, and
would not sit in the
kitchen; and to keep up his anger, had lighted a vast fire in the
servants' hall, which is under the gallery. The chimney took
fire; and if Margaret had not smelt it with the first nose that
ever a servant had, a quarter of an hour had set us in a blaze.
I hope you are frightened out of your senses for me: if you are
not, I will never live in a panic for three or four years for you
again.
I have had Lord March and the Rena(239) here for One night, which
does not raise my reputation in the neighbourhood, and may usher
me again for a Scotchman into the North Briton.(240) I have had
too a letter from a German that I never saw, who tells me, that,
hearing by chance how well I am with my Lord Bute, he desires me
to get him a place. The North Briton first recommended me for an
employment, and has now given me interest -.it the backstairs.
It is a notion, that whatever is said of one, has generally some
kind of foundation: surely I am a contradiction to this maxim!
yet, was I of consequence enough to be remembered, perhaps
posterity would believe that I was a flatterer! Good night! Yours
ever.
(238) "The laurel was not yet for triumphs born,
But every green, alike by Phoebus worn,
Did, with promiscuous grace, his flowing locks adorn." Garth.-E.
(239) A fashionable courtesan.
(240) The favourable opinion given by Mr. Walpole of the
abilities of the Scotch in the Royal and Noble Authors, first
drew upon him the notice of the North Briton. ("The Scotch are
the most accomplished nation in Europe; the nation to which, if
any one country is endowed with a superior partition of sense, I
should be inclined to give the preference in that particular."]
Letter 135 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 24, 1762. (page 192)
I was disappointed at not seeing you, as you had given me hopes,
but shall he glad to meet the General, as I think I shall, for I
go to town on Monday to restore the furniture of my house, which
has been painted; and to stop the gaps as well as I can, which I
have made by bringing away every thing hither; but as long as
there are auctions, and I have money or hoards, those wounds soon
close.
I can tell you nothing of your dame Montagu and her arms; but I
dare to swear Mr. Chute can. I did not doubt but you would
approve Mr. Bateman's, since it has changed its religion; I
converted it from Chinese to Gothic. His cloister of founders,
which by the way is Mr. Bentley's, is delightful; I envy him his
old chairs, and the tomb of Bishop Caducanus; but I do not agree
with you in preferring the Duke's to Stowe. The first is in a
greater style, I grant, but one always perceives the mesalliance,
the blood of Bagshot-heath will never let it be green, If Stowe
had but half so many buildings as it has, there would be too
many; but that profusion that glut enriches, and makes it look
like a fine landscape of Albano; one figures oneself in Tempe or
Daphne. I never saw St. Leonard's-hill; would you spoke
seriously of buying it! one could stretch out the arm from one's
postchaise, and reach you when one would.
I am here all in ignorance and rain, and have seen nobody these
two days since I returned from Park-place. I do not know whether
the mob hissed my Lord Bute at his installation,(241) as they
intended, or whether my lord Talbot drubbed them for it. I know
nothing of the peace, nor of the Havannah; but I could tell you
much of old English engravers, whose lives occupy me at present.
On Sunday I am to dine with your prime minister Hamilton; for
though I do not seek the world, and am best pleased when quiet
here, I do not refuse its invitations, whet) it does not press
one to pass above a few hours with it. I have no quarrel to it,
when it comes not to me, nor asks me to lie from home. That
favour is only granted to the elect, to Greatworth, and a very
few more spots. Adieu!
(241) The ceremony of the installation of
Prince William and Lord Bute, as knights of the garter, took
place at Windsor on the 22d of September.-E.
Letter 136 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 28, 1762. (page 193)
To my sorrow and your wicked joy, it is a doubt whether Monsieur
de Nivernois will shut the temple of Janus. We do not believe
him quite so much in earnest as the dove(242) we have sent, who
has summoned his turtle to Paris. She sets out the day after
to-morrow, escorted, to add gravity to the embassy, by George
Selwyn. The stocks don't mind this journey of a rush, but draw
in their horns every day. We can learn nothing of the Havannah,
though the axis of which the whole treaty turns. We believe, for
we have never seen them, that the last letters thence brought
accounts of great loss, especially by the sickness. Colonel
Burgoyne(243) has given a little fillip to the Spaniards, and
shown them, that though they can take Portugal from the
Portuguese, it will not be entirely so easy to wrest it from the
English. Lord Pulteney,(244) and my nephew,(245) Lady
Waldegrave's brother, distinguished themselves. I hope your
hereditary Prince is recovering of the wounds in his loins; for
they say he is to marry Princess Augusta.
Lady Ailesbury has told you, to be sure, that I have been at Park
place. Every thing there is in beauty; and, I should think,
pleasanter than a campaign in Germany. Your Countess is
handsomer than Fame; your daughter improving every day; your
plantations more thriving than the poor woods about Marburg and
Cassel. Chinese pheasants swarm there. For Lady Cecilia
Johnston, I assure you, she sits close upon her egg, and it will
not be her fault if she does not hatch a hero. We missed all the
glories of the installation, and all the faults, and all the
frowning faces there. Not a knight was absent but the lame and
the deaf.
Your brother, Lady Hertford, and Lord Beauchamp, are gone from
Windsor into Suffolk. Henry,(246) who has the genuine
indifference of a Harry Conway, would not stir from Oxford for
those pageants. Lord Beauchamp showed me a couple of his
letters, which have more natural humour and cleverness than is
conceivable. They have the ease and drollery of a man of parts
who has lived long in the world--and he is scarce seventeen!
I am going to Lord Waldegrave's for a few days, and, when your
Countess returns from Goodwood, am to meet her at Churchill's.
Lord Strafford, who has been terribly alarmed about my lady,
mentions, with great pleasure, the letters he receives from you.
His neighbour and cousin, Lord Rockingham, I hear, is one of the
warmest declaimers at Arthur's against the present system. Abuse
continues in much plenty, but I have seen none that I thought had
wit enough to bear the sea. Good night. There are satiric
prints enough to tapestry Westminster-hall.
Stay a moment: I recollect telling you a lie in my last, which,
though of no consequence, I must correct. The right reverend
midwife, Thomas Secker, archbishop, did christen the babe, and
not the Bishop of London, as I had been told by matron authority.
Apropos to babes: have you read Rousseau on Education? I almost
got through a volume at Park-place, though impatiently; it has
mor(-tautology than any of his works, and less eloquence. Sure
he has writ more sense and more nonsense than ever any man did of
both! All I have yet learned from this work is, that one should
have a tutor for one's son to teach him to have no ideas, in
order that he may begin to learn his alphabet as he loses his
maidenhead.
Thursday noon, 30th.
lo Havannah! Lo Albemarle! I had sealed my letter, and given it
to Harry for the post, when my Lady Suffolk sent me a short note
from Charles Townshend, to say the Havannah surrendered on the
12th of August, and that we have taken twelve ships of the line
in the harbour. The news came late last night. I do not know a
particular more. God grant no more blood be shed! I have hopes
again of the peace. My dearest Harry, now we have preserved you
to the last moment, do take care of yourself. When one has a
whole war to wade through, it is not worth while to be careful in
any one battle; but it is silly to fling one's self away in the
last. Your character is established; Prince Ferdinand's letters
are full of encomiums on you; but what will weigh more with you,
save yourself for another war, which I doubt you will live to
see, and in which you may be superior commander, and have space
to display your talents. A second in service is never
remembered, whether the honour of the victory be owing to him -.
or be killed. Turenne would have a very short paragraph, if the
Prince of Cond`e had been general when he fell. Adieu!
(242) The Duke of Bedford, then ambassador at Paris.
(243) Colonel, afterwards General Burgoyne, with the Compte de
Lippe, commanded the British troops sent to the relief of
Portugal.
(244) Only son of William Pulteney, Earl of Bath. He died before
his father.
(245) Edward, only son of sir Edward Walpole. He died in 1771.
(246) ,Henry Seymour Conway, second son of Francis, Earl and
afterwards Marquis of Hertford.
Letter 137 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 30, 1762. (page 195)
It gives me great satisfaction that Strawberry Hill pleased you
enough to make it a second visit. I could name the time
instantly, but you threaten me with coming so loaded with
presents, that it will look mercenary, not friendly, to accept
your visit. If your chaise is empty, to be sure I shall rejoice
to hear it at my gate about the 22d of this next month: if it is
crammed, though I have built a convent, I have not SO much of the
monk in me as not to blush-nor can content myself with praying to
our Lady of Strawberries to reward you.
I am greatly obliged to you for the accounts from Gothurst. What
treasures there are still in private seats, if one knew where to
hunt them! The emblematic picture of Lady Digby is like that at
Windsor, and the fine small one at Mr. Skinner's. I should be
curious to see the portrait of Sir Kenelm's father; was not he
the remarkable Everard Digby?(247) How singular too is the
picture of young Joseph and Madam Potiphar! His Mujora--one has
heard of Josephs that did not find the lady's purse any
hinderance to Majora.
You are exceedingly obliging, in offering to make an index to my
prints, Sir; but that would be a sad way of entertaining you. I
am antiquary and virtuoso enough myself not to dislike such
employment, but could never think it charming enough to trouble
any body else with. Whenever you do me the favour of coming
hither, you will find yourself entirely at liberty to choose your
own amusements--if you choose a bad one, and in truth there is
not very good, you must blame yourself, while you know I hope
that it would be my wish that you did not repent your favours to,
Sir, etc.
(247) Executed in 1605, as a conspirator in the Gunpowder
Plot.-E.
Letter 138 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 1, 1762. (page 196)
Madam,
I hope you are as free from any complaint, as I am sure you are
full of joy. Nobody partakes more of your satisfaction for Mr.
Hervey's(248) safe return; and now he is safe, I trust you enjoy
his glory: for this is a wicked age; you are one of those
un-Lacedaemonian mothers, that are not content unless your
children come off with all their limbs. A Spartan countess would
not have had the confidence of my Lady Albemarle to appear in the
drawing-room without at least one of her sons being knocked on
the head.(249) However, pray, Madam, make my compliments to her;
one must conform to the times, and congratulate people for being
happy, if they like it. I know one matron, however, with whom I
may condole; who, I dare swear, is miserable that she has not one
of her acquaintance in affliction, and to whose door she might
drive with all her sympathizing greyhounds to inquire after her,
and then to Hawkins's, and then to Graham's, and then cry over a
ball of rags that she is picking, and be sorry for poor Mrs.
Such-a-one, who has lost an only son!
When your ladyship has hung up all your trophies, I will come and
make you a visit. There is another ingredient I hope not quite
disagreeable that Mr. Hervey has brought with him,
un-Lacedaemonian too, but admitted among the other vices of our
system. If besides glory and riches they have brought us peace,
I will make a bonfire myself, though it should be in the
mayoralty of that virtuous citizen Mr. Beckford. Adieu, Madam!
(248) General William Hervey, youngest son of Lady Hervey; who
had just returned from the Havannah.
(249) Lady Anne Lenox, Countess of Albemarle, had three sons
present at the taking of the Havannah. The eldest, Lord
Albemarle, commanded the land forces; the second, afterwards Lord
Keppel, was then captain of a man of war; and the third was
colonel of a regiment.
Letter 139 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, Oct. 4, 1762. (page 196)
I am concerned to hear you have been so much out of order, but
should rejoice your sole command(250) disappointed you, if this
late cannonading business(251) did not destroy all my little
prospects. Can one believe the French negotiators are sincere,
when their marshals are so false? What vexes me more is to hear
you seriously tell your brother that you are always unlucky, and
lose all opportunities of fighting. How can you be such a child?
You cannot, like a German, love fighting for its own sake. No:
you think of the mob of London, who, if you had taken Peru, would
forget you the first lord mayor's day, or for the first hyena
that comes to town. How can one build on virtue and on fame too?
When do they ever go together? In my passion, I could almost wish
you were as worthless and as great as the King of Prussia! If
conscience is a punishment, is not it a reward too? Go to that
silent tribunal, and be satisfied with its sentence.
I have nothing new to tell you. The Havannah is more likely to
break off the peace than to advance it.(252) We are not in a
humour to give up the world; anza, are much more disposed to
conquer the rest of it. We shall have some commanding here, I
believe, if we sign the peace. Mr. Pitt, from the bosom of his
retreat, has made Beckford mayor. The Duke of Newcastle, if not
taken in again, will probably end his life as he began it-at the
head of a mob. Personalities and abuse, public and private,
increase to the most outrageous degree, and yet the town is at
the emptiest. You may guess what will be the case in a month. I
do not see at all into the storm: I do not mean that there will
not be a great majority to vote any thing; but there are times
when even majorities cannot do all they are ready to do. Lord
Bute has certainly great luck, which is something in politics,
whatever it is in logic: but whether peace or war, I would not
give him much for the place he will have this day twelvemonth.
Adieu! The watchman goes past one in the morning; and as I have
nothing better than reflections and conjectures to send YOU, I
may as well go to bed.
(250) During Lord Granby's absence from the army in Flanders, the
command in chief had devolved on Mr. Conway.
(251) The affair of Bucker-Muhl.
(252) On this subject, Sir Joseph Yorke, in a letter to Mr.
Michell of the 9th of October, Observes, "All the world is struck
with the noble capture of the Havannah, which fell into our hands
on the Prince of Wales's birthday, as a just punishment upon the
Spaniards for their unjust quarrel with us, and for the supposed
difficulties they have raised in the negotiation for peace. By
what I hear from Paris, my old acquaintance Grimaldi is the cause
of the delay in signing the preliminaries, insisting upon points
neither France nor England would ever consent to grant, such as
the liberty of fishing at Newfoundland; a point we should not
dare to yield, as Mr. Pitt told them, though they were masters of
the Tower of London. What effect the taking of the Havannah will
have is uncertain; for the Spaniards have nothing to give us in
return."-E.
Letter 140 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Oct 14, 1762. (page 197)
You will not make your fortune in the admiralty at least; your
King's cousin is to cross over and figure in with George
Grenville; the latter takes the admiralty, Lord Halifax the
seals--still, I believe, reserving Ireland for pocket-money; at
least no new viceroy is named. mr. Fox undertakes the House of
Commons--and the peace--and the war--for if we have the first, we
may be pretty sure of the second.(253)
you see Lord Bute totters; reduced to shift hands so often, it
does not look like much stability. The campaign at Westminster
will be warm. When Mr. Pitt can have such a mouthful as Lord
Bute, Mr. Fox, and the peace, I do not think three thousand
pounds a year will stop it. Well, I shall go into my old corner
under the window, and laugh I had rather sit by my fire here; but
if there are to be bull-feasts, one would go and see them, when
one has a convenient box for nothing, and is very indifferent
about the cavalier combatants. Adieu!
(253) In a letter to Mr. Pitt, of this day's date, Mr. Nuthall
gives the ex-minister the following account of these changes:-
-"Mr. Fox kissed hands yesterday, as one of the cabinet; Lord
Halifax, as secretary of state, and Mr. George Grenville, as
first lord of the admiralty. Mr. Fox's present state of health,
it was given out, would not permit him to take the seals.
Charles Townshend was early yesterday morning sent for by Lord
Bute, who opened to him this new system, and offered him the
secretaryship of the plantations and board of trade, which he not
only refused, but refused all connexion and intercourse whatever
with the new counsellor, and spoke out freely. He was afterwards
three times in with the King, to whom be was more explicit, and
said things that did not a little alarm." Chatham Correspondence,
vol. ii. p. 181.-E.
Letter 141 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 29, 1762. (page 198)
You take my philosophy very kindly, as it was meant; but I
suppose you smile a little in your sleeve to hear me turn
moralist. Yet why should not I? Must every absurd young man
prove a foolish old one? Not that I intend, when the latter term
is quite arrived, to profess preaching; nor should, I believe,
have talked so gravely to you, if your situation had not made me
grave. Till the campaign is ended, I shall be in no humour to
smile. For the war, when it will be over, I have no idea. The
peace is a jack o' lanthorn that dances before one's eyes, is
never approached, and at best seems ready to lead some follies
into a woful quagmire.
As your brother was in town, and I had my intelligence from him,
I concluded you would have the same, and therefore did not tell
you of this last resolution, which has brought Mr. Fox again upon
the scene. I have been in town but once since; yet learned
enough to confirm the opinion I had conceived, that the building
totters, and that this last buttress will but push on its fall.
Besides the clamorous opposition already encamped, the world
talks of another, composed of names not so often found in a
mutiny. What think you of the great Duke,(254) and the little
Duke,(255) and the old Duke,(256) and the Derbyshire Duke,(257)
banded together against the favourite?(258) If so, it proves the
Court, as the late Lord G * * * wrote to the mayor of Litchfield,
will have a majority in every thing but numbers. However, my
letter is a week old before I write it: things may have changed
since last Tuesday. Then the prospect was des plus gloomy.
Portugal at the eve of being conquered--Spain preferring a diadem
to the mural crown of the Havannah--a squadron taking horse for
Naples, to see whether King Carlos has any more private bowels
than public, whether he is a better father than brother. If what
I heard yesterday be true, that the Parliament is to be put off
till the 24th, it does not look as if they were ready in the
green-room, and despised catcalls.
You bid me send you the flower of brimstone, the best things
published in this season of outrage. I should not have waited
for orders, if I had met with the least tolerable morsel. But
this opposition ran stark mad at once, cursed, swore, called
names, and has not been one minute cool enough to have a grain of
wit. Their prints are gross, their papers scurrilous: indeed the
authors abuse one another more than any body else. I have not
seen a single ballad or epigram. They are as seriously dull as
if the controversy was religious. I do not take in a paper of
either side; and being very indifferent, the only way of being
impartial, they shall not make me pay till they make me laugh. I
am here quite' alone, and shall stay a fortnight longer, unless
the Parliament prorogued lengthens my holidays. I do not pretend
to be so indifferent, to have so little curiosity, as not to go
and see the Duke of Newcastle frightened for his country--the
only thing that never yet gave him a panic. Then I am still such
a schoolboy, that though I could guess half their orations, and
know all their meaning, I must go and hear Caesar and Pompey
scold in the Temple of Concord. As this age is to make such a
figure hereafter, how the Gronoviuses and Warburtons would
despise a senator that deserted the forum when the masters of the
world harangued! For, as this age is to be historic, so of
course it will be a standard of virtue too; and we, like our
wicked predecessors the Romans, shall be quoted, till our very
ghosts blush, as models of patriotism and magnanimity. What
lectures will be read to poor children on this era! Europe taught
to tremble, the great King humbled, the treasures of Peru
diverted into the Thames, Asia subdued by the gigantic Clive! for
in that age men were near seven feet high; France suing for peace
at the gates of Buckingham-house, the steady wisdom of the Duke
of Bedford drawing a circle round the Gallic monarch, and
forbidding him to pass it till he had signed the cession of
America; Pitt more eloquent than Demosthenes, and trampling on
proffered pensions like-I don't know who; Lord Temple sacrificing
a brother to the love of his country; Wilkes as spotless as
Sallust, and the Flamen Churchill(259) knocking down the foes of
Britain with statues of the gods!-Oh! I am out of breath with
eloquence and prophecy, and truth and lies; my narrow chest was
not formed to hold inspiration! I must return to piddling with
my painters: those lofty subjects are too much for me. Good
night!
P. S. I forgot to tell -you that Gideon, who is dead worth more
than the whole land of canaan, has left the reversion of all his
milk and honey, after his son and daughter and their children, to
the Duke of Devonshire, without insisting on his taking the name,
or even being circumcised. Lord Albemarle is expected home in
December. My nephew Keppel(260) is Bishop of Exeter, not of the
Havannah, as you may imagine, for his mitre was promised the day
before the news came.
(254) Of Cumberland.
(255) Of Bedford.
(256) Of Newcastle.
(257) Of Devonshire.
(258) The Earl of Bute.
(259) Charles Churchill the poet.
(260) Frederick Keppel, youngest brother of George Earl of
Albemarle, who commanded at taking the Havannah, had married
Laura, eldest daughter of Sir Edward Walpole.
Letter 142 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 31, 1762. (page 200)
Madam,
It is too late, I fear, to attempt acknowledging the honour
Madame de Chabot,(261) does me; and yet, if she is not gone, I
would fain not appear ungrateful. I do not know where she lives,
or I would not take the liberty again of making your ladyship my
penny-post. If she is gone, you will throw my note into the
fire.
Pray, Madam, blow your nose with a piece of flannel-not that I
believe it will do you the least good--but, as all wise folks
think it becomes them to recommend nursing and flannelling the
gout, imitate them; and I don't know any other way of lapping it
up, when it appears in the person of a running cold. I will make
it a visit on Tuesday next, and shall hope to find it tolerably
vented.
P. S. You must tell me all the news when I arrive, for I know
nothing of what is passing. I have only seen in the papers, that
the cock and hen doves(262) that went to Paris not having been
able to make peace, there is a third dove(263) just flown thither
to help them.
(261) Lady Mary Chabot, daughter of the Earl of Stafford.
(262) The Duke and Duchess of Bedford.
(263) Mr. Hans Stanley.
letter 143 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Thursday, Nov. 4, 1762. (page 200)
The events of these last eight days will make you stare. This
day se'nnight the Duke of Devonshire came to town, was flatly
refused an audience, and gave up his key. Yesterday Lord
Rockingham resigned, and your cousin Manchester was named to the
bedchamber. The King then in council called for the book, and
dashed out the Duke of Devonshire's name. If you like spirit, en
Voila! Do you know I am sorry for all this? You will not
suspect me of tenderness for his grace of Devonshire, nor,
recollecting how the whole house of Cavendish treated me on my
breach with my uncle, will any affronts, that happen to them,
call forth my tears. But I think the act too violent and too
serious, and dipped in a deeper dye than I like in politics.
Squabbles, and speeches, and virtue, and prostitution, amuse one
sometimes; less and less indeed every day; but measures, from
which you must advance and cannot retreat, is a game too deep;
one neither knows who may be involved, nor where may be the end.
It is not pleasant. Adieu!
Letter 144 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 13, 1762. (page 201)
Dear sir,
You will easily guess that my delay in answering your obliging
letter, was solely owing to my not knowing whither to direct to
you. I waited till I thought you may be returned home. Thank
you for all the trouble you have given, and do give yourself for
me; it is vastly more than I deserve.
Duke Richard's portrait I willingly wave, at least for the
present, till one can find out who he is. I have more curiosity
about the figures of Henry VII. at Christ's College. I shall be
glad some time or other to visit them, to see how far either of
them agree with his portrait in my picture of his marriage. St.
Ethelreda was mighty welcome.
We have had variety of weather since I saw you, but I fear none
of the patterns made your journey more agreeable.
Letter 145 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 20, 1762. (page 201)
As I am far from having been better since I wrote to you last, my
postchaise points more and more to Naples. Yet Strawberry, like
a mistress, As oft as I descend the hill of health, Washes my
hold away. Your company would have made me decide much faster,
but I see I have little hopes of that, nor can I blame you; I
don't use so rough a word with regard to myself, but to your
pursuing your amusement, which I am sure the journey Would be. I
never doubted your kindness to me one moment; the affectionate
manner in which you offered, three weeks ago, to accompany me to
Bath, Will never be forgotten. I do not think my complaint very
serious: for how can it be so, when it has never confined me a
whole day? But my mornings are so bad, and I have had so much
more pain this last week, with restless nights, that I am
convinced it must not be trifled with. Yet I think Italy would
be the last thing I would try, if it were 'not to avoid politics:
yet I hear nothing else. The court and opposition both grow more
violent every day from the same cause; the victory of the former.
Both sides torment me with their affairs, though it is so plain I
do not care a straw about either. I wish I -were great enough to
say, as a French officer on the stage at Paris said to the pit,
"Accordez vous, canaille!" Yet to a man without ambition or
interestedness, politicians are canaille. Nothing appears to me
more ridiculous in my life than my having ever loved their
squabbles, and that at an age when I loved better things too! My
poor neutrality, which thing I signed with all the world,
subjects me, like other insignificant monarchs on parallel
occasions, to affronts. On Thursday I was summoned to Princess
Emily's loo. Loo she called it, politics it was. The second
thing she said to me was, "How were you the two long days?"
"Madam, I was only there the first." "And how did you vote!"
"Madam, I went away." "Upon my word, that was carving well."
Not a very pleasant apostrophe to one who certainly never was a
time-server! Well, we sat down. She said, "I hear Wilkinson is
turned out, and that Sir Edward Winnington is to have his place;
who is he?" addressing herself to me, who sat over against her.
"He is the late Mr. Winnington's heir, Madam." "Did you like
that Winnington?" "I can't but say I did, Madam." She shrugged
her shoulders, and continued; "Winnington originally was a great
Tory; what do you think he was when he died?" "Madam, I believe
what all people are in place." Pray, Mr. Montagu, do you
perceive any thing rude or offensive in this? Hear then: she
flew into the most outrageous passion, Coloured like scarlet, and
said, "None of your wit; I don't understand joking on those
subjects; what do you think your father would have said if he had
heard you say so? He Would have murdered you, and you would have
deserved it." I was quite Confounded and amazed; it was
impossible to explain myself across a loo-table, as she is so
deaf: there was no making a reply to a woman and a Princess, and
particularly for me, who have made it a rule, when I must
converse with royalties, to treat them with the greatest respect,
since it is all the court they will ever have from me. I said to
those on each side of me, "What can I do? I cannot explain
myself now." Well, I held my peace, and so did she for a quarter
of an hour. Then she began with me again, examined me on the
whole debate, and at last asked me directly, which I thought the
best speaker, my father or Mr. Pitt. If possible, this was more
distressing than her anger. I replied, it was impossible to
compare two men so different: that I believed my father was more
a man of business than Mr. Pitt. "Well, but Mr. Pitt's
language?" "Madam," said I, "I have always been remarkable for
admiring Mr. Pitt's language." At last, this unpleasant scene
ended; but as we were going away, I went close to her, and said,
"Madam, I must beg leave to explain myself; your royal highness
has seemed to be very angry with me, and I am sure I did not mean
to offend you: all I intended to say was, that I supposed Tories
were Whigs when they got places!" "Oh!" said she, "I am very
much obliged to you; indeed, I was very angry." Why she was
angry, or what she thought I meaned, I do not know to this
moment, unless she supposed that I would have hinted that the
Duke of Newcastle and the opposition were not men of consummate
virtue, and had lost their places out of principle. The very
reverse was at that time in my head; for I meaned that the Tories
would be just as loyal as the Whigs, when they got any thing by
it.
You will laugh at my distresses, and in truth they are little
serious yet they almost put me out of humour. If your cousin
realizes his fair words to you, I shall be very good-humoured
again. I am not so morose as to dislike my friends for being in
place; indeed, if they are in great place, my friendship goes to
sleep like a paroli at pharaoh, and does not wake again till
their deal is over. Good night!
Letter 146 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, Dec. 23, 1762. (page 203)
Dear sir,
You are always abundantly kind to me, and pass my power of
thanking you. You do nothing but give yourself trouble and me
presents. My cousin Calthorpe is a great rarity, and I think I
ought, therefore, to return him to you; but that would not be
treating him like a relation, or you like a
friend. My ancestor's epitaph, too, was very agreeable to me.
I have not been at Strawberry Hill these three weeks. My maid is
ill there, and I have not been well myself with the same flying
gout in my stomach and breast, of which you heard me complain a
little in the summer. I am much persuaded to go to a warmer
climate, which often disperses these unsettled complaints. I do
not care for it, nor can determine till I see I grow worse: if I
do (To, I hope it will not be for long; and you shall certainly
hear again before I set out.
Letter 147
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Feb. 28, 1763. (page 203)
Your letter of the 19th seems to postpone your arrival rather
than advance it; yet Lady Ailesbury tells me that to her you
talk of being here in ten days. I wish devoutly to see you,
though I am not departing myself; but I am impatient to have
your disagreeable function(264) at an end, and to know that YOU
enjoy Yourself after such fatigues, dangers, and ill-requited
services. For any public satisfaction you will receive in
being at home, you must not expect much. Your mind was not
formed to float on the surface of a mercenary world. My prayer
(and my belief) is, that you may always prefer what you always
have preferred, your integrity to success. You will then
laugh, as I do, at the attacks and malice of faction or
ministers. I taste of both; but, as my health is recovered,
and My Mind does not reproach me, they will perhaps only give
me an opportunity, which I should never have sought, of proving
that I have some virtue--and it will not be proved in the way
they probably expect. I have better evidence than by hanging
out the tattered ensigns of patriotism. But this and a
thousand other things I shall reserve for our meeting. Your
brother has pressed me much to go with him, if he goes, to
Paris.(265) I take it very kindly, but have excused myself,
though I have promised either to accompany him for a short time
at first, or to go to him if he should have any particular
occasion for me: but my resolution against ever appearing in
any public light is unalterable. When I wish to live less and
less in the world here, I cannot think of mounting a new stage
at Paris. At this moment I am alone here, while every body is
balloting in the House of Commons. Sir John Philips proposed a
commission of accounts, which has been converted into a select
committee of twenty-one, eligible by ballot. As the ministry
is not predominant in the affections of mankind, some of them
may find a jury elected that will not be quite so complaisant
as the House is in general when their votes are given openly.
As many may be glad of this opportunity, I shun it; for I
should scorn to do any thing in secret, though I have some
enemies that are not quite so generous.
You say you have seen the North Briton, in which I make a
capital figure. Wilkes, the author, I hear, says, that if he
had thought I should have taken it so well, he would have been
damned before he would have written it-but I am not sore where
I am not sore.
The theatre of Covent-garden has suffered more by riots than
even Drury-lane.(266) A footman of Lord Dacre has been hanged
for murdering the butler. George Selwyn had great hand in
bringing him to confess it. That Selwyn should be a capital
performer in a scene of that kind is not extraordinary: I tell
it you for the strange coolness which the young fellow, who was
but nineteen, expressed: as he was writing his confession, "I
murd--" he stopped, and asked, "how do you spell murdered?"
Mr. Fox is much better than at the beginning of the winter; and
both his health and power seem to promise a longer duration
than people expected. Indeed, I think the latter is so
established, that poor Lord Bute would find it more difficult
to remove him, than he did his predecessors, and may even feel
the effects of the weight he has made over to him; for it is
already obvious that Lord Bute's lev`ee is not the present path
to fortune. Permanence is not the complexion of these times--a
distressful circumstance to the votaries of a court, but
amusing to us spectators. Adieu!
(264) The re-embarkation of the British troops from Flanders
after the peace.
(265) An ambassador.
(266. In January, there was a riot at Drury-lane, in
consequence of the managers refusing admittance at the end of
the third act of a play for half-price; when the glass lustres
were broken and thrown upon the stage, the benches torn up, and
the performance put a stop to. The same scene was threatened
on the following evening, but was prevented by Garrick's
consenting to give admittance at half-price after the third
act, except during the first winter of a new pantomime. At
Covent-garden, the redress demanded having been acceded to, no
disturbance took place on that occasion; but a more serious
riot happened on the 24th of February, in consequence of a
demand for full prices at the opera of Artaxerxes. The
mischief done was estimated at not less than two thousand
pounds.-E.
Letter 148 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, March 29, 1763. (page 205)
Though you are a runaway, a fugitive, a thing without friendship
or feeling, though you grow tired of your acquaintance in half
the time you intended, I will not quite give you up: I will write
to you once a quarter, just to keep up a connexion that grace may
catch at, if it ever proposes to visit you. This is my plan, for
I have little or nothing to tell you. The ministers only cut one
another's throats instead of ours. They growl over their prey
like two curs over a bone, which neither can determine to quit;
and the whelps in opposition are not strong enough to beat either
way, though like the species, they will probably hunt the one
that shall be worsted. The saddest dog of all, Wilkes, shows
most spirit. The last North Briton is a masterpiece of mischief.
He has written a dedication too to an old play, the Fall of
Mortimer, that is wormwood; and he had the impudence t'other day
to ask Dyson if he was going to the treasury; "Because," said he,
"a friend of mine has dedicated a play to Lord Bute, and 'It is
usual to give dedicators something; I wish you would put his
lordship in mind of it." Lord and Lady Pembroke are reconciled,
and live again together.(267) Mr. Hunter would have taken his
daughter too, but upon condition she should give back her
settlement to Lord Pembroke and her child: she replied nobly,
that she did not trouble herself about fortune, and would
willingly depend on her father; but for her child, she had
nothing left to do but to take care of that, and would not part
with it; so she keeps both, and I suppose will soon have her
lover again too, for T'other sister(268) has been sitting to
Reynolds, who by her husband's direction has made a speaking
picture. Lord Bolingbroke said to him, "You must give the eyes
something of Nelly O'Brien, or it will not do." As he has given
Nelly something of his wife's, it was but fair to give her
something of Nelly's, and my lady will not throw away the
present!
I am going to Strawberry for a few days, pour faire mes piques.
The gallery advances rapidly. The ceiling is Harry the Seventh's
chapel in proprid persona; the canopies are all placed; I think
three months will quite complete it. - I have bought at Lord
Granville's sale the original picture of Charles Brandon and his
queen; and have to-day received from France a copy of Madame
Maintenon, which with my La Vali`ere, and copies of Madame
Grammont, and of the charming portrait of the Mazarine at the
Duke of St. Alban's, is to accompany Bianca Capello and Ninon
L'Enclos in the round tower. I hope now there will never be
another auction, for I have not an inch of space, or a farthing
left. As I have some remains of paper, I will fill it up with a
song that I made t'other day in the postchaise, after a
particular conversation that I had with Miss Pelham the night
before at the Duke of Richmond's.
THE ADVICE.
The business of women, dear Chloe, is pleasure,
And by love ev'ry fair one her minutes should measure.
"Oh! for love we're all ready," you cry.--very true;
Nor would I rob the gentle fond god of his due.
Unless in the sentiments Cupid has part,
And dips in the amorous transport his dart
'Tis tumult, disorder, 'tis loathing and hate;
Caprice gives it birth, and contempt is its fate.
"True passion insensibly leads to the joy,
And grateful esteem bids its pleasures ne'er cloy.
Yet here you should stop-but your whimsical sex
Such romantic ideas to passion annex,
That poor men, by your visions and jealousy worried,
To Dyinphs less ecstatic, but kinder, are hurried.
In your heart, I consent, let your wishes be bred;
Only take care your heart don't get into your head.
Adieu, till Midsummer-day!
(267) See ant`e, p. 175, Letter 117.-E.
(268) Lady Bolingbroke and the Countess of Pembroke were
sisters.-E.
Letter 149 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, April 6, 1763. (page 206)
You will pity my distress when I tell you that Lord Waldegrave
has got the smallpox, and a bad sort. This day se'nnight, in the
evening, I met him at Arthur's: he complained to me of the
headache, and a sickness in the stomach. I said, "My dear lord,
why don't you go home, and take James's powder you will be well
in the morning." He thanked me, said he was glad I had put him
in mind of it, and he would take my advice. I sent in the
morning; my niece said he had taken the powder, and that James
thought he had no fever, but that she found him very low. As he
had no fever, I had no apprehension. At eight o'clock on Friday
night, I was told abruptly at Arthur's, that Lord Waldegrave had
the small-pox. I was excessively shocked, not knowing if the
powder was good or bad for it. I went instantly to the house; at
the door I was met by a servant of Lady Ailesbury, sent to tell
me that Mr. Conway was arrived. These two opposite strokes of
terror and joy overcame me so much, that when I got to Mr.
Conway's I could not speak to him, but burst into a flood of
tears. The next morning, Lord Waldegrave hearing I was there,
desired to speak to me alone. I should tell you, that the moment
he knew it was the small-pox, he signed his will. This has been
the unvaried tenor of his behaviour, doing just what is wise and
necessary, and nothing more. He told me, he knew how great the
chance was against his living through that distemper at his age.
That, to be sure, he should like to have lived a few years
longer; but if he did not, he should submit patiently. That all
he desired was, that if he should fail, we would do our utmost to
comfort his wife, who, he feared was breeding, and who, he added,
was the best woman in the world. I told him he could not doubt
our attention to her, but that at present all our attention was
fixed on him. That the great difference between having the
small-pox young, or more advanced in years, consisted in the fear
of the latter; but that as I had so often heard him say, and now
saw, that he had none of those fears, the danger of age was
considerably lessened. Dr. Wilmot says, that if any thing saves
him, it will be his tranquillity. To my comfort I am told, that
James's powder has probably been a material ingredient towards
his recovery. In the mean time, the universal anxiety about him
is incredible. Dr. Barnard, the master of Eton, who is in town
for the holidays, says, that, from his situation, he is naturally
invited to houses of all ranks and parties, and that the concern
is general in all. I cannot say so much of my lord, and not do a
little justice to my niece too. Her tenderness, fondness,
attention, and courage are surprising. She has no fears to
become her, nor heroism for parade. I could not help saying to
her, "There never was a nurse of your age had such attention."
She replied, "There never was a nurse of my age had such an
object." It is this astonishes one, to see so much beauty
sincerely devoted to a man so unlovely in his person; but if
Adonis was sick, she could not stir seldomer out of his
bedchamber. The physicians seem to have little hopes, but, as
their arguments are not near so strong as their alarms, I own I
do not give it up, and yet I look on it in a very dangerous
light.
I know nothing of news and of the world, for I go to
Albemarle-Street early in the morning, and don't come home till
late at night. Young Mr. Pitt has been dying of a fever in
Bedfordshire. The Bishop of Carlisle,(269) whom I have appointed
visiter of Strawberry, is gone down to him. You will be much
disappointed if you expect to find the gallery near finished.
They threaten me with three months before the gilding can be
begun. twenty points are at a stand by my present confinement,
and I have a melancholy prospect of being forced to carry my
niece thither the next time I go. The Duc de Nivernois, in
return for a set of the Strawberry editions, has sent me four
seasons, which, I conclude, he thought good, but they shall pass
their whole round in London, for they have not even the merit of
being badly old enough for Strawberry. Mr. Bentley's epistle to
Lord Melcomb has been published in a magazine. It has less wit
by far than I expected from him, and to the full as bad English.
The thoughts are old Strawberry phrases; so are not the
panegyrics. Here are six lines written extempore by Lady Temple,
on Lady Mary Coke, easy and genteel, and almost true:
She sometimes laughs, but never loud;
She's handsome too, but somewhat proud:
At court she bears away the belle;
She dresses fine, and figures well:
With decency she's gay and airy;
Who can this be but Lady Mary?
There has been tough doings in Parliament about the tax on cider;
and in the Western counties the discontent is so great, that if
Mr. Wilkes will turn patriot-hero, or patriot-incendiary in
earnest, and put himself at their head, he may obtain a rope of
martyrdom before the summer is over. Adieu! I tell you my
sorrows, because, if I escape them, I am sure nobody will rejoice
more.
(269) Dr. Charles Lyttelton, consecrated Bishop of Carlisle in
1762, in the room of Dr. Osbaldiston, translated to the see of
London.-E.
Letter 150 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Friday night, late. [April 8, 1763.. (page 208)
Amidst all my own grief, and all the distress which I have this
moment left, I cannot forget you, who have so long been my steady
and invariable friend. I cannot leave it to newspapers and
correspondents to tell you my loss. Lord Waldegrave died to-day.
Last night he had some glimmerings of hope. The most desponding
of the faculty flattered us a little. He himself joked with the
physicians, and expressed himself in this engaging manner: asking
what day of the week it was; they told him Thursday: "Sure," said
he, "it is Friday." "No, my lord, indeed it is Thursday."
"Well," said he, "see what a rogue this distemper makes one; I
want to steal nothing but a day." By the help of opiates, with
which, for two or three days, they had numbed his sufferings, he
rested well. This morning he had no worse symptoms. I told Lady
Waldegrave, that as no material alteration was expected before
Sunday, I would go to dine at Strawberry, and return in time to
meet the physicians in the evening; in truth, I was worn out with
anxiety and attendance, and wanted an hour or two of fresh air.
I left her at twelve, and had ordered dinner at three that I
might be back early. I had not risen from table when I received
an express from Lady Betty Waldegrave, to tell me that a sudden
change had happened, that they had given him James's powder, but
that they feared it was too late, and that he probably would be
dead before I could come to my niece, for whose sake she begged I
would return immediately. It was indeed too late! too late for
every thing--late as it was given, the powder vomited him even in
the agonies--had I had power to direct, he should never have
quitted James; but these are vain regrets! vain to recollect how
particularly kind he, who was kind to every body, was to me! I
found Lady Waldegrave at my brother's; she weeps without ceasing,
and talks of his virtues and goodness to her in a manner that
distracts one. My brother bears this mortification with more
courage than I could have expected from his warm passions: but
nothing struck me more than to see my rough savage Swiss, Louis,
in tears, as he opened my chaise. I have a bitter scene to come:
to-morrow morning I carry poor Lady Waldegrave to Strawberry.
Her fall is great, from that adoration and attention that he paid
her, from that splendour of fortune, so much of which dies with
him, and from that consideration, which rebounded to her from the
great deference which the world had for his character. Visions
perhaps. Yet who could expect that they would have passed away
even before that fleeting thing, her beauty!
If I had time or command enough of my thoughts, I could give you
as long a detail of as unexpected a revolution in the political
world. To-day has been as fatal to a whole nation, I mean to the
Scotch, as to our family. Lord Bute resigned this morning. His
intention was not even suspected till Wednesday, nor at all known
a very few days before. In short, there is nothing, more or
less, than a panic; a fortnight's opposition has demolished that
scandalous but vast majority, which a fortnight had purchased;
and in five months a plan of absolute power has been demolished
by a panic. He pleads to the world bad health; to his friends,
more truly, that the nation was set at him. He pretends to
intend retiring absolutely, and giving no umbrage. In the mean
time he is packing up a sort of ministerial legacy, which cannot
hold even till next session, and I should think would scarce take
place at all. George Grenville is to be at the head of the
treasury and chancellor of the exchequer; Charles Townshend to
succeed him; and Lord Shelburne, Charles. Sir Francis Dashwood
to have his barony of Despencer and the great wardrobe, in the
room of Lord Gower, who takes the privy seal, if the Duke of
Bedford takes the presidentship; but there are many ifs in this
arrangement; the principal if is, if they dare stand a tempest
which has so terrified the pilot. You ask what becomes of Mr.
Fox? Not at all pleased with this sudden determination, which has
blown up so many of his projects, and left him time to heat no
more furnaces, he goes to France by the way of the House of
Lords,(270) but keeps his place and his tools till something else
happens. The confusion I suppose will be enormous, and the next
act of the drama a quarrel among the opposition, who would be
all-powerful if they could do what they cannot, hold together and
not quarrel for the plunder. As I shall be
at a distance for some days, I shall be able to send you no more
particulars of this interlude, but you will like a pun my brother
made when he was told of this explosion: "Then," said he, "they
must turn the Jacks out of the drawing-room again, and again take
them into the kitchen." Adieu! what a world to set one's heart
on!
270) Mr. Fox was Created Baron Holland of Foxley.-E.
Letter 151 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, April 14, 1763. (page 210)
I have received your two letters together, and foresaw that your
friendly good heart would feel for us just as you do. The loss
is irreparable,(271) and my poor niece is sensible it is. She
has such a veneration for her lord's memory, that if her sister
and I make her cheerful for a moment, she accuses herself of it
the next day to the Bishop of Exeter,(272) as if he was her
confessor, and that she had committed a crime. She cried for two
days to such a degree, that if she had been a fountain it must
have stopped. Till yesterday she scarce eat enough to keep her
alive, and looks accordingly; but at her age she must be
comforted: her esteem will last, but her spirits will return in
spite of herself. Her lord has made her sole executrix, and
added what little douceurs he could to her jointure, which is but
a thousand pounds a-year, the estate being but three-and-twenty
hundred. The little girls will have about eight thousand pounds
apiece; for the teller's place was so great during the war, that
notwithstanding his temper was a sluice of generosity, he had
saved thirty thousand pounds since his marriage.
Her sisters have been here with us the whole time. Lady
Huntingtower is all mildness and tenderness; and by dint of
attention I have not displeased the other. Lord Huntingtower has
been here once; the Bishop most of the time: he is very
reasonable and good-natured, and has been of great assistance and
comfort to me in this melancholy office, which is to last here
till Monday or Tuesday. We have got the eldest little girl too,
Lady Laura, who is just old enough to be amusing; and last night
my nephew arrived here from Portugal. It was a terrible meeting
at first; but as he is very soldierly and lively, he got into
spirits, and diverted us much with his relations of the war and
the country. He confirms all we have heard of the villany,
poltroonery, and ignorance of the Portuguese, and of their
aversion to the English; but I could perceive, even through his
relation, that our flippancies and contempt of them must have
given a good deal of play to their antipathy.
You are admirably kind, as you always are in inviting me to
Greatworth, and proposing Bath; but besides its being impossible
for me to take any journey just at present, I am really very well
in health, and the tranquillity and air of Strawberry have done
much good. The hurry of London, where I shall be glad to be just
now, will dissipate the gloom that this unhappy loss has
occasioned; though a deep loss I shall always think it. The time
passes tolerably here; I have my painters and gilders and
constant packets of news from town, besides a thousand letters of
condolence to answer; for both my niece and I have received
innumerable testimonies of the regard that was felt for Lord
Waldegrave. I have heard of but one man who ought to have known
his worth, that has shown no concern; but I suppose his childish
mind is too much occupied with the loss of his last
governor.(273) I have given up my own room to my niece, and have
taken myself to the Holbein chamber, where I am retired from the
rest of the family when I choose it, and nearer to overlook my
workmen. The chapel is quite finished except the carpet. The
sable mass of the altar gives it a very sober air; for,
notwithstanding the solemnity of the painted windows, it had a
gaudiness that was a little profane.
I can know no news here but by rebound; and yet, though they are
to rebound again to you, they will be as fresh as any you can
have at Greatworth. A kind of administration is botched up for
the present, and even gave itself an air of that fierceness with
which the winter set out. Lord Hardwicke -was told, that his
sons must vote with the court, or be turned out; he replied, as
he meant to have them in place, he chose they should be removed
now. It looks ill for the court when he is sturdy. They wished,
too, to have had Pitt, if they could have had him Without
consequences; but they don't find any recruits repair to their
standard. They brag that they should have had Lord Waldegrave; a
most notorious falsehood, as he had refused every offer they
could invent the day before he was taken ill. The Duke of'
Cumberland orders his servants to say, that so far from joining
them, he believes if Lord Waldecrave could have been foretold of
his death, he would have preferred it to an union with Bute and
Fox. The former's was a decisive panic; so sudden, that it is
said Lord Egremont was sent to break his resolution of retiring
to the King. The other, whose journey to France does not
indicate much less apprehension, affects to walk in the streets
at the most public hours to mark his not trembling. In the mean
time the two chiefs have paid their bravoes magnificently: no
less than fifty-two thousand pounds a-year are granted in
reversion! Young Martin,(274) Who is older than I am, is named
my successor; but I intend he shall wait some years: if they had
a mind to serve me, they could not have selected a fitter tool to
set my character in a fair light by the comparison. Lord Bute's
son has the reversion of an auditor of the imprest; this is all
he has done ostensibly for his family, but the great things
bestowed on the most insignificant objects, make me suspect some
private compacts. Yet I may wrong him, but I do not mean it.
Lord Granby has refused Ireland, and the Northumberlands are to
transport their magnificence thither.(275) I lament that you
made so little of that voyage, but is this the season of
unrewarded merit? One should blush to be preferred within the
same year. Do but think that Calcraft is to be an Irish lord!
Fox's millions, or Calcraft's tythes of millions, cannot purchase
a grain of your virtue or character. Adieu!
(271) In September 1766, Lady Waldegrave became the wife of his
Royal Highness William Henry Duke of Gloucester; by whom she was
mother of Prince William and of the Princess Sophia of
Gloucester.-E.
(272) Married to a sister of Lady Waldegrave.
(273) Lord Waldegrave had been governor of George the Third.-E.
(274) Samuel Martin, Esq. member for Camelford, one of the joint
secretaries of the treasury, named to succeed Walpole as usher of
receipts of the exchequer, comptroller of the great roll, and
keeper of the foreign receipts.-E.
(275) The Earl of Northumberland was gazetted on the 20th of
April lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and on the 14th of May the
Marquis of Granby was appointed master of the ordnance.-E.
Letter 152 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, April 22, 1763. (page 212)
I have two letters from you, and shall take care to execute the
commission in the second. The first diverted me much. .
I brought my poor niece from Strawberry on Monday. As executrix,
her presence was quite necessary, and she has never refused to do
any thing reasonable that has been desired of her. But the house
and the business have shocked her terribly; she still eats
nothing, sleeps worse than she did, and looks dreadfully; I begin
to think she will miscarry. She said to me t'other day, "they
tell me that if my lord had lived, he might have done great
service to his country at this juncture, by the respect all
parties had for him. This is very fine; but as he did not live
to do those services, it will never be mentioned in history!" I
thought this solicitude for his honour charming. But he will be
known by history; he has left a small volume of Memoirs, that are
a chef-d'oeuvre.(276) He twice
showed them to me, but I kept his secret faithfully; now it is
for his glory to divulge it.
I and glad you are going to Dr. Lewis After an Irish voyage I do
not wonder you want careening. I have often preached to
you--nay, and lived to you too; but my sermons were flung away
and my example.
This ridiculous administration is patched up for the present; the
detail is delightful, but that I shall reserve for
Strawberry-tide. Lord Bath has complained to Fanshaw of Lord
Pulteney's(277) extravagance, and added, "if he had lived he
would have spent my whole estate." This almost comes up to Sir
Robert Brown, who, when his eldest daughter was given over, but
still alive, on that uncertainty sent for an undertaker, and
bargained for her funeral in hopes of having it cheaper, as it
was possible she might recover. Lord Bath has purchased the
Hatton vault in Westminster-abbey, squeezed his wife, son, and
daughter into it, reserved room for himself, and has set the rest
to sale. Come; all this is not far short of Sir Robert Brown.
To my great satisfaction, the new Lord Holland has not taken the
least friendly, or even formal notice of me, on Lord Waldegrave's
death. It dispenses me from the least farther connexion with
him, and saves explanations, which always entertain the world
more than satisfy.
Dr. Cumberland is an Irish bishop; I hope before the summer is
over that some beam from your cousin's portion of the triumvirate
may light on poor Bentley. If he wishes it till next winter, he
will be forced to try still new sunshine. I have taken Mrs.
Pritchard's house for Lady Waldegrave; I offered her to live with
me at Strawberry, but with her usual good sense she declined it,
as she thought the children would be troublesome.
Charles Townshend's episode in this revolution passes belief,
though he does not tell it himself. If I had a son born, and an
old fairy were to appear and offer to endow him with her choicest
gifts, I should cry out, "Powerful Goody, give him any thing but
parts!"(278) Adieu!
(276) "the Memoirs, from 1754 to 1758, by James Earl Waldegrave,"
which were published in 1821, in a small quarto volume.-E.
(277) Son Of the Earl of Bath. He was a lord of the bedchamber
and member for Westminster. He died on the 16th of February.-E.
(278) Lord Barrington, in a letter to Mr. Mitchell of the 19th of
April, says,--"Charles Townshend accepted the admiralty on
Thursday, and went to kiss hands the next day; but he brought
Peter Burrell with him to court, and insisted he likewise should
be one of the board. Being told that Lords Howe and Digby were
to fill up the vacant seats at the admiralty, he declined
accepting the office destined for him, and the next day received
a dismission from the King's service."-E.
Letter 153To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, May 1, 1763. (page 213)
I feel happy at hearing your happiness; but, my dear Harry, your
vision is much indebted to your long absence, which Makes
bleak rocks and barren mountains smile.
I mean no offence to Park-place, but the bitterness of the
weather makes me wonder how you can find the country tolerable
now. This is a May-day for the latitude of Siberia! The
milkmaids should be wrapped in @the motherly comforts of a
swanskin petticoat. In short, such hard words have passed
between me and the north wind to-day, that, according to the
language of the times, I was very near abusing it for coming from
Scotland, and to imputing it to Lord Bute. I don't know whether
I should not have written a North Briton against it, if the
printers were not all sent to Newgate, and Mr. Wilkes to the
Tower--ay, to the Tower, tout de bon.(279) The new ministry are
trying to make up for their ridiculous insignificance by a coup
d'`eclat. As I came hither yesterday, I do not know whether the
particulars I have heard are genuine--but in the Tower he
certainly is, taken up by Lord Halifax's warrant for treason;
vide the North Briton of Saturday was se'nnight. It is said he
refused to obey the warrant, of which he asked and got a copy
from the two messengers, telling them he did not mean to make his
escape, but sending to demand his habeas corpus, which was
refused. He then went to Lord Halifax, and thence to the Tower;
declaring they should get nothing out of him but what they knew.
All his papers have been seize(]. Lord Chief Justice Pratt, I am
told, finds great fault with the wording of the warrant.
I don't know how to execute your commission for books of
architecture, nor care to put you to expense, which I know will
not answer. I have been consulting my neighbour young Mr. Thomas
Pitt,(280) my present architect: we have all books of that sort
here, but, cannot think of one which will help you to a cottage
or a green-house. For the former you should send me your idea,
your dimensions; for the latter, don't you rebuild your old one,
though in another place? A pretty greenhouse I never saw; nor
without immoderate expense can it well be an agreeable object.
Mr. Pitt thinks a mere portico without a pediment, and windows
retrievable in summer, would be the best plan you could have. If
so, don't you remember something of that kind, which you liked at
Sir Charles Cotterel's at Rousham? But a fine greenhouse must be
on a more exalted plan. In Short.. YOU Must be more particular,
before I can be at all so.
I called at Hammersmith yesterday about Lady Ailesbury's tubs;
one of them is nearly finished, but they will not both be
completed these ten days. Shall they be sent to you by water?
Good night to her ladyship and you, and the infanta,(281) whose
progress in waxen statuary I hope advances so fast, that by next
winter she may rival Rackstrow's old man. Do you know that,
though apprised of what I was going to see, it deceived me, and
made such impression on my mind, that, thinking on it as I came
home in my chariot. and seeing a woman steadfastly at work in a
window in Pall-mall, it made me start to see her move. Adieu!
Arlington Street, Monday night.
The mighty commitment set out with a blunder; the warrant
directed the printer, and all concerned (unnamed) to be taken up.
Consequently Wilkes had his habeas corpus of course, and was
committed again; moved for another in the common pleas, and is to
appear there to-morrow morning. Lord Temple, by another strain
of power refused admittance to him, said, "I thought this was the
Tower, but find it the Bastille." They found among Wilkes's
papers an unpublished North Briton. designed for It contains
advice to the King not to go to St. Paul's for the thanksgiving,
but to have a snug one in his own chapel; and to let Lord George
Sackville carry the sword. There was a dialogue in it too
between Fox and Calcraft: the former says to the latter, "I did
not think you would have served me so, Jemmy Twitcher."
(279) For his strictures in the North Briton, No. 45, on the
King's speech at the close of the session.-E.
(280) Afterwards created Lord Camelford.
(281) Anne Seymour Conway.
Letter 154 To Sir David Dalrymple.(282)
Strawberry Hill, May 2, 1763. _page 215)
Sir,
I forebore to answer your letter for a few days, till I knew
whether it was in my power to give you satisfaction. Upon
inquiry, and having conversed with some who could inform me, I
find it would be very difficult to obtain so peremptory an order
for dismissing fictitious invalids (as I think they may properly
be called), as you seem to think the state of the case requires;
by any interposition of mine, quite impossible. Very difficult I
am told it would be to get them dismissed from our hospitals when
once admitted, and subject to a clamour which, in the present
unsettled state of government, nobody would care to risk. Indeed
I believe it could not be done by any single authority. The
power of admission, and consequently of dismission, does not
depend on the minister, but on the board who direct the affairs
of the hospital, at which board preside the paymaster,, secretary
at war, governor, etc.; if I am not quite exact, I know it is so
in general. I am advised to tell you, Sir, that if upon
examination it should be thought right to take the step you
counsel, still it could not be done without previous and
deliberate discussion. As I should grudge no trouble, and am
very desirous of executing any
commission, Sir, you will honour me with, if you will draw up a
memorial in form, stating the abuses which have come to your
]Knowledge, the advantages which would result to the community by
more rigorous examination of candidates for admission, and the
uses
to which the overflowings of the military might be put, I will
engage to put it into the hands of Mr. Grenville, the present
head
of the treasury, and to employ all the little credit he is so
good
to let me have with him, in backing your request. I can answer
for
one thing and no more, that as long as he sits at that board,
which
probably will not be long, he will give all due attention to any
scheme of national utility.
It is seldom, Sir, that political revolutions bring any man upon
the stage, with whom I have much connexion. The great actors are
not the class whom I much cultivate; consequently I am neither
elated with hopes on their advancement, nor mortified nor
rejoiced
at their fall. As the scene has shifted often of late, and is
far
from promising duration at present, one must, if one lives in the
great world, have now and then an acquaintance concerned in the
drama. Whenever I happen to have one, I hope I am ready and glad
to make use of such (however unsubstantial) interest to do good
or
to oblige; Ind this being the case at present, and truly I cannot
call Mr. Grenville much more than an acquaintance, I shall be
happy, Sir, if I can Contribute to your views, which I have
reason
to believe are those of a benevolent man and good citizen; but I
advertise you truly, that my interest depends more on Mr.
Grenville's goodness and civility, than on any great connexion
between Us, and still less on any Political connexion. I think
he would like to do public good, I know I should like to
contribute to it-but if it is to be done by this channel, I
apprehend there is not much time to be lost--you See, what I
think of the permanence of the present system! Your ideas, Sir,
on the hard fate of our brave soldiers concur with mine; I
lamented their sufferings, and have tried in vain to suggest some
little plans for their relief. I only mention this, to prove to
you that I am not indifferent to the subject, nor undertake your
commission from mere complaisance. You Understand the matter
better than I do, but you cannot engage in it with more zeal.
Methodize, if you please, your plan, and communicate it to me,
and it shall not be lost for want of solicitation. We swarm with
highwaymen, who have been heroes. We owe our safety to them,
consequently we owe a return Of preservation to them, if we can
find out methods of employing them honestly. Extend your views,
Sir, for them, and let me -be@solicitor to the cause.
(282) Now first collected.
Letter 155To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, May 6, very late, 1763. (page 216)
The complexion of the times is a little altered since the
beginning of this last winter. Prerogation, that gave itself
such airs in November, and would speak to nothing but a Tory, has
had a rap this morning that will do it some good, unless it is
weak enough to do itself more harm. The judges of the common
pleas have unanimously dismissed Wilkes from his
imprisonment,(283) as a breach of
privilege; his offence not being a breach of peace, only tending
to it. The people are in transports; and it will require all the
vanity and confidence of those able ministers, Lord Sandwich and
Mr. C * * * to keep up the spirits of the court.
I must change this tone, to tell you of the most dismal calamity
that ever happened. Lady Molesworth's house, in Upper Brook-
street was burned to the ground between four and five this
morning. She herself, two of her daughters, her brother,(284)
and six servants Perished. Two other of the young ladies jumped
out of the two pair of stairs and garret windows: one broke her
thigh, the other (the eldest of all) broke hers too, and has had
it cut off. The fifth daughter is much burnt. The French
governess leaped from the garret, and was dashed to pieces. Dr.
Molesworth and his wife, who were there on a visit, escaped; the
wife by jumping from the two pair of stairs, and saving herself
by a rail; he by hanging by his hands, till a second ladder was
brought, after a first had proved too short. Nobody knows how or
where the fire began; the catastrophe is shocking beyond what one
ever heard: and poor Lady Molesworth whose character and conduct
were the most amiable in the world, is universally lamented.
Your good hearts will feel this in the most lively manner.(285)
I go early to Strawberry to-morrow, giving up the new Opera,
Madame de Boufflers, and Mr. Wilkes, and all the present topics.
Wilkes, whose case has taken its place by the side of the seven
bishops, calls himself the eighth--not quite improperly, when One
remembers that Sir Jonathan Trelawney, who swore like a trooper,
was one of those confessors.
There is a good letter in the Gazetteer on the other side,
pretending to be written by Lord Temple, and advising Wilkes to
cut his throat, like Lord E * * * as it would be of infinite
service to their cause. There are published, too, three volumes
of Lady Mary Wortley's letters, which I believe are genuine, and
are not unentertaining. But have you read Tom Hervey's letter to
the late King? That beats every thing for madness, horrid
indecency, and folly, and yet has some charming and striking
passages. I have advised Mrs. Harris to inform
against Jack, as writing in the North Briton; he will then be
shut up in the Tower, and may be shown for old Nero.(286) Adieu!
(283) Wilkes was discharged on the 6th of May, by Lord Chief
Justice Pratt, who decided that he was entitled to plead his
privilege as a member of parliament; the crime of which he was
accused, namely, a libel, being in the eyes of the law only a
high misdemeanour, whereas the only three cases which could
affect the privilege of a member of parliament were treason,
felony, and breach of the peace.-E.
(284) Captain Usher. Lady Molesworth was daughter of the Rev. W.
Usher, archdeacon of Clonfret, and second wife of Richard third
Viscount Molesworth, who was aide-de-camp to the Duke of
Marlborough at the battle of Ramilies, and saved his grace's life
in that engagement.-E.
(285) The King upon hearing of this calamity, immediately sent
the young ladies a handsome present; ordered a house to be taken
and furnished for them at his expense; and not only continued the
pension settled on the mother, but ordered it to be increased two
hundred pounds per annum.
(286) An old lion there, so called.
Letter 156 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, May 16, 1763. (page 217)
Dear sir,
I promised you should hear from me if I did not go abroad, and I
flatter myself that you will not be sorry to know that I am much
better in health than I was at the beginning of the winter. My
journey is quite laid aside, at least for this year; though as
Lord Hertford goes ambassador to Paris, I propose to make him a
visit there next spring. As I shall be a good deal here this
summer, I hope you did not take a surfeit of Strawberry Hill, but
will bestow a visit on it while its beauty lasts; the gallery
advances fast now, and I think in a few weeks will make a figure
worth your looking at.
Letter 157 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, May 17, 1763. (page 218)
"On vient de nous donner une tr`es jolie f`ete au ch`ateau de
Straberri: tout etoit tapiss`e de narcisses, de tulipes, et de
lilacs; des cors de chasse, des clarionettes; des petits vers
galants faits par des f`ees, et qui se trouvoient sous la presse;
des fruits `a la glace, du th`e, du caff`e, des biscuits, et
force hot-rolls."--This is not the beginning of a letter to you,
but of one that I might suppose sets out to-night for Paris, or
rather, which I do not suppose will set out thither: for though
the narrative is circumstantially true, I don't believe the
actors were pleased enough with the scene, to give so favourable
an account of it.
The French do not come hither to see. A l'Anglaise happened to
be the word in fashion; and half a dozen of the most fashionable
people have been the dupes of it. I take for granted that their
next mode will be `a l'Iroquaise, that they may be under no
obligation of realizing their pretensions. Madame de
Boufflers(287) I think will die a martyr to a taste, which she
fancied she had, and finds she has not. Never having stirred ten
miles from Paris, and having only rolled in an easy coach from
one hotel to another on a gliding pavement, she is already worn
out with being hurried from morning till night from one sight to
another. She rises every morning SO fatigued with the toils of
the preceding day, that she has not strength, if she had
inclination, to observe the least, or the finest thing she sees!
She came hither to-day to a great breakfast I made for her, with
her eyes a foot deep in her head, her hands dangling, and scarce
able to support her knitting-bag. She had been yesterday to see
a ship launched, and went from Greenwich by water to Ranelagh.
Madame Dusson, who is Dutch-built, and whose muscles are
pleasure-proof, came with her; there were besides, Lady Mary
Coke, Lord and Lady Holderness, the Duke and Duchess of Grafton,
Lord Hertford, Lord Villiers, Offley, Messieurs de Fleury,
D'Eon,(288) et Duclos. The latter is author of the Life of Louis
Onze;(289) dresses like a dissenting minister, which I suppose is
the livery of le bel esprit, and is much more impetuous than
agreeable. We breakfasted in the great parlour, and I had filled
the hall and large cloister by turns with French horns and
clarionettes. As the French ladies had never seen a
printing-house, I carried them into mine; they found something
ready set, and desiring to see what it was, it proved as
follows:--
The Press speaks:
For MADAME DE BOUFFLERS--
The graceful fair, who loves to know,
Nor dreads the North's inclement snow:
Who bids her polish'd accent wear
The British diction's harsher air;
Shall read her praise in every clime
Where types can speak or poets rhyme
For MADAME: DUSSON.
Feign not an ignorance of what I speak
You could not miss my meaning were it Greek:
'Tis the same language Belgium utter'd first,
The same which from admiring Gallia burst.
True sentiment a like expression pours;
Each country says the same to eyes like yours.
You will comprehend that the first speaks English, and that the
second does not; that the second is handsome, and the first not;
and that the second was born in Holland. This little gentilesse
pleased, and atoned for the popery of my house, which was not
serious enough for Madame de Boufflers, who is Montmorency, et du
sang du premier Chritien; and too serious for Madame Dusson, who
is a Dutch Calvinist. The latter's husband was not here, nor
Drumgold,(290) who have both got fevers, nor the Duc de
Nivernois, who dined at Claremont. The gallery is not advanced
enough to give them any idea at all, as they are not apt to go
out of their way for one; but the cabinet, and the glory of
yellow glass at top, which had a charming sun for a foil, did
surmount their indifference, especially as they were animated by
the Duchess of Grafton, who had never happened to be here before,
and who perfectly entered into the air of enchantment and
fairyism, which is the tone of the place, and was peculiarly so
to-day--a-propos, when do you design to come hither? Let me know,
that I may have no measures to interfere with receiving you and
your grandsons.
Before Lord Bute ran away, he made Mr. Bentley a commissioner of
the lottery; I don't know whether a single or double one: the
latter, which I hope it is, is two hundred a-year.
Thursday, 19th.
I am ashamed of myself to have nothing but a journal of pleasures
to send you; I never passed a more agreeable day than yesterday.
Miss Pelham gave the French an entertainment at Esher; but they
have been so feasted and amused, that none of them were well
enough, or reposed enough. to come, but Nivernois and Madame
Dusson. The rest of the company were, the Graftons, Lady
Rockingham, Lord and Lady Pembroke, Lord and Lady Holderness,
Lord Villiers, Count Worotizow the Russian minister, Lady Sondes,
Mr. and Miss Mary Pelham, Lady Mary Coke, Mrs. Anne Pitt, and Mr.
Shelley. The day was delightful, the scene transporting; the
trees, lawns, concaves, all in the perfection in which the ghost
of Kent would joy to see them. At twelve we made the tour of the
farm in chaises, and calashes, horsemen, and footmen, setting out
like a picture of Wouverman's. My lot fell in the lap of Mrs.
Anne Pitt,(291) which I could have excused, as she was not at all
in the style of the day, romantic, but political. We had a
magnificent dinner, cloaked in the modesty of earthenware; French
horns and hautboys On the lawn. We walked to the Belvidere on
the summit of the hill, where a theatrical storm only served to
heighten the beauty Of the landscape, a rainbow on a dark cloud
falling precisely behind the tower of a neighbouring church,
between another tower and the building at Claremont. Monsieur de
Nivernois, who had been absorbed all day, and lagging behind,
translating my verses, was delivered of bis version, and of some
more lines which he wrote on Miss Pelham in the Belvedere, while
we drank tea and coffee. From thence we passed into the wood,
and the ladies formed a circle on chairs before the Mouth of the
cave, which was overhung to a vast height with the woodbines,
lilacs, and liburnums, and dignified by the tall shapely
cypresses. On the descent of the hill were placed the French
horns; the abigails, servants, and neighbours wandering below the
river; in short, it was Parnassus, as Watteau would have painted
it. Here we had a rural syllabub, and part of the company
returned to town; but were replaced
by Giardini and Onofrio, who, with Nivernois on he violin, an
Lord Pembroke on the bass, accompanied Mrs. Pelham, Lady
Rockingham, and the Duchess of Grafton, who sang. This little
concert lasted till past ten; then there were minuets, and as we
had seven couple left, it concluded with a Country dance. I
blush again, for I danced, but was kept in countenance by
Nivernois, who has one wrinkle more than I have. A quarter after
twelve they sat down to supper, and I came home by a charming
moonlight. I am going to dine in town, and to a great ball with
fireworks at Miss Chudleigh's, but I return hither on Sunday, to
bid adieu to this abominable Arcadian life; for really when one
IS not young, one ought to do nothing but s'ennuyer; I will try,
but I always go about it awkwardly. Adieu!
P. S. I enclose a copy of both the English and French verses.
A MADAME DE BOUFFLRLRS.
Boufflers, qu'embellissent les graces,
Et qui plairot sans le vouloir,
Elle `a qui l'amour du s`cavoir
Fit braver le Nord et les glaces;
Boufflers se plait en nos vergers,
Et veut `a nos sons `etrangers
Plier sa voix enchanteresse.
R`ep`etons son nom Mille fois,
Sur tons les coeurs Bourflers aura des droits,
Par tout o`u la rime et la Presse
`a l'amour pr`eteront leur voix.
A MADAME DUSSON.
Ne feignez point, Iris, de ne pas nous entendre
Cc que vous inspirez, en Grec doit se comprendre.
On vous l'a dit d'abord en Hollandois,
Et dans on langage plus tendre
Paris vous l'a repet`e mille fois.
C'est de nos coeurs l'expression sinc`ere;
En tout climat, Iris, & toute heure, en tous lieux,
Par tout o`u brilleront vos yeux,
Vous apprendrez combien ils s`cavent plaire.
(287) La Comtesse de Boufflers, a lady of some literary
pretensions, and celebrated as the intimate friend of the Prince
de Conti, to whom she is said to have been united by a marriage
de la main gauche. During her stay in England she paid a visit
to Dr. Johnson, of which Mr. Beauclerk gave the following account
to Boswell:--"When Madame de Boufflers was first in England, she
was desirous to see Johnson; I accordingly went with her to his
chambers in the Temple, where she was entertained with his
conversation for some time. When our visit was over, she and I
left him, and were got into Inner-Temple-lane, when all at once I
heard a voice like thunder. This was occasioned by Johnson, who,
it seem,;, upon a little reflection, had taken it into his head
that he ought to have done the honours of his literary residence
to a foreign lady of quality, and, eager to show himself a man of
gallantry, was hurrying down the staircase in violent agitation.
He overtook us before we reached the Temple gate, and brushing in
between me and Madame de Boufflers, seized her hand and conducted
her to her coach. His dress was a rusty-brown morning suit, a
pair of old shoes by way of slippers, a little shrivelled wig
sticking on the top of his head, and the sleeves of his shirt and
the knees of his breeches hanging loose. A considerable crowd of
people gathered round, and were not a little struck by this
singular appearance."-E.
(288) The Chevalier D'Eon, secretary to the Duke de Nivernois,
the French ambassador, and, upon the Duke's return to France,
appointed minister plenipotentiary. On the Comte de Guerchy
being some time afterwards nominated ambassador, the Chevalier
was ordered to resume his secretaryship; at which he was so much
mortified that he libelled the Comte, for which he was indicted
and found guilty in the court of king's bench, in July 1764. For
a further account of this extraordinary personage, see post,
letter 181 to Lord Hertford, of the 25th of November.-E.
(289) Duclos's History of Louis XI. appeared in 1743. He was
also the author of several ingenious novels, and had a large
share in the Dictionary of the Academy. After his death, which
took place in 1772, his Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Louis
XIV. and Louis XV. appeared. Rousseau describes him as a man
"droit et adroit;" and D'Alembert said of him, "De tons les
hommes que je connais, c'est lui qui a le plus d'esprit dans un
temps donn`e."-E.
(290) Secretary to the Duc de Nivernois.
(291) Sister of Lord Chatham, whom she strikingly resembled in
features as well as in talent. She was remarkable, even to old
age, for decision of character and sprightliness of conversation.
She died in 1780.-E.
Letter 158 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, May 21, 1763. (page 221)
You have now seen the celebrated Madame de Boufflers. I dare say
you could in that short time perceive that she is agreeable, but
I dare say too that you will agree with me that vivacity is by no
means the partage of the French--bating the `etourderie of the
mousquetaires and of a high-dried petit-maitre or two, they
appear to me more lifeless than Germans. I cannot comprehend how
they came by the character of a lively people. Charles Townshend
has more sal volatile in him than the whole nation. Their King
is taciturnity itself, Mirepoix was a walking mummy, Nivernois
his about as much life as a sick favourite child, and M. Dusson
is a good-humoured country gentleman, who has been drunk the day
before, and is upon his good behaviour. If I have the gout next
year, and am thoroughly humbled by it again, I will go to Paris,
that I may be upon a level with them: at present, I am trop fou
to keep them company. Mind, I do not insist that, to have
spirits, a nation should be as frantic as poor Fanny Pelham, as
absurd as the Duchess of Queensbury, or as dashing as the Virgin
Chudleigh. Oh, that you had been' at her ball t'other night!
History could never describe it and keep its countenance. The
Queen's real birthday, you know, is not kept: this maid of honour
kept it--nay, while the court is in mourning, expected people to
be out of mourning; the Queen's family really was so, Lady
Northumberland having desired leave for them. A scaffold was
erected in Hyde-park for fireworks. To show the illuminations
without to more advantage, the company were received in an
apartment totally dark, where they remained for two hours. If
they gave rise to any more birthdays, who could help it? The
fireworks were fine, and succeeded well. On each side of the
court were two large scaffolds for the Virgin's tradespeople.
When the fireworks ceased, a large scene was lighted in the
court, representing their majesties; on each side of which were
six obelisks, painted with emblems, and illuminated; mottoes
beneath in Latin and English: 1. For the Prince of Wales, a ship,
Mullorum spes. 2. For the Princess Dowager, a bird of paradise,
and two little ones, meos ad sidera tollo. People smiled. 3.
Duke of York, a temple, Virtuti et honori. 4. Princess Augusta, a
bird of paradise, Non habet paren--unluckily this was translated,
I have no peer. People laughed out, considering where this was
exhibited. 5. The three younger princes, an orange tree,
Promiiuit et dat. 6. the younger princesses, the flower
crown-imperial. I forget the Latin: the translation was silly
enough, Bashful in youth, graceful in age. The lady of the house
made many apologies for the poorness of the performance, which
she said was only oil-paper, painted by one of her servants; but
it really was fine and pretty. The Duke of Kingston was in a
frock coat come chez lui. Behind the house was a cenotaph for
the Princess Elizabeth, a kind of illuminated cradle; the motto,
All the honours the dead can receive. This burying-ground was a
strange codicil to a festival, and, what was more strange, about
one in the morning, this sarcophagus burst out into crackers and
guns. The Margrave of Anspach began the ball with the Virgin.
The supper was most sumptuous.
You ask, when I propose to be at Park-place. I ask, shall not
you come to the Duke of Richmond's masquerade, which is the 6th
of June? I cannot well be with you till towards the end of that
month.
The enclosed is a letter which I wish you to read attentively, to
give me your opinion upon it, and return it. It is from a
sensible friend of mine in Scotland,(292) who has lately
corresponded with me on the enclosed subjects, which I little
understand; but I promised to communicate his ideas to George
Grenville, if he would state them-are they practicable? I wish
much that something could be done for those brave soldiers and
sailors, who will all come to the gallows, unless some timely
provision can be made for them. The former part of his letter
relates to a Grievance he complains of, that men who have not
served are admitted into garrisons, and then into our hospitals,
which were designed for meritorious sufferers. Adieu!
(292) Sir David Dalrymple. See ant`e, p. 215, letter 154.-E.
Letter 159 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, Saturday evening. (May 28, 1763.] (page 223)
No, indeed, I cannot consent to your being a dirty
Philander.(293) Pink and white, and white and pink and both as
greasy as if you had gnawed a leg of a fowl on the stairs of the
Haymarket with a bunter from the Cardigan's Head! For Heaven's
sake don't produce a tight rose-coloured thigh, unless you intend
to prevent my Lord Bute's return from Harrowgate. Write, the
moment you receive this, to your tailor to get you a sober purple
domino as I have done, and it will make you a couple of
summer-waistcoats.
In the next place, have your ideas a little more correct about us
of times past. We did not furnish ou cottages with chairs of ten
guineas apiece. Ebony for a farmhouse!(294) So, two hundred
years hence some man of taste will build a hamlet in the style of
George the Third, and beg his cousin Tom Hearne to get him some
chairs for it of mahogany gilt, and covered with blue damask.
Adieu! I have not a minute's time more.
(293) At the masquerade given by the Duke of Richmond on the 6th
of June at his house in Privy-garden.
(294) Mr. Conway was at this time fitting up a little building
at Park-place, called the Cottage, for which he had consulted Mr.
Walpole on the propriety of ebony chairs.
Letter 160 To George Montagu, Esq.
Huntingdon, May 30, 1763. (page 223)
As you interest yourself about Kimbolton, I begin my journal of
two days here. But I must set Out With owning, that I believe I
am the first man that ever went sixty miles to an auction. As I
came for ebony, I have been up to my chin in ebony; there is
literally nothing but ebony in the house; all the other goods. if
there were any, and I trust my Lady Convers did not sleep upon
ebony mattresses, are taken away. There are two tables and
eighteen chairs, all made by the Hallet of two hundred years ago.
These I intend to have; for mind, the auction does not begin till
Thursday. There are more plebeian chairs of the same materials,
but I have left commission for only the true black blood. Thence
I went to Kimbolton,(295) and asked to see the house. A kind
footman, who in his zeal to open the chaise pinched half my
finger off, said he would call the housekeeper: but a groom of
the chambers insisted on my visiting their graces; and as I vowed
I did not know them, he said they were in the great apartment,
that all the rest was in disorder and altering, and would let me
see nothing. This was the reward of my first lie. I returned to
my inn or alehouse, and instantly received a message from the
Duke to invite me to the castle. I was quite undressed, and
dirty with my journey, and unacquainted with the Duchess--yet was
forced to go--Thank the god of dust, his grace was dirtier than
me. He was extremely civil, and detected me to the groom of the
chambers--asked me if I had dined. I said yes--lie the second.
He pressed me to take a bed there. I hate to be criticised at a
formal supper by a circle of stranger-footmen, and protested I
was to meet a gentleman at Huntingdon to-night. the Duchess and
Lady Caroline(296) came in from walking; and to disguise my not
having dined, for it was past six, I drank tea with them. The
Duchess is much altered, and has a bad short cough. I pity
Catherine of Arragon(297) for living at Kimbolton: I never saw an
uglier spot. The fronts are not so bad as I expected, by not
being so French as I expected; but have no pretensions to beauty,
nor even to comely ancient ugliness. The great apartment is
truly noble, and almost all the portraits good, of what I saw;
for many are not hung up, and half of those that are, my lord
Duke does not know. The Earl of Warwick is delightful; the Lady
Mandeville, attiring herself in her wedding garb, delicious. The
Prometheus is a glorious picture, the eagle as fine as my statue.
Is not it by Vandyck? The Duke told me that Mr. Spence found out
it was by Titian--but critics in poetry I see are none in
painting. This was all I was shown, for I was not even carried
into the chapel. The walls round the house are levelling, and I
saw nothing without doors that tempted me to taste. So I made my
bow, hurried to my inn, snapped up my dinner, lest I should again
be detected, and came hither, where I am writing by a great fire,
and give up my friend the east wind, which I have long been
partial to for the Southeast's sake, and in contradiction to the
west, for blowing perpetually and bending all one's plantations.
To-morrow I see Hinchinbrook(298)--and London. Memento, I
promised the Duke that you should come and write on all his
portraits. Do, as you honour the blood of Montagu! Who is the
man in the picture with Sir Charles Goring, where a page is tying
the latter's scarf? And who are the ladies in the double
half-lengths?
Arlington Street, May 31.
Well! I saw Hinchinbrook this morning. Considering it is in
Huntingdonshire, the situation is not so ugly nor melancholy as I
expected; but I do not conceive what provoked so many of your
ancestors to pitch their tents in that triste country, unless the
Capulets(299) loved fine prospects. The house of Hinchinbrook is
most comfortable, and just what I like; old, spacious, irregular,
yet not vast or forlorn. I believe much has been done since you
saw it--it now only wants an apartment, for in no part of it are
there above two chambers together. The furniture has much
simplicity, not to say too much; some portraits tolerable, none I
think fine. When this lord gave Blackwood the head of the
Admiral' that I have now, he left himself not one so good. The
head he kept is very bad: the whole-length is fine, except the
face of it. There is another of the Duke of Cumberland by
Reynolds, the colours of which are as much changed as the
original is to the proprietor. The garden is wondrous small, the
park almost smaller, and no appearance of territory. The whole
has a quiet decency that seems adapted to the Admiral after his
retirement, or to Cromwell before his exaltation. I returned
time enough for the opera; observing all the way I came the proof
of the duration of this east wind, for on the west side the
blossoms were so covered with dust one could not distinguish
them; on the eastern hand the hedges were white in all the pride
of May. Good night!
Wednesday, June 1.
My letter is a perfect diary. There has been a sad alarm in the
kingdom of white satin and muslin. The Duke of Richmond was
seized last night with a sore throat and fever; and though he is
much better to-day, the masquerade of to-morrow night is put off
till Monday. Many a Queen of Scots, from sixty to sixteen, has
been ready to die of the fright. Adieu once more! I think I can
have nothing more to say before the post goes out to-morrow.
(295) The seat of the Duke of Manchester.-E.
(296) Sister of the Duke of Manchester.-E.
(297) Queen Catherine of Arragon, after her divorce from Henry
the Eighth, resided some time in this castle, and died there in
1536.-E.
(298) The seat of the Earl of Sandwich.-E.
(299) As opposing in every thing the Montagus.
Letter 161 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, June 16, 1763. (page 225)
I do not like your putting off your visit hither for so long.
Indeed, by September the gallery will probably have all its fine
clothes on, and by what have been tried, I think it will look
very well. The fashion of the garments to be sure will be
ancient, but I have given them an air that is very becoming.
Princess Amelia was here last night While I was abroad; and if
Margaret is not too much prejudiced by the guinea left, or by
natural partiality to what servants call our house, I think was
pleased, particularly with the chapel.
As Mountain-George will not come to Mahomet-me, Mahomet-I Must
come to Greatworth. Mr. Chute and I think of visiting you about
the seventeenth of July, if you shall be at home, and nothing
happens to derange our scheme; possibly we may call at Horton; we
certainly shall proceed to Drayton, Burleigh, Fotheringay,
Peterborough, and Ely; and shall like much of your company, all,
or part of the tour. The only present proviso I have to make is
the health of my niece who is at present much out of order, we
think not breeding, and who was taken so ill on Monday, that I
was forced to carry her suddenly to town, where I yesterday left
her better at her father's.
There has been a report that the new Lord Holland was dead at
Paris, but I believe it is not true. I was very indifferent
about it: eight months ago it had been lucky. I saw his jackall
t'other night in the meadows, the secretary at war,(301) so
emptily-important and distilling paragraphs of old news with such
solemnity, that I did not know whether it was a man or the
Utrecht gazette.
(300) Admiral Montagu, first Earl of Sandwich; by Sir Peter Lely.
In early life he was distinguished as a military commander under
the parliamentary banner, and subsequently joint high-admiral of
England; in which capacity, having had sufficient influence to
induce the whole fleet to acknowledge the restored monarchy, he
received the peerage as his reward. Having attained the highest
renown as a naval officer, he fell in the great sea-fight with
the Dutch, off Southwold-bay, on the 28th of May, 1672. Evelyn,
in his diary of the 31st, gives the following high character of
the Earl:--"Deplorable was the loss of that incomparable person,
and my particular friend. He was learned in sea affairs, in
politics, in mathematics, and in music: he had been on divers
embassies, was of a sweet and obliging temper, sober, chaste,
very ingenious, a true nobleman and ornament to the court and his
prince; nor has he left any behind him who approach his many
virtues."-E.
(301) Welbore Ellis, Esq. afterwards Lord Mendip.-E.
Letter 162 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 1, 1763. (page 226)
Mr. chute and I intend to be with you on the seventeenth or
eighteenth; but as we are wandering swains, we do not drive one
nail into one day of the almanack irremovably. Our first stage is
to Bleckley, the parsonage of venerable Cole, the antiquarian of
Cambridge. Bleckley lies by Fenny Stratford; now can you direct
us how to make Horton(302) in our way from Stratford to
Greatworth? If this meander engrosses more time than we propose,
do not be disappointed, and think we shall not come, for we
shall. The journey you must accept as a great sacrifice either
to you or to my promise, for I quit the gallery almost in the
critical minute of consummation. Gilders, carvers, upholsterers,
and picture-cleaners are labouring at their several forges, and I
do not love to trust a hammer or a brush without my own
supervision. This will make my stay very short, but it is a
greater compliment than a month would be at another season and
yet I am not profuse of months. Well, but I begin to be ashamed
of my magnificence; Strawberry is growing Sumptuous in its latter
day; it will scarce be any longer like the fruit of its name, or
the modesty of its ancient demeanour, both which seem to have
been in spencer's prophetic eye when he sung of
"The blushing strawberries
Which lurk, close-shrouded from high-looking eyes,
Showing that sweetness low and hidden lies."
In truth, my collection was too great already to be lodged
humbly; it has extended my walls, and pomp followed. It was a
neat, small house; it now will be a comfortable one, and except
for one fine apartment, does not deviate from its simplicity.
Adieu! I know nothing about the world, and am only Strawberry's
and yours, sincerely.
(302) The seat of the Earl of Halifax.
Letter 163 To Sir David Dalrymple.(303)
Strawberry Hill, July 1, 1763. (page 227)
Perhaps, sir, you have wondered that I have been
so long silent about a scheme,(304) that called for despatch.
The truth is I have had no success. Your whole
plan has been communicated to Mr. Grenville by one whose heart
went with it, going always with what is humane. Mr. Grenville
mentions two objections; one, insuperable as to expedition; the
other, totally so. No crown or public lands could be so disposed
of without an act of parliament. In that case the scheme should
be digested during a war, to take place at the conclusion, and
cannot be adjusted in time for receiving the disbanded. But what
is worse, he hints, Sir, that your good heart has only considered
the practicability with regard to Scotland, where there are no
poor's rates. Here every parish would object to such settlers.
This is the sum of his reply; I am not master
enough of the subject or the nature of it, as to answer either
difficulty. If you can, Sir, I am ready to continue the
intermediate negotiator; but you must furnish me with answers to
these obstacles, before I could hope to make any way even with
any private person. In truth, I am little versed in the subject;
which I own, not to excuse myself from pursuing it if it can be
made feasible, but to prompt you, Sir, to instruct me. Except at
this place, which cannot be called the country, I have scarce
ever lived in the country, and am shamefully ignorant of the
police and domestic laws of my own country. Zeal to do any good,
I have; but I want to be tutored when the operation is at all
complicated. Your knowledge, Sir, may supply my deficiencies; at
least you are sure of a solicitor for your good intentions, in
your, etc.
(303) Now first collected.
(304) See ant`e, p. 215, letter 154.-E.
Letter 164 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, July 1, 1763. (page 228)
Dear sir,
As you have given me leave, I propose to pass a day with you,
on my way to Mr. Montagu's. If you have no engagement, I will
be with you on the 16th of this month, and if it is not
inconvenient, and you will tell me truly whether it is or not,
I shall bring my friend Mr. Chute with me, who is destined to
the same place. I will beg you too to let me know how far it
is to Bleckley, and what road I must take: that is, how far
from London, or how far from Twickenham, and the road from
each, as I am uncertain yet from which I shall set out. If any
part of this proposal does not suit You, I trust you will own
it, and I will take some other opportunity of calling on you,
being most truly, dear Sir, etc.
Letter 165 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, July 12, 1763. (page 228)
Dear sir,
Upon consulting maps and the knowing, I find it will be my best
way to call on Mr. Montagu first, before I come to you, or I must
go the same road twice. This will make it a few days later than
I intended before I wait on you, and will leave you time to
complete your hay-harvest, as I gladly embrace your offer of
bearing me company on the tour I meditate to Burleigh, Drayton,
Peterborough, Ely, and twenty other places, of all which you
shall take as much or as little as you please. It will, I think,
be Wednesday or Thursday se'nnight, before I wait on you, that is
the 20th or 21st, and I fear I shall come alone; for Mr. Chute is
confined with the gout: but you shall hear again before I set
out. Remember I am to see Sir Kenelm Digby's.
I thank you much for your informations. The Countess of
Cumberland is an acquisition, and quite new to me. With the
Countess of Kent I am acquainted since my last edition.
Addison certainly changed sides in the epitaph to indicabit to
avoid the jingle with dies: though it is possible that the
thought may have been borrowed elsewhere. Adieu, Sir!
To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Dear sir,
Wednesday is the day I propose waiting on you; what time of it
the Lord and the roads know; so don't wait for me any part of it.
If I should be violently pressed to stay a day longer at Mr.
Montagu's I hope it will be no disappointment to you: but I love
to be uncertain, rather than make myself expected and fail.
Letter 166 To George Montagu, Esq.
Stamford, Saturday night, July 23, 1763. (page 229)
"Thus far arms have with success been crowned," bating a few
mishaps, which will attend long marches like ours. We have
conquered as many towns as Louis Quatorze in the campaign of
seventy-two; that is, seen them, for he did little more, and into
the bargain he had much better roads, and a dryer summer. It has
rained perpetually till to-day, and made us experience the rich
soil of Northamptonshire, which is a clay-pudding stuck full of
villages. After we parted with you on Thursday, we saw Castle
Ashby(305) and Easton MaudUit.(306) The first is most
magnificently triste, and has all the formality of the Comptons.
I should admire 'It if I could see out of it, or any thing in it,
but there is scarce any furniture, and the bad little frames of
glass exclude all objects. Easton is miserable enough; there are
many modern portraits, and one I was glad to see of the Duchess
of Shrewsbury. We lay at Wellingborough--pray never lie there--
the beastliest inn upon earth is there! We were carried into a
vast bedchamber, which I suppose is the club-room, for it stunk
of tobacco like a justice of peace. I desired some boiling water
for tea; they brought me a sugar dish of hot water in a pewter
plate. Yesterday morning we went to Boughton,(307) where we were
scarce landed, before the Cardigans, in a coach and six and three
chaises, arrived with a cold dinner in their pockets, on their
way to Deane; for as it is in dispute, they never reside at
Boughton. This was most unlucky, that we should pitch on the
only hour in the year in which they are there. I was so
disconcerted, and so afraid, of falling foul of the Countess and
her caprices, that I hurried from chamber to chamber, and scarce
knew what I saw, but that the house is in the grand old French
style, that gods and goddesses lived over my head in every room,
and that there was nothing but pedigrees all around me, and under
my feet, for there is literally a coat of arms at the end of
every step of the stairs: did the Duke mean to pun, and intend
this for the descent of the Montagus? Well! we hurried away and
got to Drayton an hour before dinner. Oh! the dear old place!
you would be transported with it. In the first place, it stands
in as ugly a hole as Boughton: well! that is not its beauty. The
front is a brave strong castle wall, embattled and loopholed for
defence. Passing the great gate, you come to a sumptuous but
narrow modern court, behind which rises the old mansion, all
towers and turrets. The house is excellent; has a vast hall,
ditto dining-room, king's chamber, trunk gallery at the top of
the house, handsome chapel, and seven or eight distinct
apartments, besides closets and conveniences without end. Then
it is covered with portraits, crammed with old china, furnished
richly, and not a rag in it under forty, fifty, or a thousand
years old; but not a bed or chair that has lost a tooth, or got a
gray hair, so well are they preserved. I rummaged it from head
to foot, examined every spangled bed, and enamelled pair of
bellows, for such there are; in short, I do not believe the old
mansion was ever better pleased with an inhabitant, since the
days of Walter de Drayton, except when it has received its divine
old mistress.(308) If one could honour her more than one did
before, it would be to see with what religion she keeps up the
old dwelling and customs, as well as old servants, who you may
imagine do not love her less than other people do. The garden is
just as Sir John Germain brought it from Holland; pyramidal yews,
treillages, and square cradle walks with windows clipped in them.
Nobody was there but Mr. Beauclerc(309) and Lady Catharine,(310)
and two parsons: the two first suffered us to ransack and do as
we would, and the two last assisted us, informed us, and carried
us to every tomb in the neighbourhood. I have got every
circumstance by heart, and was pleased beyond my expectation,
both with the place and the comfortable way of seeing it. We
stayed here till after dinner to-day, and saw Fotheringhay in our
way hither. The castle is totally ruined.(311) The mount, on
which the keep stood, two door-cases, and a piece of the moat,
are all the remains. Near it is a front and two projections of
an ancient house, which, by the arms about it, I suppose was part
of the palace of Richard and Cicely, Duke and Duchess of York.
There are two pretty tombs for them and their uncle Duke of York
in the church, erected by order of Queen Elizabeth. The church
has been very fine, but is now intolerably shabby; yet many large
saints remain in the windows, two entire, and all the heads well
painted. You may imagine we were civil enough to the Queen of
Scots, to feel a feel of pity for her, while we stood on the very
spot where she was put to death; my companion,(312) I believe,
who is a better royalist than I am, felt a little more. There, I
have obeyed you. To-morrow we see Burleigh and Peterborough, and
lie @t Ely; on Monday I hope to be in town, and on Tuesday I hope
much more to be in the gallery at Strawberry Hill, and to find
the gilders laying on the last leaf of gold. Good night!
(305) A seat of the Earl of Northampton.
(306) A seat of the Earl of Sussex.
(307) The seat of Lord Montagu.
(308) Lady Betty Germain.-E.
(309) Aubrey Beauclerk, Esq. member for Thetford. He succeeded
to the dukedom of St. Albans, as fifth Duke, in 1787, and died in
1802.-E.
(310) Lady Catharine Ponsonby, daughter of the Earl of
Desborough.
(311) James the First is said to have ordered it to be destroyed,
in consequence of its having been the scene of the trial and
execution of his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, beheaded there in
February 1587.-E.
(312) Mr. Cole.
Letter 167 To George Montagu, Esq.
Hockerill, Monday night, July 25, Vol. 2d. (page 231)
You must know we were drowned on Saturday night. It rained, as
it did at Greatworth on Wednesday, all night and all next
morning, so we could not look even at the outside of Burleigh;
but we saw the inside pleasantly; for Lord Exeter, whom I had
prepared for our intentions, came to us, and made every door and
every lock fly open, even of his magazines, yet unranged. He is
going through the house by decrees, furnishing a room every year,
and has already made several most sumptuous. One is a little
tired of Carlo Maratti and Lucca Jordano, yet still these are
treasures. The china and japan are of the finest; miniatures in
plenty, and a shrine full of crystal vases, filigree, enamel,
jewels, and the trinkets of taste, that have belonged to many a
noble dame. In return for his civilities, I made my Lord Exeter
a present of a glorious cabinet, whose drawers and sides are all
painted by Rubens. This present you must know is his own, but he
knew nothing of the hand or the value. Just so I have given Lady
Betty Germain a very fine portrait, that I discovered ,at Drayton
in the Woodhouse.
I was not much pleased with Peterborough; the front is adorable,
but the inside has no more beauty than consists in vastness. By
the way, I have a pen and ink that will not form a letter. We
were now sent to Huntingdon in our way to Ely, as we found it
impracticable, from the rains and floods, to cross the country
thither. We landed in the heart of the assizes, and almost in
the middle of the races, both which, to the astonishment of the
virtuosi, we eagerly quitted this morning. We were hence sent
south to Cambridge, still on our way north to Ely: but when we
got to Cambridge we were forced to abandon all thoughts of Ely,
there being nothing but lamentable stories of inundations and
escapes. However, I made myself amends at the university, which
I have not seen these four-and-twenty years, and which revived
many youthful scenes, which, merely from their being youthful,
are forty times pleasanter than any other ideas. You know I
always long to live at Oxford: I felt that I could like to live
even at Cambridge again. The colleges are much cleaned and
improved since my days, and the trees and groves more venerable;
but the town is tumbling about their ears. We surprised Gray
with our appearance, dined and drank tea with him, and are come
hither within sight of land. I always find it worth my while to
make journeys, for the joy I have in getting home again. A
second adieu!
Letter 168 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 8, 1763. (page 232)
Dear sir,
You judge rightly, I am very indifferent about Dr. Shorton, since
he is not Dr. Shorter. It has done nothing but rain since my
return; whoever wants hay, must fish for it; it is all drowned,
or swimming about the country. I am glad our tour gave you so
much pleasure; you was so very obliging, as you have always been
to me, that I should have been grieved not to have had it give
you satisfaction. I hope your servant is quite recovered.
The painters and gilders quit my gallery this week, but I have
not got a chair or a table for it yet; however, I hope it will
have all its clothes on by the time you have promised me a visit.
Letter 169 To Dr. Ducarel.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 8, 1763. (page 232)
Sir,
I have been rambling about the country, or should not so long
have deferred to answer the favour of your letter. I thank you
for the notices in it, and have profited of them. I am much
obliged to you too for the drawings you intended me; but I have
since had a letter from Mr. Churchill, and he does not mention
them.
Letter 170 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 9, 1763. (page 232)
My gallery claims your promise; the painters and gilders finish
to-morrow, and next day it washes its hands. You talked of the
15th; shall I expect you then, and the Countess,(313) and the
Contessina,(314) and the Baroness?(315)
Lord Digby is to be married immediately to the pretty Miss
Fielding; and Mr. Boothby, they say, to Lady Mary Douglas. What
more news I know I cannot send you; for I have had it from Lady
Denbigh and Lady Blandford, who have so confounded names,
genders, and circumstances, that I am not sure whether Prince
Ferdinand is not going to be married to the hereditary Prince.
Adieu!
P. S. If you want to know more of me, you may read a whole column
of abuse upon me in the Public Ledger of Thursday last; where
they inform me that the Scotch cannot be so sensible @as the
English, because they have not such good writers. Alack! I am
afraid the most sensible men in any country do not write.
I had writ this last night. This morning I receive your paper of
evasions, perfide que vous `etes! You may let it alone, you will
never see any thing like my gallery--and then to ask me to leave
it the instant it is finished! I never heard such a request in my
days!--Why, all the earth is begging to come to see it: as Edging
says, I have had offers enough from blue and green ribands to
make me a falbala-apron. Then I have just refused to let Mrs.
Keppel and her Bishop be in the house with me, because I expected
all you--it is mighty well, mighty fine!-No, sir, no, I shall not
come; nor am I in a humour to do any thing else you desire:
indeed, without your provoking me, I should not have come into
the proposal of paying Giardini. We have been duped and cheated
every winter for these twenty years by the undertakers of
operas, and I never will pay a farthing more till the last
moment, nor can be terrified at their puffs; I am astonished you
are. So far from frightening me. the kindest thing they could do
would be not to let one have a box to hear their old threadbare
voices and frippery thefts; and as for Giardini himself, I would
not go cross the room to hear him play to eternity. I should
think he could frighten nobody but Lady Bingley by a refusal.
(313) Of Ailesbury.
(314) Miss Anne Seymour Conway.
(315) Elizabeth Rich, second wife of George Lord Lyttelton.
Letter 171 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, Aug 10, 1763. Page 233)
My dear lord,
I have waited in hopes that the world would do something worth
telling you: it will not, and I cannot stay any longer without
asking you how you do, and hoping you have not quite forgot me.
It has rained such deluges, that I had some thoughts of turning
my gallery into an ark, and began to pack up a pair of bantams, a
pair of cats, in short, a pair of every living creature about my
house: but it is grown fine at last, and the workmen quit my
gallery to-day without hoisting a sail in it. I know nothing
upon earth but what the ancient ladies in my neighbourhood knew
threescore years ago; I write merely to pay you my pepper-corn of
affection, and to inquire after my lady, who I hope is perfectly
well. A longer letter would not have half the merit: a line in
return will however repay all the merit I can possibly have to
one to whom I am so much obliged.
Letter 172 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 15, 1763. (page 233)
The most important piece of news I have to tell you is, that the
gallery is finished; that is, the workmen have quitted it. For
chairs and tables, not one is arrived yet. Well, how you will
tramp up and down in it! Methinks I wish you would. We are in
the perfection of beauty; verdure itself was never green till
this summer, thanks to the deluges of rain. Our complexion used
to be mahogany in August. Nightingales and roses indeed are out
of blow, but the season is celestial. I don't know whether we
have not even had an earthquake to-day. Lady Buckingham, Lady
Waldegrave, the Bishop of' Exeter, and Mrs. Keppel, and the
little Hotham dined here; between six and seven we were sitting
in the great parlour; I sat in the window looking at the river:
on a sudden I saw it violently agitated, and, as it were, lifted
up and down by a thousand hands. I called out, they all ran to
the window; it continued; we hurried into the garden, and all saw
the Thames in the same violent commotion for I suppose a hundred
yards. We fancied at first there must be some barge rope; not
one was in sight. It lasted in this manner, and at the farther
end, towards Teddington, even to dashing. It did not cease
before I got to the middle of the terrace, between the fence and
the hill. Yet this is nothing: to what is to come. The Bishop
and I walked down to my meadow by the river. At this end were
two fishermen in a boat, but their backs had been turned to the
agitation, and they had seen nothing. At the farther end of the
field was a gentleman fishing, and a woman by him; I had
perceived him on the same spot at the time of the motion of the
waters, which was rather beyond where it was terminated. I now
thought myself sure of a witness, and concluded he could not have
recovered his surprise. I ran up to him. "Sir," said I, "did
you see that strange agitation of the waters?" "When, Sir? when,
Sir?" "Now, this very instant, not two minutes ago." He
replied, with the phlegm of a philosopher, or of a man that can
love fishing, "Stay, Sir, let me recollect if I remember nothing
of it." "Pray, Sir," said I, scarce able to help laughing, "you
must remember whether you remember it or not, for it is scarce
over." "I am trying to recollect," said he, with the same
coolness. "Why, Sir," said I, "six of us saw it from my parlour
window yonder." "Perhaps," answered he, "you might perceive it
better where you were, but I suppose it was an earthquake." His
nymph had seen nothing neither, and so we returned as wise as
most who inquire into natural phenomena. We expect to hear
to-morrow that there has been an earthquake somewhere; unless
this appearance portended a state-quake. You see, my impetuosity
does not abate much; no, nor my youthfullity, which bears me out
even at a sabat. I dined last week at Lady Blandford's, with
her, the old Denbigh, the old Litchfield, and Methuselah knows
who. I had stuck some sweet peas in my hair, was playing at
quadrille, and singing to my sorci`eres. The Duchess of Argyle
and Mrs. Young came in; you may guess how they stared; at last
the Duchess asked what was the meaning of those flowers? "Lord,
Madam," said I, "don't you know it is the fashion? The Duke of
Bedford is come over with his hair full." Poor Mrs. Young took
this in sober sadness, and has reported that the Duke of Bedford
wears flowers. You will not know me less by a precipitation of
this morning. Pitt and I were busy adjusting the gallery. Mr.
Elliott came in and discomposed us; I was horridly tired of him.
As he was going, he said, "Well, this house is so charming, I
don't wonder at your being able to live so much alone." I, who
shudder at the thought of any body's living With me, replied very
innocently, but a little too quick, "No, only pity me when I
don't live alone." Pitt was shocked, and said, "To be sure he
will never forgive you as long as he lives." Mrs. Leneve used
often to advise me never to begin being civil to people I did not
care for: For," says she, "you grow weary of them, and can't help
showing it, and so make it ten times worse than if you had never
attempted to please them."
I suppose you have read in the papers the massacre of my
innocents. Every one of my Turkish sheep, that I have been
nursing up these fourteen years, torn to pieces in one night by
three strange dogs! They killed sixteen outright, and mangled
the two others in such a manner that I was forced to have them
knocked on the head. However, I bore this better than an
interruption.
I have scrawled and blotted this letter so I don't know whether
you can read it; but it is no matter, for I perceive it is all
about myself: but what has one else in the dead of summer? In
return, tell me as much as you please about yourself, which you
know is always a most welcome subject to me. One may preserve
one's spirits with one's juniors, but I defy any body to care but
about their contemporaries. One wants to linger about one's
predecessors, but who has the least curiosity about their
successors? This is abominable ingratitude: one takes wondrous
pains to consign one's own memory to them at the same time that
one feels the most perfect indifference to whatever relates to
them themselves. Well, they will behave just so in their turns.
Adieu!
Letter 173 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 3, 1763. (page 235)
I have but a minute's time for answering your letter; my house is
full of people, and has been so from the instant I breakfasted,
and more are coming; in short, I keep an inn; the sign, the
Gothic Castle. Since my gallery was finished I have not been in
it a quarter of an hour together; my whole time is passed in
giving tickets for seeing it, and hiding myself while it is seen.
Take my advice, never build a charming house for yourself between
London and Hampton-court: every body will live in it but you. I
fear you must give up all thoughts of the Vine for this year, at
least for some time. The poor master is on the rack; I left him
the day before yesterday in bed, where he had been ever since
Monday, with the gout in both knees and one foot, and suffering
martyrdom every night. I go to see him again on Monday. He has
not had so bad a fit these four years, and he has probably the
other foot still to come. You must come to me at least in the
mean time, before he is well enough to receive you. After next
Tuesday I am unengaged, except on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday
following; that is, the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth, when the
family from Park-place are to be with me. Settle your motions,
and let me know them as soon as you can, and give me as much time
as you can spare. I flatter myself the General(316) and Lady
Grandison will keep the kind promise they made me, and that I
shall see your brother John and Mr. Miller too.
My niece is not breeding. You shall have the auction books as
soon as I can get them, though I question if there is any thing
in your way; however, I shall see you long before the sale, and
we will talk on it.
There has been a revolution and a re-revolution, but I must defer
the history till I see you, for it is much too big for a letter
written in such a hurry as this. Adieu!
(316) General Montagu, who, in the preceding February, had
married the Countess-dowager of Grandison.-E.
Letter 174 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 7, 1763. (page 236)
As I am sure the house of Conway will not stay with me beyond
Monday next, I shall rejoice to see the house of Montagu this day
se'nnight (Wednesday), and shall think myself highly honoured by
a visit from Lady Beaulieu;(317) I know nobody that has better
taste, and it would flatter me exceedingly if she should happen
to like Strawberry. I knew you would be pleased with Mr. Thomas
Pitt; he is very amiable and very sensible, and one of the very
few that I reckon quite worthy of being at home at Strawberry.
I have again been in town to see Mr. Chute; he thinks the worst
over, yet he gets no sleep, and is still confined to his bed 'but
his spirits keep up surprisingly. As to your gout, so far from
pitying you, 'tis the best thing that can happen to you. All
that claret and port are very kind to you, when they prefer the
shape of lameness to that of apoplexies, or dropsies, or fevers,
or pleurisies.
Let me have a line certain what day I may expect your party, that
I may pray to the sun to illuminate the cabinet. Adieu!
(317) Isabella, eldest daughter and co-heir of John Duke of
Montagu, and relict of William Duke of Manchester; married, in
1763, to Edward Montagu, Lord Beaulieu.-E.
Letter 175 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 3, 1763. (page 236)
I was just getting into my chaise to go to Park-place, when I
received your commission for Mrs. Crosby's pictures; but I did
not neglect it, though I might as well, for the old gentlewoman
was a little whimsical, and though I sent my own gardener and
farmer with my cart to fetch them on Friday, she would not
deliver them, she said, till Monday; so this morning they were
forced to go again. They are now all safely lodged in my
cloister; when I say safely, you understand, that two of them
have large holes in them, as witness this bill of lading signed
by your aunt. There are eleven in all, besides Lord Halifax,
seven half-lengths and four heads; the former are all desirable,
and one of the latter; the three others woful. Mr. Wicks is now
in the act of packing them, for we have changed our minds about
sending them to London by water, as your wagoner told Louis last
time I was at Greatworth, that if they were left at the Old Hat,
near Acton, he would take them up and convey them to Greatworth;
so my cart carries them thither, and they will set out towards
you next Saturday.
I felt shocked, as you did, to think how suddenly the prospect of
joy at Osterly was dashed after our seeing it. However the young
lover(318) died handsomely. Fifty thousand pounds will dry
tears, that at most could be but two months old. His brother, I
heard, has behaved still more handsomely, and confirmed the
legacy, and added from himself the diamonds that had been
prepared for her. Here is a charming wife ready for any body
that likes a sentimental situation, a pretty woman, and a large
fortune.(319)
I have been often at Bulstrode from Chaffont, but I don't like
it. It is Dutch and triste. The pictures you mention in the
gallery would be curious if they knew one from another; but the
names are lost, and they are only sure that they have so many
pounds of ancestors in the lump. One or two of them indeed I
know, as the Earl of Southampton, that was Lord Essex's friend.
The works of Park-place go on bravely; the cottage will be very
pretty, and the bridge sublime, composed of loose rocks, that
will appear to have been tumbled together there the very wreck of
the deluge. One stone is of fourteen hundred weight. It will be
worth a hundred of Palladio's brigades, that are only fit to be
used in an opera.
I had a ridiculous adventure on my way hither. A Sir Thomas
Reeves wrote to me last year, that he had a great quantity of
heads of painters, drawn by himself from Dr. Mead's collection,
of which many were English, and offered me the use of them. This
was one of the numerous unknown correspondents which my books
have drawn upon me. I put it off then, but being to pass near
his door, for he lives but two miles from Maidenhead, I sent him
word I would call on my way to Park-place. After being carried
to three wrong houses, I was directed to a very ancient mansion,
composed of timber, and looking as unlike modern habitations, as
the picture of Penderel's house in Clarendon. The garden was
overrun with weeds, and with difficulty we found a bell. Louis
came riding back in great haste, and said, "Sir, the Gentleman is
dead suddenly." You may imagine I was surprised; however, as an
acquaintance I had never seen was an endurable misfortune, I was
preparing to depart; but happening to ask some women, that were
passing by the chaise, if they knew any circumstance of Sir
Thomas's death, I discovered that this was not Sir Thomas's
house, but belonged to a Mr. Mecke,(320) fellow of a college at
Oxford, who was actually just dead, and that the antiquity itself
had formerly been the residence of Nell Gwyn. Pray inquire after
it the next time you are at Frocmore. I went on, and after a
mistake or two more found Sir Thomas, a man about thirty in age,
and twelve in understanding; his drawings very indifferent, even
for the latter calculation. I did not know what to do or say,
but commended them and his child, and his house; said I had all
the heads, hoped I should see him at Twickenham, was afraid of
being too late for dinner, and hurried out of his house before I
had been there twenty minutes. It grieves one to receive
civilities when one feels obliged, and yet finds it impossible to
bear the people that bestow them.
I have given my assembly, to show my gallery, and it was
glorious; but happening to pitch upon the feast of tabernacles,
none of my Jews could come, though Mrs. Clive proposed to them to
change their religion; so I am forced to exhibit once more. For
the morning spectators, the crowd augments instead of
diminishing. It is really true that Lady Hertford called here
t'other morning, and I was reduced to bring her by the back gate
into the kitchen; the house was so full of company that came to
see the gallery, that I had no where else to carry her. Adieu!
P. S. I hope the least hint has never dropped from the Beaulieus
of that terrible picture of Sir Charles Williams, that put me
into such confusion the morning they breakfasted here. If they
did observe the inscription, I am sure they must have seen too
how it distressed me. Your collection of pictures is packed up,
and makes two large cases and one smaller.
My next assembly will be entertaining; there will be five
countesses, two bishops, fourteen Jews, five papists, a doctor of
physic, and an actress; not to mention Scotch, Irish, East and
West Indians.
I find that, to pack up your pictures, Louis has taken some paper
out of a hamper of waste, into which I had cast some of the
Conway papers, perhaps only as useless , however, if you find any
such in the packing, be so good as to lay them by for me.
(318) Francis Child, Esq. the banker at Temple-bar, and member
for Bishop's-Castle, who died on the @3d of September. He was to
have been married in a few days to the only daughter of the Hon.
Robert Trevor Hampden, one of the postmasters-general.-E.
(319) This young lady was married in the May following to Henri,
twelfth Earl of Suffolk.-E.
(320) The Rev. Mr. Mecke, of Pembroke College. He died on the
26th of September.-E.
Letter 176 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 8, 1763. Page 239)
Dear Sir,
You are always obliging to me and always thinking Of me kindly;
yet for once you have forgotten the way of obliging me most. You
do not mention any thought of coming hither, which you had given
me cause to hope about this time, I flatter myself nothing has
intervened to deprive me of that visit. Lord Hertford goes to
France the end of next week; I shall be in town to take leave of
him; but after the 15th, that is, this day se'nnight, I shall be
quite unengaged and the sooner I see you after the 15th, the
better, for I should be sorry to drag you across the country in
the badness of November roads.
I shall treasure up your notices against my second edition for
the volume of Engravers is printed off, and has been some time; I
only wait for some of the plates. The book you mention I have
not seen, nor do you encourage me to buy it. Some time or other
however I will get you to let me turn it over.
As I will trust that you will let me know soon when I shall have
the pleasure of seeing you here, I will make this a very short
letter indeed. I know nothing new or old worth telling you.
Letter 177 To The Earl Of Hertford.(321)
Arlington Street, Oct. 18, 1763. (page 239)
My dear Lord,
I am very impatient for a letter from Paris, to hear of your
outset, and what my Lady Hertford thinks of the new world she is
got into, and whether it is better or worse than she expected.
Pray tell me all: I mean of that sort, for I have no curiosity
about the family compact, nor the harbour of Dunkirk. It is your
private history--your audiences, reception, comforts or
distresses, your way of life, your company--that interests me; in
short, I care about my cousins and friends, not, like Jack
Harris,(322) about my lord ambassador. Consider you are in my
power. You, by this time,
are longing to hear from England, and depend upon me for the news
of London. I shall not send you a tittle, if you are not very
good, and do not (one of you, at least) write to me punctually.
This letter, I confess, will not give you much encouragement, for
I can absolutely tell you nothing. I dined at Mr. Grenville's
to-day, if there had been any thing to hear, I should have heard
it; but all consisted in what you will see in the papers--some
diminutive(323) battles in America, and the death of the King of
Poland,(324) which you probably knew before we did. The town is
a desert; it is like a vast plain, which, though abandoned at
present, is in three weeks to have a great battle fought upon it.
One of the colonels, I hear, is to be in town tomorrow, the Duke
of Devonshire. I came myself but this morning, but as I shall
not return to Strawberry till the day after to-morrow, I shall
not seal my letter till then. In the mean time, it is but fair
to give you some more particular particulars of what I expect to
know. For instance, of Monsieur de Nivernois's cordiality; of
Madame Dusson's affection for England; of my Lord Holland's joy
at seeing you in France, especially without your Secretary;(325)
of all my Lady Hertford's(326) cousins at St. Germains; and I
should not dislike a little anecdote or two of the late
embassy,(327) of which I do not doubt you will hear plenty. I
must trouble you with many
compliments to Madame de Boufflers, and with still more to the
Duchesse de Mirepoix,(328) who is always so good as to remember
me. Her brother, Prince de Beauvau,(329) I doubt has forgotten
me.
In
the disagreeableness of taking leave, I omitted these messages.
Good night for to-night--OH! I forgot--pray send me some caff`e
au lait: the Duc de Picquigny(33) (who by the way is somebody's
son, as I thought) takes it for snuff; and says it is the new
fashion at
Paris; I suppose they drink rappee after dinner.
Wednesday night.
I might as well have finished last night; for I know nothing more
than I did then, but that Lady mary Coke arrived this evening.
She has behaved very honourably, and not stolen the hereditary
Prince.(331)
Mr. Bowman(332) called on me yesterday before I came, and left
word that he would come again to-day, but did not. I wished to
hear of you from him, and a little of my old acquaintance at
Rheims. Did you find Lord Beauchamp(333) much grown? Are all
your sons to be like those of the Amalekites? who were I forget
how many cubits high.
Pray remind Mr. Hume(334) Of collecting the whole history of the
expulsion of the Jesuits. It is a subject worthy of his inquiry
and pen. Adieu! my dear lord.
(321) This is the first of the series of letters which Walpole
addressed to his relation, the Earl of Hertford, during his
lordship's embassy in Paris, in the years 1763, 1764, and 1765.
The first edition of these letters appeared, in quarto, in 1825,
edited by the Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, and contained
the following introductory notice:--
"No apology, it is presumed, is necessary for the following
publication. The Letters of Mr. Walpole have already attained
the highest rank in that department of English literature, and
seem to deserve their popularity, whether they are regarded as
objects of mere amusement, or as a collection of anecdotes
illustrative of the politics, literature, and manners of an
important and interesting period.
"The following collection is composed of his letters to his
cousin, the Earl of Hertford, while ambassador at Paris, from
1763 to 1765;
which seem, at least as much as those which have preceded them,
deserving of the public attention.
"It appears from some circumstances connected with the letters
themselves, that Mr. Walpole wrote them in the intention and hope
that they might be preserved; and although they are enlivened by
his characteristic vivacity, and are not deficient in the lighter
matters with which he was in the habit of amusing all his
correspondents, they are, on the whole, written in a more careful
style, and are employed on more important subjects than any
others which have yet come to light.
"Of the former collections, anecdote and chit-chat formed the
principal topics, and politics were introduced Only as they
happened to be the news of the day. Of the series now offered to
the public, politics are the groundwork, and the town-talk is
only the accidental embroidery.
"Mr. Walpole's lately published Memoires have given proof of his
ability in sketching parliamentary portraits and condensing
parliamentary debates. In the following letters, powers of the
same class will, it is thought, be recognised; and as the
published parliamentary debates are extremely imperfect for the
whole time to which this correspondence relates, Mr. Walpole's
sketches are additionally valuable.
"These letters also give a near view of the proceedings of
political parties during that interesting period; and although
the representation of so warm a partisan must be read with due
caution, a great deal of authentic information on this subject
will be found, and even the very errors of the writer will
sometimes tend to elucidate the state of parties during one of
the busiest periods of our domestic dissensions.
"Mr. Walpole's party feelings were, indeed, so warm, and his
judgment of individuals was so often affected by the political
lights in which he viewed them, that the Editor has thought it
due to many eminent political characters to add a few notes, to
endeavour to explain the prejudices and to correct the
misapprehensions under which Mr. Walpole wrote. In doing so, the
Editor has, he hopes, shown (what he certainly felt) a perfect
impartiality; and he flatters himself that he has only
endeavoured to perform, (however imperfectly) what Mr. Walpole
himself, after the heat of party had subsided, would have been
inclined to do."--
To the notes here spoken of, the letter C. is affixed.
(322) John Harris, Esq. of Hayne, in Devonshire, who married
Anne, Lord Hertford's eldest sister.-E.
(323) The actions at Detroit and Edge Hill, on the 31st of July
and 5th and 6th of August, between the British and the Indians.
In the former the British were defeated, and their leader,
Captain Ditlyell, killed; in the latter engagements, under
Colonel Bouguet, they defeated the Indians.-C.
(324) Stanislaus Augustus, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland.
He died at Dresden, on the 5th of October.-E.
(325) Mr. Fox, so long a political leader in the House of
Commons, had been lately created Lord Holland, and was now in
Paris. Mr. Walpole insinuates, in his letter to Mr. Montagu of
the 14th of April, that Lord Holland's visit to France arose from
apprehension of personal danger to himself, in consequence of his
share in Lord Bute's administration--an absurd insinuation! What
is meant by his joy at seeing Lord Hertford in France is not
clear; but the allusion to the secretary probably refers to the
absence of Sir Charles, then Mr. Bunbury, who was nominated
secretary to the embassy, but who had not accompanied Lord
Hertford to Paris: as Mr.
Bunbury had married Lady Holland's niece, there may have been
family reason for this allusion.-C.
(326) Lady Hertford was a granddaughter of Charles II., and
therefore cousin to the pretender, who, however, was at this
period in Italy; and the cousins alluded to were probably the
family of Fitz-James.-C.
(327) John, fourth Duke of Bedford, was Lord Hertford's
predecessor. Mr. Walpole had been on terms of personal and
political intimacy at Bedford-house; but political and private
differences had occurred to sharpen his resentment against the
Duke, and even occasionally against the Duchess of Bedford.-C.
(328) The Mar`eschale de Mirepoix was a clever woman, who was at
the head of one class of French society. She, however,
quarrelled with her family, and lost the respect of the public by
the meanness of countenancing Madame du Barri.-C.
(329) Son of the Prince de Craon: he was born in 1720; served
with great distinction from the earliest age, and was created, in
1782, marshal of France. His conduct in discountenancing the
favouritism of the last years of Louis XV. was very honourable,
as was his devotion to Louis XVI. in the first years of the
revolution. The marshal survived his unfortunate sovereign but
three months.-C.
(330) Son of the Duke de Chaulnes.-E.
(331) The Hereditary Prince of Brunswick was at this time
betrothed to the King's eldest sister; and Mr. Walpole, a
constant friend and admirer of Lady Mary, affects to think that
her beauty and vivacity might have seduced his Serene Highness
from his royal bride. Lady Mary lived till 1810.-C.
(332) This gentleman was travelling tutor to Lord Hertford's
eldest son, and had been lately residing with him at Rheims.-C.
(333) Francis, afterwards second Marquis of Hertford, who died in
the year 1822.-E.
(334) David Hume, the historian. He was at first private
secretary to Lord Hertford, and afterwards secretary of
embassy.-E.
Letter 178 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 12, 1763. (page 242)
I send you the catalogue as you desired; and as I told you, you
will, I think, find nothing to your purpose: the present lord
bought all the furniture at Navestock;(335) the few now to be
sold are the very fine ones of the best masters, and likely to go
at vast prices, for there are several people determined to have
some one thing that belonged to Lord Waldegrave. I did not get
the catalogue till the night before last, too late to send by the
post, for I had dined with Sir Richard Lyttelton at Richmond, and
was forced to return by Kew-bridge, for the Thames was swelled so
violently that the ferry could not work. I am here quite alone
in the midst of a deluge, without Mrs. Noah, but with half as
many animals. The waters are as much out as they were last year,
when her vice-majesty of Ireland,(336) that now is sailed to
Newmarket with both legs out at the fore glass, was here.
Apropos, the Irish court goes on ill; they lost a question by
forty the very first day
on the address. The Irish, not being so absurd or so
complimental as Mr. Allen, they would not suffer the word
"adequate" to pass.(337) The prime minister is so unpopular that
they think he must be sent back. His patent and Rigby's are
called in question.
You see the age is not favourable to prime ministers: well! I am
going amidst it all, very unwillingly; I had rather stay here,
for I am sick of the storms, that once loved them so cordially:
over and above, I am not well; this is the third winter my
nightly fever
has returned; it comes like the bellman before Christmas, to put
me in mind of my mortality.
Sir Michael Foster(338) is dead, a Whig of the old rock: he is a
greater loss to his country than the prim attorney-general,(339)
who has resigned, or than the attorney's father, who is dying,
will be.
My gallery is still in such request, that, though the middle of
November, I give out a ticket to-day for seeing it. I see little
of it myself, for I cannot sit alone in such state; I should
think myself like the mad Duchess of Albemarle,(340) who fancied
herself Empress of China. Adieu!
(335) In Essex, the seat of the Waldegraves.-E.
(336) The Countess of Northumberland.-E.
(337) To prevent the presentation of a more objectionable address
from the corporation of Bath, in favour of the peace, Mr. Allen
had secured the introduction of the word adequate, into the one
agreed to; which gave such offence to Mr. Pitt that he refused to
present it.-E.
(338) One of the judges in the court of King's Bench.-E.
(339) The Hon. Charles Yorke.
(340) Widow of Christopher Duke of Albemarle, and daughter of the
Duke of Newcastle.
Letter 179 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Nov. 17, 1763. (page 243)
If the winter keeps up to the vivacity of its d`ebut, you will
have no reason to complain of the sterility of my letters. I do
not say
this from the spirit of the House of Commons on the first
day,(341) which was the most fatiguing and dull debate I ever
heard, dull as
I have heard many; and yet for the first quarter of an hour it
looked as if we were met to choose a King of Poland,(342) and
that all our names ended in zsky. Wilkes, the night before, had
presented himself at the Cockpit: as he was listening to the
Speech,(343) George Selwyn said to him, in the words of the
Dunciad, "May Heaven preserve the ears you lend!"(344) We lost
four hours debating whether or not it was necessary to open the
session with reading a bill. The opposite sides, at the same
time, pushing to get the start, between the King's message, which
Mr. Grenville stood at the bar to present, which was to acquaint
us with the arrest of Wilkes and all that affair, and the
complaint which Wilkes himself stood up to make. At six we
divided on the question of reading a bill.(345) Young Thomas
Townshend(346) divided the House injudiciously, as the question
was so idle; yet the whole argument of the day had been so
complicated with this question, that in effect it became the
material question for trying
forces. This will be an interesting part to you, when you hear
that your brother(347) and I were in the minority. You know him,
and therefore know he did what he thought right; and for me, my
dear lord, you must know that I would die in the House for its
privileges, and the liberty of the press. But come, don't be
alarmed: this will have no Consequences. I don't think your
brother is going into opposition; and for me, if I may name
myself to your affection after him, nothing but a question of
such magnitude can carry me to the House at all. I am sick of
parties and factions, and leave them to buy and sell one another.
Bless me! I had forgot the numbers; they were 300, we 111. We
then went upon the King's message; heard the North Briton read;
and Lord North,(348) who took the prosecution upon him and did it
very well, moved to vote a scandalous libel, etc. tending to
foment treasonable insurrections. Mr. Pitt gave up the paper,
but fought against the last words of the censure. I say Mr.
Pitt, for indeed,
like Almanzor, he fought almost singly, and spoke forty times:
the first time in the day with much wit, afterwards with little
energy. He had a tough enemy too; I don't mean in parts or
argument, but one that makes an excellent bulldog, the
solicitor-general Norton.
Legge was, as usual, concise; and Charles Townshend, what is not
usual, silent. We sat till within a few minutes of two, after
dividing again; we, our exact former number, 111; they, 273; and
then we adjourned to go on the point of privilege the next day;
but now
"Listen, lordings, and hold you still;
Of doughty deeds tell you I will."
Martin,(349) in the debate, mentioned the North Briton, in which
he himself had been so heavily abused; and he said, "whoever
stabs a reputation in the dark, without setting his name, is a
cowardly, malignant, and scandalous scoundrel." This, looking at
Wilkes, he
repeated twice, with such rage and violence, that he owned his
passion obliged him to sit down. Wilkes bore this with the same
indifference as he did all that passed in the day. The -House,
too, who from Martin's choosing to take a public opportunity of
resentment, when he had so long declined any private notice, and
after Wilkes's courage was become so problematic, seemed to think
there was no danger of such champions going further; but the next
day, when we came into the House, the first thing we heard was
that Martin had shot Wilkes: so he had; but Wilkes has six lives
still good. It seems Wilkes had writ, to avow the paper, to
Martin, on which the latter challenged him. They went into
Hyde-park about noon; Humphrey Coates, the wine-merchant, waiting
in a postchaise to convey Wilkes away if triumphant. They fired
at the distance of
fourteen yards: both missed. then Martin fired and lodged a ball
in the side of Wilkes; who was going to return it, but dropped
his pistol. He desired Martin to take care of securing himself,
and assured him he would never say a word against him, and he
allows that Martin behaved well. The wound yesterday was thought
little more than a flesh-wound, and he was in his old spirits.
To-day the account is worse, and he has been delirious: so you
will think when
you hear what is to come. I think, from the agitation his mind
must be in, from his spirits, and from drinking, as I Suppose he
will, that he probably will end here. He puts me in mind of two
lines of Hudibras,(350) which, by the arrangement of the words
combined with Wilkes's story, are stronger than Butler intended
them:--
"But he, that fights and runs away,
May live to fight another day."
His adventures with Lord Talbot,(351) Forbes,(352) and Martin,
make these lines history.
Now for part the second. On the first day, in your House, where
the address was moved by Lord Hilsborough and Lord Suffolk, after
some wrangling between Lord Temple, Lord Halifax, the Duke of
Bedford, and Lord Gower; Lord Sandwich(353) laid before the House
the most blasphemous and indecent poem that ever was composed,
called "An Essay on Woman, With notes, by Dr. Warburton."', I
will tell you none of the particulars: they were so exceedingly
bad, that Lord Lyttelton begged the reading might be stopped.
The House
was amazed; nobody ventured even to ask a question: so it was
easily voted every thing you please, and a breach of privilege
into the bargain. Lord Sandwich then informed your Lordships,
that Mr.
Wilkes was the author. Fourteen copies alone were printed, one
of which the ministry had bribed the printer to give up. Lord
Temple then objected to the manner of obtaining it; and Bishop
Warburton, as much shocked at infidelity as Lord Sandwich had
been at obscenity, said, "the blackest fiends in hell would not
keep company with Wilkes when he should arrive there." Lord
Sandwich moved to vote Wilkes the author; but this Lord Mansfield
stopped, advertising the House that it was necessary first to
hear what Wilkes could say in his defence. To-day, therefore,
Was appointed
for that purpose; but it has been put off by Martin's lodging a
caveat.(354) This bomb was certainly well conducted, and the
secret, though known to many, well kept. The management is
worthy of Lord Sandwich, and like him. It may sound odd for me,
with my principles, to admire Lord Sandwich; but besides that he
has in several instances been very obliging to me, there is a
good humour and an industry about him that are very uncommon. I
do not admire politicians; but when they are excellent in their
way, one cannot help allowing them their due. Nobody but he
could have struck a stroke like this.
Yesterday we sat till eight on the address, which yet passed
without a negative - we had two very long speeches from Mr. Pitt
and Mr. Grenville; many fine parts in each. Mr. Pitt has given
the latter some strong words, yet not so many as were
expected.(355) To-morrow we go on the great question 'of
privilege; but I must send this away, as we have no chance of
leaving the House before midnight, if before next morning.
This long letter contains the history of but two days; yet if two
days furnish a history, it is not my fault. The ministry, I
think, may do whatever they please. Three hundred, that will
give up their own privileges, may be depended upon for giving up
any thing else. I have not time or room to ask a question, or
say a word more.
Nov. 18, Friday.
I have luckily got a holiday, and can continue my despatch, as
you know dinner time is my chief hour of business. The Speaker,
unlike Mr. Onslow, who was immortal in the chair, is taken very
ill, and our House is adjourned to Monday. Wilkes is thought in
great danger: instead of keeping him quiet, his friends have
shown their zeal by him, and himself has been all spirits and
riot, and sat in his bed the next morning to correct the press
for to-morrow's North Briton. His bon-mots are all over the
town, but too gross, I think, to repeat; the chief' are at the
expense of poor Lord George.(356) Notwithstanding Lord
Sandwich's masked battery, the tide runs violently for Wilkes,
and I do not find people in general so inclined to excuse his
lordship as I was. One hears nothing but
stories of the latter's impiety, and of the concert he was In
with Wilkes on that subject. Should this hero die, the Bishop of
Gloucester may doom him whither he pleases, but Wilkes will pass
for a saint and a martyr.
Besides what I have mentioned, there were two or three passages
in the House of Lords that were diverting. Lord Temple dwelled
much on the Spanish ministry being devoted to France. Lord
Halifax replied, "Can we help that? We can no more oblige the
King of Spain to change his ministers, than his lordship can
force his Majesty to change the present administration." Lord
Gower, too, attacking Lord Temple on want of respect to the King,
the Earl replied, "he never had wanted respect for the King: he
and his family had been attached to the house of Hanover full as
long as his lordship's family had."(357)
You may imagine that little is talked of but Wilkes, and what
relates to him. Indeed, I believe there is no other news, but
that Sir George Warren marries Miss Bishop, the maid of honour.
The Duchess Of Grafton is at Euston, and hopes to stay there till
after Christmas. Operas do not begin till tomorrow se'nnight;
but the Mingotti is to sing, and that contents me. I forgot to
tell you, and you may Wonder at hearing nothing Of the Reverend
Mr. Charles Pylades,(358) while Mr. John Orestes is making such a
figure: but Dr. Pylades, the poet, has forsaken his consort and
the Muses, and is gone off with a stonecutter's daughter.(359)
If he should come and offer himself to you for chaplain to the
embassy!
The Countess of Harrington was extremely alarmed last Sunday,, on
seeing the Duc de Prequigny enter her assembly: she forbade Lady
Caroline(360) speaking to such a debauched young man, and
communicated her fright to everybody. The Duchess of Bedford
observed to me that as Lady Berkeley(361) and some other matrons
of the same stamp were there, she thought there was no danger of
any violence being committed. For my part, the sisters are so
different, that I conclude my Lady Hertford has not found any
young man in France wild enough for her. Your counterpart, M. de
Guerchy, takes extremely. I have not yet seen his wife.
I this minute receive your charming long letter of the 11th, and
give you a thousand thanks for it. I wish next Tuesday was past,
for Lady Hertford's sake. You may depend on my letting you know,
if I hear the least rumour in your disfavour. I shall do so
without your orders, for I could not bear to have you traduced
and not advertise you to defend yourself. I have hitherto not
heard a
syllable; but the newspapers talk of your magnificence, and I
approve extremely your intending to support their evidence; for
though I do not think it necessary to scatter pearls and diamonds
about the streets like their vice-majesties(362), of Ireland, one
owes it to one's self and to the King's choice to prove it was
well made.
The colour given at Paris to Bunbury's(363) stay in England has
been given out here too. You need not, I think, trouble yourself
about that; a majority of three hundred will soon show, that if
he was detained, the reason at least no longer subsists.
Hamilton is certainly returning from Ireland. Lord
Shannon's(364) son is going to marry the Speaker's daughter, and
the Primate has begged to have the honour of Joining their hands.
This letter is wofullv blotted and ill-written, yet I must say it
is print compared to your lordship's. At first I thought you had
forgot that you was not writing to the secretary of state, and
had put it into cipher. Adieu! I am neither, dead of my fever
nor apoplexy, nay, nor of the House of Commons. I rather think
the violent heat of the latter did me good. Lady Ailesbury was
at court yesterday, and benignly received;(365) a circumstance
you will not dislike.
P.S. If I have not told you all you want to know, interrogate me,
and I will answer the next post.
(341) Parliament met on the 15th of November. The public mind
was at this moment in a considerable ferment, and the King's
speech invited Parliament "to discourage that licentious spirit
which is repugnant to the true principles of liberty and of this
happy constitution." It was expected that these words would, from
their being understood as a direct attack on Mr. Wilkes, have
opened a debate on his question, which was then uppermost in
every mind; but the opposition were unwilling to put themselves
under the disadvantage of opposing the address and of excepting
against words, which, in their general meaning were
unexceptionable; they, therefore, had recourse to the proceedings
so well described in this letter.-C.
(342) He means, that parties were so violent that the members
seemed inclined to come to blows.-C.
(343) The King's speech, which is now read at the house of the
minister, to a selection of the friends of government, was
formerly read at the Cockpit, and all who chose attended.-C.
(344) "Yet oh, my sons! a father's words attend;
So may the Fates preserve the ears you lend."-E.
(345) "As soon as the members were sworn at the table, Mr. Wilkes
and Mr. Grenville then a chancellor of the exchequer, arose in
their places, the first to make a complaint of a breach of
privilege in having been imprisoned, etc.; and Mr. Grenville, to
communicate to the House a message from the King, which related
to the privileges of the House: the Speaker at the same time
acquainted the House, that the clerk had prepared a bill, and
submitted it to them, whether, in point of form, the reading of
the bill should not be the first proceeding towards opening the
session. A very long debate ensued, which of these three matters
ought to have the precedence,, -and at last it was carried in
favour of the bill." Hatsell's Precedents, vol. ii. p. 77.-E.
(346) Afterwards Lord Sydney. The Townshends were supposed to be
very unsteady, if not fickle, in their political conduct; a
circumstance which gives point to Goldsmith's mention of this Mr.
Townshend in his character of Burke:-
"----yet straining his throat
To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote."-C.
(347) Henry Seymour Conway, only brother of Lord Hertford, at
this time a groom of the bedchamber, lieutenant-general in the
army, and colonel of the first regiment of dragoons. He was, as
we will see, in consequence of his opposition to government on
these questions, dismissed both from court and his regiment: but
he became, on a change of ministers in 1765, secretary of state;
and in 1772 was promoted to be a general; and in 1793 a
field-marshal.-C.
(348) Lord North was at this time one of the junior lords of the
treasury.-E.
(349) Samuel Martin, Esq. Member for Camelford. He had been
secretary of the treasury during the Duke of Newcastle's and Lord
Bute's administration.-E.
(350) These lines, and two others, usually appended to them--
"He that is in battle slain
Can never rise to fight again,"
are not in Hudibras. Butler has the same thought in two lines--
"For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that's slain."
Par. iii. Cant. 3, 1. 243.-C.
(351) At the coronation, Lord Talbot, as lord steward, appeared
on horseback in Westminster-hall. His horse had been, at
numerous rehearsals, so assiduously trained to perform what was
thought the most difficult part of his duty, namely, the retiring
backwards from the royal table, that, at the ceremony itself, no
art of his rider could prevent the too docile animal from making
his approaches to the royal presence tail foremost. This
ridiculous incident, was the occasion of some sarcastic remarks
in the North Briton, of the 21st August, which led to a
correspondence between Lord Talbot and Mr. Wilkes, and ultimately
to a duel in the garden of the Red Lion Inn, at Bagshot, Mr.
Wilkes proposed that the parties should sup together that night,
and fight next morning. Lord Talbot insisted on fighting
immediately. This altercation, and some delay of Wilkes in
writing papers, which (not expecting, he said, to take the field
before morning) he had left unfinished, delayed the affair till
dusk, and after the innocuous exchange of shots by moonlight, the
parties shook hands, and supped together at the inn with a great
deal of jollity.-C.
(352) A young Scotch officer of the name of Forbes, fastened a
quarrel on Mr. Wilkes, in Paris, for having written against
Scotland, and insisted on his fighting him. Wilkes declined
until he should have settled an engagement of the same nature
which he had with Lord Egremont. Just at this time Lord Egremont
died, and Wilkes immediately offered to meet Captain Forbes at
Menin, in Flanders. By some mistake Forbes did not appear, and
the affair blew over. A long controversy was kept up on the
subject by partisans in the newspapers; but on the whole it is
impossible to deny that Forbes's conduct was nasty and foolish,
and that Wilkes behaved himself like a man of temper and
honour.-C.
(353) At this time secretary of state. " It is a great mercy,"
says Lord Chesterfield, in a letter to his son, of the 3d of
December, "that Mr. Wilkes, the intrepid defender of our rights
and liberties, is out of danger; and it is no less a mercy, that
God hath raised up the Earl of Sandwich, to vindicate true
religion and morality. These two blessings will justly make an
epocha in the annals affairs country."-E.
(354) The Bishop of Gloucester, whose laborious commentaries on
Pope's Essay on Man gave Wilkes the idea of fathering on him the
notes on the Essay on Woman.-C.
(355) Dr. Birch, in a letter to Lord Royston, gives the following
account of what passed in the House of Lords on this occasion:-
-"The session commenced with a complaint made by Lord Sandwich
against Mr. Wilkes for a breach of privilege in being the author
of a poem full of obscenity and blasphemy, intitled 'An Essay on
Woman,' with notes, under the name of the Bishop of Gloucester.
His letters, which discovered the piece was his, had been seized
at Kearsley's the bookseller, when the latter was taken up for
publishing No. 45 of the North Briton. Lord Temple and Lord
Sandys objected to the reading letters, till the secretary of
state's warrant, by which Kearsley had been arrested, had been
produced and shown to be a legal act; but this objection being
overruled, the Lords voted the Essay a most scandalous, obscene,
and impious libel, and adjourned the farther consideration of the
subject, as far as concerned the author, till the Thursday
following."-E.
Lord Barrington, in a letter to Sir Andrew Mitchell, gives the
following account of Mr. Pitt's speech:--"He spoke with great
ability, and the utmost degree of temper: he spoke civilly, and
not unfairly, of the ministers; but of the King he said every
thing which duty and affection could inspire. The effect of this
was a vote for an address, nem. con. I think, if fifty thousand
pounds had been given for that speech, it would have been well
expended. It secures us a quiet session." See Chatham
Correspondence, Vol. ii. p. 262.-E.
(356) Probably Lord George Sackville, so disagreeably celebrated
for his conduct at Minden; afterwards a peer, by the title of
Lord Sackville, and secretary of state. In the North Briton
which was in preparation when Wilkes was taken up, he advised
that Lord George should carry the sword before the King at an
intended thanksgiving. Of all the persons suspected of being the
author of Junius, Lord George Sackville seems the most
probable.-C. ["It is peculiarly hostile to the opinion in favour
of Lord George, that Junius should roundly have accused him of
want of courage." Woodfall's Junius, Vol. i. P. 161.]
(357) Lord Gower had been reputed the head of the Jacobites. Sir
C. H. Williams sneeringly calls him "Hanoverian Gower;" and when
he accepted office from the house of Brunswick, all the Jacobites
in England were mortified and enraged. Dr. Johnson, a steady
Tory, was, when compiling his Dictionary, with difficulty
persuaded not to add to his explanation of the word
deserter--"Sometimes it is called a Go'er."-C. ["Talking," says
Boswell, "upon this subject, Dr. Johnson mentioned to me a
stronger instance of the predominance
of his private feelings in the composition of this work than any
now to be found in it: 'You know, Sir, Lord Gower forsook the old
Jacobite interest: when I came to the word renegades after
telling what it meant, one who deserts to the enemy, a revolter,
I added, sometimes we Say a GOWER: thus it went to the press; but
the printer had more wit than I, and struck it out.'" Croker's
Boswell.]
(358) Churchill the satirist and Wilkes; of whom Mr. Southey, in
his Life of Cowper, relates the following anecdote:--"Churchill
became Wilkes's coadjutor in the North Briton; and the
publishers, when examined before the privy council on the
publication of No. 45, having declared that Wilkes gave orders
for the printing, and Churchill received the profits from the
sale, orders were given for arresting Churchill under the general
warrant. He was saved from arrest by Wilkes's presence of mind,
who was in custody of the messenger when Churchill entered the
room. 'Good morning, Thompson,' said Wilkes to him: 'how does
Mrs. Thompson do? Does she dine in the country?' Churchill took
the hint as readily as it had been given. He replied, that Mrs.
Thompson was waiting for him, and that he only came for a moment,
to ask him how he did. Then almost directly he took his leave,
hastened home, secured his papers, retired into the Country, and
eluded all search."-E.
(359) Mr. Southey states, that "a fortnight had not elapsed
before both parties were struck with sincere compunction, and
through the intercession of a true friend, at their entreaty, the
unhappy penitent was received by her father: it is said she would
have proved worthy of this parental forgiveness, if an elder
sister had not, by continual taunt,; and reproaches, rendered her
life so miserable, that, in absolute despair, she threw herself
upon Churchill for protection. Instead of making a just
provision forher, which his means would have allowed, he received
her as his mistress. If all his other writings were forgotten,
the lines in which he expressed his compunction for his conduct
would deserve always to be remembered--
"Tis not the babbling of a busy world,
Where praise and censure are at random hurl'd,
Which can the meanest of my thoughts control,
one settled purpose of my soul;
Free and at large might their wild curses roam,
If all, if all, alas! were well at home.
No; 'tis the tale which angry conscience tells,
When she, with more than tragic horror, swells
Each circumstance of guilt; when stern, but true,
She brings bad action.,; full into review,
And, like the dread handwriting on the wall,
Bids late remorse awake at reason's call;
Arm'd at all points, bids scorpion vengeance pass,
And to the mind holds up reflection's glass--
The mind, which starting heaves the heartfelt groan,
And hates that form she knows to be her own.'"-E.
(360) Her eldest daughter, afterwards Viscountess Fortrose . she
died in 1767, at the age of twenty.-E.
(361) Elizabeth Drax, wife of Augustus, fourth Earl Berkeley; she
had been lady of the bedchamber to the Princess-dowager.-E.
(362) Hugh Earl, and afterwards Duke of Northumberland, and his
lady, Elizabeth Seymour, only surviving child of Algernon Duke of
Somerset, and heiress, by her grandmother, of the Percies.-E.
(363) Sir Charles Bunbury, Bart. The reason evidently was, that
he remained to vote in the House of Commons.-C.
(364) Lord Boyle, eldest son of the first Earl of Shannon,
married, in the following month, Catharine, eldest daughter of
the Right Hon. John Ponsonby, Speaker of the Irish House of
commons, by Lady Ellen Cavendish, second daughter of the third
Duke of Devonshire. Lord Shannon, Mr. Ponsonby, and the Primate,
Dr. George Stone, Archbishop of Armagh, were the ruling
triumvirate of Ireland. They
were four times declared lords justices of that kingdom. Some
differences had, however, occurred between these great leaders,
which Mr. Walpole insinuates that this marriage was likely to
heal.-C.
(365) the benignity of her reception at court is noticed because
General Conway's late votes against the ministry might naturally
have displeased the King, to whom he was groom of the
bedchamber.-C.
Letter 180 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 20, 1763. (page 250)
You are in the wrong; believe me you are in the wrong to stay in
the country; London never was so entertaining since it had a
steeple or a madhouse. Cowards fight duels; secretaries of state
turn Methodists on the Tuesday, and are expelled the playhouse
for blasphemy on Friday. I am not turned Methodist, but patriot,
and what is more extraordinary, am not going to have a place.
What is more wonderful still, Lord Hardwicke has made two of his
sons resign their employments. I know my letter sounds as
enigmatic as Merlin's almanack; but my events have really
happened. I had almost persuaded myself like you to quit the
world; thank my stars I did not. Why, I have done nothing but
laugh since last Sunday; though on Tuesday I was one of a hundred
and eleven, who were outvoted by three hundred; no laughing
matter generally to a true patriot, whether he thinks his country
undone or himself. Nay, I am still: more absurd; even for my
dear country's sake I cannot bring myself to connect with Lord
Hardwicke, or the Duke of Newcastle, though they are in the
minority-an unprecedented case, not to love every body one
despises, when they are of the same side. On the contrary, I
fear I resembled a fond woman, and dote on the dear betrayer. In
short, and to write something that you can understand, you know I
have long had a partiality for your cousin Sandwich, who has
out-Sandwiched himself. He has impeached
Wilkes for a blasphemous poem, and has been expelled for
blasphemy himself by the Beefsteak Club at Covent-garden. Wilkes
has been shot by Martin, and instead of being burnt at an auto da
fe, as the Bishop of Gloucester intended, is reverenced as a
saint by the mob, and if he dies, I suppose, the people will
squint themselves into convulsions at his tomb, in honour of his
memory. Now is not this better than feeding one's birds and
one's bantams, poring one's eyes out over old histories, not half
so extraordinary as the present, or ambling to Squire Bencow's on
one's padnag, and playing
at cribbage with one's brother John and one's parson? Prithee
come to town, and let us put off taking the veil for another
year: besides by this time twelvemonth we are sure the world will
be a year older in wickedness, and we shall have more matter for
meditation. One would not leave it methinks till it comes to the
worst, and that time cannot be many months off. In the mean
time, I have bespoken a dagger, in case the circumstances should
grow so classic as to make it becoming to kill oneself; however,
though disposed to quit the world, as I have no mind to leave it
entirely, I shall put off my death to the last minute, and do
nothing rashly, till I see Mr. Pitt and Lord Temple place
themselves in their curule chairs in St. James's-market, and
resign their throats to the victors. I am determined to see them
dead first, lest they should play me a trick, and be hobbling to
Buckingham-house, while I am shivering and waiting for them on
the banks of Lethe. Adieu! Yours, Horatius.
Letter 181
To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Nov. 25, 1763. (page 251)
You tell me, my dear lord, in a letter I have this moment
received from you, that you have had a comfortable one from me; I
fear it was not the last: you will not have been fond of your
brother's voting against the court. Since that, he has been told
by different channels that they think of taking away regiments
from opposers. He heard it, as he would the wind whistle: while
in the shape of a threat, he treats it with contempt; if put into
execution his scorn would subside into indifference. You know he
has but one object--doing what is right; the rest may betide as
it will. One or two of the ministers,(366) who are honest men,
would, I have reason to believe, be heartily concerned to have
such measures adopted; but they are not directors. The little
favour they possess, and the desperateness of their situation
oblige them to swallow many things they disapprove, and which
ruin their character with the nation; while others, who have no
character to lose, and whose situation is no less desperate, care
not what inconveniences they bring on their master, nor what
confusion on their country, in which they can never prosper,
except when it is convulsed. The nation, indeed, seems
thoroughly sensible of this truth. They are unpopular beyond
conception: even of those that vote with them there are numbers
that express their aversion without reserve. Indeed, on
Wednesday, the 23d, this went farther: we were to debate the
great point of privilege: Wilbraham(367)
objected, that Wilkes was involved in it, and ought to be
present. On this, though, as you see, a question of slight
moment, fifty-seven left them at once: they were but 243 to
166.(368) As we had sat, however, till eight at night, the
debate was postponed to next day. Mr. Pitt, who had a fever and
the gout, came on crutches, and wrapped in flannels: so he did
yesterday, but was obliged to retire at ten at night, after
making a speech of an hour and fifty minutes; the worst, I think,
I ever heard him make in my life. For our parts, we sat till
within ten minutes of two in the morning: yet we had but few
speeches, all were so long. Hussey,(369) solicitor to the
Princess of Wales, was against the court, and spoke with great
spirit, and true Whig spirit. Charles Yorke(370) shone
exceedingly. He had spoke and voted with us the night before;
but now maintained his opinion against Pratt's.(371) It was a
most able and learned performance, and the latter part, which was
oratoric, uncommonly beautiful and eloquent. You find I don't
let partiality to the Whig cause blind my judgment. That speech
was certainly the masterpiece of the day. Norton would not have
made a figure, even if Charles Yorke had not appeared; but giving
way to his natural brutality, he got into an ugly scrape. Having
so little delicacy or decency as to mention a cause in which he
had prosecuted Sir John Rushout(372) (Who sat just under him) for
perjury, the tough old knight (who had been honourably acquitted
of the charge) gave the House an account of the affair; and then
added, "I was assured the prosecution was set on foot by that
Honest gentleman; I hope I don't Call him out of his name--and
that it was in revenge for my having opposed him in an election."
Norton denied the charge upon his honour, which did not seem to
persuade every body. Immediately after this we had another
episode. Rigby,(373) totally unprovoked either by any thing said
or by the complexion of the day, which was grave and
argumentative, fell Upon Lord Temple, and described his behaviour
on the commitment of Wilkes. James Grenville,(374) who sat
beside him, rose in all the acrimony of resentment: drew a very
favourable picture of his brother, and then one of Rigby,
conjuring up the bitterest words, epithet, and circumstances that
he could amass together: told him how interested he was, and how
ignorant: painted his Journey to Ireland to get a law-place, for
which he was so unqualified; and concluded with affirming he had
fled from thence to avoid the vengeance of the people. The
passive Speaker suffered both painters to finish their words, and
would have let them carry their colours and brushes into
Hyde-park the next morning, if other people had not represented
the necessity of demanding their paroles that it should go no
farther. They were both unwilling to rise: Rigby did at last,
and put an end to it with humour(375) and good-humour. The
numbers were 258 to 133. The best speech of
all those that were not spoken was Charles Townshend's.(376) He
has for some time been informing the world that for the last
three months he had constantly employed six clerks to search and
transcribe records, journals, precedents, etc. The production of
all this mountain of matter was a mouse, and that mouse
stillborn: he has voted with us but never uttered a word.
We shall now repose for some time; at least I am sure I shall.
It has been hard service; and nothing but a Whig point of this
magnitude could easily have carried me to the House at all, of
which I have so long been sick. Wilkes will live, but is not
likely to be in a situation to come forth for some time. The
blasphemous book has fallen ten times heavier on Sandwich's own
head than on Wilkes's: it has brought forth such a catalogue of
anecdotes as is incredible! Lord Hardwicke fluctuates between
life and death. Lord Effingham is dead suddenly, and Lord
Cantelupe(377) has got his troop.
These are all our news; I am glad yours go on so smoothly. I
take care to do you justice at M. de Guerchy's for all the
justice you do to France, and particularly to the house of
Nivernois. D'Eon(378) is here still: I know nothing more of him
but that the honour of having a hand in the peace overset his
poor brain. This was evident on the fatal night(379) at Lord
Halifax's: when they told him his behaviour was a breach of the
peace, he was quite distracted, thinking it was the peace between
his country and this.
Our operas begin to-morrow. The Duchess of Grafton is come for a
fortnight only. My compliments to the ambassadress, and all your
court.
(366) There is reason to think that at this moment Mr. Grenville
and Lord Halifax were those to whom Mr. Walpole gave credit for
honest intentions and a disposition to moderate and conciliate.
This opinion, though probably correct, Walpole soon changed, as
to Mr. Grenville.-C.
(367) Randle Wilbraham, LL.D. a barrister, deputy steward of the
University of Oxford, and member for Newton, in Lancashire.-E.
(368) The question was, "That Privilege of Parliament does not
extend to the case of writing and publishing seditious libels,
nor ought to be allowed to obstruct the ordinary course of the
laws in the speedy and effectual prosecution of so heinous and
dangerous an offence."-C.
(369) Richard Hussey, member for St. Mawes. He was counsel to
the navy, as well as solicitor to the Queen, not, as Mr. Walpole
says, to the Princess. He was afterwards her majesty's
attorney-general.-C.
(370) Charles Yorke, second son of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. He
had been attorney-general, but resigned on the 31st of October.
He agreed with the ministry on the question of privilege, but
differed from them on general warrants. This last difference may
have accelerated his resignation; but the event itself had been
determined on, ever since the failure of a negotiation which took
place towards the end of the preceding August, through Mr. Pitt
and Lord Hardwicke, to form a new administration on a Whig
basis.-C.
(371) Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, afterwards Lord Camden.
He had discharged Wilkes out of confinement on the ground of
privilege.-E.
(372) Sir John Rushout, of Northwick, the fourth baronet. He had
sat in ten Parliaments; in the three first for Malmsbury, and in
the rest for Evesham. He had been a violent politician in Sir
Robert Walpole's administration. See vol. i. p. 222, letter
53.-E.
(373) The Right Hon. Richard Rigby, master of the rolls in
Ireland, afterwards paymaster of the forces; a statesman of the
second class, and a bon vivant of the first. Mr. Rigby was at one
time a chief friend and favourite of Mr. Walpole's, but became
involved in Mr. Walpole's dislike to the Duke of Bedford, to whom
Mr. Rigby was sincerely and constantly attached, and over whom he
was supposed to have great influence.-C.
(374) Fourth brother of Lord Temple and Mr. George Grenville;
father of Lord Glastonbury.-E.
(375) Lady Suffolk, in a letter to the Earl of Buckingham, of the
29th of November, says, "Jemmy Grenville and Mr. Rigby were
so violent against each other, one in his manner of treating
Lord Temple, who was in the House, and the brother in his
justification of his brother, that the House was obliged to
interfere to prevent mischief. Lord Temple comes to me; but
politics is the bane of friendship, and when personal resentments
join, the man becomes another creature."-E.
(376) As Mr. Walpole seems to impute Mr. Charles Townshend's
silence on the question of privilege to fickleness, or some worse
cause, it is but just to state that he never quite approved that
question. This will be seen from the following extract from some
of his confidential letters to Dr. Brocklesby, written two months
before Parliament met:--"You know I never approved of No. 45, or
engaged in any of the consequential measures. As to the question
of privilege, it is an intricate matter; The authorities are
contradictory, and the distinctions to be reasonably made on the
precedents are plausible and endless." Mr. Townshend gave a good
deal of further consideration to the subject, and his silence in
the debate only proves that his first impressions were confirmed.
Mr. Burke's beautiful, but, perhaps, too favourable character of
Charles Townshend will immortalize the writer and the subject.-C.
(377) John, afterwards second Earl of Delawarr, vice-chamberlain
to the Queen.-E.
(378) This singular person had been secretary to the Duke de
Nivernois's embassy, and in the interval between that
ambassador's departure and the arrival of M. de Guerchy, the
French mission to our court devolved upon him. This honour, as
Mr. Walpole intimates, seems to have turned his head, and he was
so absurdly exasperated at being superseded by M. de Guerchy,
that he refused to deliver his letters of recall, set his court
at defiance, and published a volume of libels on M. de Guerchy
and the French ministers. As he persisted in withholding the
letters of recall, the two courts were obliged to notify in the
London Gazette that his mission was at an end; and the French
government desired that he be given up to them. This, of course,
could not be done: but he was proceeded against by criminal
information, and finally convicted of the libels against M. de
Guerchy. D'Eon asserted, that the French ministry had a design
to carry him off privately; and it has been said that he was
apprised of this scheme by Louis XV. who, it seems, had
entertained some kind of secret and extra- official communication
with this adventurer. He afterwards continued in obscurity until
1777, when the public was astonished by the trial of an action
before Lord Mansfield, for money lost on
a wager respecting his sex. On that trial it seemed proved
beyond all doubt, that the person was a female. Proceedings in
the Parliament of Paris had a similar result, and the soldier and
the minister was condemned to wear woman's attire, which d'Eon
did for many years. He emigrated at the revolution, and died in
London in May, 1810. On examination, after death, the body
proved to be that of a male. This circumstance, attested by the
most respectable authorities, is so strongly it variance with all
the former evidence, that the French biographers have been
induced to doubt whether the original Chevalier D'Eon and the
person who died in 1810 were the same, and they even endeavour to
show that the real person, the Chevali`ere, as they term it, died
in 1790; but we cannot admit this solution of the difficulty, for
one, at least, of the surgeons who examined the body in 1810, had
known D'Eon in his habiliments, and he had for ten years lived
unquestioned under the name of D'Eon.-C.
(379) On the 26th of October, D'Eon, meeting M. de Guerchy and a
M. de Vergy at Lord Halifax's, in Great George-street, burst out
into such violence on some observation made by De Vergy, that it
became necessary to call in the guard. His whole behaviour in
this affair looks like insanity.-C.
Letter 182 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Dec. 2, 1763. (page 254)
I have been expecting a letter all day, as Friday is the day I
have generally received a letter from you, but it is not yet
arrived and I begin mine without it. M. de Guerchy has given us
a prosperous account of my Lady Hertford's audience still I am
impatient to hear it from yourselves. I want to know, too, what
you say to your brother's being in the minority. I have already
told you that unless they use him ill, I do not think him likely
to take any warm part. With regard to dismission of officers, I
hear no more of it: such a violent step would but spread the
flames. which are already fierce enough. I will give you an
instance: last' Saturday, Lord Cornwallis(380) and Lord
Allen,(381) came drunk to the Opera: the former went up to Rigby
in the pit, and told him in direct words that Lord Sandwich was a
pickpocket. Then Lord Allen, with looks and gestures no less
expressive, advanced close to him, and repeating this again in
the passage, would have provoked a quarrel, if George West(382)
had not carried him away by force. Lord (Cornwallis, the next
morning in Hyde-park, made an apology to Rigby for his behaviour,
but the rest of the world is not so complaisant. His pride,
insolence, and over-bearingness, have made him so many enemies,
that they are glad to tear him to pieces for his attack on Lord
Temple, so unprovoked, and so poorly performed. It was well that
with his spirit and warmth he had the sense not to resent the
behaviour of those two drunken young fellows.
On Tuesday your Lordship's House sat till ten at night, on the
resolutions we had communicated to you; and you agreed to them by
114 to 35: a puny minority indeed, considering of what great
names it was composed! Even the Duke of Cumberland voted in it;
but Mr. Yorke's speech in our House, and Lord Mansfield's in
yours, for two hours, carried away many of the opposition,
particularly Lord Lyttelton, and the greater part of the Duke of
Newcastle's Bishops.(383) The Duke of Grafton is much commended.
The Duke of Portland commenced, but was too much frightened.
There was no warmth nor event; but Lord Shelburne, who they say
spoke well, and against the court, and as his friends had voted
in our House, has produced one, the great Mr. Calcraft(384) being
turned out yesterday, from some muster-mastership; I don't know
what. Lord Sandwich is canvassing to succeed Lord
Hardwicke, as High Steward of Cambridge; another egg of
animosity. We shall, however, I believe, be tolerably quiet till
after Christmas, as Mr. Wilkes Will not be able to act before the
holidays. I rejoice at it: I am heartily sick of all this folly,
and shall be glad to get to Strawberry again, and hear nothing of
it. The ministry have bought off Lord Clive(385) with a bribe
that would frighten the King of France himself: they have given
him back his 25,000 a year.
Walsh(386) has behaved nobly: he said he could not in conscience
vote with the administration, and would not Vote against Lord
Clive, who chose him: he has therefore offered to resign his
seat. Lady Augusta's(387) fortune was to be voted to-day and
Lord Strange talked of opposing it; but I had not the curiosity
to go down. This is all our politics, and indeed all our news;
we have none of any other kind. So far you will not regret
England. For my part, I wish myself with you. Being perfectly
indifferent who is minister and Who is not, and weary of
laughing(388) at both, I shall take hold of the first spring to
make you my visit.
Our operas do not succeed. Girardini, now become minister and
having no exchequer to buy an audience, is grown unpopular. The
Mingotti, whom he has forced upon the town, is as much disliked
as if he had insisted on her being first lord of the treasury.
The first man, though with sweet notes, has so weak a voice that
he might as well hold his tongue like Charles Townshend. The
figurantes are very pretty, but can dance no more than Tommy
Pelham.(389) The first man dancer is handsome, well made, and
strong enough to make his fortune any where: but you know,
fortunes made in private are seldom agreeable to the public.(390)
In short, it will not do; there was not a soul in the pit the
second night.
Lady Mary Coke has received her gown by the Prince de Masseran,
and is exceedingly obliged to you, though much disappointed; this
being a slight gown made up, and not the one she expected, which
is a fine one bought for her by Lady Holland,(391) and which you
must send somehow or other: if you cannot, you must despatch an
ambassador on purpose. I dined with the Prince de Masseran, at
Guerchy's, the day after his arrival; and if faces speak truth,
he will not be our ruin. Oh! but there is a ten times more
delightful man--the Austrian minister:(392) he is so stiff and
upright, that you would think all his mistress's diadems were
upon his head, and that he was afraid of their dropping off.
I know so little of Irish politics, that I am afraid of
misinforming you: but I hear that Hamilton, who has come off with
honour in a squabble with Lord Newton,(393) about the latter's
wife, speaks and votes with the opposition against the
Castle.(394) I don't know the meaning of it, nor, except it had
been to tell you, should I have remembered it.
Well! your letter will not come, and I must send away mine.
Remember, the holidays are coming, and that I shall be a good
deal out of town. I have been charming hitherto, but I cannot
make brick without straw. Encore, you are almost the only person
I ever write a line to. I grow so old and so indolent that I
hate the sight of a pen and ink.
(380) Charles, first Marquis of Cornwallis: born in 1738,
succeeded his father, the first Earl, in 1762, and died in India
in 1805.-E.
(381) Joshua, fifth Viscount Allen, of Ireland, born in 1738.-E.
(382) George, second son of the first Earl of Delawarr.-E.
(383) Bishops made during the Duke of Newcastle's administration,
and who were therefore supposed likely to be of his opinion. The
Duke of Newcastle after being nearly half a century in office,
was now in opposition.-C.
(384) John Calcraft, Esq. was deputy commissary-general of
musters: he was particularly attached to Mr. Fox; which is,
perhaps, one reason why Mr. Walpole, who had now quarrelled with
Mr. Fox, speaks so slightingly of Mr. Calcraft.-C.
(385) Robert Clive, who, for his extraordinary services and
success in India, was, at the age of thirty-five, created an
Irish peer. It was of him that Mr. Pitt said, that he was "a
heaven-born general, who without any experience in military
affairs, had surpassed all the officers of his time." The wealth
which this great man accumulated in India was, during his whole
subsequent life, a subject of popular jealousy and party
attack.-C.
(386) John Walsh, Esq. member for Worcester.-E.
(387) Princess Augusta, eldest sister of George III.; married in
January 1764 to the Duke of Brunswick, killed at Jena, in 1806.
Her Royal Highness died in London in 1810.-E.
(388) Mr. Walpole affected indifference to politics, but the tone
of his correspondence does not quite justify the expression of
laughing at either party; he was warmly interested in the one,
and bitterly hostile to the other, and for a considerable period
took a deep and active interest in political party.-C.
(389) Thomas Pelham, member for Sussex, afterwards comptroller of
the household, and first Earl of Chichester.-E.
(390) The reader will observe, in this description of the Opera,
an amusing allusion to public affairs; the last sentence refers,
no doubt, to Lord Bute.-C.
(391) Lady Georgina Caroline Lenox, eldest daughter of Charles,
second Duke of Richmond. She had been, in 1762, created Baroness
Holland in her own right.-C.
(392) Probably the Count de Seleirn, minister from the
Empress-Queen, Maria Theresa.
(393) Brinsley Lord Newton, afterwards second Earl of
Lanesborough, married Lady Jane Rochfort, eldest daughter of the
first Earl of Belvidere. In the affair here alluded to Lord
Newton exhibited at first an extreme jealousy, and subsequently
what was thought an extreme facility in admitting Mr. hamilton's
exculpatory assurances.-C.
(394) This is not quite true; but Mr. Hamilton was on very bad
terms with the Lord Lieutenant, and certainly did not take that
prominent part in the House of Commons of Ireland which his
station as chief secretary seemed to require,.-C.
Letter 183 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, Dec. 6, 1763. (page 256)
Dear sir,
According to custom I am excessively obliged to you: you are
continually giving me proofs of your kindness. I have now three
packets to thank you for, full of information, and have only
lamented the trouble you have given yourself.
I am glad for the tomb's sake and my own, that Sir Giles
Allington's monument is restored. The draught you have sent is
very perfect. The account of your ancestor Tuer(395) shall not
be forgotten in my next edition. The pedigree of Allington I had
from Collins before his death, but I think not as perfect as
yours. You have made one little slip in it: my mother was
granddaughter, not daughter of Sir John Shorter, and was not
heiress, having three brothers, who all died after her, and we
only quarter the arms of Shorter, which I fancy occasioned the
mistake, by their leaving no children. The verses by Sir Edward
Walpole, and the translation by Bland, are published in my
description of Houghton.
I am come late from the House of Lords, and am just going to the
Opera; so you will excuse me saying more than that I have a print
of Archbishop Hutton for you (it @is Dr. Ducarel's), and a
little plate of Strawberry; but I do not send them by the post,
as it would crease them: if you will tell me how to convey them
otherwise, I will. I repeat many thanks to you.
(395) Herbert Tuer, the painter. After the death of Charles 1.
he withdrew into Holland, and it is believed that he died at
Utrecht.-E.
Letter 184 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Friday, Dec. 9, 1763. (page 257)
Your brother has sent you such a full account of his transaction
with Mr. Grenville(396) that it is not necessary for me to add a
syllable, except, what your brother will not have said himself,
that he has acted as usual with the strictest honour and
firmness, and has turned this negotiation entirely to his own
credit. He has learned the ill wishes of his enemies, and what
is more, knows who they are: he has laughed at them, and found at
last that their malice was much bigger than their power. Mr.
Grenville, as you would wish, has proved how much he disliked the
violence of his associates, as I trust he will, whenever he has
an opportunity, and has at last contented himself with so little
or nothing, that I am sure you will feel yourself obliged to him.
For the measure itself, of turning out the officers in general
who oppose, it has been much pressed, and what is still sillier,
openly threatened by one set; but they dare not do it, and having
notified it without effect, are ridiculed by the whole town, as
well as by the persons threatened, particularly by Lord
Albermarle, who has treated their menaces with the utmost
contempt and spirit. This mighty storm, like another I shall
tell you of, has vented itself on Lord Shelburne and Colonel
Barr`e,(397) who were yesterday turned out; the first from
aide-de-camp to the King, the latter from adjutant-general and
governor of Stirling. Campbell,(398) to Whom it was promised
before, has got the last; Ned Harvey,(399) the
former. My present expectation is an oration from Barr`e(400 in
honour of Mr. Pitt; for those are scenes that make the world so
entertaining. After that, I shall demand a satire on Mr. Pitt,
from Mr. Wilkes; and I do not believe I shall be balked, for
Wilkes has already expressed his resentment on being given up by
Pitt, who, says Wilkes, ought to be expelled for an
impostor.(401) I do not know whether the Duke of Newcastle does
not expect a palinodia from me(402) T'other morning at the Duke's
lev`ee he embraced me,
and hoped I would come and eat a bit of Sussex mutton With him.
I had such difficulty to avoid laughing in his face that I got
from him as fast as I could. Do you think me very likely to
forget that I have been laughing at him these twenty years?
Well! but we have had a prodigious riot: are not you impatient to
know the particulars? It was so prodigious a tumult, that I
verily thought half the administration would have run away to
Harrowgate. The north Briton was ordered to be burned by the
hangman at Cheapside, on Saturday last. The mob rose; the
greatest mob, says Mr. Sheriff Blunt, that he has known in forty
years. They were armed with that most bloody instrument, the mud
out of the kennels: they hissed in the most murderous manner:
broke Mr. Sheriff Harley's coach-glass in the most frangent
manner; scratched his forehead, so that he is forced to wear a
little patch in the most becoming manner; and obliged the hangman
to burn the paper with a link, though fagots were prepared to
execute it in a more solemn manner. Numbers of gentlemen, from
windows and balconies, encouraged the mob, who, in about an hour
and a half, were so undutiful to the ministry, as to retire
without doing any mischief, or giving Mr. Carteret Webb(403) the
opportunity of a single information, except against an ignorant
lad, who had been in town but ten days.
This terrible uproar has employed us four days. The sheriffs
were called before your House on Monday, and made their
narrative. My brother Cholmondeley,(404) in the most pathetic
manner, and suitably to the occasion, recommended it to your
lordships, to search for precedents of what he believed never
happened since the world began. Lord Egmont,(405) who knows of a
plot, which he keeps to himself, though It has been carrying on
these twenty years, thought more vigorous measures ought to be
taken on such a crisis, and moved to summon the mistress of the
Union Coffee-house. The Duke of Bedford thought all this but
piddling, and at once attacked Lord Mayor, common council, and
charter of the city, whom, if he had been supported, I believe he
would have ordered to be all burned by the hangman next Saturday.
Unfortunately for such national justice, Lord Mansfield, who
delights in every opportunity of exposing and mortifying the Duke
of Bedford, and Sandwich, interposed for the magistracy of
London, and after much squabbling, saved them from immediate
execution. The Duke of Grafton, with infinite shrewdness and
coolness, drew from the witnesses that the whole mob was of one
mind; and the day ended in a vote of general
censure on the rioters. This was communicated to us at a
conference, and yesterday we acted the same farce; when Rigby
trying to revive the imputation on the Lord Mayor, etc. (who, by
the by, did sit most tranquilly at Guildhall during the whole
tumult) the ministry disavowed and abandoned him to a man,
vindicating the magistracy, and plainly discovering their own
fear and awe of the city, who feel the insult, and will from
hence feel their own strength. In short, to finish this foolish
story, I never saw a transaction in which appeared so little
parts, abilities, or conduct; nor do I think there can be any
thing weaker than the administration except it is the opposition:
but an opposition, bedrid and tonguetied, is a most ridiculous
body. Mr. Pitt is laid up with the gout; Lord Hardwicke, though
much relieved by a quack medicine, is still very ill; and Mr.
Charles Townshend is as silent as my Lord Abercorn(406--that they
too should ever be alike!
This is not all our political news; Wilkes is an inexhaustible
fund: on Monday was heard, in the common Pleas, his suit against
Mr. Wood,(407) when, after a trial of fourteen hours, the jury
gave him damages of one thousand pounds; but this was not the
heaviest part of the blow. The Solicitor-general(408) tried to
prove Wilkes author of the North Briton, and failed in the proof.
You may judge how much this miscarriage adds to the defeat.
Wilkes is not yet out of danger: they think there is still a
piece of coat or lining to come Out of the wound. The campaign
is over for the present, and the troops going into country
quarters. In the mean time, the house of Hamilton has supplied
us with new matter of talk. My lord was robbed about three
o'clock in the night between Saturday and Sunday, of money,
bills, watches, and snuff-boxes, to the amount of three thousand
pounds. Nothing is yet discovered, but that the
guard in the stable yard saw a man in a great coat and white
stockings come from thereabouts, at the time I have named. The
servants have all been examined over and over to no purpose.
Fielding(409) is all day in the house, and a guard of his at
night. The bureau in my lord's dressing-room (the little red
room where the pictures are) was forced open. I fear you can
guess who was at first suspected.(410)
I have received yours, my dear lord, of Nov. 30th, and am pleased
that my Lady Hertford is so well reconciled to her ministry. You
forgot to give me an account of her audience, but I have heard of
the Queen's good-natured attention to her.
The anecdotes about Lord Sandwich are numerous; but I do not
repeat them to you, because I know nothing how true they are, and
because he has, in several instances, been very obliging to me,
and I have no reason to abuse him. Lord Hardwicke's illness, I
think, is a rupture and consequences.
I hope to hear that your little boy is recovered. Adieu! I have
filled my gazette, and exhausted my memory. I am glad such
gazettes please you - I can have no other excuse for sending such
tittle-tattle.
(396) This transaction was an endeavour on the part of Mr.
Grenville to obtain from General Conway a declaration that "his
disposition was not averse from a general support of the persons
and measures of those now employed," and permission " to say so
much when he might have occasion to speak to him." This
declaration General Conway declined to give, although Mr.
Grenville seemed to ask it only to enable him to save Conway from
dismissal on account of his late vote. There is reason to
believe that at this conference (at which the Duke of Richmond
was present, as Conway's friend) some overtures of a more
intimate connexion with the administration were made; but Conway
declared his determination to adhere to the politics of his
friends, the Dukes of Devonshire and Grafton. "At least," he
said, "if he should hereafter happen to differ from them, he
should so steer his conduct as not to be, in any way of office or
emolument, the better for it."-C.
(397) Isaac Barr`e was a native of Ireland, and born in 1726: he
entered the army early in life, and rose, gradually to the rank
of colonel. He was in 1763 made adjutant-general and the
governor of Stirling Castle, but was turned out on this occasion,
and even resigned his half-pay. He continued to make a
considerable figure in the House of Commons: in 1782 he became a
privy-councillor and treasurer of the navy, which latter office
he soon exchanged for paymaster of the forces; but on the change
of government he retired on a pension of 3200 pounds, which his
political friends had previously secured for him. From this time
his sight failed him, and he was quite blind for many years
previous to his death, which took place in 1802.-C.
(398) Captain James, afterwards Sir James Campbell, of
Ardkinglass: a captain in the army, and member for the county of
Stirling.-E.
(399) Major-General Edward Harvey, lieutenant-general in 1772.-E.
(400) Colonel Barr`e, previous to his dismissal, had
distinguished himself by an attack on Mr. Pitt, which is not
reported in the Parliamentary Debates.-C. [In the Chatham
Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 171, will be found the following
passage, in a letter from Mr. Symmers to Sir Andrew Mitchell,
dated January 29, 1762:--"Would you know a little of the humour
of Parliament, and particularly with regard to Mr. Pitt?' I must
tell you that Colonel Barr`e, a soldier of fortune, a young man
born in Dublin, of a mean condition, his father and mother from
France, and established in a little grocer's shop by the
patronage of the Bishop of Clogher; a child of whom the mother
nursed; this young man (a man of address and parts), found
out, pushed, and brought into Parliament by Lord Shelburne, had
not sat two days in the House of Commons before he attacked Mr.
Pitt. I shall give you a specimen of his philippics. Talking in
the manner of Mr. Pitt's speaking, he said, 'There he would
stand, turning up his eyes to heaven, that witnessed his
perjuries, and laying his hand in a solemn manner upon the table,
that sacrilegious hand, that hand that had been employed in
tearing out the bowels of his mother country!' Would you think
that Mr. Pitt would bear this and be silent; or would you think
that the House would suffer a respectable member to be so
treated? Yet so it Was."]
(401) In the House of Commons, a few days before, Mr. Pitt had
condemned the whole series of North Britons, and called them
illiberal, unmanly, and detestable: "he abhorred," he said, "all
national reflections: the King's subjects were one people;
whoever divided them was guilty of sedition: his Majesty's
complaint was well-founded; it was just; it was necessary: the
author did not deserve to be ranked among the human species; he
was the blasphemer of his God and the libeller of the King."-E.
(402) This improbable event a few weeks brought about. We shall
see that Mr. Walpole did sing his Palinodia, and went down to
Claremont to eat a bit of mutton with the man in the world whom
(as all his writings, but especially his lately published
Memoires, show) he had most heartily hated and despised.-C.
(403) Philip Carteret Webb, Esq. solicitor to the treasury and
member for Haslemere.-E.
(404) George third Earl of Cholmondeley; born in 1703: married
Mr. Walpole's only legitimate sister, who died at Aix in 1731;
and as all Sir Robert Walpole's sons died without issue, Lord
Cholmondeley's family succeeded to Houghton, and the rest of the
Walpole property, as heirs-at-law of Sir Robert.-C.
(405) John, second Earl of Egmont, at this time first lord of the
admiralty. Lord Egmont had been in the House of Commons what
Coxe calls "a fluent and plausible debater;" but he had some
peculiarities of mind, to which Walpole here and elsewhere
alludes.-C.
(406) James, eighth Earl of Abercorn, "a nobleman," says his
panegyrist, "whose character was but little known, or rather but
little understood; but who possessed singular vigour of mind,
integrity of conduct, and patriotic views." Mr. Walpole elsewhere
laughs at his lordship's dignified aversion to throwing away his
words.-C.
(407) An action brought by Wilkes against Robert Wood, Esq. late
under-secretary of State for seizing Wilkes's papers, etc. It
was tried before Chief Justice Pratt, and under his direction the
jury found for the plaintiff.-C.
(408) Sir Fletcher Norton was not made attorney-general till
after this trial.-E.
(409) Mr. John Fielding, chief police magistrate.-E.
(410) The robbery was committed by one Bradley, a discharged
footman, and one John Wisket. The former was admitted a witness
for the crown, and the latter was hanged on his evidence, in Dec.
1764.-C.
Letter 185 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Dec. 16, 1763. (page 261)
On the very day I wrote to you last, my dear lord, an
extraordinary event happened, which I did not then know. A
motion was made in the common council, to thank the sheriffs for
their behaviour at the riot, and to prosecute the man who was
apprehended for it. This was opposed, and the previous question
being put, the numbers were equal; but the casting vote of the
Lord Mayor(411) was given against putting the first
question--pretty strong proceeding; for though, in consequence
and in resentment of the Duke of Bedford's speech, it seemed to
justify his grace, who had accused the mayor and magistracy of
not trying to suppress the tumult; if they will not prosecute the
rioters, it is not very unfair to surmise that they did not
dislike the riot. Indeed, the city is so inflamed, and the
ministry so obnoxious, that I am very apprehensive of some
violent commotion. The court have lost the Essex election(412)
merely from Lord Sandwich interfering in it, and from the Duke of
Bedford's speech; a great number of votes going from the city on
that account to vote for Luther. Sir John Griffin,(413) who was
disobliged by Sandwich's espousing Conyers, went to Chelmsford,
at the head of five hundred voters.
One of the latest acts of the ministry will not please my Lady
Hertford: they have turned out her brother, Colonel Fitzroy:(414
Fitzherbert,(415) too, is removed; and, they say, Sir Joseph
Yorke recalled.(416) I must do Lord Halifax and Mr. Grenville
the justice to say that these violences are not imputed to them.
It is certain that the former was the warmest opposer of the
measure for breaking the officers; and Mr. Grenville's friends
take every opportunity of throwing the blame on the Duke of
Bedford and Lord Sandwich. The Duchess of Bedford, who is too
fond a Wife not to partake in all her husband's fortunes, has
contributed her portion of indiscretion. At a great dinner,
lately, at Lord Halifax's, all the servants present, mention
being made of the Archbishop of Canterbury,(417) M. de Guerchy
asked the Duchess, "Est-il de famille?" She replied, "Oh! mon
Dieu, non, il a `et`e sage-femme." The mistake of sage-femme for
accoucheur, and the strangeness of the proposition, confounded
Guerchy so much, that it was necessary to explain it: but think
of a minister's wife telling a foreigner, and a Catholic, that
the primate of her own church had been bred a man-midwife!
The day after my last, another verdict was given in the common
Pleas, of four hundred pounds to the printers; and another
episode happened, relating to Wilkes; one Dunn, a mad Scotchman,
was seized in Wilkes's house, whither he had gone intending to
assassinate him. This was complained of in the House of Commons,
but the man's phrensy was verified; it was even proved that he
had notified his design in a coffee-house, some days before. The
mob, however, who are determined that Lord Sandwich shall answer
for every body's faults, as well as his own, believe that he
employed Dunn. I wish the recess, which begins next Monday, may
cool matters a little, for indeed it grows very serious.
Nothing is discovered of Lord Harrington's robbery, nor do I know
any other news, but that George West(418) is to marry lady Mary
Grey. The Hereditary Prince's wound is broken out again, and
will defer his arrival. We have had a new comedy,(419) written
by Mrs. Sheridan, and admirably acted; but there was no wit in
it, and it was so vulgar that it ran but three nights.
Poor Lady Hervey desires you will tell Mr. Hume how incapable she
is of answering his letter. She has been terribly afflicted for
these six weeks with a complication of gout, rheumatism, and a
nervous complaint. She cannot lie down in her bed, nor rest two
minutes in her chair. I never saw such continued suffering.
You say in your last, of the 7th, that you have omitted to invite
no Englishman of rank or name. This gives me an opportunity, my
dear lord, of mentioning one Englishman, not of great rank, but
who is very unhappy that you have taken no notice of him. You
know how utterly averse I am to meddle, or give impertinent
advice; but the letter I saw was expressed with so much respect
and esteem for you, that you would love the person. It is Mr.
Selwyn, the banker. He says, he expected no favour; but the
great regard he has for the amiableness of your character, makes
him miserable at being totally undistinguished by you. He has so
good a character himself and is so much beloved by many persons
here that you know, that I think you will not dislike my putting
you in mind of him. The letter was not to me, nor to any friend
of mine; therefore, I am sure, unaffected. I saw the whole
letter, and he did not even hint at its being communicated to me.
I have not mentioned Lady Holdernesse's presentation, though I by
no means approve it, nor a Dutch woman's lowering the peerage of
England. Nothing of that sort could make me more angry, except a
commoner's wife taking such a step; for you know I have all the
pride of A citizen of Rome, while Rome survives: In that respect
my name is thoroughly Horatius.
(411) William Bridgen, Esq.-E.
(412) John Luther, Esq. was returned for Essex, on the popular
interest, after a severe and most expensive contest.-C.
(413) Sir john Griffin Griffin, K. B., major-general and colonel
of the 33d regiment; member for Andover. He established, in
1784, a claim to the barony of Howard de Walden, and was created,
in 1788,
Baron Braybrook, with remainder to A. A. Neville, Esq. He died
in 1797.-C.
(414) Colonel Charles Fitzroy, member for Bury, afterwards Lord
Southampton. It seems strange that Mr. Walpole should be
mistaken in such a point; but Colonel Fitzroy was not Lady
Hertford's brother, but her brother's son.-C.
(415) William Fitzherbert, Esq. member for Derby: a lord of
trade.-C.
(416) the rumour mentioned in the text was unfounded, Sir Joseph
continued at the Hague till 1783.-C.
(417) Archbishop Secker. The Grounds for this strange story
(which Walpole was fond of repeating) was, that the Archbishop
had, in early youth, been intended for the medical profession,
and had attended some hospitals.-C.
(418) Mr. West married, in February 1764, Lady Mary Grey,
daughter of the Earl of Stamford: he died without issue, in
1776.-E.
(419) "The Dupe," by Mrs. Sheridan, mother of Richard Brinsley
Sheridan. The Biographia Dramatica says it was condemned, "on
account of a few passages, which the audience thought two
indelicate."-E.
Letter 186 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Dec. 29, 1763. (page 263)
You are sensible, my dear lord, that any amusement from my
letters must depend upon times and seasons. We are a very absurd
nation (though the French are so good at present as to think us a
very wise one, only because they themselves, are now a very weak
one); but then that absurdity depends upon the almanac.
Posterity, who will know nothing of our intervals, wilt conclude
that this age was a succession of events. I could tell them that
we know as well when an event, as when Easter will happen. Do
but recollect these last ten years. The beginning of October,
one is certain that every body will be at Newmarket, and the Duke
of Cumberland will lose', and Shafto(420) win, two or three
thousand pounds. After that, while people are preparing to come
to town for the winter, the ministry is suddenly changed, and all
the world comes to learn how it happened, a fortnight sooner than
they intended; and fully persuaded that the new arrangement
cannot last a month. The Parliament opens; every body is bribed;
and the new establishment is perceived to be composed of adamant.
November passes, with two or three self-murders, and a new play.
Christmas arrives; every body goes out of town; and a riot
happens in one of the theatres. The Parliament meets again;
taxes are warmly opposed; and some citizen makes a fortune by a
subscription.(421) The opposition languishes; balls and
assemblies begin; some master and miss begin to get together, are
talked of, and give occasion to forty more matches being
invented; an unexpected debate starts up at the end of the
session, that makes more noise than any thing that was designed
to make a noise, and subsides again in a new peerage or two.
Ranelagh opens and Vauxhall; one produces scandal, and t'other a
drunken quarrel. People separate, some to Tunbridge, and some to
all the horseraces in England; and so the year comes again to
October. I dare to prophesy, that if you keep this letter, YOU
Will find that my future correspondence will be but an
illustration of this text; at least, it is an excuse for my
having very little to tell you at present, and was the reason of
My not writing to you last week.
Before the Parliament adjourned, there was nothing but a trifling
debate in an empty House, occasioned by a motion from the
ministry, to order another physician and surgeon to attend
Wilkes; it was carried by about seventy to thirty, and was only
memorable by producing Mr. Charles Townshend, who having sat
silent through the question of privilege, found himself
interested in the defence of Dr. Brocklesby!(422) Charles
ridiculed Lord North extremely, and had warm words with George
Grenville. I do not look upon this as productive of
consequential speaking for the opposition; on the contrary, I
should expect him sooner in place, if the ministry could be fools
enough to restore weight to him and could be ignorant that he can
never hurt them so much as by being with them. Wilkes refused to
see Heberden and Hawkins, whom the House commissioned to visit
him; and to laugh at us more, sent for two Scotchmen, Duncan and
Middleton. Well! but since that, he is gone off himself:
however, as I (lid in D'Eon's case, I can now only ask news of
him from you, and not tell you any; for You have got him. I do
not believe you will invite him, and make so much of him, as
the Duke of Bedford did. Both sides pretend joy at his being
gone; and for once I can believe both. You will be diverted, as
I was, at the cordial esteem the ministers have for one another;
Lord Waldegrave(423) told my niece, this morning, that he had
offered a shilling, to receive an hundred pounds when-@Sandwich
shall lose his head! What a good opinion they have of one
another! apropos to losing heads, is Lally beheaded?
The East India Company have come to an unanimous resolution of
not paying Lord Clive the three hundred thousand pounds, which
the ministry had promised him in lieu of his nabobical annuity.
Just after the bargain was made, his old rustic of a father was
at the King's lev`ee; the King asked where his son was; he
replied, "Sire, he is coming to town, and their your Majesty will
have another vote." If you like these franknesses, I can tell
you another. The Chancellor(424) is chosen a governor of St.
Bartholomew's Hospital; a smart gentleman, who was sent with the
staff, carried it in the evening, when the Chancellor happened to
be drunk. "Well, Mr. Bartlemy," said his lordship, snuffling,
"what have you to say?" The man, who had prepared a formal
harangue, was transported to have so fair opportunity given him
of uttering it, and with much dapper gesticulation congratulated
his lordship on his health, and the nation on enjoying such great
abilities. The Chancellor stopped him short, crying, "By God, it
is a lie! I have neither health nor abilities my bad health has
destroyed my abilities." The late Chancellor(425) is much
better.
The last time the King was at Drury-lane, the play given out for
the next night was "All in the Wrong:" the Galleries clapped, and
then cried out. "Let us be all in the right! Wilkes and Liberty!"
When the King comes to a theatre, or goes out, or goes to the
House, there is not a single applause; to the Queen there is a
little: in short, Louis le bien-aim`e is not French at present
for King George.
The town, you may be sure, is very empty; the greatest party is
at Woburn, whither the Comte de Guerchy and the Duc de Pecquigny
are going. I have been three days at Strawberry, and had George
Selwyn, Williams, and Lord Ashburnham;(426) but the weather was
intolerably bad. We have scarce had a moment's drought since you
went, no more than for so many months before. The towns and the
roads are beyond measure dirty, and every thing else under water.
I was not well neither, nor am yet, with pains in my stomach:
however, if I ever used one, I could afford to pay a physician.
T'other day, coming from my Lady Townshend's, it came into my
head to stop at one of the lottery offices, to inquire after a
single ticket I had, expecting to find it a blank, but it was
five hundred pounds--Thank you! I know you wish me joy. It will
buy twenty pretty things when I come to Paris.
I read last night, your new French play, Le Comte de Warwick(427)
which we hear has succeeded much. I must say, it does but
confirm the cheap idea I have of you French: not to mention the
preposterous perversion of history in so known a story, the
Queen's ridiculous preference of old Warwick to a young King; the
omission of the only thing she ever said or did in her whole life
worth recording, which was thinking herself too low for his wife,
and too high for his mistress;(428) the romantic honour bestowed
on two such savages as Edward and Warwick: besides these, and
forty such glaring absurdities, there is but one scene that has
any merit, that between Edward and Warwick in the third act.
Indeed, indeed, I don't honour the modern French: it is making
your son but a slender compliment, with his knowledge, for them
to say it is extraordinary. The best proof I think they give of
their taste, is liking you all three. I rejoice that your little
boy is recovered. Your brother has been at Park-place this week,
and stays a week longer: his hill is too high to be drowned.
Thank you for your kindness to Mr. Selwyn: if he had too much
impatience, I am sure it proceeded only from his great esteem for
you.
I will endeavour to learn what you desire; and will answer, in
another letter, that and some other passages in your last. Dr.
Hunter is very good, and calls on me sometimes. You may guess
whether we talk you over or not. Adieu!
P. S. There has not been a death, but Sir William Maynard's, who
is come to life again: or a marriage, but Admiral Knollys's who
has married his divorced wife again.
(420) Robert Shafto, Esq. of Whitworth, member of Durham, well
known on the turf.-C.
(421) To a loan.-C.
(422) Dr. Richard Brocklesby, an eminent physician. He had been
examined before the House of Commons, as to Mr. Wilkes's
incapacity to attend in his place. His Whig politics, which
probably induced Mr. Wilkes to sen@ for him, induced the majority
of the House to distrust his report, and to order two other
medical men to visit the patient. This proceeding implied a
doubt of Dr. Brocklesby's veracity, which certainly called for,@
the interference of Mr. Charles Townshend, who was a private as
well as a political friend of the doctor's. Dr. Brocklesby,
besides being one of the first physicians of his time, was a man
of literature and taste, and did not confine his society nor his
beneficence to those who agreed with him in politics. He was the
friend and physician of Dr. Johnson, and when, towards the close
of this great man's life, it was supposed that his circumstances
were not quite easy, Dr. Brocklesby generously pressed him to
accept an annuity of one hundred pounds, and he attended him to
his death with unremitted affection and care.-C.
(423) John, third Earl of Waldegrave, a general in the army: in
1770 master of the horse to the Queen.-E.
(424) Lord Henley; afterwards Earl of Northington.
(425) Lord Hardwicke.
(426) John, second Earl of Ashburnham; one of the lords of the
bedchamber, and keeper of the parks.-E.
(427) By La Harpe. This play, written when the author was only
twenty-three years old, raised him into great celebrity; and is,
in the opinion of the French critics, his first work in merit as
well as date.-C.
(428) This phrase has been also attributed to Mademoiselle de
Montmorency, afterwards Princess de Cond`e, in reply to the
solicitations of Henry IV.; and is told also of Mademoiselle de
Rohan, afterwards Duchess of Deux Ponts.-C.
Letter 187 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Jan. 11, 1764. (page 266)
It is an age, I own, since I wrote to you; but except politics,
what was there to send you? and for politics, the present are too
contemptible to be recorded by any body but journalists,
gazetteers, and such historians! The ordinary of Newgate, or Mr.
* * * * who write for their monthly half-crown, and who are
indifferent whether Lord Bute, Lord Melcombe, or Maclean is their
hero, may swear they find diamonds on dunghills; but you will
excuse me, if I let our correspondence lie dormant rather than
deal in such trash. I am forced to send Lord Hertford and Sir
Horace Mann such garbage, because they are out of England, and
the sea softens and makes palatable any potion, as it does
claret; but unless I can divert you, I had rather wait till we
can laugh together; the best employment for friends, who do not
mean to pick one another's pocket, nor make a property of
either's frankness. Instead of politics, therefore, I shall
amuse you to-day with a fairy tale.
I was desired to be at my Lady Suffolk's on New-year's morn,
where I found Lady Temple and others. On the toilet Miss Hotham
spied a small round box. She seized it with all the eagerness
and curiosity of eleven years. In it was wrapped up a
heart-diamond ring and a paper in which, in a hand as small as
Buckinger's, who used to write the Lord's Prayer in the compass
of a silver penny, were the following lines:--
Sent by a sylph, unheard, unseen
A new-year's gift from Mab our queen:
But tell it not, for if you do,
You will be pinch'd all black and blue.
Consider well, what a disgrace,
To show abroad your mottled face
Then seal your lips, put on the ring,
And sometimes think of Ob., the king.
You will easily guess that Lady Temple(429) was the poetess, and
that we were delighted with the genteelness of the thought and
execution. The child, you may imagine, was less transported with
the poetry than the present. Her attention, however, was hurried
backwards and forwards from the ring to a new coat, that she had
been trying on when sent for down; impatient to revisit her coat,
and to show the ring to her maid, she whisked up stairs; when she
came down again, she found a letter sealed, and lying on the
floor--new exclamations! Lady Suffolk bade her open it: here it
is:--
Your tongue, too nimble for your sense,
Is guilty of a high offence;
Hath introduced unkind debate,
And topsy-turvy turned our state.
In gallantry I sent the ring,
The token of a lovesick king:
Under fair Mab's auspicious name
>From me the trifling present came.
You blabb'd the news in Suffolk's ear;
The tattling zephyrs brought it here;
As Mab was indolently laid
Under a poppy's spreading shade.
The jealous queen started in rage;
She kick'd her crown and beat her page:
"Bring me my magic wand," she cries;
"Under that primrose there it lies;
I'll change the silly, saucy chit,
Into a flea, a louse, a nit,
A worm, a grasshopper, a rat,
An owl, a monkey, hedge-hog, bat.
Ixion once a cloud embraced,
By Jove and jealousy well placed;
What sport to see proud Oberon stare,
And flirt it with a pet-en Pair!"
Then thrice she stamped the trembling ground,
And thrice she waved her wand around;
When I endowed with greater skill,
And less inclined to do you ill,
Mutter'd some words, withheld her arm
And kindly stoppld the unfinish'd charm
But though not changed to owl or bat,
Or something more indelicate;
Yet, as your tongue has run too fast,
Your boasted beauty must not last,
No more shall frolic Cupid lie
In ambuscade in either eye,
>From thence to aim his keenest dart
To captivate each youthful heart:
No more shall envious misses pine
At charms now flown, that once were thine:
No more, since you so ill behave,
Shall injured Oberon be your slave.
The next day my Lady Suffolk desired I would write her a patent
for appointing Lady Temple poet laureate to the fairies. I was
excessively out of order with a pain in my stomach, which I had
had for ten days, and was fitter to write verses like a poet
laureate, than for making one: however, I was going home to
dinner alone, and at six I sent her some lines, which you ought
to have seen how sick I was, to excuse; but first, I must tell
you my tale methodically. The next morning by nine o'clock Miss
Hotham (she must forgive me twenty years hence for saying she was
eleven, for I recollect she is but ten,) arrived at Lady
Temple's, her face and neck all spotted with saffron, and
limping. "Oh, Madam!" said she, "I am undone for ever if you do
not assist me!" "Lord, child," cried my Lady Temple, "what is
the matter?" thinking she had hurt herself, or lost the ring, and
that she was stolen out before her aunt was up. "Oh, Madam,"
said the girl. "nobody but you can assist me!" My Lady Temple
protests the 'child acted her part so well as to deceive her.
"What can I do for you?" "Dear Madam, take this load from my
back; nobody but you can." Lady Temple turned her round, and
upon her back was tied a child's waggon. In it were three tiny
purses of blue velvet; in one of them a silver cup, in another a
crown of laurel, and in the third four new silver pennies, with
the patent, signed at top, Oberon Imperator; and two sheets of
warrants strung together with blue silk according to form; and at
top an office seal of wax and a chaplet of cut paper on it. The
warrants were these:--
>From the Royal Mews:
A waggon with the draught horses, delivered by command without
fee.
>From the Lord Chamberlain's Office:
A warrant with the royal sign manual, delivered by command
without fee, being first entered in the office books.
>From the Lord Steward's Office:
A butt of sack, delivered without fee or gratuity, with an order
for returning the cask for the use of the office, by command.
>From the Great Wardrobe:
Three velvet bags, delivered without fee, by command.
>From the Treasurer of the Household's Office:
A year's salary paid free from land-tax, poundage, or any other
deduction whatever, by command.
>From the Jewel Office:
A silver butt, a silver cup, a wreath of bays, by command without
fee.
Then came the patent:
By these presents be it known,
To all who bend before your throne,
Fays and fairies, elves and sprites,
Beauteous dames and gallant knights,
That we, Oberon the grand,
Emperor of fairy land,
King of moonshine, prince of dreams,
Lord of Aganippe's streams,
Baron of the dimpled isles
That lie in pretty maidans' smiles,
Arch-treasurer of all the graces
Dispersed through fifty lovely faces,
Sovereign of the slipper's order,
With all the rites thereon that border,
Defender of the sylphic faith,
Declare--and thus your monarch saith:
Whereas there is a noble dame,
Whom mortals Countess Temple name,
To whom ourself did erst impart
The choicest secrets of our art,
Taught her to tune the harmonious line
To our own melody divine,
Taught her the graceful negligence,
Which, scorning art and veiling sense,
Achieves that conquest o'er the heart
Sense seldom gains, and never art;
This lady, 'tis our royal will
Our laureate's vacant seat should fill:
A chaplet of immortal bays
Shall crown her brow and guard her lays;
Of nectar sack an acorn cup
Be at her board each year fill'd up;
And as each quarter feast comes round
A silver penny shall be found
Within the compass of her shoe;
And so we bid you all adieu!
Given at our palace of Cowslip-castle, the shortest night of the
year. Oberon. And underneath,
Hothamina.
How shall I tell you the greatest curiosity of the story? The
whole plan and execution of the second act was laid and adjusted
by my Lady Suffolk herself and Will. Chetwynd, master of the
mint, Lord Bolingbroke's Oroonoko-Chetwynd; he fourscore, she
past seventy-six; and, what is more, much worse than I was, for,
added to her deafness, she has been confined these three weeks
with the gout in her eyes, was actually then in misery, and had
been without sleep. What spirits, and cleverness, and
imagination, at that age, and under those afflicting
circumstances! You reconnoitre her old court knowledge, how
charmingly she has applied it! Do you wonder I pass so many
hours and evenings with her? Alas! I had like to
have lost her this morning! They had poulticed her feet to draw
the gout downwards, and began to succeed yesterday, but to-day it
flew up into the head, and she was almost in convulsions with the
agony, and screamed dreadfully; proof enough how ill she was, for
her patience and good breeding makes her for ever sink and
conceal what she feels. This evening the gout has been driven
back to her foot, and I trust she is out of' danger. Her loss
would be irreparable to me at Twickenham, where she is by far the
most rational and agreeable company I have.
I don't tell you that the Hereditary Prince(430) is still
expected and not arrived. A royal wedding would be a flat
episode after a re(il fairy tale, though the bridegroom is a
hero. I have not seen your brother General yet, but have called
on him. When come you yourself? Never mind the town and its
filthy politics; we can go to the gallery at Strawberry--stay, I
don't know whether we can or not, my hill is almost drowned, I
don't know how your mountain is--well, we can take a boat, and
always be gay there; I wish we may be so at seventy-six and
eighty! I abominate politics more and more; we had glories, and
would not keep them: well! content, that there was an end of
blood; then perks prerogative its ass's ears up; we are always to
be saving our liberties, and then staking them
again! 'Tis wearisome! I hate the discussion, and yet One cannot
always sit at a gaming-table and never make a bet. I wish for
nothing, I care not a straw for the ins or the outs; I determine
never to think of them, yet the contagion catches one; can you
tell any thing that will prevent infection? Well then, here I
swear,-no I won't swear, one always breaks one's oath. Oh, that
I had been born to love a court like Sir William Breton! I should
have lived and died with the comfort of thinking that courts
there will be to all eternity, and the liberty of my country
would never once have ruffled my smile, or spoiled my bow. I
envy Sir William. Good night!
(429) Anne, one of the daughters and coheirs of Thomas Chambers,
of Hanworth, in the county of Middlesex, Esq. wife of Earl
Temple. This lady was a woman of genius: it will hereafter be
seen, that a small volume of her poems was printed at the
Strawberry Hill press.-E.
(430) Of Brunswick.
Letter 188 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Jan. 22, 1764. (page 270)
Monsieur Monin, who will deliver this to you, my dear lord, is
the particular friend I mentioned in my last,(431) and is,
indeed, no particular friend of mine at all, but I had a mind to
mislead my Lord Sandwich, and send you one letter which he should
not open. This I write in peculiar confidence to you, and insist
upon your keeping it entirely to yourself from every living
creature. It will be an answer to several passages in your
letters, to which I did not care to reply by the post.
Your brother was not pleased with your laying the stopping your
bills to his charge.(432) To tell you the truth, he thinks you
are too much inclined to courts and ministers, as you think him
too little so. So far from upbraiding him on that head, give me
leave to say you have no reason to be concerned at it. You must
be sensible, my dear lord, that you are far from standing well
with the opposition, and should any change happen, your brother's
being well with them, would prevent any appearance that might be
disagreeable to you. In truth, I cannot think you have abundant
reason to be fond of the administration. Lord Bute(433) never
gave you the least real mark of friendship. The Bedfords
certainly do not wish you well: Lord Holland has amply proved
himself your enemy: for a man of your morals, it would be a
disgrace to you to be connected with Lord Sandwich; and for
George Grenville,(434) he has shown himself the falsest and most
contemptible of mankind. He is now the intimate tool of the
Bedfords, and reconciled to Lord Bute, whom he has served and
disserved just as occasion or interest directed. In this
situation of things, can you wonder that particular marks of
favour are withheld from you, or that the expenses of your
journey are not granted to you as they were to the
Duke of Bedford!
You ask me how your letters please; it is impossible for me to
learn, now I am so disconnected with every thing ministerial. I
wish YOU not to make them please too much. The negotiations with
France must be the great point on which the nation will fix its
eyes: with France we must break sooner or later. Your letters
will be strictly canvassed: I hope and firmly believe that
nothing will appear in them but attention to the honour and
interest of the nation; points, I doubt, little at the heart of
the present administration, who have gone too far not to be in
the power of France, and who must bear any thing rather than
quarrel. I would not take the liberty of saying so much to you,
if, by being on the spot, I was not a judge how very serious
affairs grow, and how necessary it is for you to be upon your
guard.
Another question you ask is, whether it is true that the
opposition is disunited. I will give you one very necessary
direction, which is, not to credit any court stories. Sandwich
is the father of lies,(435) and every report is tinctured by him.
The administration give it out, and trust to this disunion. I
will tell you very nearly what truth there is or is not in this.
The party in general is as firmly and cordially united as ever
party was. Consider, that without any heads or leaders at all,
102(436) men stuck to Wilkes, the worst cause they could have
had, and with all the weight of the Yorkes against them. With
regard to the leaders there is a difference. The old Chancellor
is violent against the court: but, I believe, displeased that his
son was sacrificed(437) to Pratt, in the case of privilege.
Charles Yorke(438) resigned, against his own and Lord
Royston,S(439) inclination, is particularly angry with Newcastle
for complying with Pitt in the affair of privilege, and not less
displeased that Pitt prefers Pratt to him for the seals; but then
Norton is attorney-general, and it would not be graceful to
return to court, which he has quitted, while the present
ministers remain there. In short, as soon as the affair of
Wilkes and privilege is at an end, it is much expected that the
Yorkes will take part in the opposition. It is for that
declaration that Charles Townshend says he waits. He again broke
out strongly on Friday last against the ministry, attacking
George Grenville, who seems his object. However, the childish
fluctuation of his temper, and the vehemence of his brother
George(440) for the court, that is for himself, will for ever
make Charles little to be depended on. For Mr. Pitt, you know,
he never will act like any other man in the opposition, and
to that George Grenville trusts: however, here are such
materials, that if they could once be put in operation for a
fortnight together, the present administration would be blown up.
To this you may throw in dissensions among themselves: Lord
Halifax and Lord Talbot are greatly dissatisfied. Lord Bute is
reconciled to the rest; sees the King continually; and will soon
want more power, or will have more jealousy than is consistent
with their union. Many single men are ill disposed to them,
particularly Lord George Sackville: indeed, nobody is with them,
but as it is farther off from, or nearer to, quarter-day: the
nation is unanimous against them: a disposition, which their own
foolish conduct during the episode of the Prince of
Brunswick,(441) to which I am now coming, has sufficiently
manifested. The fourth question put to him on his arrival was,
"When do you go?" The servants of the King and Queen were forbid
to put on their new clothes for the wedding, or drawing-room,
next day, and ordered to keep them for the Queen's birth-day.
Such pains were taken to keep the Prince from any intercourse
with any of the opposition, that he has done nothing but take
notice of them. He not only wrote to the Duke of Newcastle and
Mr. Pitt, but has been at Hayes to see the latter, and has dined
twice with the Duke of Cumberland; the first time on Friday last,
when he was appointed to be at St. James's at half an hour after
seven, to a concert. As the time drew near, F`e6ronce(442)
pulled out his watch; the Duke took the hint, and said, "I am
sorry to part with you, but I fear your time is come." He
replied "N'importe;" sat on, drank coffee, and it was half an
hour after eight before he set out from Upper-Grosvenor street
for St. James's. He and Princess Augusta have felt and shown
their disgusts so strongly, and his suite have complained so much
of the neglect and disregard of him, and of the very quick
dismission of him, that the people have caught it, and on
Thursday, at the play, received the King and Queen without the
least symptom of applause, but repeated such outrageous
acclamations to the Prince, as operated very visibly on the
King's countenance. Not a gun was fired for the marriage, and
Princess Augusta asking Lord Gower(443) about some ceremony, to
which he replied, it could not be, as no such thing had been done
for the Prince of Orange;(444) she said, it was extraordinary to
quote that precedent to her in one case, which had been followed
in no other. I could tell you ten more of these stories, but one
shall suffice. The Royal Family went to the Opera on Saturday:
the crowd not to be described: the Duchess of Leeds, ]lady
Denbigh, Lady Scarborough, and others, sat on chairs between the
scenes; the doors of the front boxes were thrown open, and the
passages were all filled to the back of the stoves; nay, women of
fashion stood on the very stairs till eight at night. In the
middle of the second act, the Hereditary Prince, who sat with his
wife and her brothers in their box, got up, turned his back to
the King and Queen, pretending to offer his place to Lady
Tankerville(445) and then to Lady Susan. You know enough of
Germans and their stiffness to etiquette, to be sure that this
could not be done inadvertently: especially as he repeated this,
only without standing up, with one of his own gentlemen, in the
third act. I saw him, without any difficulty, from the Duchess
of Grafton's box. He is extremely slender, and looks many years
older than he is: in short, I suppose it is his manner with which
every mortal is captivated, for though he is well enough for a
man, he is far from having any thing striking in his person.
To-day (this is Tuesday) there was a drawing-room at
Leicester-house, and to-night there is a subscription ball for
him at Carlisle-house, Soho, made chiefly by the Dukes of
Devonshire and Grafton. I was invited to be of it, but not
having been to wait on him, did not think it Civil to meet him
there. The Court, by accident or design, had forgot to have a
bill passed for naturalizing him. The Duke of Grafton Undertook
it, on which they adopted it, and the Duke of Bedford moved it;
but the Prince sent word to the Duke of Grafton, that he should
not have liked the compliment half so well, if he had not owed it
to his grace. You may judge how he will report of us at his
return!
With regard to your behaviour to Wilkes,(446) I think you
observed the just medium: I have not heard it mentioned: if they
should choose to blame it, it will not be to me, known as your
friend and no friend of theirs. They very likely may say that
you did too much, though the Duke of Bedford did ten times more.
Churchill has published a new satire, called "The Duellist,"(447)
the finest and bitterest of his works. The poetry is glorious;
some lines on Lord Holland, hemlock: charming abuse on that
scurrilous mortal, Bishop Warburton: an ill-drawn, though
deserved, character of Sandwich; and one, as much deserved, and
better, of Norton.
Wednesday, after dinner.
The Lord knows when this letter will be finished; I have been
writing it this week, and believe I shall continue it till old
Monin sets out. Encore, the Prince of Brunswick. At the ball,
at Buckingham house, on Monday: it had begun two hours before he
arrived. Except the King's and Queen's servants, nobody was
there but the dukes of Marlborough and Ancaster, and Lord Bute's
two daughters. No supper. On Sunday evening the Prince had been
to Newcastle-house, to visit the Duchess. His speech to the Duke
of Bedford, at first, was by no means so strong as they gave it
out; he only said, "Milord, nous avons fait deux m`etiers bien
diff`erens; le v`otre a `et`e le plus agr`eable: j'ai fait couler
du sang, vous l'avez fait cesser." His whole behaviour, so much
`a la minorit`e, makes this much more probable. His Princess
thoroughly, agrees with him. When Mr. Grenville objected to the
greatness of her fortune, the King said, "Oh! it will not be
opposed, for Augusta is in the opposition."
The ball, last night, at Carlisle-house, Soho, was most
magnificent: one hundred and fifty men subscribed, and five
guineas each, and had each three tickets. All the beauties in
town were there, that is, of rank, for there was no bad company.
The Duke of Cumberland was there too; and the Hereditary Prince
so pleased, and in such spirits, that he stayed till five in the
morning. He is gone to-day, heartily sorry to leave every thing
but St. James's and Leicester-house. They lie to-night at Lord
Abercorn's,(448) at Witham, who does not step from his pedestal
to meet them. Lady Strafford said to him, "Soh! my lord, I hear
your house is to be royal] v filled on Wednesday."--"And
serenely,"(449) he replied, and closed his mouth again till next
day.
Our politics have been as follow. Last Friday the opposition
moved for Wilkes's complaint of breach of privilege to be heard
to-day: Grenville objected to it, and at last yielded, after
receiving some smart raps from Charles Townshend and Sir George
Saville. On Tuesday the latter, and Sir William Meredith,
proposed to put it off to the 13th of February, that Wilkes's
servant, the most material evidence might be here. George
Grenville again opposed it, was not supported, and yielded.
Afterwards Dowdeswell moved for a committee on the Cider-bill;
and, at last, a committee was appointed for Tuesday next, with
powers to report the grievances of the bill, and suggest
amendments and redress, but with no authority to repeal it. This
the administration carried but by 167 to 125.
Indeed, many of their people were in the House of Lords, where
the court triumphed still less. They were upon the "Essay on
Woman." Sandwich proposed two questions; 1st, that Wilkes was
the author of it;(450) 2dly, to order the Black Rod to attach
him. It was much objected by the Dukes of Devonshire, Grafton,
Newcastle, and even Richmond, that the first was not proved, and
might affect him in the courts below. Lord Mansfield tried to
explain this away, and Lord Marchmont and Lord Temple had warm
words. At last Sandwich, artfully, to get something, if not all,
agreed to melt both questions into one, which was accepted; and
the vote passed, that it appearing Wilkes was the author, he
should be taken into custody by the usher. It appearing, was
allowed to mean as far as appears. Then a committee was
appointed to search for precedents how to proceed on his being
withdrawn. That dirty dog Kidgel(451) had been summoned by the
Duke of Grafton, but as they only went on the breach of
privilege, he was not called. The new club,(452) at the
house that was the late Lord Waldegrave's, in Albermarle-street,
makes the ministry very uneasy; but they have worse grievances to
apprehend!
Sir Robert Rich(453) is extremely angry with my nephew, the
Bishop of Exeter, who, like his own and wife's family, is
tolerably warm. They were talking together at St. James's, when
A'Court(454) came in, "There's poor A'Court," said the Bishop.
"Poor A,Court!" replied the Marshal, "I wish all those fellows
that oppose the King were to be turned out of the army!" "I
hope," said the Bishop, "they will first turn all the old women
out of it!"
The Duc de Pecquigny was on the point of a duel with Lord
Garlies,(455) at Lord Milton's(456) ball, the former handing the
latter's partner down to supper. I wish you had this Duke again,
lest you should have trouble with him from hence: he seems a
genius of the wrong sort. His behaviour on the visit to Woburn
was very wrong-headed, though their treatment of him was not more
right. Lord Sandwich flung him down in one of their horse-plays,
and almost put his shoulder out. He said the next day there, at
dinner, that for the rest of his life he should fear nothing so
much as a lettre de cachet from a French secretary of state, or a
coup d'`epaule from an English one. After this he had a pique
with the Duchess, with whom he had been playing at whisk. A
shilling and sixpence were left on the table, which nobody
claimed. He was asked if it was his, and said no. Then they
said, let us put it to the cards: there was already a guinea.
The Duchess, in an air of grandeur said, as there was gold for
the groom of the chambers, the sweeper of the room might have the
silver, and brushed it off the table. The Pecquigny took this to
himself, though I don't believe meaned; and complained to the
whole town of it, with large comments, at his return. It is
silly to tell you Such silly stories, but in your situation it
may grow necessary for you to know the truth, if you should hear
them repeated. I am content to have you call me gossip, if I
prove but of the least use to you.
Here have I tapped the ninth page! Well! I am this moment going
to M. de Guerchy's, to know when Monin sets out, that I may
finish this eternal letter. If I tire you, tell me so: I am sure
I do myself. If I speak with too much freedom to you, tell me
so: I have done it in consequence of your questions, and mean it
most kindly. In short, I am ready to amend any thing you
disapprove; so don't take any thing ill, my dear lord, unless I
continue after you have reprimanded me. The safe manner in which
this goes, has made me, too, more explicit than you know I have
been on any other occasion. Adieu!
Wednesday-night, late.
Well, my letter will be finished at last. M. Monin sets out on
Friday. so does my Lord Holland: but I affect not to know it, for
he is not just the person that you or I should choose to be the
bearer of this. You will be diverted with a story they told me
to-night at the French Ambassador's. When they went to supper,
at Soho, last night, the Duke of Cumberland placed himself at the
head of the table. One of the waiters tapped him on the
shoulder, and said, "Sir, your Royal Highness can't sit there;
that place is designed for the Hereditary Prince." You ought to
have seen how every body's head has been turned with this Prince,
to make this story credible to you. My Lady Rockingham, at
Leicester-house, yesterday, cried great sobs for his departure.
Yours ever, page the ninth.
(431) This letter does not appear.
(432) Lord Hertford had claimed certain expenses of his journey
to Paris which had been allowed to his predecessors, but which
were refused to him; he therefore may have expressed a suspicion
that his brother's opposition in Parliament rendered the
ministers at home less favourable to him; but there never was any
difference or coldness between the brothers in their private
relations. This appears from their private letters at this
period.-C.
(433) In April 1763, Lord Bute surprised both his friends and his
opponents by a sudden resignation. The motive of this resolution
is still a mystery. Some have said, that having concluded the
peace, his patriotic views and ambition were satisfied; others
that he resigned in disgust at the falsehood and ingratitude of
public men; others that he was driven from his station by libels
and unpopularity. None of these reasons seem consistent with a
desire which Lord Bute appears to have entertained, to return to
office with a new administration. A clamour was long kept up
against Lord Bute's secret and irresponsible influence; but it is
now generally admitted that no such influence existed, and that
Lord Bute soon ceased to have any weight in public affairs.-C.
(434) Mr. Walpole was so vehement in his party feelings, that all
his characters of political enemies must be read with great
distrust.-C.
(435) Lord Sandwich was an able minister, and so important a
member of the administration to which Mr. Walpole was now
opposed, that we must read all that he says of this lord with
some "grains of allowance."-C.
(436) On the 19th of January, when the ministers were about to
proceed to vote Wilkes in contempt, and expel him, a motion was
made by Wilkes's friends to postpone the consideration of the
affair till next day; this was lost by 239 to 102.-C.
(437) He means that the opposition had adopted Pratt's view
instead of Mr. Yorke's.-C.
(438) This is not true; the real cause of his resignation is
stated ant`e, p. 251, letter 181; he certainly disagreed from the
Duke of Newcastle and others of his friends, who made the matter
of privilege a party question instead of treating it as a legal
one, as Mr. Yorke did.
(439) Philip Lord Royston, afterwards second Earl of Hardwicke,
elder brother of Mr. Charles Yorke.-E.
(440) George, first Marquis of Townshend, at this time a
major-general in the army. In the divisions on branches of the
Wilkes question, we sometimes find General Townshend a teller on
one side, and Mr. Townshend on the other.-C.
(441) The Hereditary Prince, who came to England to marry the
Princess Augusta, eldest sister of George III. He landed at
Harwich on the 12th of January, and arrived the same evening at
Somerset-house, where he was lodged. Lady Chatham, in a letter
to Mr. Pitt, relates the following anecdotes Mrs. Boscawen tells
me, that while the Prince was at Harwich, the people almost
pulled down the house in which he was, in order to see him. A
substantial Quaker insisted so strongly upon seeing him, that he
was allowed to come into the room: he pulled off his hat to him,
and said, 'Noble friend, give me thy hand!' which was given, and
he kissed it; 'although I do not fight myself, I love a brave man
that will fight: thou art a valiant Prince, and art to be married
to a lovely Princess: love her, make her a good husband, and the
Lord bless you both!'" See Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p.
272.-E.
(442) The Prince's chief secretary.-E.
(443) Granville, second Earl Gower, afterwards first Marquis:
groom of the stole.-E.
(444) William Charles Henry, Prince of Orange, who, in 1734,
married Anne, eldest daughter of George II.-E.
(445) Alicia Ashley, wife of Charles, third Earl of Tankerville,
lady of the bedchamber to Princess Augusta. Nothing but Mr.
Walpole's facetious ingenuity could have tortured the Prince's
little attention to Lady Tankerville into a desire to insult the
King.-C.
(446) Mr. Wilkes had thought it prudent to retire to Paris, under
circumstances which certainly rendered it unlikely that the
King's ambassador should pay him any kind of civil attention.-C.
(447) Again Mr. Walpole's partiality blinds him. "The Duellist"
is surely far from being the finest of Churchill's works. Mr.
Walpole's own feelings are strongly marked by the glee with which
he sees hemlock administered to his old friend Lord Holland, and
by being charmed with the abuse of Bishop Warburton.-C.
(448) Mr. Walpole, by one of those happy expressions which make
the chief charm of his writings, characterizes the stately
formality of this noble lord. His house at Witham is close to
the great road, a little beyond the town of Witham. Her late
Majesty, Queen Charlotte, slept there on her way to London, in
1761.-C.
(449) Mr. Walpole probably understood his lordship to mean that a
Serene Highness was not sufficiently important to require his
attendance at Witham.-C.
(450) Wilkes was convicted, in the Court of King's Bench, on the
21st of January, the day before this letter was begun, of having
written the Essay on Woman.-C.
(451) Mr. Kidgel, a clergyman, had obtained from a printer a copy
of the Essay on Woman, which he said he felt it his duty to
denounce. His own personal character turned out to be far from
respectable.-C.
(452) The opposition club was in Albemarle-street, and the
ministerial at the Cocoa-tree; and the papers of the day had
several political letters addressed to and from these clubs.-C.
(453) The oldest field-marshal in the army.
(454) Major-general A,Court had a little before resigned, or
rather been dismissed, for his parliamentary opposition, from the
command of the second regiment of foot-guards.-C.
(455) John, afterwards seventh Earl of galloway.
(456) Joseph Damer, first Lord Milton.
Letter 189 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, Jan. 31, 1764. (page 277)
Dear Sir,
Several weeks ago I begged you to tell me how to convey to you a
print of Strawberry Hill, and another of Archbishop Hutton. I
must now repeat the same request for two more volumes of my
Anecdotes of Painting, which are on the point of being published.
I hope no illness prevented my hearing from you.
To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Dear Sir,
I am impatient for your manuscript, but have not yet received it.
You may depend on my keeping it to myself, and returning it
safely.
I do not know that history of my father, which you mention, by
the name of Musgrave. If it is the critical history of his
administration, I have it; if not, I shall be obliged to you for
it.
Your kindness to your tenants is like yourself, and most humane.
I am glad Your prize rewards you, and wish your fortune had been
as good as mine, who with a single ticket in this last lottery
got five hundred pounds.
I have nothing new, that is, nothing old to tell you. You care
not about the present world, and are the only real philosopher, I
know.
I this winter met with a very large lot of English heads, chiefly
of the reign of James I., which very nearly perfects my
collection. There were several which I had in vain hunted for
these ten years. I have bought too, some very scarce, but more
modern ones out of Sir Charles Cotterell's collection. Except a
few of Faithorne's, there are scarce any now that I much wish
for.
With my Anecdotes I packed up for you the head of Archbishop
Hutton, and a new little print of Strawberry. If the volumes, as
I understand by your letter, stay in town to be bound, I hope
your bookseller will take care not to lose those trifles.
Letter 190 To Sir David Dalrymple.(457)
Arlington Street, Jan. 31, 1764. (page 278)
I am very sorry, Sir, that your obliging corrections of my
Anecdotes of Painting have come so late, that the first volume is
actually reprinted. The second shall be the better for them. I
am now publishing the third volume, and another of Engravers. I
wish you would be so kind as to tell me how I may convey them
speedily to you: you waited too long the last time for things
that have little merit but novelty. These volumes are of still
less worth than the preceding; our latter painters not
compensating by excellence for the charms that antiquity has
bestowed on their antecessors.
I wish I had known in time what heads of Nanteuil you want.
There has been a very valuable sale of Sir Clement Cotterell's
prints, the impressions most beautiful, and of which Nanteuil
made the capital part. I do not know who particularly collects
his works now, but I have ordered my bookseller Bathoe,(458) who
is much versed in those things, to inquire; and if I hear of any
purchaser, Sir, I will let you know.
I have not bought the Anecdotes of Polite literature,(459)
suspecting them for a bookseller's compilation, and confirmed in
it by never hearing them mentioned. Our booksellers here at
London disgrace literature, by the trash they bespeak to be
written, and at the same time prevent every thing else from being
sold. They are little more or less than upholsters, who sell
sets or bodies of arts and sciences for furniture; and the
purchasers, for I am sure they are not readers, buy only in that
view.(460) I never thought there was much merit in reading: but
yet it is too good a thing to be put upon no better footing than
In damask and mahogany.
Whenever I can be of the least use to your studies or
collections, you know, Sir, that you may command me freely.
(457) Now first collected.
(458) This very intelligent bookseller, who lived near Exeter
'Change, in the Strand, died in 1768.-E.
(459) This was a very amusing and judicious selection, in five
small volumes, very neatly printed.-E.
(460 "I once said to Dr. Johnson, 'I am sorry, Sir, you did not
get more for your Dictionary.' His answer was, 'I am sorry too;
but it was very well: the booksellers are generous liberal-minded
men.' He, upon all occasions, did ample justice to their
character in this respect. He considered them as the patrons of
literature and, indeed, although they have eventually been
considerable gainers by his Dictionary, it is to them that we owe
its having been undertaken and carried out at the risk of great
expense for they were not absolutely sure of being indemnified."
Boswell's Johnson, vol. ii. p. 58.-E.
Letter 191 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Feb. 6, 1764. (page 279)
You have, I hope, long before this, my dear lord, received the
immense letter that I sent you by old Monin. It explained much,
and announced most part of which has already happened; for you
will observe that when I tell you any thing, very positively, it
is on good intelligence. I have another much bigger secret for
you, but that will be delivered to you by word of mouth. I am
not a little impatient for the long letter you promised me. In
the mean time thank you for the account you give me of the King's
extreme civility to you. It is like yourself, to dwell on that,
and to say little of M. de Chaulnes's dirty behaviour; but
Monsieur and Madame de Guerchy have told your brother and me all
the particulars.
I was but too good a prophet when I warned you to expect new
extravagances from the Due de Chaulnes's son. Some weeks ago he
lost five hundred pounds to one Virette, an equivocal being, that
you remember here. Paolucci, the Modenese minister, who is not
in the odour of honesty, was of the party. The Duc de Pecquigny
said to the latter, "Monsieur, ne jouez plus avec lui, si vous
n'`etes pas de moiti`e." So far was very well. On Saturday at
the Maccaroni Club(461) (which is composed of all the travelled
young men, men who wear long curls and spying-glasses,) they
played again: the Duc lost, but not Much. In the passage at the
Opera, the Duc saw Mr. Stuart talking to Virette, and told the
former that Virette was a coquin, a fripon, etc. etc. Virette
retired, saying only, "Voil`a un fou." The Duc then desired Lord
Tavistock to come and see him fight Virette, but the Marquis
desired to be excused. After the Opera, Virette went to the
Duc's lodgings, but found him gone to make his complaint to
Monsieur de Guerchy, whither he followed him; and farther this
deponent knoweth not. I pity the Count (de Guerchy,) who is one
of the best-natured amiable men in the world, for having this
absurd boy upon his hands!
Well! now for a little politics. The Cider-bill(462) has not
answered to the minority, though they ran the ministry hard;(463)
but last Friday was extraordinary. George Grenville was pushed
upon some Navy bills; I don't understand a syllable, you know of
money and accounts; but whatever was the matter,(464) he was
driven from entrenchment to entrenchment by Baker,(465) and
Charles Townshend. After that affair was over, and many gone
away, Sir W. Meredith moved for the depositions on which the
warrant against Wilkes had been granted. The ministers
complained of the motion being made so late In the day; called it
a surprise; and Rigby moved to adjourn, which was carried but by
73 to 60. Had a surprise been intended, one may imagine the
minority would have been better provided with numbers; but it
certainly had not been concerted: however, a majority, shrunk to
thirteen, frightened them out of the small senses they possess.
heaven, earth, and the treasury, were moved to recover their
ground to-day, when the question was renewed. For about two
hours the debate hobbled on very lamely, when on a sudden your
brother rose, and made such a speech(466)--but I wish any body
was to give you the account except me, whom you will think
partial: but you will hear enough of it, to confirm any thing I
can say. Imagine fire, rapidity, argument, knowledge, wit,
ridicule, grave, spirit; all pouring like a torrent, but without
clashing. Imagine the House in a tumult of continued applause
imagine the ministers thunderstruck; lawyers abashed and almost
blushing, for it was on their quibbles and evasions he fell most
heavily, at the same time answering a whole session of arguments
on the side of the court. No, it was unique; you can neither
conceive it, nor the exclamations it occasioned. Ellis, the
forlorn hope, Ellis presented himself in the gap, till the
ministers could recover themselves, when on a sudden Lord George
Sackville led up the Blues;(467) spoke with as much warmth as
your brother had, and with great force continued the attack which
he had begun. Did not I tell you he would take this part? I was
made privy to it; but this is far from all you are to expect.
Lord North in vain rumbled about his mustard-bowl, and
endeavoured alone to outroar a whole party: him and Forrester,
Charles Townshend took up, but less well than usual. His
jealousy of your brother's success, which was very evident, did
not help him to shine. There were several other speeches, and,
upon the whole, it was a capital debate; but Plutus is so much
more persuasive an orator than your brother or Lord George, that
we divided but 122 against 217. Lord Strange, who had agreed to
the question, did not dare to vote for it, and declared off; and
George Townshend who had actually voted for it on Friday, now
voted against it. well! upon the whole, I heartily wish this
administration may last: both their characters and abilities are
so contemptible, @at I am sure we can be in no danger from
prerogative when trusted to such hands!
Before I have done with Charles Townshend, I must tell you one of
his admirable bon-mots. Miss Draycote,(468) the great fortune,
is grown very fat: he says her tonnage is become equal to her
poundage.
There is the devil to pay in Nabob-land, but I understand Indian
histories no better than stocks. The council rebelled against
the governors and sent a deputation, the Lord knows why, to the
Nabob, who cut off the said deputies' heads, and then, I think,
was disnabob'd himself, and Clive's old friend reinstated. There
is another rebellion in Minorca, where Johnson [has renounced his
allegiance to viceroy Dick Lyttelton, and set up for himself.
Sir Richard has laid the affair before the King and council;
Charles Townshend first, and then your brother, (you know why I
am sorry they should appear together in that cause,) have tried
to deprecate Sir Richard's wrath: but it was then too late. The
silly fellow has brought himself' to a precipice.
I forgot to tell you that Lord George Sackville carried into the
minority with him his own brother(469) Lord Middlesex; Lord
Milton's brother;(470) young Beauclerc; Sir Thomas Hales; and
Colonel Irwine.
We have not heard a word of the Hereditary Prince and Princess.
They were sent away in a tempest, and I believe the best one can
hope is, that they are driven to Norway.(471)
Good night, my dear lord; it is time to finish, for it is half an
hour after one in the morning - I am forced to purloin such hours
to Write to you, for I get up so late, and then have such a
perpetual succession Of nothings to do, such auctions, politics,
visits, dinners, suppers, books to publish or revise, etc. that I
have not a quarter of an hour without a call upon it: but I need
not tell you, who know my life, that I am forced to create new
time, if I will keep up my correspondence with you. You seem to
like I should, and I wish to give you every satisfaction in my
power.
Tuesday, February 7, four o'clock.
I tremble whilst I continue my letter, having just heard such a
dreadful story! A captain of a vessel has made oath before the
Lord Mayor, this morning, that he saw one of the yachts sunk on
the coast of Holland; and it is believed to be the one in which
the Prince was. The city is in an uproar; nor need one point out
all such an accident may produce, if true; which I most fervently
hope it is not. My long letter will help you to comments enough,
which will be made on this occasion. I wish you may know, at
this moment, that our fears are ill placed. The Princess was not
in the same yacht with her husband. Poor Fanshawe,(472) as clerk
of the green cloth, with his wife and sister, was in one of them.
Here is more of the Duc de Pecquigny's episode. An officer was
sent yesterday to put Virette under arrest. His servant disputed
with the officer on his orders, till his master made his escape.
Virette sent a friend, whom he ordered to deliver his letter in
person, and see it read, with a challenge, appointing the Duc to
meet him at an hour after seven this morning, at Buckingham-gate,
where he waited till ten to no purpose, though the Duc had not
been put under arrest. Virette absconds, and has sent M. de
Pecquigny word, that he shall abscond till he can find a proper
opportunity of fighting him. Your discretion will naturally
prevent your talking of this; but I thought you would like to be
prepared, if this affair should any how happen to become your
business, though your late discussion With the Duc de Chaulnes
will add to your disinclination from meddling with it.
I must send this to the post before I go to the Opera, and
therefore shall not be able to tell you more of the Prince of
Brunswick by this post.
(461) The "Maccaroni" of 1764 was nearly synonymous with the term
"dandy" at present in vogue, and even become classical by the use
of it by Lord Byron; who, in his story of Beppo, written in 1817,
speaks of
----"the dynasty of Dandies, now
Perchance succeeded by some other class
Of imitated imitators:--how
Irreparably soon decline, alas!
The demagogues of fashion: all below
Is frail; how easily the world is lost
By love, or war, and now and then by frost!"-E.
(462) A bill, passed in the last session, for an additional duty
on cider and perry, which was violently opposed by the cider
counties, and taken up as a general opposition question. This
measure was considered as a great error on the part of Lord Bute,
and the unpopularity consequent upon it is said to have
contributed to his resignation.
(463) On a motion for a committee on the Cider-bill on the 24th
of January. Mr. James Grenville, in a letter to his sister, Lady
Chatham, speaking of this debate says, "I should make you as old
a woman as either Sandys or Rushout, if I were to state all the
jargon that arose in this debate. It was plain the Court meant
to preclude any repeal of the bill; the cider people coldly
wished to obtain it. Sir Richard Bamfylde, at the head of them,
spoke, not his own sentiments, as he declared, but those which
the instructions and petitions of his constituents forced him to
maintain. We divided 127 with us: against us, 167." Chatham
Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 282.-E.
(464) It was a proposal for converting certain outstanding
navy-bills into annuities at four per cent.-C.
(465) Sir William Baker, member for Plympton; an alderman of
London. He married the eldest daughter of the second Jacob
Tonson, the bookseller.-E.
(466) There is no other account of this remarkable speech to be
found; and indeed we have little notice of General Conway's
parliamentary efforts, except Mr. Burke's general and brilliant
description of his conduct as leader of the House of Commons in
the Rockingham administration. As General Conway's reputation in
the House of Commons has been in some degree forgotten, it may be
as well to cite the passage from Mr. Burke's speech, in 1774, on
American taxation, in support of what Mr. Walpole says of the
General's powers in debate:--"I will likewise do justice, I ought
to do it, to the honourable gentleman who led us in this House.
Far from the duplicity wickedly charged on him, he acted his part
with alacrity and resolution. We all felt inspired by the
example he gave us, down even to myself, the weakest in that
phalanx. I declare for one, I knew well enough (it could not be
concealed from any body) the true state of things; but, in my
life I never came with so much spirits into this House. It was a
time for a man to act in. We had powerful enemies; but we had
faithful and determined friends and a glorious cause. We had a
great battle to fight, but we had the means of fighting; not as
now, when our arms are tied behind us. We did fight that day,
and conquer. I remember, Sir, with a melancholy pleasure, the
situation of the Honourable gentleman (General Conway) who made
the motion for the repeal; in that crisis, when the whole trading
interest of this empire, crammed into your lobbies with a
trembling, and anxious expectation, waited, ,almost to a winter's
return of light, their fate from your resolution. When, at
length, you had determined in their favour, and your doors thrown
open, showed them the figure of their deliverer in the
well-earned triumph of his important victory, from the whole of
that grave multitude there arose an involuntary burst of
gratitude and transport, They jumped upon him like children on a
long absent father. They clung about him like captives about the
redeemer. All England, all America, joined in his applause. Nor
did he seem insensible to the best of all earthly regards--the
love and admiration of his fellow-citizens. Hope elevated, and
joy brightened his crest. I stood near him; and his face, to use
the expression of the Scripture of the first martyr, 'his face
was as if it had been the face of an angel.' I do not know how
others feel; but if I had Stood in that situation, I never would
have exchanged it for all that kings, in their profusion, could
bestow. I did hope, that that day's danger and honour would have
been a bond to hold us all together for ever. But alas! that,
with other pleasing visions, is long since vanished."-C.
(467) Mr. Walpole tinges his approbation of Lord George's
politics by this allusion to Minden, where his lordship had not
"led up the Blues."-C.
(468) Miss Anna Maria Draycote, married in April, 17()3, to Earl
Pomfret. To taste Mr. Townshend's jest, one must recollect, that
in the finance of that day the duties of tonnage and poundage
held a principal place.-C.
(469) Governor Vansittart, contrary to the advice of his council,
had deposed the Nabob Meer Jaffier, and transferred the
sovereignty to his son-in-law, Cossim Ali Cawn. The latter,
however, soon forgot his obligations to the English; and in
consequence of some aggressions on his part, a deputation,
consisting of Mesrs Amyatt and Hay, members of council, attended
by half a dozen other gentlemen, was sent to the new Nabob.
While this deputation was on its return, hostilities broke out,
and these gentlemen were put to death as they were passing the
city of Mor", Moreshedabad. About the same here the English
council at Patna and their attendants were made prisoners, and
afterwards cruelly massacred. These events necessitated the
deposition of Cossim, and Jaffier was accordingly, after a short
campaign, restored.-C. (468) Charles, afterwards second Duke of
Dorset.-E.
(470) John Damer, member for Dorchester. Lord Milton had married
Lord George's youngest sister, Lady Caroline.-E.
(471) The Prince and Princess landed safely at Helvoet on the 2d
of February.-E.
(472) Simon Fanshawe, Esq. member for Grampound. He had married
a lady of his own name.
Letter 192 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 1764. (page 283)
My dear lord,
You ought to be Witness to the fatigue I am suffering, before you
can estimate the merit I have in being writing to you at this
moment. Cast up eleven hours in the House of Commons on Monday,
and above seventeen hours yesterday--ay, seventeen at length,-
-and then you may guess if I am tired! nay, you must add
seventeen hours that I may possibly be there on Friday, and then
calculate if I am weary.(473) In short, yesterday was the
longest day ever known in the House of Commons--why, on the
Westminster election at the end of my father's reign,(474) I was
at home by six. On Alexander Murray's(475) affair, I believe, by
five--on the militia, twenty people, I think, sat till six, but
then they were only among themselves, no heat, no noise, no
roaring. It was half an hour after seven this morning before I
was at home. Think of that, and then brag of your French
parliaments!(476)
What is ten times greater, Leonidas and the Spartan minority did
not make such a stand at Thermopylae, as we did. Do you know, we
had like to have been the majority? Xerxes(477) is frightened
out of his senses; Sysigambis(478) has sent an express to Luton
to forbid Phrates(479) coming to town to-morrow: Norton's(480)
impudence has forsaken him; Bishop Warburton is at this moment
reinstating Mr. Pitt's name in the dedication to his sermons,
which he had expunged for Sandwich's;(481) and Sandwich himself
is--at Paris, perhaps, by this time, for the first thing I expect
to hear to-morrow is, that he is gone off.
Now are you mortally angry with me for trifling with you, and not
telling you at once the particulars of this almost-revolution.
You may be angry, but I shall take my own time, and shall give
myself what airs I please both to you, my Lord Ambassador, and to
you, my Lord Secretary of State, who will, I suppose, open this
letter--if you have courage enough left. In the first place, I
assume all the impertinence of a prophet, aye, of that great
curiosity, a prophet, who really prophesied before the event, and
whose predictions have been accomplished. Have I, or have I not,
announced to you the unexpected blows that would be given to the
administration?--come, I will lay aside my dignity, and satisfy
your impatience. There's moderation.
We sat all Monday hearing evidence against Mr. Wood,(482) that
dirty wretch Webb,(483) and the messengers, for their illegal
proceedings against Mr. Wilkes. At midnight, Mr. Grenville
offered us to adjourn or proceed. Mr. Pitt humbly begged not to
eat or sleep till so great a point should be decided. On a
division, in which though many said aye to adjourning, nobody
would go out for fear of losing their seats, it was carried by
379 to 31, for proceeding--and then--half the House went away.
The ministers representing the indecency of this, and Fitzherbert
saying that many were within call, Stanley observed, that after
voting against adjournment, a third part had adjourned
themselves, when, instead of being within call, they ought to
have been within hearing: this was unanswerable, and we
adjourned.
Yesterday we fell to again. It was one in the morning before the
evidence was closed. CarringTon, the messenger, was alone
examined for seven hours. This old man, the cleverest of all
ministerial terriers, was pleased with recounting his
achievements, yet guarded and betraying nothing. However, the
arcana imperia have been wofully laid open.
I have heard Garrick, and other players, give themselves airs of
fatigue after a long part--think of the Speaker, nay, think of
the clerks taking most correct minutes for sixteen hours, and
reading them over to every witness; and then let me hear of
fatigue! Do you know, not only my Lord Temple,(484)--who you may
swear never budged as spectator, but old Will Chetwynd,(485) now
past eighty, and who had walked to the House, did not stir a
single moment out of his place, from three in the afternoon till
the division at seven in the morning. Nay, we had patriotesses,
too, who stayed out the whole: Lady Rockingham and Lady Sondes
the first day; both again the second day, with Miss Mary Pelham,
Mrs. Fitzroy,(486) and the Duchess of Richmond, as patriot as any
of us. Lady Mary Coke, Mrs. George Pitt,(487) and Lady
Pembroke(488) came after the Opera, but I think did not stay
above seven or eight hours at most.
At one, Sir W. Meredith(489) moved a resolution of the illegality
of the warrant, and opened it well. He was seconded by old
Darlington's brother,(490) a convert to us. Mr. Wood, who had
shone the preceding day by great modesty, decency, and ingenuity,
forfeited these merits a good deal by starting up (according to a
ministerial plan,) and very arrogantly, and repeatedly in the
night, demanding justice and a previous acquittal, and telling
the House he scorned to accept being merely excused; to which Mr.
Pitt replied, that if he disdained to be excused, he would
deserve to be censured. Mr. Charles Yorke (who, with his family,
have come roundly to us for support against the Duke of Bedford
on the Marriage-bill(491)) proposed to adjourn. Grenville and
the Ministry would have agreed to adjourn the debate on the great
question itself, but declared they would push this acquittal.
This they announced haughtily enough--for as yet, they did not
doubt of their strength. Lord Frederick Campbell(492) was the
most impetuous of all, so little he foresaw how much wiser it
would be to follow your brother. Pitt made a short speech,
excellently argumentative, and not bombast, nor tedious. nor
deviating from the question. He was supported by your brother,
and Charles Townshend, and Lord George;(493) the two last of whom
are strangely firm, now they are got under the cannon of your
brother Charles, who, as he must be extraordinary, is now so in
romantic nicety of honour. His father,(494) who is dying, or
dead, at Bath, and from whom he hopes two thousand a year, has
sent for him. He has refused to go--lest his steadiness should
be questioned. At a quarter after four we divided. Our cry was
so loud, that both we and the ministers thought we had carried
it. It is not to be painted, the dismay of the latter--in good
truth not without reason, for we were 197, they but 207. Your
experience can tell you, that a majority of but ten is a defeat.
Amidst a great defection from them, was even a white staff, Lord
Charles Spencer(495)--now you know still more of what I told you
was preparing for them!
Crestfallen, the ministers then proposed simply to discharge the
complaint; but the plumes which they had dropped, Pitt soon
placed in his own beaver. He broke out on liberty, and, indeed,
on whatever he pleased, uninterrupted. Rigby sat feeling the
vice-treasurership slipping from under him. Nugent was now less
pensive--Lord Strange,(496) though not interested, did not like
it. Every body was too much taken up with his own concerns or
too much daunted, to give the least disturbance to the Pindaric.
Grenville, however, dropped a few words, which did but heighten
the flame. Pitt, with less modesty than ever he showed,
pronounced a panegyric, on his own administration, and from
thence broke out on the dismission of officers. This increased
the roar from us. Grenville replied, and very finely, very
pathetically, very animated. he painted Wilkes and faction, and,
with very little truth, denied the charge of menaces to officers.
At that moment, General A'Court(497) walked up the House --think
what an impression such an incident must make, when passions,
hopes, and fears, were all afloat--think, too, how your brother
and I, had we been ungenerous, could have added to these
sensations! There was a man not so delicate. Colonel Barr`e
rose--and this attended with a striking circumstance; Sir Edward
Deering, one of our noisy fools, called out, "Mr. Barr`e,"(498)
The latter seized the thought with admirable quickness, and said
to the Speaker, who, in pointing to him, had called him Colonel,
"I beg your pardon, Sir, you have pointed to me by a title I have
no right to," and then made a very artful and pathetic speech on
his own services and dismission; with nothing bad but an awkward
attempt towards an excuse to Mr. Pitt for his former behaviour.
Lord North, who will not lose his bellow, though he may lose his
place, endeavoured to roar up the courage of his comrades, but it
would not do--the House grew tired, and we again divided at seven
for adjournment; some of our people were gone, and we remained
but 184, they 208; however, you will allow our affairs are
mended, when we say, but 184. We then came away, and left the
ministers to satisfy Wood, Webb, and themselves, as well as they
could. It was eight in the morning before I was in bed; and
considering that this is no very short letter, Mr. Pitt bore the
fatigue with his usual spirit(499)--and even old Onslow, the late
Speaker, was sitting up, anxious for the event.
On Friday we are to have the great question, which would prevent
my writing; and to-morrow I dine with Guerchy, at the Duke of
Grafton's, besides twenty other engagements. To-day I have shut
myself up; for with writing this, and taking notes yesterday all
day, and all night, I have not an eye left to see out of--nay,
for once in my life, I shall go to bed at ten o'clock.
I am glad to be able to contradict two or three passages in my
last letter. The Prince and Princess of Brunswick are safely
landed, though they were in extreme danger. The Duc de Pecquigny
had not only been put in arrest late on the Sunday night, which I
did not know, but has retrieved his honour. Monsieur de Guerchy
sent him away, and at Dover Virette found him, and whispered him
to steal from D'Allonville(500) and fight. The Duc first begged
his pardon, owned himself in the wrong, and then fought him, and
was wounded, though slightly, in four places in the arm; and both
are returned to London with their honours as white as snow.
Sir Jacob Downing(501) is dead, and has left every shilling to
his wife; id est, not sixpence to my Lord Holland;(502) a mishap
which, being followed by a minority of 197, will not make a
pleasant week to him.
now would you believe how I feel and how I wish? I wish we may
continue the minority. The desires of some of my associates,
perhaps, may not be satisfied, but mine are. Here is an
opposition formidable enough to keep abler ministers than
Messieurs the present gentlemen in awe. They may pick pockets,
but they will pick no more locks. While we continue a minority,
we preserve our characters, and we have some too good to part
with. I hate to have a camp to plunder; at least, I am so Which
I am so whig, I hate spoils but the opima spolia. I think it,
too, much more creditable to control ministers, than to be
ministers--and much more creditable than to become mere ministers
ourselves. I have several other excellent reasons against our
success, though I could combat them with as many drawn from the
insufficience of the present folk, and the propriety of Mr. Pitt
being minister; but I am too tired, and very likely so are you,
my dear lord, by this time, and therefore good night!
Friday noon.
I had sealed my letter, and break it open again on receiving
yours of the 13th, by the messenger. Though I am very sorry you
had not then got mine from Monin, which would have prepared you
for much of what has happened, I do not fear its miscarriage, as
I think I can account for the delay. I had, for more security,
put it into the parcel with two more volumes of my Anecdotes of
Painting; which, I suppose, remained in M. Monin's baggage; and
he might not have taken it when he delivered the single letters.
If he has not yet sent you the parcel, you may ask for it, as the
same delicacy is not necessary as for a letter.
I thank Lord Beauchamp much for the paper, but should thank him
much more for a letter from himself. I am going this minute to
the House, where I have already been to prayers,(503) to take a
place. It was very near full then, so critical a day it is! I
expect we shall be beaten-but we shall not be so many times more.
Lord Granby(504) I hear, is to move the previous question--they
are reduced to their heavy cannon.
Sunday evening, 19th.
Happening to hear of a gentleman who sets out for Paris in two or
three days, I stopped my letter, both out of prudence (pray
admire me!) and from thinking that it was as well to send you at
once the complete history of our Great Week. By the time you
have read the preceding pages, you may, perhaps, expect to find a
change in the ministry in what I am going to say. You must have
a little patience; our parliamentary war, like the last war in
Germany, produces very considerable battles, that are not
decisive. Marshal Pitt has given another great blow to the
subsidiary army, but they remained masters of the field, and both
sides sing te Deum. I am not talking figuratively, when I assure
you that bells, bonfires, and an illumination from the Monument,
were prepared in the city, in case we had the majority. Lord
Temple was so indiscreet and indecent as to have fagots ready for
two bonfires, but was persuaded to lay aside the design, even
before it was abortive.
It is impossible to give you the detail of so long a debate as
Friday's. You will regret it the less when I tell you it was a
very dull one. I never knew a day of expectation answer. The
impromptus and the unexpected are ever the most shining. We love
to hear ourselves talk, and yet we must be formed of adamant to
be able to talk day and night on the same question for a week
together. If you had seen how ill we looked, you would not have
wondered we did not speak well. A company of colliers emerging
from damps and darkness could not have appeared more ghastly and
dirty than we did on Wednesday morning; and we had not recovered
much bloom on Friday. We spent two or three hours on corrections
of, and additions to, the question of pronouncing the warrant
illegal, till the ministry had contracted it to fit scarce any
thing but the individual case of Wilkes, Pitt not opposing the
amendments because Charles Yorke gave into them; for it is
wonderful(505) what deference is paid by both sides to that
house. The debate then began by Norton's moving to adjourn the
consideration of the question for four months, and holding out a
promise of a bill, which neither they mean nor, for my part,
should I like: I would not give prerogative so much as a
definition. You are a peer, and, therefore, perhaps, will hear
it with patience--but think how our ears must have tingled, when
he told us, that should we pass the resolution, and he were a
judge, he would mind it no more than the resolution of a drunken
porter! Had old Onslow been in the chair, I believe he would
have knocked him down with the mace. He did hear of it during
the debate, though not severely enough; but the town rings with
it. Charles Yorke replied, and was much admired. Me he did not
please; I require a little more than palliatives and sophistries.
He excused the part he has taken by pleading that he had never
seen the warrant, till after Wilkes was taken up--yet he then
pronounced the No. 45 a libel, and advised the commitment of
Wilkes to the Tower. If you advised me to knock a man down,
would you excuse yourself by saying you had never seen the stick
with which I gave the blow Other speeches we had without end, but
none good, except from Lord George Sackville, a short one from
Elliot, and one from Charles Townshend, so fine that it amazed,
even from him. Your brother had spoken with excellent sense
against the corrections, and began well again in the debate, but
with so much rapidity that he confounded himself first, and then
was seized with such a hoarseness that he could not proceed.
Pitt and George Grenville ran a match of silence, striving which
should reply to the other. At last, Pitt, who had three times in
the debate retired with pain,(506) rose about three in the
morning, but so languid, so exhausted, that, in his life, he
never made less figure. Grenville answered him; and at five in
the morning we divided. The Noes were so loud, as it admits a
deeper sound than Aye, that the Speaker, who has got a bit of
nose(507) since the opposition got numbers, gave it for us. They
went forth; and when I heard our side counted to the amount of
218, I did conclude we were victorious; but they returned 232.
It is true we were beaten by fourteen, but we were increased by
twenty-one; and no ministry could stand on so slight an
advantage, if we could continue above two hundred.(508)
We may, and probably shall, fall off: this was our strongest
question--but our troops will stand fast: their hopes and views
depend upon it, and their spirits are raised. But for the other
side it will not be the same. The lookers-on will be stayers
away, and their very subsidies will undo them. They bought two
single votes that day with two peerages;(509) Sir R.
Bampfylde(510) and Sir Charles Tynte(511)--and so are going to
light up the flame of two more county elections--and that in the
west, where surely nothing was wanting but a tinder-box!
You would have almost laughed to see the spectres produced by
both sides; one would have thought that they had sent a
search-warrant for members of parliament into every hospital.
Votes were brought down in flannels and blankets, till the floor
of the House looked like the pool of Bethesda. 'Tis wonderful
that half of us are not dead--I should not say us; Herculean I
have not suffered the least, except that from being a Hercules of
ten grains, I don't believe I now weigh above eight. I felt from
nothing so much as the noise, which made me as drunk as an owl-
-you may imagine the clamours of two parties so nearly matched,
and so impatient to come to a decision.
The Duchess of Richmond has got a fever with the attendance of
Tuesday--but on Friday we were forced to be unpolite. The
Amazons came down in such squadrons, that we were forced to be
denied. However, eight or nine of the patriotesses dined in one
of the Speaker's rooms, and stayed there till twelve--nay, worse,
while their dear country was at stake, I am afraid they were
playing at loo!
The Townshends, you perceive by this account, are returned; their
father not dead.(512) Lord Howe(513) and the Colonel voted with
us; so did Lord Newnham,(514) and is likely to be turned out of
doors for it. A warrant to take up Lord Charles Spenser was sent
to Blenheim from Bedford-house,(515) and signed by his brother,
and returned for him; so he went thither--not a very kind office
in the Duke of Marlborough to Lord Charles's character. Lord
Granby refused to make the motion, but spoke for it. Lord
Hardwicke is relapsed; but we do not now fear any consequences
from his death. The Yorkes, who abandoned a triumphant
administration, are not so tender as to return and comfort them
in their depression.
The chief business now, I suppose, will lie in souterreins and
intrigues. Lord Bute's panic will, probably, direct him to make
application to us. Sandwich will be manufacturing lies, and
Rigby, negotiations. Some change or other, whether partial or
extensive, must arrive. The best that can happen for the
ministers, is to be able to ward off the blow till the recess,
and they have time to treat at leisure; but in just the present
state it is impossible things should remain. The opposition is
too strong, and their leaders too able to make no impression.
Adieu! pray tell Mr. Hume that I am ashamed to be thus writing
the history of England, when he is with you!
P. S. The new baronies are contradicted, but may recover truth at
the end of the session.(516)
(473) the important debate on the question of General Warrants,
which is the subject of the following able and interesting
letter, has never been reported. There are, indeed, in the
parliamentary history, a letter from Sir George Yonge, and two
statements by Sir William Meredith and Charles Townshend, on the
subject, but they relate chiefly to their own motives and
reasonings, and give neither the names nor the arguments of the
debater,-, and fall very short indeed of the vigour and vivacity
of Mr. Walpole's animated sketch.-C.
(474) On the 22d December, 1741. This was one of the debates
that terminated Sir Robert Walpole's administration: the numbers
on the division were 220 against 216.-C.
(475) The proceedings of the 6th of February, 1751, against the
Honourable A. Murray, for impeding the Westminster election; but
Walpole, in his Memoires, states that the House adjourned at two
in the morning.-C.
(476) The disputes between Louis XV. and his parliaments, which
prepared the revolution, were at this period assuming a serious
appearance.-C.
(477) The King.
(478) The Princess Dowager.
(479) Lord Bute. Luton was his seat in Bedfordshire.
(480) Mr. Walpole was too sanguine: Sir Fletcher had not even
lost his boldness; for in the further progress of the adjourned
debate, we shall find that he told the House that he would regard
their resolution of no more value (in point of law, must be
understood) than the vociferations of so many drunken porters.-C.
(481) Lord Sandwich was an agreeable companion and an able
minister; but One whose moral character did not point him out as
exactly the fittest patron for a volume of sermons; and he was at
this moment so unpopular, that Mr. Walpole affects to think he
may have been intimidated to fly.-C.
(482) Robert Wood, Esq. under-secretary of state; against whom,
for his official share in the affair of the general warrants, Mr.
Wilkes's complaint was made.-C.
(483) Philip Carteret Webb, Esq. solicitor to the treasury,
complained on the same ground. Mr. Walpole probably applies
these injurious terms to Mr. Webb, on account of a supposed error
in his evidence on the trial in the Common Pleas, for which he
was afterwards indicted for perjury, but he was fully acquitted.
The point was of little importance --whether he had or had not a
key in his hand.-C.
(484) Lord Temple was, as every one knows, a very keen
politician, and took in all this matter a most prominent part;
indeed, he was the prime mover of the whole affair, and bore the
expense of all Wilkes's law proceedings out of his own pocket.-C.
(485) William Chetwynd, brother of Lord Chetwynd: at this time
master of the mint. He was in early life a friend of Lord
Bolingbroke, and called, from the darkness of his complexion,
Oroonoko Chetwynd: he sat out these debates with impunity, for he
survived to succeed his brother as Lord Chetwynd, in 1767, and
did not die for some years after.-C.
(486) Probably Anne, daughter of Admiral Sir Peter Warren;
married, in 1758, to Colonel Charles Fitzroy, afterwards first
Lord Southampton.-C.
(487) Penelope, daughter of Sir H. Atkins, married, in 1746, to
George Pitt, first Lord Rivers.-C.
(488) Elizabeth. daughter of Charles Spenser, first Duke of
Marlborough of the Spenser branch, married, in 1756, to Henry,
tenth Earl of Pembroke; she was celebrated for her beauty, which
had even, it was said, captivated George III. When General
Conway was dismissed for the vote of this very night, Lord
Pembroke succeeded to his regiment.-C.
(489) Sir William Meredith's motion was, "That a general warrant
for apprehending and securing the authors, printers, and
publishers of a seditious libel, together with their papers, is
not warranted by law." This proposition the administration did
not venture to deny, but they attached to it an exculpatory
amendment to the Following effect:--"although such warrant has
been issued according to the usage of office, and has been
frequently produced to, and never condemned by, courts of
justice."-C.
(490) Gilbert, youngest brother of henry, first Earl of
Darlington, who was so well known in Sir Robert Walpole's and Mr.
Pelham's time as " Harry Vane." Mr. Gilbert Vane was deputy
treasurer of Chelsea Hospital, but on this occasion abandoned the
ministerial side of the House, with which he had hitherto voted:
he died in 1772.-C.
(491) The Marriage act was not an original measure of Lord
Hardwicke; but as he, on the failure of one or two previous
attempts at a bill on that subject, was requested by the House of
Lords to prepare one, he, and of course his sons, must have
continued interested in its maintenance; but Mr. Walpole's
suspicion of a bargain and sale of sentiments between there and
the opposition is quite absurd. Even from Mr. Walpole's own
statement, it would seem, that, on the subject of general
warrants, mr. Charles Yorke acted with sincerity and
moderation,-anxious to have a great legal question properly
decided, and unwilling to prostitute its success to the purposes
of party.-C.
(492) Fourth son of John, third Duke of Argyle; afterwards keeper
of the privy seal in Scotland, secretary to the Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland, and finally, lord register of Scotland. As He was
the brother-in-law of General Conway, Mr. Walpole seems to have
expected him to have followed Conway's politics.-C.
(493) Lord George Sackville.
(494) Charles, third Lord Townshend, a peer, whose reputation is
lost between that of his father and his sons.-C.
(495) Second son of the Duke of Marlborough; his white staff was
that of comptroller of the household. He was, it seems, in Mr.
Walpole's sense of the word, wiser than Lord Frederick Campbell;
but we shall see presently, that this wisdom grew ashamed of
itself in a day or two, and in 1765, when the party which he had
this night assisted came into power, he was turned out.-C.
(496) James, eldest son of the Earl of Derby, born in 1717; he
died in 1771, before his father. I know not why Walpole says he
was not interested; he was a very respectable man, but he was
also chancellor of the duchy, and might naturally have felt as
much interested as the other placemen-C.
(497) Lately dismissed. See ant`e, p. 276, letter 188.-E.
(498) Colonel Barr`e had been dismissed from the office of
adjutant-general. See ant`e, p. 258, letter 184.-E.
(499) The Duke of Newcastle in a letter to Mr. Pitt of the 15th,
says, "Mr. West and honest George Onslow came to my bedside this
morning, to give me an account of the glorious day we had
yesterday, and of the great obligations which every true lover of
the liberties of his country and our present constitution owe to
you, for the superior ability, firmness, and resolution which you
showed during the longest attention that ever was known. God
forbid that your health should suffer by your zeal for your
country." Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 287.-E.
(500) Probably the gentleman in whose charge M. de Guerchy had
sent away the giddy Duke.-C.
(501) Sir Jacob Gerrard Downing, Bart., member for Dunwich: he
died the 6th of February, and left his estate, as Mr. Walpole
says, to his wife; but only for her life, and afterwards to build
and endow Downing College at Cambridge.(502) The grounds of any
expectation which Lord Holland may have entertained from Sir
Jacob Downing have not reached us; but it is right to say, that
Mr. Walpole had quarrelled with Lord Holland, and was glad on any
occasion, just or otherwise, to sneer at him.-C.
(503) It may be necessary to remark, that any member who attends
at the daily prayers of the House has a right, for that evening,
to the place he occupies at prayers. On nights of great
interest, when the House is expected to be crowded, there is
consequently a considerable attendance at prayers.-C.
(504) Eldest son of the third Duke of Rutland, well known for his
gallant conduct at Minden, and still remembered for his
popularity with the army and the public. He was at this time
commander-in-chief and master-general of the ordnance. He died
before his father, in 1770.-C.
(505) Wonderful to Mr. Walpole only, who had a private pique
against the Yorkes; no one else could wonder that deference
should be paid to long services, high stations, great abilities,
and unimpeached integrity.-C.
(506) Mr. Pitt's frequent fits of the gout are well known: he was
even suspected of sometimes acting a fit of the gout in the House
of Commons. (A reference to the Chatham Correspondence will, it
is believed, remove the illiberal suspicion, that Mr. Pitt, on
this, or any other occasion, was in the practice of "acting a fit
of the gout." On the morning after the debate, the Duke of
Newcastle thus wrote to Mr. Pitt "I shall not be easy till I hear
you have not increased your pain and disorder, by your attendance
and the great service you did yesterday to the public. I could
not omit thanking you and congratulating you upon your great and
glorious minority, before I went to Claremont. Such a minority,
with such a leader, composed of gentlemen of the Greatest and
most independent fortunes in the kingdom, against a majority of
fourteen only, influenced by power and force, and fetched from
all corners of the kingdom, must have its weight, and produce the
most happy consequences to the public." Chatham Correspondence,
vol. ii. p. 288.-E.]
(507) Sir John Cust's nose was rather short, as his picture by
Reynolds, as well as by Walpole, testify.-C.
(508) In reference to this defeat of the ministry, Gray, in a
letter to Dr. Wharton, says, "Their crests are much fallen and
countenances lengthened by the transactions of last week; for the
ministry, on Thursday last (after sitting till near eight in the
morning), carried a small point by a majority of only forty, and
on another previous division by one of ten only; and on Friday
last, at five in the morning, there were 220 to 232; and by this
the court only obtained to adjourn the debate for four months,
and not to get a declaration in favour of their measures. If
they hold their ground many weeks after this, I shall wonder; but
the new reign has already produced many wonders." Works, vol. iv.
p. 30.-E.
(509) Not correct. See afterwards.-E.
(510) sir Richard Warwick Bampfylde, fourth baronet; member for
Devonshire.-E.
(511) Sir Charles Kemeys Tynte, fifth baronet; member for
Somersetshire.-E.
(512) He died on the 13th of the ensuing month.-E.
(513) Richard, fourth Viscount, and first Earl Howe, the hero of
the 1st of June; and his brother, Colonel, afterwards General Sir
William, who succeeded him as fifth Viscount Howe.-C.
(514) George Simon, Viscount Newnham, afterwards second Earl of
Harcourt, remarkable for a somewhat exaggerated imitation of
French fashions. His father, the first Earl, was at this time
chamberlain to the Queen.-C.
(515) See ant`e, p. 286. The meaning of this passage is, that
the Duke of Bedford (who was president of the council) wrote a
letter, which he sent to Blenheim for the Duke of Marlborough to
sign, desiring his brother, Lord Charles, to abstain from again
voting against the government. The Duke of Marlborough (who was
privy seal) signed, as Walpole intimates, the letter; and Lord
Charles, instead of attending the House, and voting, as he had
done on the former night, against ministers, went down to
Blenheim.-C.
(516) They never took place, and probably never were in
contemplation.-E.
Letter 193 To Sir David Dalrymple.(517)
Arlington Street, Feb. 23, 1764. (page 292)
Dear Sir,
I am much in your debt, but have had but too much excuse for
being so. Men who go to bed at six and seven in the morning, and
who rise but to return to the same fatigue, have little leisure
for other most necessary duties. The severe attendance we have
had lately in the House of Commons cannot be unknown to you, and
will already, I trust, have pleaded my pardon.
Mr. Bathoe has got the two volumes for you, and will send them by
the conveyance you prescribe. You will find in them much, I
fear, that will want your indulgence; and not only dryness,
trifles, and, I conclude, many mistakes, but perhaps opinions
different from your own. I can only plead my natural and
constant frankness, which always speaks indifferently, as it
thinks, on all sides and subjects. I am bigoted to none: Charles
or Cromwell, Whigs or Tories, are all alike to me, but in what I
think they deserve, applause or censure; and therefore, if' I
sometimes commend, sometimes blame them, it is not for being
inconsistent, but from considering them in the single light in
which I then speak of them: at the same time meaning to give only
my private opinion, and not at all expecting to have it adopted
by any other man. Thus much, perhaps, it was necessary for @ne
to say, and I will trouble you no further about myself.
Single portraits by Vandyck I shall avoid particularizing any
farther, and also separate pieces by other masters, for a reason
I may trust you with. Many persons possess pictures which they
believe or call originals, without their being so, and have
wished to have them inserted in my lists. This I certainly do
not care to do, nor, on the other hand, to assume the
impertinence of deciding from my own judgment. I shall,
therefore, stop where I have stopped. The portraits which you
mention, of the Earl of Warwick, Sir, is very famous and
indubitable; but I believe you will assent to my prudence, which
does not trouble me too often. I have heard as much fame of the
Earl of Denbigh.
You will see in my next edition, that I have been so lucky as to
find and purchase both the drawings that were at
Buckingham-house, of the Triumphs of Riches and Poverty. They
have raised even my ideas of Holbein. Could I afford it, and we
had engravers equal to the task, the public should be acquainted
with their merit; but I am disgusted with paying great sums for
wretched performances. I am ashamed of the prints in my books,
which were extravagantly paid for, and are wretchedly executed.
Your zeal for reviving the publication of Illustrious Heads
accords, Sir, extremely with my own sentiments; but I own I
despair of that, and every work. Our artists get so much money
by hasty, slovenly performances, that they will undertake nothing
that requires labour and time. I have never been able to
persuade any one of them to engrave the beauties at Windsor,
which are daily perishing for want of fires in that palace. Most
of them entered into a plan I had undertaken, of an edition of
Grammont with portraits. I had three executed; but after the
first, which was well done, the others were so wretchedly
performed, though even the best was much too dear, that I was
forced to drop the design. Walker, who has done much the best
heads in my new volumes, told me, when I pressed him to consider
his reputation, that , "he had got fame enough!" What hopes,
Sir, can one entertain after so shameful an answer? I have had
numerous schemes, but never could bring any to bear, but what
depended solely on myself; and how little is it that a private
man, with a moderate fortune, and who has many other avocations,
can accomplish alone? I flattered myself that this reign would
have given new life and views to the artists and the curious. I
am disappointed: Politics on one hand, and want of taste in those
about his Majesty on the other, have prevented my expectations
from being answered.
The letters you tell me of, Sir, are indeed curious, both those
of Atterbury and the rest; but I cannot flatter myself that I
shall be able to contribute to publication. My press, from the
narrowness of its extent, and having but one man and a boy, goes
very slow; nor have I room or fortune to carry it farther. What
I have already in hand, or promised, will take me up a long time.
The London Booksellers play me all manner of tricks. If I do not
allow them ridiculous profit,(518) they will do nothing to
promote the sale; and when I do, they buy up the impression, and
sell it for an advanced price before my face. This is the case
of my two first volumes of Anecdotes, for which people have been
made to pay half a guinea, and more than the advertised price.
In truth, the plague I have had in every shape with my own
printers, engravers, the booksellers, besides my own trouble,
have almost discouraged me from what I took up at first as an
amusement, but which has produced very little of it.
I am sorry, upon the whole, Sir, to be forced to confess to you,
that I have met with so many discouragements in virt`u and
literature. If an independent gentleman, though a private one,
finds such obstacles, what must an ingenious man do, who is
obliged to couple views of profit with zeal for the public? Or,
do our artists and booksellers, cheat me the more because I am a
gentleman? Whatever is the cause, I am almost as sick of the
profession of editor, as of author. If I touch upon either more,
it will be more idly, though chiefly because I never can be quite
idle.
(517) Now first collected.
(518) The following just and candid vindication of the London
booksellers from the charge of rapacity on the score of
"ridiculous profit," is contained in a letter written by Dr.
Johnson, in March, 1776, to the Rev. Dr. Wetherell:--"It is,
perhaps, not considered through how many hands a book often
passes, before it comes into those of the reader; or what part of
the profit each hand must retain, as a motive for transmitting it
to the next, We will call our primary agent in London, Mr.
Cadell, who receives our books from us, gives them room in his
warehouse, and issues them on demand; by him they are sold to Mr.
Dilly, a wholesale bookseller, who sends them into the country;
and the last seller is the country bookseller. Here are three
profits to be paid between the printer and the reader, or, in the
style of commerce, between the manufacturer and the consumer; and
if any of these profits is too penuriously distributed, the
process of commerce is interrupted."-E.
Letter 194 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Feb. 24, 1764. (page 294)
As I had an opportunity, on Tuesday last, of sending you a letter
of eleven pages, by a very safe conveyance, I shall say but a few
words to-day; indeed, I have left nothing to say, but to thank
you for the answer I received from you this morning to mine by
Monsieur Monin. I am very happy that you take so kindly the
freedom I used: the circumstances made me think it necessary; and
I flatter myself, that you are persuaded I was not to blame in
speaking so openly, when two persons so dear to me were
concerned.(519) Your 'Indulgence will not lead me to abuse it.
What you say on the caution I mentioned, convinces me that I was
right, by finding your judgment correspond with my own-but enough
of that.
My long letter, which, perhaps, you will not receive till after
this (you will receive it from a lady), will give you a full
detail of the last extraordinary week. Since that, there has
been an accidental suspension of arms. Not only Mr. Pitt is laid
up with the gout, but the Speaker has it too. We have been
adjourned till to-day, and as he is not recovered, have again
adjourned till next Wednesday. The events of the week have been,
a complaint made by Lord Lyttelton in your House, of a book
called "Droit le Roy;"(520) a tract written in the highest strain
of prerogative, and drawn from all the old obsolete law-books on
that question.(521) The ministers met this complaint with much
affected indignation, and even on the complaint being
communicated to us, took it up themselves; and both Houses have
ordered the book to be burned by the hangman. To comfort
themselves for this forced zeal for liberty, the North Briton,
and the Essay on Woman have both been condemned(522) by Juries in
the King's Bench; but that triumph has been more than balanced
again, by the city giving their freedom to Lord Chief-Justice
Pratt,(523) ordering his picture to be placed in the King's
Bench, thanking their members for their behaviour in Parliament
on the warrant, and giving orders for instructions to be drawn
for their future conduct.
Lord Granby is made lord lieutenant of Derbyshire; but the vigour
of this affront was wofully weakened by excuses to the Duke of
Devonshire, and by its being known that the measure was
determined two months ago.
All this sounds very hostile; yet, don't be surprised if you hear
of some sudden treaty. Don't you know a little busy squadron
that had the chief hand in the negotiation(524) last autumn?
Well, I have reason to think that Phraates(525 is negotiating
with Leonidas(526) by the same intervention. All the world sees
that the present ministers are between two fires. Would it be
extraordinary if the artillery of' both should be discharged on
them at once? But this is not proper for the post: I grow
prudent the less prudence is necessary.
We are in pain for the Duchess of Richmond, who, instead of the
jaundice, has relapsed into a fever. She has blooded twice last
night, and vet had a very bad night. I called at the door at
three o'clock, when they thought the fever rather diminished, but
spoke of her as very ill. I have not seen your brother or Lady
Aylesbury to-day, but found they had been very much alarmed
yesterday evening.(527) Lord Suffolk,(528) they say, is going to
be married to Miss Trevor Hampden.
Your brother has told me, that among Lady Hertford's things
seized at Dover, was a packet for me from you. Mr. Bowman has
undertaken to make strict inquiry for it. Adieu, my dear lord.
P. S. We had, last Monday, the prettiest ball that ever was seen,
at Mrs. Ann Pitt's,(529) in the compass of a silver penny. There
were one hundred and four persons, of which number fifty-five
supped. The supper-room was disposed with tables and benches
back to back in the manner of an alehouse. The idea sounds ill;
but the fairies had so improved upon it, had so be-garlanded, so
sweetmeated, and so desserted it, that it looked like a vision.
I told her she Could only have fed and stowed so much company by
a miracle, and that, when we were gone, she would take up twelve
basketsfull of people. The Duchess of Bedford asked me before
Madame de Guerchy, if I would not give them a ball at Strawberry?
Not for the universe! What! turn a ball, and dust, and dirt, and
a million of candles, into my charming new gallery! I said, I
could not flatter myself that people would give themselves the
trouble of going eleven miles for a ball--(though I believe they
would go fifty)--"Well, then," says she, "it shall be a dinner."-
-"With all my heart, I have no objection; but no ball shall set
its foot within my doors."
(519) It related, as we have seen, to General Conway's vote in
opposition to the government.-C.
(520) "Droit le Roy, or the Rights and Prerogatives of the
Imperial Crown of Great Britain." In the examination of Griffin,
the printer, before the Peers, he stated that Timothy Becknock
afterwards hanged in Ireland as an accomplice of George Robert
Fitzgerald, had sent the pamphlet to the press, and was, Griffin
believed, the author of it.-C.
(521) Gray writes to Dr. Wharton, on the 21st of February:--"The
House of Lords, I hear, will soon take in hand a book lately
published, by some scoundrel lawyer, on the prerogative; in which
is scraped together all the flattery and blasphemy of our old
law-books in honour of kings. I presume it is understood, that
the court will support the cause of this impudent scribbler."
Works, vol. iv. p. 30.-E.
(522) Mr. Wilkes was tried on the 21st of February, for
republishing the North Briton, No. 45, and for printing the Essay
on Woman, and found guilty of both.-E.
(523) The preamble of these resolutions is worthy of
observation:--"Whereas the independency and uprightness of judges
is essential to the impartial administration of justice, etc.
this court, in manifestation of their just sense of the
inflexible firmness and integrity of the Right Honourable Sir C.
Pratt, lord chief justice, etc. gives him the freedom of the
city, and orders his picture to be placed in Guildhall;" as if
impartiality could only be assailed from one side, and as if gold
boxes and pictures, and addresses from the corporation of London,
were not as likely to have influence on the human mind as the
favours from the crown. Their applause was either worth nothing,
or it was an attempt on the impartiality of the judge.-C.
(524) The negotiation in August, 1763, already alluded to, for
Mr. Pitt's coming into power. There is some reason to suppose
that Mr. Calcraft was employed in the first steps of this
negotiation, and this may be what Mr. Walpole here refers to.-C.
(525) Lord Bute.
(526) Mr. Pitt.
(527) The Duchess was the sister of Lady Aylesbury's first
husband.-E.
(528) Henry, twelfth Earl of Suffolk, married, May 1764, Miss
Trevor, who had been on the point of marriage with Mr. Child of
Osterley, where he suddenly died in September, 1763. See ant`e,
p. 237, letter 175.-E.
(529) Sister of the great Lord Chatham, whom she resembled in
some qualities of her mind. See ant`e, p. 220, letter 157. Mr.
Walpole, when some foreigner, who could not see Pitt himself, had
asked him if he was like his sister, answered, in his usual happy
style of giving a portrait at a touch, "Ils se ressemblent comme
deux gouttes de feu!" She was privy purse to the Princess
Dowager.-C.
Letter 195 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, March 3, 1764. (page 296)
Dear Sir,
Just as I was going to the Opera, I received your manuscript. I
would not defer telling you so, that you may know it is safe.
But I have additional reason to write to you immediately; for on
opening the book, the first thing I saw was a new obligation to
You, the charming Faithorne of Sir Orlando Bridgman, which
according to your constantly obliging manner you have sent me,
and I almost fear you think I begged it; but I can disculpate
myself, for I had discovered that it belongs to Dugdale's
Origines -Judiciales, and had ordered my bookseller to try to get
me that book, which when I accomplish, you shall command your own
print again; for it is too fine an impression to rob you of.
I have been so entertained with your book, that I have stayed at
home on purpose, and gone through three parts of it. It makes me
wish earnestly some time or other to go through all your
collections, for I have already found twenty things of great
moment to me. One Is particularly satisfactory to me; it is in
Mr. Baker's MSS. at Cambridge; the title of Eglesham's book
against the Duke of Bucks,(530) mentioned by me in the account of
Gerbier, from Vertue, who fished out every thing, and always
proves in the right. This piece I must get transcribed by Mr.
Gray's assistance. I fear I shall detain your manuscript
prisoner a little, for the notices I have found, but I will take
infinite care of it, as it deserves. I have got among my new old
prints a most curious one of one Toole. It seems to be a
burlesque. He lived in temp. Jac. I. and appears to have been an
adventurer, like Sir Ant. Sherley:(531) can you tell me any thing
of him?
I must repeat how infinitely I think myself obliged to you both
for the print and the use of your manuscript, which is of the
greatest use and entertainment to me; but you frighten me about
Mr. Baker's MSS. from the neglect of them. I should lose all
patience if yours were to be treated so. Bind them in iron, and
leave them in a chest of cedar. They are, I am sure, most
valuable, from what I have found already.
(530) This libellous book, written by a Scotch physician, and
which is reprinted in the second volume of the Harleian
Miscellany, and in the fifth volume of the Somers' Collection of
Tracts, was considered by Sir Henry Wotton "as one of the alleged
incentives which hurried Felton to become an assassin."-E.
(531) Sherley's various embassies will be found in the
collections of Hakluyt and Purchas. An article upon his travels,
which were published in 1601, occurs likewise in the second
volume of the Retrospective Review. The travels of the three
brothers, Sir Thomas, Sir Anthony, and Master Robert Sherley,
were published from the original manuscripts in 1825.-E.
Letter 196 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Strawberry Hill, March 11, 1764. (page 297)
My dear lord,
the last was so busy a week with me, that I had not a minute's
time to tell you of Lord Hardwicke's(532) death. I had so many
auctions, dinners, loo-parties, so many sick acquaintance, with
the addition of a long day in the House of Commons, (which, by
the way, I quitted for a sale of books,) and a ball, that I left
the common newspapers to inform you of an event, which two months
ago would have been of much consequence. The Yorkes are fixed,
and the contest(533) at Cambridge will but make them strike
deeper root in opposition. I have not heard how their father has
portioned out his immense treasures. The election at Cambridge
is to be on Tuesday, 24th; Charles Townshend is gone thither, and
I suppose, by this time, has ranted, and romanced, and turned
every one of their ideas topsyturvy.
Our long day was Friday, the opening of the budget. mr.
Grenville spoke for two hours and forty minutes; much of it well,
but too long, too many repetitions, and too evident marks of
being galled by reports, which he answered with more art than
sincerity. There were a few more speeches, till nine o'clock,
but no division. Our armistice, you see, continues. Lord Bute
is, I believe, negotiating with both sides; I know he is with the
opposition, and has a prospect of making very good terms for
himself, for patriots seldom have the gift of perseverance. It
is wonderful how soon their virtue thaws!
Last Thursday, the Duchess of Queensbury(534) gave a ball, opened
it herself with a minuet, and danced two country dances; as she
had enjoined every body to be with her by six, to sup at twelve,
and go away directly. Of the Campbell-sisters, all were left out
but, Lady Strafford,(535) Lady Rockingham and Lady Sondes, who,
having had colds, deferred sending answers, received notice that
their places were filled up, and that they must not come; but
were pardoned on submission. A card was sent to invite Lord and
Lady Cardigan, and Lord Beaulieu instead of Lord Montagu.(536)
This, her grace protested, was by accident. Lady Cardigan was
very angry, and yet went. Except these flights, the only
extraordinary thing the Duchess did, was to do nothing
extraordinary, for I do not call it very mad that some pique
happening between her and the Duchess of Bedford, the latter had
this distich sent to her--
Come with a whistle, and come with a call,
Come with a good will, or come not at all.
I do not know whether what I am going to tell you did not border
a little upon Moorfields.(537) The gallery where they danced was
very cold. Lord Lorn,(538) George Selwyn, and I, retired into a
little room, and sat (Comfortably by the fire. The Duchess
looked in, said nothing, and sent a smith to take the hinges of
the door off We understood the hint, and left the room, and so
did the smith the door. This was pretty legible.
My niece Waldegrave talks of accompanying me to Paris, but ten or
twelve weeks may make great alteration in a handsome young
widow's plan: I even think I see Some(539) who will--not forbid
banns, but propose them. Indeed, I am almost afraid of coming to
you myself. The air of Paris works such miracles, that it is not
safe to trust oneself there. I hear of nothing but my Lady
Hertford's rakery, and Mr. Wilkes's religious deportment, and
constant attendance at your chapel. Lady Anne,(540) I conclude,
chatters as fast as my Lady Essex(541) and her four daughters.
Princess Amelia told me t'other night, and bade me tell you, that
she has seen Lady Massarene(542) at Bath, who is warm in praise
of you, and said that you had spent two thousand pounds out of
friendship, to support her son in an election. She told the
Princess too, that she had found a rent-roll of your estate in a
farmhouse, and that it is fourteen thousand a-year. This I was
ordered, I know not why, to tell you. The Duchess of Bedford has
not been asked to the loo-parties at Cavendish-house(543) this
winter, and only once to whisk there, and that was one Friday
when she is at home herself. We have nothing at the Princess's
but silver-loo, and her Bath and Tunbridge acquaintance. The
trade at our gold-loo is as contraband as ever. I cannot help
saying, that the Duchess of Bedford would mend our silver-loo,
and that I wish every body played like her at the gold.
Arlington Street, Tuesday.
You thank me, my dear lord, for my gazettes (in your letter of
the 8th) more than they deserve. There is no trouble in sending
you news; as you excuse the careless manner in which I write any
thing I hear. Don't think yourself obliged to be punctual in
answering me: it would be paying too dear for such idle and
trifling despatches. Your picture of the attention paid to
Madame Pompadour's illness, and of the ridicule attached to the
mission of that homage, is very striking. It would be still more
so by comparison. Think if the Duke of Cumberland was to set up
with my Lord Bute!
The East India Company, yesterday, elected Lord Clive--Great
Mogul; that is, they have made him governor-general of Bengal,
and restored his Jaghire.(544) I dare say he will put it out of
their power ever to take it away again. We have had a deluge of
disputes and pamphlets on the late events in that distant
province of our empire, the Indies. The novelty of the manners
divert me: our governors there, I think, have learned more of
their treachery and injustice, than they have taught them of our
discipline.
Monsieur Helvetius(545 arrived yesterday. I will take care to
inform the Princess, that you could not do otherwise than you did
about her trees. My compliments to all your hotel.
(532) The event took place on the 6th of March.-E.
(533) For High steward of the university, between Lord Sandwich
and the new Lord Hardwicke. Gray, in a letter of the 21st of
February, written from Cambridge, says, "This silly dirty place
has had all its thoughts taken up with choosing a new high
steward; and had not Lord Hardwicke surprisingly, and to the
shame of the faculty, recovered by a quack medicine, I believe in
my conscience the noble Earl of Sandwich had been chosen, though,
(let me do them the justice to say) not without a considerable
opposition." Works, vol. iv. p. 29.-E.
(534) Catharine Hyde, the granddaughter of the great Lord
Clarendon; herself remarkable for some oddities of character,
dress, and manners, to which the world became less indulgent as
she ceased to be young and handsome.-C.
(535) the sisters omitted were, Lady Dalkeith, Lady Elizabeth
Mackenzie, and Lady Mary Coke.-C.
(536) John Duke of Montagu left two daughters; the eldest,
Isabella, married first the Duke of Manchester, and, secondly,
Mr. Hussey, an Irish gentleman, created in consequence of this
union, Lord Beaulieu. Mary, the younger sister, married Lord
Cardigan, who was, in 1776, created Duke of Montagu: their eldest
son having been in 1762, created Lord Montagu. The marriage of
the elder sister with Mr. Hussey was considered, by her family
and the world, as a m`esalliance; and, therefore, the mistake of
lord Beaulieu for Lord Montagu was likely to give offence.-C.
(537) It is now almost necessary to remind the reader, that old
Bedlam stood in Moorfields.-C.
(538) Afterwards fifth Duke of Argyle.-E.
(539) He means, as subsequently appears, the Duke of Portland.-C.
(540) Lord Hertford's eldest daughter, afterwards wife of Mr.
Stewart, subsequently created Earl and Marquis of Londonderry.-E.
(541) Elizabeth Russell, daughter of the second Duke of Bedford.
She had four daughters; but the oldest died young.-E.
(542) Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Eyre, Esq. of Derbyshire,
second wife of the first, and mother of the second, Earl of
Massarene; the latter being at this time a minor. The election
was probably for the county of Antrim, in which both Lord
Massarene and Lord Hertford had considerable property.-C.
(543) Princess Amelia's, the corner of Harley Street; since the
residence of Mr. Hope, and of mr. Watson Taylor.-C.
(544) A rent-charge which had been granted him by the late Nabob,
and which, on the seizure of the territory on which it was
charged by the East India Company, Lord Clive insisted that the
Company should continue to pay. It was about twenty-five
thousand pounds per annum.-C.
(545) A French philosopher, the son of a Dutch Physician brought
into France by Louis XIV. He was the author of a dull book
mis-named "De l'Esprit." We cannot resist repeating a joke made
about this period on the occasion of a requisition made by the
French ministry to the government of Geneva, that it should seize
copies of this book "De l'Esprit," and Voltaire's "Pucelle
d'Orl`eans," which were supposed to be collected there in order
to be smuggled into France. The worthy magistrates were said to
have reported that, after the most diligent search, they could
find in their whole town no trace "de l'Esprit, et pas une
Pucelle."-C. [The following is Gibbon's character of Helvetius,
in a letter of the 12th of February, 1763:--"Amongst my
acquaintance I cannot help mentioning M. Helvetius, the author of
the famous book 'De l'Esprit.' I met him at dinner at Madame
Geoffrin's, where he took great notice of me, made me a visit
next day, has ever since treated me, not in a polite but a
friendly manner. Besides being a sensible man, an agreeable
companion, and the worthiest creature in the world, he has a very
pretty wife, an hundred thousand livres a-year, and one of the
best tables in Paris." He died in 1771, at the age of
fifty-six.-E.]
Letter 197 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Sunday, March 18, 1764. (page 300)
You will feel, my dear lord, for the loss I have had, and for the
much greater affliction of poor Lady Malpas. My nephew(546) went
to his regiment in Ireland before Christmas, and returned but
last Monday. He had, I suppose, heated himself in that
bacchanalian country, and was taken ill the very day he set out,
yet he came on, but grew much worse the night of his arrival; it
turned to an inflammation in his bowels, and he died last Friday.
You may imagine the distress where there was so much domestic
felicity, and where the deprivation is augmented by the very
slender circumstances in which he could but leave his family; as
his father--such an improvident father--is living! Lord Malpas
himself was very amiable, and I had always loved him--but this is
the cruel tax one pays for living, to see one's friends taken
away before one! It has been a week of mortality. The night I
wrote to you last, and had sent away my letter, came an account
of my Lord Townshend's death. He had been ill treated by a
surgeon in the country, then was carried improperly to the Bath,
and then again to Rainham, tho Hawkins, and other surgeons and
physicians represented his danger to him. But the woman he kept,
probably to prevent his seeing his family, persisted in these
extravagant journeys, and he died in exquisite torment the day
after his arrival in Norfolk. He mentions none of his children
in his will, but the present lord; to whom he gives 300 pounds
a-year that he had bought, adjoining to his estate. But there is
said, or supposed to be, 50,000 pounds in the funds in his
mistress's name, who was his housemaid. I do not aver this, for
truth is not the staple commodity of that family. Charles is
much disappointed and discontented--not so my lady, who has 2000
pounds a-year already, another 1000 pounds in jointure, and 1500
pounds her own estate in Hertfordshire.(547) We conclude, that
the Duke of Argyle will abandon Mrs. Villiers(548) for this
richer widow; who will only be inconsolable, as she is too
cunning, I believe, to let any body console her. Lord
Macclesfield(549) is dead too; a great windfall for Mr.
Grenville, who gets a teller's place for his son.
There is no public news: there was a longish day on Friday in our
House, on a demand for money for the new bridge from the city.
It was refused, and into the accompt of contempt, Dr. Hay(550)
threw a good deal of abuse on the common council--a nest of
hornets, that I do not see the prudence of attacking.
I leave to your brother to tell you the particulars of an
impertinent paragraph in the papers on you and your embassy; but
I must tell you how instantly, warmly, and zealously, he resented
it. He went directly to the Duke of Somerset, to beg of him to
complain of it to the Lords. His grace's bashfulness made him
choose rather to second the complaint, but he desired Lord
Marchmont to make it, who liked the office, and the printers are
to attend your House to-morrow.(551)
I went a little too fast in my history of Lord Clive, and yet I
had it from Mr. Grenville himself. The Jaghire is to be decided
by law, that is in the year 1000. Nor is it certain that his
Omrahship goes; that will depend on his obtaining a board of
directors to his mind, at the approaching election.(552) I
forgot, too, to answer your question about Luther;(553) and now I
remember it, I cannot answer it. Some said his wife had been
gallant. Some, that he had been too gallant, and that she
suffered for it. Others laid it to his expenses at his election;
others again, to political squabbles on that subject between him
and his wife--but in short, as he sprung into the world by his
election, so he withered when it was over, and has not been
thought on since.
George Selwyn has had a frightful accident, that ended in a great
escape. He was at dinner at Lord Coventry's, and just as he was
drinking a glass of wine, he was seized with a fit of coughing,
the liquor went wrong, and suffocated him: he got up for some
water at the sideboard, but being strangled, and losing his
senses, he fell against the corner of the marble table with such
violence, that they thought he had killed himself by a fracture
of his skull. He lay senseless for some time, and was recovered
with difficulty. He was immediately blooded, and had the chief
wound, which is just over the eye, sewed up--but you never saw so
battered a figure. All round his eye is as black as jet, and
besides the scar on his forehead, he has cut his nose at top and
bottom. He is well off with his life, and we with his wit.
P. S. Lord Macclesfield has left his wife(554) threescore
thousand pounds.
(546) George Viscount Malpas member for Corfe-Castle, and colonel
of the 65th regiment of foot, the son of George, third Earl of
Cholmondeley, and of Mary, only legitimate daughter of Sir Robert
Walpole. Lord Malpas had married, in 1747, Hester daughter and
heiress of Sir Francis Edwards, Bart. and by her was father of
the fourth Earl.
(547) She was daughter and heiress of J. Harrison, Esq. of Balls,
in Herts.-E.
(548) Probably Mary Fowke, widow of Mr. Henry Villiers, nephew of
the first Earl of Jersey.-C.
(549) George, second Earl of Macclesfield, one of the tellers of
the exchequer, and president of the Royal Society.-E.
(550) George Hay, LL. D. member for Sandwich, and one of the
lords of the admiralty.-E.
(551) We find in the Journals, that the printers of two papers in
which the libellous paragraph appeared, were, after examination
at the bar, committed to Newgate. The libel itself is not
recorded. The proceedings in the House of Lords were notified to
Lord Hertford by the secretary of state, and the following is a
copy of his reply to this communication:--"Paris, March 27th,
1764. I am informed by my friend, of the insult that has been
offered to my character in two public papers, and of the zeal
shown by administration in seconding the resentment of the House
of Peers in my favour. Perhaps my own inclination might have led
me to despise such indignities; but if others, and particularly
my friends, take the matter more warmly, I am not insensible to
their attention, and receive with gratitude such pledges of their
regard. I had indeed flattered myself, that my course of life
had hitherto created me no enemy; but as I find that this
felicity is too great for any man, I am pleased, at least, to
find that he is a very low one: and I am so far obliged to him
for discovering to me the share I have in the friendship of so
many great persons, and for procuring me a testimony of esteem
from so honourable an assembly as that of the Peers of
England."-C.
(552) Lord Clive made it a condition of his going to India, that
Mr. Sullivan should be deprived of the lead he had in the
direction at home.-C. [Soon after the election of the directors,
the court took the subject of the settlement of Lord Clive's
Jaghire into consideration; and a proposition, made by himself,
was, on the ]6th of May, agreed to, confirming his right for ten
years, if he lived so long, and provided the company continued,
during that period, in possession of the lands from which the
revenue was Paid.-E.]
(553) John Luther, Esq. of Myless, near Ongar, in Essex, who, on
the death of Mr. Harvey, of Chigwell, stood on the popular
interest ,for that county against Mr. Conyers, and succeeded.-C.
(554) Lord Macclesfield's second wife, whom he married in 1757,
was a Miss Dorothy Nesbit.-E.
Letter 198 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Tuesday night, March 27, 1764. (page 302)
Your brother has just told me, my dear lord, at the Opera, that
Colonel Keith, a friend of his, sets out for Paris on Thursday.
I take that opportunity of saying a few things to you, which
would be less proper than by the common post; and if I have not
time to write to Lord Beauchamp too, I will defer my answer to
him till Friday, as the post-office will be more welcome to read
that.
Lord Bute is come to town, has been long with the King alone, and
goes publicly to court and the House of Lords, where the Barony
of Bottetourt((555) has engrossed them some days, and of which
the town thinks much, and I not at all, so I can tell you nothing
about it. The first two days, I hear, Lord Bute was little
noticed; but to-day much court was paid to him, even by the Duke
of Bedford. Why this difference, I don't know: that matters are
somehow adjusted between the favourite not minister, and the
ministers not favourites, I have no doubt. Pitt certainly has
been treating with him, and so threw away the great and
unexpected progress which the opposition had made. They, good
people, are either not angry with him for this, or have not found
it out. The Sandwiches and rigbys, who feel another half year
coming into their pockets, are not so blind. For my own part, I
rejoice that the opposition are only fools, and by thus missing
their treaty, will not appear knaves. In the mean time, I have
no doubt but the return of Lord Bute must produce confusion at
court. He and Grenville are both too fond of being ministers,
not to be jealous of one another. If what is said to be designed
proves true, that the King will go to Hanover, and take the Queen
with him, I shall expect that clamour (which you see depends on
very few men,(556) for it has subsided during these private
negotiations) will rise higher than ever. The Queen's absence
must be designed to leave the regency in the hands of another
lady:(557) connect that with Lord Bute's return, and judge what
will be the consequence! These are the present politics, at
least mine, who trouble myself little about them, and know less.
I have not been at the House this month; the great points which
interested me are over, and the very stand has shut the door. I
might like some folks out, but there are so few that I desire to
see in, that indifference is my present most predominating
principle. The busier world are attentive to the election at
Cambridge, which comes on next Friday; and I think, now, Lord
Sandwich's friends have little hopes. Had I a vote, it would not
be given for the new Lord Hardwicke.
But we have a more extraordinary affair to engage us, and of
which you particularly will hear much more,-indeed, I fear must
be involved in. D'Eon has published (but to be sure you have
already heard so) a most scandalous quarto, abusing Monsieur de
Guerchy outrageously, and most offensive to Messieurs de Praslin
and Nivernois.(558) In truth, I think he will have made all
three irreconcilable enemies. The Duc de Praslin must be
outraged as to the Duke's carelessness and partiality to D'Eon,
and will certainly grow to hate Guerchy, concluding the latter
can never forgive him. D'Eon, even by his own account, is as
culpable as possible, mad with pride, insolent, abusive,
ungrateful, and dishonest, in short, a complication of
abominations, yet originally ill used by his court, afterwards
too well; above all, he has great malice, and great parts to put
the malice in play. Though there are even many bad puns in his
book, a very uncommon fault in a French book, yet there is much
wit too.(559) Monsieur de Guerchy is extremely hurt, though with
the least reason of the three; for his character for bravery and
good-nature is so established, that here, at least, he will not
suffer. I could write pages to you upon this Subject, for I am
full of it--but I will send you the book. The council have met
to-day to consider what to do upon it. Most people think it
difficult for them to do any thing. Lord Mansfield thinks they
can--but I fear he has a little alacrity on the severe side in
such cases. Yet I should be glad the law would allow severity in
the present case. I should be glad of it, as I was in your case
last week; and considering the present constitution of things,
would put the severity of the law in execution. You will wonder
at this sentence out of my mouth,(560) but not when you have
heard my reason. The liberty of the press has been so much
abused, that almost all men, especially such as have weight, I
mean, grave hypocrites and men of arbitrary principles, are ready
to demand a restraint. I would therefore show, that the law, as
it already stands, is efficacious enough to repress enormities.
I hope so, particularly in Monsieur de Guerchy's case, or I do
not see how a foreign minister can come hither; if, while their
persons are called sacred, their characters are at the mercy of
every servant that can pick a lock and pay for printing a letter.
It is an odd coincidence of accidents that has produced abuse on
you and your tally in the same week--but yours was a flea-bite.
Thank you, my dear lord, for your anecdotes relative to Madame
Pompadour, her illness, and the pretenders to her succession. I
hope she may live till I see her; she is one of the greatest
curiosities of the age, and I am a pretty universal virtuoso.
The match Of My niece with the Duke of Portland(561) was, I own,
what I hinted at, and what I then believed likely to happen. It
is now quite off, and with very extraordinary circumstances; but
if I tell it you at all, it Must not be in a letter, especially
when D'Eons steal letters and print them. It is a secret, and so
little to the lover's advantage, that I, who have a great regard
for his family, shall not be the first to divulge it.
We had last night, a magnificent ball at Lady Cardigan's;(562)
three sumptuous suppers in three rooms. The house, you know, is
crammed with fine things, pictures, china, japan, vases, and
every species of curiosities. These are much increased even
since I was in favour there, particularly by Lord Montagu's
importations. I was curious to see how many quarrels my lady
must have gulped before she could fill her house--truly, not
many, (though some,) for there were very few of her own
acquaintance, chiefly recruits of her son and daughter. There
was not the soup`con of a Bedford, though the town has married
Lord Tavistock and Lady Betty(563)--but he is coming to you to
France. The Duchess of Bedford told me how hard it was, that I,
who had personally offended my Lady Cardigan, should be invited,
and that she, who had done nothing, and yet had tried to be
reconciled, should not be asked. "Oh, Madam," said I, "be easy as
to that point, for though she has invited me, she will scarce
speak to me but I let all such quarrels come and go as they
please: if people, so indifferent to me, quarrel with me, it is
no reason why I should quarrel with them, and they have my full
leave to be reconciled when they please."
I must trouble you once more to know to what merchant you
consigned the Princess's trees, and Lady Hervey's biblioth`eque--
I mean for the latter. I did not see the Princess last week, as
the loss of my nephew kept me from public places. Of all public
places, guess the most unlikely one for the most unlikely person
to have been at. I had sent to know how Lady Macclesfield did:
Louis(564) brought me word that he could hardly get into St.
James's-square, there was so great a crowd to see my lord lie in
state. At night I met my Lady Milton(565) at the Duchess of
Argyle's, and said in joke, "Soh, to be sure, you have been to
see my Lord Macclesfield lie in state!" thinking it impossible--
she burst out into a fit of laughter, and owned she had. She and
my Lady Temple had dined at Lady Betty's,(566) put on hats and
cloaks, and literally waited on the steps of the house in the
thick of the mob, while one posse was admitted and let out again
for a second to enter, before they got in.
You will as little guess what a present I have had from Holland--
only a treatise of mathematical metaphysics from an author I
never heard of, with great encomiums on my taste and knowledge.
To be sure, I am warranted to insert this certificate among the
testimonia authorum, before my next edition of the Painters.
Now, I assure you, I am much more just--I have sent the gentleman
word what a perfect ignoramus I am, and did not treat my vanity
with a moment's respite. Your brother has laughed at me, or
rather at the poor man who has so mistaken me, as much as ever I
did at his absence and flinging down every thing at breakfast.
Tom, your brother's man, told him to-day, that Mister
Helvoetsluys had been to wait on him--now you are guessing,--did
you find out this was Helvetius?
It is piteous late, and I must go to bed, only telling you a
bon-mot of Lady Bell Finch.(567) Lord Bath owed her half a
crown; he sent it next day, with a wish that he could give her a
crown. She replied, that though he could not give her a crown,
he could give her a coronet, and she was very ready to accept
it.(568) I congratulate you on your new house; and am your very
sleepy humble servant.
(555) The ancient Barony of Bottetourt had been considered as
extinct ever since the reign of Edward III. and was now claimed
by Mr. Norborne Berkeley, member for Gloucestershire, and a groom
of the bedchamber; the revival of a claim so long forgotten
created considerable interest.-C.
(556) This is an important observation: it affords a clue to the
causes of the unpopularity of the early years of George III.-C.
(557) The Princess Dowager.
(558) M. de Praslin was secretary for foreign affairs, and M. de
Nivernois had been lately ambassador in England.-C.
(559) At this distance of time, D,Eon's book seems to us the mere
ravings of insane vanity; the puns poor, and the wit rare and
forced.-C.
(560) It certainly does not appear quite consistent, that Mr.
Walpole, who so much disapproves of an attack on his friends,
Lord Hertford and M. de Guerchy, should have been delighted, but
a few pages since, with the hemlock administered to Lord Holland,
and the scurrility against Bishop Warburton.-C.
(561) See ant`e, p. 298), letter 196.
(562) See ant`e, p. 298, letter 196.
(563) Lady Cardigan's eldest daughter, married, in 1767, to the
third Duke of Buccleuzh. This amiable and venerable lady is
still living.-C. [She died in 1827.]
(564) His valet.
(565) Lady Caroline Sackville, wife of Joseph Damer, Lord Milton,
of Ireland.-C.
(566) Lady Betty Germain.-C.
(567) Lady Isabella Finch, daughter of Daniel, sixth Earl of
Winchelsea. She was lady of the bedchamber to Princess Amelia,
and died unmarried in 1771.-C.
(568) It seems that Lord Bath's coronet, and perhaps still more
his great wealth, for which, after his son's death, he had no
direct heir, subjected his lordship to views of the nature
alluded to in Lady Bell's bon-mot. In the Suffolk Letters,
lately published, is a proposition to this effect from Mrs. Anne
Pitt, made with all appearance of seriousness.-C. (The following
is the passage alluded to. It is contained in a letter from Mrs.
Anne Pitt to Lady Suffolk, dated November 10, 1753:--"I hear my
Lord Bath is here very lively, but I have not seen him, which I
am very sorry for, because I want to offer myself to him. I am
quite in earnest, and have set my heart upon it; so I beg
seriously you will carry it in your mind, and think if you could
find any way to help me. Do not you think Lady Betty Germain and
Lord and Lady Vere would be ready to help me, if they knew how
willing I am? But I leave all this to your discretion, and repeat
seriously, that I am quite in earnest. he can want nothing but a
companion that would like his company; and in my situation I
should not desire to make the bargain without that circumstance.
And though all I have been saying Puts me in mind of some
advertisements I have seen in the newspapers from gentlewoman in
distress, I will not take that method; but I want to recollect
whether you did not tell me, as I think you did many years ago,
that he once spoke so well of me, that he got anger for it at
home, where I never was a favourite. I perceive that by thinking
aloud, as I am apt to do with you, this letter is grown very
improper for the post, so I design to send it with a tea-box my
sister left and does not want, directed to your house."-E.]
Letter 199 To Charles Churchill, Esq.(569)
Arlington Street, March 27, 1764. (page 306)
Dear sir,
I had just sent away a half-scolding letter to my sister, for not
telling me of Robert's(570) arrival, and to acquaint you both
with the loss of poor Lord Malpas, when I received your very
entertaining letter of the 19th. I had not then got the draught
of the Conqueror's kitchen, and the tiles you were so good as to
send me; and grew horribly afraid lest old Dr. Ducarel, who is an
ostrich of an antiquary, and can digest superannuated brickbats,
should have gobbled them up. At my return from Strawberry Hill
yesterday, I found the whole cargo safe, and am really much
obliged to you. I weep over the ruined kitchen,. but enjoy the
tiles. They are exactly like a few which I obtained from the
cathedral of Gloucester, when it was new paved; they are inlaid
in the floor of my china-room. I would have got enough to pave
it entirely; but the canons, who were flinging them away, had so
much devotion left, that they enjoined me not to pave a pagoda
with them, nor put them to any profane use. As scruples Increase
in a ratio to their decrease, I did not know but a china-room
might casuistically be interpreted a pagoda, and sued for no
more. My cloister is finished and consecrated but as I intend to
convert the old blue and white hall next to the china-room into a
Gothic columbarium, I should seriously be glad to finish the
floor with Norman tiles. However, as I shall certainly make you
a visit in about two months, I will wait till then, and bring the
dimensions with me.
Depend upon it, I will pay some of your debts to M. de
Lislebonne; that is, I will make as great entertainments for him
as any one can, who almost always dines alone in his
dressing-room; I will show him every thing all the morning, as
much as any one can, who lies abed till noon, and never gets
dressed till two o'clock; and I will endeavour to amuse him with
variety of diversions every evening as much as any one can, who
does nothing but play at loo till midnight, or sit behind Lady
Mary Coke in a corner of a box at the Opera. Seriously, though.
I will try to show him that I think distinctions paid to you and
my sister favours to me, and will make a point of adding the few
civilities which his name, rank, and alliance with the Guerchys
can leave necessary. M. de Guerchy is adored here, and will find
so, particularly at this Juncture, when he has been most cruelly
and publicly insulted by a mad, but villanous fellow, one D'Eon,
left here by the Duc de Nivernois, who in effect is still worse
treated. This creature, who had been made minister
plenipotentiary, which turned his brain, as you have already
heard, had stolen Nivernois's private letters, and has published
them, and a thousand scandals on M. de Guerchy, in a very thick
quarto. The affair is much too long for a letter, makes a great
noise, and gives great offence. The council have met to-day to
consider how to avenge Guerchy and punish D'Eon. I hope a legal
remedy is in their power.
I will say little on the subject of Robert; you know my opinion
of his capacity, and I dare say think as I do. He is worth
taking pains with. I heartily wish those pains may have success.
The cure performed by James's powder charms me more than
surprises me. I have long thought it could cure every thing but
physicians.
Politics are all becalmed. Lord Bute's reappearance on the
scene, though his name is in no play-bill, may chance to revive
the hurly-burly.
My Lord Townshend has not named Charles in his will, who is as
much disappointed as he has often disappointed others. We had
last night a magnificent ball at my Lady Cardigan's.
Those fiddles play'd that never play'd before,
And we have danced, where we shall dance no more.
He, that is, the totum pro parte,--you do not suspect me, I hope,
of any youthfullities--d'autant moins of dancing; that I have
rumours of gout flying about me, and would fain coax them into my
foot. I have almost tried to make them drunk, and inveigle them
thither in their cups; but as they are not at all familiar chez
moi, they formalize at wine, as much as a middle-aged woman who
is beginning to just drink in private.
Adieu, my dear Sir! my best love to all of' you. As Horace Is
evidently descended from the Conqueror, I will desire him to
pluck up the pavement by the roots, when I want to transport it
hither.
(569) Now first collected. The above letter was privately
printed, in 1833, by the Rev. Robert Walpole, with the following
introduction:--"The incomparable letters of Horace Walpole, as
they have been justly styled by Lord Byron, have long placed the
writer in the highest rank of those who have distinguished
themselves in this line of composition. The playful wit and
humour with which they abound; the liveliness of his
descriptions; the animation of his style; the shrewd and acute
observations on the different topics which form the subjects of
those letters, are not surpassed by any thing to be found in the
most perfect models of epistolary writing, either in England or
France. His correspondence extends over a period of more than
fifty years, and no subject of general interest seems to have
escaped his attention and curiosity. He not Only gives a
faithful portraiture of the manners of the times, particularly of
the highest circles of society in which he lived; but he presents
us with many striking sketches of various events and occurrences,
illustrating the political history of this country during the
latter part of the last century. If any proof were required of
the truth of this statement, in addition to what may be afforded
by an attentive examination of Mr. Walpole's Correspondence
already published, it may be found in the three volumes of
Letters addressed to Sir Horace Mann, and recently given to the
world under the superintendence of Lord Dover. The letter (now
printed for the first time with the consent of the possessor of
the original) was addressed to Charles Churchill, Esq., who
married Lady Mary, daughter of Sir Robert, and sister of Mr.
Walpole; and was written at the time when he was engaged in
completing the interior decorations of his villa, Strawberry
Hill."
(570) Robert and Horace, both mentioned in this letter, were sons
of Mr. Churchill.-E.
Letter 200 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, April 5, 1764. (page 308)
Your idea, my dear lord, of the abusive paragraph on you being
conceived at Paris,(571) and transmitted hither, tallies exactly
with mine. I guessed that a satire on your whole establishment
must come from thence: I said so immediately to two or three
persons; but I did not tell you I thought so, because I did not
choose to fill you with suggestions for which I had no ground,
but in my own reasoning. Your arguments convince me I was in the
right. Yet, were you master of proofs, the wisest thing you can
do, is to act as if you had no suspicion; that is, to act as you
have done, civilly, but coolly. There are men whom one would, I
think, no more acknowledge for enemies than friends. One's
resentment distinguishes them, and the only Gratitude they can
pay for that distinction is, to double the abuse. Wilkes's mind,
you see, is sufficiently volatile, when he can already forget
Lord Sandwich and the Scotch, and can employ himself on you. He
will soon flit to other prey, when you disregard him. It is my
way: I never publish a sheet, but buzz! out fly a swarm of
hornets, insects that never settle upon you, if you don't strike
at them and whose venom is diverted to the next object that
presents itself.
We have divine weather. The Bishop of Carlisle has been with me
two days at Strawberry, where we saw the eclipse(572) to
perfection: -not that there was much sight in it. The air was
very chill at the time, and the light singular; but there was not
a blackbird that left off singing for it. In the evening the
Duke of Devonshire came with the Straffords from t'other end of
Twickenham, and drank tea with us. They had none of them seen the
gallery since it was finished; even the chapel was new to the
Duke, and he was so struck with it that he desired to offer at
the shrine an incense-pot of silver philigrain.(573)
The election at Cambridge has ended, for the present in strange
confusion.(574) The proctors, who were of different sides,
assumed each a majority; the votes, however, appear to have been
equal. The learned in university decision say, an equality is a
negative: if so Lord Hardwicke is excluded. Yet the novelty of
the case, it not having been very customary to solicit such a
trifling honour, and the antiquated forms of proceeding retained
in colleges, leave the matter wide open for further contention,
an advantage Lord Sandwich cherishes as much as success. The
grave are highly scandalized:--popularity was still warmer. The
under-graduates, who, having no votes had consequently been left
to their real opinions, were very near expressing their opinions
against Lord Sandwich's friends in the most Outrageous manner:
hissed they were; and after the election, the juniors burst into
the Senate-house, elected a fictitious Lord Hardwicke, and
chaired him. The indecent arts and applications which had been
used by the Twitcherites (as they are called, from Lord
Sandwich's nickname, Jemmy Twitcher,) had provoked this rage. I
will give you but one instance:-A voter, who was blooded on
purpose that morning, was brought out of a madhouse with his
keeper. This is the great and wise nation, which the philosopher
Helvetius is come to study! When he says of us C'est un furieux
pais! he does not know that the literal translation is the true
description of us.
I don't know whether I did not tell you some lies in my last;
very likely: I tell you what I hear, and do not answer for truth
but when I tell you what I know. How should I know any thing? I
am in no confidence; I think of both sides alike; I care for
neither; I ask few questions. The King's journey to Hanover is
contradicted. The return of Lord Bute is still a mystery. The
zealous say, he declares for the administration; but some of the
latter do not trust too much to that security; and, perhaps, they
are in the right: I know what I think and why I think it; yet
some, who do not go on ill grounds, have a middle opinion, that
is not very reconcilable to mine. You will not wonder that there
is a mystery, doubt, or irresolotion. The scene will be opened
further before I get to Paris.
Lord Lyttelton and Lord Temple have dined with each other, and
the reconciliation of the former with Mr. Pitt is concluded. It
is well that enmities are as frail as friendships.
The Archbishops and Bishops, who -are so eager against Dr.
Pearse's divorce from his see, not as illegal, but improper, and
of bad example, have determined the King, who left it to them,
not to consent to it, though the Bishop himself still insists on
it. As this decision disappoints Bishop Newton, Lord Bath has
obtained a consolatory promise for him of the mitre of London, to
the great discomfort of Terrick and Warburton. You see Lord
Bath(575 does not hobble up the back-stairs for nothing. Oh, he
is an excellent courtier! The Prince of Wales shoots him with
plaything arrows, he falls down dead; and the child kisses him to
life again. Melancholy ambition I heard him, t'other night,
propose himself to Lady Townshend as a rich widow. Such spirits
at fourscore are pleasing; but when one has lost all one's
children, to be flattering those of Kings!
The Bishop of Carlisle told me, that t'other day in the House of
Lords, Warburton said to another of the bench, "I was invited by
my Lord Mansfield to dine with that Helvetius, but he is a
professed patron of atheism, a rascal, and a scoundrel, and I
would not countenance him; besides, I should have worked him, and
that Lord Mansfield would not have liked." No, in good truth:
who can like such vulgarism! His French, too, I suppose, is
equal to his wit and his piety.
I dined, on Tuesday, with the imperial minister; we were
two-and-twenty, collected from the four corners of the earth.
Since it is become the fashion to banquet whole kingdoms by
turns, I should pray, if I was minister to be sent to Lucca.
Have you received D'Eon's very curious book, which I sent by
Colonel Keith? I do not find that the administration can
discover any method of attacking him. Monsieur de Guerchy very
properly determines to take no notice Of it.
In the mean time, the wit of it gains ground, and palliates the
abomination, though it ought not.
Princess Amelia asked me again about her trees. I gave her your
message. She does not blame you, but Madame de Boufflers, for
sending them so large. Mr. Legge is in a very bad way; but not
without hopes: his last night was better. Adieu! my dear lords
and ladies!
(571) See ant`e, p. 301, letter 197. Lord Hertford suspected
this paragraph to have been written by Mr. Wilkes; which
certainly would have been ungrateful, as Lord Hertford showed Mr.
Wilkes more attention than most people thought proper to be shown
by the King's ambassador to a person in Mr. Wilkes's
circumstances.-C.
(572) A considerable eclipse of the sun, which took place on the
1st of April. It was annular at Boulogne, in France, and of
course nearly so at Paris and London.-C.
(573) Commonly called fillagree.-C.
(574) The contest was between Lords Hardwicke and Sandwich; but
according to University forms, the poll was taken on the first
name; there appeared among the Blackhoods for Lord Hardwicke,
placet 103; non-placet 101: among the Whitehoods, the proctors'
accounts differed; one made placet 108, non-placet 107; the other
made placet 107, non-placet 101: on this a scrutiny was demanded,
and refused, and a great confusion ensuing, the Vice-Chancellor
adjourned the senate sine die.-E.
(575) The once idolized patriot, William Pulteney. It must be
borne in mind, that Mr. Walpole cherished a filial aversion to
his father's great antagonist.-C.
Letter 201 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, April 12, 1764. (page 310)
Make yourself perfectly easy, my dear lord, about newspapers and
their tattle; they are not worth a moment's regard. In times of
party it is impossible to avoid abuse. If attached to one side,
one is pelted by the other; if to neither, by both. One can
place oneself above deserving invectives; and then it signifies
little whether they are escaped or not. But when one is
conscious that they are unmerited, it is noblest to scorn them-
-perhaps, I even think, that such a situation is not ineligible.
Character is the most precious of all blessings; but, pray allow
that it is too sacred to be hurt by any thing but itself: does it
depend on others, or on its own existence? That character must
be fictitious, and formed for man, which man can take away. Your
reputation does not depend on Mr. Wilkes,(576) like his own. It
is delightful to deserve popularity, and to despise it.
You will have heard of the sad misfortune that has happened to
Lord Ilchester by his daughter's marriage(577) with O'Brien the
actor. But, perhaps, you do not know the circumstances, and how
much his grief must be aggravated by reflection on his own
credulity and negligence. The affair has been in train for
eighteen months. The swain had learned to counterfeit Lady Sarah
Bunbury's(578) hand so well that in the country Lord Ilchester
has himself delivered several of O'Brien's letters to Lady Susan;
but it was not till about a week before the catastrophe that the
family was apprised of the intrigue. Lord Cathcart went to Miss
Reade's, the paintress; she said softly to him, "My lord, there
is a couple in the next room that I am sure ought not to be
together; I wish your lordship would look in." He did, shut the
door again, and went directly and informed Lord Ilchester. Lady
Susan was examined, flung herself at her father's feet, confessed
all, vowed to break off but--what a but!--desired to see the
loved object, and take a last leave. You will be amazed-even
this was granted. The parting scene happened the beginning of
the week. On Friday she came of age, and on Saturday morning--
instead of being under lock and key in the country--walked down
stairs, took her footman, said she was going to breakfast with
Lady Sarah, but would call at Miss Reade's; in the street,
pretended to recollect a particular cap in which she was to be
drawn, sent the footman back for it, whipped into a hackney
chair, was married at Covent-garden church, and set out for Mr.
O'Brien's villa at Dunstable. My Lady--my Lady Hertford! what
say you to permitting young ladies to act plays, and go to
painters by themselves?
Poor Lord Ilchester is almost distracted; indeed, it is the
completion of disgrace,(579)--even a footman were preferable; the
publicity of the hero's profession perpetuates the Unification.
Il ne sera pas milord, tout comme un autre. I could not have
believed that Lady Susan would have stooped so low. She may,
however, still keep good company, and say, "nos numeri sumus"--
Lady Mary Duncan,(580) Lady Caroline Adair,(581) Lady Betty
Gallini(582)--the shopkeepers of next age will be mighty well
born. If our genealogies had been so confused four hundred years
ago, Norborne Berkeley would have had still more difficulty with
his obsolete Barony of Bottelourt, which the House of Lords at
last has granted him. I have never attended the hearings, though
it has been much the fashion, but nobody cares less than I about
what they don't care for. I have been as indifferent about other
points, of which all the world is talking, as the restriction of
franking, and the great cause of Hamilton and Douglas. I am
almost as tired of what is still more in vogue, our East India
affairs. Mir Jaffeir(583) and Cossim Aly Cawn, and their
deputies Clive and Sullivan, or rather their principals, employ
the public attention, instead of Mogul Pitt and Nabob Bute; the
former of whom remains shut Up in Asiatic dignity at Hayes, while
the other is again mounting his elephant and levying troops.
What Lord Tavistock meaned of his invisible Haughtiness'S(584)
invective on Mr. Neville, I do not know. He has not been in the
House of Commons since the war of privilege. It must have been
something he dropped in private.
I was diverted just now with some old rhymes that Mr. Wilkes
would have been glad to have North-Britonized for our little
bishop of Osnaburgh.(585)
Eligimus puerum, puerorum testa colentes,
Non nostrum morem, sed Regis jussa sequentes.
They were literally composed on the election of a juvenile
bishop.
Young Dundas marries Lady Charlotte Fitzwilliam;(586) Sir
Lawrence(587) settles four thousand per annum in present, and six
more in future--compare these riches got in two years and a half,
with D'Eon's account of French economy! Lord Garlies remarries
himself with the Duchess of Manchester's(588) next sister, Miss
Dashwood. The youngest is to have Mr. Knightly--a-propos to
D'Eon, the foreign ministers had a meeting yesterday morning, at
the imperial minister's, and Monsieur de Guerchy went from thence
to the King, but on what result I do not know, nor can I find
that the lawyers agree that any thing can be done against him.
There has been a plan of some changes among the Dii Minores, your
Lord Norths, and Carysforts, and Ellises, and Frederick
Campbellsl(589) and such like; but the supposition that Lord
Holland would be willing to accommodate the present ministers
with the paymaster's place, being the axle on which this project
turned, and his lordship not being in the accommodating humour,
there are half a dozen abortions of new lords of the treasury and
admiralty--excuse me if I do not send you this list of embryos;(5
I do not load my head with such fry. I am little more au fait of
the confusion that happened yesterday at the East India House; I
only know it was exactly like the jumble at Cambridge.
Sullivan's list was chosen, all but himself-his own election
turns on one disputed vote.(590) Every thing is intricate--a
presumption that we have few heads very clear. Good night, for I
am tired; since dinner I have been at an auction of prints, at
the Antiquarian Society in Chancery-lane, at Lady Dalkeith's(591)
in Grosvenor-square, and at loo at my niece's in Pall Mall; I
left them going to supper, that I might come home and finish this
letter; it is half @n hour after twelve, and now I am going to
supper myself. I suppose all this sounds very sober to you!
(576) See ant`e, p. 301, letter 197.-E.
(577) Lady Susan Fox, born in 1743, eldest daughter of the first
Lord Ilchester.-E.
(578) Daughter of the Duke of Richmond, wife of Sir T. C.
Bunbury, and afterwards of Colonel Napier.-C.
(579) It must be observed how little consistent this
aristocratical indignation is with the Roman sentiments expressed
in page 262, letter 185, and signed so emphatically Horatius.-C.
(580) Daughter of the seventh Earl of Thanet, married, in
September 1763, to Doctor Duncan, M.D., soon after created a
baronet.-E.
(581) Daughter of the second Earl of Albemarle, married, in 1759,
to Mr. Adair, a surgeon.-C.
(582) Daughter of the third Earl of Abingdon, married to Sir John
Gallini. She died in 1804, at the age of eighty.-E.
(583) See ante, p. 281, letter 191.
(584) Mr. Pitt.
(585) Frederick, Duke of York, born in August 1763, elected
Bishop of Osnaburgh, 27th of February, 1764.-E.
(586) Second daughter of the third Earl Fitzwilliam, born in
1746.-E.
(587) Sir Lawrence Dundas, father of the first Lord Dundas, is
said to have made his fortune in the commissariat, during the
Scotch rebellion of 1745.-C.
(588) Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Dashwood, Bart. and wife
of the fourth Duke of Manchester.-E.
(589) Second son of the fourth Duke of Argyle. He was
successively keeper of the privy seal in Scotland, secretary to
the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and lord register of' Scotland,
in which office he died.-C.
(590) "On the 25th of April, a very warm contest took place. Mr.
Sullivan brought forward one list of twenty-five directors, and
Mr. Rous, who was supported by Lord Clive, produced another.
Notwithstanding his friend Lord Bute was no longer minister, Mr.
Sullivan succeeded in bringing in half his numbers; but the
attack of Lord Clive had so shaken the power of this lately
popular director, that his own election was only carried by one
vote." Malcolm's Memoirs of Lord Clive, vol. ii. p. 235.-E.
(591) The eldest daughter of John Duke of Argyle and Greenwich,
the widow of Francis Earl of Dalkeith, son of the second Duke of
Buccleugh, and wife of Mr. Charles Townshend. She was, in 1767,
created Baroness Greenwich, with remainder to her sons by Mr.
Townshend. She, however, died leaving none.-C.
Letter 202 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, April 12, 1764. (page 313)
I shall send your MS. volume this week to Mr. Cartwright, and
with a thousand thanks. I ought to beg your pardon for having
detained it so long. The truth is, I had not time till last week
to copy two or three little things at most. Do not let this
delay discourage you from lending me more. If I have them in
summer I shall keep them much less time than in winter. I do not
send my print with it as you ordered me, because I find it is too
large to lie within the volume; and doubling a mezzotinto, you
know, spoils it. You shall have one more, if you please,
whenever I see you.
I have lately made a few curious additions to my collections of
various sorts, and shall hope to show them to you at Strawberry
Hill. Adieu!
Letter 203 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, April 19, 1764. (page 313)
I am just come from the Duchess of Argyll's,(592) where I dined.
General Warburton was there, and said it was the report at the
House of Lords, that you are turned out--he imagined, of your
regiment--but that I suppose is a mistake for the
bedchamber.(593) I shall hear more to-night, and Lady Strafford,
who brings you this, will tell you; though to be sure You will
know earlier by the post to-morrow. My only reason for writing
is, to repeat to you, that whatever you do, I shall act with
you.(594) I resent any thing done to you as to myself. My
fortunes shall never be separated from yours--except that some
time or other I hope yours will be great, and I am content with
mine.
The Manns go on with the business.(595) The letter you received
was from Mr. Edward Mann, not from Gal.'s widow. Adieu! I was
going to say, my disgraced friend--How delightful to have a
character so unspotted, that the word disgrace recoils on those
who displace you! Yours unalterably.
(592) Widow of John Campbell, Duke of Argyle. She was sister to
General Warburton, and had been maid of Honour to Queen Anne.-E.
(593) Mr. Conway was dismissed from all his employments, civil
and military, for having Opposed the ministry in the House of
Commons, on the question of the legality of warrants, at the time
of the prosecution of Mr. Wilkes for the publication of the North
Briton.-C.
(594) Mr. Walpole was then in the House of Commons, member for
King's Lynn in Norfolk.
(595) Of army-clothiers.
Letter 204 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, April 20, 1764. (page 314)
There has been a strong report about town for these two days that
your brother is dismissed, not only from the bedchamber, but from
his regiment, and that the latter is given to Lord Pembroke. I
do not believe it. Your brother went to Park-place but yesterday
morning at ten: he certainly knew nothing of it the night before
when we parted, after one, at Grafton-house: nor would he have
passed my door yesterday without stopping to tell me Of it: no
letter has been sent to his house since, nor were any orders
arrived at the War office at half an hour after three yesterday;
nay, though I can give the ministry credit for much folly, and
some of them credit for even violence and folly, I do not believe
they are so rash as this would amount to. For the bedchamber,
you know, your brother never liked it, and would be glad to get
rid of it. I should be sorry for his sake, and for yours too, if
it went farther;--gentle and indifferent as his nature is, his
resentment, if his profession were touched, would be as serious
as such spirit and such abilities could make it. I would not be
the man that advised provoking him; and one man(596) has put
himself wofully in his power! In my own opinion, this is one of
the lies of which the time is so fruitful; I would not even swear
that it has not the same parent with the legend I sent you last
week, relating to an intended disposition in consequence of Lord
Holland's resignation. The court confidently deny the whole
plan, and ascribe it to the fertility of Charles Townshend's
brain. However, as they have their Charles Townshends too, I do
not totally disbelieve it.
The Parliament rose yesterday,-no new peers, not even Irish: Lord
Northumberland's list is sent back ungranted.(597) The Duke of
MecklenbUrgh(598) and Lord Halifax are to have the garters.
Bridgman(599) is turned out of the green cloth, which is given to
Dick Vernon; and his place of surveyor of the gardens, which
young Dickinson held for him, is bestowed on Cadogan.(600)
Dyson(601) is made a lord of trade. These are all the changes I
have heard--not of a complexion that indicates the removal of
your brother.
The foreign ministers agreed, as to be sure you have been told,
to make Monsieur de Guerchy's cause commune; and the
Attorney-general has filed an information against D'Eon: the poor
lunatic was at the Opera on Saturday, looking like Bedlam. He
goes armed, and threatens, what I dare say he would perform, to
kill or be killed, if any attempt is made to seize him.
The East Indian affairs have taken a new turn. Sullivan had
twelve votes to ten: Lord Clive bribed off one. When they came
to the election of chairman, Sullivan desired to be placed in the
chair, without the disgrace of a ballot; but it was denied. On
the scrutiny, the votes appeared eleven and eleven. Sullivan
understood the blow, and with three others left the room. Rous,
his great enemy, was placed in the chair; since that, I think
matters are a little compromised, and Sullivan does not abdicate
the direction; but Lord Clive, it is supposed, will go to Bengal
in the stead of Colonel Barr`e, as Sullivan and Lord Shelburne
had intended.
Mr. Pitt is worse than ever with the gout. Legge's case is
thought very dangerous:--thus stand our politics, and probably
will not fluctuate much for some months. At least-I expect to
have little more to tell you before I see you at Paris, except
balls, weddings, and follies, of which, thank the moon! we never
have a dearth: for one of the latter class, we are obliged to the
Archbishop,(602) who, in remembrance, I suppose, of his original
profession of midwifery, has ordered some decent alterations to
be made in King Henry's figure in the Tower. Poor Lady Susan
O'Brien is in the most deplorable situation, for her Adonis is a
Roman Catholic, and cannot be provided for out of his calling.
Sir Francis Delaval, being touched with her calamity, has made
her a present--of what do you think?--of a rich gold stuff! The
delightful charity! O'Brien comforts himself, and says it will
make a shining passage in his little history.
I will tell you but one more folly, and hasten to my signature.
Lady Beaulieu was complaining of being waked by a noise in the
night: my lord(603 replied, "Oh, for my Part, there is no
disturbing be; If they don't wake me before I go to sleep, there
is no waking me afterwards."
Lady Hervey's table is at last arrived, and the Princess's trees,
which I sent her last night; but she wants nothing, for Lady
Barrymore(604) is arrived.
I smiled when I read your account of Lord Tavistock's expedition.
Do you remember that I made seven days from Calais to Paris, by
laying out my journeys at the rate of travelling in England,
thirty miles a-day; and did not find but that I could have gone
in a third of the time! I shall not be such a snail the next
time. It is said that on Lord Tavistock's return, he is to
decide whom he will marry. Is it true that the Choiseuls totter,
and that the Broglios are to succeed; or is there a Charles
Townshend at Versailles? Adieu! my dear lord.
(596) No doubt Mr. George Grenville is here meant. See ant`e, p.
257, letter 184.-E.
(597) This list was, Sir Ralph Gore, Sir Richard King, and Mr.
Stephen MOOTE, all created peers in this summer by the respective
titles of Bellisle, Kingston, and Kilworth.-C.
(598) Adolphus Frederick III. Duke of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, the
Queen's brother. He died in 1794.-C.
(599) Mr. George Bridgman, brother of the first Lord Bradford.
He had been many years surveyor of the royal gardens, and was
celebrated for his taste in ornamental gardening. He died at
Lisbon, in 1767.-C.
(600) Probably Charles Sloane Cadagan, son of the second Lord
Cadogan, who was treasurer to Edward Duke of York.-C.
(601) Jeremiah Dyson, Esq. afterwards a privy-counsellor.-E.
(602) See ant`e, p. 262, letter 185.
(603) Mr. Hussey was an Irishman. See ant`e, p. 251.-E.
(604) Margaret Davis, sister and Heiress of Edward, the last
Viscount Mountcashel of that family, and widow of James Earl of
Barrymore.-C.
Letter 205 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Saturday night, eight o'clock, April 21, 1764.
(page 316)
I write to you with a very bad headache; I have Passed a night,
for which George Grenville and the Duke of bedford shall pass
many an uneasy one! Notwithstanding that I heard from every body
I met, that your regiment, as well as bedchamber, were taken
away, I would not believe it, till last night the Duchess of
Grafton told me, that the night before the Duchess of Bedford
said to her, "Are not you sorry for Poor Mr. Conway? He has lost
every thing." When the Witch of Endor pities, one knows she has
raised the devil.
I am come hither alone to put my thoughts into some order, and to
avoid showing the first sallies of my resentment, which I know
you would disapprove; nor does it become your friend to rail. My
anger shall be a little more manly, and the plan of my revenge a
little deeper laid than in peevish bon-mots. You shall judge of
my indignation by its duration.
In the mean time, let me beg you, in the most earnest and most
sincere of all professions, to suffer me to make your loss as
light as it is in my power to make it: I have six thousand pounds
in the funds; accept all, or what part you want. Do not imagine
I will be put off with a refusal. The retrenchment of my
expenses, which I shall from this hour commence, will convince
you that I mean to replace Your fortune as far as I can. When I
thought you did not want it, I had made another disposition. You
have ever been the dearest person to me in the world. You have
shown that you deserve to be so. You suffer for your spotless
integrity. Can I hesitate a moment to show that there is at
least one man who knows how to value you? The new will, which I
am going to make, will be a testimonial of my own sense of
virtue.
One circumstance has heightened my resentment. If it was not an
accident, it deserves to heighten it. The very day on which your
dismission was notified, I received an order from the treasury
for the payment of what money was due to me there. Is it
possible that they could mean to make any distinction between us?
Have I separated myself from you? Is there that spot on earth
where I can be suspected of having paid court? Have I even left
my name at a minister's door since you took your part? If they
have dared to hint this, the pen that is now writing to you will
bitterly undeceive them.
I am impatient to see the letters you have received, and the
answers you have sent. Do you come to town? If you do not, I
will come to you to-morrow se'nnight, that is, the 29th. I give
no advice on any thing, because you are cooler than I am--not so
cool, I hope, as to be insensible to this outrage, this villany,
this injustice You owe it to your country to labour the
extermination of such ministers!
I am so bad a hypocrite, that I am afraid of showing how deeply I
feel this. Yet last night I received the account from the
Duchess of Grafton with more temper than you believe me 'capable
of: but the agitation of the night disordered me so much, that
Lord John Cavendish, who was with me two hours this morning, does
not, I believe, take me for a hero. As there are some who I know
would enjoy my mortification, and who probably desired I should
feel my share of it, I wish to command myself-but that struggle
shall be added to their bill. I saw nobody else before I came
away but Legge, who sent for me and wrote the enclosed for you.
He would have said more both to you and Lady Ailesbury, but I
would not let him, as he is so ill: however, he thinks himself
that he shall live. I hope be will! I would not lose a shadow
that can haunt these ministers.
I feel for Lady Ailesbury, because I know she feels just as I do-
-and it is not a pleasant sensation. I will say no more, though
I could write volumes. Adieu! Yours, as I ever have been and
ever will be.
Letter 206 The Hon. H. S. Conway To The Earl Of Hertford.(605)
Park Place, April 23, 1764. (page 317)
Dear Brother,
You will, I think, be much surprised at the extraordinary news I
received yesterday, of my total dismission from his Majesty's
service, both as groom of the bedchamber and colonel of a
regiment. What makes it much stronger is, that I do not hear
that any of the many officers who voted with me on the same
questions in the minority, are turned out. It seems almost
impossible to conceive it should be so, and yet, so I suspect it
is; and if it be, it seems to me upon the coolest reflection I am
able to give it, the harshest and most unjust treatment ever
offered to any man on the like occasion. I never gave a single
vote(606) against the ministry , but in the questions on the
great constitutional point of the warrants. People are apt to
dignify with Such titles any question that serves their factious
purpose to maintain; but what proved this to be really so, was
the great number of persons who voted as I did, having no
connexion with the opposition, but determined friends of the
ministry in all their conduct, and in the government's service;
such as Lord Howe and his brother, and several more. As to the
rest, I never gave another vote against the ministry. I refused
being of the opposition club, or to attend any one meeting of the
kind, from a principle of not entering into a scheme of
opposition, but being free to follow my own sentiments upon any
question that should arise. On the Cider-act I even voted for
the court, in the only vote I gave on that subject; and in
another case, relative to the supposed assassination of Wilkes, I
even took a part warmly in preventing that silly thing from being
an object of clamour. So that, undoubtedly, my overt acts have
been only voting as any man might from judgment, only in a very
extraordinary and serious question of privilege and personal
liberty; the avowing my friendship and obligation to some few now
in opposition, and my neglecting to pay court to those in the
administration; that seemed to me, both an honest and an
honourable part in my situation, which was something delicate.
My poor judgment, at least, could point out no better for me to
take, and I enter into so much detail upon this old story, that
you may not think I have done any thing lightly or passionately
which might give just ground for this extraordinary usage; and I
must add to the account, that neither in nor out of the House can
I, I think, be charged with a single act or expression of offence
to any one of his Majesty's ministers. This was, at least, a
moderate part; and after this, what the ministry should find in
their judgment, their justice, or their prudence, from my
situation, my conduct, or my character, to single me out and
stigmatize me as the proper object of disgrace, or how the merit
of so many of my friends who are acting in their support, and
whom they might think it possible would feel hurt, did not, in
their prudential light, tend to soften the rigour of their
aversion towards me, does, I confess, puzzle me. I don't exactly
know from what particular quarter the blow comes; but I must
think Lord Bute has, at least, a share in it, as, since his
return, the countenance of the King, who used to speak to me
after all my votes, is visibly altered, and of late he has not
spoke to me at all.
So much for my political history: I wish it was as easy to my
fortune as it is to my mind in most other respects; but that,
too, I' must make as easy as I can: it comes unluckily at the end
of two German campaigns, which I felt the expense of with a much
larger income, and have not yet recovered;(607) as, far from
having a reward, it was with great difficulty I got the
reimbursement of the extraordinary money my last command through
Holland cost me, though the States-General, had, by a public act,
represented my conduct so advantageously, to our court; so that
on the whole I think no man was ever more contemptuously used,
who was not a wretch lost in character and reputation. It
requires all the philosophy one can Master, not to show the
strongest resentment. I think I have as much as my neighbours,
and I shall endeavour to use it; yet not so as to betray quite an
unmanly insensibility to such extraordinary provocation. Horace
Walpole has, on this occasion, shown that warmth of friendship
that you know him capable of, so strongly that I want words to
express my sense of it. I have not yet had time to see or hear
from any of the rest of my friends who are in the way of this
bustle; many of them have, I believe, taken their part, for
different reasons, another way, and I am sure I shall never say a
word to make them abandon what they think their own interest for
my petty cause. Nor am I anxious enough in the object of my own
fortune to wish for their taking any step that may endanger
theirs in any degree. With retrenchments and economy I may be
able to go on, and this great political wheel, that is always in
motion, may one day or other turn me up, that am but the fly upon
it.(608)
I shall go to town for ,i few days soon, and probably to court, I
suppose to be frowned upon, for I am not treated with the same
civility as others who are in determined opposition. Give my
best love and compliments to all with you, and believe me, dear
brother, ever most affectionately yours, H. S. C.
(605) As two of Mr. Walpole's letters, relative to General
Conway's dismissal, are wanting, the Editor is glad to be able to
supply their place by two letters on the subject from the General
himself; and as his dismissal was, both in its principle and
consequences, a very important political event, as well as a
principal topic in Mr. Walpole's succeeding letters, it is
thought that General Conway's own view of it cannot fail to be
acceptable.
(606) General Conway and Mr. Walpole seem to have taken the
argument on too low a scale. Their anxiety seems to have been,
to show that the General was not in decided opposition; thereby
appearing to admit, that if he had been so, the dismissal would
have been justifiable. It is however clear from Mr. Walpole's
own accounts, that Conway was considered as not only in
opposition, but as one of the most distinguished leaders of the
party, --and so the public thought: witness the following extract
from "a letter" from Albemarle-street to the Cocoa-tree,
published about this period:--"Amongst the foremost stands a
gallant general, pointed out for supreme command by the unanimous
voice of his grateful country: England has a Conway, the powers
of whose eloquence, Inspired by his zeal for liberty, animated by
the fire of true genius, and furnished with a sound knowledge of
the constitution, at once entertain, ravish, convince, conquer:--
such noble examples are the riches of the present age, the
treasures of posterity."-C.
(607) On this occasion, Lord Hertford, the Duke of Devonshire,
and Mr. Horace Walpole (each without the knowledge of the others)
pressed General Conway to accept from them an income equivalent
to what he had lost.-C.
(608) Within little more than a year Mr. Conway was secretary of
state, and leader of the House of Commons.-E.
Letter 207 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, April 24, 1764. (page 320)
I rejoice that you feel your loss so little. That you act with
dignity and propriety does not surprise me. To have you behave
in character, and with character, is my first of all wishes; for
then it will not be in the power of man to make you unhappy. Ask
yourself--is there a man in England with whom you would change
character? Is there a man in England who would not change with
you? Then think how little they have taken away!
For me, I shall certainly conduct myself as you prescribe. Your
friend shall say and do nothing unworthy of your friend. You
govern me in every thing but one: I mean, the disposition I have
told you I shall make. Nothing can alter that but a great change
in your fortune. In another point, you partly misunderstood me.
That I shall explain hereafter.
I shall certainly meet you here on Sunday, and very cheerfully.
We may laugh at a world in which nothing of us will remain long
but our characters. Yours eternally.
Letter 208 The Hon. H. S. Conway To The Earl Of Hertford.
London, May 1, 1764. (page 320)
I wrote a letter some days ago from the country, which. I am
sorry to find, does not set out till to-,day, having been given
to M. des Ardrets by Horace Walpole, as it was one I did not
choose to send by the post just at this time, though God knows
there was less in it, I think, than almost any but myself would
have said on such an occasion. I am sorry it did not go, as it
must seem very strange to you to hear on that subject from any
body before me: had it been possible, at the same time, I should
have wished not to write to you upon it at all. It is a
satisfaction, in most situations, certainly, to communicate even
one's griefs to those friends to whom one can do it in
confidence, but it is a pain where one thinks it must give them
any; and I assure you, I feel this sincerely from the share I
know your goodness will take in this, upon my account; as well as
that which, in some respects, it may give you on your own: as
'the particular distinction with which I am honoured beyond so
many of my brother officers who have so much more directly,
declaredly, and long been in real opposition to the ministry, has
great unkindness in it to all those friends of mine who have been
acting in their support. However, I would not, on any account,
that you or any of them should, for my sake, be drove a single
step beyond what is for their actual interest and inclination.
Nay, I Would not have the latter operate by itself, as I know,
from their goodness how bad a guide that might be. I do not
exactly know the grounds upon which the ministry made choice of
me as the object of their vengeance for a crime so general, The
only one I have heard, has certainly no weight; it was, that if I
was turned out of the bedchamber, and not my regiment, it would
be a sanction given for military men to oppose--that distinction
had before been destroyed by the dismission of three military
men; nor did my remaining in the army afterwards any more
establish it, than any other man's; it was a paltry excuse for a
thing they had a mind to do: the real motives or authors I cannot
yet quite ascertain. I hope, though they turned me out, they
cannot disgrace me, as I presume they wish; at least, so (my
friends flatter me) the language of the world goes, and I have at
least the satisfaction of being really ignorant myself, by what
part of the civil or military behaviour I could deserve so very
unkind a treatment. I am sure it was not for want of any
respect, duty, or attachment to his Majesty. I shall at present
say no more on the subject.
I have heard from two or three different quarters, of a
disagreeable accident you have had in your chaise, and calling by
chance at the Duke of Grafton's this morning, he read me a
postscript in a letter of yours, wherein you describe it as a
thing of no consequence. I was rejoiced to hear @it, and should
have been obliged for a line from any of your family to tell me
so; for one often hears those things so disagreeably represented,
that it is pleasant to know the truth.
You are delightful in writing me a long letter the other day, and
never mentioning M. de Pompadour's death; so that I flatly
contradicted it at first, to those that told me of it. I am
obliged to you for your intention of showing civility to my
friend Colonel Keith; I think you will like him.
I hear in town, that we have some little disputes stirring up
with our new friends on your side the water, about the limits of
their fishery on Newfoundland, and a fort building On St. Pierre:
but I speak from no authority.
We are all sorry here at a surmise, that M. de Guerchy does not
intend to return among us, being too much hurt at the behaviour
of his friends of the ministry in those letters so infamously
published by D'Eon. I hope it is only report. Adieu! dear
brother: give my love and compliments to all your family, as also
Lady Aylesbury's; and believe me ever sincerely and
affectionately yours, H. S. C.
I am here only for a few days, having, as you will imagine, not
many temptations to keep me from the country at this time.
I hope, by this time, your pheasants, etc., are safe at the end
of their journey,.
Letter 209 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, May 10, 1764. (page 322)
I hope I have done well for you, and that you will be content
with the execution of your commission. I have bought you two
pictures. No. 14, which is by no means a good picture, but it
went so cheap and looked so old-fashionably, that I ventured to
give eighteen shillings for it. The other is very pretty, no,
17; two sweet children, undoubtedly by Sir Peter Lely. This
costs you four pounds ten shillings; what shall I do with them--
how convey them to you? The picture of Lord Romney, which you
are so fond of, was not in this sale, but I suppose remains with
Lady Sidney. I bought for myself much the best picture in the
auction, a fine Vandyke of the famous Lady Carlisle and her
sister Leicester in one piece: it cost me nine-and-twenty
guineas.
In general the pictures did not go high, which I was glad of;
that the vulture, who sells them, may not be more enriched than
could be helped. There was a whole-length of Sir Henry Sidney,
which I should have liked, but it went for fifteen guineas. Thus
ends half the glory of Penshurst! Not one of the miniatures was
sold.
I go to Strawberry to-morrow for a week. When do you come to
Frogmore? I wish to know, because I shall go soon to Park-place,
and would not miss the visit you have promised me. Adieu! Yours
ever, H.W.
Letter 210 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, May 27, 1764. Very late. (page 322)
My dear lord,
I am just come home, and find a letter from you, which gives me
too much pain(609) to let me resist answering it directly though
past one in the morning, as I go out of town early to-morrow.
I must begin with telling You, let me feel what I will from it,
how much I admire it. It is equal to the difficulty of your
situation, and expressed with all the feeling which must possess
you. I will show it your brother, as there is nothing I would
not and will not, do to preserve the harmony and friendship which
has so much distinguished your whole lives.
You have guessed, give me leave to say, at my wishes, rather than
answered to any thing I have really expressed. The truth was, I
had no right to deliver any opinion on so important a step as you
have taken, without being asked. Had you consulted me, which
certainly was not proper for you to do, it would have been with
the utmost reluctance that I should have brought myself to utter
my sentiments, and only then, if I had been persuaded that
friendship exacted it from me; for it would have been a great
deal for me to have taken upon myself: it would have been a step,
either way, liable to subject me to reproach from you in your own
mind, though you would have been too generous to have blamed me
in any other way. Now, my dear lord, do me the justice to say,
that the part I have acted was the most proper and most
honourable one I could take. Did I, have I dropped a syllable,
endeavouring to bias your judgment one way or the other? My
constant language has been, that I could not think, when a
younger brother had taken a part disagreeable to his elder, and
totally opposite, even without consulting him, that the elder,
was under any obligation to relinquish his own opinion, and adopt
the younger's. In my heart I undoubtedly wished, that even in
party your union should not be dissolved; for that Union would be
the strength of both.
This is the summary of a text on which I have infinitely more to
say; but the post is so far from being a proper conveyance, that
I think the most private letter transmitted in the most secure
manner is scarcely to be trusted. Should I resolve, if you
require it, to be more explicit, (and I certainly shall not think
of saying a word more, unless I know that it is strongly your
desire I should,) it must only be upon the most positive
assurance on your honour (and on their honour as strictly given
too) that not a syllable of what I shall say shall be
communicated to any person living. I except nobody, except my
Lady and Lord Beauchamp. What I should say now is now Of no
consequence, but for your information. It can tend to nothing
else. It therefore does not signify, whether said now, or at any
distant time hereafter, or when we meet. If, as perhaps you may
at first suppose, it had the least view towards making you quit
your embassy, you should not know it at all; for I think that
would be the idlest and most unwise step you could take; and
believe me, my affection for your brother will never make me
sacrifice your honour to his interest . I have loved you both
unalterably, and without the smallest cloud between us, from
children. It is true, as you observe, that party, with many
other mischiefs, produces dissensions in families. I can by no
means agree with you, that all party is founded in interest--
surely, you cannot think that your brother's conduct was not the
result of the most unshaken honour and conscience, and as surely
the result of no interested motive? You are not less mistaken,
if you believe that the present state of party in this country is
not of a most serious nature, and not a mere contention for power
and employments.(610) That topic, however, I shall pass over;
the discussion, perhaps, would end where it began. As you know I
never tried to bring you to my opinion before, I am very unlikely
to aim at it now. Let this and the rest of this subject sleep
for the present. I trust I have convinced you that my behaviour
has been both honourable and respectful towards you: and that,
though I think with your brother and am naturally very warm, I
have acted in the most dispassionate manner, and had recourse to
nothing but silence, when I was not so happy as to meet you in
opinion.
This subject has kept me so long, and it is so very late, that
you will forgive me if I only skim over the gazette part of my
letter--my next shall be more in my old gossiping style.
Dr. Terrick and Dr. Lambe are made Bishops of London and
Peterborough, without the nomination or approbation of the
ministers. The Duke of Bedford declared this warmly, for you
know his own administration(611) always allow him to declare his
genuine opinion, that they may have the credit of making him
alter it. He was still more surprised at the Chancellor's being
made an earl(612) without his knowledge, after he had gone out of
town, blaming the Chancellor's coldness on D'Eon's affair, which
is now dropped. Three marquisates going to be given to Lords
Cardigan, Northumberland, and Townshend, may not please his grace
more, though they may his minister,(613) who may be glad his
master is angry, as it may produce a good quieting draught for
himself.
The Northumberlands are returned; Hamilton is dismissed,(614) and
the Earl of Drogheda(615) made secretary in his room.
Michell(616) is recalled by desire of this court, who requested
to have it done without giving their reasons, as Sir Charles
Williams(617) had been sent from Berlin in the same manner.
Colonel Johnson is also recalled from Minorca. He had been very
wrongheaded with his governors Sir Richard;(618) that wound was
closed, when the judicious deputy chose to turn out a
brother-in-law of Lord Bute. Lady Falkener's daughter is to be
married to a young rich Mr. Crewe,(619) a maccarone, and of our
loo. Mr. Skreene has married Miss Sumner, and her brother gives
her 10,000 pounds. Good night! The watchman cries three!
(609) It seems that Mr. Walpole, in one of the letters not found,
had expressed a desire that Lord Hertford should resent, in some
decided manner, the dismissal of his brother: but he, in the
course of this letter, recollects that as the younger brother had
acted not only without concert with Lord Hertford, but in direct
opposition to his opinion and advice, there was no kind of reason
why his lordship should take any extreme steps.-C.
(610) Yet, in frequent preceding passages, Mr. Walpole represents
the conflicts of parties as only a contention for power and
place.-C.
(611) He means the Duke's political friends, Mr. Rigby, etc.-C.
(612) The Earl of Northington.
(613) Mr. Rigby.
(614) See ant`e, p. 256, Letter 182.
(615) Charles, Earl and first Marquis of Drogheda, Who married
Lord Hertford's sister; he died in 1823, at a great age.-E.
(616) Minister from the court of Prussia to London.-E.
(617) Sir C. H. Williams had been minister, both at Berlin and
St. Petersburgh.-E.
(618) Sir Richard Lyttelton.-E.
(618) John Crewe, Esq. married, 17th May, 1764, to Miss Fawkener,
the daughter of sir Everard Fawkener, who died in 1758, one of
the postmasters-general.-E.
Letter 211 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, June 5, 1764. (page 325)
You will wonder that I have been so long without giving you any
signs of life; yet, though not writing to you, I have been
employed about you, as I have ever since the 21st of April; a day
your enemies shall have some cause to remember. I had writ nine
or ten sheets of an answer to the "Address to the Public," when I
received the enclosed mandate.(620) You will see my masters
order me, as a subaltern of the exchequer, to drop you and defend
them--but you will see too, that, instead of obeying, I have
given warning. I would not communicate any part of this
transaction to you, till it was out of my hands, because I knew
your affection for me would not approve of in going so far--but
it was necessary. My honour required that I should declare my
adherence to you in the most authentic manner. I found that some
persons had dared to doubt whether I would risk every thing for
you. You see by these letters that Mr. Grenville himself had
presumed so. Even a change in the administration, however
unlikely, might happen before I had any opportunity of declaring
myself; and then those who should choose to put the worst
construction, either on my actions or my silence, might say what
they pleased. I was waiting for some opportunity: they have put
it into my hands, and I took care not to let It slip. Indeed
they have put more into my hands, which I have not let slip
neither. Could I expect they would give me so absurd an account
of Mr. Grenville's conduct, and give it to me in writing? They
can only add to this obligation that of provocation to print my
letter, which, however strong in facts, I have taken care to make
very decent in terms, because it imports us to have the candid
(that is,. I fear, the mercenary) on our side;--no, that we must
not expect, but at least disarmed.
Lord Tavistock has flung his handkerchief to Lady Elizabeth
Keppel. They all go to Woburn on Thursday, and the ceremony is
to be performed as soon as her brother, the bishop, can arrive
from Exeter. I am heartily glad the Duchess of Bedford does not
set her heart on marrying me to any body; I am sure she would
bring it about. She has some small intention Of coupling my
niece and Dick Vernon, but I have forbidden the banns.
The birthday, I hear, was lamentably empty. We had a loo last
night in the great chamber at Lady Bel Finch's: the Duke,
Princess Emily, and the Duchess of Bedford were there. The
Princess entertained her grace with the joy the Duke of Bedford
will have in being a grandfather; in which reflection, I believe,
the grandmotherhood was not forgotten. Adieu!
(620) The paper here alluded to does not appear.
Letter 212To The Earl Of Hertford.
Strawberry Hill, June 8, 1764. (page 326)
To be sure, you have heard the event of' this last week? Lord
Tavistock has flung his handkerchief, and except a few jealous
sultanas, and some sultanas valides who had marketable daughters,
every body is pleased that the lot is fallen on Lady Elizabeth
Keppel.(621)
The house of Bedford came to town last Friday. I supped with
them that night at the Spanish Ambassador's, who has made Powis-
house magnificent. Lady Elizabeth was not there nor mentioned.
On the contrary, by the Duchess's conversation, which turned on
Lady Betty Montagu,(622) there were suspicions in her favour.
The next morning Lady Elizabeth received a note from the Duchess
of Marlborough,(623) insisting on seeing her that evening. When
she arrived at Marlborough-house, she found nobody but the
Duchess and Lord Tavistock. The Duchess cried, "Lord! they have
left the window open in the next room!"--went to shut it, and
shut the lovers in too, where they remained for three hours. The
same night all the town was at the Duchess of Richmond's. Lady
Albemarle(624) was at tredille; the Duke of Bedford came up to
the table, and told her he must speak to her as soon as the pool
was over. You may guess whether she knew a card more that she
played. When she had finished, the Duke told her he should wait
on her the next morning, to make the demand in form. She told it
directly to me and my niece Waldegrave, who was in such transport
for her friend, that she promised the Duke of Bedford to kiss
him, and hurried home directly to write to her sisters.(625) The
Duke asked no questions about fortune, but has since slipped a
bit of paper into Lady Elizabeth's hand, telling her, he hoped
his son would live, but if he did not, there was something for
her; it was a jointure of three thousand pounds a-year, and six
hundred pounds pin-money. I dined with her the next day, at
Monsieur de Guerchy's, and as I hindered the company from wishing
her joy, and yet joked with her myself, Madame de Guerchy said,
she perceived I would let nobody else tease her, that I might
have all the teasing to myself She has behaved in the prettiest
manner, in the world, and would not appear at a vast assembly at
Northumberland-house on Tuesday, nor at a great haymaking at Mrs.
Pitt's on Wednesday. Yesterday they all went to Woburn, and
tomorrow the ceremony is to be performed; for the Duke has not a
moment's patience till she is breeding.
You would have been diverted at Northumberland-house; Besides the
sumptuous liveries, the illuminations in the garden, the pages,
the two chaplains in waiting in their gowns and scarves, `a
l'Irlandaise,(626) and Dr. Hill and his wife, there was a most
delightful Countess, who has Just imported herself from
Mecklenburgh. She is an absolute princess of Monomotapa; but I
fancy you have seen her. for her hideousness and frantic
accoutrements are so extraordinary, that they tell us she was
hissed in the Tuileries. She crossed the drawing-room on the
birthday to speak to the Queen en amie, after standing with her
back to Princess Amelia. The queen was so ashamed of her, that
she said cleverly, "This is not the dress at Strelitz; but this
woman always dressed herself as capriciously there, as your
Duchess of Queensberry does here."
The haymaking at Wandsworth-hill(627) did not succeed from the
excessive cold of the night; I proposed to bring one of the cocks
into the great room, and make a bonfire. All the beauties were
disappointed, and all the macaronies afraid of getting the
toothache.
The Guerchys are gone to Goodwood, and were to have been carried
to Portsmouth, but Lord Egmont(628) refused to let the ambassador
see the place. The Duke of Richmond was in a rage, and I do not
know how it has ended, for the Duke of Bedford defends the
refusal, and says, they certainly would not let you see Brest.
The Comte d'Ayen is going a longer tour. he is liked here. The
three great ambassadors danced at court--the Prince of Masserano
they say well; he is extremely in fashion, and is a sensible very
good-humoured man, though his appearance is so deceitful. They
have given me the honour of a bon-mot, which, I assure you, does
not belong to me, that I never saw a man so full of orders and
disorders. He and his suite, and the Guerchys and theirs, are to
dine here next week. Poor little Strawberry never thought of
such f`etes. I did invite them to breakfast, but they confounded
it, and understood that they were asked to dinner, so I must do
as well as I can. Both the ambassadors are in love with my
niece;(629) therefore, I trust they will not have unsentimental
stomachs.
Shall I trouble you with a little commission? It is to send me a
book that I cannot get here, nor am I quite sure of the exact
title, but it is called "Origine des Moeurs,"(630) or something
to that import. It is in three volumes, and has not been written
above two or three years. Adieu, my dear lord, from my fireside.
P. S. Do you know that Madame de Yertzin, The Mecklenburgh
Countess, has had the honour of giving the King of Prussia a box
of the ear?--I am sure he deserved it, if he could take liberties
with such a chimpanzee. Colonel Elliot died on Thursday.
(621) the Daughter of the second Earl of Albemarle; she was born
in 1739.-E.
(622) See ant`e, p. 304, letter 198.
(623) Caroline Russel, sister of the Duke of Bedford.-E.
(624) Anne, daughter of Charles, first Duke of Richmond.-E.
(625) Lady Dysart and Mrs. Keppel; the latter was married to Lady
Elizabeth's brother.-E.
(626) Lord Northumberland was still lord-lieutenant of
Ireland.-E.
(627) Mrs. Pitt's villa.
(628) First lord of the admiralty.
(629) Lady Waldegrave.
(630) In a subsequent letter, he calls this work "Essais les
Moeurs." I find a work of the latter title published in 1756
anonymously, and under the date of Bruxelles. It was written by
a M. Soret, but it seems to have been in only one volume. Can
Mr. Walpole have meant Duclos's celebrated "Considerations sur
les Moeurs," published anonymously in 1750, but subsequently
under his name?--C.
Letter 213 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, June 18, 1764. (page 328)
I trust that you have thought I was dead, it is so long since you
heard of me. In truth I had nothing to talk of but cold and hot
weather, of rain and want Of rain, subjects that have been our
summer conversation for these twenty years. I am pleased that
you was content with your pictures, and shall be glad if you have
ancestors out of them. You may tell your uncle Algernon that I
go to-morrow, where he would not be ashamed to see me; as there
are not many such spots at present, you and he will guess it is
to Park-place.
Strawberry, whose glories perhaps verge towards their setting-,
have been more sumptuous to-day than ordinary, and banquetted
their representative majesties of France and Spain. I had
Monsieur and Madame de Guerchy, Mademoiselle de Nangis their
daughter, two other French gentlemen, the Prince of Masserano,
his brother and secretary, Lord March, George Selwyn, Mrs. ADD
Pitt, and my niece Waldegrave. The refectory never was so
crowded; nor have any foreigners been here before that
comprehended Strawberry. Indeed, every thing succeeded to a
hair. A violent shower in the morning laid the dust, brightened
the green, refreshed the roses, pinks, orange-flowers, and the
blossoms with which the acacias are covered. A rich storm of
thunder and lightning gave a dignity of colouring to the heavens;
and the sun appeared enough to illuminate the landscape, without
basking himself over it at his length. During dinner there were
French horns and clarionets in the cloister, and after coffee I
treated them with an English, and to them a very new collation, a
syllabub milked Under the cows that were brought to the brow of
the terrace. Thence they went to the printing-house, and saw a
new fashionable French song printed. They drank tea in the
gallery, and at eight went away to Vauxhall.
They really seemed quite pleased with the place and the day; but
I must tell you, the treasury of the abbey will feel it, for
without magnificence, all was handsomely done. I must keep
maigre; at least till the interdict is taken off from my convent.
I have kings and queens, I hear, in my neighbourhood, but this is
no royal foundation. Adieu; your poor beadsman, The Abbot Of
Strawberry.
P. S. Mr. T***'s servile poem is rewarded with one hundred and
sixty pounds a ),ear in the post-office.
Letter 214 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 16, 1764. (page 329)
mr. chute says you are peremptory that you will not cast a look
southwards. Do you know that in that case you will not set eyes
on me the Lord knows when? My mind is pretty much fixed on going
to Paris the beginning of September. I think I shall go, if it
is only to scold my Lord and Lady Hertford for sending me their
cousins, the Duke and Duchess of Berwick, who say they are come
to see their relations. By their appearance, you would imagine
they were come to beg money of their family. He has just the
sort of capacity which you would expect in a Stuart engrafted on
a Spaniard. He asked me which way he was to come to Twickenham?
I told him through Kensington, to which I supposed his geography
might reach. He replied, "Oh! du cot`e de la mer." She, who is
sister of the Duke of Alva, is a decent kind of a body: but they
talk wicked French. I gave them a dinner here t'other day, with
the Marquis of Jamaica, their only child, and a fat tutor, and
the few Fitzroys I could amass at this season. They were very
civil, and seemed much pleased. To-day they arc gone to Blenheim
by invitation. I want to send you something from the Strawberry
press; tell me how I shall convey it; it is nothing less than the
most curious book that ever set its foot into the world. I
expect to hear you scream hither: if you don't I shall be
disappointed, for I have kept it as a most profound secret from
you, till I was ready to surprise you with it: I knew your
impatience, and would not let you have it piecemeal. It is the
Life of the great philosopher, Lord Herbert, written by
himself.(631) Now are you disappointed? Well, read it--not the
first forty pages, of which you will be sick--I will not
anticipate it, but I will tell you the history. I found it a
year ago at Lady Hertford's, to whom Lady Powis had lent it. I
took it up, and soon threw it down again, as the dullest thing I
ever saw. She persuaded me to take it home. My Lady Waldegrave
was here in all her grief; Gray and I read it to amuse her. We
could not get on for laughing, and screaming. I begged to have
it to print: Lord Powis, sensible of the extravagance, refused--I
persisted--he persisted. I told my Lady Hertford, it was no
matter, I would print it, I was determined. I sat down and wrote
a flattering dedication to Lord Powis, which I knew he would
swallow: he did, and gave up his ancestor. But this was not
enough; I was resolved the world should not think I admired it
seriously, though there are really fine passages in it, and good
sense too: I drew up an equivocal preface, in which you will
discover my opinion, and sent it with the dedication. The Earl
gulped down the one under the palliative of the other, and here
you will have all. Pray take notice Of the pedigree, of which I
am exceedingly proud; observe how I have clearly arranged so
involved a descent: one may boast at one's heraldry. I shall
send you too Lady Temple's poems.(632) Pray keep both under lock
and key, for there are but two hundred copies of Lord Herbert,
and but one hundred of the poems suffered to be printed.
I am almost crying to find the glorious morsel of summer, that we
have had, turned into just such a watery season as the last.
Even my excess of verdure, which used to comfort me for every
thing, does not satisfy me now, as I live entirely alone. I am
heartily tired of my large neighbourhood, who do not furnish me
two or three rational beings at most, and the best of them have
no vivacity. London, Whither I go at least once a fortnight for
a night, is a perfect desert. As the court is gone into a
convent at Richmond, the town is more abandoned than ever. I
cannot, as you do, bring myself to be content without variety,
without events; my mind is always wanting new food; summer does
not suit me; but I will grow old some time or other. Adieu!
(631) Printed in quarto, This was the first edition of this
celebrated piece of autobiography. It was reprinted at Edinburgh
in 1807, with a prefatory notice, understood to be by Sir Walter
Scott; and a third edition, which also contained his letters
written during his residence at the French court, was published
in 1826.-E.
(632) Poems by Anna Chambers, Countess Temple.-E.
Letter 215 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, July 16, 1764. (page 330)
Dear Sir,
You must think me a brute to have been so long without taking any
notice of your obliging offer of coming hither. The truth is, I
have not been at all settled here for three days together: nay,
nor do I know when I shall be. I go tomorrow into Sussex; in
August into Yorkshire, and in September into France. If, in any
interval of these jaunts, I Can be sure of remaining here a week,
which I literally have not been this whole summer, I will
certainly let you know, and will claim your promise.
Another reason for my writing now is, I want to know how I may
send you Lord Herbert's Life, which I have just printed. Did I
remember the favour you did me of asking for my own print? if I
did not, it shall accompany this book.
Letter 216 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.
Arlington Street, July 21, 1764. (page 330)
Sir,
You will have heard of the severe attendance which we have had
for this last week in the House of Commons. It will, I trust,
have excused me to you for not having answered sooner your very
kind letter. My books, I fear, have no merit over Mr. Harte's
Gustavus, but by being much shorter. I read his work, and was
sorry so much curious matter should be so ill and so tediously,
put together. His anecdotes are much more interesting than mine;
luckily I was aware that mine were very trifling, and did not
dwell upon them. To answer the demand, I am printing them with
additions, but must wait a little for assistance and corrections
to the two latter, as I have had for the former.
You are exceedingly obliging, Sir, to offer me one of your
Fergussons. I thank you for it, as I ought; but, in truth, I
have more pictures than room to place them; both my houses are
full, and I have even been thinking of getting rid of some I
have. That this is no declension of your civility, Sir, you will
see, when I gladly accept either of your medals of King Charles.
I shall be proud to keep it as a mark of your friendship; but
then I will undoubtedly rob you of but one.
I condole with you, Sir, for the loss of your friend and
relation, as I heartily take my share in whatever concerns you.
The great and unmerited kindness I have received from you will
ever make me your most obliged, etc.
Letter 217To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, July 21, 1764. (page 331)
Dear Sir,
I must never send you trifles; for you always make me real
presents in return. The beauty of the coin surprises me. Mr.
White must be rich, when such are his duplicates. I am
acquainted with him, and have often intended to visit his
collection; but it is one of those things one never does, because
one always may. I give you a thousand thanks in return, and what
are not worth more, my own print, Lord Herbert's Life, (this is
curious, though it cost me little,) and some orange flowers. I
wish you had mentioned the latter sooner: I have had an amazing
profusion this year, and given them away to the right and left by
handfuls. These are all I could collect to-day, as I was coming
to town; but you shall have more if you want them.
I consign these things as you ordered - I wish the print may
arrive without being rumpled: it is difficult to convey
mezzotintos; but if this is spoiled you shall have another.
If I make any stay in France, which I do not think I shall, above
six weeks at most, you shall certainly hear from me but I am a
bad commissioner for searching you out a hermitage. It is too
much against my interest- and I had much rather find you one in
the neighbourhood of Strawberry. Adieu!
Letter 218 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Strawberry Hill, August 3, 1764. (page 332)
As my letters are seldom proper for the post now, I begin them at
any time, and am forced to trust to chance for a conveyance.
This difficulty renders my news very stale: but what can I do?
There does not happen enough at this season of' the year to fill
a mere gazette. I should be more sorry to have you think me
silent too long. You must be so good as to recollect, when there
is a large interval between my letters, that I have certainly one
ready in my writing-box, and only wait for a messenger. I hope
to send this by Lord Coventry. For the next three weeks, indeed,
I shall not be able to write, as I go in a few days with your
brother to Chatsworth and Wentworth Castle.
I am under more distress about my visit to you--but I will tell
you the truth. As I think the Parliament Will not meet before
Christmas, though they now talk of it for November, I would quit
our Politics for a few weeks; but the expense frightens me, which
did not use to be one of my fears. I cannot but expect, knowing
the enemies I have, that the treasury may distress me.(633) I
had laid by a little sum which I intended to bawble away at
Paris; but I may have very serious occasion for it. The recent
example of Lord Holderness,(634) Who has had every rag seized at
the Custom-house, alarms my present prudence. I cannot afford to
buy even clothes, which I may lose in six weeks. These
considerations dispose me to wait till I see a little farther
into this chaos. You know enough of the present actors in the
political drama to believe that the present system is not a
permanent one, nor likely to roll on till Christmas without some
change. The first moment that I can quit party with honour, I
shall seize. It neither suits my inclination nor the years I
have lived in the world; for though I am not old, I have been in
the world so long, and seen so much of those who figure in it,
that I am heartily sick of its commerce. My attachment to your
brother, and the apprehension that fear of my own interest would
be thought the cause if I took no part for him, determined me to
risk every thing rather than abandon him. I have done it, and
cannot repent, whatever distresses may follow. One's good name
is of more consequence than all the rest, my dear lord. Do not
think I say this with the least disrespect to you; it is only to
convince you that I did not recommend any thing to you that I
would avoid myself; nor engaged myself, nor wished to engage you,
in party from pique, resentment, caprice, or choice. I am dipped
in it much against my inclination. I can suffer by it infinitely
more than you could. But there are moments when one must take
one's part like a man. This I speak solely with regard to
myself. I allow fairly and honestly that you was not
circumstanced as I was. You had not voted with your brother as I
did; the world knew your inclinations were different. All this
certainly composed serious reasons for you not to follow him, if
you did not choose it. My motives for thinking you had better
have espoused his cause were for your own sake - I detailed those
motives to you in my last long letter; that opinion is as strong
within me as ever.
The affront to you, the malice that aimed that affront, the
importance that it gives one, upon the long-run to act steadily
and uniformly with one's friends, the enemies you make in the
opposition, composed of so many great families, and of your own
principal allies,(635) and the little merit you gain with the
ministry by the contrary conduct,--all these were, to me,
unanswerable reasons, and remain so, for what I advised; yet, as
I told you before, I think the season is passed, and that you
must wait for an opportunity of disengaging yourself with credit.
I am persuaded that occasion will be given you, from one or other
of the causes I mentioned in my last; and if the fairest is, I
entreat you by the good wishes which I am sure you know from my
soul I bear you, to seize it. Excuse me: I know I go too far,
but my heart is set on your making a great figure, and your
letters are so kind, that they encourage me to speak with a
friendship which I am sensible is not discreet:--but you know you
and your brother have ever been the objects of my warmest
affection and however partial you may think me to him, I must
labour to have the world think as highly of you, and to unite you
firmly for your lives. If this was not my motive, you must be
sure I should not be earnest. It is not one vote in the House of
Lords that imports us. Party is grown so Serious,(636) and will,
I doubt, become every day more so, that one must make one's
option; and it will go to my soul to see you embarked against all
your friends, against the Whig principles you have ever
professed, and with men, amongst whom you have not one
well-wisher, and with whom you will not even be able to remain
upon tolerable terms, unless you take a vigorous part against all
you love and esteem.
In warm times lukewarmness is a crime with those on whose side
you are ranged. Your good sense and experience will judge
whether what I say is not strictly the case. It is not your
brother or I that have occasioned these circumstances. Lord Bute
has thrown this country into a confusion which will not easily be
dissipated without serious hours. Changes may, and, as I said in
the beginning of my letter, will probably happen but the seeds
that have been sown will not be rooted up by one or two
revolutions in the cabinet. It had taken an hundred and fifty
years(637) to quiet the animosities of Whig and Tory; that
contest is again set on foot, and though a struggle for places
may be now, as has often been, the secret purpose of principals,
the court and the nation are engaging on much deeper springs of
action. I wish I could elucidate this truth, as I have the rest,
but that is not fit for paper, nor to be comprised within the
compass of a letter;--I have said enough to furnish you with
ample reflections. I submit all to your own judgment:--I have
even acted rightly by YOU, in laying before you what it was not
easy for you, my dear lord, to see or know at a distance. I
trust all to your indulgence, and your acquaintance with my
character, which surely is not artful or mysterious, and which,
to you, has ever been, as it ever shall be, most cordial and
well-intentioned. I come to my gazette.
There is nothing new, but the resignation of Lord Carnarvon,(638)
who has thrown up the bedchamber, and they say, the lieutenancy
of Hampshire on Stanley being made governor of the Isle of Wight.
I have been much distressed this morning. The royal family
reside chiefly at Richmond, whither scarce necessary servants
attend them, and no mortal else but Lord Bute. The King and
Queen have taken to going about to see places; they have been at
Oatlands and Wanstead. A quarter before ten to-day, I heard the
bell at the gate ring,--that is, I was not up, for my hours are
not reformed, either at night or in the morning,--I inquired who
it was? the Prince of Mecklenburgh and De Witz had called to
know if they could see the house; my two Swiss, Favre and Louis,
told them I was in bed, but if they would call again in an hour,
they might see it. I shuddered at this report,--and would it
were the worst part! The Queen herself was behind, in a coach: I
am shocked to death, and know not what to do! It is ten times
worse just now than ever at any other time: it will certainly be
said, that I refused to let the Queen see my house. See what it
is to have republican servants! When I made a tempest about it,
Favre said, with the utmost sang froid, "Why could not he tell me
he was the Prince of Mecklenburgh?" I shall go this evening and
consult my oracle, Lady Suffolk. If she approves it, I will
write to De Witz, and pretend I know nothing of any body but the
Prince, and beg a thousand pardons, and assure him how proud I
should be to have his master visit my castle at Thundertentronk.
August 4th.
I have dined to-day at Claremont, where I little thought I should
dine,(639) but whither our affairs have pretty naturally
conducted me. It turned out a very melancholy day. Before I got
into the house, I heard that letters were just arrived there,
with accounts of the Duke of Devonshire having had two more fits.
When I came to see Lord John's(640) and Lord Frederick's letters,
I found these two fits had been but one, and that very slight,
much less than the former, and certainly nervous by all the
symptoms, as Sir Edward Wilmot, who has been at Chatsworth,
pronounces it. The Duke perceived it coming, and directed what
to have done, and it was over in four minutes. The next event
was much more real. I had been half round the garden with the
Duke in his one-horse chair; we were passing to the other side of
the house, when George Onslow met us, arrived on purpose to
advertise the Duke of the sudden death of the Duchess of
Leeds,(641) who expired yesterday at dinner in a moment: he
called it apoplectic; but as the Bishop of Oxford,(642) who is at
Claremont, concluded, it was the gout flown up into the head.
The Duke received the news as men do at seventy-one: but the
terrible part was to break it to the Duchess, who is ill. George
Onslow would have taken me away to dinner with him, but the Duke
thought that would alarm the Duchess too abruptly, and she is not
to know it yet: with her very low spirits it is likely to make a
deep impression. It is a heavy stroke too for her father, poor
old Lord Godolphin, who is eighty-six. For the Duke, his
spirits, under so many mortifications and calamities, are
surprising: the only effect they and his years seem to have made
on him is to have abated his ridicules.(643) Our first meeting
to be sure was awkward, yet I never saw a man conduct any thing
with more sense than he did. There were no notices of what is
passed; nothing fulsome, no ceremony, civility enough, confidence
enough, and the greatest ease. You would only have thought that
I had been long abroad, and was treated like an old friend's son
with whom he might make free. In truth, I never saw more
rational behaviour: I expected a great deal of flattery, but we
had nothing but business while we were alone, and common
conversation while the Bishop and the Chaplain were present. The
Duke mentioned to me his having heard Lord Holland's inclination
to your embassy. He spoke very obligingly of you, and said that,
next to his own children, he believed there was nobody the late
Lord Hardwicke loved so much as you. I cannot say that the Duke
spoke very affectionately of Sir Joseph Yorke. who has never
written a single line to him since he was out. I told him that
did not surprise me, for Sir Joseph has treated your brother in
the same manner, though the latter has written two letters to him
since his dismission.
Arlington Street, Tuesday night, 10 o'clock.
I am here alone in the most desolate of all towns. I came to-day
to visit my sovereign Duchess(644) in her lying-in, and have been
there till this moment, not a sole else but Lady Jane Scott.(645)
Lady Waldegrave came from Tunbridge yesterday en passant, and
reported a new woful history of a fracas there--don't my Lady
Hertford's ears tingle? but she will not be surprised. A
footman--a very homely footman--to a Mrs. Craster, had been most
extremely impertinent to Lord Clanbrazil, Frederick Vane, and a
son of Lady Anne Pope; they threatened to have him turned away--
he replied, if he was, he knew where he should be protected.
Tunbridge is a quiet private place, where one does not imagine
that every thing one does in one's private family will be known:-
-yet so it happened that the morning after the fellow's
dismission, it was reported that he was hired by another lady,
the Lord knows who. At night, that lady was playing at loo in
the rooms. Lord Clanbrazil told her of the report, and hoped she
would contradict it: she grew as angry as a fine lady could grow,
told him it was no business of his, and--and I am afraid, still
more. Vane whispered her--One should have thought that name
would have some weight--oh! worse and worse! the poor English
language was ransacked for terms that came up to her resentment:-
-the party broke up, and, I suppose, nobody went home to write an
account of what happened to their acquaintance.
O'Brien and Lady Susan are to be transported to the Ohio, and
have a grant of forty thousand acres. The Duchess of Grafton
says sixty thousand were bestowed; but a friend of yours, and a
relation of Lady Susan, nibbled away twenty thousand for a Mr.
Upton.
By a letter from your brother to-day, I find our northern journey
is laid aside; the Duke of Devonshire is coming to town; the
physicians want him to go to Spa. This derangement makes me turn
my eyes eagerly towards Paris; though I shall be ashamed to come
thither after the wise reasons I have given you against it in the
beginning of this letter; nous verrons--the temptation is strong,
but patriots must resist temptations; it is not the etiquette to
yield to them till a change happens.
I enclose a letter, which your brother has sent me to convey to
you, and two pamphlets.(646) The former is said to be written by
Shebbeare, under George Grenville's direction: the latter, which
makes rather more noise, is certainly composed by somebody who
does not hate your brother--I even fancy you will guess the same
person for the author that every body else does. I shall be able
to send you soon another pamphlet, written by Charles Townshend,
on the subject of the warrants:-you see, at least, we do not
ransack Newgate and the pillory(647) for writers. We leave those
to the administration.
I wish you would be so kind as to tell me, what is become of my
sister and Mr. Churchill. I received a letter from Lady Mary
to-day, telling me she was that instant setting out from Paris,
but does not say whither.
The first storm that is likely to burst in politics, seems to be
threatened from the Bedford quarter. The Duke and Duchess have
been in town but for two days the whole summer, and are now going
to Trentham, whither Lord Gower, qui se donnoit pour favori, is
retired for three months. This is very unlike the declaration in
spring, that the Duke must reside at Streatham,(648) because the
King could not spare him for a day.
The memorial(649) left by Guerchy at his departure, and the late
arr`ets in France on our American histories, make much noise, and
seem to say that I have not been a false prophet! If our
ministers can stand so many difficulties from abroad, and so much
odium at home, they are abler men than I take them for. Adieu,
the whole H`otel de Lassay!(650) I verily think I shall see it
soon.
(633) He had the lucrative office of usher of the exchequer, and
a couple of other less considerable sinecures.-C.
(634) Robert, last Earl of Holderness, grandson of the great Duke
Schomberg; he had been secretary of state at the accession.-C.
(635) Lady Hertford was daughter of the late, and cousin of the
existing Duke of Grafton, who was one of the leaders of the
opposition.-C.
(636) The state of the public mind at this time is thus described
by Gray:--"Grumble, indeed, every one does; but, since Wilkes's
affair, they fall off their metal, and seem to shrink under the
brazen hand of Norton and his colleagues. I hear there will be
no Parliament till after Christmas. If the French should be so
unwise as to suffer the Spanish court to go on in their present
measures (for they refuse to pay the ransom of Manilla, and have
driven away our logwood cutters already,) down go their friends
in the ministry, and all the schemes of right divine and
prerogative; and this is perhaps the best chance we have. Are
you not struck with the great similarity there is between the
first years of Charles the First and the present times? Who
would have thought it possible five years ago?" Works, vol. iv.
p. 34.-E.
(637) It is not easy to say what hundred and fifty years he
alludes to; the contests of Whig and Tory were never so violent
as in the last years of Queen Anne, just fifty years before this
time.-C.
(638) The Marquis of Carnarvon, eldest son of the second Duke of
Chandos.-E.
(639) See ant`e, p. 258, letter 184.
(640) Lord John and Lord Frederick Cavendish, his grace's
brothers.-E.
(641) Lady Mary, daughter of the second Lord Godolphin,
granddaughter of the great Duke of Marlborough, and sister of the
Duchess of Newcastle.-E.
(642) Dr. John Hume.-E.
(643) The reader will not fail to observe the sudden effect of
Mr. Walpole's conversion to the Duke of Newcastle's politics, how
it abates all ridicules and sweetens all acerbities. As no
writer has contributed so much as Mr. Walpole to depreciate the
character of the Duke of Newcastle, this kind of palinode is not
unimportant. See ant`e, p. 258, letter 184.-C.
(644) The Duchess of Grafton lay-in, on the 17th July 1764, of
her youngest son, Lord Charles.-E.
(645) Eldest daughter of Francis, second Duke of Buccleugh, born
1723, died in 1777, unmarried.-E.
(646) They were called "An Address to the Public on the late
dismission of a General Officer," and "A Counter Address." The
latter was written by Mr. Walpole himself.-C.
(647) Dr. Shebbeare had been convicted of a libel, and, I
believe, punished in the pillory-C. [By the indulgence of the
under-sheriff of Midllesex, the Doctor was allowed to stand on,
and not in, the pillory; for which indulgence he was prosecuted.)
(648) A villa of the Duke's at Streatham, derived from Mr.
Howland, his maternal grandfather, from whom Howland-street is
named.-C.
(649) The points in dispute between France and England at this
period arose out of the non-performance of certain articles of
the treaty-the payment of the Canada bills, and the expense of
the prisoners of war, and certain claims for compensation for
effects taken at Bellisle.-C.
(650) The house which Lord Hertford hired in Paris.-E.
Letter 219 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Aug. 16, 1764. (page 337)
I am not gone north, so pray write to me. I am not going south,
so pray come to me. The Duke of Devonshire's journey to Spa has
prevented the first, and twenty reasons the second; whenever
therefore you are disposed to make a visit to Strawberry, it will
rejoice to receive you in its old ruffs and fardingales, and
without rouge, blonde, and run silks.
You have not said a word to me, ingrate as you are, about Lord
Herbert; does not he deserve one line? Tell me when I shall see
you, that I may make no appointments to interfere with it. Mr.
Conway, Lady Ailesbury, and Lady Lyttelton, have been at
Strawberry with me for four or five days, so I am come to town to
have my house washed, for you know I am a very Hollander in point
of cleanliness.
This town is a deplorable solitude; one meets nothing but Mrs.
Holman, like the pelican in the wilderness. Adieu!
Letter 220 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 27, 1764. (page 338)
I hope you received safe a parcel and a very long letter that I
sent you, above a fortnight ago, by Mr. Strange the engraver.
Scarce any thing has happened since worth repeating, but what you
know already, the death of poor Legge, and the seizure of Turk
Island:(651) the latter event very consonant to all ideas. It
makes much noise here especially in the city, where the ministry
grow every day more and more unpopular. Indeed, I think there is
not much probability of their standing their ground, even till
Christmas. Several defections are already known, and others are
ripe which they do not apprehend.
Doctor Hunter, I conclude, has sent you Charles Townshend's
pamphlet: it is well written, but does not sell much, as a notion
prevails that it has been much altered and softened.
The Duke of Devonshire is gone to Spa; he was stopped for a week
by a rash, which those who wished it so, called a miliary fever,
but was so far from it that if he does not find immediate benefit
from Spa, he is to go to Aix-la-Chapelle, in hopes that the warm
baths will supple his skin, and promote another eruption.
I have been this evening to Sion, which is becoming another Mount
Palatine. Adam has displayed great taste, and the Earl matches
it with magnificence. The gallery is converting into a museum in
the style of a columbarium, according to an idea that I proposed
to my Lord Northumberland. Mr. Boulby(652) and Lady Mary are
there, and the Primate,(653) who looks old and broken enough to
aspire to the papacy. Lord Holland, I hear, advises what Lord
Bute much wishes, the removal of George Grenville, to make room
for Lord Northumberland at the head of the treasury. The Duchess
of Grafton is gone to her father. I wish you may hear no more of
this journey! If you should, this time, the Complaints will come
from her side.
You have got the Sposo(654) Coventry with you, have not you? And
you are going to have the Duke of York. You will not want such a
nobody as me. When I have a good opportunity, I will tell you
some very sensible advice that has been given me on that head,
which I am sure you will approve.
It is well for me I am not a Russian. I should certainly be
knouted. The murder of the young Czar Ivan has sluiced again all
my abhorrence of the czarina. What a devil in a diadem! I
wonder they can spare such a principal performer from hell!
September 9th.
I had left this letter unfinished, from want of common materials,
if I should send it by the post; and from want of private
conveyance, if I said more than was fit for the post. being Just
returned from Park-place, where I have been for three days, I not
only find your extremely kind letter of August 21st, but a card
from Madame de Chabot, who tells me she sets out for Paris in a
day or two. and offers to carry a letter to you, which gives me
the opportunity I wished for.
I must begin with what you conclude-your most friendly
offer,(655) if I should be distressed by the treasury. I can
never thank you enough for this, nor the tender manner in which
you clothe it: though, believe me, my dear lord, I could never
blush to be obliged to you. In truth, though I do not doubt
their disposition to hurt me, I have had prudence enough to make
it much longer than their reign Can last, before it could be in
their power to make me feel want. With all my extravagance, I am
much beforehand, and having perfected and paid for what I wished
to do here, my common expenses are trifling, and nobody can live
more frugally than I, when I have a mind to it. What I said of
fearing temptations at Paris, was barely serious: I thought it
imprudent, just now, to throw away my money; but that
consideration, singly, would not keep me here. I am eager to be
with you, and my chief reason for delaying is, that I wish to
make a longer stay than I could just now. The advice I hinted
at, in the former part of this letter, was Lady Suffolk's, and I
am sure you will think it very sensible. She told me, should I
now go to Paris, all the world would say I went to try to
persuade you to resign; that even the report would be impertinent
to you, to whom she knew and saw I wished so well; and that when
I should return, it would be said I had failed in MY errand.
Added to this, which was surely very prudent and friendly advice,
I will own to you fairly, that I think I shall soon have it in my
power to come to you on the foot I wish,--I mean, having done
with politics, which I have told you all along, and with great
truth, are as much my abhorrence as yours. I think this
administration cannot last till Christmas, and I believe they
themselves think so. I am cautious when I say this, because I
promise you faithfully, the last thing I will do shall be to give
you any false lights knowingly. I am clear, I repeat it, against
your resigning now; and there is no meaning in all I have taken
the liberty to say to you, and which you receive with so much
goodness and sense, but to put you on your guard in such ticklish
times, and to pave imperceptibly to the world the way to your
reunion with your friends. In your brother, I am persuaded, you
will never find any alteration; and whenever you find an
opportunity proper, his credit with particular persons will
remove any coldness that may have happened. I admire the force
and reasoning with which you have stated your own situation; and
I think there are but two points in which we differ at all. I do
not see how your brother could avoid the part he chose. It was
the administration that made it--no inclination of his. The
other is a trifle; it regards Elliot, nor is it my opinion alone
that he is at Paris on business: every body believes it, and
considering his abilities, and the present difficulties of Lord
Bute, Elliot's absence would be very extraordinary, if merely
occasioned by idleness or amusement, or even to place his
children, when it lasts so long.
The affair of Turk Island, and the late promotion of Colonel
Fletcher(656) over thirty-seven older officers, are the chief
causes, added to the Canada bills, Logwood, and the Manilla
affairs, Which have ripened our heats to such a height. Lord
Mansfield's violence against the press has contributed much--but
the great distress of all to the ministers, is the behaviour of
the Duke of Bedford, who has twice or thrice peremptorily refused
to attend council. He has been at Trentham, and crossed the
country back to Woburn, without coming to town.(657) Lord Gower
has been in town but one day. Many causes are assigned for all
this; the refusal of making Lord Waldegrave of the bedchamber;
Lord Tavistocl('s inclination to the minority; and above all, a
reversion, which it is believed Lord Bute has been so weak as to
obtain, of Ampthill, a royal grant, in which the Duke has but
sixteen years to come. You know enough of that court, to know
that, in the article of Bedfordshire, no influence has any weight
with his grace. At present, indeed, I believe little is tried.
The Duchess and Lady Bute are as hostile as possible. Rigby's
journey convinces me of what I have long suspected, that his
reign is at an end. I have even heard, though I am far from
trusting to the quarter from which I had my intelligence, that
the Duke has been making overtures to Mr. Pitt,(658) which have
not been received unfavourably; I shall know more of this soon,
as I am to go to Stowe in three or four days. Mr. Pitt is
exceedingly well-disposed to your brother, talks highly of him,
and of the injustice done to him, and they are to meet on the
first convenient opportunity. Thus much for politics, which,
however, I cannot quit, without again telling you how sensible I
am of all your goodness and friendly offers.
The Court, independent of politics, makes a strange figure. The
recluse life led here at Richmond, which is carried to such an
excess of privacy and economy, that the Queen's friseur waits on
them at dinner, and that four pounds only of beef are allowed for
their soup, disgusts all sorts of people. The drawing-rooms are
abandoned: Lady Buckingham(659) was the only woman there on
Sunday se'nnight. The Duke of York was commanded home. They
stopped his remittances,(660) and then were alarmed on finding he
still was somehow or other supplied with money. The two next
Princes(661) are at the Pavilions at Hampton Court, in very
private circumstances indeed; no household is to be established
for Prince William, who accedes nearer to the malcontents every
day. In short, one hears of nothing but dissatisfaction, which
in the city rises almost to treason.
Mrs. Cornwallis(662) has found that her husband has been
dismissed from the bedchamber this twelvemonth with no notice:
his appointments were even paid; but on this discovery they are
stopped.
You ask about what I had mentioned in the beginning of my letter,
the dissensions in the house of Grafton. The world says they are
actually parted: I do not believe that; but I will tell you
exactly all I know. His grace, it seems, for many months has
kept one Nancy Parsons,(663) one of the commonest creatures in
London, one much liked, but out of date. He is certainly grown
immoderately attached to her, so much, that it has put an end to
all his decorum. She was publicly with him at Ascot races, and
is now in the forest;(664) I do not know if actually in the
house. At first, I concluded this was merely stratagem to pique
the Duchess; but it certainly goes further. Before the Duchess
laid in, she had a little house on Richmond-Hill, whither the
Duke sometimes, though seldom, came to dine. During her month of
confinement, he was scarcely in town at all, nor did he even come
up to see the Duke of Devonshire. The Duchess is certainly gone
to her father. She affected to talk of the Duke familiarly, and
said she would call in the forest as she went to Lord
Ravensworth's. I suspect she is gone thither to recriminate and
complain. She did not talk of returning till October. It was
said the Duke was going to France, but I hear no more of it.
Thus the affair stands, as far as I or your brother, or the
Cavendishes, know; nor have we heard one word from either Duke or
Duchess of any rupture. I hope she will not be so weak as to
part, and that her father and mother will prevent it. It is not
unlucky that she has seen none of the Bedfords lately, who would
be glad to blow the coals. Lady Waldegrave was with her one day,
but I believe not alone.
There was nobody at Park-place but Lord and Lady William
Campbell.(665) Old Sir John Barnard(666) is dead; for other
news, I have none. I beg you will always say a great deal for me
to my lady. As I trouble you with such long letters, it would be
unreasonable to overwhelm her too. You know my attachment to
every thing that is yours. My warmest wish is to see an end of
the present unhappy posture of public affairs, which operate so
shockingly even on our private. If I can once get quit of them,
it will be no easy matter to involve me in them again, however
difficult it may be, as you have found, to escape them. Nobody
is more criminal in my eyes than George Grenville, who had it in
his power to prevent what has happened to your brother. Nothing
could be more repugnant to all the principles he has ever most
avowedly and publicly professed--but he has opened my eyes--such
a mixture of vanity and meanness, of falsehood(667) and
hypocrisy, is not common even in this country! It is a
ridiculous embarras after all the rest, and yet you may conceive
the distress I am under about Lady Blandford,(668) and the
negotiations I am forced to employ to avoid meeting him there,
which I am determined not to do.
I shall be able, when I see you, to divert you with some
excellent stories of a principal figure on our side; but they are
too long and too many for a letter, especially of a letter so
prolix as this. Adieu, my dear lord!
(651) A small island, also called Tortuga, near St. Domingo, of
which a French squadron had dispossessed some English settlers.
This proceeding was, however, immediately disavowed by the
French, and orders were immediately despatched for restitution
and compensation to the sufferers. We can easily gather from Mr.
Walpole's own expressions why this affair was raised into such
momentary importance.-C.
(652) Thomas Bouldby, Esq. and his lady, sister of the first Duke
of Montagu, of the second creation.-E.
(653) Dr. George Stone.
(654) see ant`e, p. 332, letter 218.
(655) This affair is creditable to all the parties. When General
Conway was turned out, Mr Walpole placed all his fortune at his
disposal, in a very generous letter (p. 316, letter 205). This
induced Mr. Walpole to think of economy, and to state in a former
letter (p. 332, letter 218) some apprehension as to his
circumstances; in reply to which, Lord Hertford, who had already
made a similar proposition to General Conway, now offers to place
Mr. Walpole above the pecuniary difficulties which he
apprehended.-C.
(656) Colonel Fletcher of the 35th foot.-E.
(657) Not very surprising, however, as London would have been
about eighty miles round.-C.
(658) The following is a passage from a letter written by Mr.
Pitt to the Duke of Newcastle, in October, in reply to one of
these overtures:--"As for my single self, I purpose to continue
acting through life upon the best convictions I am able to form,
and Under the obligation of principles, not by the force of any
particular bargains. I presume not to judge for those who think
they see daylight to serve their country by such means: but shall
continue myself, as often as I think it worth the while to go to
the House of Commons, to go there free from stipulation-, about
every question under consideration, as well as to come out of the
House as free as I entered it. Having seen the close of last
session, and the system of that great war, in which my share of
the ministry was so largely arraigned, given up by silence in a
full House, I have little thoughts of beginning the world again
upon a new centre of union. Your grace will not, I trust, wonder
if, after so recent and so strange a phenomenon in politics, I
have no disposition to quit the free condition of a man standing
single, and daring to appeal to his country at large, upon the
soundness of his principles and the rectitude of his conduct."
See Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 296.-E.
(659) Mary Anne Drury, wife Of John, second Earl of
Buckinghamshire.-E.
(660) Mr. Walpole gives an unfair turn to this circumstance. The
stopping the Duke of York's remittances, and ordering him home,
was a measure of prudence, not to say of necessity, for that
young Prince's extravagance abroad had made a public clamour; so
much so, that a popular preacher delivered, about this time, a
sermon on the following text:--"The younger son gathered all
together, and took his journey into a far country, and there
wasted his substance with riotous living." St. Luke, xv. 13. The
letters and even the publications of the day allude to this
extravagance, and surely it was the duty of his brother and
sovereign to repress an indiscretion which occasioned such
observations.-C.
(661) William, created, in November, 1764, Duke of Gloucester;
and Henry created, in 1766, Duke of cumberland. The injustice of
mr. Walpole's insinuations will be evident, when it is
remembered that, at the date of this letter, the eldest of these
Princes was but twenty, and the other eighteen years of age, and
that they were both created Dukes, and had households established
for them as soon as they respectively came of age-C.
(662) Mary, daughter of Charles, second Viscount Townshend, wife
of Edward, sixth son of the third Lord Cornwallis. I suspect
that here again Mr. Walpole's accusation is not correct. General
Cornwallis had been groom of the bedchamber to George II., and
was continued in the same office by the successor, till he was
appointed Governor of Gibraltar, when Mr. Henry Seymour was
appointed in his room.-C.
(663) This scandal has been immortalized by Junius.-C.
(664) At Wakefield Lodge, in Whittlebury Forest,
Northamptonshire.-E.
(665) Lord William, brother of General Conway's lady, and third
brother of the fifth Duke of Argyle; his wife was Sarah, daughter
of W. Teard, Esq. of Charleston.-E.
(666) Father of the city, which he had represented in six
parliaments. He had been a very leading member of the House of
Commons, and was much deferred to on all matters of commerce.-C.
(667) See ant`e, p. 272, letter 188.
(668) Maria Catherine de Jonge, a Dutch Lady, widow of William
Godolphin, Marquis of Blandford, and sister of Isabella Countess
of Denbigh; they were near neighbours and intimate acquaintances
of Mr. Walpole's.@.
Letter 221 To The Right Hon. William Pitt.(669)
Arlington Street, Aug. 29, 1764. (page 343)
Sir,
As you have always permitted me to offer you the trifles printed
at my press, I am glad to have one to send you of a little more
consequence than some in which I have had myself too great a
share. The singularity of the work I now trouble you with is
greater merit than its rarity; though there are but two hundred
copies, of which only half are mine.(670) If it amuses an hour
or two of your idle time, I am overpaid. My greatest ambition is
to pay that respect which every Englishman owes to your character
and services; and therefore you must not wonder if an
inconsiderable man seizes every opportunity, however awkwardly,
of assuring you, Sir, that he is Your most devoted, etc.
(669) Now first collected.
(670) The Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. See ant`e, p. 329,
letter 214.-E.
Letter 222 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 29, 1764. (page 343)
Dear sir,
Among the multitude of my papers I have mislaid, though not lost,
the account you was so good as to give me of your ancestor Toer,
as a painter. I have been hunting for it to insert it in the new
edition of my Anecdotes. It is not very reasonable to save
myself trouble at the expense of yours; but perhaps you can much
sooner turn to your notes, than I find your letter. Will you be
so good as to send me soon all the particulars you recollect of
him. I have a print of Sir Lionel Jenkins from his painting.
I did not send you any more orange flowers, as you desired; for
the continued rains rotted all the latter blow: but I had made a
vast potpourri, from whence you shall have as much as you please,
when I have the pleasure of seeing you here, which I should be
glad might be in the beginning of October, if it suits your
convenience. At the same time you shall have a print of Lord
Herbert, which I think I did not send you.
P. S. I trust you will bring me a volume or two of your MSS. of
which I am most thirsty.
Letter 223 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
September 1, 1764. (page 344)
I send you the reply to the Counter-address;(671) it is the
lowest of all Grub-street, and I hear is treated so. They have
nothing better to say, than that I am in love with you, have been
so these twenty years, and am no giant. I am a very constant old
swain: they might have made the years above thirty; it is so long
I have the same unalterable friendship for you, independent of
being near relations and bred up together. For arguments, so far
from any new ones, the man gives up or denies most of the former.
I own I am rejoiced not only to see how little they can defend
themselves, but to know the extent of their malice and revenge.
They must be sorely hurt, to be reduced to such scurrility. Yet
there is one paragraph, however, which I think is of George
Grenville's own inditing. It says, "I flattered, solicited, and
then basely deserted him." I no more expected to hear myself
accused of flattery, than of being in love with you; but I shall
not laugh at the former as I do at the latter. Nothing but his
own consummate vanity could suppose I had ever stooped to flatter
him! or that any man was connected with him, but who was low
enough to be paid for it. Where has he one such attachment?
You have your share too. The miscarriage at Rochfort now
directly laid at your door! repeated insinuations against your
courage. But I trust you will mind them no more than I do,
excepting the flattery, which I shall not forget, I promise them.
I came to town yesterday on some business, and found a case.
When I opened it, what was there but my Lady Ailesbury's most
beautiful of all pictures!(672) Don't imagine I can think it
intended for me: or that, if it could be so, I would hear of such
a thing. It is far above what can be parted with, or accepted.
I am serious--there is no letting such a picture, when one has
accomplished it, go from where one can see it every day. I
should take the thought equally kind and friendly, but she must
let me bring it back, if I am not to do any thing else with it,
and it came by mistake. I am not so selfish as to deprive her of
what she must have such pleasure in seeing. I shall have more
satisfaction in seeing it at Park-place; where, in spite of the
worst kind of malice, I shall persist in saying my heart is
fixed. They may ruin me, but no calumny shall make me desert
you. Indeed your case would be completely cruel, if it was more
honourable for your relations and friends to abandon you than to
stick to you. My option is made, and I scorn their abuse as much
as I despise their power.
I think of coming to you on Thursday next for a day or two,
unless your house is full, or you hear from me to the contrary.
Adieu! Yours ever.
(671) A pamphlet written by Mr. Walpole, in answer to another,
called ,An Address to the Public on the late Dismissal of a
General Officer."
(672) A landscape executed in worsteds by Lady Ailesbury. It is
now at Strawberry Hill.
Letter 224 To The Rev. Dr. Birch.
September 3, 1764. (page 345)
Sir,
I am extremely obliged to you for the favour of your letter, and
the enclosed curious one of Sir William Herbert. It would have
made a very valuable addition to Lord Herbert's Life, which is
now too late; as I have no hope that Lord Powis will permit any
more to be printed. There were indeed so very few, and but half
of those for my share, that I have not it in my power to offer
you a copy, having disposed of my part. It is really a pity that
so singular a curiosity should not be public; but I must not
complain, as Lord Powis has been so good as to indulge my request
thus far. I am, Sir, Your much obliged humble servant, H. W.
Letter 225 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 5, 1764. (page 345)
My dear lord,
Though I wrote to you but a few days ago, I must trouble you with
another line now. Dr. Blanchard, a Cambridge divine, and who has
a good paternal estate in Yorkshire, is on his travels, which he
performs as a gentleman; and, therefore, wishes not to have his
profession noticed. He is very desirous of paying his respects
to you, and of being countenanced by you while he stays at Paris.
It will much oblige a particular friend of mine, and consequently
me, if you will favour him with your attention. Every body
experiences your goodness, but in the present case I wish to
attribute it a little to my request.
I asked you about two books, ascribed to Madame de Boufflers. if
they are hers, I should be glad to know where she found, that
Oliver Cromwell took orders and went over to Holland to fight the
Dutch. As she has been on the spot where he reigned (which is
generally very strong evidence), her countrymen will believe her
in spite of our teeth; and Voltaire, who loves all anecdotes that
never happened, because they prove the manners of the times, will
hurry it into the first history he publishes. I, therefore,
enter my caveat against it; not as interested for Oliver's
character, but to save the world from one more fable. I know
Madame de Boufflers will attribute this scruple to my partiality
to Cromwell (and, to be sure, if we must be ridden, there is some
satisfaction when the man knows how to ride). I remember one
night at the Duke of Grafton's, a bust of Cromwell was produced:
Madame de Boufflers, without uttering a syllable, gave me the
most speaking look imaginable, as much as to Say, Is it possible
you can admire this man! Apropos: I am sorry to say the reports
do not cease about the separation,(673) and yet I have heard
nothing that confirms it.
I once begged you to send me a book in three volumes, called
"Essais sur les Moeurs;" forgive me if I put you in mind of it,
and request you to send me that, or any other new book. I am
wofully in want of reading, and sick to death of all our
political stuff; which, as the Parliament is happily at the
distance of three months, I would fain forget till I cannot help
hearing of it. I am reduced to Guicciardin, and though the
evenings are so long, I cannot get through one of his periods
between dinner and supper. They tell me Mr. Hume has had sight
of King James's journal:(674) I Wish I could see all the trifling
passages that he will not deign to admit into history. I do not
love great folks till they have pulled off their buskins and put
on their slippers, because I do not care sixpence for what they
would be thought, but for what they are.
Mr. Elliot brings us woful accounts of the French ladies, of the
decency of their conversation, and the nastiness of their
behaviour.
Nobody is dead, married, or gone mad, since my last. Adieu!
P. S. I enclose an epitaph on Lord Waldegrave, written by my
brother,(675) which I think you will like, both for the
composition and the strict truth of it.
Arlington Street, Friday evening.
I was getting into my postchaise this morning with this letter in
my pocket, and Coming to town for a day or two, when I heard the
Duke of Cumberland was dead: I find it is not so. he had two
fits yesterday at Newmarket, whither he would go. The Princess
Amelia, who had observed great alteration in his speech,
entreated him against it. He has had too some touches of the
gout, but they were gone off, or might have prevented this
attack. I hear since the fits yesterday, which are said to have
been but slight, that his leg is broken out, and they hope will
save him. Still, I think, one cannot but expect the worst.
The letters yesterday, from Spa, give a melancholy account of the
poor Duke of Devonshire as he cannot drink the waters they think
of removing him; I suppose, to the baths at Aix-la-Chapelle; but
I look on his case as a lost one. There's a chapter for
moralizing! but five-and-forty, with forty thousand pounds
a-year and happiness wherever he turned him! My reflection is,
that it is folly to be unhappy at any thing, when felicity itself
is such a phantom.
(673) Of the Duke and Duchess of Grafton.-E.
(674) Since published, under the generous patronage of George the
Third, by Dr. Clarke, his Majesty's librarian. The work is,
however, not what Mr. Walpole contemplated: it is not a journal
of private feelings, interests, and actions, but a relation
rather of public affairs; and though the notes of James II. were
undoubtedly the foundation of the work, it was, in truth, written
by another hand, and that too a hand the least likely to have
given us the kind of memoirs which Mr. Walpole justly thinks
would have been so valuable. When an eminent person writes his
own memoirs, we have, at least, the motives which he thinks it
creditable to assign to his conduct--he has, generally the
candour of vanity, and even when he has not that candour, he is
sometimes blinded into discovering truth unawares; but nothing
can be more futile and fastidious than the meagre notes of the
original actor, fresh woven and discoloured by the hands of an
obsequious servant, who conceals all the facts he cannot explain,
and all the motives he cannot justify. Such memoirs resemble the
real life as the skeleton does the living man.-C.
(675) Sir Edward Walpole, K.B., second son of Sir Robert, and the
father of Ladies Dysart and Waldegrave, and Mrs. Keppel.-E.
Letter 226 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 5, 1764. (page 347)
It is over with us!--if I did not know your firmness, I would
have prepared you by degrees; but you are a man, and can hear the
worst at once. The Duke of Cumberland is dead. I have heard it
but this instant. The Duke of Newcastle was come to breakfast
with me, and pulled out a letter from Lord Frederick, with a
hopeless account of the poor Duke of Devonshire. Ere I could
read it, Colonel Schutz called at the door and told my servant
this fatal news! I know no more--it must be at Newmarket, and
very sudden; for the Duke of Newcastle had a letter from Hodgson,
dated on Monday, which said the Duke was perfectly well, and his
gout gone:--Yes, to be sure, into his head. Princess Amelia had
endeavoured to prevent his going to Newmarket, having perceived
great alteration in his speech, as the Duke of Newcastle had.
Well! it will not be. Every thing fights against this country!
Mr. Pitt must save it himself--or, what I do not know whether he
will not like as well, share in overturning its liberty--if they
will admit him; -which I question now if they will be fools
enough to do.
You see I write in despair. I am for the whole, but perfectly
tranquil. We have acted with honour, and have nothing to
reproach ourselves with. We cannot combat fate. We shall be
left almost alone; but I think you will no more go with the
torrent than I will. Could I have foreseen this tide of ill
fortune, I would have done just as I have done; and my conduct
shall show I am satisfied I have done right. For the rest, come
what come may, I am perfectly prepared and while there is a free
spot of earth upon the globe, that shall be my country. I am
sorry it will not be this, but to-morrow I shall be able to laugh
as usual. What signifies what happens when one is
seven-and-forty, as I am to-day!
"They tell me 'tis my birthday"--but I will not go on with
Antony, and say
----"and I'll keep it
With double pomp of sadness."
No. when they can smile, who ruin a great country'. sure those
who would have saved it may indulge themselves in that
cheerfulness which conscious integrity bestows. I think I shall
come to you next week; and since we have no longer any plan of
operations to settle, we will look over the map of Europe, and
fix upon a pleasant corner for our exile--for take notice, I do
not design to fall upon my dagger, in hopes that some Mr. Addison
a thousand years hence may write a dull tragedy about me. I will
write my own story a little more cheerfully than he would; but I
fear now I must not print it at my own press. Adieu! You was a
philosopher before you had any occasion to be so: pray continue
so; you have ample occasion! Yours ever, H. W.
Letter 227 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 13, 1764. (page 348)
Lord John Cavendish has been so kind as to send me word of the
Duke of Devonshire's(676) legacy to you.(677) You cannot doubt
of the great joy this gives me; and yet it serves to aggravate
the loss of so worthy a man! And when I feel it thus, I am
sensible how much more it will add to your concern, instead of
diminishing it. Yet do not wholly reflect on your misfortune.
You might despise the acquisition of five thousand pounds simply;
but when that sum is a public testimonial to your virtue, and
bequeathed by a man so virtuous, it is a million. Measure it
with the riches of those who have basely injured you, and it is
still more! Why, it is glory, it is conscious innocence, it is
satisfaction--it is affluence without guilt--Oh! the comfortable
sound! It is a good name in the history of these corrupt days.
There it will exist, when the wealth of your and their country's
enemies will be wasted, or will be an indelible blemish on their
descendants.
My heart is full, and yet I will say no more. My best loves to
all your opulent family. Who says virtue is not rewarded in this
world? It is rewarded by virtue, and it is persecuted by the
bad. Can greater honour be paid to it?
(676) William, fourth Duke of Devonshire. During his
administration in Ireland, Mr. Conway had been secretary of state
there. He died at Spa on the 2d of October.-E.
(677) The legacy was contained in the following codicil, written
in the Duke's own hand. "I give to General Conway five thousand
pounds as a testimony of my friendship to him, and of my sense of
his Honourable conduct and friendship for me."-E.
Letter 228 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 29, 1764. (page 348)
I am glad you mentioned it: I would not have had you appear
without your close mourning for the Duke of Devonshire upon any
account. I was once going to tell you of it, knowing your
inaccuracy in such matters; but thought it still impossible you
should be ignorant how necessary it is. Lord Strafford, who has
a legacy of only two hundred pounds, wrote to consult Lady
Suffolk. She told him, for such a sum, which only implies a
ring,, it was sometimes not done but yet advised him to mourn.
In your case it is indispensable; nor can you see any of his
family without it. Besides it is much better on such an occasion
to over, than under do. I answer this paragraph first, because I
am so earnest not to have you blamed.
Besides wishing to see you all, I have wanted exceedingly to come
to you, having much to say to you; but I am confined here, that
is, Mr. Chute is: he was seized with the gout last Wednesday
se'nnight, the day he came hither to meet George Montagu, and
this is the first day he has been out of his bedchamber. I must
therefore put off our meeting till Saturday, when you shall
certainly find me in town.
We have a report here, but the authority bitter bad, that Lord
March is going to be married to Lady Conway. I don't believe it
the less for our knowing nothing of it; for unless their daughter
were breeding, and it were to save her character, neither your
brother nor Lady Hertford would disclose a tittle about it. Yet
in charity they should advertise it, that parents and relations,
if it is so, may lock up all knives, ropes, laudanum, and rivers,
lest it should occasion a violent mortality among his fair
admirers.
I am charmed with an answer I have just read in the papers of a
man in Bedlam, who was ill-used by -,in apprentice because he
Would not tell him why he was confined there. The unhappy
creature said at last, "Because God has deprived me of a blessing
which you never enjoyed." There never was any thing finer or more
moving! Your sensibility will not be quite so much affected by a
story I heard t'other day of Sir Fletcher Norton. He has a
mother--yes, a mother: perhaps you thought that, like that tender
urchin Love,
----duris in cotibus illum
Ismarus, aut Rhodope, aut extremi Garamantes,
Nec nostri generis puerum nec sanguinis edunt.
Well, Mrs. Rhodope lives in a mighty shabby hovel at Preston,
which the dutiful and affectionate Sir Fletcher began to think
not suitable to the dignity of one who has the honour of being
his parent. He cheapened a better, in which were two pictures
which the proprietor valued at threescore pounds. The
attorney(678) insisted on having them for nothing, as fixtures-
-the landlord refused, the bargain was broken off, and the
dowager Madam Norton remains in her original hut. I could tell
you another story which you would not dislike; but as it might
hurt the person concerned, if it was known, I shall not send it
by the post; but will tell you when I see you. Adieu!
(678) Sir Fletcher Norton, afterwards Lord Grantley, had been
appointed attorney-general in the preceding December.-E.
Letter 229 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 1, 1764. (page 350)
I am not only pleased, my dear lord, to have been the first to
announce your brother's legacy to you, but I am glad whenever my
news reach you without being quite stale. I see but few persons
here. I begin my letters without knowing when I shall be able to
fill them, and then am to winnow a little what I hear, that I may
not send you absolute secondhand fables: for though I cannot
warrant all I tell you, I hate to send you every improbable tale
that is vented. You like, as one always does in absence, to hear
the common occurrences of your own country; and you see I am very
glad to be your gazetteer, provided you do not rank my letters
upon any higher foot. I should be ashamed of such gossiping, if
I did not consider it as chatting with you en famille, as we used
to do at supper in Grosvenor-street.
The Duke of Devonshire has made splendid provision for his
younger children; to Lady Dorothy,(679) 30,000 pounds; Lord
Richard and Lord George will have about 4,000 pounds a-year
apiece: for, besides landed estates, he has left them his whole
personal estate without exception, only obliging the present Duke
to redeem Devonshire-house, and the entire collection in it, for
20,000 pounds: he gives 500 pounds to each of his brothers, and
200 pounds to Lord Strafford, with some other inconsiderable
legacies. Lord Frederick carried the garter, and was treated by
the King with very gracious speeches of concern.
The Duke of Cumberland is quite recovered, after an incision of
many inches in his knee. Ranby(680) did not dare to propose that
a hero should be tied, but was frightened out of his senses when
the hero would hold the candle himself, which none of his
generals could bear to do: in the middle of the operation, the
Duke said, "Hold!" Ranby said, "For God's sake, Sir, let me
proceed now--it will be worse to renew it." The Duke repeated, "I
say hold!" and then calmly bade them give Ranby a clean waistcoat
and cap; for, said he, the poor man has sweated through these.
It was true; but the Duke did not utter a groan.
Have you heard that Lady Susan O'Brien's is not the last romance
of the sort? Lord Rockingham's youngest sister, Lady
Harriot,(681) has stooped even lower than a theatric swain, and
married her footman; but still it is you Irish(682) that commit
all the havoc. Lady Harriot, however, has mixed a wonderful
degree of prudence with her potion, and considering how plain she
is, has not, I think, sweetened the draught too much for her
lover: she settles a single hundred pound a-year upon him for his
life; entails her whole fortune on their children, if they have
any; and, if not, on her own family; nay, in the height of the
novel, provides for a separation, and insures the same pin-money
to Damon, in case they part. This deed she has vested out of her
power, by sending it to Lord Mansfield,(683) whom she makes her
trustee; it is drawn up in her own hand, and Lord Mansfield says
is as binding as any lawyer could make it. Did one ever hear of
more reflection in a delirium! Well, but hear more: she has
given away all her clothes, nay, and her ladyship, and says,
linen gowns are properest for a footman's wife, and is gone to
his family in Ireland, plain Mrs. Henrietta Surgeon. I think it
is not clear that she is mad, but I have no doubt but Lady
Bel(684) will be so who could not digest Dr. Duncan, nor even Mr.
Milbank.
My last told you of my sister's promotion.(685) I hear she is to
be succeeded at Kensington by Miss Floyd, who lives with Lady
Bolingbroke; but I beg you not to report this till you see it in
a Gazette of better authority than mine, who have it only from
fame and Mrs. A. Pitt.
I have not seen M. de Guerchy yet, having been in town but one
night since his return. You are very kind in accepting, on your
own account, his obliging expressions about me: I know no
foundation on which I should like better to receive them,: the
truth is he has distinguished me extremely, and when a person in
his situation shows much attention to a person so very
insignificant as I am, one is apt to believe it exceeds common
compliment: at least, I attribute it to the esteem which he could
not but see I conceived for him. His civility is so natural, and
his good nature so strongly marked, that I connected much more
with him than I am apt to do with new acquaintances. I pitied
the various disgusts he received, and I believe he saw I did. If
I felt for him, you may judge how much I am concerned that you
have your share. I foresaw it was unavoidable, from the swarms
of your countrymen that flock to Paris, and generally the worst
part; boys and governors are woful exports. I saw a great deal
of it when I lived with poor Sir Horace Mann at Florence-but you
have the whole market. We are a wonderful people-I would not be
our King,(686) our minister, or our ambassador, for the Indies.
One comfort, however, I can truly give you; I have heard their
complaints, if they have any, from nobody but yourself. Jesus!
if they are not content now, I wish they knew how the English
were received at Paris twenty years ago--why, you and I know they
were not received at all. Ay, and when the fashion of admiring
English is past, it will be just so again; and very reasonably-
-who would open their house to every staring booby from another
country?
Arlington Street, Nov. 3.
I came to town to-day to meet your brother, who is going to
Euston and Thetford,(687) and hope he will bring back a good
account of the domestic history,(688) of which we can learn
nothing authentic. Fitzroy(689) knows nothing. The town says
the Duchess is going thither.
We have been this evening with Duchess Hamilton,(690) who is
arrived from Scotland, visibly promising another Lord Campbell.
I shall take this opportunity of seeing M. de Guerchy, and that
opportunity, of sending this letter, and one from your brother.
Our politics are all at a stand. The Duke of Devonshire's death,
I concluded, would make the ministry all powerful, all
triumphant, and all insolent. It does not appear to have done
so. They are, I believe, extremely ill among themselves, and not
better in their affairs foreign or domestic. The cider counties
have instructed their members to join the minority. The house of
Yorke seems to have laid aside their coldness and irresolution,
and to look towards opposition. The unpopularity of the court is
very great indeed--still I shall not be surprised if they
maintain their ground a little longer.
There is nothing new in the way of publication: the town itself'
is still a desert. I have twice passed by Arthur's(691) to-day,
and not seen a chariot.
Hogarth is dead, and Mrs. Spence, who lived with the Duchess of
Newcastle.(692) She had saved 20,000 pounds which she leaves to
her sister for life, and after her, to Tommy Pelham. Ned
Finch(693) has got an estate from an old Mrs. Hatton of 1500
pounds a year, and takes her name.
Adieu! my lord and lady, and your whole et cetera.
(679) Lady Dorothy married, in 1766, the Duke of Portland.-E.
(680) A celebrated surgeon of the day. He was serjeant-surgeon
to the King, and F. R. S.-E.
(681) Lady Henrietta Alicia Wentworth, born in 1737; married Mr.
William Surgeon.-E.
(682) Lord Hertford was an Irish peer; he had besides so large a
fortune there, and paid so much attention to the interests of
that country,, that Mr. Walpole calls him Irish.-C.
(683) Lord Mansfield had married Lady Harriot's aunt.-E.
(684) Lady Isibella Finch, lady of the bedchamber to Princess
Amelia, was Lady Harriot's aunt. The Mr. Milbank here mentioned
had married Lady Mary Wentworth, the elder sister of Lady
Harriot.-C.
(685) From being housekeeper at Kensington Palace, to the same
office at Windsor Castle; but Mr. Walpole is mistaken as to the
name of her successor: it was Miss Roche loyd.-C.
(686) It is due to the character of the King and the ministers,
whom Mr. Walpole so often and so wantonly depreciates, to solicit
the reader's attention to such passages as this, in which he
imputes to others, and therefore implies in himself, an unfair
disposition to criticise and censure.-C.
(687) He was member for Thetford.-E.
(688) Of the Grafton family.-E.
(689) Colonel Charles Fitzroy. See ant`e, p. 261, Letter 185.-E.
(690) Elizabeth Gunning, widow of James, sixth Duke of Hamilton,
and wife, in 1759, of John, fifth Duke of Argyle.-E.
(691) The fashionable club in St. James's Street.-E.
(692) The Duke of Newcastle, in a letter to Mr. Pitt of the 19th
of October, says, "The many great losses, both public and
private, which we have had this summer, have very greatly
affected the Duchess; and the last of all, of her old friend and
companion of above forty-five years, poor Mrs. Spence, has added
much to the melancholy situation in which she was before."
Chatham Correspondence, vol, ii. p. 295.-E.
(693) Edward, fifth son of the sixth Earl of Winchelsea. Mrs.
Hatton was his maternal aunt, sister of the last Viscount
Hatton.-C.
Letter 230 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 8, 1764. (page 352)
I am much disappointed, I own, dear Sir, at not seeing you: more
so, as I fear it will be long before I shall, for I think of
going to paris early in February. I ought indeed to go directly,
as the winter does not agree with me here. Without being
positively ill, I am positively not well: about this time of
year, I have little fevers every night, and pains in my breast
and stomach, which bid me repair to a more flannel climate.
These little complaints are already begun, and as soon as affairs
will permit me, I mean to transport them southward.
I am sorry it is out of my power to make the addition you wish to
Mr. Tuer's article: many of the following sheets are printed off,
and there is no inserting any thing now, without shoving the
whole text forward, which you see is impossible. You promised to
bring me a portrait of him: as I shall have four or five new
plates, I can get his head into one of them: will you send it as
soon as you can possibly to my house in Arlington-street; I will
take great care of it-, and return it to you safe.
Letter 231 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 9, 1764. (page 353)
I don't know whether this letter will not reach you, my dear
lord, before one that I sent to you last week by a private hand,
along with one from your brother. I write this by my Lord
Chamberlain's order--you may interpret it as you please, either
as by some new connexion of the Bedford squadron with the
opposition, or as a commission to you, my lord ambassador. As
yet, I believe you had better take it upon the latter foundation,
though the Duke of Bedford has crossed the country from Bath to
Woburn, without coming to town. Be that as it may, here is the
negotiation intrusted to you. You are desired by my Lord Gower
to apply to the gentilhomme de la chambre for leave for
Doberval(694) the dancer, who was here last year, to return and
dance at our Opera forthwith. If the court of France -will
comply with this request, we will send them a discharge in full,
for the Canada bills and the ransom of their prisoners, and we
will permit Monsieur D'Estain to command in the West Indies,
whether we will or not. The city of London must not know a word
of this treaty, for they hate any mortal should be diverted but
themselves, especially by any thing relative to harmony. It is,
I own, betraying my country and my patriotism to be concerned in
a job of this kind. I am sensible that there is not a weaver in
Spitalfields but can dance better than the first performer in the
French Opera; and yet, how could I refuse this commission? Mrs.
George Pitt delivered it to me just now, at Lord Holderness's at
Sion, and as my virtue has not yet been able to root out all my
good-breeding--though I trust it will in time--I could not help
promising that I would write to you--nay, and engaged that you
would undertake it. When I venture, sure you may, who are out of
the reach of a mob!
I believe this letter will go by Monsieur Beaumont. He
breakfasted here t'other morning, and pleased me exceedingly: he
has great spirit and good-humour. It is incredible what pains he
has taken to see. He has seen Oxford, Bath, Blenheim, Stowe,
Jews, Quakers, Mr. Pitt, the Royal Society, the Robinhood, Lord
Chief-Justice Pratt, the Arts-and-Sciences, has dined at
Wildman's, and, I think, with my Lord Mayor, or is to do.
Monsieur de Guerchy is full of your praises; I am to go to
Park-place with him next week, to make your brother a visit.
You know how I hate telling you false news: all I can do, is to
retract as fast as I can. I fear I was too hasty in an article I
sent you in my last, though I then mentioned it only as a report.
I doubt, what we wish in a private family(695) will not be
exactly the event.
The Duke of Cumberland has had a dangerous sore-throat, but is
recovered. In one of the bitterest days that could be felt, he
would go upon the course at Newmarket with the windows of his
landau down. Newmarket-heath, at no time of the year, is placed
under the torrid zone. I can conceive a hero welcoming death, or
at least despising it; but if I was covered with more laurels
than a boar's head at Christmas, I should hate pain, and Ranby,
and an operation. His nephew of York has been at Blenheim, where
they gave him a ball, but did not put themselves to much expense
in dancers; the figurantes were the maid-servants. You will not
doubt my authority, when I tell you my Lady Bute was my
intelligence. I heard to-day, at Sion, of some bitter verses
made at Bath, on both their graces of Bedford. I have not seen
them, nor, if I had them, would I send them to you before they
are in print, which I conclude they will be, for I am sorry to
say, scandalous abuse is not the commodity which either side is
sparing of. You can conceive nothing beyond the epigrams which
have been in the papers, on a pair of doves and a parrot that
Lord Bute has sent to the Princess.(696)
I hear-but this is another of my paragraphs that I am far from
giving you for sterling--that Lord Sandwich is to have the Duke
of Devonshire's garter; Lord Northumberland stands against Lord
Morton,(697) for president of the Royal Society, in the room of
Lord Macclesfield. As this latter article will have no bad
consequences if it should prove true, you may believe it. Earl
Poulet is dead, and Soame, who married Mrs. Naylor's sister.
You will wonder more at what I am going to tell you in the last
place: I am preparing, in earnest, to make you a visit-not next
week, but seriously in February. After postponing it for seven
idle months, you will stare at my thinking of it just after the
meeting Of the Parliament. Why, that is just one of my principal
reasons. I will stay and see the opening and one or two
divisions; the minority will be able to be the majority, or they
will not: if they can, they will not want me, who want nothing of
them: if they cannot, I am sure I can do them no good, and shall
take my leave of them;--I mean always, to be sure, if things do
not turn on a few votes: they shall not call me a deserter. In
every other case, I am so sick of politics, which I have long
detested, that I must bid adieu to them. I have acted the part
by your brother that I thought right. He approves what I have
done, and what I mean to do; so do the few I esteem, for I have
notified my intention; and for the rest of the world, they may
think what they please. In truth, I have a better reason, which
would prescribe my setting out directly, if it was consistent
with my honour. I have a return of those nightly fevers and
pains in my breast, which have come for the three last years -,it
this season: change of air and a better climate are certainly
necessary to me in winter. I shall thus indulge my inclinations
every way. I long to see you and my Lady Hertford, and am
wofully sick of the follies and distractions of this country, to
which I see no end, come what changes will! Now, do you wonder
any longer at my resolution? In the mean time adieu for the
present!
(694) D'Auberval was not only a celebrated dancer, but a composer
of ballets.@.
(695) The reconciliation of the Duke and Duchess of Grafton.-E.
(696) The Princess Dowager of Wales.
(697) Lord Morton was elected.
Letter 232 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
November 10, 1764. (page 355)
Soh! madam, you expect to be thanked, because you have done a
very obliging thing.(698) But I won't thank you, and I won't be
obliged. It is very hard one can't come into your house and
commend any thing, but you must recollect it and send it after
one! I will never dine in your house again; and, when I do, I
will like nothing; and when I do, I will commend nothing; and
when I do, you shan't remember it. You are very grateful indeed
to Providence that give you so good a memory, to stuff it with
nothing but bills of fare of what every body likes to eat and
drink! I wonder you are not ashamed! Do you think there is no
such thing as gluttony of the memory?--You a Christian! A pretty
account you will be able to give of yourself!-Your fine folks in
France may call this friendship and attention, perhaps--but sure,
if I was to go to the devil, it should be for thinking of nothing
but myself, not of others, from morning to night. I would send
back your temptations; but, as I will not be obliged to you for
them, verily I shall retain them to punish you; ingratitude being
a proper chastisement for sinful friendliness. Thine in the
spirit, Pilchard Whitfield.
(698) Lady Hervey, it is supposed, had sent Mr. Walpole some
potted pilchards.
Letter 233 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 25, 1764. (page 356)
Could you be so kind, my dear lord, as to recollect Dr.
Blanchard, after so long an interval. It will make me still more
cautious of giving recommendations to you, instead of drawing
upon the credit you give me. I saw Mr. Stanley last night at the
Opera, who made his court extremely to me by what he said of you.
It was our first opera, and I went to town to hear Manzoli,(699)
who did not quite answer my expectation, though a very fine
singer, but his voice has been younger, and wants the touching
tones of Elisi.(700) However, the audience was not so nice, but
applauded him immoderately, and encored three of his songs. The
first woman was advertised for a perfect beauty, with no voice;
but her beauty and voice are by no means so unequally balanced:
she has a pretty little small pipe, and only a pretty little
small person, and share of beauty, and does not act ill. There
is Tenducci, a moderate tenor, and all the rest intolerable. If
you don't make haste and send us Doberval, I don't know what we
shall do. The dances were not only hissed, as truly they
deserved to be, but the gallery, `a la Drury-lane, cried out, ,
Off! off!" The boxes were empty, for so is the town, to a degree.
The person,(701) who ordered me to write to you for Dobeval, was
reduced to languish in the Duchess of Hamilton's box. My
Duchess(702) does not appear yet--I fear.
Shall I tell you any thing about D'Eon? it is sending coals to
Paris: you must know his story better than me; so in two words
Vergy, his antagonist, is become his convert:(703) has wrote for
him and sworn for him,--nay, has made an affidavit before Judge
Wilmot, that Monsieur de Guerchy had hired him to stab or poison
D'Eon. Did you ever see a man who had less of an assassin than
your pendant, as Nivernois calls it! In short, the story is as
clumsy, as abominable. The King's Bench cited D'Eon to receive
his sentence: he absconds: that court issued a warrant to search
for him and a house in Scotland-yard, where he lodged, was broken
open, but in vain. If there is any thing more, you know it
yourself. This law transaction is buried in another. The Master
of the Rolls, Sir Thomas Clarke, is dead, and Norton succeeds.
Who do you think succeeds him? his predecessor.(704) The house
of York is returned to the house of Lancaster: they could not
keep their white roses pure. I have not a little suspicion that
disappointment has contributed to this faux-pas. Sir Thomas made
a new will the day before he died, and gave his vast fortune, not
to Mr. Yorke, as was expected, but to Lord Macclesfield, to whom,
it is come out, he was natural brother. Norton, besides the
Rolls, which are for lite, and near 3,000 pounds a-year, has a
pension of 1,200 pounds. Mrs. Anne Pitt, too, has got a third
pension: so you see we are not quite such beggars as you
imagined!
Prince William, you know, is Duke of Gloucester, with the same
appanage as the Duke of York. Legrand(705) is his Cadogan;
Clinton(706) and Ligonier(707) his grooms.
Colonel Crawford is dead at Minorca, and Colonel Burton has his
regiment; the Primate (Stone) is better, but I suppose, from his
distemper, which is a dropsy in his breast, irrecoverable. Your
Irish queen(708) exceeds the English Queen, and follows her with
seven footmen before her chair--well! what trumperies I tell you!
but I cannot help it--Wilkes is outlawed, D'Eon run away, and
Churchill dead--till some new genius arises, you must take up
with the operas, and pensions, and seven footmen. But patience!
your country is seldom sterile long.
George Selwyn has written hither his lamentations about that
Cossack Princess. I am glad of it, for I did but hint it to my
Lady Rervey, (though I give you my word, without quoting you,
which I never do upon the most trifling occurrences,) and I was
cut very short, and told it was impossible. A la bonne heure!
Pray, who is Lord March(709) going to marry? We hear so, but
nobody named. I had not heard of your losses at whisk; but if I
had, should not have been terrified: you know whisk gives no
fatal ideas to any body that has been at Arthur's and seen
hazard, Quinze, and Trente-et-Quarante. I beg you will prevail
on the King of France to let Monsieur de Richelieu give as many
balls and f`etes as he pleases, if it is only for my diversion.
This journey to Paris is the last colt's tooth I intend ever to
cut, and I insist upon being prodigiously entertained, like a
Sposa Monacha, whom they cram with this world for a twelvemonth,
before she bids adieu to it for ever. I think, when I shut
myself up in my convent here, it will not be with the same
regret. I have for some time been glutted with the world, and
regret the friends that drop away every day; those, at least,
with whom I came into the world, already begin to make it appear
a great void. Lord Edgecumbe, Lord Waldegrave, and the Duke of
Devonshire leave a very perceptible chasm. At the Opera last
night, I felt almost ashamed to be there. Except Lady Townshend,
Lady Schaub, Lady Albemarle, and Lady Northumberland, I scarce
saw a creature whose debut there I could not remember: nay, the
greater part were maccaronies. You see I am not likely, like my
brother Cholmondeley (who, by the way, was there too), to totter
into a solitaire at threescore. The Duke de Richelieu(710) is
one of the persons I am curious to see--oh! am I to find Madame
de Boufflers, Princess of Conti? Your brother and Lady Aylesbury
are to be in town the day after to-morrow to hear Manzoli, and on
their way to Mrs. Cornwallis, who is acting l'agonisante; but
that would be treason to Lady Ailesbury. I was at Park-place
last week: the bridge is finished, and a noble object.
I shall come to you as soon as ever I have my cong`e, which I
trust will be early in February. I will let you know the moment
I can fix my time, because I shall beg you to order a small
lodging to be taken for me at no great distance from your palace,
and only for a short time, because, if I should like France
enough to stay some months I can afterwards accommodate myself to
my mind. I should like to be so near you that I could see you
whenever it would not be inconvenient to you, and without being
obliged to that intercourse with my countrymen, which I by no
means design to cultivate. If I leave the best company here, it
shall not be for the worst. I am getting out of the world, not
coming into it, and shall therefore be most indifferent about
their acquaintance, or what they think of my avoiding it. I come
to see you and my Lady Hertford, to escape from politics, and to
amuse myself with seeing, which I intend to do with all my eyes.
I abhor show, am not passionately fond of literati, don't want to
know people for a few months, and really think of nothing but
some comfortable hours with you, and indulging my curiosity.
Excuse almost a page about myself, but it was to tell you how
little trouble I hope to give you.
(699) "Manzoli's voice was the most powerful and voluminous
soprano that had been heard on our stage since the time of
Farinelli; and his manner of singing was grand and full of taste
and dignity. The lovers of music in London were more unanimous
in approving his voice and talents, than those of any other
singer within my memory." Burney.--E.
(700) Elisi, though a great singer, was a still greater actor:
his figure was large and majestic, and he had a great compass of
voice." Ibid.-E.
(701) Probably Mrs. George Pitt.-C.
(702) Of Grafton.
(703) This is altogether a very mysterious affair: M. de Vergy
was the cause of D'Eon's violent behaviour at Lord Halifax's (see
ant`e, p. 254, letter 181,); he afterwards took D'Eon's part, and
had the effrontery and the infamy to say, that he was suborned by
the French ministry to quarrel with and ruin D'Eon.-C.
(704) Mr. Charles Yorke; but we shall see, in the next letter,
that the fact on which all this imputation was built was
false.-C.
(705) Edward Legrand, Esq., treasurer to the Duke of Gloucester;
as the Hon. C. S. Cadogan was to the Duke of York.-E.
(706) Colonel Henry Clinton, afterwards commander-in-chief in
America, and K. B.-E.
(707) Colonel Edward Ligonier, aide-de-camp to the King.-E.
(708) The Countess of Northumberland.-E.
(709) James, third Earl of March, a lord of the bedchamber, who
subsequently, in 1778, succeeded to the dukedom of queensberry,
and was the last of that title.-E.
(710) The celebrated Mareschal Duc de Richelieu: he was born in
1696, and died in 1788. The whole of his long life was full of
adventures so extraordinary as to justify Mr. Walpole's
curiosity. The most remarkable, however, of all, had not at this
period occurred. In the year 1780, and at the age of
eighty-four, he married his third wife, and was severely
afflicted that a miscarriage of the Duchess destroyed his hopes
of another Cardinal de Richelieu; for to that eminence he
destined the child of his age. His biographer adds, that the
Duchess was an affectionate and attentive wife, notwithstanding
that her octogenarian husband tried her patience by reiterated
infidelities.-C.
Letter 234 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Dec. 3, 1764. (page 358)
I love to contradict myself as fast as I can when I have told you
a lie, lest you should take me for a chambermaid, or Charles
Townshend. But how can I help it? Is this a consistent age?
How should I know people's minds, if they don't know them
themselves? In short, Charles Yorke is not attorney-general, nor
Norton master of the rolls. A qualm came across the first, and
my Lord lorn across the second, who would not have Norton in his
court. I cannot imagine why; it is so gentle, amiable, honest a
being! But I think the Chancellor says, Norton does not
understand equity, so he remains prosecutor-general. Yorke would
have taken the rolls, if they would have made it much more
considerable; but as they would not, he has recollected that it
will be clever for one Yorke to have the air of being
disinterested, so he only disgraces himself,(711) and takes a
patent of precedence over the Solicitor-General:--but do not
depend upon this--he was to have kissed hands on Friday, but has
put it off till Wednesday next--between this and that, his Virtue
may have another fit. The court ridicule him even more than the
opposition. What diverts me most, is, that the pious and dutiful
house of Yorke, who cried and roared over their father's memory,
now throw all the blame on him, and say, he forced them into
opposition--amorent nummi expellas furc`a, licet usque
recurret.(712) Sewell(713) is master of the rolls.
Well! I may grow a little more explicit to you; besides, this
letter goes to you by a private hand. I gave you little hints,
to prepare you for the separation of the house of Grafton. It is
so, and I am heartily sorry for it. Your brother is chosen by
the Duke, and General Ellison by the Duchess, to adjust the
terms, which are not yet settled. The Duke takes all on himself,
and assigns no reason but disagreement of tempers. He leaves
Lady Georgina' with her mother, who, he says, is the properest
person to educate her, and Lord Charles, till he is old enough to
be taken from the women. This behaviour is noble and generous--
still I wish they could have agreed!
This is not the only parting that makes a noise. His grace of
Kingston(714) has taken a pretty milliner from Cranborn-alley,
and carried her to Thoresby. Miss Chudleigh, at the Princess's
birthday on Friday, beat her side till she could not help having
a real pain in it, that people might inquire what was the matter;
on which she notified a pleurisy, and that she is going to the
baths of Carlsbad, in Bohemia. I hope she will not meet with the
Bulgares that demolished the Castle of Thundertentronck.(715
y) My Lady Harrington's robbery is at last come to light, and
was committed by the porter,(716) who is in Newgate.
Lady Northumberland (who, by the way, has added an eighth footman
since I wrote to you last) told Me this Morning that the Queen is
very impatient to receive an answer from Lady Hertford, about
Prince George's letters coming through your hands, as she desired
they might.
A correspondence between Legge and Lord Bute about the Hampshire
election is published to-day, by the express desire of the
former, When he was dying.(717) He showed the letters to me in
the spring, and I then did not-think them so strong or important
as he did. I am very clear it does no honour to his memory to
have them printed now. It implies want of resolution to publish
them in his lifetime, and that he died with more resentment than
I think one should care to own. I would Send them to you, but I
know Dr. Hunter takes care of such things. I hope he will send
you, too, the finest piece that I think has been written for
liberty since Lord Somers. It is called an Inquiry into the late
Doctrine on Libels, and is said to be written by one
Dunning,(718) a lawyer lately started up, who makes a great
noise. He is a sharp thorn in the sides of Lord Mansfield and
Norton, and, in truth, this book is no plaster to their pain. It
is bitter, has much unaffected wit, and is the Only tract that
ever made me understand law.(719) If Dr. Hunter does not send
you these things, I suppose he will convey them himself, as I
hear there will be a fourteenth occasion for him. Charles
Fitzroy says, Lord Halifax told Mrs. Crosby that you are to go to
Ireland. I said he l(nows you are not the most communicative
person in the world, and that you had not mentioned it--nor do I
now, by way of asking impertinent questions; but I thought you
would like to know what was said.
I return to Strawberry Hill to-morrow, but must return on
Thursday, as there is to be something at the Duke of York's that
evening, for which I have received a card. He and his brother
are most exceedingly civil and good-humoured--but I assure you
every place is like one of Shakspeare's plays:--Flourish, enter
the Duke of York, Gloucester, and attendants. Lady Irwin(720)
died yesterday.
Past eleven.
I have just come from a little impromptu ball at Mrs. Ann Pitt's.
I told you she had a new pension, but did I tell you it was five
hundred pounds a year? It was entertaining to see the Duchess of
Bedford and Lady Bute with their respective forces, drawn up on
different sides of the room; the latter's were most numerous. My
Lord Gower seemed very willing to promote a parley between the
two armies. It would have made you shrug up your shoulders at
dirty humanity, to see the two Miss Pelhams sit neglected,
without being asked to dance. You may imagine this could not
escape me, who have passed through the several grradations in
which Lady Jane Stuart and Miss Pelham are and have been; but I
fear poor Miss Pelham feels hers a little more than ever I
did.(721) The Duke of York's is to be a dinner and a ball for
Princess Amelia.
Lady Mary Bowlby(722) gave me a commission, a genealogical one,
from my Lady Hertford, which I will execute to the best of my
power. I am glad my part is not to prove eighteen generations Of
nobility for the Bruces. I fear they have made some
mes-alliances since the days of King Robert-at least, the present
Scotch nobility are not less apt to go into Lombard-street than
the English.
My Lady Suffolk was at the ball; I asked the Prince of Masserano
whom he thought the oldest woman in the room, as I concluded he
would not guess she was. He did not know my reason for asking,
and would not tell me. At last, he said very cleverly, his own
wife.
Mr. Sarjent has sent me this evening from Les Consid`erations sur
les Moeurs," and "Le Testament Politique,"(723) for which I give
you, my dear lord, a thousand thanks. Good night!
P.S. Manzoli(724) has come a little too late, or I think he would
have as many diamond watches and snuff-boxes as Farinelli.
(711) We can venture to state, that there never was any idea of
Mr. Yorke's accepting the rolls; and it is believed that they
never were offered to him; certainly, be himself never thought of
taking that office. The patent of precedence which he did
accept, was an arrangement, which, though convenient for the
conduct of the business in court, could give no addition of
either rank or profit to a person in Mr. Yorke's circumstances.
The facts were as follow: when Mr. Yorke, in 1756, was made
solicitor-general, he was not a King's counsel; he succeeded to
be attorney-general, but on his resignation in October 1763, he
lost the precedence which his offices had given him, and he
returned to the outer bar and a stuff gown. It was a novel and
anomalous sight to see a man who had led the Chancery bar so
long, and filled the greatest office of the law, retire to
comparatively, so humble a rank in the court in which he might be
every day expected to preside; and accordingly, on his first
appearance after his resignation, the Chancellor, with the
concurrence (indeed, it has been said on the suggestion) of the
bar, called to Mr. Yorke, out of his turn, next after the King's
counsel: this irregular pre-audience had lasted above a year,
when it was thought more proper and more convenient for the
business of the court to give Mr. Yorke that formal patent of
precedence, the value and circumstances of which Mr Walpole so
much misunderstands. We have heard from old lawyers, that Mr.
Yorke's business at this period was more extensive and less
lucrative than any other man ever possessed in Chancery, and we
find no less than four other barristers had at this time patents
of precedence.-C.
(712) The reader is requested to look back to p. 272, letter 188,
where he will find Mr. Walpole himself stating--long before Lord
Hardwickc's death, and even before his illness--that "the old
Chancellor was violent against the court, and that Mr. Charles
Yorke had resigned, contrary to his own; and Lord Royston's
inclination." The fact was in no way true; for it is well known
that there never was the slightest difference of opinion between
the old Lord Hardwicke and his son Charles upon their political
conduct.-C.
(713) Sir Thomas Sewell, Knight.-E.
(714) Evelyn, last Duke of Kingston: he soon after married Miss
Chudleigh, who was supposed to have been already married to Mr.
Augustus Hervey, afterwards Earl of Bristol.-C.
(715) An allusion to a loose incident in Voltaire's Candide.
(716) See ant`e, p. 260, letter 184.
(717) Mr. Legge had, in 1759, while chancellor of the exchequer
to George II. been requested by Lord Bute, in the name of the
Prince of Wales, to pledge himself to support a Mr. Stuart at the
next election for Hampshire: this Mr. Legge, for very sufficient
reasons, refused to do; and for this refusal (as he thought, and
wished to persuade the public) he was turned out of office at the
accession of the young King.-C.
(718) Mr. Dunning soon rose into great practice and eminence; in
1767 he was made solicitor-general, which office he held till
1770. He then made a considerable figure in the opposition, till
the accession to the ministry, in 1782, of his friend Lord
Shelburne, when he was created Lord Ashburton; he died next
year.-C.
(719) Mr. Dunning's pamphlet was intituled "Inquiry into the
Doctrine lately propagated concerning Juries, Libels, etc. upon
the principles of the Law and the Constitution." Gray, in a
letter to Walpole of the 30th, thus characterizes it:--"Your
canonical book I have been reading with great satisfaction. He
speaketh as one having authority. If Englishmen have any
feeling, methinks they must feel now; and if the ministry have
any feeling (Whom nobody will suspect of insensibility) they must
cut off the author's ears; for if is in all the forms a most
wicked libel. Is the old man and the lawyer put on, or is it
real? or has some real lawyer furnished a good part of the
materials, and another person employed them? This I guess."
Works, vol. iv. p. 40.-E.
(720) Anne Howard, daughter of the third Earl of Carlisle, and
widow of the third Viscount Irwin. She was lady of the
bedchamber to the Princess Dowager. Mr. Park has introduced her
into his edition of the Noble Authors.-C.
(721) Mr. Walpole means that he was courted during his father's
power, and neglected after his fall, as the daughters of a
succeeding prime minister, Mr. Henry Pelham, now were; but as
Lady Jane Stuart was but two-and-twenty years old, and Miss
Pelham was thirty-six, we may account for the preference given to
her ladyship at a ball, without any reference to the meanness and
political time-serving of mankind. Both the Misses Pelham died
unmarried.-C.
(722) Sister of the Duke of Montagu.
(723) A French forgery called "Le Testament Politique du
Chevalier Robert Walpole," of which Mr. Walpole drew up an
exposure, which is to be found in the second volume of his
works.-C.
(724) The enthusiasm, however, ran pretty high, as we learn from
the following passage, in one of the periodical papers of the
day:--"Signor Manzoli, the Italian singer at the Haymarket, got
no less, after paying all charges of every kind, by his benefit
last week (March, 1765), than 1000 guineas. This added to a sum
of 1,500 which he has already saved, and the remaining profits of
the season, is surely an undoubted proof of British generosity.
One particular lady complimented the singer with a 200 pound bill
for a ticket on that occasion."-C.''
Letter 235 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 16, 1764. (page 362)
As I have not read in the paper that you died lately at
Greatworth, in Northamptonshire, nor have met with any Montagu or
Trevor in mourning, I conclude you are living: I send this,
however, to inquire, and if you should happen to be departed,
hope your executor will be so kind as to burn it. Though you do
not seem to have the same curiosity about my existence, you may
gather from my handwriting that I am still in being; which being
perhaps full as much as you want to know of me, I will trouble
you with no farther particulars about myself--nay, nor about any
body else; your curiosity seeming to be pretty much the same
about all the world. News there are certainly none; nobody is
even dead, as the Bishop of Carlisle told me to-day, which I
repeat to you in general, though I apprehend in his own mind he
meant no possessor of a better bishopric.
If you like to know the state of the town, here it is. In the
first place, it is very empty; in the next, there are more
diversions than the week will hold. A charming Italian opera,
with no dances and no company, at least on Tuesdays; to supply
which defect, the subscribers are to have a ball and supper--a
plan that in my humble opinion will fill the Tuesdays and empty
the Saturdays. At both playhouses are woful English operas;
which, however, fill better than the Italian, patriotism being
entirely confined to our ears: how long the sages of the law may
leave us those I cannot say. Mrs Cornelis, apprehending the
future assembly at Almack's, has enlarged her vast room, and hung
it with blue satin, and another with yellow satin; but Almack's
room, which is to be ninety feet long, proposes to swallow up
both hers, as easy as Moses's rod gobbled down those Of the
magicians. Well, but there are more joys; a dinner and assembly
every Tuesday at the Austrian minister's; ditto on Thursdays at
the Spaniard's; ditto on Wednesdays and Sundays at the French
ambassador's; besides Madame de Welderen's on Wednesdays, Lady
Harrington's Sundays, and occasional private mobs at my lady
Northumberland's. Then for the mornings, there are lev`ees and
drawing-rooms without end. Not to mention the maccaroni-club,
which has quite absorbed Arthur's; for you know old fools will
hobble after young ones. Of all these pleasures, I prescribe
myself a very small pittance,--my dark corner in my own box at
the Opera, and now and then an ambassador, to keep my French
going till my journey to Paris. Politics are gone to sleep, like
a paroli at pharaoh, though there is the finest tract lately
published that ever was written, called an Inquiry into the
Doctrine of Libels. It would warm your old Algernon blood; but
for what any body cares, might as well have been written about
the wars of York and Lancaster. The thing most in fashion is my
edition of Lord Herbert's Life; people are mad after it, I
believe because only two hundred were printed; and, by the
numbers that admire it, I am convinced that if I had kept his
lordship's counsel, very few would have found out the absurdity
of it. The caution with which I hinted at its extravagance, has
passed with several for approbation, and drawn on theirs. This
is nothing new to me; it is when one laughs out at their idols
that one angers people. I do not wonder now that Sir Philip
Sydney was the darling hero, when Lord Herbert, who followed him
so close and trod in his steps, is at this time of day within an
ace of rivalling him. I wish I had let him; it was contradicting
one of my own maxims, which I hold to be very just; that it is
idle to endeavour to cure the world of any folly, unless We Could
cure it of being foolish.
Tell me whether I am likely to see you before I go to Paris,
which will be early in February. I hate you for being so
indifferent about me. I live in the world, and yet love nothing,
care a straw for nothing, but two or three old friends, that I
have loved these thirty years. You have buried yourself with
half a dozen parsons and isquires, and Yet never cast a thought
upon those you have always lived with. You come to town for two
Months, grow tired in six weeks, hurry away, and then one hears
no more of you till next winter. I don't want you to like the
world, I like it no more than you; but I stay awhile in it,
because while one sees it one laughs at it, but when one gives it
up one grows angry with it; and I hold it to be much wiser to
laugh than to be out of humour. You cannot imagine how much ill
blood this perseverance has cured me of; I used to say to myself,
"Lord! this person is so bad, that person is so bad, I hate
them." I have now found out that they are all pretty much alike,
and I hate nobody. Having never found you out, but for integrity
and sincerity, I am much disposed to persist in a friendship with
you; but if I am to be at all the pains of keeping it up, I shall
imitate my neighbours (I don't mean those at next door, but in
the Scripture sense of my neighbour, any body,) and say "That is
a very good man, but I don't care a farthing for him." Till I
have taken my final resolution on that head, I am yours most
cordially.
Letter 236 To George Montagu, Esq.
Christmas-eve, 1764. (page 364)
You are grown so good, and I delight so much in your letters when
you please to write them, that though it is past midnight, and I
am to go out of town tomorrow morning, I must thank you.
I shall put your letter to Rheims into the foreign post with a
proper penny, and it will go much safer and quicker than if I
sent it to Lord Hertford, for his letters lie very often till
enough are assembled to compose a jolly caravan. I love your
good brother John, as I always do, for keeping your birthday; I,
who hate ceremonious customs, approve of what I know comes so
much from the heart as all he and you do and say. The General
surely need not ask leave to enclose letters to me.
There is neither news, nor any body to make it, but the clergy,
who are all gaping after or about the Irish mitre,(725) which
your old antagonist has quitted. Keene has refused it; Newton
hesitates, and they think will not accept it; Ewer pants for it,
and many of the bench I believe do every thing but pray for it.
Goody Carlisle hopes for Worcester if it should be vacated, but I
believe would not dislike to be her Grace.
This comes with your muff, my Anecdotes of Painting, the fine
pamphlet on libels, and the Castle of Otranto, which came out
to-day. All this will make some food for your fireside. Since
you will not come and see me before I go, I hope not to be gone
before you come, though I am not quite in charity with you about
it. Oh! I had forgot; don't lend your Lord Herbert, it will grow
as dirty as the street; and as there are so few, and They have
been so lent about, and so dirtied, the few clean copies will be
very valuable. What signifies whether they read it or not?
there will be a new bishop, or a new separation, or a new
something or other, that will do just as well, before you can
convey your copy to them; and seriously, if you lose it, I have
not another to give you; and I would fain have you keep my
editions together, as you had the complete set. As I want to
make you an economist of my books, I will inform you that this
second' set of Anecdotes sells for three guineas. Adieu!
P. S. I send you a decent smallish muff, that you may put in your
pocket, and it costs but fourteen shillings.
(7250 Dr. John Stone, Archbishop of Armagh and primate of all
Ireland, died on the 19th of December 1764.-E.
Letter 237 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Jan. 10, 1765. (page 364)
I should prove a miserable prophet or almanac maker, for my
predictions are seldom verified. I thought the present session
likely to be a very supine one, but unless the evening varies
extremely from the morning, it will be a tempestuous day--and yet
it was a very southerly and calm wind that began the hurricane.
The King's Speech was so tame, that, as George Montagu said of
the earthquake, you might have stroked it.(726) Beckford (whom I
certainly did not mean by the gentle gale) touched on
Draper'S(727) Letter about the Manilla money. George Grenville
took up the defence of the Spaniards, though he said he only
stated their arguments. This roused your brother, who told
Grenville he had adopted the reasoning of Spain; and showed the
fallacy of their pretensions. He exhorted every body to support
the King's government, "which I," said he, "ill-used as I have
been, wish and mean to support-not that of ministers, when I see
the laws and independence of Parliament struck at in the most
profligate manner." You may guess how deeply this wounded.
Grenville took it to himself, and asserted that his own life and
character were as pure, uniform, and little profligate as your
brother's. The silence of the House did not seem to ratify this
declaration. Your brother replied with infinite spirit, that he
certainly could not have meant Mr. Grenville, for he did not take
him for the minister-(I do not believe this was the least
mortifying part)--that he spoke of public acts that were in every
body's mouth, as the warrants, and the disgrace thrown on the
army by dismissions for parliamentary reasons; that for himself
he was an open enemy, and detested men who smiled in his face and
stabbed him I do not believe he meant this personally, but
unfortunately the whole House applied it to Mr. Grenville's
grimace); that for his own disgrace, he did not know where to
impute it, for every minister had disavowed it. It was to the
warrants, he said, he owed what had happened; he had fallen for
voting against them, but had he had ten regiments, he would have
parted with them all to obey his conscience; that he now could
fall no lower, and would speak as he did then, and would not be
hindered nor intimidated from speaking the language of
Parliament. Grenville answered, that he had never avowed nor
disavowed the measure of dismissing Mr. Conway--(he disavowed it
to Mr. Harris,)(728) that he himself had been turned out for
voting against German connexions; that he had never approved
inquiring into the King's prerogative on that head-(I can name a
person who can repeat volumes of what he has said on the
subject,) and that the King had as much right to dismiss military
as civil officers, and then drew a ridiculous parallel betwixt
the two, in which he seemed to give himself the rank of a civil
lieutenant-general. This warmth was stopped by Augustus Hervey,
who spoke to order, and called for the question; but young T.
Townshend confirmed, that the term profligacy was applied by all
mankind to the conduct on the warrants. It was not the most
agreeable circumstance to Grenville, that Lord Granby closed the
debate, by declaring how much he disapproved the dismission of
officers for civil reasons, and the more, as he was persuaded it
would not prevent officers from acting according to their
consciences; and he spoke of your brother with many encomiums.
Sir W. Meredith then notified his intention of taking up the
affair of the warrants on Monday se'nnight. Mr. Pitt was not
there, nor Lord Temple in the House of Lords; but the latter is
ill. I should have told you that Lord Warkworth(729) and Thomas
Pitt(730) moved our addresses; as Lord Townshend and Lord
Botetourt did those of the Lords. Lord Townshend said, though it
was grown unpopular to praise the King, yet he should, and he was
violent against libels; forgetting that the most ill-natured
branch of them, caricatures, his own invention, are left off.
Nobody thought it worth while to answer him, at which he was much
offended.
So much for the opening of Parliament, which does not promise
serenity. Your brother is likely to make a very great figure:
they have given him the warmth he wanted, and may thank
Themselves for it. Had Mr. Grenville taken my advice, @e had
avoided an opponent that he will find a tough one, and must
already repent having drawn upon him.
With regard to yourself, my dear lord, you may be sure I did not
intend to ask you any impertinent question. You requested me to
tell you whatever I heard said about you; you was talked of for
Ireland, and are still; and Lord Holland within this week told
me, that you had solicited it warmly. Don't think yourself under
any obligation to reply to me on these occasions. It is to
comply with your desires that I repeat any thing I hear of you,
not to make use of them to draw any explanation from you, to
which I have no title; nor have I, you know, any troublesome
curiosity. I mentioned Ireland with the same indifference that I
tell you that the town here has bestowed Lady Anne,(731) first on
Lord March, and now on Stephen Fox(732)--tattle not worth your
answering.
You have lost another of your Lords Justices, Lord Shannon, of
whose death an account came yesterday.
Lady Harrington's porter was executed yesterday, and went to
Tyburn with a white cockade in his hat, as an emblem of his
innocence.
All the rest Of My news I exhausted in my letter to Lady Hertford
three days ago. The King's Speech, as I told her it was to do,
announced the contract between Princess Caroline(733) and the
Prince Royal of Denmark. I don't think the tone the session has
taken will expedite my visit to you; however, I shall be able to
judge when a few of the great questions are over. The American
affairs are expected to occasion much discussion; but as I
understand them no more than Hebrew, they will throw no
impediment in my way. Adieu! my dear lord; you will probably
hear no more politics these ten days. Yours ever, Horace
Walpole.
Friday.
The debate on the warrants is put off to the Tuesday; therefore,
as it will probably be so long a day, I shall not be able to give
you an account of it till this day fortnight.
(726) Gray, in a letter to Dr. Wharton, written in July 1764, in
giving an account of an illness, says, "Towards the end of my
confinement, during which I lived on nothing, came, the gout in
one foot, but so tame you might have stroked it." To this
passage, the learned editor of the last edition of his works has
sub-joined this note:--"I have mentioned several coincidences of
thought and expression of this kind in the letters of Gray and
Walpole, which I conceived to be a kind of common property; the
reader, indeed, will recognise much of that species of humour
which distinguishes Gray's correspondence in the letters of
Walpole, inferior, I think, in its comic force; sometimes
deviating too far from propriety in search of subjects for the
display of its talent, and not altogether free from affectation."
Vol. iv. p. 33.-E.
(727) Sir William Draper, K.B. best known by his controversy with
Junius. The letter here alluded to was entitled, "An Answer to
the Spanish Arguments for Refusing the Payment of the Ransom
Bills."-E.
(728) General Conway's brother-in-law.-E.
(729) Afterwards Duke of Northumberland-E.
(730) Afterwards Lord Camelford.-E.
(731) ant`e, p. 299, letter 196.
(732) Second son of the first Earl of Ilchester-E.
(733) The unhappy Queen of Denmark, who was afterwards divorced
and exiled.-E.
Letter 238 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Sunday, Jan. 20, 1765. (page 367)
Do you forgive me, if I write to you two or three days sooner
than I said I would. Our important day on the warrants is put
off for a week, in compliment to Mr. Pitt's gout--can it resist
such attention I shall expect in it a prodigious quantity of
black ribands. You have heard, to be sure, of the great fortune
that is bequeathed to him by a Sir William Pynsent, an old man of
near ninety, who quitted the world on the peace of Utrecht; and,
luckily for Mr. Pitt, lived to be as angry with its pendant, the
treaty of Paris. I did not send you the first report, which
mounted it to an enormous sum: I think the medium account is two
thousand pounds a-year, and thirty thousand pounds in money.
This Sir William Pynsent, whose fame, like an aloe, did not blow
till near an hundred, was a singularity. The scandalous
chronicle of Somersetshire talks terribly of his morals(734)
*****. Lady North was nearly related to Lady Pynsent, which
encouraged Lord North to flatter himself that Sir William's
extreme propensity to him would recommend even his wife's
parentage for heirs; but the uncomeliness of Lady North, and a
vote my lord gave against the Cider-bill, offended the old
gentleman so much, that he burnt his would-be heir in effigy.
How will all these strange histories sound at Paris!
This post, I suppose, will rain letters to my Lady Hertford. on
her death and revival. I was dreadfully alarmed at it for a
moment; my servant was so absurd as to wake me, and bid me not be
frightened--an excellent precaution! Of all moments, that between
sleeping and waking is the most subject to terror. I started up,
and my first thought was to send for Dr. Hunter; but, in two
minutes, I recollected that it was impossible to be true, as your
porter had the very day before been with me to tell me a courier
was arrived from you, was to return that evening. Your poor son
Henry, whom you will doat upon for it, was not tranquillized so
soon. He instantly sent away a courier to your brother, who
arrived in the middle of the night. Lady Milton,(735) Lady
George SackVille,(736) and I, agreed this evening to tell my Lady
Hertford, that we ought to have believed the news, and to have
imputed it to the gaming rakehelly life my lady leads at Paris,
which scandalizes all us prudes, her old friends. In truth, I
have not much right to rail at any body to.- living in a
hurricane. I found myself with a violent cold on Wednesday, and
till then had not once reflected on all the hot and cold climates
I have passed through the day before: I had been at the Duke of
Cumberland's levee; then at the Princess Amelia's drawing-room;
from thence to a crowded House of Commons; to dinner at your
brother's; to the Opera; to Madame Seillern's; to Arthur's; and
to supper at Mrs. George Pitt's;--it is scandalous; but, who does
less? The Duke looked much better than I expected; is gone to
Windsor, and mends daily.
It was Lady Harcourt's(737) death that occasioned the confusion,
and our dismay. She died at a Colonel Oughton's; such a small
house, that Lord Harcourt has been forced to take their family
into his own house. Poor Lady Digby(738) is dead too, of a
fever, and was with child. They were extremely happy, and -her
own family adored her. My sister has begged me to ask a favour,
that will put you to a little trouble, though only for a moment.
It is, if you will be so good to order one of your servants when
you have done with the English newspapers, to put them in a
cover, and send them to Mr. Churchill, au Chateau de Nubecourt,
pr`es de Clermont, en Argone; they cannot get a gazette that does
not cost them six livres.
Monday evening.
We have had a sort of a day in the House of Commons. The
proposition for accepting the six hundred and seventy thousand
pounds for the French prisoners passed easily. Then came the
Navy: Dowdeswell, in a long and very sensible speech, proposed to
reduce the number of sailors to ten thousand. He was answered
by--Charles Townshend--oh! yes!--are you surprised? Nobody here
was: no, not even at his assertion, that he had always applauded
the peace, though the whole House and the whole town knew that,
on the Preliminaries, he came down prepared to speak against
them; but that on Mr. Pitt's retiring, he plucked up courage, and
spoke for them. Well, you want to know what place he is to have-
-so does he too. I don't want to know what place, but that he
has some one; for I am sure he will always do most hurt to the
side on which he professes to be; consequently, I wish him with
the administration, and I wish so well to both sides, that I
would have him more decried, if that be possible, than he is.
Colonel Barr`e spoke against Dowdeswell's proposal, though not
setting himself up at auction, like Charles, nor friendly to the
ministry, but temperately and sensibly. There was no division.
You know my opinion of Charles Townshend is neither new nor
singular. When Charles Yorke left us,(739) I hoped for this
event, and my wish then slid into this couplet:
To The Administration.
One Charles, who ne'er was ours, you've got-'tis true:
To make the grace complete, take t'other too.
The favours I ask of them, are not difficult to grant. Adieu! my
dear lord. Yours ever, H. W.
Tuesday, 4 o'clock.
I had sealed my letter and given it to my sister, who sets out
to-morrow, and will put it into the post at Calais; but having
received yours by the courier from Spain, I must add a few words.
You may be sure I shall not mention a tittle of what you say to
me. Indeed, if you think it necessary to explain to me, I shall
be more cautious Of telling you what I hear. If I had any
curiosity, I should have nothing to do but to pretend I had heard
some report, and so draw from you what you might not have a mind
to mention: I do tell you when I hear any, for your information,
but insist on your not replying. The vice-admiral of America is
a mere feather; but there is more substance in the notion of the
Viceroy's quitting Ireland. Lord Bute and George Grenville are
so ill together, that decency is scarce observed between their
adherents: and the moment the former has an opportunity or
resolution enough, he will remove the latter, and place his
son-in-law(740) in the treasury. This goes so far, that Charles
Townshend, who is openly dedicated to Grenville, may possibly
find himself disappointed, and get no place at last. However, I
rejoice that we have got rid of him. It will tear up all
connexion between him and your brother, root and branch: a
circumstance you will not be more sorry for than I am. In the
mean time, the opposition is so staunch that, I think, after the
three questions on Warrants, DismisSion of officers, and the
Manilla-money, I shall be at liberty to come to you, when I shall
have a great deal to tell you. If Charles Townshend gets a
place, Lord George Sackville expects another, by the same
channel, interest, and connexion; but if Charles may be
disappointed himself, what may a man be who trusts to him?
Adieu!
(734) The original contains an imputation against Sir W. Pynsent,
which, if true, would induce us to suspect him of a disordered
mind.-C.
(735) Lady Caroline Sackville, daughter of the Duke of Dorset,
married, in 1742, to the first Lord Milton.-E.
(736) Diana, second daughter of J. Sambrook, Esq.-E.
(737) Rebecca, daughter of Charles Le Bas, Esq., wife of the
first Earl of Harcourt.-E.
(738) Elizabeth Fielding, niece to the fourth Earl of Denbigh,
and wife of Henry, first Lord Digby.-E.
(739) It is remarkable enough, that the epigram which Mr. Walpole
thus introduces, admits that Charles Yorke had never joined them,
and therefore could not be said to have left them.-C.
(740) There is some obscurity here: Lord Warkworth (afterwards
Duke of Northumberland), who had lately married Lord Bute's third
daughter, was, at this period, a very young man, little known but
for his attachment to his profession--the army, and the idea of
his being placed at the head of the treasury must have been
absurd. His father, Lord Northumberland, indeed, had been spoken
of for that office: and, perhaps, Mr. Walpole, in his
epigrammatic way, has taken this mode of explaining the motive
which might have induced Lord Bute to advance his son-in-law's
father.-C.
Letter 239 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Jan. 27, 1765. (page 370)
The brother of your brother's neighbour, Mr. Freeman, who is
going to Paris, and I believe will not be sorry to be introduced
to you, gives me an opportunity which I cannot resist, of sending
you a private line or two, though I wrote you a long letter,
which my sister was to put into the post at Calais two or three
days ago.
We had a very remarkable day on Wednesday in the House of
Commons--very glorious for us, and very mortifying to the
administration, especially to the principal performer, who was
severely galled by our troops, and abandoned by his own. The
business of the day was the Army, and, as nothing was expected,
the House was not full. The very circumstance of nothing being
expected, had encouraged Charles Townshend to soften a little
what had passed on Monday; he grew profuse of' his whispers and
promises to us, and offered your brother to move the question on
the Dismission of officers: the debate began; Beckford fell foul
on the dismissions, and dropped some words on America. Charles,
who had placed himself again under the wing of Grenville, replied
on American affairs; but totally forgot your brother. Beckford,
in his boisterous Indian style, told Charles, that on a single
idea he had poured forth a diarrhoea of words. He could not
stand it, and in two minutes fairly stole out of the House. This
battery being dismounted, the whole attack fell on Grenville, and
would have put you in mind of former days. You never heard any
minister worse treated than he was for two hours together, by
Tommy Townshend, Sir George Saville, and George Onslow--and what
was worse, no soul stepped forth in his defence, but Rigby and
Lord Strange, the latter of whom was almost as much abashed as
Charles Townshend; conscience flew in his black face, and almost
turned it red. T. Townshend was still more bitter on Lord
Sandwich, whom he called a profligate fellow--hoped he was
present,(741) and added, if he is not, I am ready to call him so
to his face in any private company: even Rigby, his accomplice,
said not a word in behalf of his brother culprit. You will
wonder how all this ended--what would be the most ridiculous
conclusion to such a scene'! as you cannot imagine, I will tell
you. Lord Harry Paulet(742) telling Grenville, that if Lord
Cobham was to rise from the dead, he would, if he could be
ashamed of any thing, be ashamed of him; by the way, every body
believes he meant the apostrophe stronger than he expressed it:
Grenville rose in a rage, like a basket-woman, and told Lord
harry that if he chose to use such language, he knew where to
find him. Did you ever hear of a prime minister, even soi-disant
tel, challenging an opponent, when he could not answer him? Poor
Lord Harry, too, was an unfortunate subject to exercise his
valour upon! The House interposed; Lord Harry declared he should
have expected Grenville to breakfast with him next morning;
Grenville explained off and on two or three times, the Scotch
laughed, the opposition roared, and the treasury-bench sat as
mute as fishes. Thus ended that wise Hudibrastic encounter.
Grenville however, attended by every bad omen, provoked your
brother, who had not intended to speak, by saying that some
people had a good opinion of the dismissed officers, others had
not. Your brother rose, and surpassed himself: he was very warm,
though less so than on the first day; very decent in terms, but
most severe in effect; he more than hinted at the threats that
had been used to him--said he would not reveal what was improper;
yet left no mortal in the dark on that head. He called on the
officers to assert their own freedom and independence. In short,
made such a speech as silenced all his adversaries, but has
filled the whole town with his praises: I believe, as soon as his
speech reaches Hayes, it will contribute extremely to expel the
gout, and bring Mr. Pitt to town, lest his presence should be no
longer missed. Princess Amelia told Me the next night, that if
she had heard nothing of Mr. Conway's speech, she should have
known how well he had done by my spirits. I was not sorry she
made this reflection, as I knew she would repeat it to Lady
(Betty) Waldegrave; and as I was willing that the Duchess of
Bedford, who, when your brother was dismissed, asked the Duchess
of Grafton if she was not sorry for poor Mr. Conway, who has lost
every thing, should recollect that it is they who have cause to
lament that dismission, not we.
There was a paragraph in Rigby's speech, and taken up, and
adopted by Goody Grenville, which makes much noise, and, I
suppose, has not given less offence; they talked of "arbitrary
Stuart principles," which are supposed to have been aimed at the
Stuart favourite: that breach is wider than ever: not one of Lord
Bute's adherents have opened their lips this session. I conclude
a few of them will be ordered to speak on Friday; but unless we
go on too triumphantly and reconcile them, I think this session
will terminate Mr. Grenville's reign, and that of the Bedfords
too, unless they make great submissions.
Do you know that Sir W. Pynsent had your brother in his eye! He
said to his lawyer, "I know Mr. Pitt is much younger than I but
he has very bad health: as you will hear it before me, if he dies
first, draw up another will with mr. Conway's name instead of Mr.
Pitt's, and bring it down to me directly." I beg Britannia's
pardon, but I fear I could have supported the loss on these
grounds.
A very unhappy affair happened last night at the Star and Garter;
Lord Byron(743) killed a Mr. Chaworth there in a duel. I know
none of the particulars, and never believe the first reports.
My Lady Townshend was arrested two days ago in the street, at the
suit of a house painter, who, having brought her a bill double
the estimate he had given in, she would not pay it. As this is a
breach of Privilege, I should think the man would hear of it.
There is no date set for our intended motion on the Dismission of
officers; but, I believe, Lord John Cavendish and Fitzroy will be
the movers and seconders. Charles Townshend, we conclude, Will
be very ill that day; if one could pity the poor toad, one
should: there is jealousy of your brother,--fear of your
brother,--fear of Mr. Pitt,--influence of his own brother,--
connexions entered into both with Lord Bute and Mr. Grenville,
and a trimming plan concerted with Lord George Sackville and
Charles Yorke, all tearing him or impelling him a thousand ways,
with the addition of his own vanity and irresolution, and the
contempt of every body else. I dined with him yesterday at Mr.
Mackinsy's, where his whole discourse was in ridicule of George
Grenville.
The enclosed novel(744) is much in vogue; the author is not
known, but if you should not happen to like it, I could give you
a reason why you need not say so. There is nothing else now, but
a play called the Matonic Wife, written by an Irish Mrs.
Griffiths, Which in charity to her was suffered to run three
nights.(745)
Since I wrote my letter, the following, is the account nearest
the truth that I can learn of the fatal duel last night: a club
of Nottinghamshire gentlemen had dined at the Star and Garter,
and there had been a dispute between the combatants, whether Lord
Byron, who took no care of his game, or Mr. Chaworth, who was
active in the association, had most game on their manor. The
company, however, had apprehended no consequences, and parted at
eight o'clock; but Lord Byron stepping into an empty chamber, and
sending the drawer for Mr. Chaworth, or calling him hither
himself, took the candle from the waiter, and bidding Mr.
Chaworth defend himself, drew his sword. Mr. Chaworth, who was
an excellent fencer, ran Lord Byron through the sleeve of his
coat, and then received a wound fourteen inches deep into his
body. He was carried to his house in Berkeley-street,--made his
will with the greatest composure, and dictated a paper, which
they say, allows it was a fair duel, and died at nine this
morning. Lord Byron is not gone off, but says he will take his
trial, which, if the Coroner brings in a verdict of manslaughter,
may, according to precedent, be in the House of Lords, and
without the ceremonial of Westminster Hall. George Selwyn is
much missed on this occasion, but we conclude it will bring him
over.(746) I feel for both families, though I know none of
either, but poor Lady Carlisle,(747) Whom I am sure you will
pity.
Our last three Saturdays at the Opera have been prodigious. and a
new opera by Bach(748) last night, was so crowded, that there
were ladies standing behind the scenes during the whole
performance. Adieu! my dear lord: as this goes by a private
hand, you may possibly receive its successor before it.
(741) It seems, from a subsequent letter, that Lord Sandwich was
present. See post, p. 375, letter 240.
(742) Lord Henry Paulet, member for Hampshire, vice-admiral of
the White, brother of the Duke of Bolton; to which dignity he
himself succeeded on the 5th July, 1764.-E.
(743) William, fifth Lord Byron, born in 1722, died in 1798. The
Star and Garter was a tavern in Pall Mall.-C.
(744) His own Castle of Otranto.-E.
(745) It came out at Drury-lane, and was acted six nights. The
hint of it was taken from Marmontel's "Heureux Divorce."
(746) Mr. Selwyn's morbid curiosity after trials and executions
is well known.-C.
(747) Isabella, only sister of Lord Byron, wife of the fourth
Earl of Carlisle.-E.
(748) Adriano in Siria." The expectations of the public the first
night this drama was performed occasioned such a crowd at the
King's theatre as has seldom been seen there before; but whether
from heat or inconvenience, the unreasonableness of expectation,
the composer being Out Of fancy, or too anxious to please, Dr.
Burney says the opera failed, and that every one came out of the
theatre disappointed.-E.
Letter 240 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Feb. 12, 1765. (page 373)
A great many letters pass between us, my dear lord, but I think
they are almost all of my writing. I have not heard from you
this age. I sent you two packets together by Mr. Freeman, with
an account of our chief debates. Since the long day, I have been
much out of order with a cold and cough, that turned to a fever:
I am now taking James's powder, not without apprehensions of the
gout, which it gave me two or three years ago.
There has been nothing of note in Parliament but one slight day
on the American taxes,(749) which Charles Townshend supporting,
received a pretty heavy thump from Barr`e, who is the present
Pitt, and the dread of all the vociferous Norths and Rigbys, on
whose lungs depended so much of Mr. Grenville's power. Do you
never hear them to Paris?
The operations of the opposition are suspended in compliment to
Mr. Pitt, who has declared himself so warmly for the question on
the Dismission of officers, that that motion waits for his
recovery. A call of the house is appointed for next Wednesday,
but as he has had a relapse, the motion will probably be
deferred. I should be very glad if it was to be dropped entirely
for this session, but the young men are warm and not easily
bridled.
If it was not too long to transcribe, I would send you an
entertaining petition(750) of the periwig-makers to the King, in
which they complain that men will wear their own hair. Should
one almost wonder if carpenters were to remonstrate, that since
the peace their trade decays, and that there is no demand for
wooden legs Apropos, my Lady Hertford's friend, Lady Harriot
Vernon,(751) has quarrelled with me for smiling at the enormous
head-gear of her daughter, Lady Grosvenor. She came one night to
Northumberland-house with such a display of friz, that it
literally spread beyond her shoulders. I happened to say it
looked as if her parents had stinted her in hair before marriage,
and that she was determined to indulge her fancy now. This,
among ten thousand things said by all the world, was reported to
Lady Harriot, and has occasioned my disgrace. As she never found
fault with any body herself, I excuse her! You will be less
surprised to hear that the Duchess of Queensberry has not yet
done dressing herself marvellously: she was at court on Sunday in
a gown and petticoat of red flannel. The same day the Guerchys
made a dinner for her, and invited Lord and Lady Hyde,(752) the
Forbes's and her other particular friends: in the morning she
sent word she was to go out of town, but as soon as dinner was
over, arrived at Madame de Guerchy's, and said she had been at
court.
Poor Madame de Seillern, the imperial ambassadress, has lost her
only daughter and favourite child, a young widow of twenty-two,
whom she was expecting from Vienna. The news Came this day
se'nnight; and the ambassador, who is as brutal as she is gentle
and amiable, has insisted on her having company at dinner to-day,
and her assembly as usual. The town says that Lord and Lady
Abergavenny(753) are parted, and that he has not been much milder
than Monsieur de Seillern on the chapter of a mistress he has
taken. I don't know the truth of this; but his lordship's heart,
I believe, is more inflammable than tender.
Lady Sophia Thomas,(754) has begged me to trouble you with a
small commission. It is to send me for her twelve little bottles
of "le Baume de Vie, compos`e par le Sieur Lievre, apoticaire
distillateur du Roi." If George Selwyn or Lord March are not set
out, they would bring it with pleasure, especially as she lives
at the Duke of Queensberry's.
We have not a new book, play, intrigue, marriage, elopement, or
quarrel; in short, we are very dull. For politics, unless the
ministers wantonly thrust their hands into some fire, I think
there will not even be a smoke. I am glad of it, for my heart is
set on my journey to Paris, and I hate every thing that stops me.
Lord Byron's foolish trial is likely to protract the session a
little; but unless there is any particular business, I shall not
stay for a puppet-show. Indeed, I can defend my staying here by
nothing but my ties to your brother. My health, I am sure, would
be better in another climate in winter. Long days in the House
kill me, and weary me into the bargain. The individuals of each
party are alike indifferent to me; nor can I at this time of day
grow to love men whom I have laughed at all my lifetime--no, I
cannot alter;--Charles Yorke or Charles Townshend are alike to
me, whether ministers or patriots. Men do not change in my eyes,
because they quit a black livery for a white one. When one has
seen the whole scene shifted round and round so often, one only
smiles, whoever is the present Polonius or the grave digger,
whether they jeer the Prince, or flatter his frenzy.
Thursday night, 14th.
The new assembly-room at Almack's was opened the night before
last, and they say is very magnificent, but it was empty; half
the town is ill With colds, and many were afraid to go, as the
house is scarcely built yet. Almack advertised that it was built
with hot brick and boiling water--think what a rage there must be
for public places, If this notice, instead of terrifying, could
draw any body thither. They tell me the ceilings were dropping
with wet--but can you believe me, when I assure you the Duke of
Cumberland was there?--Nay, had had a levee in the morning, and
went to the Opera before the assembly! There is a vast flight of
steps, and he was forced to rest two or three times. If he dies
of it--and how should he not?--it will sound very silly when
Hercules or Theseus ask him what he died of, to reply, "I caught
my death on a damp staircase at a new club-room."
Williams, the reprinter of the North Briton, stood in the pillory
to-day in Palace-yard. He went in a hackney-coach, the number of
which was 45. The mob erected a gallows opposite to him, on
which they hung a boot(755) with a bonnet of straw. Then a
collection was made for Williams, which amounted to near 200
pounds.(756) In short, every event informs the administration
how thoroughly they are detested, and that they have not a friend
whom they do not buy. Who can wonder, when every man of virtue
is proscribed, and they have neither parts nor characters to
impose even upon the mob! think to what a government is sunk,
when a Secretary of State is called in Parliament to his face
"the most profligate sad dog in the kingdom,"(757) and not a man
can open his lips in his defence. Sure power must have some
strange unknown charm, when it can compensate for such contempt!
I see many who triumph in these bitter pills which the ministry
are so often forced to swallow; I own I do not; it is more
mortifying to me to reflect how great and respectable we were
three years ago, than satisfactory to see those insulted who have
brought such shame upon us. 'Tis moor amends to national honour
to know, that if a printer is set in the pillory, his country
wishes it was my Lord This, or Mr. That. They will be gathered
to the Oxfords, and Bolingbrokes, and ignominious(758) of former
days; but the wound they have inflicted is perhaps indelible.
That goes to my heart, who had felt all the Roman pride of being
one of the first nations upon earth!--Good night!--I will go to
bed, and dream of Kings drawn in triumph; and then I will go to
paris, and dream I am proconsul there; pray, take care not to let
me be wakened with an account of an invasion having taken place
from Dunkirk!(759) Yours ever, H. W.
(749) The resolutions which were the foundation of the famous
Stamp-act.-E.
(750) The substance of this petition, and the grave answer which
the King was advised to give to such a ludicrous appeal, are
preserved in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1765, p. 95; where also
we learn that Mr. Walpole's idea of the Carpenters' petition was
put in practice, and his Majesty was humbly entreated to wear a
wooden leg himself, and to enjoin all his servants to do the
same. It may, therefore, be presumed that this jeu d'esprit was
from the pen of Mr. Walpole.-C.
(751) Lady Hirriot Wentworth, sister of the last Lord Strafford,
wife of Henry Vernon, Esq., and mother of Lady Grosvenor, whose
intrigue with the Duke of Cumberland made so much noise.-C.
(752) Thomas Villers, second son of Lord Jersey, first Lord Hyde
of his family: his lady was Charlotte, daughter of Lady Jane
Hyde, wife of William Earl of Essex, daughter of Henry, second
Earl of clarendon, and sister of the Duchess of Queensberry.-C.
(753) George, fifteenth Lord Abergavenny; and his lady, Henrieta
Pelham, sister of the first Earl of Chichester: she died in
1768.-E.
(754) Lady Sophia Keppel, daughter of the first Earl of
Albemarle, and wife of Colonel Thomas.-E.
(755) A Jack-boot, in allusion to the Christian name and title of
Lord Bute.-C.
(756) In a blue purse trimmed with orange, the colour of the
revolution, in opposition to the Stuart.-C.
(757) ant`e, p. 370, letter 239.
(758) We might be surprised at finding a person of Mr. Walpole's
taste and judgment, describing Harley and St. John as
ignominious, if we did not recollect, that during their
administration his father had been sent to the Tower, and
expelled the House of commons for alleged official corruptions.
It were to be wished that Mr. Walpole's personal prejudices could
always be traced to so amiable a source.-C.
(759) The demolition of Dunkirk was one of the articles of the
late treaty of peace, on which discussions were still
depending.-C.
Letter 241 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Feb. 19, 1765. (page 376)
Your health and spirits and youth delight me; yet I think you
make but a bad use of them, when you destine them to a triste
house in a country solitude. If you were condemned to
retirement, It would be fortunate to have spirits to support it;
but great vivacity is not a cause for making it one's option.
Why waste your sweetness on the desert air! at least, why bestow
so little of your cheerfulness on your friends? I do not wish
you to parade your rubicundity and gray hairs through the mobs
and assemblies of London; I should think you bestowed them as ill
as on Greatworth; but you might find a few rational creatures
here, who are heartily tired of what are called our pleasures,
and who would be glad to have you in their chimney-corner. There
you might have found me any time this fortnight; I have been
dying of the worst and longest cold I ever had in my days, and
have been blooded, and taken James's powder to no purpose. I
look almost like the skeleton that Frederick found in the
oratory;(760) my only comfort was, that I should have owed my
death to the long day in the House of Commons, and have perished
with Our liberties; but I think I am getting the better of my
martyrdom, and shall live to See you; nay, I shall not be gone to
Paris. As I design that journey for the term of my figuring in
the world, I would fain wind up my politics too, and quit all
public ties together. As I am not old yet, and have an excellent
though delicate constitution, I may promise myself some agreeable
years, if I could detach myself from all connexions, but with a
very few persons that I value. Oh, with what joy I could bid
adieu to loving and hating; to crowds, public places, great
dinners, visits; and above all, to the House of Commons; but pray
mind when I retire, it shall only be to London and Strawberry
Hill--in London one can live as one will, and at Strawberry I
will live as I will. Apropos, my good old tenant Franklin is
dead, and I am in possession of his cottage, which will be a
delightfully additional plaything at Strawberry. I shall be
violently tempted to stick in a few cypresses and lilacs there
before I go to Paris. I don't know a jot of news: I have been a
perfect hermit this fortnight, and buried in Runic poetry and
Danish wars. In short, I have been deep in a late history of
Denmark, written by one Mallet, a Frenchman,(761) a sensible man,
but I cannot say he has the art of making a very tiresome subject
agreeable. There are six volumes, and I am stuck fast in the
fourth.
Lord Byron's trial I hear is to be in May. If you are curious
about it, I can secure you a ticket for Lord Lincoln's gallery.
The Antiquarian Society have got Goody Carlisle(762) for their
president, and I suppose she will sit upon a Saxon chalkstone
till the return of King Arthur. Adieu!
(760) An allusion to the scene in the last chapter of his Castle
of Otranto.- E.
(761) Paul Henry Mallet was born at Geneva in 1731, and was for
some time professor of history in his native city. He afterwards
became professor royal of the belles lettres at Copenhagen. The
introduction to his History of Denmark was afterwards translated
by Dr. Percy, under the title of Northern Antiquities, including
the Edda.-E.
(762) Dr. Charles Lyttelton, Bishop of Carlisle. See ant`e, p.
207, letter 149. On his death, in 1768, he made a very valuable
bequest of manuscripts and printed books to the Society.-E.
Letter 242 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Feb. 28, 1765. (page 377)
Dear sir,
As you do not deal with newspapers, nor trouble Yourselves with
occurrences of modern times, you may perhaps conclude from what I
have told you, and from my silence, that I am in France. This
will tell you that I am not; though I have been long thinking of
it, and still intend it, though not exactly yet. My silence I
must lay on this uncertainty, and from having been much out of
order above a month with a very bad cold and cough, for which I
am come hither to try change of air. Your brother Apthorpe, who
was so good as to call upon me about a fortnight ago in town,
found me too hoarse to speak to him. We both asked one another
the same question--news of you?
I have lately had an accession to my territory here, by the death
of good old Franklin, to whom I had given for his life the lease
of the cottage and garden cross the road. Besides a little
pleasure in planting, and in crowding it with flowers, I intend
to make, what I am sure you are antiquarian enough to approve, a
bower, though your friends the abbots did not indulge in such
retreats, at least not under that appellation: but though we love
the same ages, you must excuse worldly me for preferring the
romantic scenes of antiquity. If you will tell me how to send
it, and are partial enough to me to read a profane work in the
style of former centuries, I shall convey to you a little
story-book, which I published some time ago, though not boldly
with my own name: but it has succeeded so well, that I do not any
longer entirely keep the secret. Does the title, The Castle of
Otranto(763) tempt you? I shall be glad to hear you are well and
happy.
(763) In the first edition of this work, of which but very few
copies were printed, the title ran thus:--"The Castle of Otranto,
a Story, translated by William Marshal, Gent., from the original
Italian of onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the church of St. Nicholas
at Otranto. London: printed for Thomas Lownds, in Fleet Street,
1765."-E.
Letter 243 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, March 9, 1765. (page 378)
Dear sir,
I had time to write but a short note with the Castle of Otranto,
as your messenger called on me at four o'clock, as I was going to
go abroad. Your partiality to me and Strawberry have, I hope,
inclined you to excuse the wildness of the story. You will even
have found some traits to put you in mind of this
place.(764)--When you read of the Picture quitting its
panel,(765) did not you recollect the portrait of Lord Falkland,
all in white, in my gallery? Shall I even confess to you, what
was the origin of this romance! I waked one morning, in the
beginning of last June, from a dream, of which, all I could
recover was, that I had thought myself in an ancient castle, (a
very natural dream for a head filled like mine with Gothic
story,) and that on the uppermost bannister of a great staircase
I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the evening I sat down, and
began to write, without knowing in the least what I intended to
say or relate. The work grew on my hands, and I grew fond of
it--add, that. I was very glad to think of any thing, rather
than politics. In short, I was so engrossed with my tale, which
I completed in less than two months, that one evening, I wrote
from the time I had drunk my tea, about six o'clock, till after
one in the morning when my hand and fingers were so weary, that
I- could not hold my pen to finish the sentence, but left Matilda
and Isabella talking, in the middle of a paragraph. You will
laugh at my earnestness; but if I have amused you by retracing
with any fidelity the manners of ancient days, I am content, and
give you leave to think me as idle as you please.
You are, as you have long been to me, exceedingly kind, and I
should, with great satisfaction, embrace your offer of visiting
the solitude of Bleckely, though my cold is in a manner gone, and
my cough quite, if I was at liberty: but as I am preparing for my
French journey, and have forty businesses upon my hands, and can
only now and then purloin a day, or half a day, to come hither.
You know I am not cordially disposed to your French journey,
which is much more serious, as it is to be much more lasting.
However, though I may suffer by your absence, I would not
dissuade what may suit your inclination and circumstances. One
thing, however, has struck me, which I must mention, though it
would depend on a circumstance, that would give me the most real
concern. It was suggested to me by that real fondness I have for
your MSS. for your kindness about which I feel the utmost
gratitude. You would not, I think, leave them behind you: and
are you aware of the danger you would run, If, you settled
entirely in France? Do You know that the King of France is heir
to all strangers who die in his dominions, by what they call the
Droit d'Aubaine. Sometimes by great interest and favour, persons
have obtained a remission of this right in their lifetime: and
yet that, even that, has not secured their effects from being
embezzled. Old Lady Sandwich(766) had obtained this remission,
and yet, though she left every thing to the present lord, her
grandson, a man for whose rank one should have thought they would
have had regard, the King's officers forced themselves into her
house, after her death, and plundered. You see, if you go, I
shall expect to have your MSS. deposited with me. Seriously, you
must leave them in safe custody behind you.
Lord Essex's trial is printed with the State Trials. In return
for your obliging offer, I can acquaint you with a delightful
publication of this winter, a Collection of Old Ballads and
Poetry, in three volumes, many from Pepys's Collection at
Cambridge.(767) There were three such published between thirty
and forty years ago, but very carelessly, and wanting many in
this set: indeed, there were others, a looser sort,(768) which
the present editor, who is a clergyman, thought it decent to
omit.
When you go into Cheshire, and upon your ramble, may I trouble
you with a commission? but about which you must promise me not to
go a Step Out of your way. Mr. Bateman has got a cloister at Old
Windsor, furnished with ancient wooden chairs, most of them
triangular, but all of various patterns, and carved and turned in
the most uncouth and whimsical forms. He picked them up one by
one, for two, three, five, or six shillings apiece from different
farmhouses in Herefordshire. I have long envied and coveted
them. There may be such in poor cottages, in so neighbouring a
county as Cheshire. I should not grudge any expense for purchase
or carriage; and should be glad even of a couple such for my
cloister here. When you are copying inscriptions in a churchyard
in any village, think of me, and step into the first cottage you
see--but don't take further trouble than that.
I long to know what your bundle of manuscripts from Cheshire
contains.
My bower is determined, but not at all what it is to be. Though
I write romances, I cannot tell how to build all that belongs to
them. Madame Danois, in the Fairy Tales, used to tapestry them
with jonquils; but as that furniture will not last above a
fortnight in the year, I shall prefer something more huckaback.
I have decided that the outside shall be of treillage, which,
however, I shall not commence, till I have again seen some of old
Louis's old-fashioned Galanteries at Versailles. Rosamond's
bower, you, and I, and Tom Hearne know, was a labyrinth:(769) but
as my territory will admit of a very short clew, I lay aside all
thoughts of a mazy habitation: though a bower is very different
from an arbour, and must have more chambers than one. In short,
I both know, and don't know, what it should be. I am almost
afraid I must go and read Spenser, and wade through his
allegories, and drawling stanzas, to get at a picture. But, good
night! you see how one gossips, when one is alone, and at quiet
on one's own dunghill!--Well! it may be trifling; yet it is such
trifling as Ambition never is happy enough to know! Ambition
orders palaces, but it is Content that chats for a page or two
over a bower. Yours ever.
(764) "As, in his model of a Gothic modern mansion, Mr. Walpole
had studiously endeavoured to fit to the purpose of modern
convenience or luxury the rich, varied, and complicated tracery
and carving of the ancient cathedral, so, in the Castle of
Otranto, it was his object to unite the marvellous turn of
incident and imposing tone of chivalry exhibited in the ancient
romance, with that accurate display of human character and
contrast of feelings and passions, which is, or ought to be,
delineated in the modern novel." Sir Walter Scott; Prose Works,
vol. iii. p. 307.-E.
(765) The forms of the grim knight and pictured saint
Look living in the moon; and as you turn
Backward and forward, to the echoes faint
Of your own footsteps--voices from the urn
Appear to wake, and shadows wild and quaint
Start from the frames which fence their aspects stern,
As if to ask how you can dare to keep
A vigil there, where all but death should sleep."
Don Juan, c. xvi. st. 18.-E.
(766) Elizabeth, second daughter of John Wilmot Earl of
Rochester, and sister and co-heiress of Charles third Earl, and
widow of Edward Montagu third Earl of Sandwich, who died 20th of
October, 1729.-E.
(767) Edited by the Rev. Thomas Percy, fellow of St. John's
College, Oxford, and afterwards Bishop of Dromore. "The reviver
of minstrel poetry in Scotland was the venerable Bishop of
Dromore, who, in 1765, published his elegant collection of heroic
ballads, songs, and pieces of early poetry under the title of
'Reliques Of Ancient English Poetry.' The plan of the work was
adjusted in concert with Mr. Shenstone, but we own we cannot
regret that the execution of it devolved upon Dr. Percy alone; of
whose labours, as an editor, it might be said, 'Nihil quod
tetigit non ornavit.'" Sir W. Scott. Prose Works, vol. xvii. P.
120.-E.
(768) The work was entitled "A Collection of Old Ballads,
corrected from the best and most ancient copies extant, with
Introductions, historical, critical, or humorous." Sir Walter
Scott observes, that the editor was an enthusiast in the cause of
old poetry, and selected his matter without much regard to
decency, as will appear from the following singular preface to
one or two indelicate pieces of humour:--"One of the greatest
complaints made by the ladies against the first volume of our
collection, and, indeed, the only one which has reached my ears,
is the want of merry songs. I believe I may give a pretty good
guess at what they call mirth in such pieces as These, and shall
endeavour to satisfy them." Prose Works, vol. xvii. p. 122.-E.
(769) The Bower of Rosamond is said, or rather fabled, to have
been a retreat built at Woodstock by Henry II. for the safe
residence of his mistress, Rosamond Clifford; the approaches of
which were so intricate, that it could not be entered without the
guidance of a thread, which the King always kept in his own
possession. His Queen, Eleanor, having, however, gained
possession of the thread, obtained access to, and speedily
destroyed her fair rival.-E.
Letter 244 To Monsieur Elie De Beaumont.(770)
Strawberry Hill, March 18, 1765. (page 381)
Sir,
When I had the honour of seeing you here, I believe I told you
that I had written a novel, in which I was flattered to find that
I had touched an effusion of the heart in a manner similar to a
passage in the charming letters of the Marquis de Roselle.(771) I
have since that time published my little story, but was so
diffident of its merit, that I gave it as a translation from the
Italian. Still I should not have ventured to offer it to so
great a mistress of the passions as Madame de Beaumont, if the
approbation of London, that is, of a country to which she and
you, Sir, are so good as to be partial, had not encouraged me to
send it to you. After I have talked of the passions, and the
natural effusion-, of the heart, how will you be surprised to
find a narrative of the most improbable and absurd adventures!
How will you be amazed to hear that a country of whose good sense
you have an opinion should have applauded so wild a tale! But
you must remember, Sir, that whatever good sense we have, we are
not yet in any light chained down to precepts and inviolable
laws. All that Aristotle or his superior commentators, your
authors, have taught us, has not yet subdued us to regularity: we
still prefer the extravagant beauties of Shakspeare and Milton to
the cold and well-disciplined merit of Addison, and even to the
sober and correct march of Pope. Nay, it was but t'other day
that we were transported to hear Churchill rave in numbers less
chastised than Dryden's, but still in numbers like Dryden's.(772)
You will not, I hope, think I apply these mighty names to my own
case with any vanity, when it is only their enormities that I
quote, and that in defence, not of myself' but of my countrymen,
who have good-humour enough to approve the visionary scenes and
actors in the Castle of Otranto.
To tell you the truth, it was not so much my intention to recall
the exploded marvels of ancient romance, as to blend the
wonderful of old stories with the natural of modern novels. The
world is apt to wear out any plan whatever; and if the Marquis de
Roselle had not appeared, I should have been inclined to say,
that that species had been exhausted. Madame de Beaumont must
forgive me if I add, that Richardson had, to me at least, made
that kind of writing insupportable. I thought the nodus was
become dignus vindice, and that a god, at least a ghost, was
absolutely necessary to frighten us out of too much senses. When
I had so wicked a design, no wonder if the execution was
answerable. If I make you laugh, for I cannot flatter myself
that I shall make you cry, I shall be content; at least I shall
be satisfied, till I have the pleasure of seeing you, with
putting you in mind of, Sir, your, etc.
P. S. The passage I alluded to in the beginning of my letter is
where Matilda owns her passion to Hippolita. I mention it, as I
fear so unequal a similitude would not strike Madame de Beaumont.
(770) M. Elie de Beaumont was
admitted an advocate at the French bar in 1762. The weakness of
his voice militated against his success as a pleader, but the
beauty and eloquence with which he drew up his M`emoires, and
especially the one in favour of the unfortunate Calas family,
gained him great reputation. He was born in 1732, and died in
1786.-E.
(771) A French epistolary novel written by Madame Elie de
Beaumont. She also wrote the third part of "Anecdotes de la Cour
et du R`egne de Edouard II." She was born at Caen in 1729, and
died in 1783.-E.
(772) "Churchill," observes Mr. Campbell, in his Specimens of the
British Poets, " may be ranked as a satirist immediately after
Pope and Dryden, with perhaps a greater share of humour than
either. He has the bitterness of Pope, with less wit to atone
for it; but no mean share of the free manner and energetic
plainness of Dryden," Vol. vi. P. 5.-E.
Letter 245 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, March 28, 1765. (page 382)
Three weeks are a great while, my dear lord, for me to have been
without writing to you; but besides that I have passed many days
at Strawberry, to cure my cold (which it has done), there has
nothing happened worth sending across the sea. Politics have
dozed, and common events been fast asleep. Of Guerchy's
affair,(773) you probably know more than I do; it is now
forgotten. I told him I had absolute proof of his innocence, for
I was sure, that if he had offered money for assassination, the
men who swear against him would have taken it.
The King has been very seriously ill,; and in great danger. I
would not alarm you, as there were hopes when he was at the
worst. I doubt he is not free yet from his complaint, as the
humour fallen on his breast still oppresses him. They talk of
his having a levee next week, but he has not appeared in public,
and the bills are passed by commission; but he rides out. The
Royal Family have suffered like us mortals; the Duke of
Gloucester has had a fever, but I believe his chief complaint is
of a youthful kind. Prince Frederick is thought to be in a deep
consumption; and for the Duke of Cumberland, next post will
probably certify you of his death, as he is relapsed, and there
are no hopes Of him. He fell into his lethargy again, and when
they waked him, he said he did not know whether he could call
himself obliged to them.
I dined two days ago at Monsieur de Guerchy's, with the Comte de
Caraman,(774) who brought me your letter. He seems a very
agreeable Man, and you may be sure, for Your sake, and Madame de
Mirepoix's, no civilities in my power shall be wanting. I have
not yet seen Schouvaloff,(775) about whom one has more
curiosity--it is an opportunity of gratifying that passion which
one can so seldom do in Personages of his historic nature,
especially remote foreigners. I wish M. de Caraman had brought
the "Siege of Calais,"(776) which he tells me is printed, though
your account has a little abated my impatience. They tell us the
French comedians are to act at Calais this summer--is it possible
they can be so absurd, or think us so absurd as to go thither, if
we would not go further? I remember, at Rheims, they believed
that English ladies went to Calais to drink champagne!--is this
the suite of that belief? I was mightily pleased with the Duc de
Choiseul's answer to the Clairon;(777) but when I hear of the
French admiration of Garrick, it takes off something of my wonder
at the prodigious admiration of him at home. I never could
conceive the marvellous merit of repeating the words of other's
in one's own language with propriety, however well delivered.
Shakspeare is not more admired for writing his plays, than
Garrick for acting them. I think him a very good and very
various player--but several have pleased me more, though I allow
not in so many parts. Quin in Falstaff, was as excellent as
Garrick in Lear. Old Johnson far more natural in every thing he
attempted. Mrs. Porter and your Dumesnil surpassed him in
passionate tragedy; Cibber and O'Brien were what Garrick could
never reach, coxcombs, and men of fashion.(778) Mrs. Clive is at
least as perfect in low comedy--and Yet to me, Ranger was the
part that suited Garrick the best of all he ever performed. He
was a poor Lothario, a ridiculous Othello, inferior to Quin(779)
in Sir John Brute and Macbeth, and to Cibber in Bayes, and a
woful Lord Hastings and Lord Townley. Indeed, his Bayes was
original, but not the true part: Cibber was the burlesque of a
great poet, as the part was designed, but Garrick made it a
Garretteer. The town did not like him in Hotspur, and yet I don't
know whether he did not succeed in it beyond all the rest. Sir
Charles Williams and Lord Holland thought so too, and they were
no bad judges. I am impatient to see the Clairon, and certainly
will, as I have promised, though I have not fixed my day. But do
you know you alarm me! There was a time when I was a match for
Madame de Mirepoix at pharaoh, to any hour of the night, and
believe did play, with her five nights in a week till three and
four in the morning--but till eleven o'clock to-morrow morning-
-Oh! that is a little too much even at loo. Besides, I shall not
go to Paris for pharaoh--if I play all night, how shall I see
every thing all day?
Lady Sophia Thomas has received the Baume de vie, for she gives
you a thousand thanks, and I ten thousand.
We are extremely amused with the wonderful histories of your
hyena(780) in the Gevaudan: but our fox-hunters despise you: it
is exactly the enchanted monster of old romances. If I had known
its history a few months ago, I believe it would have appeared in
the Castle of Otranto,--the success of which has, at last,
brought me to own it, though the wildness of it made me terribly
afraid: but it was comfortable to have it please so much, before
any mortal suspected the author: indeed, it met with too much
honour far, for at first it was universally believed to be Mr.
Gray's. As all the first impression is sold, I am hurrying out
another, with a new preface, which I will send you.
There is not so much delicacy of wit as in M. de Choiseul's
speech to the Clairon, but I think the story I am going to tell
you in return, will divert you as much: there was a vast assembly
at Marlborough-house, and a throng in the doorway. My Lady
Talbot said, "Bless me! I think this is like the Straits of
Thermopylae!" My Lady Northumberland replied, "I don't know what
Street that is, but I wish I could get my - through." I hope you
admire the contrast. Adieu! my dear lord! Yours ever.
(773) This alludes, it is presumed, to a bill of indictment which
was found in the beginning of March, at the sessions at Hick's
Hall, against the Count de Guerchy, for the absurd charge of a
conspiracy to murder D'Eon.-C.
(774) Probably fran`cois Joseph, Count de Caraman, who married a
Princess de Chimay, heiress of the house of Benin, niece of
Madame de Mirepoix.-C.
(775) He had been favourite to the Empress Catherine; and, as Mr.
Walpole elsewhere says, "a favourite without an enemy."-C.
(776) A tragedy by M. du Belloy, which, with little other merit
than its anti-Anglicism, (which, in all times, has passed in
France for patriotism,) "faisait fureur" at this time.-C.
(777) Mademoiselle Clairon was at this moment in such vogue on
the French stage, that her admirers struck a medal in honour of
her, and wore it as a kind of order. A critic of the name of
Fr`eron, however, did not partake these sentiments, and drew, in
his journal, an injurious character of Mademoiselle Clairon.
This insult so outraged the tragedy queen, that she and her
admirers moved heaven and earth to have Fr`ron sent to the
Bastile, and, failing in her solicitation to the inferior
departments, she at last had recourse to the prime-minister, the
Duke of Choiseul, himself. His answer, which Lord Hertford, no
doubt, had communicated to Mr. Walpole, was admired for its
polite persiflage of her theatric Majesty. "I am," said the Duke,
"like yourself, a public performer, with this difference in your
favour, that you choose the parts you please, and are sure to be
crowned with the applause of the public (for I reckon as nothing
the bad taste of one or two wretched individuals who have the
misfortune of not admiring you). I, on the other hand, am
obliged to act the parts imposed on me by necessity. I am sure to
please nobody; I am satirized, criticised, libelled, hissed,--yet
I continue to do my best. Let us both, then, sacrifice our
little resentments and enmities to the public service, and serve
our country each in our own station. Besides," he added, "the
Queen has condescended to forgive Fr`eron, and you may,
therefore, without compromising your dignity, imitate her
Majesty's clemency." M`emoires de Bachaumont, t. i. p. 61. Such
were the miserable intrigues and squabbles, and such the examples
of ministerial pleasantry and prudence which occupied and amused
the Parisian public!--this; is but a straw to show which way the
wind blew; but such instances moderate our surprise and our
sorrow at the storm which followed.-C.
(778) There was some little personal pique in Mr. Walpole's
opinion of Garrick; yet it would be difficult to imagine a more
forcible eulogium on that great actor than is here inadvertently
pronounced, when, in order to find an equivalent for him, Mr.
Walpole is obliged to bring together old Johnson and Colley
Cibber, Quin and Clive, Porter and Dumesnil--two nations, two
generations, and both sexes.-C.
(779) "In Brute he shone unequalled; all agree
Garrick's not half so great a brute as he." Rosciad.-E.
(780) A wolf of enormous size, and, in some respects, irregular
conformation, which for a long time ravaged the Gevaudan; it was,
soon after the date of this letter, killed, and Mr. Walpole saw
it in Paris.-C.
Letter 246 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, April 5, 1765. (page 384)
I sent you two letters t'other day from your kin, and might as
well have written then as now, for I have nothing to tell you.
Mr. Chute has quitted his bed to-day the first time for above
five weeks, but is still swathed like a mummy. He was near
relapsing; for old Mildmay, whose lungs, and memory, and tongue,
will never wear out, talked to him t'other night from eight till
half an hour after ten, on the Poor-bill; but he has been more
comfortable with Lord Dacre and me this evening.
I have read the Siege of Calais, and dislike it extremely, though
there are fine lines, but the conduct is woful. The outrageous
applause it has received ,it Paris was certainly Political, and
intended to stir up their spirit and animosity against us, their
good, merciful, and forgiving allies. they will have no occasion
for this ardour; they may smite one cheek, and we shall turn
t'other.
Though I have little to say, it is worth while to write, only to
tell you two bon-mots of Quin, to that turncoat hypocrite
infidel, Bishop Warburton. That saucy priest was haranguing at
Bath in behalf of prerogative: Quin said, "Pray, my lord, spare
me, you are not acquainted with my principles, I am a republican;
and perhaps I even think that the execution of Charles the First
might be justified." "AY!" said Warburton, "by what law?" Quin
replied, "By all the laws he had left them." The Bishop(781)
would have got off upon judgments, and bade the player remember,
that all the regicides came to violent ends; a lie, but no
matter. "I would not advise your lordship," said Quin, "to make
use of that inference; for, if I am not mistaken, that was the
case of the twelve apostles." There was great wit ad hominem in
the latter reply, but I think the former equal to any thing I
ever heard. It is the sum of the whole controversy couched in
eight monosyllables, and comprehends at once the King's guilt and
the justice of punishing it. The more one examines it, the finer
it proves. One can say nothing after it: so good night! Yours
ever.
(781) Gray, in a letter of the 29th, relates the following
anecdote:--"Now I am talking of bishops, I must tell you that,
not long ago, Bishop Warburton, in a sermon at court, asserted
that all preferments were bestowed on the most illiterate and
worthless objects; and, in speaking, turned himself about and
stared at the Bishop of London: he added, that if any one arose
distinguished for merit and learning, there was a combination of
dunces to keep him down. I need not tell you that he expected
the bishopric of London when Terrick got it: so ends my
ecclesiastical history." Works, vol. iv. p. 40.-E.
Letter 247 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Strawberry Hill, Easter Sunday, April 7, 1765. (page 385)
Your first wish -will be to know how the King does: he came to
Richmond last Monday for a week; but appeared suddenly and
unexpected at his lev`ee at St. James's last Wednesday; this was
managed to prevent a crowd. Next day he was at the drawing-room,
and at chapel on Good Friday. They say, he looks pale; but it is
the fashion to call him very well:--I wish it may be true.(782)
The Duke of Cumberland is actually set out for Newmarket to-day:
he too is called much better; but it is often as true of the
health of princes as of their prisons, that there is little
distance between each and their graves.(783) There has been a
fire at Gunnersbury, which burned four rooms: her servants
announced it to Princess Amalie with that wise precaution of "
Madam, don't be frightened!"--accordingly, she was terrified.
When they told her the truth, she said, "I am very glad; I had
concluded my brother was dead."--So much for royalties!
Lord March and George Selwyn are arrived, after being wind-bound
for nine days, at Calais. George is so charmed with my Lady
Hertford, that I believe it was she detained him at Paris, not
Lord March. I am full as much transported with Schouvaloff--I
never saw so amiable a man! so much good breeding, humility, and
modesty, with sense and dignity! an air of melancholy, without
any thing abject. Monsieur de Caraman is agreeable too, informed
and intelligent; he supped at your brother's t'other night, after
being at Mrs. Anne Pitt's. As the first curiosity of foreigners
is to see Mr. Pitt, and as that curiosity is one of the most
difficult points in the world to satisfy, he asked me if Mr. Pitt
was like his sister? I told him, "Qu'ils se ressembloient comme
deux gouttes de feu."
The Parliament is adjourned till after the holidays, and the
trial.(784) There have been two very long days in our own House,
on a complaint from Newfoundland merchants on French
encroachments. The ministry made a woful piece of work of it the
first day, and we the second. Your brother, Sir George Savile,
and Barr`e shone; but on the second night, they popped a sudden
division upon us about nothing; some went out, and some stayed
in; they were 161, we but 44, and then they flung pillows upon
the question, and stifled it,--and so the French have not
encroached.
There has been more serious work in the Lords, upon much less
important matter; a bill for regulating the poor,--(don't ask me
how, for you know I am a perfect goose about details of
business,) formed by one Gilbert,(785) a member, and steward to
the Duke of Bridgewater, or Lord Gower, or both,--had passed
pacifically through the Commons, but Lord Egmont set fire to it
in the Lords. On the second reading, he opposed it again, and
made a most admired speech; however it passed on. But again,
last Tuesday, when it was to be in the committee, such forces
were mustered against the bill, that behold all the world
regarded it as a pitched battle between Lord Bute and Lord
Holland on One side, and the Bedfords and Grenville on the other.
You may guess if it grew a day of expectation. When it arrived,
Lord Bute was not present, Lord Northumberland voted for the
bill, and Lord Holland went away. Still politicians do not give
up the mystery. Lord Denbigh and Lord Pomfret, especially the
latter, were the most personal against his Grace of Bedford. He
and his friends, they say, (for I was not there, as you will find
presently,) kept their temper well. At ten at night the House
divided, and, to be sure, the minority was dignified; it
consisted of the Dukes of York and Gloucester, the Chancellor,
Chief Justice, Lord President, Privy Seal, Lord Chamberlain,
Chamberlain to the Queen, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and a
Secretary of State. Lord Halifax, the other Secretary, was ill.
The numbers were 44 to 58. Lord Pomfret then moved to put off
the bill for four months; but the cabinet rallied, and rejected
the motion by a majority of one. So it is to come on again after
the holidays. The Duke of Newcastle, Lord Temple, and the
opposition, had once more the pleasure, which, I believe, they
don't dislike, of being in a majority.
Now, for my disaster; you will laugh at it, though it was woful
to me. I was to dine at Northumberland-house, and went a little
after four: there I found the Countess, Lady Betty Mekinsy, Lady
Strafford; my Lady Finlater,(787) who was never out of Scotland
before; a tall lad of fifteen, her son; Lord Drogheda, and Mr.
Worseley.(788) At five,(789) arrived Mr. Mitchell,(790) who said
the Lords had begun to read the Poor-bill, which would take at
least two hours, and perhaps would debate it afterwards. We
concluded dinner would be called for, it not being Very
precedented for ladies to wait for gentlemen:--no such thing.
Six o'clock came,--seven o'clock came,--our coaches came,--well!
we sent them away, and excuses were we were engaged. Still the
Countess's heart did not relent, nor uttered a syllable of
apology. We wore out the wind and the weather, the opera and the
play, Mrs. Cornelys's and Almack's, and every topic that would do
in a formal circle. We hinted, represented--in vain. The clock
struck eight: my lady, at last, said, she would go and order
dinner; but it was a good half hour before it appeared. We then
sat down to a table for fourteen covers; but instead of
substantials, there was nothing but a profusion of plates striped
red, green, and yellow, gilt plate, blacks and uniforms! My Lady
Finlater, who had never seen these embroidered dinners, nor dined
after three, was famished. The first course stayed as long as
possible, in hopes of the lords: so did the second. The dessert
at last arrived, and the middle dish was actually set on when
Lord Finlater and Mr. Mackay(791) arrived!--would you believe
it?--the dessert was remanded, and the whole first course brought
back again!--Stay, I have not done:--just as this second first
course had done its duty, Lord Northumberland, Lord Strafford,
and Mekinsy came in, and the whole began a third time! Then the
second course, and the dessert! I thought we should have dropped
from our chairs with fatigue and fumes! When the clock struck
eleven, we were asked to return to the drawing-room, and drink
tea and coffee, but I said I was engaged to supper, and came home
to bed. My dear lord, think of four hours and a half in a circle
of mixed company, and three great dinners, one after another,
without interruption;--no, it exceeded our day at Lord Archer's!
Mrs. Armiger,(792) and Mrs. Southwell,(793) Lady Gower's(794)
niece, are dead, and old Dr. Young, the poet.(795) Good night!
(782) "In April 1765," says the Quarterly Review for June 1840,
"his Majesty had a serious illness: its particular character was
then unknown, but we have the best authority for believing that
it was of the nature of those which thrice after afflicted his
Majesty, and finally incapacitated him for the duties of
government."-E.
(783) The French express this thought very dramatically;
"Monseigneur est malade--Monscigneur est mieux--Monseigneur est
mort!"-C.
(784) See ant`e, p. 296, letter 194.-E.
(785) Of Lord Byron.
(786) Thomas Gilbert, Esq. At this time member for
Newcastle-under-Line, and comptroller of the King's wardrobe.-E.
(787) Lady Mary Murray, daughter of John first Duke of Athol, and
wife of James sixth Earl of Finlater: her son, afterwards seventh
Earl, was born in 1750.-E.
(788) Probably Thomas Worseley, Esq. member for Oxford, and
surveyor-general of the board of works.-C.
(789) This was probably the hour of extreme fashion at this
time.-C.
(790) Afterwards Sir Andrew Mitchell, K. B. He was at this time
our minister at Berlin, and also member for the burghs of Elgin,
etc.-E.
(791) Probably J. Ross Mackie, member for Kirkcudbright,
treasurer of the ordnance.-C.
(792) The lady of Major-General Robert Armiger, who had been
aide-de-camp to George II.-E.
(793) Catherine, heiress of Edward Watson, Viscount Sondes, by
Lady Catherine Tufton, coheiress of the sixth Earl of Thanet, the
son of Lady margaret Sackville, the heiress of the De Cliffords:
she was the mother of Edward Southwell, Esq., member for
Gloucestershire, who, on the death of the great-aunt, Margaret
Tufton, Baroness de Clifford, was confirmed in that barony.-C.
(794) Mary, another daughter and coheiress of the sixth Earl
Thanet, widow of Anthony Grey, Earl of harold, and third wife of
John first Earl Gower.-C.
(795) Dr. Young died on the 5th of April, in his eighty-fourth
year.-E.
Letter 248 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, April 18, 1765. (page 388)
Lady Holland carries this, which enables me to write a little
more explicitly than I have been able to do lately. The King has
been in the utmost danger; the humour in his face having fallen
upon his breast. He now appears constantly; yet, I fear, his
life is very precarious, and that there is even apprehension of a
consumption. After many difficulties from different quarters, a
Regency-bill is determined; the King named it first to the
ministers, who said, they intended to mention it to him as soon
as he was well; yet they are not thought to be fond of it. The
King is to come to the House on Tuesday, and recommend the
provision to the Parliament.(796) Yet, if what is whispered
proves true, that the nomination of the Regent is to be reserved
to the King's will, it is likely to cause great uneasiness. If
the ministers propose such a clause, it is strong evidence of
their own instability, and, I should think, would not save them,
at least, some of them. The world expects changes Soon, though
not a thorough alteration; yet, if any takes place shortly, I
should think It would be a material One than not. The enmity
between Lord Bute and Mr. Grenville is not denied on either side.
There is a notion, and I am inclined to think not ill founded,
that the former and Mr. Pitt are treating. It is certain that
the last has expressed wishes that the opposition may lie still
for the remainder of the session. This, at least, puts an end to
the question on your brother,(797) of which I am glad for the
present. The common town-talk is, that Lord Northumberland does
not care to return to Ireland,--that you are to succeed him
there, Lord Rochford you, and that Sandwich is to go to Spain.
My belief is, that there will be no change, except, perhaps, a
single one for Lord Northumberland, unless there are capital
removals indeed.
The Chancellor, Grenville, the Bedfords, and the two Secretaries
are one body; at least, they pass for such: yet it is very
lately, if one of them has dropped his prudent management with
Lord Bute. There seems an unwillingness to discard the Bedfords,
though their graces themselves keep little terms of civility to
Lord Bute, none to the Princess (Dowager). Lord Gower is a
better courtier, and Rigby would do any thing to save his place.
This is the present state, which every day may alter: even
to-morrow is a day of expectation, as the last struggle of the
Poor-bill. If the Bedfords carry it, either by force or
sufferance, (though Lord Bute has constantly denied being the
author of the opposition to it,) I shall less expect any great
change soon. In those less important, I shall not wonder to find
the Duke of Richmond come upon the scene, perhaps for Ireland,
though he is not talked of.
Your brother is out of town, not troubling himself, though the
time seems so critical. I am not so philosophic; as I almost
wish for any thing that may put an end to my being concerned in
the m`el`ee--for any end to a most gloomy prospect for the
country: alas! I see it not.
Lord Byron's trial lasted two days, and he was acquitted totally
by four lords, Beaulieu, Falmouth, Despenser,(798) and
Orford,(799) and found guilty of manslaughter by one hundred and
twenty. The Dukes of York and Gloucester were present in their
places. The prisoner behaved with great decorum, and seemed
thoroughly shocked and mortified. Indeed, the bitterness of the
world against him has been great, and the stories they have
revived or invented to load him, very grievous. The Chancellor
has behaved with his usual, or, rather greater vulgarness and
blunders. Lord Pomfret(800) kept away decently, from the
similitude of his own story.
I have been to wait on Messrs. Choiseul(801) and De
Lauragais,(802) as you desired, but have not seen then yet. The
former is lodged with my Lord Pembroke, and the Guerchys are in
terrible apprehensions of his exhibiting some scene.
The Duke of Cumberland bore the journey to Newmarket extremely
well, but has been lethargic Since,; yet they have found out that
Daffy's Elixir agrees with, and does him good. Prince Frederick
is very bad. There is no private news at all. As I shall not
deliver this till the day after to-morrow, I shall be able to
give you an account of the fate of the Poor-bill.
The medals that came for me from Geneva, I forgot to mention to
you, and to beg you to be troubled with them till I see you. I
had desired Lord Stanhope(803) to send them; and will beg you
too, if any bill is sent, to pay it for me, and I will repay it.
you. I say nothing of my journey, which the unsettled state of
my affairs makes it impossible for me to fix. I long for every
reason upon earth to be with you.
April 20th, Saturday.
The Poor-bill is put off till Monday; is then to be amended, and
then dropped: a confession of weakness, in a set of people not
famous for being moderate! I was assured, last night, that
Ireland had been twice offered to you, and that it hung on their
insisting upon giving you a secretary, either Wood or Bunbury. I
replied very truly that I knew nothing of it, that you had never
mentioned it to me and I believed not even to your brother. The
answer was, Oh! his particular friends are always the last that
know any thing about him. Princess Amalie loves this topic, and
is for ever teasing us about your mystery. I defend myself by
pleading that I have desired you never to tell me any thing till
it was in the gazette.
They say there is to be a new alliance in the house of Montagu:
that Lord Hinchinbrook(804) is to marry the sole remaining
daughter of Lord Halifax; that her fortune is to be divided into
three shares, of which each father is to take one, and the third
is to be the provision for the victims. I don't think this the
most unlikely part of the story. Adieu! my dear lord.
(796) In a letter to his son, of the 22d of April, Chesterfield
says:--"Apropos of a minority: the King is to come to the House
tomorrow, to recommend a bill to settle a regency, in case of his
demise while his successor is a minor. Upon his late illness,
which was no trifling one, the whole nation cried out aloud for
such a bill, for reasons which will readily occur to you, who
know situations, persons, and characters here. I do not know the
provisions of this intended bill; but I wish it may b(@ copied
exactly from that which was passed in the late King's reign, when
the present King was a minor. I am sure there cannot be a
better."-E.
(797) As to his dismissal.-C.
(798) Sir Francis Dashwood, lately confirmed in this barony, as
the heir of the Fanes by his mother. He had been chancellor of
the exchequer in Lord Bute's administration.-E.
(799) George, third Earl of Orford, Mr. Walpole's nephew; on
whose death, in 1791, he succeeded to the title.-E.
(800) George, second Earl of Pomfret, while Lord Lempster, had
the misfortune to kill Captain Grey, of the Guards, in a duel: he
was tried at the Old Bailey in April 1752, and found guilty of
manslaughter only. See vol. ii. p. 124, letter 54.-E.
(801) The son, it is supposed, of the Duc de Praslin.-C.
(802) Louis L`eon de Brancas, the eldest son of the Duc de
Villars Brancas: he was, during his father's life, known as the
Comte, and afterwards Duc, de Lauragais, and was a very singular
and eccentric person. He was a great Anglomane, and was the
first introducer into France of horseraces `a l'Anglaise; it was
to him that Louis XV.--not pleased at his insolent Anglomanie--
made so excellent a retort. The King had asked him after one of
his journeys, what he had learned in England? Lauragais
answered, with a kind of republican dignity, "A panser"
(penser).--"Les chavaux?" inquired the King. On the other hand,
he was one of the first promoters of the practice of inoculation.
stories about him, both in England and France, are endless: "He
was," says M. de Segur, who knew him well, "one of the most
singular men of the long period in which he lived; he united in
his person a combination of great qualities and great faults, the
smallest portion of which would have marked any other man with a
striking originality." He died in 1823, at the age of
ninety-one--his youthful name and follies forgotten in the
respectable old age of the Duc de Brancas.-C.
(803) Philip, second Earl Stanhope; for a character of whom, by
his great-grandson, Lord Mahon, see vol. i. p. 308, letter 96,
note 771.-E.
(804) Afterwards fifth Earl of sandwich. The match with lady
Eliza Savile took place on the 1st of march 1766.-E.
Letter 249 To Sir David Dalrymple.(805)
Strawberry Hill, April 21, 1765. (page 391)
Sir,
Except the mass of Conway papers, on which I have not yet had
time to enter seriously, I am sorry I have nothing at present
that would answer your purpose. Lately, indeed, I have had
little leisure, to attend to literary pursuits. I have been much
out of order with a violent cold and cough for great part of the
winter; and the distractions of this country, which reach even
those who mean the least to profit by their country, have not
left even me, who hate politics, without some share in them. Yet
as what one does not love, cannot engross one entirely, I have
amused myself a little with writing. Our friend Lord Finlater
will perhaps show you the fruit of that trifling, though I had
not the confidence to trouble you with such a strange thing as a
miraculous story, of which I fear the greatest merit is the
novelty.
I have lately perused with much pleasure a collection of old
ballads, to which I see, Sir, you have contributed with your
usual benevolence. Continue this kindness to the public, and
smile as I do, when the pains you take for them are misunderstood
or perverted. Authors must content themselves with hoping that
two or three Intelligent persons in an age will understand the
merit of their writings, and those authors are bound in good
breeding to Suppose that the public in general is enlightened.
They who arc in the secret know how few of that public they have
any reason to wish should read their works. I beg pardon of my
masters the public, and am confident, Sir, YOU Will not betray
me; but let me beg you not to defraud the few that deserve your
information, in compliment to those who are not capable of
receiving it. Do as I do about my small house here. Every body
that comes to see it or me, are so good as to wonder that I don't
make this or that alteration. I never haggle with them; but
always say I intend it. They are satisfied with the attention
and themselves, and I remain with the enjoyment of my house as I
like it. Adieu! dear Sir.
(805) Now first collected.
Letter 250 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, May 5, 1765. (page 391)
The plot thickens; at least, it does not clear up. I don't know
how to tell you in the compass of a letter, what is matter for a
history, and it is the more difficult, as we are but just in the
middle.
During the recess, the King acquainted the ministry that he would
have a Bill of Regency, and told them the particulars of his
intention. The town gives Lord Holland the honour of the
measure;(806) certain it is, the ministry, who are not the court,
did not taste some of the items: such as the Regent to be in
petto, the Princes(807) to be omitted, and four secret
nominations to which the Princes might be applied. However,
thinking it was better to lose their share of future power than
their present places, the ministers gave a gulp and swallowed the
whole potion; still it lay so heavy at their stomachs, that they
brought up part of it again, and obtained the Queen's name to be
placed, as one that might be regent. Mankind laughed, and
proclaimed their Wisdoms bit. Upon this, their Wisdoms beat up
for opponents, and set fire to the old stubble(808) of the
Princess and Lord Bute. Every body took the alarm; and such
uneasiness was raised, that after the King had notified the bill
to both Houses, a new message was sent, and instead of four
secret nominations, the five Princes were named, with power to
the crown of supplying their places if they died off.
Last Tuesday the bill was read a second time in the Lords. Lord
Lyttelton opposed an unknown Regent, Lord Temple the whole bill,
seconded by Lord Shelburne. The first
division came on the commitment of the whole bill. The Duke of
Newcastle and almost all The opposition were with the majority,
for his grace could not decently oppose so great a likeness of
his own child, the former bill, and so they were one hundred and
twenty. Lord Temple, Lord Shelburne, the Duke of Grafton, and
six more, composed the minority; the Slenderness of which so
enraged Lord Temple, though he had declared himself of no party,
and connected with no party, that he and the Duke of Bolton came
no more to the House. Next day Lord Lyttelton moved an address
to the King, to name the person he would recommend for Regent.
In the midst of this debate, the Duke of Richmond started two
questions; whether the Queen was naturalized, and if not, whether
capable of being Regent: and he added a third much more puzzling;
who are the Royal Family? Lord Denbigh answered
flippantly, all who are prayed for: the Duke of Bedford, more
significantly, those, only who are in the order of
succession--a direct exclusion of the Princess; for the Queen is
named in the bill. The Duke of Richmond moved to consult the
judges; Lord Mansfield fought this off, declared he had his
opinion, but would not tell it--and stayed away next day! They
then proceeded on Lord Lyttelton's motion, which was rejected by
eighty-nine to thirty-one; after which, the Duke of Newcastle
came no more; and Grafton, Rockingham, and many others, went to
Newmarket: for that rage is so strong, that I cease to wonder at
the gentleman who was going out to hunt as the battle of Edgehill
began.
The third day was a scene of folly and confusion, for when Lord
Mansfield is absent,
"Lost is the nation's sense, nor can be found."
The Duke of Richmond moved an amendment, that the persons capable
of the Regency should be the
Queen, the Princess Dowager, and all the
descendants of the late King usually resident in England. Lord
Halifax endeavoured to jockey this, by a previous amendment of
now for usually. The Duke persisted with great firmness and
cleverness; Lord Halifax, with as much peevishness and absurdity;
in truth, he made a woful figure. The Duke of Bedford supported
t'other Duke against the Secretary, but would not yield to name
the Princess, though the Chancellor declared her of the Royal
Family.(809) This droll personage is exactly what Woodward would
be, if there was such a farce as Trappolin Chancellor. You will
want a key to all this, but who has a key to chaos? After
puzzling on for two hours how to adjust these motions, while the
spectators stood laughing around, Lord Folkestone rose, and said,
why not say now and usually? They adopted this amendment at once,
and then rejected the Duke of Richmond's motion, but ordered the
judges to attend next day on the questions of naturalization.
Now comes the marvellous transaction, and I defy Mr. Hume, an
historian as he is, to parallel it. The judges had decided for
the Queen's capability, when Lord Halifax rose, by the King's
permission, desired to have the bill recommitted, and then moved
the Duke of Richmond's own words, with the single omission of the
Princess Dowager's name, and thus she alone is rendered incapable
of the Regency--and stigmatized by act of parliament! The
astonishment of the world is not to be described. Lord Bute's
friends are thunderstruck. The Duke of Bedford almost danced
about the House for joy. Comments there are, various; and some
palliate it, by saying it was done at the Princess's desire; but
the most inquisitive say, the King was taken by surprise, that
Lord Halifax proposed the amendment to him, and hurried with it
to the House of Lords, before it could be recalled; and they even
surmise that he did not observe to the King the omission of his
mother's name. Be that as it may, open war seems to be declared
between the court and the administration, and men are gazing to
see which side will be victorious.
To-morrow the bill comes to us, and Mr. Pitt, too, violent
against the whole bill, unless this wonderful event has altered
his tone.- For my part I shall not be surprised, if he affects to
be in astonishment at missing "a great and most respectable
man!"(810) This is the sum total--but what a sum total! It is
the worst of North Britons published by act of parliament!
I took the liberty, in my last, of telling you what I heard about
your going to Ireland. It was from one you know very well, and
one I thought well informed, or I should not have mentioned it.
Positive as the information was, I find nothing to confirm it.
On the contrary, Lord Harcourt(811) seems the most probable, if
any thing is probable at this strange juncture. You will scarce
believe me when I tell you, what I know is true, that the
Bedfords pressed strongly for Lord Weymouth--Yes, for Lord
Weymouth. Is any thing extraordinary in them?
Will it be presuming, too much upon your friendship and
indulgence, if I hint another point to you, which, I own, seems
to me right to mention to you? You know how eagerly the ministry
have laboured to deprive Mr. Thomas Walpole of the French
commerce of tobacco. His correspondent sends him word, that you
was so persuaded it was taken away, that you had recommended
another person. You know enough, my dear lord, of the little
connexion I have With that part of my family,(812) though we do
visit again; and therefore will, I hope, be convinced, that it is
for your sake I principally mention it. If Mr. Walpole loses
this vast branch of trade, he and sir Joshua Vanneck must shut up
shop. Judge the noise that would make in the city! Mr.
Walpole's(813) alliance with the Cavendishes (for I will say
nothing of our family) would interest them deeply in his cause,
and I think you would be sorry to have them think you
instrumental to his ruin. Your brother knows of my writing to
you and giving this information, and we are both solicitous that
your name should not appear in this transaction. This letter
goes to you by a private hand, or I would not have spoken so
plainly throughout. Whenever you please to recall your positive
order, that I should always tell you whatever I hear that relates
to you, I shall willingly forbear, for I am sensible this is not
the most agreeable province of friendship; yet, as it is
certainly due whenever demanded, I
don't consider myself, but sacrifice the more agreeable task of
pleasing you to that of serving you, that I may show myself Yours
most sincerely, H. W.
(806) It was certainly the result of his Majesty's own good
sense, directed to the subject by his late serious indisposition;
but the details, and the mismanagement of these details, were, no
doubt, the acts of the ministers.-C.
(807) The King,'s uncle and brothers.-E.
(808) These hints as to the modes by which the extraordinary
prejudices and clamours which disturbed the first years of the
reign of George III. were excited and maintained at the pleasure
of a faction, are very valuable: and the spirit of the times was
in nothing more evident than in the intrigues and violence which
marked the progress of so simple and necessary a measure as the
Regency-bill.-C.
(809) This opinion of the Chancellor's appears to have been
considered by Mr. Walpole as very absurd, and he seems inclined
to come to the same conclusion which Sterne has treated with such
admirable ridicule in the case of the Duchess of Suffolk, viz.
that "the mother was not of kin to her own child." See Tristram
Shandy, part 4. Nothing in the debate of Didius and Triptolemus
at the visitation dinner, is more absurd than this grave
discussion in the House of Lords, whether the King's mother is
one of the Royal Family.-C.
(810) This was Mr. Pitt's expression on not finding Lord Anson's
name in the list of the ministry formed in 1757. Mr. Walpole,
disliked Lord Anson, and on more than one occasion amuses himself
with allusions to this phrase.-C.
(811) Simon, first Earl of Harcourt: he was, in 1768, ambassador
to Paris, and in 1769, lord-lieutenant of Ireland.-C.
(812) This coolness between Mr. Walpole and his uncle should be
remembered, when we read that portion of the Memoires which
relates to Lord Walpole.-C.
(813) Mr. Thomas Walpole's elder brother (second Lord Walpole,
and first Lord Orford of his branch) married the youngest
daughter of the third Duke of Devonshire.-C.
Letter 251 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Sunday, May 12, 1765. (page 395)
The clouds and mists that I raise by my last letter will not be
dispersed by this; nor will the Bill of Regency, as long as it
has a day's breath left (and it has but one to come) cease, I
suppose, to produce extraordinary events. For agreeable events,
it has not produced one to any Set Or side, except in gratifying
malice; every other passion has received, or probably will
receive, a box on the ear.
In my last I left the Princess Dowager in the mire. The next
incident was of a negative kind. Mr. Pitt, who, if he had been
wise, would have come to help her out, chose to wait to see if
she was to be left there, and gave himself a terrible fit of the
gout. As nobody was ready to read his part to the audience,
(though I assure you we do not want a genius or two who think
themselves born to dictate,) the first day in our House did not
last two minutes. The next, which was Tuesday, we rallied our
understandings (mine, indeed, did not go beyond being quiet, when
the administration had done for us what we could not do for
ourselves), and combated the bill till nine at night. Barr`e,
who will very soon be our first orator, especially as some(814)
are a little afraid to dispute with him, attacked it admirably,
and your brother ridiculed the House of Lords delightfully, who,
he said, had deliberated without concluding, and concluded
without deliberating. However, we broke up without a division.
Can you devise what happened next? A buzz spread itself, that the
Tories would move to reinstate the Princess. You will perhaps be
so absurd as to think with me, that when the
administration had excluded her, it was our business to pay her a
compliment. Alas! that was my opinion, but I was soon given to
understand that
patriots must be men of virtue, must be pharisees, and not
countenance naughty women; and that when the Duchess of Bedford
had thrown the first stone, we had nothing to do but continue
pelting. Unluckily I was not convinced; I could neither see the
morality nor prudence of branding the King's mother upon no other
authority than public fame: yet, willing to get something when I
could not get all, I endeavoured to obtain that we should stay
away. Even this was warmly contested with me, and, though I
persuaded several, particularly the two oldest Cavendishes,(815)
the Townshends,(816) and your nephew Fitzroy,(817) whom I trust
you will thank me for saving, I could not convince Lord John,
[Cavendish,] who, I am sorry to say, is the most obstinate,
conceited young man I ever saw; George Onslow, and that old
simpleton the Duke of Newcastle, who had the impudence to talk to
me of character, and that we should be ruined with the public if
we did not divide against the Princess. You will be impatient,
and wonder I do not name your brother. You know how much he
respects virtue and honour, even in their names; Lord John, who,
I really believe, respects them too, has got cunning enough to
see their empire over your
brother, and had fascinated him to agree to this outrageous,
provoking, and most unjustifiable of all acts. Still Mr. Conway
was so good as to yield to my earnest and vehement entreaties,
and it was at last agreed to propose the name of the Queen; when
we did not carry it, as we did not expect to do, to retire before
the question came on the Princess. But even this measure was not
strictly observed. We divided 67 for the nomination of the
Queen, against 157. Then Morton(818) moved to reinstate the
Princess. Martin, her treasurer, made a most indiscreet and
offensive speech in her behalf; said she had been stigmatized by
the House of Lords, and had lived long enough in this country to
know the hearts and falsehood of those who had professed the most
to her. Grenville vows publicly he will never forgive this, and
was not more discreet, declaring, though he agreed to the
restoration of her name, that he thought the omission would have
been universally acceptable. George Onslow and all the
Cavendishes, gained over by Lord John, and the most attached of
the Newcastle band, opposed the motion; but your brother, Sir
William Meredith, and I, and others, came away, which reduced the
numbers so much that there was no division;(819) but now to
unfold all this black scene;(820) it comes out as I had guessed,
and very plainly told them, that the Bedfords had stirred up our
fools to do what they did not dare to do themselves. Old
Newcastle had even told me, that unless we opposed the Princess,
the Duke of Bedford would not. It was
sedulously given out. that Forrester,(821) the latter duke's
lawyer, would speak against her; and after the question had
passed, he told our people that we had given up the game when it
was in our hands, for there had been many more noes than ayes.
It was Very true, many did not wish well enough to the Princess
to roar for her; and many will say no when the question is put,
who will vote ay if it comes to a division. and of' this I do not
doubt but the Bedfords had taken care--well! duped by these gross
arts, the Cavendishes and Pelhams determined to divide the next
day on the report. I did not learn this mad resolution till four
o'clock, when it was too late, and your brother in the House, and
the report actually made; so I turned back and came away,
learning
afterwards to my great mortification, that he had voted with
them. If any thing could comfort me, it would be, that even so
early as last night, and only this happened on Friday night, it
was generally allowed how much I had been in the right, and
foretold exactly all that had happened. They had vaunted to me
how strong they should be. I had replied, "When you were but 76
on the most inoffensive question, do you think you will be half
that number on the most personal and indecent that can be
devised?" Accordingly, they were but 37 to 167; and to show how
much the Bedfords were at the bottom of all, Rigby, they
Forrester, and Lord Charles Spencer, went up into the Speaker's
chamber, and would not vote for the Princess! At first I was not
quite so well treated. Sir William Meredith, who, by the way,
voted in the second question against his opinion, told me Onslow
had said that he, Sir William, your
brother, and Lord Townshend, had stayed away from conscience, but
all the others from interest. I replied, "Then I am included in
the latter predicament.(822) but you may tell Mr. Onslow that he
will take a place before I shall, and that I had rather be
suspected of being
mercenary, than stand up in my place and call God to witness that
I meant nothing personal, when I was doing the most personal
thing in the world." I beg your pardon, my dear lord, for
talking so much about myself, but the detail was necessary and
important to you; who I wish should see that I can act with a
little common sense, and will not be governed by all the frenzy
of party.
The rest of the bill was contested inch by inch, and by division
on division, till eleven at night, after our wise leaders had
whittled down the minority to twenty-four.(823) Charles
Townshend, they say, surpassed all he had ever done, in a wrangle
with Onslow, and was so lucky as to have Barr`e absent, who has
long lain in wait for him. When they told me how well Charles
had spoken on himself, I replied, "That is conformable to what I
always thought of his parts, that he speaks best on what he
understands the least."
We have done with the bill, and to-morrow our correction goes to
the Lords. It will be a day of wonderful expectation.. to see in
what manner they will swallow their vomit. The Duke of Bedford,
it is conjectured, will stay away:--but what will that
scape-goose, Lord Halifax, do, who is already convicted of having
told the King a most notorious lie, that if the Princess was not
given up by the Lords, she would be
unanimously excluded by the Commons! The Duke of Bedford, who
had broke the ground, is little less blamable; but Sandwich, who
was present, has, with his usual address, contrived not to be
talked of, since the first hour.
When the bill shall be passed, the eyes of mankind will turn to
see what will be the consequence. The Princess, and Lord Bute,
and the Scotch, do not affect to conceal their indignation. If
Lord Halifax is even reprieved, the King is more
enslaved to a cabal than ever his grandfather was: yet how
replace them! Newcastle and the most desirable of the
opposition have rendered themselves more obnoxious than ever, and
even seem, or must seem to Lord Bute, in league with those he
wishes to remove. The want of a proper person for chancellor of
the exchequer is another difficulty, though I think easily
removable by clapping a tied wig on Ellis, Barrington, or any
other block, and calling it George
Grenville. One remedy is obvious, and at which, after such
insults and provocations, were I Lord Bute, I should not stick; I
would deliver myself up, bound hand and foot, to Mr. Pitt, rather
than not punish such traitors and wretches, who murmur, submit,
affront, and swallow in the most
ignominious manner,--"Oh! il faudra qu'il y vienne,"--as L`eonor
says in the Marquis de Roselle,--"il y viendra." For myself, I
have another little comfort, which is seeing that when the
ministry encourage the Opposition, they do but
lessen our numbers.
You may be easy about this letter, for Monsieur de Guerchy sends
it for me by a private hand, as I did the last. I wish, by some
Such conveyance, you would tell me a little of your mind on all
this embroil, and whether you approve or disapprove my conduct.
After the liberties you have permitted me to take with you, my
dear lord, and without them, as you know my openness, and how
much I am accustomed to hear of my faults, I think you cannot
hesitate. Indeed, I must, I have done, or tried to do, just what
you would have wished. Could I, who have at least some
experience and knowledge of the world, have directed, our party
had not been in the contemptible and ridiculous
situation it is. Had I had more weight, things still more
agreeable to you had happened. Now, I could almost despair; but
I have still perseverance, and some resources left. Whenever I
can get to you, I will unfold a great deal; but in this critical
situation, I cannot trust what I can leave to no management but
my own.
Your brother would have writ, if I had not: he is gone to
Park-place to-day, with his usual phlegm, but returns tomorrow.
What would I give you were here yourself; perhaps you do not
thank me for the wish.
Do not wonder if, except thanking you for D'Alembert's book,(824)
I say not a word of any thing but politics. I have not had a
single other thought these three weeks. Though in all the bloom
of my passion, lilac-tide, I have not been at Strawberry this
fortnight. I saw things arrive at the point(825) I wished, and
to which I had singularly contributed to bring them, as you shall
know hereafter, and then I saw all my Work kicked down by two or
three frantic boys, and I see what I most dread, likely to
happen, unless I can prevent it,--but I have said enough for you
to understand me. I think we agree. However, this is for no ear
or breast but your own. Remember Monsieur de Nivernois,(826) and
take care of the letters you receive. Adieu!
(814) It seems from the next letter, that this alludes to Charles
Townshend.-C.
(815) Lord George and Lord Frederick.-E.
(816) Probably Messrs. Thomas Townshend, senior and junior, and
Charles Townshend, a cousin of the great Charles Townshend's, who
sat with Sir Edward Walpole for North Yarmouth.-C.
(817) Colonel Charles Fitzroy, afterwards Lord Southampton.-E.
(818) John Morton, Esq. member for Abingdon, and chief-justice of
Chester.-E.
(819) The following is Lord Temple's account of this debate, in a
letter of the 10th, to his sister, Lady Chatham: "Inability and
meanness are the characteristics of this whole proceeding,. I
shall pass over the very uninteresting parts of this matter, and
relate only the phenomenon of Morton's motion yesterday, seconded
by Kynaston, without a speech, and thirded by the illustrious Sam
Martin. The speech of the first was dull, and of the latter very
injudicious; saying that the House of Lords had passed a stigma
on the Princess of Wales; disclaiming all knowledge of her
wishes, but concluding, with a strong affirmative. George Onslow
opposed the motion, with very bad reasons; Lord Palmerston, with
much better. George Grenville seemed to convey, that the
alteration made in the Lords was not without the King's
knowledge; but that, to be sure, in his opinion, such a testimony
of zeal and affection which now manifested itself in the House of
Commons in favour of his royal mother, could not but prove
agreeable to his Majesty, and that therefore he should concur in
it. The Cocoa-tree have thus her Royal Highness to be regent; it
is well they have not given us a king, if they have not; for many
think Lord Bute is king. No division: many noes." Chatham
Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 309.-E.
(820) It was, indeed, a black and scandalous intrigue, by which
the character of the Sovereign's mother, and the peace and
comfort of the Royal Family, were thus made the counters with
which contending factions played their game; and if we may
believe Mr. Walpole himself, the motives which actuated those who
attacked, and those who seemed to defend the Princess
Dowager, were equally selfish and unworthy.-C.
(821) Probably Brook Forrester, Esq. of Lincoln's Inn, member for
Great Wenlock, a barrister-at-law. See ante, p. 281, letter
191.-C.
(822) It certainly does seem, from the foregoing account of his
own motives, that conscience had little to do with Mr. Walpole's
conduct on this affair: as to his pledge, that Mr. Onslow would
take a place before him, we must observe that it is not quite so
generous as it may seem; for Mr. Walpole was already, by the
provident care of his father, supplied with three sinecure
places, and two rent-charges on two others, producing him
altogether about 6300 pounds per annum. See Quarterly Review,
Vol. xxvii. P. 198.-C.
(823) On the question for the third reading of the bill, the
numbers were 150 and 24.-E.
(824) De la Destruction des
J`esuites."-E.
(825 This seems to imply that Mr. Walpole thought, that if the
Opposition had taken up the cause of the Princess Dowager when
she had been abandoned by the ministers, the latter might have
been removed, and the former brought into power.-C.
(826) He alludes to the infidelity of D'Eon to the Duke of
Nivernois. See ant`e, p. 253, letter 181.-C.
Letter 252 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Monday evening, May 20, 1765. (page 399)
I scarce know where to begin, and I am sure not where I shall
end. I had comforted myself with getting over all my
difficulties: my friends opened their eyes, and were ready, nay,
some of them eager, to list under Mr. Pitt; for I must tell you,
that by a fatal precipitation,(827) the King,--when his ministers
went to him last Thursday, 16th, to receive his commands for his
speech at the end of the sessions which was to have been the day
after to-morrow, the 22d,--forbid the Parliament to be prorogued,
which he said he would only have adjourned: they were
thunderstruck, and asked if he intended to make any change in his
administration? he replied, certainly; he could not bear it as
it was. His uncle(828) was sent for, was ordered to form a new
administration, and treat with Mr. Pitt. This negotiation
proceeded for four days, and got wind in two. The town, more
accommodating than Mr. Pitt, settled the whole list of
employments. The facilities, however, were so few. that
yesterday the hero of Culloden went down in person to the
Conqueror of
America, at Hayes, and though tendering almost carte blanche,--
blanchissime for the constitution, and little short of it for the
whole red-book of places,--brought back nothing but a flat
refusal. Words cannot paint the confusion into which every thing
is thrown. The four ministers, I mean the Duke of Bedford,
Grenville, and the two Secretaries, acquainted their master
yesterday, that they adhere to one another, and shall all resign
to-morrow, and, perhaps, must be recalled on Wednesday,--must
have a carte noire, not blanche, and will certainly not expect
any stipulations to be offered for the constitution, by no means
the object of their care!
You are not likely to tell in Gath, nor publish in Ascalon, the
alternative of humiliation to which the crown is reduced. But
alas! this is far from being the lightest evil to which we are at
the eve of being exposed. I mentioned the mob of weavers which
had besieged the Parliament, and attacked the Duke of Bedford,
and I thought no more of it; but on Friday, a well
disciplined, and, I fear too well conducted a
multitude, repaired again to Westminster with red and black
flags; the House of Lords, where not thirty were present, acted
with no spirit;--examined Justice Fielding, and the magistrates,
and adjourned till to-day. At seven that evening, a prodigious
multitude assaulted Bedford-house, and began to pull down the
walls, and another party surrounded the garden, where there were
but fifty men on guard, and had forced their way, if another
party of Guards that had been sent for had arrived five minutes
later. At last, after reading the
proclamation, the gates of the court were thrown open, and sixty
foot-soldiers marched out; the mob fled, but, being met by a
party of horse, were much cut and
trampled, but no lives lost. Lady Tavistock, and every thing
valuable in the house, have been sent out of town. On Saturday,
all was pretty quiet; the Duchess
was blooded, and every body went to visit them. I hesitated,
being afraid of an air of triumph: -however, lest it should be
construed the other way, I went last night at eight o'clock; in
the square I found a great multitude, not of weavers, but
seemingly of Sunday-passengers. At the gate, guarded by
grenadiers, I found so large a throng, that I had not only
difficulty to make my way, though in my chariot, but was hissed
and pelted; and in two minutes after, the glass of Lady
Grosvenor's coach was broken, as those of Lady Cork's chair were
entirely demolished afterwards. I found Bedford-house a perfect
garrison, sustaining a siege, the court full of horse-guards,
constables, and gentlemen. I told the Duke that however I might
happen to differ with him in politics, this was a common cause,
and that every body must feel equal indignation at it. In the
mean time the mob grew so riotous, that they were forced to make
both horse and foot parade the square before the tumult was
dispersed.
To-morrow we expect much worse. The weavers have declared they
will come down to the House of Lords for redress, which they say
they have been promised. A body of five hundred sailors were on
the road from Portsmouth to join them, but luckily the admiralty
had notice of their intention, and stopped them.(829) A large
body of weavers are on the road from Norwich, and it is said have
been joined by numbers in Essex; guards are posted to prevent, if
possible, their
approaching the city. Another troop of manufacturers are coming
from Manchester; and what is worst of' all, there is such a
general spirit of mutiny and dissatisfaction in the lower people,
that I think we are in danger of a rebellion in the heart of the
capital in a week. In the mean time, there is neither
administration nor government. The King is out of town, and this
is the crisis in which Mr. Pitt, who could stop every evil,
chooses to be more unreasonable than ever.(830)
Mr. Craufurd, whom you have seen at the Duchess of Grafton's,
carries this, or I should not venture being so explicit.
Wherever the storm may break out at first, I think Lord Bute
cannot escape his share of it. The Bedfords may triumph over
him, the Princess, and still higher, if they are fortunate enough
to avoid the present ugly appearances; and yet how the load of
odium will be increased, if they return to power! One can name
many in whose situation one would not be,-not one who is not
situated unpleasantly.
Adieu my dear lord; you shall hear as often as I can find a
conveyance but these are not topics for the post! Poor Mrs.
Fitzroy has lost her eldest girl. I forgot to tell you that the
young Duke of Devonshire goes to court to-morrow. Yours ever.
Wednesday evening.
I am forced to send you journals rather than letters. Mr.
Craufurd, who was to carry this, has put off his journey till
Saturday, and I choose rather to defer my despatch than trust it
to Guerchy's courier, though he offered me that conveyance
yesterday, but it is too serious to venture to their inspection.
Such precautions have been taken, and so many troops brought into
town, that there has been no rising, though the sheriffs of
London acquainted the Lords on Monday that a very
formidable one was preparing for five o'clock the next morning.
There was another tumult, indeed, at three o'clock yesterday, at
Bedford-house, but it was dispersed by reading the Riot-act. In
the mean time, the revolution has turned round again. The
ministers desired the King to commission Lord Granby, the Duke of
Richmond, and Lord Waldegrave, to suppress the riots, which, in
truth, was little short of asking for the power of the sword
against himself. On this, his Majesty determined to name the
Duke of Cumberland captain-general but the tranquillity of the
rioters happily gave H. R. H. occasion to persuade the King to
suspend that resolution. Thank God! From eleven o'clock
yesterday, when I heard it, till nine at night, when I learned
that the resolution had dropped, I think I never passed such
anxious hours! nay, I heard it was done, and looked upon the
civil war as commenced. During these events, the Duke was
endeavouring to form a ministry, but, luckily, nobody would
undertake it when Mr. Pitt had refused so the King is reduced to
the mortification, and it is extreme, of taking his old ministers
again. They are insolent enough, you may believe. Grenville has
treated his master in the most impertinent manner, and they are
now actually digesting the terms that they mean to impose on
their captive, and Lord Bute is the chief object of their rage;
though I think Lord Holland will not escape, nor Lord
Northumberland, whom they treat as an encourager of the rioters.
Both he and my lady went on Monday night to Bedford-house, and
were received with every mark of insult.(831) The Duke turned
his back on the Earl, without speaking to him, and he was kept
standing an hour exposed to all their railery. Still I have a
more extraordinary event to tell you than all I have related.
Lord Temple and George Grenville were reconciled yesterday
morning, by the intervention of Augustus Hervey; and, perhaps,
the next thing you wilt hear, may be that Lord Temple is sent by
this ministry to Ireland, though Lord Weymouth is again much
talked of for it.
The report of Norwich and Manchester weavers on the road is now
doubted. If Lord Bute is banished, I suppose the Duke of Bedford
will become the hero of this very mob, and every act of power
which they (the ministers] have executed, let who will have been
the adviser, will be forgotten. It will be entertaining to see
Lord Temple supporting Lord Halifax on general warrants!
You have more than once seen your old master(832) reduced to
surrender up his closet to a cabal--but never with such
circumstances of insult, indignity, and humiliation! For our
little party, it is more humbled than ever. Still I prefer that
state to what I dread; I mean, seeing your brother embarked in a
desperate administration. It was proposed first to make him
secretary at war, then secretary of state, but he declined both.
Yet I trembled, lest he should think bound in honour to obey the
commands of the King and Duke of Cumberland; but, to my great
joy, that alarm is over, unless the triumphant faction exact more
than the King can possibly suffer. It will rejoice you, however,
my dear lord, to hear that Mr. Conway is perfectly restored to
the King's favour; and that if he continues in opposition, it
will not be against the King, but a most abominable faction, who,
having raged against the constitution and their country to pay
court to Lord Bute, have even thrown off that paltry mask, and
avowedly hoisted the standard of their own power. Till the King
has signed their demands, one cannot look upon this scene as
closed.
Friday evening.
You will think, my dear lord, and it is natural you should, that
I write my letters at once, and compose one part with my
prophecies, and the other with the completion of them; but you
must recollect that I understand this country pretty well,--
attend closely to what passes,--have very good intelligence,--and
know the characters of the actors thoroughly. A little sagacity
added to such foundation, easily carries one's sight a good way;
but you will care for my narrative more than my reflections, so I
proceed.
On Wednesday, the ministers dictated their terms; you will not
expect much moderation, and, accordingly, there was not a grain:
they demanded a royal promise of never consulting Lord Bute,
Secondly, the dismission of Mr. Mckinsy from the direction of
Scotland; thirdly, and lastly, for they could go no further, the
crown itself--or, in their words the immediate nomination of Lord
Granby to be captain-general. You may figure the King's
indignation--for himself, for his favourite, for his uncle. In
my own opinion, the proposal of grounds for taxing his majesty
himself hereafter with breaking his word,(833) was the bitterest
affront of all. He expressed his anger and astonishment, and
bade them return at ten at night for his answer; but, before
that, he sent the Chancellor to the junta, consenting to displace
Mekinsy,(834) refusing to promise not to consult Lord Bute,
though acquiescing to his not interfering in business, but with a
peremptory refusal to the article of Lord Granby. The rebels
took till next morning to advise on their answer; when they gave
up the point of Lord Granby, and contented themselves with the
modification on the chapter of Lord Bute. However, not to be too
complimentary, they demanded Mekinsy's place for Lord Lorn,(835)
and the instant removal of Lord Holland; both of which have been
granted. Charles Townshend is paymaster, and Lord Weymouth
viceroy of Ireland; so Lord Northumberland remains on the pav`e,
which, as there is no place vacant for him, it was not necessary
to stipulate. The Duchess of bedford, with colours flying,
issued out of her garrison yesterday, and took possession of the
drawing-room. To-day their majesties are gone to Woburn; but as
the Duchess is a perfect Methodist against all suspicious
characters, it is said, to-day, that Lord Talbot is to be added
to the list of proscriptions, and now they think themselves
established for ever.--Do they so? Lord Temple declares himself
the warmest friend of the present administration;--there is a
mystery still to be cleared up,--and, perhaps, a little to the
mortification of Bedford-house.--We shall see.
The Duke of Cumberland is retired to Windsor: your brother gone
to Park-place: I go to Strawberry to-morrow, lest people should
not think me a great man too. I don't know whether I shall not
even think it necessary to order myself a fit of the gout.(836)
I have received your short letter of the 16th, with the memorial
of the family of Brebeuf;--now my head will have a little
leisure, I will examine it,. and see if I can do any thing in the
affair. In that letter you say, you have been a month without
hearing from any of your friends. I little expected to be taxed
on that head: I have written you volumes almost every day; my
last dates have been of April 11th, 20th, May 5th, 12th, and
16th. I beg you will look over them, and send me word exactly,
and I beg you not to omit it, whether any of these are missing.
Three of them I trusted to Guerchy, but took care they should
contain nothing which it signified whether seen or not on t'other
side of the water, though I did not care they should be perused
on this. I had the caution not to let him have this, though by
the eagerness with which he proffered both to-day and yesterday,
to send any thing by his couriers, I suspected he wished to help
them to better intelligence than he could give them himself. He
even told me he should have another courier depart on Tuesday
next; but I excused myself, on the pretence of having too much to
write at once, and shall send this, and a letter your brother has
left me, by mr. Craufurd, though he does not set out till Sunday;
but you had better wait for it from him, than from the Duc de
Choiseul. Pray commend my discretion--you see I grow a
consummate politician; but don't approve of it too much, lest I
only send you letters as prudent as your own.
You may acquaint Lady Holland with the dismission of her lord, if
she has not heard it, he being at Kingsgate. Your secretary(837)
is likely to be prime minister in Ireland. Two months ago the
new Viceroy himself was going to France for debt, leaving his
wife and children to be maintained by her mother.(838)
I will be much obliged to you, my dear lord, if you will contrive
to pay Lady Stanhope for the medals; they cost, I think, but 4
pounds 7 shillings or thereabout--but I have lost the note.
Adieu! here ends volume the first. Omnia mutantur, sed non
mutamur in illis. Princess Amelia, who has a little veered round
to northwest, and by Bedford, does not speak tenderly of her
brother--but if some families are reconciled, others are
disunited. The Keppels are at open war with the Keppels, and
Lady Mary Coke weeps with one eye over Lady Betty Mackinsy, and
smiles with t'other on Lady Dalkeith;(839) but the first eye is
the sincerest. The Duke of Richmond, in exactly the same
proportion, is divided between his sisters, Holland and Bunbury.
Thank you much for your kindness about Mr. T. Walpole-I have not
had a moment's time to see him, but will do full justice to your
goodness. Yours ever, H. W.
Pray remember the dates of my letters--you will be strangely
puzzled for a clue, if one of them has miscarried. Sir Charles
Bunbury is not to be secretary for Ireland, but Thurlow the
lawyer:(840) they are to stay five years without returning. Lord
Lorn has declined, and Lord Frederic Campbell is to be lord privy
seal for Scotland. Lord Waldegrave, they say, chamberlain to the
Queen.(841)
(831) From the family, not from the rioters.-C.
(832) George the Second.
(833) This alludes to the required promise not to consult Lord
Bute.
(834) The Following is from Mr. Stuart Mackenzie's own account of
his removal, in the Mitchell MSS:--"They demanded certain terms,
without which they declined coming in; the principal of which
was, that I should be dismissed from the administration of the
affairs of Scotland, and likewise from the office of privy seal.
His Majesty answered, that as to the first, it would be no great
punishment, he believed, to me, as I had never been very fond of
the employment; but as to the second, I had his promise to
continue it for life. Grenville replied to this purpose: 'In
that case, Sir, we must decline coming in.'--'No,' says the King,
'I will not, on that account, put the whole kingdom in confusion,
and leave it without a government at all; but I will tell you how
that matter stands --that he has my royal word to continue in the
office; and if you force me, from the situation of things, to
violate my royal word, remember you are responsible for it, and
not I.' Upon that very solemn charge, Grenville answered, 'Sir,
we must make some arrangement for Mr. Mackenzie.' The King
answered, 'If I know any thing of him, he will give himself very
little trouble about your arrangements for him.' His Majesty
afterwards sent for me to his closet, where I was a very
considerable time with him; and if it were possible for me to
love my excellent prince now better than I ever did before, I
should certainly do it; for I have every reason that can induce a
generous mind to feel his goodness for me; but such was his
Majesty's situation at this time, that, had he absolutely
rejected my dismission, he would have put me in the most
disagreeable situation in the world; and, what was of much higher
consequence, he would leave greatly distressed his affairs."-E.
(835) John Marquis of Lorn, afterwards fifth Duke of Argyle; a
lieutenant-general in the army: he was brother of (General
Conway's lady.-C.
(836) An allusion to Mr. Pitt.-C.
(837) Sir Charles Bunbury, secretary of embassy at Paris, was
nominated secretary to Lord Weymouth, and held that office for
about two months.-E.
(838) The straitened circumstances of Lord Weymouth made his
nomination very unpopular in Ireland: he never went over.-C.
(839) In the recent arrangement, Lady Betty's husband was, as we
have seen, dismissed from, and Lady Dalkeith's (Charles
Townshend) acceded to, office.-C.
(840) This was a mistake.-E.
(841) This is the last of the series of letters written by
Walpole to Lord Hertford: to the publication is subjoined the
following postscript:-"The state of the administration, as
described in the foregoing letters, could evidently not last; and
after the failure of several attempts to induce Mr. Pitt to take
the government on terms which the King could grant, the Duke of
Cumberland, at his Majesty's desire, succeeded in forming the
Rockingham administration, in which General Conway was secretary
of state and leader of the House of Commons, and Lord Hertford,
lord lieutenant of Ireland. There can be little doubt, that
during these transactions, Mr. Walpole (although he had in the
interval a severe fit Of the gout) wrote to Lord Hertford, but no
other letter of this series has been discovered; which is the
more to be regretted, as the state of parties was it that moment
particularly interesting. The refusal of Mr. Pitt raised the
ministers to a pitch of confidence, (perhaps@, we might say,
-arrogance,) which, as Mr. Walpole foresaw, accelerated their
fall. So blind were they to their true situation, that Mr.
Rigby, who was as deep as any man in the ministerial councils,
writes to a private friend "I never thought, to tell you the
truth, that we were in any danger from this last political cloud.
The Duke of Cumberland's political system, grafted upon the Earl
of Bute's stock, seems, of all others, the least capable of
succeeding.' This letter was written on the 7th of July, and on
the 10th the new ministry was formed."-C.
Letter 253 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, May 26, 1765. (page 405)
If one of the one hundred events, and one hundredth part of the
one hundred thousand reports that have passed, and been spread in
this last month, have reached your solitary hill, you must be
surprised at not a single word from me during that period. The
number of events is my excuse. Though mine is the pen of a
pretty ready writer, I could not keep pace with the revolution of
each day, each hour. I had not time to begin the narrative, much
less to finish it: no, I Must keep the whole to tell you at once,
or to read it to you, for I think I shall write the history,
which, let me tell you, Buckinger himself could not have crowded
into a nutshell.
For your part, you will be content though the house of Montagu
has not made an advantageous figure in this political warfare;
yet it is crowned with victory, and laurels you know compensate
for every scar. You went out of town frightened out of your
senses at the giant prerogative: alack! he is grown so tame,
that, as you said of our earthquake, you may stroke him.(842) The
Regency-bill, not quite calculated with that intent, has produced
four regents, King Bedford, king Grenville, King Halifax, and
king Twitcher.(843) Lord Holland is turned out, and Stuart
Mackenzie. Charles Townshend is paymaster, and Lord Bute
annihilated; and all done without the help of the Whigs. You
love to guess what one is going to say. Now you may what I am
not going to say. your newspapers perhaps have given you a long
roll of opposition names, who were coming into place, and so all
the world thought; but the Wind turned quite round, and left them
on the strand, and just where they were, except in opposition
which is declared to be at an end. Enigma as all this may sound,
the key would open it all to you in the twinkling of an
administration. In the mean time we have family reconciliations
without end. The King and the Duke of Cumberland have been shut
up together day and night; Lord Temple and George Grenville are
sworn brothers; well, but Mr. Pitt, where is he? In the clouds,
for aught I know; in one of which he may descend like the kings
of Bantam, and take quiet possession of the throne again.
As a thorough-bass to these squabbles, we have had an
insurrection and a siege. Bedford-house, though garrisoned by
horse and foot guards, was on the point of being taken. The
besieged are in their turn triumphant; and, if any body now was
to publish "Droit le Duc,"(844) I do not think the House of Lords
would censure his book. Indeed the regents may do what they
please, and turn out whom they will; I see nothing to resist
them. Lord Bute will not easily be tempted to rebel when the
last struggle has cost him so dear.
I am sorry for some of my friends, to whom I wished more fortune.
For myself, I am but just where I should have been had they
succeeded. It is satisfaction enough to me to be delivered from
politics; which you know I have long detested. When I was
tranquil enough to write Castles of Otranto in the midst of grave
nonsense and foolish councils of war, I am not likely to disturb
myself with the diversions of the court where I am not connected
with a soul. As it has proved to be the interest of the present
ministers, however contrary to their torturer views, to lower the
crown, they will scarce be in a hurry to aggrandize it again.
That will satisfy you; and I, you know, am satisfied if I have
any thing to laugh at--'tis a lucky age for a man who is so
easily contented!
The poor Chute has had another relapse, but is out of bed again.
I am thinking of my journey to France; but, as Mr. Conway has a
mind I should wait for him, I don't know whether it will take
place before the autumn. I will by no means release you from
your promise of making me a visit here before I go.
Poor Mr. Bentley, I doubt, is under the greatest difficulties of
any body. His poem, which he modestly delivered over to
immortality, must be cut and turned; for Lord Halifax and Lord
Bute cannot sit in the same canto together; then the horns and
hoofs that he had bestowed on Lord Temple must be pared away, and
beams of glory distributed over his whole person. 'Tis a
dangerous thing to write political panegyrics or satires; it
draws the unhappy bard into a thousand scrapes and
contradictions. The edifices and inscriptions at Stowe should be
a lesson not to erect monuments to the living. I will not place
an ossuarium in my garden for my cat, before her bones are ready
to be placed in it. I hold contradictions to be as essential to
the definition of a political man, as any visible or featherless
quality can be to man in general. Good night!
28th.
I shall send this by the coach; so whatever comes with it is only
to make bundle. Here are some lines that came into my head
yesterday in the postchaise, as I was reading in the Annual
Register an account of a fountain-tree in one of the Canary
Islands, which never dies, and supplies the inhabitants with
water. I don't warrant the longevity though the hypostatic union
of a fountain may eternize the tree.
"In climes adust, where rivers never flow,
Where constant suns repel approaching snow,
How Nature's various and inventive hand
Can pour unheard-of moisture o'er the land!
immortal plants she bids on rocks arise,
And from the dropping branches streams supplies,
The thirsty native sucks the falling shower,
Nor asks for juicy fruit or blooming flower;
But haply doubts when travellers maintain,
That Europe's forests melt not into rain."
(842) See ant`e, p. 365, letter 237.-E.
(843) Wilkes, in the North Briton, had applied to the Earl of
Sandwich the sobriquet of jemmy Twitcher.-E.
(844) ant`e, p. 294, letter 194.-E.
Letter 254 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, June 10, 1765, Eleven at night. (page 407)
I am just come out of the garden in the most oriental of all
evenings, and from breathing odours beyond those of Araby. The
acacias, which the Arabians have the sense to worship, are
covered with blossoms, the honeysuckles dangle from every tree in
festoons, the seringas are thickets of sweets, and the new-cut
hay in the field tempers the balmy gales with simple freshness;
while a thousand sky-rockets launched into the air at Ranelagh or
Marybone illuminate the scene, and give it an air of Haroun
Alraschid's paradise. I was not quite so content by daylight;
some foreigners dined here, and, though they admired our verdure,
it mortified me by its brownness--we have not had a drop of rain
this month to cool the tip of our daisies. My company was Lady
Lyttelton, Lady Schaub, a Madame de Juliac from the Pyreneans,
very handsome, not a girl, and of Lady Schaub's mould; the Comte
de Caraman, nephew of Madame de Mirepoix, a Monsieur de
Clausonnette, and General Schouallow,(845) the favourite of the
late Czarina; absolute favourite for a dozen years, without
making an enemy. In truth, he is very amiable, humble, and
modest. Had he been ambitious, he might have mounted the throne:
as he was not, you may imagine they have plucked his plumes a
good deal. There is a little air of melancholy about him, and,
if I am not mistaken, Some secret wishes for the fall of the
present Empress; which, if it were civil to suppose, I could
heartily join with him in hoping for. As we have still liberty
enough left to dazzle a Russian, he seems charmed with England,
and perhaps liked even this place the more as belonging to the
son of one that, like himself, had been prime minister. If he
has no more ambition left than I have, he must taste the felicity
of being a private man. What has Lord Bute gained, but the
knowledge of how many ungrateful sycophants favour and power can
create?
If you have received the parcel that I consined to Richard Brown
for you, you will have found an explanation of my long silence.
Thank you for being alarmed for my health.
The day after to-morrow I go to Park-place for four or five days,
and soon after to Goodwood. My French journey is still in
suspense; Lord Hertford talks of coming over for a fortnight;
perhaps I may go back with him; but I have determined nothing
yet, till I see farther into the present chase, that somehow or
other I may take my leave of politics for ever; for can any thing
be so wearisome as politics on the account of others? Good
night! shall I not see you here? Yours ever.
(845) The Comte de Schouwaloff. See ant`e, p. 382, letter 245.
Walpole says, in a note to Madame du Deffand's letter to him of
the 19th of April, 1766, "Il fut IC favori, l'on croit le mari,
de la Czarine Elizabeth de Russie, et pendant douze ans de faveur
il ne se fit point un ennemi."-E.
Letter 255 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
Strawberry Hill, June 11, 1765. (page 408)
I am almost as much ashamed, Madam, to plead the true cause of my
faults towards your ladyship, as to have been guilty of any
neglect. It is scandalous, at my age, to have been carried
backwards and forwards to balls and suppers and parties by very
young people, as I was all last week. My resolutions of growing
old and staid are admirable: I wake with a sober plan, and intend
to pass the day with my friends--then comes the Duke of Richmond,
and hurries me down to Whitehall to dinner-then the Duchess of
Grafton sends for me to loo in Upper Grosvenor-street--before I
can get thither, I am begged to step to Kensington, to give Mrs.
Anne Pitt my opinion about a bow-window--after the loo, I am to
march back to Whitehall to supper-and after that, am to walk with
Miss Pelham on the terrace till two in the morning, because it is
moonlight and her chair is not come. All this does not help my
morning laziness; and, by the time I have breakfasted, fed my
birds and my squirrels, and dressed, there is an auction ready.
In short, Madam, this was my life last week, and is I think every
week, with the addition of forty episodes. Yet, ridiculous as it
is, I send it your ladyship, because I had rather you should
laugh at me than be angry. I cannot offend you in intention, but
I fear my sins of omission are equal to many a good Christian's.
Pray forgive me. I really will begin to be between forty and
fifty by the time I am fourscore; and I truly believe I shall
bring my resolutions within compass; for I have not chalked out
any particular business that will take me above forty years more;
so that, if I do not get acquainted with the grandchildren of all
the present age, I shall lead a quiet sober life yet before I
die.
As Mr. Bateman's is the kingdom of flowers, I must not wish to
send you any; else, Madam, I should load wagons with acacias,
honeysuckles, and seringas. Madame de Juliac, who dined here
owned that the climate and odours equalled Languedoc. I fear the
want of rain made the turf put her in mind of it, too. Monsieur
de Caraman entered into the gothic spirit of the place, and
really seemed pleased, which was more than I expected; for,
between you and me, Madam, our friends the French have seldom
eyes for any thing they have not been used to see all their
lives. I beg my warmest compliments to your host and Lord
Ilchester. I wish your ladyship all pleasure and health, and am,
notwithstanding my idleness, your most faithful and devoted
humble servant.
Letter 256 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Saturday night. (page 409)
I must scrawl a line to you, though with the utmost difficulty,
for I am in my bed; but I see they have foolishly put it into the
Chronicle that I am dangerously ill; and as I know you take in
that paper, and are one of the very, very few, of whose
tenderness and friendship I have not the smallest doubt, I give
myself pain, rather than let you feel a moment's unnecessarily.
It is true, I have had a terrible attack of the gout in my
stomach, head, and both feet, but have truly never been in danger
any more than one must be in such a situation. My head and
stomach are perfectly well; my feet far from it. I have kept my
room since this day se'nnight, and my bed these three days, but
hope to get up to-morrow. You know my writing and my veracity,
and that I would not deceive you. As to my person, it will not
be so easy to reconnoitre it, for I question whether any of it
will remain; it was easy to annihilate so airy a substance.
Adieu!
Letter 257 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Wednesday noon, July 3, 1765. (page 410)
The footing part of my dance with my shocking partner the gout is
almost over. I had little pain there this last night, and got,
at twice, about three hours' sleep; but, whenever I waked, found
my head very bad, which Mr. Graham thinks gouty too. The fever
is still very high: but the same sage is of opinion, with my Lady
LOndonderry, that if it was a fever from death, I should die; but
as it is only a fever from the gout, I shall live. I think so
too, and hope that, like the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough.,
they are so inseparable, that when one goes t'other will.
Tell Lady Ailesbury, I fear it will be long before I shall be
able to compass all your terraces again. The weather is very
hot, and I have the (comfort of a window open all day. I have
got a bushel of roses too, and a new scarlet nightingale, which
does not sing Nancy Dawson from morning to night. Perhaps you
think all these poor pleasures; but you are ignorant what a
provocative the gout is, and what charms it can bestow on a
moment's amusement! Oh! it beats all the refinements of a Roman
sensualist. It has made even my watch a darling plaything; I
strike it as often as a child does. Then the disorder of my
sleep diverts me when I am awake. I dreamt that I went to see
Madame de Bentheim at Paris, and that she had the prettiest
palace in the world, built like a pavilion, of yellow laced with
blue; that I made love to her daughter, whom I called
Mademoiselle Bleue et Jaune, and thought it very clever.
My next reverie was very serious, and lasted half an hour after I
was awake; which you will perhaps think a little light-headed,
and so do I. I thought Mr. Pitt had had a conference with Madame
de Bentheim, and granted all her demands. I rung for Louis at
six in the morning, and wanted to get up and inform myself of
what had been kept so secret from me. You must know, that all
these visions of Madame de Bentheim flowed from George Selwyn
telling me last night, that she had carried most of her points,
and was returning. What stuff I tell you! But alas! I have
nothing better to do, sitting on my bed, and wishing to forget
how brightly the sun shines, when I cannot be at Strawberry.
Yours ever.
Letter 258 To The Countess Of Suffolk.(846)
London, July 3, 1765. (page 411)
Your ladyship's goodness to me on all occasions makes me flatter
myself that I am not doing an impertinence in telling you I am
alive; though, after what I have suffered, you may be sure there
cannot be much of me left. The gout has been a little in my
stomach, much more in my head, but luckily never out of my right
foot, and for twelve, thirteen, and seventeen hours together,
insisting upon having its way as absolutely as ever my Lady
Blandford(847) did. The extremity of pain seems to be over,
though I sometimes think my tyrant puts in his claim to t'other
foot; and surely he is, like most tyrants, mean as well as cruel,
or he could never have thought the leg of a lark such a prize.
The fever, the tyrant's first minister, has been as vexatious as
his master, and makes use of this hot day to plague me more; yet,
as I was sending a servant to Twickenham, I could not help
scrawling out a few lines to ask how your ladyship does, to tell
you how I am, and to lament the roses, strawberries, and banks of
the river. I know nothing, Madam, of ,any kings or ministers but
those I have mentioned; and this administration I fervently hope
will be changed soon, and for all others I shall be very
indifferent. had a (,real prince come to my bedside yesterday, I
should have begged that the honour might last a very few minutes.
I am, etc.
(846) Now first collected.
(847) lady Blandford was somewhat impatient in her temper. See
ant`e, p. 342, letter 220.-E.
letter 259 To The Countess Of Suffolk.(848)
Arlington Street, July 9, 1765. (page 411)
Madam,
though instead of getting better, as I flattered myself I should,
I have gone through two very painful and sleepless nights, yet as
I give audience here in my bed to new ministers and foreign
ministers, I think it full as much my duty to give an account of
myself to those who are so good as to wish me well. I am reduced
to nothing but bones and spirits; but the latter make me bear the
inconvenience of the former, though they (I mean my bones) lie in
a heap over one another like the bits of ivory at the game of
straws.
It is very melancholy, at the instant I was getting quit of
politics, to be visited with the only thing that is still more
plaguing. However, I believe the fit of politics going off makes
me support the new-comer better. Neither of them indeed will
leave me plumper;(849) but if they will both leave me at peace,
your ladyship knows it is all I have ever desired. The chiefs
of' the new ministry were to have kissed hands to-day; but Mr.
Charles Townshend, who, besides not knowing either of his own
minds, has his brother's minds to know too, could not determine
last night. Both brothers are gone to the King to-day. I was
much concerned to hear so bad an account of your ladyship's
health. Other people would wish you a severe fit, which is a
very cheap wish to them who do not feel it: I, who do, advise you
to be content with it in detail. Adieu! Madam. Pray keep a
little summer for me. I will give You a bushel of politics, when
I come to Marble Hill, for a teacup of strawberries and cream.
Mr. Chetwynd,(851) I suppose, is making the utmost advantage of
any absence, frisking and cutting capers before Miss Hotham, and
advising her not to throw herself away on a decrepit old man.-
-Well, fifty years hence he may begin to be an old man too; and
then I shall not pity him, though I own he is the best-humoured
lad in the world now. Yours, etc.
(848) Now first collected.
(849) Walpole was too fond of this boast of disinterestedness.
What was it but politics that made his fortune so plump? His
fortune from his father, we know from himself, was very
inconsiderable;-but from his childhood he held sinecure offices
which, during the greater part of his life, produced him between
six and seven thousand pounds per annum.-C.
(851) William Chetwynd, brother of the two first Viscounts, and
himself, in 1767, third Viscount Chetwynd. He was at this time
nearly eighty years of age.-E.
Letter 260 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, July 11, 1765. (page 412)
You are so good, I must write you a few lines, and you will
excuse My not writing many, my posture is so uncomfortable, lying
on a couch by the side of my bed, and writing on the bed. I have
in this manner been what they call out of bed for two days, but I
mend very slowly, and get no strength in my feet at all; however,
I must have patience.
Thank you for your kind offer; but, my dear Sir, you can do me no
good but what you always do me, in coming to see me. I
should hope that would be before I go to France, whither I
certainly go the beginning of September, if not sooner. The
great and happy change-happy, I hope, for this country--is
actually begun. The Duke of Bedford, George Grenville, and the
two Secretaries are discarded. Lord Rockingham is first lord of
the treasury, Dowdeswell chancellor of the exchequer, the Duke of
Grafton and Mr. Conway secretaries of state. You need not wish
me joy, for I know you do. There is a good deal more to
come,(852) and what is better, regulation of general warrants,
and of undoing at least some of the mischiefs these - have been
committing; some, indeed, is past recovery! I long to talk it
all over with you; though it is hard that when I may write what I
will, I am not able. The poor Chute is relapsed again, and we
are no comfort to one another but by messages. An offer from
Ireland was sent to Lord Hertford last night from his brother's
office. Adieu!
(852) "There has been pretty clean sweeping already," wrote Lord
Chesterfield on the 15th; and I do not remember, in my time, to
have seen so much at once, as an entire new board of treasury,
and two new secretaries, etc. Here is a new political arch
built; but of materials of so different a nature, and without a
keystone, that it does not, in my opinion, indicate either
strength or duration. It will certainly require repairs and a
keystone next winter, and that keystone will and must necessarily
be Mr. Pitt."-E.
Letter 262 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, August 23, 1765. (page 414)
As I know that when you love people, you love them, I feel for
the concern that the death of Lady Bab. Montagu(854) Will give
you. Though you have long lived out of the way of seeing her,
you are not a man to forget by absence, or all your friends would
have still more reason to complain of your retirement. Your
solitude prevents your filling up the places of those that are
gone. In the world, new acquaintances slide into our habits, but
you keep so strict a separation between your old friends and new
faces, that the loss of any of the former must be more Sensible
to you than to most people. I heartily condole with you, and yet
I must make you smile. The second Miss Jefferies was to go to a
ball yesterday at Hampton-court with Lady Sophia Thomas's
daughters. The news came, and your aunt Cosby said the girl must
not go to it. The poor child then cried in earnest. Lady Sophia
went to intercede for her, and found her grandmother at
backgammon, who would hear no entreaties. Lady Sophia
represented that Miss Jefferies was but a second cousin, and
could not have been acquainted. "Oh! Madam, if there is no
tenderness left in the world-cinq ace--Sir, you are to throw."
We have a strange story come from London. Lord Fortescue was
dead suddenly; there was a great mob about his house in
Grosvenor-square, and a buzz that my lady had thrown up the sash
and cried murder, and that he then shot himself. How true all
this I don't know: at least it is not so false as if it was in
the newspapers. However, these sultry summers do not suit English
heads: this last month puts even the month of November's nose out
of joint for self-murders. If it was not for the Queen the
peerage would be extinct: she has given us another Duke.(855)
My two months are up, and yet I recover my feet very slowly. I
have crawled once round my garden; but it sent me to my couch for
the rest of the day. This duration of weakness makes me very
impatient, as I wish much to be at Paris before the fine season
is quite gone. This will probably be the last time I shall
travel to finish my education, and I should be glad to look once
more at their gardens and villas: nay, churches and palaces are
but uncomfortable sights in cold weather, and I have much more
curiosity for their habitations than their company. They have
scarce a man or a woman of note that one wants to see; and, for
their authors, their style is grown so dull in imitation of us,
they are si philosophes, si g`eom`etres, si moraux, that I
certainly should not cross the sea in search of ennui, that I can
have in such perfection at home. However, the change of scene is
my chief inducement, and to get out of politics. There is no
going through another course of patriotism in your cousin
Sandwich and George Grenville. I think of setting out by the
middle of September; have I any chance of seeing you here before
that? Won't you come and commission me to offer up your
devotions to Notre Dame de Livry?(8 or chez nos filles de Sainte
Marie. If I don't make haste, the reformation in France will
demolish half that I want to see. I tremble for the Val de Grace
and St. Cyr. The devil take Luther for putting it into the heads
of his methodists to pull down the churches! I believe in twenty
years there Will not be a convent left in Europe but this at
Strawberry. I wished for you to-day; Mr. Chute and Cowslade
dined here; the day was divine: the sun gleamed down into the
chapel in all the glory of popery; the gallery was all radiance;
we drank our coffee on the bench under the great ash-tree; the
verdure was delicious; our tea in the Holbein room, by which a
thousand chaises and barges passed; and I showed them my new
cottage and garden over the way, which they had never seen, and
with which they were enchanted. It is so retired, so modest, and
yet so cheerful and trim, that I expect you to fall in love with
it. I intend to bring it a handful of treillage and agr`emens
from Paris; for being cross the road, and quite detached, it is
to have nothing gothic about it, nor pretend to call cousins with
the mansion-house.
I know no more of the big world at London, than if I had not a
relation in the ministry. To be free from pain and politics is
such a relief to me, that I enjoy my little comforts and
amusements here beyond expression. No mortal ever entered the
gate of ambition with such transport as I took leave of them all
at the threshold. Oh! if my Lord Temple knew what pleasures he
could create for himself at Stowe, he would not harass a
shattered carcass, and sigh to be insolent at St. James's! For my
part, I say with the bastard in King John, though with a little
more reverence, and only as touching his ambition,
Oh! old Sir Robert, father, on my knee
I give Heaven thanks I was not like to thee.
Adieu! Yours most cordially.
(854) Lady Barbara Montagu, daughter of George second Earl of
Halifax.-E.
(855) The Duke of Clarence, born on the 21st of August;
afterwards King William the Fourth.-'E.
(856) Madame de S`evign`e, whom Walpole frequently alludes to
under this title.-E.
Letter 261 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 28, 1765. (page 413)
The less one is disposed, if one has any sense, to talk of
oneself to people that inquire only out of compliment, and do not
listen to the answer, the more satisfaction one feels in
indulging a self-complacency, by Sighing to those that really
sympathize with our griefs. Do not think it is pain that makes
me give this low-spirited air to my letter. No, it is the
prospect of what is to come, not the sensation of what is
passing, that affects me. The loss of youth is melancholy
enough; but to enter into old age through the gate of infirmity
is most disheartening. My health and spirits make me take but
slight notice of the transition, and under the persuasion of
temperance being a talisman, I marched boldly on towards the
descent of the hill, knowing I must fall at last, but not
suspecting that I should stumble by the way. This confession
explains the mortification I feel. A month's confinement to one
who never kept his bed a day is a stinging lesson, and has
humbled my insolence to almost indifference. Judge, then, how
little I interest myself about public events. I know nothing of
them since I came hither, where I had not only the disappointment
of not growing better, but a bad return In one of my feet, so
that I am still wrapped up and upon a couch. It was the more
unlucky as Lord Hertford is come to England for a few days. He
has offered to come to me; but as I then should see him only for
some minutes, I propose being carried to town tomorrow. It will
be SO long before I can expect to be able to travel, that my
French journey will certainly not take place so soon as I
intended, and if Lord Hertford goes to Ireland, I shall be still
more fluctuating; for though the Duke and Duchess of Richmond
will replace them at Paris, and are as eager to have me with
them, I have had so many more years heaped upon me within this
month, that I have not the conscience to trouble young people,
when I can no longer be as juvenile as they are. Indeed I shall
think myself decrepit till I again saunter into the garden in my
slippers and without my hat in all weathers--a point I am
determined to regain, if possible; for even this experience
cannot make me resign my temperance and my hardiness. I am tired
of the world, its politics, its pursuits, and its pleasures; but
it will cost me some struggles before I submit to be tender and
careful. Christ! can I ever stoop to the regimen of old age? I
do not wish to dress up a withered person, nor drag it about to
public places; but to sit in one's room, clothed warmly,
expecting visits from folk-, I don't wish to see, and tended and
flattered by relations impatient for one's death let the gout do
its worst as expeditiously as it can; it would be more welcome in
my stomach than in my limbs. I am not made to bear a course of
nonsense and advice, but must play the fool in my own way to the
last, alone with all my heart, if I cannot be with the very few I
wish to see: but, to depend for comfort on others, who would be
no comfort to me; this surely is not a state to be preferred to
death: and nobody can have truly enjoyed the advantages of youth,
health, and spirits, who is content to exist without the two
last, which alone bear any resemblance to the first.(853)
You see how difficult it is to conquer my proud spirit: low and
weak as I am, I think my resolution and perseverance will get me
better, and that I shall still be a gay shadow; at least, I will
impose any severity upon myself, rather than humour the gout, and
sink into that indulgence with which most people treat it.
Bodily liberty is as dear to me as mental, and I would as soon
flatter any other tyrant as the gout, my Whiggism extending as
much to my health as to my principles, and being as willing to
part with life, when I cannot preserve it, as your uncle Algernon
when his freedom was at stake. Adieu!
(853) Upon this passage the Quarterly Review observes: "Walpole's
reflections on human life are marked by strong sense and
knowledge of mankind; but our most useful lesson will perhaps be
derived from considering this man of the world, full of
information and sparkling with vivacity, stretched on a sick bed,
and apprehending all the tedious languor of helpless decrepitude
and deserted solitude." Vol. xix. p. 129.-E.
Letter 263 To George Montagu, Esq.
Saturday, Aug. 31, 1765, Strawberry Hill. (page 416)
I thought it would happen so; that I should not see you before I
left England! Indeed, I may as well give you quite up, for every
year reduces our Intercourse. I am prepared, because it must
happen, if I live, to see my friends drop off; but my mind was
not turned to see them entirely separated from me while they
live. This is very uncomfortable, but so are many things!--well!
I will go and try to forget you all--all! God knows that all that
I have left to forget is small enough; but the warm heart, that
gave me affections, is not so easily laid aside. If I could
divest myself of that, I should not, I think, find much for
friendship remaining; you, against whom I have no complaint, but
that you satisfy yourself with loving me without any desire of
seeing me, are one of the very last that I wish to preserve; but
I will say no more on a subject that my heart is too full of.
I shall set out on Monday se'nnight, and force myself to believe
that I am glad to go, and yet this will be my chief joy, for I
promise myself little pleasure in arriving. Can you think me boy
enough to be fond of a new world at my time of life! If I did not
hate the world I know, I should not seek another. My greatest
amusement will be in reviving old ideas. The memory of what made
impressions on one's youth is ten times dearer than any new
pleasure can be. I shall probably write to you often, for I am
not disposed to communicate myself' to any thing that I have not
known these thirty years. My mind is such a compound from the
vast variety that I have seen, acted, pursued, that it would cost
me too much pains to be intelligible to young persons, if I had a
mind to open myself to them. They certainly do not desire I
should. You like my gossiping to you, though you seldom gossip
with me. The trifles that amuse my mind are the only points I
value now. I have seen the vanity of every thing serious, and
the falsehood of every thing that pretended to be serious. I go
to see French plays and buy French china, not to know their
ministers, to look into their government, or think of the
interests of nations--in short, unlike most people that are
growing old, I am convinced that nothing is charming but what
appeared important in one's youth, which afterwards passes for
follies. Oh! but those follies were sincere; if the pursuits of
age are so, they are sincere alone to self-interest. Thus I
think, and have no other care but not to think aloud. I would
not have respectable youth think me an old fool. For the old
knaves, they may suppose me one of their number if they please; I
shall not be so--but neither the one nor the other shall know
what I am. I have done with them all, shall amuse myself as well
as I can, and think as little as I can; a pretty hard task for an
active mind!
Direct your letters to Arlington-street, whence Favre will take
care to convey them to me. I leave him to manage all my affairs,
and take no soul but Louis. I am glad I don't know your Mrs.
Anne; her partiality would make me love her; and it is entirely
incompatible with my present system to leave even a postern-door
open to any feeling which would steal in if I did not double-bolt
every avenue.
If you send me any parcel to Arlington-street before Monday
.se'nnight I will take care of it. Many English books I conclude
are to be bought at Paris. I am sure Richardson's works are, for
they have stupefied the whole French nation:(857) I will not
answer for our best authors. You may send me your list, and, if
I do not find them, I can send you word, and you may convey them
to me by Favre's means, who will know of messengers, etc., coming
to Paris.
I have fixed no precise time for my absence. My wish is to like
it enough to stay till February, which may happen, if I can
support the first launching into new society. I know four or
five very agreeable and sensible people there, as the Guerchys,
Madame de Mirepoix, Madame de Boufflers, and Lady Mary Chabot,-
-these intimately; besides the Duc de Nivernois, and several
others that have been here. Then the Richmonds will follow me in
a fortnight or three weeks, and their house will be a sort of
home. I actually go into it at first, till I can suit myself
with an -,apartment; but I shall take care to quit it before they
come, for, though they are in a manner my children, I do not
intend to adopt the rest of my countrymen; nor, when I quit the
best company here, to live in the worst there; such @are young
travelling boys, and, what is still worse, old travelling boys,
governors.
Adieu! remember you have defrauded me of this summer; I will be
amply repaid the next, so make your arrangements accordingly.
(857) "High as Richardson's reputation stood in his own country,
it was even more exalted in those of France and Germany, whose
imaginations are more easily excited, and their passions more
easily moved, by tales of fictitious distress, than are the cold-
blooded English. Foreigners of distinction have been known to
visit Hampstead, and to inquire for the Flask Walk, distinguished
as a scene in Clarissa's history, just as travellers visit the
rocks of Meillerie to view the localities of Rousseau's tale of
passion. Diderot vied with Rousseau in heaping incense upon the
shrine of the English author. The former compares him to Homer,
and predicts for his memory the same honours which are rendered
to the father of epic poetry; and the last, besides his
well-known burst of eloquent panegyric, records his opinion in a
letter to D'Alembert:--'On n'a jamais fait encore, en quelque
langue que ce soit, de roman `egal `a Clarisse, ni m`eme
approchant.'" Sir Walter Scott; Prose Works, Vol. iii. p. 49.-E.
Letter 264 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Arlington Street, Sept. 3, 1765. (page 418)
My dear lord,
I cannot quit a country where I leave any thing that I honour so
much as your lordship and Lady Strafford, without taking a sort
of leave of you. I shall set out for Paris on Monday next the
9th, and shall be happy if I can execute any commission for you
there.
A journey to Paris Sounds youthful and healthy. I have certainly
mended much this last week, though with no pretensions to a
recovery of youth. Half the view of my journey is to
re-establish my health--the other half, to wash my hands of
politics, which I have long determined to do whenever a change
should happen. I would not abandon my friends while they were
martyrs; but, now they have gained their crown of glory, they are
well able to shift for themselves; and it was no part of my
compact to go to that heaven, St. James's, with them. Unless I
dislike Paris very much, I shall stay some time; but I make no
declarations, lest I should be soon tired of it, and coming back
again. At first, I must like it, for Lady Mary Coke will be
there, as if by assignation. The Countesses of Carlisle and
Berkeley, too, I hear, will set up their staves there for some
time; but as my heart is faithful to Lady Mary, they would not
charm me if they were forty times more Disposed to it.
The Emperor' is dead,(858)--but so are all the Maximilians and
Leopolds his predecessors, and with no more influence on the
present state of things. The EmpressQueen will still be
master-Dowager unless she marries an Irishman, as I wish with all
my soul she may.
The Duke and Duchess of Richmond will follow me in about a
fortnight: Lord and Lady George Lennox go with them; and Sir
Charles Banbury and Lady Sarah are to be at Paris, too, for some
time: so the English court there will be very juvenile and
blooming. This set is rather younger than the dowagers with whom
I pass so much of my summers and autumns; but this is to be my
last sally into the world and when I return, I intend to be as
sober as my cat, and purr quietly in my own chimney corner.
Adieu, my dear lord! May every happiness attend you both, and may
I pass some agreeable days next summer with you at Wentworth
Castle!
(858) Francis the First, Emperor of Germany, died at Inspruck, on
Sunday the 18th of August. He was in good health the greater part
of the day, and assisted at divine service; but, between nine and
ten in the evening, he was attacked by a fit of apoplexy, and
expired in a few minutes afterwards in the arms of his son, the
King of the Romans.-E.
Letter 265 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
Arlington Street, Sept. 3, 1765. (page 419)
The trouble your ladyship has given yourself so immediately,
makes me, as I always am, ashamed of putting you to any. There
is no persuading you to oblige moderately. Do you know, Madam,
that I shall tremble to deliver the letters you have been so good
as to send me? If you have said half so much of me, as you are,
so partial as to think of me, I shall be undone. Limited as I
know myself, and hampered in bad French, how shall I keep up to
any character at all? Madame d'Aiguillon and Madame Geoffrin
will never believe that I am the true messenger, but will
conclude that I have picked Mr. Walpole's portmanteau's pocket.
I wish only to present myself to them as one devoted to your
ladyship; that character I am sure I can support in any language,
and it is the one to which they would pay the most regard. Well!
I don't care, Madam-it is your reputation that is at stake more
than mine; and, if they find me a simpleton that don't know how
to express myself, it will all fall upon you at last.' If your
ladyship will risk that, I will, if you please, thank you for a
letter to Madame d'Egmont, too: I long to know your friends,
though at the hazard of their knowing yours. Would I were a
jolly old man, to match, at least, in that respect, your jolly
old woman!(859)--But, alas! I am nothing but a poor worn-out rag,
and fear, when I come to Paris, that I shall be forced to pretend
that I have had the gout in my understanding. My spirits, such
as they are, will not bear translating; and I don't know whether
I shall not find it the wisest part I can take to fling myself
into geometry, or commerce, or agriculture, which the French now
esteem, don't understand, and think we do. They took George
Selwyn for a poet, and a judge of planting and dancing-. why may
I not pass for a learned man and a philosopher? If the worst
comes to the worst, I will admire Clarissa and Sir Charles
Grandison; and declare I have not a friend in the world that is
not like my Lord Edward Bomston, though I never knew a character
like it in my days, and hope I never shall; nor do I think
Rousseau need to have gone so far out of his way to paint a
disagreeable Englishman.
If you think, Madam, this sally is not very favourable to the
country I am going to, recollect, that all I object to them is
their quitting their own agreeable style, to take up the worst of
ours. Heaven knows, we are unpleasing enough; but, in the first
place, they don't understand us; and in the next, if they did, so
much the worse for them. What have they gained by leaving
Moli`ere, Boileau, Corneille, Racine, La Rochefucault, Crebillon,
Marivaux, Voltaire, etc.? No nation can be another nation. We
have been clumsily copying them for these hundred years, and are
not we grown wonderfully like them? Come, madam, you like what I
like of them? I am going thither, and you have no aversion to
going thither--but own the truth; had not we both rather go
thither fourscore years ago? Had you rather be acquainted with
the charming madame Scarron, or the canting Madame de Maintenon?
with Louis XIV. when the Montespan governed him, or when P`ere le
Tellier? I am very glad when folks go to heaven, though it is
after another body's fashion; but I 'wish to converse with them
when they are themselves. I abominate a conqueror; but I do not
think he makes the world much compensation, by cutting the
throats of his Protestant subjects to atone for the massacres
caused by his ambition.
The result of all this dissertation, Madam--for I don't know how
to call it a letter--is, that I shall look for Paris in the midst
of Paris, and shall think more of the French that have been than
the French that are, except of a few of your friends and mine.
Those I know, I admire and honour, and I am sure I will trust to
your ladyship's taste for the others; and if they had no other
merit, I can but like those that will talk to me of you. They
will find more sentiment in me on that chapter, than they can
miss parts; and I flatter myself that the one will atone for the
other.
(859) la Duchesse Douairi`ere d'Aiguillon, n`ee Chabot, mother of
the Duc d'Aiguillon, who succeeded the Duc de Choiseul as
minister for foreign affairs. She was a correspondent of Lady
Hervey's. In a letter to Walpole, of the 20th of November 1766,
madame du Deffand says:--"Je soupai Iiier chez Madame
d'Aiguillon: elle nous lut la traduction de la Lettre d'H`eloyse
de Pope, et d'un chant du po`eme de Salomon, de Prior; elle
`ecrit admirablement bien; j'en `etais r`eellement dans
l'enthousiasme: dites-le `a Milady Hervey." She died in 1772.-E.
Letter 266 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 5, 1765. (page 420)
Dear sir,
You cannot think how agreeable your letter was to me, and how
luckily it was timed. I thought you in Cheshire, and did not
know how to direct; I now sit down to answer it instantly.
I have been extremely ill indeed with the gout all over; in head,
stomach, both feet, both wrists, and both shoulders. I kept my
bed a fortnight in the most sultry part of this summer; and for
nine weeks could not say I was recovered. Though I am still
weak, and very soon tired with the least walk, I am in other
respects quite well. However, to promote my entire
reestablishment, I shall set out for Paris next Monday. Thus
your letter came luckily. To hear you talk of going thither,
too, made it most agreeable. Why should you not advance your
journey? Why defer it till the winter is coming on? It would
make me quite happy to visit churches and convents with you: but
they are not comfortable in cold weather. Do, I beseech you,
follow me as soon as possible. The thought of your being there
at the same time makes me much more pleased with my journey; you
will not, I hope, like it the less; and, if our meeting there
should tempt you to stay longer, it will make me still more
happy.
If, in the mean time, I can be of any use to you, I shall be glad
either in taking a lodging for you, Or any thing else. Let me
know, and direct to me in Arlington-street, whence my servant
Will convey it to me. Tell me above all things that you will set
out sooner.
If I have any money left when I return, and can find a place for
it, I shall be very glad to purchase the ebony cabinet you
mention, and will make it a visit with you next summer if you
please--but first let us go to Paris. I don't give up my passion
for ebony; but, since the destruction of the Jesuits, I hear one
can pick up so many of their spoils that I am impatient for the
opportunity.
I must finish, as I have so much business before I set out; but I
must repeat, how lucky the arrival of your letter was, how glad I
was to hear of your intended journey, and how much I wish it may
take place directly. I will only add that the court goes to
Fontainbleau, the last week in September, or first in October,
and therefore it is the season in the world for seeing all
Versailles quietly, and at one's ease. Adieu! dear sir, yours
most cordially.
Letter 267 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Amiens, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 1765. (page 421)
Beau Cousin,
I have had a very prosperous journey till just at entering this
city. I escaped a Prince of Nassau at Dover, and sickness at
sea, though the voyage lasted seven hours and a half. I have
recovered my strength surprisingly in the time; though almost
famished for want of clean victuals, and comfortable tea and
bread and butter. half a mile from hence I met a coach and four
with an equipage of French, and a lady in pea-green and silver, a
smart hat and feather., and two suivantes. My reason told me it
was the Archbishop's concubine; but luckily my heart whispered
that it was Lady Mary Coke. I Jumped out of my chaise--yes,
jumped, as Mrs. Nugent said of herself, fell on my knees, and
said my first ave Maria, grati`a plena. We just shot a few
politics flying--heard that Madame de Mirepoix had toasted me
t'other day in tea--shook hands, forgot to weep, and parted; she
to the Hereditary Princess, I to this inn, where is actually
resident the Duchess of Douglas. We are not likely to have an
intercourse, or I would declare myself' a Hamilton.(860)
I find this country wonderfully enriched since I saw it
four-and-twenty years ago. Boulogne is grown quite a plump snug
town, with a number Of new houses. The worst villages are tight,
and wooden shoes have disappeared. Mr. Pitt and the city of
London may fancy what they will, but France will not come
a-begging to the Mansion-house this year or two. In truth. I
impute this air of opulence a little to ourselves. The crumbs
that fall from the chaises of the swarms of English that visit
Paris, must have contributed to fatten this province. It is
plain I must have little to do when I turn my hand to
calculating: but here is my observation. From Boulogne to Paris
it will cost me near ten guineas; but then consider, I travel
alone, and carry Louis most part of the way in the chaise with
me. Nous autres milords Anglais are not often so frugal. Your
brother, last year, had ninety-nine English to dinner on the
King's birthday. How many of them do you think dropped so little
as ten guineas on this road? In short, there are the seeds of a
calculation for you, and if you will water them with a torrent of
words, they will produce such a dissertation, that you will be
able to vie with George Grenville next session in plans of
national economy-only be sure not to tax travelling till I come
back, loaded with purchases; nor, till then, propagate my ideas.
It will be time enough for me to be thrifty of the nation's
money, when I have spent all my own.
Clermont, 12th.
While they are getting my dinner, I continue my journal. The
Duchess of Douglas (for English are generally the most
extraordinary persons that we meet with even out of England) left
Amiens before me, on her way home. You will not guess what she
carries with her--Oh! nothing that will hurt our manufactures;
nor what George Grenville himself would seize. One of her
servants died at Paris: she had him embalmed, and the body is
tied before her chaise: a droll way of being chief mourner.
For a French absurdity, I have observed that along the great
roads they plant walnut-trees, but strip them up for firing. It
is like the owl that bit off the feet of mice, that they might
lie still and fatten.
At the foot of this hill is an old-fashioned ch`ateau belonging
to the Duke of Fitz-James, with a parc en quincunx and clipped
hedges. We saw him walking in his waistcoat and riband, very
well powdered; a figure like Guerchy. I cannot say his seat
rivals Goodwood or Euston.(861) I shall lie at Chantilly
to-night, for I did not Set Out till ten this morning--not
because I could not, as you will suspect, get up sooner--but
because all the horses in the country have attended the Queen to
Nancy.(862) Besides, I have a little Underplot of seeing
Chantilly and St. Denis in my way: which you know one could not
do in the dark to-night, nor in winter, if I return then.
H`otel de feue Madame l'Ambassadrice d'Angleterre,
Sept. 13, seven o'clock.
I am Just arrived. My Lady Hertford is not at home, and Lady
Anne(863) will not come out of her burrow: so I have just time to
finish this before Madame returns; and Brian sets out to-night
and will carry it. I find I shall have a great deal to say:
formerly I observed nothing, and now remark every thing minutely.
I have already fallen in love with twenty things, and in hate
with forty. Adieu! yours ever.
(860) The memorable cause between the houses of Douglas and
Hamilton was then pending.-E.
(861) The Duc de Fitzjames's father, Mareschal Berwick, was a
natural son of James II. Mr. Walpole therefore compares his
country-seat with those of the Dukes of Richmond and Grafton,
similar descendants from his brother, Charles II.-E.
(862) Stanislaus King of Poland, father to the Queen of Louis XV.
lived at Nancy.-E.
(863) Lady Anne Seymour Conway, afterwards married to the Earl of
Drogheda.-E.
Letter 268 To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
Paris, Sept. 14, 1765. (page 423)
I am but two days old here, Madam, and I doubt I wish I was
really so, and had my life to begin, to live it here. You see
how just I am, and ready to make amende honorable to your
ladyship. Yet I have seen very little. My Lady Hertford has cut
me to pieces, and thrown me into a caldron with tailors,
periwig-makers, snuff-box-wrights, milliners, etc. which really
took up but little time; and I am come out quite new, with every
thing but youth. The journey recovered me with magic expedition.
My strength, if mine could ever be called strength, is returned;
and the gout going off in a minuet step. I will say nothing of
my spirits, which are indecently juvenile, and not less improper
for my age than for the country where I am; which, if you will
give me leave to say it, has a thought too much gravity. I don't
venture to laugh Or talk nonsense, but in English.
Madame Geoffrin came to town but last night, and is not visible
on Sundays; but I hope to deliver your ladyship's letter and
packet to-morrow. Mesdames d'Aiguillon, d'Egmont, and Chabot,
and the Duc de Nivernois are all in the country. Madame de
Bouttlers is at l'Isle Adam, whither my Lady Hertford is gone
to-night to sup, for the first time, being no longer chained down
to the incivility of an ambassadress. She returns after supper;
an irregularity that frightens me, who have not got rid of all my
barbarisms. There is one, alas! I never shall get over--the dirt
of this country: it is melancholy, after the purity of
Strawberry! The narrowness of the streets, trees clipped to
resemble brooms, and planted on pedestals of chalk, and a few
other points, do not edify me. The French Opera, which I have
heard to-night, disgusted me as much as ever; and the more for
being followed by the Devin de Village, which shows that they can
sing without cracking the drum of one's ear. The scenes and
dances are delightful; the Italian comedy charming. Then I am in
love with treillage and fountains, and will prove it at
Strawberry. Chantilly is so exactly what it was when I saw it
above twenty years ago, that I recollected the very position of
Monsieur le Duc's chair and the gallery. The latter gave me the
first idea of mine; but, presumption apart, mine is a thousand
times prettier. I gave my Lord Herbert's compliments to the
statue of his friend the Constable -,(864) and, waiting some time
for the concierge, I called out, O`u est Vatel?(865)
In short, Madam, being as tired as one can be of one's own
country,--I don't say whether that is much or little,--I find
myself wonderfully disposed to like this. Indeed I wish I Could
wash it. Madame de Guerchy is all goodness to me; but that is
not new. I have already been prevented by great civilities from
Madame de Bentheim and my old friend Madame de Mirepoix; but am
not likely to see the latter much, who is grown a most particular
favourite of the King, and seldom from him. The Dauphin is ill,
and thought in a very bad way. I hope he will live, lest the
theatres should be shut up. Your ladyship knows I never trouble
my head about royalties, farther than it affects my own interest.
In truth, the way that princes affect my interest is not the
common way.
I have not yet tapped the chapter of baubles, being desirous of
making my revenues maintain me here as long as possible, It will
be time enough to return to my Parliament when I want money.
Mr. Hume that is the Mode,(866) asked much about your ladyship.
I have seen Madame de Monaco(867) and think her very handsome,
and extremely pleasing. The younger Madame d'Egmont,(868) I
hear, disputes the palm with her: and Madame de Brionne(869) is
not left without partisans. The nymphs of the theatres are
laides `a faire peur which at my age is a piece of luck, like
going into a shop of curiosities, and finding nothing to tempt
one to throw away one's money.
There are several English here, whether I will or not. I
certainly did not come for them, and shall connect with them as
little as possible. The few I value, I hope sometimes to hear
of. Your ladyship guesses how far that wish extends. Consider
too, Madam, that one of my unworthinesses is washed and done
away, by the confession I made in the beginning of my letter.
(864) The Constable de Montmorency.-E.
(865) The ma`itre-d'h`otel, who, during the visit which Louis
XIV. made to the grand Cond`e at Chantilly, put an end to his
existence, because he feared the sea-fish would not arrive in
time for one day's repast.
(866) "Hume's conversation to strangers," says Lord Charlemont,
"and still more particularly, one would suppose, to French women,
could be little delightful; and yet no lady's toilette was
complete without his attendance. At the Opera, his broad,
unmeaning face was usually seen entre deux jolis minois: the
ladies in France gave the ton, and the ton was deism."-E.
(867) Madame de Monaco, afterwards Princess de Cond`e.-E.
(868) Daughter of the celebrated Marshal Duc de Richelieu. See
vol. iii. p. 358, letter 233, note 710. She was one of the
handsomest women in France.-E.
(869) Madame de Brionne, n`ee Rohan Rochefort, wife of M. de
Brionne of the house of Lorraine, and mother of the Prince de
Lambesc; known by his imprudent conduct at the head of his
regiment in the garden of the Tuileries, at the commencement of
the revolution.-E.
Letter 269 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Paris, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 1765. (page 424)
Dear sir,
I have this moment received your letter, and as a courier is just
setting out, I had rather take the opportunity of writing to you
a short letter than defer it for a longer.
I had a very good passage, and pleasant journey, and find myself
surprisingly recovered for the time. Thank you for the good news
you tell me of your coming: it gives me great joy.
To the end of this week I shall be in Lord Hertford's house; so
have not yet got a lodging: but when I do, you will easily find
me. I have no banker, but credit on a merchant who is a private
friend of ]lord Hertford; consequently, I cannot give you credit
on him: but you shall have the use of my credit, which will be
the same thing; and we can settle our accounts together. I
brought about a hundred pounds with me, as I would advise you to
do. Guineas you may change into louis or French crowns at Calais
and Boulogne; and even small bank-bills will be taken here. In
any shape I will assist you. Be careful on the road. My
portmanteau, with part of my linen, was stolen from before my
chaise at noon, while I went to see Chantilly. If you stir out
of your room, lock the door of it in the inn, or leave your man
in it. If you arrive near the time you propose, you will find me
here, and I hope much longer.
Letter 270 To George Montagu, Esq.
Paris, Sept. 22, 1765. (page 425)
The concern I felt at not seeing you before I left England, might
make me express myself warmly, but I assure you it was nothing
but concern, nor was mixed with a grain of pouting. I knew some
of your reasons, and guessed others. The latter grieve me
heartily; but I advise you to do as I do - when I meet with
ingratitude, I take a short leave both of it and its host.
Formerly I used to look out for indemnification somewhere else;
but having lived long enough to learn that the reparation
generally proved a second evil of the same sort, I am content now
to skin over such wounds with amusements, which at least have no
scars. It is true, amusements do not always amuse when we bid
them. I find it so here; nothing strikes me; every thing I do is
indifferent to me. I like the people very well, and their way of
life very well; but as neither were my object, I should not much
care if they were any other people, or it was any other way of
life. I am out of England and my purpose is answered.
Nothing can be more obliging than the reception I meet with every
where. It may not be more sincere (and why should it?) than our
cold and bare civility; but it is better dressed, and looks
natural: one asks no more. I have begun to sup in French houses,
and as Lady Hertford has left Paris to-day, shall increase my
intimacies. There are swarms of English here, but most of them
are going, to my great satisfaction. As the greatest part are
very young, they can no more be entertaining to me than I to
them, and it certainly was not my countrymen that I came to live
with. Suppers please me extremely; I love to rise and breakfast
late, and to trifle away the day as I like. there are sights
enough to answer that end, and shops you know are an endless
field for me The city appears much worse to me than I thought I
remembered it. The French music as shocking as I knew it was.
The French stage is fallen off though in the only part I have
seen Le Kain(870) I admire him extremely. He is very ugly and
ill made,(871) and yet has an heroic dignity which Garrick wants,
and great fire. The Dumenil I have not seen yet, but shall in a
day or two. It is a mortification that I cannot compare her with
the Clairon,(872) who has left the stage. Grandval I saw through
a whole play without suspecting it was he. Alas! four-and-twenty
years make strange havoc with us mortals! You cannot imagine how
this struck me! The Italian comedy, now united with their Opera
comique, is their most perfect diversion; but alas! Harlequin, my
dear favourite harlequin, my passion, makes me more melancholy
than cheerful. Instead of laughing, I sit silently reflecting
how every thing loses charms when one's own youth does not lend.
its gilding! When we are divested of that eagerness and illusion
with which our youth presents objects to us, we are but the caput
mortuum of pleasure.
Grave as these ideas are, they do not unfit me for French
company. The present tone is serious enough in conscience.
unluckily, the subjects of their conversation are duller to me
than my own thoughts, which may be tinged with melancholy
reflections, but I doubt from my constitution will never be
insipid.
The French affect philosophy, literature, and freethinking: the
first never did, and never will possess me; of the two others I
have long been tired. Freethinking is for one's self, surely not
for society; besides one has settled one's way of thinking, or
knows it cannot be settled, and for others I do not see why there
is not as much bigotry in attempting conversions from any
religion as to it. I dined to-day with a dozen savans, and
though all the servants were waiting, the conversation was much
more unrestrained, even on the Old Testament, than I would suffer
at my own table in England, if a single footman was present. For
literature, it is very amusing when one has nothing else to do.
I think it rather pedantic in society; tiresome when displayed
professedly; and, besides, in this country one is sure, it is
only the fashion of the day. Their taste in it is worst of
all: could one believe that when they read our authors,
Richardson and Mr. Hume should be their favourites? The latter is
treated here with perfect veneration. His history, so falsified
in many points, so partial in as many, so very unequal in its
parts, is thought the standard of writing.
In their dress and equipages they are grown very simple. We
English are living upon their old gods and goddesses; I roll
about in a chariot decorated with cupids, and look like the
grandfather of Adonis.
Of their parliaments and clergy I hear a good deal, and attend
very little - I cannot take up any history in the middle, and was
too sick of politics at home to enter into them here. In short,
I have done with the world, and live in it rather than in a
desert, like you. Few men can bear absolute retirement, and we
English worst of all. We grow so humoursome, so obstinate and
capricious, and so prejudiced, that it requires a fund of
good-nature like yours not to grow morose. Company keeps our
rind from growing too coarse and rough; and though at my return I
design not to mix in public, I do not intend to be quite a
recluse. My absence will put it in my power to take up or drop
as much as I please. Adieu! I shall inquire about your
commission of books, but having been arrived but ten days, have
not yet had time. Need I say?--no I need not--that nobody can be
more affectionately yours than, etc.
870) Le Kain was born at Paris in 1725, and died there in 1778.
He was originally brought up a surgical instrument maker; but his
dramatic talents having been made known to Voltaire, he took him
under his instructions, and secured him an engagement at the
Fran`cais, where he performed for the first time in 1750.-E.
(871) "Cet acteur," says Baron de Grimm, "n'est presque jamais
faux, mais malheureusement il a voix, figure, tout, contre lui.
Une sensibilit`e forte et profonde, qui faisait disparaitre la
laideur de ses traits sous le charme de l'expression dont elle
les rendait susceptible, et ne laissait aper`cevoir que lea
caract`ere et la passion dont son `ame `etait remplie, et lui
donnait @ chaque instant de nouvelles formes et nouvel `etre."-E.
(872) See ant`e, p. 383, letter 245. Mademoiselle Clairon was
born in 1723, and made her first appearance at Paris in 1743, in
the character of Ph`edre. She died at Paris in 1803. Several of
her letters to the British Roscius will be found in the Garrick
Correspondence. On her acting, when in the Zenith of her
reputation, Dr. Grimm passes the following judgment:--"Belle
Clairon, vous avez beaucoup d'esprit: votre jeu est profond`ement
raisonn`e; mais la passion a-t-elle le temps de raisoner? Vous
n'avez ni naturel ni entrailles; vous ne d`echirez jamais les
miennes; vous ne faites jamais couler mes pleurs; vous mettez des
silences `a tout; vous voulez faire sentir chaque hemistiche; et
lorsque tout fait effet dans votre jeu, je vois que la totalit`e
de la sc`ene n'en fait plus aucun."-E.
Letter 271 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
Paris, Oct. 3, 1765. (page 427)
Still, I have seen neither Madame d'Egmont nor the Duchess
d'Aiguillon, who are in the country; but the latter comes to
Paris to-morrow. Madame Chabot I called on last night. She Was
not at home, but the H`otel de Carnavalet;(873) was; and I
stopped on purpose to say an ave-maria before it. It is a very
singular building, not at all in the French style, and looks like
an ex voto raised to her honour by some of her foreign votaries.
I don't think her honoured half enough in her own country. I
shall burn a little incense before your Cardinal's heart,(874)
Madam, `a votre intention.
I have been with Madame Geoffrin several times, and think she has
one of the best understandings I ever met, and more knowledge of
the world. I may be charmed with the French, but your ladyship
must not expect that they will fall in love with me. Without
affecting to lower myself, the disadvantage of speaking a
language worse than any idiot one meets, is insurmountable: the
silliest Frenchman is eloquent to me, and leaves me embarrassed
and obscure. I could name twenty other reasons, if this one was
not sufficient. As it is, my own defects are the sole cause of
my not liking Paris entirely: the constraint I am under from not
being perfectly master of their language, and from being so much
in the dark, as one necessarily must be, on half the subjects of
their conversation, prevents me enjoying that ease for which
their society is calculated. I am much amused, but not
comfortable.
The Duc de Nivernois is extremely good to me; he inquired much
after your ladyship. So does Colonel Drumgold.(875) The latter
complains; but both of them, especially the Duc, seem better than
when in England. I met the Duchesse de COSS`e,(876) this evening
at Madame Geoffrin's. She is pretty, with a great resemblance to
her father; lively and good-humoured, not genteel.
Yesterday I went through all my presentations at Versailles.
'Tis very convenient to gobble up a whole royal family in an
hour's time, instead of being sacrificed one week at
Leicester-house, another in Grosvenor-street, a third in
Cavendish-square, etc. etc. etc. La Reine is le plus grand roi
du monde,(877) and talked much to me, and would have said more if
I would have let her; but I was awkward and shrunk back into the
crowd. None of the rest spoke to me. The King is still much
handsomer than his pictures, and has great sweetness in his
countenance, instead of that farouche look which they give him.
The Mesdames are not beauties, and yet have something Bourbon in
their faces. The Dauphiness I approve the least of all: with
nothing good-humoured in her countenance, she has a look and
accent that made me dread lest I should be invited to a private
party at loo with her.(878) The poor Dauphin is ghastly, and
perishing before one's eyes.
Fortune bestowed on me a much more curious sight than a set of
princes; the wild beast of the Govaudan,(879) which is killed,
and actually is in the Queen's antechamber. It is a thought less
than a leviathan, and the beast in the Revelations, and has not
half so many wings, and yes, and talons, as I believe they have,
or will have some time or other; this being possessed but of two
eyes, four feet, and no wings at all. It is as fine a wolf' as a
commissary in the late war, except, notwithstanding all the
stories, that it has not devoured near so many persons. In
short, Madam, now it is dead and come, a wolf it certainly was,
and not more above the common size than Mrs. Cavendish is. It has
left a dowager and four young princes.
Mr. Stanley, who I hope will trouble himself with this, has been
most exceedingly kind and obliging to me. I wish that, instead
of my being so much in your ladyship's debt, you were a little in
Mine, and then I would beg you to thank him for me. Well, but as
it is, why should not you, Madam? He will be charmed to be so
paid, and you will not dislike to please him. In short, I would
fain have him know my gratitude; and it is hearing it in the most
agreeable way, if expressed by your ladyship.
(873) Madame de S`evign`e's residence in Paris.-E.
(874) The Cardinal de Richelieu's heart at the Sorbonne.-E.
(875) Colonel Drumgold was born at Paris in 1730, and died there
in 1786. Dr. Johnson, in giving Boswell an account of his visit
to Paris in 1775, made the following mention of him: "I was just
beginning to creep into acquaintance, by means of Colonel
Drumgold, a very high man, Sir, head of l,'Ecole Militaire, and a
most complete character, for he had first been a professor of
rhetoric, and then became a soldier." He was The author of "La
Gaiet`e," a poem, and several other pieces.-E.
(876) wife of the Duc de Coss`e Brisac, governor of Paris. She
was a daughter of the Duc de Nivernois.-E.
(877) Madame de S`evign`e thus expresses herself of Louis XIV.
after his having taken much notice of her at Versailles.-E.
(878) He means, that the Dauphiness had a resemblance to the
Princess Amelia.-E.
(879) This enormous wolf, for wolf it proved to be, gave rise to
many extraordinary reports. The following account of it is from
the Gentleman's Magazine for 1764: "A very strange description is
given in the Paris Gazette of a wild beast that has appeared in
the neighbourhood of Langagne and the forest of Mercoire, and has
occasioned great consternation. It has already devoured twenty
persons, chiefly Children, and particularly young, girls; and
scarce a day passes without some accidents. the terror it
occasions prevents the woodcutters from working in the forest.
those who have seen him say he is much higher than a wolf, low
before, and his feet are armed with talons. His hair is reddish,
his head large, and the muzzle of it shaped like that of a
greyhound; his ears are small and straight, his breast wide and
of a gray colour; his back streaked with black; and his mouth
which is large, is provided with a set of teeth so very sharp
that they have taken off several heads as clean as a razor could
have done. He is of amazing swiftness; but when he aims at his
prey, he couches so close to the ground that he hardly appears to
be bigger than a large fox, and at the distance of one or two
fathoms he rises upon his hind legs and springs upon his prey,
which he always seizes by the neck or throat. The consternation
is universal throughout the districts where he commits his
ravages, and public prayers are offered up upon this occasion.
The Marquis de Morangis has sent out four hundred peasants to
destroy this fierce beast; but they have not been able to do it.
He has since been killed by a soldier, and appears to be a
hyena." E.
Letter 272 To John Chute, Esq.
Paris, Oct. 3, 1765. (page 429)
I don't know where you are, nor when I am likely to hear of you.
I write it random, and, as I talk, the first thing that comes
into my pen.
I am, as you certainly conclude, much more amused than pleased.
At a certain time of life, sights and new objects may entertain
one, but new people cannot find any place in one's affection.
New faces with some name or other belonging to them, catch my
attention for a minute--I cannot say many preserve it. Five or
six of the women that I have seen already are very sensible. The
men are in general much inferior, and not even agreeable. They
sent us their best, I believe, at first, the Duc de Nivernois.
Their authors, who by the way are every where, are worse than
their own writings, which I don't mean as a compliment to either.
In general, the style of conversation is solemn, pedantic, and
seldom animated, but by a dispute. I was expressing my aversion
to disputes Mr. Hume, who very gratefully admires the tone of
Paris, having never known any other tone, said with great
surprise, "Why, what do you like, if you hate both disputes and
whisk?" What strikes me the most upon the whole is, the total
difference of manners between them and us, from the greatest
object to the least. There is not the smallest similitude in the
twenty-four hours. It is, obvious in every trifle. Servants
carry their lady's train, and put her into her coach with their
hat on. They walk about the streets in the rain with umbrellas
to avoid putting on their hats - driving themselves in open
chaises in the country without hats, in the rain too, and yet
often wear them in a chariot in Paris when it does not rain. The
very footmen are powdered from the break of day, and yet wait
behind their master, as I saw the Duc of Praslin's do, with a red
pocket handkerchief about their necks. Versailles, like every
thing else, is a mixture of parade and poverty, and in every
instance exhibits something most dissonant from our manners. In
the colonnades, upon the staircases, nay in the antechambers of
the royal family, there are people selling all sorts of wares.
While we were waiting in the Dauphin's sumptuous bedchamber, till
his dressing-room door should be opened, two fellows were
sweeping it, and dancing about in sabots to rub the floor.
You perceive that I have been presented. The Queen took great
notice of me; none of the rest said a syllable. You are let into
the King's bedchamber just as he has put on his shirt; he dresses
and talks good-humouredly to a few, glares at strangers, goes to
mass--to dinner, and a-hunting. The good old Queen, who is like
Lady Primrose in the face, and Queen Caroline in the immensity of
her cap, is at her dressing-table, attended by two or three old
ladies, who are languishing to be in Abraham's bosom, as the only
man's bosom to whom they can hope for admittance. Thence you go
to the Dauphin, for all is done in an hour. He scarce stays a
minute; indeed, poor creature, he is a ghost, and cannot possibly
last three months. The Dauphiness is in her bedchamber, but
dressed and standing; looks cross, is not civil, and has the true
Westphalian grace and accents. The four Mesdames, who are clumsy
plump old wenches, with a bad likeness to their father, stand in
a bedchamber in a row, with black cloaks and knotting-bags,
looking good-humoured, not knowing what to say, and wriggling as
if they wanted to make water. This ceremony too is very short:
then you are carried to the Dauphin's three boys, who you may be
sure only bow and stare. The Duke of Berry(880) looks weak, and
weak-eyed: the Count de ProvenCe(881) is a fine boy; the Count
d'Artois(882) well enough. The whole concludes with seeing the
Dauphin's little girl dine, who is as round and as fat as a
pudding.
the Queen's antechamber we foreigners and the foreign ministers
were shown the famous beast of the Govaudan, just arrived, and
covered with a cloth, which two chasseurs lifted up. It is an
absolute wolf, but uncommonly large, and the expression of agony
and fierceness remains strongly imprinted on its dead jaws.
I dined at the Duc of Praslin's with four-and-twenty ambassadors
and envoys, who never go out but on Tuesdays to court. He does
the honours sadly, and I believe nothing else well, looking
important and empty. The Duc de Choiseul's face, which is quite
the reverse of gravity, does not promise much more. His wife is
gentle, pretty, and very agreeable. The Duchess of Praslin,
jolly, red-faced, looking very vulgar, and being very attentive
and civil. I saw the Duc de Richelieu in waiting, who is pale,
except his nose, which is red, much wrinkled, and exactly a
remnant of that age which produced General Churchill, Wilkes the
player, the Duke of Argyle, etc. Adieu!
(880) Afterwards the unfortunate Louis XVI.-E.
(881) Afterwards Louis XVIII.-E.
(882) Afterwards Charles X.-E
Letter 273 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Paris, Oct, 6, 1765. (page 431)
I am glad to find that you grow just, and that you do conceive at
last, that I could do better than stay in England for politics.
"Tenez, mon enfant," as the Duchesse de la Fert`e said to Madame
Staal;(883) "comme il n'y a que moi au monde qui aie toujours
raison," I will be very reasonable; as you have made this
concession to me, who knew I was in the right I will not expect
you to answer all my reasonable letters. If you send a bullying
letter to the King of Spain,(884) or to Chose, my neighbour
here,(885) I will consider them as written to myself, and
subtract so much from your bill. Nay, I will accept a line from
Lady Ailesbury now and then in part of payment. I shall continue
to write as the wind sets in my pen; and do own my babble does
not demand much reply.
For so reasonable a person as I am, I have changed my mind very
often about this country. The first five days I was in violent
spirits; then came a dismal cloud of whisk and literature, and I
could not bear it. At present I begin, very englishly indeed, to
establish a right to my own way. I laugh, and talk nonsense, and
make them hear me. There are two or three houses where I go
quite at my ease, am never asked to touch a card, nor hold
dissertations. Nay, I don't pay homage to their authors. Every
woman has one or two planted in her house, and God knows how they
water them. The old President HainaUlt(886) is the pagod at
Madame du Deffand's, an old blind debauch`ee of wit, where I
supped last night. The President is very near deaf, and much
nearer superannuated. He sits by the table: the mistress of the
house, who formerly was his, inquires after every dish on the
table, is told who has eaten of which, and then bawls the bill of
fare of every individual into the President's ears. In short,
every mouthful is proclaimed, and so is every blunder I make
against grammar. Some that I make on purpose, succeed: and one
of them is to be reported to the Queen to-day by Hainault, who is
her great favourite. I had been at Versailles and having been
much taken notice of by her Majesty, I said, alluding to madame
S`evign`e, La Reine est le plus grand roi du monde. You may
judge if I am in possession by a scene that passed after supper.
Sir James macdonald(887) had been mimicking Hume: I told the
women, who, besides the mistress, were the Duchess de la
Vali`ere,(888) Madame de Forcalquier,(889) a demoiselle, that to
be sure they would be glad to have a specimen of Mr. Pitt's
manner of speaking; and that nobody mimicked him so well as
Elliot.(890) They firmly believed it, teased him for an hour,
and at last said he was the rudest man in the world not to oblige
them. It appeared the more strange, because here every body
sings, reads their own works in public, or attempts any one thing
without hesitation or capacity. Elliot speaks miserable French;
which added to the diversion.
I had had my share of distress in the morning, by going through
the operation of being presented to the royal family, down to the
little Madame's pap-dinner, and had behaved as sillily as you
will easily believe; hiding myself behind every mortal. The
Queen called me up to her dressing-table, and seemed mightily
disposed to gossip with me; but instead of enjoying my glory like
Madame de S`evign`e, I slunk back into the crowd after a few
questions. She told Monsieur de Guerchy of it afterwards, and
that I had run away from her, but said she would have her revenge
at Fontainbleau. So I must go thither, which I do not intend.
The King, Dauphin, Dauphiness, Mesdames, and the wild beasts did
not say a word to me. Yes, the wild beast, he of the Gevaudan.
He is killed, and actually in the Queen's antechamber, where he
was exhibited to us with as much parade as if it was Mr. Pitt.
It is an exceedingly large wolf, and, the connoisseurs say, has
twelve teeth more than any wolf ever had since the days of
Romulus's wet nurse. The critics deny it to be the true beast;
and I find most people think the beast's name is legion,--for
there are many. He was covered with a sheet, which two chasseurs
lifted up for the foreign ministers and strangers. I dined at
the Duke of Praslin's with five-and-twenty tomes of the corps
diplomatique; and after dinner was presented, by Monsieur de
Guerchy, to the Duc de Choiseul. The Duc de Praslin is as like
his own letters in D'Eon's book as he can stare; that is, I
believe a very silly fellow. His wisdom is of the grave kind.
His cousin, the first minister, is a little volatile being, whose
countenance and manner had nothing to frighten me for my country.
I saw him but for three seconds, which is as much as he allows to
any one body or thing. Monsieur de Guerchy, whose goodness to me
is inexpressible, took the trouble of walking every where with
me, and carried me particularly to see the new office for state
papers. I wish I could send it you. It is a large building,
disposed like an hospital, with the most admirable order and
method. Lodgings for every officer; his name and business
written over his door. In the body is a perspective of seven or
eight large chambers: each is painted with emblems, and
wainscoted with presses with wired doors and crimson curtains.
Over each press, in golden letters, the country to which the
pieces relate, as Angleterre, Allemagne, etc. Each room has a
large funnel of bronze with or moulu, like a column to air the
papers and preserve them. In short, it is as magnificent as
useful.
Prom thence I went to see the reservoir of pictures at M. de
Marigny's. They are what are not disposed of in the palaces,
though sometimes changed with others. This refuse, which fills
many rooms from top to bottom, is composed of the most glorious
works of Raphael, L. da Vinci, Giorgione, Titian, Guido,
Correggio, etc. Many pictures, which I knew by their prints,
without an idea where they existed, I found there.
The Duc de Nivernois is extremely obliging to me. I have supped
at Madame de Bentheim's, who has a very fine house and a woful
husband. She is much livelier than any Frenchwoman. The
liveliest I have seen is the Duc de Duras:(891) he is shorter and
plumper Lord Halifax, but very like him in the face. I am to sup
with the Dussons(892) on Sunday. In short, all that have been in
England are exceedingly disposed to repay any civilities they
received there. Monsieur de Caraman wrote from the country to
excuse his not coming to see me, as his Wife is On the point of
being brought to bed, but begged I would come to them. So I
would, if I was a man-midwife: but though they are easy On Such
heads, I am not used to it, and cannot make a party of pleasure
of a labour.
Wilkes arrived here two days ago, and announced that he was going
minister to Constantinople.(893) To-day I hear he has lowered
his credentials, and talks of going to England, if he can make
his peace.(894) I thought by the manner in which this was
mentioned to me, that the person meant to Sound me: but I made no
answer: for, having given up politics in England, I certainly did
not come to transact them here. He has not been to make me the
first visit, which, as the last arrived, depends on him: so,
never having spoken to him in my life, I have no call to seek
him. I avoid all politics so much, that I had not heard one word
here about Spain. I suppose my silence passes for very artful
mystery, and puzzles the ministers who keep spies on the most
insignificant foreigner. It would have been lucky if I had been
as watchful. At Chantilly I lost my portmanteau with half my
linen; and the night before last I was robbed of a new frock,
waistcoat, and breeches, laced with gold, a white and silver
waistcoat, black velvet breeches, a knife, and a book. These are
expenses I did not expect, and by no means entering into my
system of extravagance.
I am very sorry for the death of Lord Ophaly, and for his family.
I knew the poor young man himself but little, but he seemed
extremely good-natured. What the Duke of Richmond will do for a
hotel, I cannot conceive. Adieu!
(883) See M`emoires de Madame de Staal (the first authoress of
that name) published with the rest of her works, in three small
volumes.-E.
(884) Mr. Conway was now secretary of state for the foreign
department.-E.
(885) Louis XV.-E.
(886) Le Pr`esident Hainault, surintendant de la maison de
Mademoiselle la Dauphine, membre de l'Acad`emie Fran`caise et de
l'Acad`emie des Inscriptions, known by his celebrated work, the
Abr`eg`e Chronologique de l'Histoire, de France, and from the
excellent table which he kept, and which was the resort of all
the wits and savans of the day. His cook was considered the best
in Paris, and the master was worthy of his cook; a fact which
Voltaire celebrates in the opening lines of the epitaph which he
wrote for him--
"Hainault, fameux par vos soupers,
Et votre Chronologic," etc.-E.
(887) Sir James Macdonald of Macdonald, the eighth baronet, who
died at Rome on the 26th of July 1766, in the twenty-fifth year
of his age, regretted by all who knew him. In the inscription on
his monument, executed at Rome and erected in the church of
Slate, his character is thus drawn by his friend Lord
Lyttelton:--"He had attained to so eminent a degree of knowledge
in mathematics, philosophy, languages, and in every branch of
useful and polite learning, as few have acquired in a long life
wholly devoted to study; yet to this erudition he joined, what
can rarely be found with it, great talents for business, great
propriety of behaviour, great politeness of manners: his
eloquence was sweet, correct and flowing; his memory vast and
exact; his judgment strong and acute." On visiting Slate, in
1773, Dr. Johnson observed to Boswell, that this inscription
"should have been in Latin, as every thing intended to be
universal and permanent should be." Upon this mr. Croker
remarks,--"What a strange Perversion of language!--universal!
Why, if it had been in Latin, so far from being universally
understood, it would have been an utter blank to one (the better)
half of the creation, and even of the men who might visit it,
ninety-nine will understand it in English for one who could in
Latin. Something may be said for epitaphs and inscriptions
addressed, as it were, to the world at large--a triumphal arch --
the pillar at Blenheim--the monument on the field of Waterloo:
but a Latin epitaph in an English church, appears, in principle,
as absurd as the dinner, which the doctor gives in Peregrine
Pickle, 'after the manner of the ancients.' A mortal may surely
be well satisfied if his fame lasts as long as the language in
which he spoke or wrote."-E.
(888) La Duchesse de la Vali`ere, daughter of the Duc d'Usez.
She was one of the handsomest women in France, and preserved her
beauty even to old age. She died about the year 1792, at the age
of eighty.-E.
(889) The Comtesse de Forcalquier, n`ee Canizy. She had ben
first married to the Comte d'Antin, son to the Comtesse de
Toulouse, by a marriage previous to that with the Comte de
Toulouse, one of the natural children of Louis Quatorze, whom he
legitimated.-E.
(890) Sir Gilbert Elliot Of Minto. He was appointed a lord of
the admiralty in 1756, treasurer of the chamber in 1762, keeper
of the signets for Scotland in 1767, and treasurer of the navy in
1770. He died in 1777.-E.
(891) Le Duc de Duras, one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber at
the court of France.-E.
(892) M. D'Usson, who had formerly been in England in a
diplomatic capacity; see ant`e p. 219, letter 157. He was
brother to the Marquis de Bonnac, the French ambassador at the
Hague.-E.
(893) Wilkes's application for the embassy to Constantinople was
an unsuccessful one. It will be seen in the Chatham
Correspondence, that in February 1761, he had solicited of Mr.
Pitt a seat at the board of trade. "I wish," he says, "the board
of trade might be thought a place in which I could be of any
service: whatever the scene is, I shall endeavour to have the
reputation of acting in a manner worthy of the connexion I have
the honour to be in; and, among all the chances and changes of a
political world, I will never have an obligation in a
parliamentary way but to Mr. Pitt and his friends." Vol. ii. p.
94.-E.
(894) After his outlawry.
Letter 274 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
Paris, Oct. 13, 1765. (page 434)
How are the mighty fallen! Yes, yes, Madam, I am as like the Duc
de Richelieu as two peas; but then they are two old withered gray
peas. Do you remember the fable of Cupid and Death, and what a
piece of work they made with hustling their arrows together?
This is just my case: Love might shoot at me, but it was with a
gouty arrow. I have had a relapse in both feet, and kept my bed
six days but the fit seems to be going off; my heart can already
go alone, and my feet promise themselves the mighty luxury of a
cloth shoe in two or three days. Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay,(895) who
are here, and are, alas! to carry this, have been of great
comfort to me, and have brought their delightful little daughter,
who is as quick as Ariel. Mr. Ramsay could want no assistance
from me: what do we both exist upon here, Madam, but your bounty
and charity? When did you ever leave one of your friends in want
of another? Madame Geotrrin came and sat two hours last night by
my bedside: I could have sworn it had been my Lady Hervey,(896)
she was so good to me. It was with so much sense, information,
instruction, and correction! The manner of the latter charms me.
I never saw any body in my days that catches one's faults and
vanities and impositions so quick, that explains them to one so
clearly, and convinces one so easily. I never liked to be set
right before! You cannot imagine how I taste it! I make her both
my confessor and director, and beam to think I shall be a
reasonable creature at last, which I had never intended to be.
The next time I see her, I believe I shall say, "Oh! Common
Sense, sit down: I have been thinking so and so; is not it
absurd?" for t'other sense and wisdom, I never liked them; I
shall now hate them for her sake. If it was worth her while, I
assure your ladyship she might govern me like a child.(897)
The Duc de Nivernois too is astonishingly good to me. In short,
Madam, I am going down hill, but the sun sets pleasingly. Your
two other friends have been in Paris; but I was confined, and
could not wait on them. I passed a whole evening with Lady Mary
Chabot most agreeably: she charged me over and over with a
thousand compliments to your ladyship. For sights, alas! and
pilgrimages, they have been cut short! I had destined the fine
days of October to excursions; but you know, Madam, what it is to
reckon without one's host, the gout. It makes such a coward of
me, that I shall be afraid almost of entering a church. I have
lost, too, the Dumenil in Ph`edre and Merope, two of her
principal parts, but I hope not irrecoverably.
Thank you, Madam, for the Taliacotian extract: it diverted me
much. It is true, in general I neither see nor desire to see our
wretched political trash: I am sick of it up to the
fountain-head. It was my principal motive for coming hither; and
had long been my determination, the first moment I should be at
liberty, to abandon it all. I have acted from no views of
interest; I have shown I did not; I have not disgraced myself-
-and I must be free. My comfort is, that, if I am blamed, it
will be by all parties. A little peace of mind for the rest of
my days is all I ask, to balance the gout.
I have writ to Madame de Guerchy about Your orange-flower water;
and I sent your ladyship two little French pieces that I hope you
received. The uncomfortable posture in which I write will excuse
my saying any more; but it is no excuse against my trying to do
any thing to please one, who always forgets pain when her friends
are in question.
(895) Allan Ramsay, the painter.
(896) Baron de Grimm, in speaking of Madame Geoffrin, says:--
"This lady's religion seems to have always proceeded on two
principles: the one, to do the greatest quantity of good in her
power; the other, to respect scrupulously all established forms,
and even to lend herself, with great complaisance, to all the
different movements of public opinion."-E.
(897) Gibbon, in a letter to his father, of the 24th of February
1763, says:--"Lady Hervey's recommendation to Madame Geoffrin was
a most excellent one: her house is a very good one; regular
dinners there every Wednesday, and the best company in Paris, in
men of letters and people of fashion. It was at her house I
connected myself with M. Helvetius, who, from his heart, his
head, and his fortune, is a most valuable man."-E.
Letter 275 To George Montagu, Esq.
Paris, Oct. 16, 1765. (page 436)
I am here, in this supposed metropolis of pleasure, triste
enough; hearing from nobody in England, and again confined with
the gout in both feet: yes, I caught cold, and it has returned;
but as I begin to be a little acquainted with the nature of its
caresses, I think the violence of its passion this time will be
wasted within the fortnight. Indeed, a stick and a great shoe do
not commonly compose the dress which the English come hither to
learn; but I shall content myself if I can limp about enough to
amuse my eyes; my ears have already had their fill, and are not
at all edified. My confinement preserves me from the journey to
Fontainbleau, to which I had no great appetite; but then I lose
the opportunity of seeing Versailles and St. Cloud at my leisure.
I wrote to you soon after my arrival; did you receive it? All the
English books you named to me are to be had here at the following
prices. Shakspeare in eight volumes unbound for twenty-one
livres; in larger paper for twenty-seven. Congreve, in three
volumes for nine livres. Swift, in twelve volumes for twenty-four
livres, another edition for twenty-seven. So you see I do not
forget your commissions: if you have farther orders, let me know.
Wilkes is here, and has been twice to see me in my illness. He
was very civil, but I cannot say entertained me much. I saw no
wit; his conversation shows how little he has lived in good
company, and the chief turn of it is the grossest bawdy.(898) He
has certainly one merit, notwithstanding the bitterness of his
pen, that is, he has no rancour; not even against Sandwich, of
whom he talked with the utmost temper. He showed me some of his
notes on Churchill's works, but they contain little more than one
note on each poem to explain the subject of it.
The Dumenil is still the Dumenil, and nothing but curiosity could
make me want the Clairon. Grandval is grown so fat and old, that
I saw him through a whole play and did not guess him. Not one
other, that you remember on the stage, remains there.
It is not a season for novelty in any way, as both the court and
the world are out of town. The few that I know are almost all
dispersed. The old president Henault made me a visit yesterday:
he is extremely amiable, but has the appearance of a
superannuated bacchanal; superannuated, poor soul! indeed he is!
The Duc de Richelieu is a lean old resemblance of old General
Churchill, and like him affects still to have his Boothbies.
Alas! poor Boothbies!
I hope, by the time I am convalescent, to have the Richmonds
here. One of the miseries of chronical illnesses is, that you
are a prey to every fool, who, not knowing what to do with
himself, brings his ennui to you, and calls it charity. Tell me
a little the intended dates of your motions, that I may know
where to write at you. Commend me kindly to Mr. John, and wish
me a good night, of which I have had but one these ten days.
(898) "I scarcely ever," says Gibbon, who happened to dine in the
company of Wilkes in September 1762, "met with a better
companion; he has inexhaustible spirits, infinite wit and humour,
and a great deal of knowledge; but a thorough profligate in
principle as in practice; his life stained with every vice, and
his conversation full of blasphemy and indecency."-E.
Letter 276 To The Countess Of Suffolk.(899)
Paris, Oct. 16, 1765. (page 437)
Though I begin my letter to-day, Madam, it may not be finished
and set out these four days; but serving a tyrant who does not
allow me many holiday-minutes, I am forced to seize the first
that offer. Even now when I am writing upon the table, he is
giving me malicious pinches under it. I was exceedingly obliged
to Miss Hotham for her letter, though it did not give me so good
an account of your ladyship as I wished. I will not advise you
to come to Paris, where, I assure you, one has not a nip less of
the gout than at London, and where it is rather more difficult to
keep one's chamber pure; water not being reckoned here one of the
elements of cleanliness. If ever my Lady Blandford and I make a
match, I shall insist on her coming hither for a month first, to
learn patience. I need have a great stock, who have only
travelled from one sick bed to another; who have seen nothing;
and who hear of nothing but the braveries of Fontainbleau, where
the Duc de Richelieu, whose year it is, has ordered seven new
operas besides other shows. However, if I cannot be diverted, my
ruin at least is protracted, as I cannot go to a single shop.
Lady Mary Chabot has been so good as to make me a visit. She is
again gone into the country till November, but charged me over
and over to say a great deal for her to your ladyship, for whom
she expresses the highest regard. Lady Brown is still in the
country too; but as she loves laughing more than is fashionable
here, I expect her return with great impatience. As I neither
desire to change their religion or government, I am tired of
their perpetual dissertations on those subjects. As when I was
here last, which, alas! is four-and-twenty ears ago, I was much
at Mrs. Hayes's, I thought it but civil to wait on her now that
her situation is a little less brilliant. She was not at home,
but invited me to supper next night. The moment she saw me I
thought I had done very right not to neglect her; for she
overwhelmed me with professions of her fondness for me and all my
family. When the first torrent was over, she asked me if I was
son of the Horace Walpole who had been ambassador here. I said
no, he was my uncle. Oh! then you are he I used to call my
Neddy! No, Madam, I believe that is my brother. Your brother!
What is my Lord Walpole? My cousin, Madam. Your cousin! why,
then, who are you? I found that if I had omitted my visit, her
memory of me would not have reproached me much.
Lord and Lady Fife are expected here every day from Spa; but we
hear nothing certain yet of their graces of Richmond, for whom I
am a little impatient; and for pam too, who I hope comes with
them. In French houses it is impossible to meet with any thing
but whist, which I am determined never to learn again. I sit by
and yawn; which, however, is better than sitting at it to yawn.
I hope to be able to take the air in a few days; for though I
have had sharp pain and terrible nights, this codicil to my gout
promises to be of much shorter duration than what I had in
England, and has kept entirely to my feet. My diet sounds like
an English farmer's, being nothing but beef and pudding; in truth
the beef' is bouilli, and the pudding bread. This last night has
been the first in which I have got a wink of sleep before six in
the morning: but skeletons can live very well without eating or
sleeping; nay, they can laugh too, when they meet with a jolly
mortal of this world.
Mr. Chetwynd, I conclude, is dancing at country balls and
horseraces. It is charming to be so young;(900) but I do not
envy one whose youth is so good-humoured and good-natured. When
he gallops post to town, or swims his horse through a MillpODd In
November, pray make my compliments to him, and to Lady Blandford
and Lady Denbigh. The joys of the gout do not put one's old
friends out of one's head, even at this distance. I am, etc.
(899) Now first collected.
(900) See ant`e, p. 412, letter 259.-E.
Letter 277 To Thomas Brand, Esq.(901)
Paris, Oct. 19, 1765. (page 438)
Don't think I have forgot your commissions: I mentioned them to
old Mariette this evening, who says he has got one of them, but
never could meet with the other, and that it will be impossible
for me to find either at Paris. You know, I suppose, that he
would as soon part with an eye as with any thing in his own
collection.
You may, if you please, suppose me extremely diverted here, Oh!
exceedingly. In the first place, I have seen nothing; in the
second, I have been confined this fortnight with a return of the
gout in both feet; and in the third, I have not laughed since my
Lady Hertford went away. I assure you, you may come hither very
safely, and be in no danger from mirth. Laughing is as much out
of fashion as pantins or bilboquets. Good folks, they have no
time to laugh. There is God and the King to be pulled down
first; and men and women, one and all, are devoutly employed in
the demolition. They think me quite profane, for having any
belief left. But this is not my only crime - I have told them,
and am undone by it, that they have taken from us to admire the
two dullest things we had, whisk and Richardson. It is very
true, and they -want nothing but George Grenville to make their
conversations, or rather dissertations, the most tiresome upon
earth. For Lord Lyttelton, if he would come hither, and turn
freethinker once more, he would be reckoned the most -,agreeable
man in France--next to Mr. Hume, who is the only thing in the
world that they believe implicitly; which they must do, for I
defy them to understand any language that he speaks.
If I could divest myself of my wicked--and unphilosophic bent to
laughing, I should do very well. They are very civil and
obliging to me, and several of the women are very agreeable, and
some of the men. The Duc de Nivernois has been beyond measure
kind to me, and scarce missed a day without coming to see me
during my confinement. The Guerchys are. as usual, all
friendship. I had given entirely into supping, as I do not love
rising early, and still less meat breakfasts. The misfortune is,
that in several houses they dine, and at others sup.
You will think it odd that I should want to laugh, when Wilkes,
Sterne, and Foote are here; but the first does not make me laugh,
the second never could, and for the third, I choose to pay five
shillings when I have a mind he should divert me. Besides, I
certainly did not come in search of English: and yet the man I
have liked the best in Paris is an Englishman, Lord Ossory, who
is one of the most sensible young men I ever saw, with a great
deal of Lord Tavistock in his manner.
The joys of Fontainbleau I miss by my illness--Patienza! If the
gout deprived me of nothing better than a court.
The papers say the Duke of Dorset(902) is dead; what has he done
for Lord George? You cannot be so unconscionable as not to
answer me. I don't ask who is to have his riband; nor how many
bushels of fruit the Duke of Newcastle's dessert for the
Hereditary Prince contained, nor how often he kissed him for the
sake of "the dear house of Brunswick"--No, keep your politics to
yourselves; I want to know none of them:-when I do, and
authentically, I will write to my Lady * * * * or Charles
Townshend.
Mrs. Pit's friend, Madame de Rochefort, is one of my principal
attachments, and very agreeable indeed. Madame de Mirepoix
another. For my admiration, Madame de Monaco--but I believe you
don't doubt my Lord Hertford's taste in sensualities. March's
passion, Marechalle d'Estr`ees, is affected, cross, and not all
handsome. The Princes of the blood are pretty much retired, do
not go to Portsmouth and Salisbury once a week, nor furnish every
other paragraph to the newspapers. Their campaigns are confined
to killing boars and stags, two or three hundred in a year.
Adieu! Mr. Foley is my banker; or it is still more sure if you
send your letter to Mr. Conway's office.
(901) Of the Hoo, in Hertfordshire. See vol. ii. p. 211, letter
103.-E.
(902) Lionel Cranfield Sackville, seventh Earl and first Duke of
Dorset: he died on the 10th of October. Lord George Sackville
was his third son.-E.
Letter 278 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Paris, Oct. 28, 1765. (page 440)
Mr. Hume sends me word from Fontainbleau, that your brother, some
time in the spring of 1764, transmitted to the English ministry a
pretty exact and very authentic account of the French finances;"
these are his words: and "that it will be easily found among his
lordship's despatches of that period." To the other question I
have received no answer: I suppose he has not yet been able to
inform himself.
This goes by an English coachman of Count Lauragais, sent over to
buy more horses; therefore I shall write a little ministerially,
and, perhaps, surprise you, if you are not already apprised of
things in the light I see them.
The Dauphin will probably hold out very few days. His death,
that is, the near prospect of it, fills the philosophers with the
greatest joy, as it was feared he would endeavour the restoration
of the Jesuits. You will think the sentiments of the
philosophers very odd stale news --but do you know who the
philosophers are, or what the term means here? In the first
place, it comprehends almost every body; and in the next, means
men, who, avowing war against popery, aim, many of them, at a
subversion of all religion, and still many more, at the
destruction of regal power. How do you know this? you will say;
you, who have been but six weeks in France, three of which you
have been confined to your chamber? True: but in the first period
I went every where, and heard nothing else: in the latter, I have
been extremely visited, and have had long and explicit
conversations with many, who think as I tell you, and with a few
of the other side, who are no less persuaded that there are such
intentions. In particular. I had two officers here t'other
night, neither of them young, whom I had difficulty to keep from
a serious quarrel, and who, in the heat of the dispute, informed
me of much more than I could have learnt with great pains.
As a proof that my ideas are not quite visions, I send you a most
curious paper;(903) such as I believe no magistrate would have
pronounced in the time of Charles 1. I should not like to have it
known to come from me, nor any part of the intelligence I send
you; with regard to which, if you think it necessary to
communicate it to particular persons, I desire my name may be
suppressed. I tell it for your satisfaction and information, but
would not have any body else think that I do any thing here but
amuse myself; my amusements indeed are triste enough, and consist
wholly in trying to get well; but my recovery moves very slowly.
I have not yet had any thing but cloth shoes on, live sometimes a
whole day on warm water, and am never tolerably well till twelve
or one o'clock.
I have had another letter from Sir Horace Mann, who has much at
heart his riband and increase of character. Consequently you
know, as I love him so much, I must have them at heart too.
Count Lorenzi is recalled, because here they think it necessary
to send a Frenchman of higher rank to the new grand ducal court.
I wish Sir Horace could be raised on this occasion. For his
riband, his promise is so old and so positive, that it is quite a
hardship.
Pray put the colonies in good-humour: I see they are violently
Disposed to the new administration. I have not time to say more,
nor more to say if I had time; so good night! Let me know if you
receive this, and how soon: it goes the day after to-morrow.
Various reports say the Duke of Richmond comes this week. I sent
you a letter by Monsieur de Guerchy. Dusson, I hear, goes
ambassador to Poland. Tell Lady Ailesbury that I have five or
six little parcels, though not above one for her, of laces and
ribands, which Lady Cecilic left Wit me: but how to convey them
the Lord knows. Yours ever.
(903) This paper does not appear.
Letter 279 To Mr. Gray.
Paris, Nov. 19, 1765. (page 441)
You are very kind to inquire so particularly after my gout. I
wish I may not be so circumstantial in my answer: but you have
tapped a dangerous topic; I can talk gout by the hour. It is my
great mortification, and has disappointed all the hopes that I
had built on temperance and hardiness. I have resisted like a
hermit, and exposed myself to all weathers and seasons like a
smuggler; and in vain. I have, however, still so much of the
obstinacy of both professions left, that I think I shall
continue, and cannot obey you in keeping myself warm. I have
gone through my second fit under one blanket, and already go
about in a silk waistcoat with my bosom unbuttoned. In short, I
am as prejudiced to try regimen, though so ineffectual, as I
could have been to all I expected from it. The truth is, I am
almost as willing to have the gout as to be liable to catch cold;
and must run up stairs and down, in and out of doors, when I
will, or I cannot have the least satisfaction. This will
convince you how readily I comply with another of your precepts,
walking as soon as am able.--For receipts, you may trust me for
making use of none; I would not see a physician at the worst, but
have quacked as boldly as quacks treat others. I laughed at your
idea of quality receipts, it came so apropos. There is not a man
or woman here that is not a perfect old nurse, and who does not
talk gruel and anatomy with equal fluency and ignorance. One
instance shall serve: Madame de Bouzols, Marshal Berwick's
daughter, assured me there was nothing so good for the gout, as
to preserve the parings of my nails in a bottle close stopped.
When I try any illustrious nostrum, I shall give the preference
to this.
So much for the gout!(904) I told you what was coming. As to
the ministry, I know and care very little about them. I told you
and told them long ago, that if ever a change happened I would
bid adieu to politics for ever. Do me the Justice to allow that
I have not altered with the time. I was so impatient to put this
resolution in execution that I hurried out of England before I
was sufficiently recovered. I shall not run the same hazard again
in haste; but will stay here till I am perfectly well, and the
season of warm weather coming on or arrived; though the charms of
Paris have not the least attraction for me, nor would keep me an
hour on their own account. For the city itself, I cannot
conceive where my eyes were: it Is the ugliest beastliest town in
the universe. I have not seen a mouthful of verdure out of it,
nor have they any thing green but their treillage and
window-shutters. Trees cut into fire-shovels, and stuck into
pedestals of chalk, Compose their country. Their boasted
knowledge of society is reduced to talking of their suppers, and
every malady they have about them, or know of. The Dauphin is at
the point of death; every morning the physicians frame in account
of him; and happy is he or she who can produce a copy of this
lie, called a bulletin. The night before last, one of these was
produced at supper where I was; it was read, and said he had une
evacuation foetide. I beg your pardon, though you are not at
supper. The old lady of the house(905) (who by the way is quite
blind, was the Regent's mistress for a fortnight, and is very
agreeable) called out, "Oh! they have forgot to mention that he
threw down his chamber-pot, and was forced to change his bed."
There were present several women of the first rank; as Madame de
la Vali`ere, whom you remember Duchesse de Vaujour, and who is
still miraculously pretty, though fifty-three; a very handsome
Madame de Forcalquier, and others--nor was this conversation at
all particular to that evening.
Their gaiety is not greater than their delicacy--but I will not
expatiate. In short, they are another people from what they
were. They may be growing wise, but the intermediate passage is
dulness. Several of the women are agreeable, and some of the
men; but the latter are in general vain and ignorant. The
savans--I beg their pardons, the philosophes--are insupportable,
superficial, overbearing, and fanatic: they preach incessantly,
and their avowed doctrine is atheism; you would not believe how
openly--Don't wonder, therefore, if I should return a Jesuit.
Voltaire himself does not satisfy them. One of their lady
devotees said of him, "Il est bigot, c'est un d`eiste."
I am as little pleased with their taste in trifles. Cr`ebillon
is entirely out of fashion, and Marivaux a proverb: marivauder
and marivaudage are established terms for being prolix and
tiresome. I thought that we were fallen, but they are ten times
lower.
Notwithstanding all I have said, I have found two or three
societies that please me; am amused with the novelty of the
whole, and should be sorry not to have come. The Dumenil is, if
possible, superior to what you remember. I am sorry not to see
the Clairon; but several persons whose judgments seem the
soundest prefer the former. Preville is admirable in low comedy.
The mixture of Italian comedy and comic operas, prettily written,
and set to Italian music, at the same theatre, is charming, and
gets the better both of their operas and French comedy; the
latter of which is seldom full, with all its merit.
Petit-maitres are obsolete, like our Lords Foppington--but le
monde est philosophe--When I grow very sick of this last
nonsense, I go and compose myself at the Chartreuse, where I am
almost tempted to prefer Le Soeur to every painter I know. Yet
what new old treasures are come to light, routed out of the
Louvre, and thrown into new lumber-rooms at Versailles!--But I
have not room to tell you what I have seen! I will keep this and
other chapters for Strawberry. Adieu! and thank you.
Old Mariette has shown me a print by Diepenbecke of the Duke and
Duchess of Newcastle(906) at dinner with their family. You would
oblige me, if you would look into all their graces' folios, and
see if it is not a frontispiece to some one of them. Then he has
such a Petitot of Madame d'Olonne! The Pompadour offered him
fifty louis for it(907)--Alack, so would I!
(904) The following is Gray's reply, of the 13th of December:-
-"You have long built your hopes on temperance, you say, and
hardiness. On the first point we are agreed; the second has
totally disappointed you, and therefore you will persist in it by
all means. But then, be sure to persist too in being young, in
stopping the course of time, and making the shadow return back
upon your sun-dial. If you find this not so easy, acquiesce with
a good grace in my anilities; put on your understockings of yarn,
or woollen, even in the night-time. Don't provoke me, or I shall
order you two nightcaps, (which, by the way, would do your eyes
good,) and put a little of any French liqueur into your water;
they are nothing but brandy and sugar; and among their various
flavours, some of them may surely be palatable enough, The pain
in your feet I can bear; but shudder at the sickness of your
stomach and the weakness that still continues. I conjure you, as
you love yourself--I conjure you by Strawberry, not to trifle
with these edge-tools. There is no cure for the gout, when in
the stomach, but to throw it into the limbs; There is no relief
for gout in the limbs, but in gentle warmth and gradual
perspiration." Works, vol. iv. p. 68.-E.
(905) Madame du Deffand.-E.
(906) Prefixed to some copies of the Duchess's work, entitled
"The World's Olio,--Nature's Pictures drawn by Fancy's Pencil to
the life," (folio, London, 1653,) is a print, Diepenbeck, del.,
P. Clouvet sc., half sheet, containing portraits of William
Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, (celebrated as a Cavalier general
during the civil wars, and commonly styled the loyal Duke of
Newcastle,) his Duchess, and their family.-E.
(907) This miniature eventually became his property. In a letter
from madame du Deffand of the 12th of December 1775, she says:-
-"J'ai Madame d'Olonne entre les mains; vous voil`a au comble de
la joie; mais moderez-en la, en apprenant que ses galans ne la
payaient pas plus cher de son vivant que vous ne la payez apr`es
sa mort; (@lle vous coute trois mille deux cents livres."-E.
Letter 280 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
Paris, Nov. 21, 1765. (page 444)
Madame Geoffrin has given me a parcel for your ladyship with two
knotting-bags, which I will send by the first opportunity that
seems safe:'--but I hear of nothing but difficulties; and shall,
I believe, be saved from ruin myself, from not being able to
convey any purchases into England. Thus I shall have made an
almost fruitless journey to France, if I can neither fling away
my money, nor preserve my health. At present, indeed, the gout
is gone. I have had my house swept, and made as clean as I
could-no very easy matter in this country; but I live in dread of
seven worse spirits entering in. The terror I am under of a new
fit has kept me from almost seeing any thing. The damps and fogs
are full as great and frequent here as in London; but there is a
little frost to-day, and I shall begin my devotions tomorrow. It
is not being fashionable to visit churches: but I am de la
vieille cour; and I beg your ladyship to believe that I have no
youthful pretensions. The Duchess of Richmond tells me that they
have made twenty foolish stories about me in England; and say
that my person is admired here. I cannot help what is said
without foundation; but the French have neither lost their eyes,
nor I my senses. A skeleton I was born--skeleton I am--and death
will have no trouble in making me one. I have not made any
alteration in my dress, and certainly did not study it In
England. Had I had any such ridiculous thoughts, the gout is too
sincere a monitor to leave one under any such error. Pray,
Madam, tell Lord and Lady Holland what I say: they have heard
these idle tales; and they know so many of my follies, that I
should be sorry they believed more of me than are true. If all
arose from madame Geoffrin calling me in Joke le nouveau
Richelieu, I give it under my hand that I resemble him in nothing
but wrinkles.
Your ladyship is much in the right to forbear reading politics.
I never look at the political letters that come hither in the
Chronicles. I was sick to death of them before I set out; and
perhaps should not have stirred from home, if I had not been sick
of them and all they relate to. If any body could write ballads
and epigrams, `a la bonne heure! But dull personal abuse in prose
is tiresome indeed. A serious invective against a pickpocket, or
written by a pickpocket, who has so little to do as to read?
The Dauphin continues languishing to his exit, and keeps every
body at Fontainbleau. There is a little bustle now about the
parliament of Bretagne; but you may believe, Madam, that when I
was tired of the squabbles at London, I did not propose to
interest myself in quarrels at Hull or Liverpool. Indeed, if the
Duc de Chaulnes(908) commanded at Rennes, or Pomenars(909) was
sent to prison, I might have a little curiosity. You wrong me in
thinking I quoted a text from my Saint(910) ludicrously. On the
contrary I am so true a bigot, that if she could have talked
nonsense, I should, like any other bigot, believe she was
inspired.
The season and the emptiness of Paris, prevent any thing new from
appearing. All I can send your ladyship is a very pretty
logogriphe, made by the old blind Madame du Deffand, whom perhaps
you know--certainly must have heard of. I sup there very
often;(911) and she gave me this last night-you must guess it.
Quoique je forme un corps, je ne suis qu'une id`ee;
Plus ma beaut`e vieillit, plus elle est decid`ee:
Il faut, pour me trouver, ignorer d'o`u je viens;
Je tiens tout de lui, qui reduit tout `a rien.(912)
Lady Mary Chabot inquires often after your ladyship. Your other
two friends are not yet returned to Paris; but I have had several
obliging messages from the Duchess d'Aiguillon.
It pleased me extremely, Madam, to find no mention of your own
gout in your letter. I always apprehend it for you, as you try
its temper to the utmost, especially by staying late in the
country, which you know it hates. Lord! it has broken my spirit
so, that I believe it might make me leave Strawberry at a
minute's warning. It has forbidden me tea, and been obeyed; and
I thought that one of the most difficult points to carry with me.
Do let us be well, Madam, and have no gouty notes to compare! I
am your ladyship's most faithful, humble servant.
(908) Governor of Britany in the time of Madame de S`evign`e.
(909) See Madame de S`evign`e's Letters.
(910) Madame de S`evign`e.
(911) Madame du Deffand had, at this time, a supper at her house
every Sunday evening, at which Walpole, during his stay at Paris,
constantly made one of the company.-E.
(912) The word is noblesse.
Letter 281 To George Montagu, Esq.
Paris, Nov. 21, 1765. (page 445)
You must not be surprised when my letters arrive long after their
date. I write them at my leisure, and send them when I find any
Englishman going to London, that I may not be kept in check, if
they were to pass through both French and English posts. Your
letter to Madame Roland, and the books for her, will Set Out very
securely in a day or two. My bookseller here happens to be of
Rheims, and knows Madame Roland, comme deux gouttes d'eau. This
perhaps is not a well-placed simile, but the French always use
one, and when they are once established, and one knows the tune,
it does not signify sixpence for the sense.
My gout and my stick have entirely left me. I totter still, it
is true, but I trust shall be able to whisk about at Strawberry
as well almost as ever. When that hour strikes, to be sure I
shall not be very sorry. The sameness of the life here is worse
than any thing but English politics and the House of Commons.
Indeed, I have a mind still to see more people here, more sights,
and more of the Dumenil. The Dauphin, who is not dead yet,
detains the whole court at Fontainbleau, whither I dare not
venture, as the situation is very damp, and the lodgings
abominable. Sights, too, I have scarce seen any yet; and I must
satisfy my curiosity; for hither, I think, I shall never come
again. No, let us sit down quietly and comfortably, and enjoy
our coming old age. Oh! if you are in earnest, and will
transplant yourself to Roehampton, how happy I shall be! You
know, if you believe an experience of above thirty years, that
you are one of the very, very few, for whom I really care a
straw. You know how long I have been vexed at seeing so little
of you. What has one to do, when one grows tired of the world,
as we both do, but to draw nearer and nearer, and gently waste
the remains of life with the friends with whom one began it!
Young and happy people will have no regard for us and our old
stories, and they are in the right: but we shall not tire one
another; we shall laugh together when nobody is by to laugh at
us, and we may think ourselves young enough when we see nobody
younger. Roehampton is a delightful spot, at once cheerful and
retired. You will amble in your chaise about Richmond-park: we
shall see one another as often as we like; I shall frequently
peep at London, and bring you tales of it, and we shall sometimes
touch a card with the Clive, and laugh our fill; for I must tell
you, I desire to die when I have nobody left to laugh with me. I
have never yet seen or heard any thing serious, that was not
ridiculous. Jesuits, Methodists, philosophers, politicians, the
hypocrite Rousseau, the scoffer Voltaire, the encyclopedists, the
Humes, the Lytteltons, the Grenvilles, the atheist tyrant of
Prussia, and the mountebank of history, Mr. Pitt, all are to me
but impostors in their various ways. Fame or interest is their
object; and after all their parade, I think a ploughman who sows,
reads his almanack, and believes the stars but so many farthing
candles, created to prevent his falling into a ditch as he goes
home at night, a wiser and more rational being, and I am sure an
honester than any of them. Oh! I am sick of visions and systems,
that shove one another aside, and come over again, like the
figures in a moving picture. Rabelais brightens up to me as I
see more of the world; he treated it as it deserved, laughed at
it all, and, as I judge from myself, ceased to hate it; for I
find hatred an unjust preference. Adieu!
Letter 282 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
Paris, Nov. 28, 1765. (page 447)
What, another letter! Yes, Madam; though I must whip and spur, I
must try to make my thanks keep up with your favours: for any
other return, you have quite distanced me. This is to
acknowledge the receipt of the Duchess d'Aiguillon--you may set
what sum you please against the debt. She is delightful, and has
much the most of a woman of quality of any I have seen, and more
cheerfulness too: for, to show your ladyship that I am sincere,
that my head is not turned, and that I retain some of my
prejudices still, I avow that gaiety, whatever it was formerly,
is no longer the growth of this country, and I will own too that
Paris can produce women of quality that I should not call women
of fashion; I will not use so ungentle a term as vulgar; but from
their indelicacy, I could call it still worse. Yet with these
faults, and the latter is an enormous one in my English eyes,
many of the women are exceedingly agreeable. I cannot say so
much for the men--always excepting the Duc de Nivernois. You
would be entertained, for a quarter of an hour, with his
Duchess--she is the Duke of Newcastle properly placed, that is,
chattering incessantly out of devotion, and making interest
against the devil, that she may dispose of bishoprics in the next
world.
Madame d'Egmont is expected to-day, which will run me again into
arrears. I don't l(now how it is. Yes, I do: it is natural to
impose on bounty, and I am like the rest of the world; I am going
to abuse your goodness because I know nobody's so great. Besides
being the best friend in the world, you are the best
commissionnaire in the world, Madam - you understand from
friendship to scissors. The enclosed model was trusted to me, to
have two pair made as well as possible--but I really blush at my
impertinence. However, all the trouble I mean to give your
ladyship is, to send your groom of the chambers to bespeak them;
and a pair besides of the common size for a lady, as well made as
possible, for the honour of England's steel.
The two knotting-bags from Madame Geoffrin went away by a
clergyman two days ago; and I concerted all the tricks the doctor
and I could think of, to elude the vigilance of the customhouse
officers.
With this, I send your ladyship the Orpheline Legu`ee: its
intended name was the Anglomanie, my only reason for sending it;
for it has little merit, and had as slender success, being acted
but five times. However, there is nothing else new.
The Dauphin continues in the same languishing and hopeless state,
but with great coolness and firmness. Somebody gave him t'other
day "The Preparation for Death:"(913) he said, "C'est la nouvelle
du jour."
I have nothing more to say, but what I have always to say, Madam,
from the beginning of my letters to the end, that I am your
ladyship's most obliged and most devoted humble servant.
Nov. 28, three o'clock.
Oh, Madam, Madam, Madam, what do you think I have found since I
wrote my letter this morning? I am out of my wits! Never was
any thing like my luck; it never forsakes me! I have found Count
Grammont's picture! I believe I shall see company upon it,
certainly keep the day holy. I went to the Grand Augustins to
see the pictures of the reception of' the knights of the Holy
Ghost: they carried me into a chamber full of their portraits; I
was looking for Bassompierre; my laquais de louage opened a door,
and said, "Here are more." One of the first that struck me was
Philibert Comte de Grammont!(914) It is old, not at all
handsome, but has a great deal of finesse in the countenance. I
shall think of nothing now but having it copied. If I had seen
or done nothing else, I should be content with my journey hither.
(913) The title of a French book of devotion.
(914) The witty Count de Grammont, who married Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir George Hamilton, fourth son of James first Earl
of Abercorn, by Mary, third sister of James first Duke of Ormond.
Tradition reports, that Grammont, who is not recorded to have
been a men of personal courage, having attached, if not engaged
himself to Hamilton, went off abruptly for France: the Count
George Hamilton pursued and overtook him at Dover, when he thus
addressed him: "My dear friend, I believe you have forgot a
circumstance that should take place before you return to France."
To which Grammont answered, "True, my dear friend; what a memory
I have! I quite forgot that I was to marry your sister; but I
will instantly accompany you back to London and rectify that
forgetfulness." His celebrated Memoirs were written by his
brother-in-law, Anthony, generally called Count Hamilton, who
followed the fortunes of James the Second, and afterwards entered
the French service.-E.
Letter 283 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Paris, Nov. 29, 1765. (page 448)
As I answered your short letter with a very long one, I shall be
shorter in answer to your long, which I received late last night
from Fontainbleau: it is not very necessary: but as Lord William
Gordon sets out for England on Monday, I take that opportunity.
The Duke of' Richmond tells me that Choiseul has promised every
thing. I wish it may be performed, and speedily, as it will give
you an opportunity of opening the Parliament with great `eclat.
My opinion you know is, that this is the moment for pushing them
and obtaining.
Thank you for all you say about my gout. We have had a week of
very hard frost, that has done me great good, and rebraced me.
The swelling of my legs is quite gone. What has done me more
good, is having entirely left off tea, to which I believe the
weakness of my stomach was owing, having had no sickness since.
In short, I think I am cured of every thing but my fears. You
talk coolly of going as far as Naples, and propose my going with
you. I would not go so far, if Naples was the direct road to the
new Jerusalem. I have no thought or wish but to get home, and be
quiet for the rest of my days, which I shall most certainly do
the first moment the season will let me; and if I once get to
London again, shall be scarce tempted ever to lie in an inn more.
I have refused to go to Aubign`e, though I should lie but one
night on the road. You may guess what I have suffered, when I am
grown so timorous about my health, However, I am again reverted
to my system of water, and trying to recover my hardiness--but
nothing has at all softened me towards physicians.
You see I have given you a serious answer, though I am rather
disposed to smile at your proposal. Go to Italy! for what?--Oh!
to quit--do you know, I think that as idle a thought as the
other. Pray stay where you are, and do some good to your
country, or retire when you cannot--but don't put your finger in
your eye and cry after the holidays and sugar-plums of
Park-place. You have engaged and must go through or be hindered.
Could you tell the world the reason? Would not all men say you
had found yourself incapable of what you had undertaken? I have
no patience with your thinking so idly. It would be a reflection
on your understanding and character, and a want of resolution
unworthy of you.
My advice is, to ask for the first great government that falls,
if you will not take your regiment again; to continue acting
vigorously and honestly where you are. Things are never stable
enough in our country to give you a prospect of a long slavery.
Your defect is irresolution. When you have taken your post, act
up to it; and if you are driven from it, your retirement will
then be as Honourable, and more satisfactory than your
administration. I speak frankly, as my friendship for you
directs. My way of acting (though a private instance) is
agreeable to my doctrine. I determined, whenever our opposition
should be over, to have done with politics; and you see I have
adhered to my resolution by coming hither; and therefore you may
be convinced that I speak my thoughts. I don't ask your pardon,
because I should be forced to ask my own, if I did not tell you
what I think the best for you. You have life and Park-place
enough to come, and you have not had five months of gout. Make
yourself independent honourably, which you may do by a
government. but if you will take my advice, don't accept a
ministerial place when you cease to be a minister. The former is
a reward due to your profession and services; the latter is a
degradation. You know the haughtiness of my spirit; I give you
no advice but what I would follow.
I sent Lady Ailesbury the "Orpheline Legu`ee:" a poor
performance; but the subject made me think she would like to see
it. I am over head and ears at Count Caylus's(915) auction, and
have bought half of it for a song--but I am still in greater
felicity and luck, having discovered, by mere accident, a
portrait of Count Grammont, after having been in search of' one
these fifteen years, and assured there was no such thing.
Apropos, I promised you my but besides that there is nobody here
that excels in painting skeletons, seriously, their painters are
bitter bad, and as much inferior to Reynolds and Ramsay, as
Hudson to Vandyck. I had rather stay till my return. Adieu!
(915) The Count de Caylus, member of the Royal Academy of
Inscriptions and Belles-lettre, honorary member of the Royal
Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and author of the "Recueil
d'Antiquit`es Egyptiennes, Etrusques, Grecques, Romaines, et
Gauloises," in seven volumes, 4to., died at Paris in September
1765, in the sixty-third year of his age. He was said to be the
protector of the arts and the torment of the artists; for though
he assisted them with his advice, and, better still, with his
purse, he exacted from them, in return, the greatest deference to
his opinion. Gibbon, in his Journal for May, 1763, thus speaks
of the Count:--"Je le vis trois ou quatre fois, et je vis un
homme simple, uni, bon, et qui me temoignoit une bont`e Extreme.
Si je n'en ai point profits, je l'attribue moins `a son
charact`ere qu'`a son genre de vie. Il se l`eve de grand matin,
court les atteliers des artistes pendant tout le jour, et rentre
chez lui `a six heures du soir pour se mettre en robe de chambre,
et s'enfermer dans son cabinet. Le moyen de voir ses amis?"-E.
Letter 284 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Paris, Dec. 5, 1765. (page 450)
I have not above a note's worth to say; but as Lord Ossory sets
out to-morrow, I just send you a line. The Dauphin, if he is
still alive, which some folks doubt, is kept so only by cordials;
though the Bishop of Glandeve has assured the Queen that he had
God's own word for his recovery, which she still believes,
whether her son is dead or not.
The remonstrance of the Parliament of Paris, on the dissolution
of that of Bretagne, is very decent; they are to have an audience
next week. They do not touch on Chalotais, because the
accusation against him is for treason. What do you think that
treason Is? A correspondence with Mr. Pitt, to whom he is made
to say, that "Rennes is nearer to London than Paris." It is now
believed that the anonymous letters, supposed to be written by
Chalotais, were forged by a Jesuit--those to Mr. Pitt could not
have even so good an author.
The Duke of Richmond is still at Aubign`e: I wonder he stays, for
it is the hardest frost alive. Mr. Hume does not go to Ireland;
where your brother finds he would by no means be welcome. I have
a notion he will stay here till Your brother's return.
The Duc de Praslin, it is said, will retire at Christmas. As La
Borde, the great banker of the court, is trying to retire too, my
consul, who is much connected with La Borde, suspects that
Choiseul is not very firm himself. I have supped with Monsieur
de Maurepas, and another night, with Marshal Richelieu: the first
is extremely agreeable and sensible; and, I am glad, not
minister. The other is an old piece of tawdry, worn out, but
endeavouring to brush itself up; and put me in mind of Lord
Chesterfield, for they laugh before they know what he has said--
and are in the right, for I think they would not laugh
afterwards.
I send Lady Ailesbury the words and music of the prettiest opera
comique in the world. I wish I could send her the actors too.
Adieu!
December 9.
Lord Ossory put off his journey; which stopped this letter, and
it will now go by Mr. Andrew Stuart.
The face of things is changed here; which I am impatient to tell
you, that you may see it is truth, not system, which I pique
myself on sending you. The vigour of the court has frightened
the Parliaments. That of Pau has submitted. The procureurs, etc
of Rennes, who, it was said, would not plead before the new
commission, were told, that if they did not plead the next day
they should be hanged without a trial. No bribe ever operated
faster! I heard t'other day, that some Spanish minister, I
forget his name, being dead, Squillace would take his department,
and Grimaldi have that of the West Indies. He is the worst that
could have it, as we have no greater enemy.
The Dauphin is certainly alive, but in the most shocking way
possible; his bones worn through his skin, a great swelling
behind, and so relaxed, that his intestines appear from that
part; and yesterday the mortification was suspected.
I have received a long letter from Lady Ailesbury, for which I
give her a thousand thanks; and would answer it directly, if I
had not told you every thing I know. The Duke and Duchess of
Richmond are, I hear, at Fontainbleau: the moment they return, I
will give the Duchess Lady Ailesbury's commission.
Letter 285 To The Countess Of Suffolk.(916)
Paris, Dec. 5, 1765; but does not set out till the 11th.
(page 451)
Madam,
Miss Hotham need not be in pain for what to say when she gives me
an account of your ladyship; which is all the trouble I thought
of giving her. If she could make those accounts more favourable,
I should be better pleased; but I know what an untractable brute
the gout is, and the joy it takes in plaguing every body that is
connected with it. We have the sharpest frost here that ever
lived; it has done me great good; and, if it has the same effect
on your ladyship, I hope you are starved to death. Since Paris
has begun to fill in spite of Fontainbleau, I am much reconciled
to it, and, have seen several people I like. I am established in
two or three societies, where I sup every night; though I have
still resisted whist, and am more constant to my old flame loo
during its absence than I doubt I have been to my other passion.
There is a young Comtesse d'Egmont, daughter of Marshal
Richelieu, so pretty and pleasing, that, if I thought it would
break any body's heart in England, I would be in love with her.
Nay, Madam, I might be so within all rules here. I am twenty
years the right side of red-heels, which her father wears still,
and he has still a wrinkle to come before he leaves them off.
The Dauphin is still alive, but kept so only by cordials. The
Queen and Dauphiness have no doubt of his recovery, having the
Bishop of Glandeve's word for it, who got a promise from a vision
under its own hand and seal. The Dauphin has certainly behaved
with great courage and tranquillity, but is so touched with the
tenderness and attention of his family, that he now expresses a
wish to live.
If there is no talk in England of politics and parliaments, I can
send your ladyship as much as you please from hence; or If you
want English themselves, I can send you about fifty head; and I
assure you, we shall still be well stocked. There were three
card-tables at Lady Berkeley's.
(916) Now first collected.
Letter 286 To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
Paris, Jan. 2, 1766. (page 452)
When I came to Paris, Madam, I did not know that by New year's--
day I should find myself in Siberia; at least as cold. There
have not been two good days together since the middle of October;
however, I do not complain, as I am both well and pleased, though
I wish for a little of your sultry English weather, all French as
I am. I have entirely left off dinners, and the life I always
liked, of lying late in bed, and sitting up late. I am told of
nothing but how contradictory this is to your ladyship's orders;
but as I shall have dull dinners and triste evenings enough when
I return to England, all your kindness cannot persuade me to
sacrifice my pleasures here, too. Many of my opinions are
fantastic; perhaps this is one, that nothing produces gout like
doing any thing one dislikes. I believe the gouts like a near
relation, always visits one when one has some other plague. Your
ladyship's dependence on the waters of Sunning-hill is, I hope,
better founded; but in the mean time my system is full as
pleasant.
Madame d'Aiguillon's goodness to me does not abate, nor Madame
Geoffrin's. I have seen but little of Madame d'Egmont, who seems
very good, and is universally in esteem. She is now in great
affliction, having lost suddenly Monsieur Pignatelli, the
minister at Parma, whom she bred up, and whom she and her family
had generously destined for her grand-daughter, an immense
heiress. It was very delicate and touching what Madame d'Egmont
said to her daughter-in-law on this occasion:--"Vous voyez, ma
ch`ere, combien j'aime mes enfans d'adoption!" This
daughter-in-law is delightfully pretty, and civil, and gay, and
conversable, though not a regular beauty like Madame de Monaco.
The bitterness of the frost deters me, Madam, from all sights; I
console myself with good company, and still more, with being
absent from bad. Negative as this satisfaction is, it is
incredibly great, to me in a town like this, and to be sure every
day of not meeting one face one hates! I never know a positive
pleasure equal to it.
Your ladyship and Lord Holland shall laugh at me as Much as you
please for by dread of being thought charming; yet I shall not
deny my panic, for surely nothing is so formidable as to have
one's limbs on crutches and one's understanding in
leading-strings. The Prince of Conti laughed at me t'other day
on the same account. I was complaining to the old blind charming
Madame du Deffand, that she preferred Mr. Crawford to me: "What,"
said the Prince, "does not she love you?" "No, Sir," I replied,
"she likes me no better than if she had seen me."
Mr. Hume carries this letter and Rousseau to England.(917) I
wish the former may not repent having engaged with the latter,
who contradicts and quarrels with all mankind, in order to obtain
their admiration. I think both his means and his end below such
a genius. If I had talents like his, I should despise any
suffrage below my own standard, and should blush to owe any part
of my fame to singularities and affectations. But great parts
seem like high towers erected on high mountains, the more
expose(] to every wind, and readier to tumble. Charles Townshend
is blown round the compass; Rousseau insists that the north and
South blow at the same time; and Voltaire demolishes the Bible to
erect fatalism in its stead:--so compatible are the greatest
abilities and greatest absurdities!
Madame d'Aiguillon gave me the enclosed letter for your ladyship.
I wish I had any thing else to send you; but there are no new
books, and the theatres are shut up for the Dauphin's death; who,
I believe, is the greatest loss they have had since Harry 1V.
(917) The Parliament of Paris having issued an arr`et against
Rousseau, on account of his opinions, Mr. Hume was applied to by
a friend in Paris to discover for him a retreat in England,
whither he accompanied him. The plan finally concluded on was,
that he should be comfortably boarded in the mansion of Mr.
Davenport, at Wooton, in the county of Derby; and Mr. Hume, by
his interest with the Government, obtained for him a pension of
one hundred pounds a-year. On his arrival in London, he appeared
in public in his Armenian dress, and excited much general
notice.-E
Letter 287 To John Chute, Esq.
Paris, Jan. 1766. (page 453)
It is in vain, I know, my dear Sir, to scold you, though I have
Such a mind to it--nay, I must. Yes, You that will not lie a
night at Strawberry in autumn for fear of the gout, to stay in
the country till this time, and till you caught it! I know you
will tell me, it did not come till you were two days in town.
Do, and I shall have no more pity for you this if I was your
wife, and had wanted to come to town two months ago.
I am perfectly well, though to be sure Lapland is the torrid zone
in comparison of Paris. We have had such a frost for this
fortnight, that I went nine miles to dine in the country to-day,
in a villa exactly like a green-house, except that there was no
fire but in one room. We were four in a coach, and all our
chinks stopped with furs, and yet all the glasses were frozen.
We dined in a paved hall painted in fresco, with a fountain at
one end; for in this country they live in a perpetual opera, and
persist in being young when they are old, and hot when they are
frozen. At the end of the hall sat shivering three glorious
maccaws, a vast cockatoo, and two poor parroquets, who squalled
like the children in the wood after their nursery-fire! I am
come home, and blowing my billets between every paragraph, but
can scarce move my fingers. However, I must be dressed
presently, and go to the Comtesse de la Marche,(918) who has
appointed nine at night for my audience. It seems a little odd
to us to be presented to a princess of the blood at that hour--
but I told you, there is not a tittle In which our manners
resemble one another; I was presented to her father-in-law the
Prince of Conti last Friday. In the middle of the lev`ee entered
a young woman, too plain I thought to be any thing but his near
relation. I was confirmed in my opinion, by seeing her, after he
had talked to her, go round the circle and do the honours of it.
I asked a gentleman near me if that was the Comtesse de la
Marche? He burst into a violent laughter, and then told me it
was Mademoiselle Auguste, a dancer!--Now, who was in the wrong?
I give you these as samples of many scenes that have amused me,
and which will be charming food at Strawberry. At the same time
that I see all their ridicules, there is a douceur in the society
of the women of fashion that captivates me. I like the way of
life, though not lively; though the men are posts, and apt to be
arrogant, and though there are twenty ingredients wanting to make
the style perfect. I have totally washed my hands of their
savans and Philosophers, and do not even envy you Rousseau, who
has all the charlatanerie of Count St. Germain(919 to make
himself singular and talked of. I suppose Mrs. Montagu, my Lord
Lyttelton, and a certain lady friend of mine, will be in raptures
with him, especially as conducted by Mr. Hume. But, however I
admire his parts, neither he nor any genius I have known has had
common sense enough to balance the impertinence of their
pretensions. They hate priests, but love dearly to have an altar
at their feet; for which reason it is much pleasanter to read
them than to know them. Adieu! my dear Sir!
Jan. 15.
This has been writ this week, and waiting for a conveyance, and
as yet has got none. Favre tells me you are recovered, but you
don't tell me so yourself. I enclose a trifle that I wrote
lately,(920) which got about and has made enormous noise in a
city where they run and cackle after an event, like a parcel of
hens after an accidental husk of a grape. It has made me the
fashion, and made Madame de Boufflers and the Prince of Conti
very angry with me; the former intending to be rapt to the Temple
of Fame by clinging to Rousseau's Armenian robe. I am peevish
that with his parts he should be such a mountebank: but what made
me more peevish was, that after receiving Wilkes with the
greatest civilities, he paid court to Mr. Hume by complaining of
Wilkes's visit and intrusion.(921) Upon the whole, I would not
but have come hither; for, since I am doomed to live in England,
it is some comfort to have seen that the French are ten times
more contemptible than we are. I am a little ungrateful; but I
cannot help seeing with my eyes, though I find other people make
nothing of seeing without theirs. I have endless histories to
amuse you with when we meet, which shall be at the end of March.
It is much more tiresome to be fashionable than unpopular; I am
used to the latter, and know how to behave under it: but I cannot
stand for member of parliament of Paris. Adieu!
(918) La Comtesse de la Marche, princess of Modena, married to
the only son of the Prince de Conti. Le Comte de la Marche was
the only one of the princes of the blood who uniformly sided with
the court in the disputes with the Parliament of Paris.-E.
(919) The Comte de St. Germain had acquired a considerable
military reputation in France by his conduct at Corbach in 1760;
when he commanded the reserve, and saved the army by supporting
the rear-guard and allowing the whole body to retire upon Cassel.
Considering himself ill-used by the Marshal de Broglio, his
commander-in-chief, he obtained leave to retire from the French
service, and entered that of Denmark, from which he retired into
private life in 1774. From this retirement he was summoned by
Louis XVI. upon the death of the Comte de Muy,
minister-at-war.-E.
(920) The letter from the King of Prussia to Rousseau.-E.
(921) "One evening, at the Mitre, Johnson said sarcastically to
me, 'It seems, Sir, you have kept very good company abroad--
Rousseau and Wilkes!' I answered with a smile, 'My dear Sir, you
don't call Rousseau bad company: do you r(@ally think him a f bad
man?' Johnson. 'Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I
don't talk with you. If you mean to be serious, I think him one
of the worst of men; a rascal, who ought to be hunted out of
society, as he has been. Three or four nations have expelled
him, and it is a shame that he is protected in this country.
Rousseau, Sir, is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a sentence
for his transportation than that of any felon who has gone from
the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him
work in the plantations.' " Boswell, vol. ii. p. 314, ed.
1835.-E.
Letter 288 To George Montagu, Esq.
Paris, Jan. 5, 1766. (page 455)
Lady beaulieu acts like herself, and so do you in being persuaded
that nobody will feel any satisfaction that comes to you with
more transport than I do; you deserve her friendship, because you
are more sensible to the grace of the action than to the thing
itself; of which, besides approving the sentiment, I am glad, for
if my Lady Cardigan(922) is as happy in drawing a straw, as in
picking straws, you will certainly miss your green coat. Yet
methinks you would make an excellent Robin Hood reform`e, with
little John your brother. How you would carol Mr. Percy's old
ballads under the greenwood tree! I had rather have you in my
merry Sherwood than at Greatworth, and should delight in your
picture drawn as a bold forester, in a green frock, with your
rosy hue, gray locks, and comely belly. In short, the favour
itself, and the manner are so agreeable, that I shall be at least
as much disappointed as you can be, if it fails. One is not
ashamed to wear a feather from the hand of a friend. We both
scorn to ask or accept boons; but it is pleasing to have life
painted with images by the pencil of friendship. Visions you
know have always been my pasture; and so far from growing old
enough to quarrel with their emptiness, I almost think there is
no wisdom comparable to that of exchanging what is called the
realities of life for dreams. Old castles, old pictures, old
histories, and the babble of old people, make one live back into
centuries, that cannot disappoint one. One holds fast and surely
what is past. The dead have exhausted their power of deceiving;
one can trust Catherine of Medicis now. In short, you have
opened a new landscape to my fancy; and my Lady Beaulieu will
oblige me as much as you, if she puts the long bow into your
hands. I don't know but the idea may produce some other Castle
of Otranto.
The victorious arms of the present ministry in Parliament will
make me protract my stay here, lest it should be thought I
awaited the decision of the event; next to successful enemies, I
dread triumphant friends. To be sure, Lord Temple and George
Grenville are very proper to be tied to a conqueror's car, and to
drag then, slow lengths along;" but it is too ridiculous to see
Goody Newcastle exulting like old Marius in a seventh consulship.
Don't tell it, but as far as I can calculate my own intention, I
shall not set out before the twenty-fifth of March. That will
meet your abode in London; and I shall get a day or two out of
you for some chat at Strawberry on all I have seen and done here.
For this reason I will anticipate nothing now, but bid you
good-morrow, after telling you a little story. The canton of
Berne ordered all the impressions of Helvetius's Esprit and
Voltaire's Pucelle to be seized. The officer of justice employed
by them came into the council and said, "Magnifiques seigneurs,
apr`es toutes les recherches possibles, on n'a p`u trouver dans
toute la ville que tr`es peu de l'Esprit, et pas une Pucelle."
Adieu! Robin and John.
January 9th.
I had not sent away my letter, being so disappointed of a
messenger, and now receive yours of December the thirtieth. My
house is most heartily at your service, and I shall write to
Favre to have it ready for You. You will see by the former part
of this letter, that I do not think of being in England before
the end of March. All I dislike in this contract is the fear,
that if I drive you out of my house, I shall drive you out of
town; and as you will find, I have not a bed to offer you but my
own, and Favre's, in which your servant will lie, for I have
stripped Arlington-street to furnish Strawberry. In the mean
time you will be comfortable in my bed, and need have no trouble
about Favre, as he lodges at his wife's while I am absent. Let
them know in time to have the beds aired.
I don't understand one syllable of your paragraph about Miss
Talbot, Admiral Cornish, and Mr. Hampden's son. I thought she
was married, and I forget to whom.
(922) Lady Mary Montagu, third daughter and coheiress of John
second Duke of Montagu, and last of that creation; married, 7th
July 1730, George Montagu, fourth Earl of Cardigan.-E.
Letter 289 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
Paris, Saturday night, Jan. 11, 1766. (page 457)
I have just now, Madam, received the scissors, by General Vernon,
from Mr. Conway's office. Unluckily, I had not received your
ladyship's notification of them sooner, for want of a conveyance,
and I wrote to my servant to inquire of yours how they had been
sent; which I fear may have added a little trouble to all you had
been so good as to take, and for which I give you ten thousand
thanks: but your ladyship is so exact and friendly, that it
almost discourages rather than encourages me. I cannot bring
myself to think that ten thousand obligations are new letters of
credit. I have -seen Mrs. F *****, and her husband may be as
happy as he will: I cannot help pitying him. She told me it is
coulder here than in England; and in truth I believe so: I blow
the fire between every paragraph, and am quite cut off from all
sights. The agreeableness of the evenings makes me some amends.
I am just going to sup at Madame d'Aiguillon's with Madame
d'Egmont, and I hope Madame de Brionne, whom I have not yet seen;
but she is not very well, and it is doubtful. My last new
passion, and I think the strongest, is the Duchesse de Choiseul.
Her face is pretty, not very pretty; her person a little model.
Cheerful, modest, full of attentions, with the happiest propriety
of expression, and greatest quickness of reason and judgment, you
would take her for the queen of an allegory: one dreads its
finishing, as much as a lover, if she would admit one, would wish
it should finish. In short, Madam, though you are the last
person that will believe it, France is so agreeable, and England
so much the reverse, that I don't know when I shall return. The
civilities, the kindnesses, the honours I receive, are so many
and so great, that I am continually forced to put myself in mind
how little I am entitled to them, and how many of them I owe to
your ladyship. I shall talk you to death at my return. Shall
you bear to hear me tell you a thousand times over, that Madame
Geoffrin is the most rational woman in the world, and Madame
d'Aiguillon the most animated and most obliging? I think you
will. Your ladyship can endure the panegyric of your friends.
If you should grow impatient to hear them commended, you have
nothing to do but to come over. The best air in the world is
that where one is pleased: Sunning waters are nothing to it. The
frost is so hard, it is impossible to have the gout; and though
the fountain of youth is not here, the fountain of age is, which
comes to just the same thing. One is never old here, or never
thought so. One makes verses as if one was but seventccn-for
example:-
ON MADAME DE FORCALQUIER SPEAKING ENGLISH.
Soft sounds that steal from fair Forcalquier's lips,
Like bee that murmuring the jasmin sips!
Are these my native accents? None so sweet,
So gracious, yet my ravish'd ears did meet.
O power of beauty! thy enchanting look
Can melodize each note in Nature's book.
The roughest wrath of Russians, when they swear,
Pronounced by thee, flows soft as Indian air;
And dulcet breath, attemper'd by thine eyes,
Gives British prose o'er Tuscan verse the prize.
You must not look, Madam, for much meaning in these lines; they
were intended only to run smoothly, and to be easily comprehended
by the fair scholar who is learning our language. Still less
must you show them: they are not calculated for the meridian of
London, where you know I dread being represented as a shepherd.
Pray let them think that I am wrapped up in Canada bills, and
have all the pamphlets sent over about the colonies and the
stamp-act.
I am very sorry for the accounts your ladyship gives me of Lord
Holland. He talks, I am told, of going to Naples: one would do a
great deal for health, but I question if I could buy it at that
expense. If Paris would answer his purpose, I should not wonder
if he came hither; but to live with Italians must be woful, and
would ipso facto make me ill. It is true I am a bad judge: I
never tasted illness but the gout, which, tormenting as it is, I
prefer to all other distempers: one knows the fit will end, will
leave one quite well, and dispenses with the nonsense of
physicians, and absurdity is more painful than pain: at least the
pain of the gout never takes away my spirits, which the other
does.
I have never heard from Mr. Chute this century, but am glad the
gout is rather his excuse than the cause, and that it lies only
in his pen. I am in too good humour to quarrel with any body,
and consequently cannot be in haste to see England, where at
least one is sure of being quarrelled with. If they vex me, I
will come back hither directly; and I shall have the satisfaction
of knowing that your ladyship will not blame me.
Letter 290 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Paris, Jan. 12, 1766. (page 458)
I have received your letter by General Vernon, and another. to
which I have writ an answer, but was disappointed of a conveyance
I expected. You shall have it with additions, by the first
messenger that goes; but I cannot send it by the post, as I have
spoken very freely of some persons you name, in which we agree
thoroughly. These few lines are only to tell you that I am not
idle in writing to you.
I almost repent having come hither: for I like the way of life
and many of the people so well, that I doubt I shall feel more
regret at leaving Paris than I expected. It would sound vain to
tell you the honours and distinctions I receive, and how much I
am in fashion; yet when they come from the handsomest women in
France, and the most respectable in point of character, can one
help being a little proud? If I was twenty years younger, I
should wish they were not quite so respectable. Madame de
Brionne, whom I have never seen, and who was to have met me at
supper last night at the charming Madame d'Egmont's, sent me an
invitation by the latter for Wednesday next. I was engaged, and
hesitated. I was told, "Comment! savez-vous que c'est qu'elle
ne feroit pas pour toute la France?" However, lest you should
dread my returning a perfect old swain, I study my wrinkles,
compare myself and my limbs to every plate of larks I see, and
treat my understanding with at least as little mercy. Yet, do
you know, my present fame is owing to a very trifling
composition, but which has made incredible noise. I was one
evening at Madame Geoffrin's joking on Rousseau's affectations
and contradictions, and said some things that diverted them.
When I came home, I Put them into a letter, and showed it next
day to Helvetius and the Duc de Nivernois-, who were so pleased
with it, that, after telling me some faults in the language,
which you may be sure there were, they encouraged me to let it be
seen. As you know I willingly laugh at mountebanks, political or
literary, let their talents be ever so great, I was not averse.
The copies have spread like wildfire; et me voici `a la mode! I
expect the end of my reign at the end of the week with great
composure. Here is the letter:--
LE ROI DE PRUSSE, A MONSIEUR ROUSSEAU.(923)
Mon ch`ere Jean Jacques,
Vous avez renonc`e `a G`en`eve votre patrie; vous vous `etes fait
chasser de la Suisse, pays tant vant`e dans vos `ecrits; la
France vous a d`ecret`e. Venez done chez moi; j'admire vos
talens; je m'amuse de vos r`everies, qui (soit dit en passant)
vous occupent trop, et trop long tems. Il faut `a la fin `etre
sage et heureux. Vous avez fait assez parler de vous par des
singularit`es peu convenables `a un v`eritable grand homme.
D`emontrez `a vos ennemis que vous pouvez avoir quelquefois le
sens commun: cela les fachera, sans vous faire- tort. Mes `etats
vous offrent Une retraite paisible; je vous veux du bien, et je
vous en ferai, si vous le trouvez bon. Mais si vous vous
obstiniez `a rejetter mon secours, attendez-vous que je ne le
dirai `a personne. Si vous persistez @ vous creuser l'esprit
pour trouver de nouveaux malheurs, choisissez les tels que vous
voudrez. Je suis roi, je puis vous en procurer au gr`e de vos
souhaits: et ce qui s`urement ne vous arrivera pas vis `a vis de
vos ennemis, je cesserai de vous pers`ecuter quand vous cesserez
de mettre votre gloire `a l'`etre. Votre bon ami, Frederic.
The Princesse de Ligne,(924) whose mother was an Englishwoman
made a good observation to me last night. She said, "Je suis
roi, je puis vous procurer de malheurs," was plainly the stroke
of an English pen. I said, then I had certainly not well
imitated the character in which I wrote. You will say I am an
old man to attack both Voltaire and Rousseau. It is true; but I
shoot at their heel, at their vulnerable part.
I beg your pardon for taking up your time with these trifles.
The day after to-morrow we go in cavalcade with the Duchess of
Richmond to her audience;(925) I have got my cravat and shammy
shoes. Adieu!
(923) How much Rousseau, who was naturally disposed to believe in
plots and conspiracies against him, was annoyed by this jeu
d'esprit, the reader will readily learn from the following
letter, which he addressed to the editor of the London Chronicle
shortly after his arrival in England:--
Wootton, 3d March 1766.
You have failed, Sir, in the respect which every private person
owes to a crowned head, in attributing publicly to the King of
Prussia a letter full of extravagance and malignity, of which,
for these very reasons, you ought to have known be could not be
the author. You have even dared to transcribe his signature, as
if you had seen it written with his own hand. I inform you, Sir,
this letter was fabricated at Paris; and what rends my heart is,
that the impostor has accomplices in England. You owe to the
King of Prussia, to truth, and to me, to print the letter which I
write to you, and which I sign, as an atonement for a fault with
which you would doubtless reproach yourself severely, if you knew
to what a dark transaction you have rendered yourself accessory.
I salute you Sir, very sincerely. Rousseau.
(924) The Princess de Ligne was a daughter of the Marquis de
Megi`eres, by Miss Oglethorpe, sister of general Oglethorpe.-E.
(925) At Versailles, as ambassadress.
Letter 291 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Paris, Jan. 18, 1766. (page 460)
Dear sir,
I had extreme satisfaction in receiving your letter, having been
in great pain about you, and not knowing where to direct a
letter. Favre(926) told me, you had had an accident, did not say
what it was, but that you was not come to town.(927) He received
all the letters and parcels safe; for which I give you many
thanks, and a thousand more for your kindness in thinking of
them, when you was suffering so much. It was a dreadful
conclusion of your travels; but I trust will leave no
consequences behind it. The weather is by no means favourable
for a recovery, if it is as severe in England as at Paris. We
have had two or three days of fog, rather than thaw; but the
frost is set in again as sharp as ever. I persisted in going
about to churches and convents, till I thought I should have lost
my nose and fingers. I have submitted at last to the season, and
lie a-bed all the morning; but I hope in February and March to
recover the time I have lost. I shall not return to England
before the end of March, being determined not to hazard any
thing. I continue perfectly well, and few things could tempt me
to risk five months more of gout.
I will certainly bring you some pastils, and have them better
packed, if it is possible. You know how happy I should be if you
would send me any other commission. As you say nothing of the
Eton living, I fear that prospect has failed you; which gives me
great regret, as it would give me very sensible pleasure to have
you fixed somewhere (and not far from me) for your ease and
satisfaction.
I am glad the cathedral of Amiens answered your expectation; so
has the Sainte Chapelle mine; you did not tell me what charming
enamels I should find in the ante-chapel. I have seen another
vast piece, and very fine, of the Constable Montmorenci, at the
Mar`echale Duchesse de Luxembourg's. Rousseau is gone to England
with Mr. Hume. You will very probably see a letter to Rousseau,
in the name of the King of Prussia, writ to laugh at his
affectations. It has made excessive noise here, and I believe
quite ruined the author with many philosophers. When I tell you
I was the author, it is telling you how cheap I hold their anger.
If it does not reach you, you shall see it at Strawberry, where I
flatter myself I shall see you this summer, and quite well.
Adieu!
(926) A servant of Mr. Walpole's left in London.
(927) In disembarking at Dover, Mr. Cole met with an accident,
that had confined him there three weeks to his bed.
Letter 292 To Mr. Gray.
Paris, Jan. 25, 1766. (461)
I am much indebted to you for your kind letter and advice; and
though it is late to thank you for it, it is at least a stronger
proof that I do not forget it. However, I am a little obstinate,
as you know, on the chapter of health, and have persisted through
this Siberian winter in not adding a grain to my clothes, and in
going open-breasted without an under waistcoat. In short, though
I like extremely to live, it must be in my own way, as long as I
can: it is not youth I court, but liberty; and I think making
oneself tender is issuing a general warrant against one's own
person. I suppose I shall submit to confinement when I cannot
help it; but I am indifferent enough to life not to care if it
ends soon after my prison begins. I have not delayed so long to
answer your letter, from not thinking of you, or from want of
matter, but from want of time. I am constantly occupied,
engaged, amused, till I cannot bring a hundredth part of what I
have to say into the compass of a letter. You will lose nothing
by this: you know my volubility, when I am full of new subjects;
and I have at least many hours of conversation for you at my
return. One does not learn a whole nation in four or five
months; but, for the time, few, I believe, have seen, studied, or
got so much acquainted with the French as I have.
By what I said of their religious or rather irreligious opinions,
you must not conclude their people of quality atheists--at least,
not the men. Happily for them, poor souls! they are not capable
of going so far into thinking. They assent to a great deal,
because it is the fashion, and because they don't know how to
contradict. they are ashamed to defend the Roman Catholic
religion, because it is quite exploded; but I am convinced they
believe it in their hearts. They hate the Parliaments and the
philosophers, and are rejoiced that they may still idolize
royalty. At present, too, they are a little triumphant: the
court has shown a little spirit, and the Parliament much less:
but as the Duc de Choiseul, who is very fluttering, unsettled,
and inclined to the philosophers, has made a compromise with the
Parliament of Bretagne, the Parliaments might venture out again,
if, as I fancy will be the case, they are not glad to drop a
cause, of which they began to be a little weary of the
inconvenience.
The generality of the men, and more than the generality, are dull
and empty. They have taken up gravity, thinking it was
philosophy and English, and so have acquired nothing in the room
of their natural levity and cheerfulness. However, as their high
opinion of their own country remains, for which they can no
longer assign any reason, they are contemptuous and reserved,
instead of being ridiculously, consequently pardonably,
impertinent. I have wondered, knowing my own countrymen, that we
had attained such a superiority. I wonder no longer, and have a
little more respect for English heads than I had.
The women do not seem of the same country: if they are less gay
than they were, they are more informed, enough to make them very
conversable. I know six or seven with very superior
understandings. some of them with wit, or with softness, or very
good sense.
Madame Geoffrin, of whom you have heard much, is an extraordinary
woman, with more common sense than I almost ever met with. Great
quickness in discovering characters, penetration in going to the
bottom of them, and a pencil that never fails in a likeness--
seldom a favourable One. She exacts and preserves, spite of her
birth and their nonsensical prejudices about nobility, great
court and attention. This she acquires by a thousand little arts
and offices of friendship: and by a freedom and severity, which
seem to be her sole end of drawing a concourse to her; for she
insists on scolding those she inveigles to her. She has little
taste and less knowledge, but protects artisans and authors, and
courts a few people to have the credit of serving her dependents.
She was bred under the famous Madame Tencin, who advised her
never to refuse any man; for, said her mistress, though nine in
ten should not care a farthing for you, the tenth may live to be
a useful friend. She did not adopt or reject the whole plan, but
fully retained the purport of the maxim. In short, she is an
epitome' of empire, subsisting by rewards and punishments. Her
great enemy, Madame du Deffand, was for a short time mistress of
the Regent, is now very old and stoneblind, but retains all her
vivacity, wit, memory, judgment, passions, and agreeableness.
She goes to operas, plays, suppers, and Versailles; gives suppers
twice a-week; has every thing new read to her; makes new songs
and epigrams, admirably, and remembers every one that has been
made these fourscore years. She corresponds with Voltaire,
dictates charming letters to him, contradicts him, is no bigot to
him or any body, and laughs both at the clergy and the
philosophers. In a Dispute, into which she easily falls, she is
very warm, and yet scarce ever in the wrong: her judgment on
every subject, is as just as possible; on every point of conduct
as wrong as possible: for she is all love and hatred, passionate
for her friends to enthusiasm, still anxious to be loved, I don't
mean by lovers, and a vehement enemy, but openly. As she can
have no amusement but conversation, the least solitude and ennui
are insupportable to her, and put her into the power of several
worthless people, who eat her suppers when they can eat nobody's
of higher rank; wink to one another and laugh at her; hate her
because she has forty times more parts--and venture to hate her
because she is not rich.(928) She has an old friend whom I must
mention, a Monsieur Pondeveyle,(929) author of the Fat puni, and
the Complaisant, and of those pretty novels, the Comte de
Cominge, the Siege of Calais, and Les Malheurs de l'Amour.(930)
Would not you expect this old man to be very agreeable? He can
be so, but seldom is yet he has another very different and very
amusing talent, the art of parody, and is unique in his kind. He
composes tales to the tunes of long dances -. for instance, he
has adapted the Regent's Daphnis and Chloe to one, and made it
ten times more indecent; but is so old, and sings it so well,
that it is permitted in all companies. He has succeeded still
better in les caract`eres de la danse, to which he has adapted
words that express all the characters of love. With all this he
has not the least idea of cheerfulness in conversation; seldom
speaks but on grave subjects, and not often on them; is a
humourist, very supercilious, and wrapt up in admiration of his
own country, as the only judge of his merit. His air and look
are cold and forbidding; but ask him to sing, or praise his
works, his eyes and smiles open, and brighten up. In short, I
can show him to you: the self-applauding poet in Hogarth's Rake's
Progress, the second print, is so like his very features and very
wig, that you would know him by it, if you came hither--for he
certainly will not go to you.
Madame de Mirepoix's understanding is excellent of the useful
kind, and can be so when she pleases of the agreeable kind. She
has read, but seldom shows it, and has perfect taste. Her manner
is cold, but very civil; and she conceals even the blood of
Lorrain, without ever forgetting it. Nobody in France knows the
world better, and nobody is personally so well with the King.
She is false, artful, and insinuating beyond measure when it is
her interest,(931) but indolent and a coward. She never had any
passion but gaming, and always loses. For ever paying court, the
sole produce of a life of art is to get money from the King to
carry on a course of paying debts or contracting new ones, which
she discharges as fast as she is able. She advertised devotion,
to get made dame du palais to the Queen; and the very next day
this Princess of Lorrain was seen riding backwards with Madame
Pompadour in the latter's coach. When the King was stabbed, and
heartily frightened, the mistress took a panic too, and consulted
D'Argenson,(932) whether she had not best make off in time. He
hated her, and said, By all means. Madame de Mirepoix advised
her to stay. The King recovered his spirits, D'Argenson was
banished, and La Mar`echale inherited part of the mistress's
credit. I must interrupt my history of illustrious women with an
anecdote of Monsieur de Maurepas, with whom I am much acquainted,
and who has one of the few heads which approach to good ones, and
who luckily for us was disgraced, and the marine dropped, because
it was his favourite object and province. He employed Pondeveyle
to make a song on the Pompadour:(933) it was clever and bitter,
and did not spare Majesty. This was Maurepas absurd enough to
sing at supper at Versailles.(934) Banishment ensued; and lest
he should ever be restored, the mistress persuaded the King that
he had poisoned her predecessor Madame de Chateauroux. Maurepas
is very agreeable, and exceedingly cheerful; yet I have seen a
transient silent cloud when politics are talked of.
Madame de Boufflers, who was in England(935) is a savants
mistress of the Prince of Conti, and very desirous of being his
wife. She is two women, the upper and the lower. I need not
tell you that the lower is gallant, and still has pretensions.
The upper is very sensible, too, and has a measured eloquence
that is just and pleasing--but all is spoiled by an unrelaxed
attention to applause. You would think she was always sitting
for her picture to her biographer. Madame de Rochfort(936) is
different from all the rest. Her understanding is just and
delicate; with a finesse of wit that is the result of reflection.
Her manner is soft and feminine, and though a savants, without
any declared pretensions. She is the decent friend of Monsieur
de Nivernois; for you must not believe a syllable of what you
read in their novels. It requires the greatest curiosity, or the
greatest habitude, to discover the smallest connexion between the
sexes here. No familiarity, but under the veil of friendship, is
permitted, and love's dictionary is as much prohibited, as at
first sight one should think his ritual was. All you hear, and
that pronounced with nonchalance, is, that Monsieur un tel has
had Madame un telle. The Duc de Nivernois has parts, and writes
at the top of the mediocre, but, as Madame Geoffrin says, is
manqu`e par tout; guerrier manqu`e, ambassadeur manqu`e, homme
d'affaires manqu`e and auteur manqu`e--no, he is not homme de
naissance manqu`e. He would think freely, but has some ambition
of being governor to the Dauphin, and is more afraid of his wife
and daughter, who are ecclesiastic fagots. The former
outchatters the Duke of Newcastle; and the latter Madame de
Gisors, exhausts Mr. Pitt's eloquence in defense of the
Archbishop of Paris. Monsieur de Nivernois lives in a small
circle of dependent admirers, and Madame de Rochfort is
high-priestess for a small salary of credit.
The Duchess of Choiseul,(937) the only young one of these
heroines, is not very pretty, but has fine eyes, and is a little
model in wax-work, which not being allowed to speak for some time
as incapable, has a hesitation and modesty, the latter of which
the court has not cured, and the former of which is atoned for by
the most interesting sound of voice, and forgotten in the most
elegant turn and propriety of expression. Oh! it is the
gentlest, amiable, civil little creature that ever came out of a
fairy egg! So just in its phrases and thoughts, so attentive and
good-natured! Every body loves it but its husband, who prefers
his own sister the Duchess de Grammont,(938) an Amazonian,
fierce, haughty dame, who loves and hates arbitrarily, and is
detested. Madame de Choiseul, passionately fond of her husband,
was the martyr of this union, but at last submitted with a good
grace; has gained a little credit with him, and is still believed
to idolize him. But I doubt it--she takes too much pains to
profess it.
I cannot finish my list without adding a much more common
character--but more complete in its kind than any of the
foregoing, the Mar`echale de Luxembourg.(939) She has been very
handsome, very abandoned, and very mischievous. Her beauty is
gone, her lovers are gone, and she thinks the devil is coming.
This dejection has softened her into being rather agreeable, for
she has wit and good-breeding; but you would swear, by the
restlessness of her person and the horrors she cannot conceal,
that she had signed the compact, and expected to be called upon
in a week for the performance.
I could add many pictures, but none so remarkable. In those I
send you, there is not a feature bestowed gratis or exaggerated.
For the beauties, of which there are a few considerable, as
Mesdames de Brionne, de Monaco, et d'Egmont, they have not yet
lost their characters, nor got any.
You must not attribute my intimacy with Paris to curiosity alone.
An accident unlocked the doors for me. That passe-partout,
called the fashion, has made them fly open-and what do you think
was that fashion? I myself. Yes, like Queen Elinor in the
ballad, I sunk at Charing-cross, and have risen in the Fauxbourg
St. Germain. A plaisanterie on Rousseau, whose arrival here in
his way to you brought me acquainted with many anecdotes
conformable to the idea I had conceived of him, got about, was
liked much more than it deserved, spread like wildfire, and made
me the subject of conversation. Rousseau's devotees were
offended. Madame de Boufflers, with a tone of sentiment, and the
accents of lamenting humanity, abused me heartily, and then
complained to myself with the utmost softness. I acted
contrition, but had like to have spoiled all, by growing
dreadfully tired of a second lecture from the Prince of Conti,
who took up the ball, and made himself the hero of a history
wherein he had nothing to do. I listened, did not understand
half he said (nor he neither), forgot the rest, said Yes when I
should have said No, yawned when I should have smiled, and was
very penitent when I should have rejoiced at my pardon. Madame
de Boufflers was more distressed, for he owned twenty times more
than I had said: she frowned and made him signs: but she had
wound up his clack, and there was no stopping it. -The moment she
grew angry, the lord of the house grew charmed, and it has been
my fault if I am not at the head of a numerous sect:--but, when I
left a triumphant party in England, I did not come hither to be
at the head of a fashion. However, I have been sent for about
like an African prince or a learned canary-bird, and was, in
particular, carried by force to the Princess of Talmond,(940) the
Queen's cousin, who lives in a charitable apartment in the
Luxembourg, and was sitting on a small bed hung with saints and
Sobieskis, in a corner of one of those vast chambers, by two
blinking tapers. I stumbled over a cat, a footstool, and a
chamber-pot in my journey to her presence. She could not find a
syllable to say to me, and the visit ended with her begging a
lap-dog. Thank the Lord! though this is the first month, it is
the last week, of my reign; and I shall resign my crown with
great satisfaction to a bouillie of chestnuts, which is just
invented and whose annals will be illustrated by so many
indigestions, that Paris will not want any thing else for three
weeks. I will enclose the fatal letter after I have finished
this enormous one; to which I will only add, that nothing has
interrupted my S`evign`e researches but the frost. The Abb`e de
Malherbes has given me full power to ransack I did not tell you,
that by great accident, when I thought on nothing less, I
stumbled on an original picture of the Comte de Grammont, Adieu!
You are generally in London in March: I shall be there by the end
of it.(941)
(928) To the above portrait of Madame du Deffand it may be useful
to subjoin the able development of her character which appeared
in the Quarterly Review for May 1811, in its critique on her
Letters to Walpole:--"This lady seems to have united the
lightness of the French character with the
solidity of the English. She was easy and volatile, yet
judicious and acute; sometimes profound and sometimes
superficial. She had a wit playful, abundant, and well-toned; an
admirable conception of the ridiculous, and great skill in
exposing it; a turn for satire, which she indulged, not always in
the best-natured manner, yet with irresistible effect; powers of
expression varied, appropriate, flowing from the source, and
curious without research; a refined taste for letters, and a
judgment both of men and books in a high degree: enlightened and
accurate. As her parts had been happily thrown together by
nature, they were no less happy in the circumstances which
attended their progress and development. They were refined, not
by a course of solitary study, but by desultory reading, and
chiefly by living intercourse with the brightest geniuses of her
age. Thus trained, they acquired a pliability of movement, which
gave to all their exertions a bewitching air of freedom and
negligence. and made even their last efforts seem only the
exuberances or flowering-off of a mind capable of higher
excellencies, but unambitious to attain them. There was nothing
to alarm or overpower. On whatever topic she touched, trivial or
severe, it was alike en badinant; but in the midst of this
sportiveness, her genius poured itself forth in a thousand
delightful fancies, and scattered new graces and ornaments on
every object within its sphere. In its wanderings from the
trifles of the day to grave questions of morals or philosophy, it
carelessly struck out, and as carelessly abandoned, the most
profound truths; and while it sought only to amuse, suddenly
astonished and electrified by rapid traits of illumination, which
opened the depths of difficult subjects, and roused the
researches of more systematic reasoners. To these qualifications
were added an independence in forming opinions, and a boldness in
avowing them, which wore at least the semblance of honesty; a
perfect knowledge of the world, and that facility of manners,
which in the commerce of society supplies the place of
benevolence."-E.
(929) m. de Pontdeveyle, the younger brother of the Marquis
d'Argental, the friend of Voltaire and of the King of Prussia.
Their mother, Madame do Ferioles, was sister to the celebrated
madame de Tencin and to the Cardinal of the same name. He died
in 1774.-E.
(930) Madame du Deffand, in a letter to Walpole of the 17th of
March 1776, states the Malheurs de l'Amour to be the production
of Madame de Tencin. She describes it as un roman bien `ecrit,
mais qui n'inspire que de la tristesse."-E.
(931) La Mar`ecchale de Mirepoix was the first woman of
consequence who countenanced and appeared in public at Versailles
with Madame du Barri; while, on the other hand, her brother, the
Prince de Beauvau and his wife, gave great offence by refusing to
see her or be of any of her parties. Her person is thus
described by Madame du Deffand:--"Sa figure est charmante, son
teint est `eblouissant; ses traits, sans `etre parfaits, sont Si
bien assortis, que personne n'a l'air plus jeune et n'est plus
jolie."-E.
(932) Le Comte d'Argenson was minister-at-war, and, after
Damien's attempt upon the life of the King of France in 1757, was
disgraced, and exiled to his country-house at Ormes in Poitou.
He was brother to the Marquis d'Argenson, who had been minister
of foreign affairs, and died in 1756. He it was who is said to
have addressed M. Bignon, his nephew, afterwards an academician,
on conferring upon him the appointment of librarian to the King,
"Mon neveu, voil`a une belle occasion pour apprendre `a lire."-E.
(933) The following is the commencement of the song above alluded
to by Walpole:--
"Une petite bourgeoise,
Elev`ee `a la grivoise,
Mesurant tout k sa toise,
Fait de la cour un tandis.
Le Roi, malgr`e son scrupule,
Pour elle froidement br`ule.
Cette flamme ridicule Si
Excite dans tout Paris, ris, ris, ris."
(934) Le Comte de Maurepas, who was married to a sister of the
Duc de la Valli`ere, had been minister of marine, and disgraced,
as Walpole says, at the instigation of the reigning mistress,
Madame de Pompadour. Upon the death of Louis Quinze, he was
immediately summoned to assist in the formation of the ministry
of his successor.-E.
(935 See vol. iii. p. 218, letter 157.-E.
(936) Madame de Rochefort, n`ee Brancas.-E.
(937) La Duchesse de Choiseul, n`ee du Chatel. The husband
appears to have been more attached to her than Walpole supposed;
at least if we may judge from his will, in which he desires to be
buried in the same grave, and expresses his gratification at the
idea of reposing by the side of one whom he had, during his
lifetime, cherished and respected so highly.-E.
(938) La Duchesse de Grammont, sister of the Duke of Choiseul,
does not appear to have deserved the character which Walpole has
here given of her. She was thus described, in 1761, by Mr. Hans
Stanley, in a letter to Mr. Pitt:--"The Duchess is the only
person who has any weight with her brother, the Duc de Choiseul.
She never dissembles her contempt or dislike of any man, in
whatever degree of elevation. It is said she might have supplied
the place of Madame de Pompadour, if she had pleased. She treats
the ceremonies and pageants of courts as things beneath her: she
possesses a most uncommon share of understanding, and has very
high notions of honour and reputation." The crowning act of her
life militates strongly against Walpole's views. When brought
before the Revolutionary tribunal, in April 1794, after having
been seized by order of Robespierre, she astonished her judges by
the grace and dignity of her demeanour; and pleaded, not for her
own life, but eloquently for that of her friend, the Duchesse du
Chatelet: "Que ma mmort soit d`ecid`ee," she said; "cela ne
m'`etonne pas; mais," pointing to her friend, "pour cet ange, en
quoi vous a-t-elle offens`e; elle qui n'a jamais fait tort `a
personne; et dont la vie enti`ere n'offre qu'un tableau de vertu
et de bienfaisance." Both suffered upon the same scaffold. It
was this lady who was selected to be made an example of, from
among many others who slighted Madame du Barri; and for this she
was exiled to the distance of fifteen leagues from Paris, or from
wheresoever the court was assembled.-E.
(939) La Mar`echale Duchesse de Luxembourg, sister to the Duc de
Villeroi, Her first husband was the Duc de Boufflers, by whom she
had a son, the Duc de Boufflers, who died at Genoa of the
small-pox. She afterwards married the Mar`echal Duc de
Luxembourg, at whose country-seat, Montmorency, Jean Jacques
Rousseau was long an inmate.-E.
(940) The Princess of Talmond was born in Poland, and said to be
allied to the Queen, Maria Leczinska, with whom she came to
France, and there married a prince of the house of Bouillon.-E.
(941) Gray, in reference to this letter, writes thus to Dr.
Wharton, on the 5th of March:--"Mr. Walpole writes me now and
then a long and lively letter from Paris, to which place he went
the last summer, with the gout upon him; sometimes in his limbs;
often in his stomach and head. He has got somehow well, (not by
means of the climate, one would think,) goes to all public
places, sees all the best company, and is very much in fashion.
He says he sunk like Queen Eleanor, at Charing-cross, and has
risen again at Paris. He returns again in April; but his health
is certainly in a deplorable state." Works, vol. iv. p. 79.-E.
Letter 293 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
Paris, Feb. 3, 1766. )page 468)
I had the honour of writing to your ladyship on the 4th and 12th
of last month, which I only mention, because the latter went by
the post, which I have found is not always a safe conveyance.
I am sorry to inform you, Madam, that you will not see Madame
Geoffrin this year, as she goes to Poland in May. The King has
invited her, promised her an apartment exactly in her own way,
and that she shall see nobody but whom) she chooses to see. This
will not surprise you, Madam; but what I shall add, will: though
I must beg your ladyship not to mention it even to her, as it is
an absolute secret here, as she does not know that I know it, and
as it was trusted to me by a friend of yours. In short, there
are thoughts of sending her with a public character, or at least
with a commission from hence--a very extraordinary honour, and I
think never bestowed but on the Mar`echale de Gu`ebriant. As the
Dussons have been talked of, and as Madame Geoffrin has enemies,
its being known might make her uneasy that it was known. I
should have told it to no mortal but your ladyship; but I could
not resist giving you such a pleasure. In your answer, Madam, I
need not warn YOU not to specify what I have told you.
My favour here continues ; and favour never displeases. To me,
too, it is a novelty, and I naturally love curiosities. However,
I must be looking towards home, and have perhaps only been
treasuring up regret. At worst I have filled my mind with a new
set of ideas; some resource to a man who was heartily tired of
his old ones. When I tell your ladyship that I play at whisk,
and bear even French music, you will not wonder at any change in
me. Yet I am far from pretending to like every body, or every
thing I see. There are some chapters on which I still fear we
shall not agree; but I will do your ladyship the justice to own,
that you have never said a syllable too much in behalf of the
friends to whom you was so good as to recommend me. Madame
d'Egmont, whom I have mentioned but little, is one of the best
women in the world, and, though not at all striking at first,
_fair)s upon one much. Colonel Gordon, with this letter, brings
you, Madam, some more seeds from her. I have a box of pomatums
for you from Madame de Boufflers, which shall go by the next
conveyance that offers. As he waits for my parcel, I can only
repeat how much I am your ladyship's most obliged and faithful
humble servant.
Letter 294 To George Montagu, Esq.
Paris, Feb. 4, 1766. (page 469)
I write on small paper, that the nothing I have to say may look
like a letter, Paris, that supplies tine with diversions, affords
me no news. England sends me none, on which I care to talk by
the post. All seems in confusion; but I have done with politics!
The marriage of your cousin puts me in mind of the two owls, whom
the Vizier in some Eastern tale told the Sultan were treating on
a match between their children, on whom they were to settle I
don't know how many ruined villages. Trouble not your head about
it. Our ancestors were rogues, and so will our posterity be.
Madame Roland has sent to me, by Lady Jerningham,(942) to beg my
works. She shall certainly have them when I return to England;
but how comes she to forget that you and I are friends? or does
she think that all Englishmen quarrel on party? If she does,
methinks she is a good deal in the right, and it is one of the
reasons why I have bid adieu to politics, that I may not be
expected to love those I hate, and hate those I love. I supped
last night with the Duchess de Choiseul, and saw a magnificent
robe she is to wear to-day for a great wedding between a
Biron(943) and a Boufflers. It is of blue satin, embroidered all
over in mosaic, diamond-wise, with gold: in every diamond is a
silver star edged with gold, and surrounded with spangles in the
same way; it is trimmed with double sables, crossed with frogs
and tassels of gold; her head, neck, breast, and arms, covered
with diamonds. She will be quite the fairy queen, for it is the
prettiest little reasonable amiable Titania you ever saw; but
Oberon does not love it. He prefers a great mortal Hermione his
sister. I long to hear that you are lodged in Arlington-street,
and invested with your green livery; and I love Lord Beaulieu for
his cudom. Adieu!
(942) Mary, eldest daughter, and eventually heiress, of Francis
Plowden, Esq. by Mary eldest daughter of the Hon. John Stafford
Howard, younger son of the unfortunate Lord Stafford, wife of sir
George Jerningham.-E.
(943) The Duc de Lauzun, who upon the death of his uncle, the
Mar`echal de Biron, became Duc de Biron, married the heiress and
only child of the Duc de Boufflers, who died at Genoa. The
marriage proved an unhappy one, and the Duchess twice took refuge
in England at the breaking out of the French revolution; but
having, in 1793, unadvisedly returned to Paris, she perished on
the scaffold in one of the bloody proscriptions of Robespierre.
At the beginning of that revolution, the Duke espoused the
popular cause, and even commanded an army under the orders of the
legislative assembly; but in the storms that succeeded, being
altogether unequal to stem the torrent of popular fury or direct
its course, he fell by the guillotine early in 1794.-E.
Letter 295 To George Montagu, Esq.
Paris, Sunday, Feb. 23. (page 470)
I cannot know that you are in my house, and not say, you are
welcome. Indeed you are, and I am heartily glad you are pleased
there. I have neither matter nor time for more, as I have heard
of an opportunity of sending this away immediately with some
other letters. News do not happen here as in London; the
Parliaments meet, draw up a remonstrance, ask a day for
presenting it, have the day named a week after, and so forth. At
their rate of going on, if Methusalem was first president, he
would not see the end of a single question. As your histories
are somewhat more precipitate, I wait for their coming to some
settlement, and then will return; but, if the old ministers are
to be replaced, Bastille for Bastille, I think I had rather stay
where I am. I am not half so much afraid of any power, as the
French are of Mr. Pitt. Adieu!
Letter 296 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Paris, Feb. 28, 1766. (page 470)
Dear sir,
As you cannot, I believe, get a copy of the letter to Rousseau,
and are impatient for it, I send it you: though the brevity of it
will not answer your expectation. It is no answer to any of his
works, and is only a laugh at his affectations. I hear he does
not succeed in England, where his singularities are no curiosity.
Yet he must stay there, or give up all his pretensions. To quit
a country where he may live at ease, and unpersecuted, will be
owning that tranquillity is not what he seeks. If he again seeks
persecution, who will pity him? I should think even bigots would
let him alone out of contempt.
I have executed your commission in a way that I hope will please
you. As you tell me you have a blue cup and saucer, and a red
one, and would have them completed to six, without being all
alike, I have bought one other blue, one other red, and two
sprigged, in the same manner, with colours; so you will have just
three pair, which seems preferable to six odd ones; and which,
indeed, at nineteen livres a-piece, I think I could not have
found.
I shall keep very near the time I proposed returning; though I am
a little tempted to wait for the appearance of' leaves. As I may
never come hither again, I am disposed to see a little of their
villas and gardens, though it will vex me to lose spring and
lilac-tide at Strawberry. The weather has been so bad, and
continues so cold, that I have not yet seen all I intended in
Paris. To-day, I have been to the Plaine de Sablon, by the Bois
de Boulogne, to see a horserace rid in person by the Count
Lauragais and Lord Forbes.(944) All Paris was in motion by nine
o'clock this morning, and the coaches and crowds were innumerable
at so novel a sight. Would you believe it, that there was an
Englishman to whom it was quite as new? That Englishman was I:
though I live within two miles of Hounslow, have been fifty times
in my life at Newmarket, and have passed through it at the time
of the races, I never before saw a complete one. I once went
from Cambridge on purpose; saw the beginning, was tired, and went
away. If there was to be a review in Lapland, perhaps I might
see a review, too; which yet I have never seen. Lauragais was
distanced at the second circuit. What added to the singularity
was, that at the same instant his brother was gone to church to
be married. But, as Lauragais is at variance with his father and
wife, he chose this expedient to show he was not at the wedding.
Adieu!
(944) James, sixteenth Baron, who married, in 1760, Catherine,
only daughter of Sir Robert Innes, Bart. of orton. He was
Deputy-governor of Fort William, and died there in 1804.-E.
Letter 297 To George Montagu, Esq.
Paris, March 3, 1766. (page 471)
I write, because I ought, and because I have promised you I
would, and because I have an opportunity by Monsieur de
Lillebonne, and in spite of a better reason for being silent,
which is, that I have nothing to say. People marry, die, and are
promoted here about whom neither you nor I care a straw. No,
truly, and I am heartily tired of them, as you may believe when I
am preparing to return. There is a man in the next room actually
nailing my boxes; yet it will be the beginning of April before I
am at home. I have not had so much as a cold in all this
Siberian winter, and I will not venture the tempting the gout by
lying in a bad inn, till the weather is warmer. I wish, too, to
see a few leaves out at Versailles, etc. If I stayed till August
I could not see many; for there is not a tree for twenty miles,
that is not hacked and hewed, till it looks like the stumps that
beggars thrust into coaches to excite charity and miscarriages.
I am going this evening in search of Madame Roland; I doubt we
shall both miss each other's lilies and roses: she may have got
some pionies in their room, but mine are replaced with crocuses.
I love Lord Harcourt for his civility, to you; and I would fain
see you situated under the greenwood-tree, even by a compromise.
You may imagine I am pleased with the defeat, hisses, and
mortification of George Grenville, and The more by the
disappointment it has occasioned here. If you have a mind to vex
them thoroughly, you must make Mr. Pitt minister.(945) They have
not forgot him, whatever we have done.
The King has suddenly been here this morning to hold a lit de
justice: I don't yet know the particulars, except that it was
occasioned by some bold remonstrances of the Parliament on the
subject of That of Bretagne. Louis told me when I waked, that
the Duke de Chevreuil, the governor of Paris, was just gone by in
great state. I long to chat with Mr. Chute and you in the blue
room at Strawberry: though I have little to write, I have a great
deal to say. How do you like his new house? has he no gout?
Are your cousins Cortez and Pizarro heartily mortified that they
are not to roast and plunder the Americans? Is Goody Carlisle
Disappointed at not being appointed grand inquisitor? Adieu! I
will not seal this till I have seen or missed Madame Roland.
Yours ever.
P. S. I have been prevented going to madame Roland, and defer
giving an account of her by this letter.
(945) Mr. Gerard Hamilton, in a letter to Mr. Calcraft, of the
7th, says:--"Grenville and the Duke of Bedford's people continue
to oppose, in every stage, the passage of the bill for the repeal
of the Stamp-act. The reports of the day are, that Mr. Pitt will
go into the House of lords, and form an arrangement, which he
will countenance."-E.
Letter 298 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
Paris, March 10, 1766. (page 472)
There are two points, Madam, on which I must write to your
ladyship, though I have been confined these three or four Days
with an inflammation in my eyes. My watchings and revellings
had, I doubt, heated my blood, and prepared it to receive a
stroke of cold, which in truth was amply administered. We were
two-and-twenty at Mar`echale du Luxembourg's, and supped in a
temple rather than in a hall. It is vaulted at top with gods and
goddesses, and paved with marble; but the god of fire was not of
the number. HOWever, as this is neither of my points, I shall
say no more of it.
I send your ladyship Lady Albemarle's box, which Madame Geoffrin
brought to me herself yesterday. I think it very neat and
charming, and it exceeds the commission but by a guinea and a
half. It is lined with wood between the two golds, as the price
and necessary size would not admit metal enough without, to leave
it of any solidity.
The other point I am indeed ashamed to mention so late. I am
more guilty than even about the scissors. Lord Hertford sent me
word a fortnight ago, that an ensigncy was vacant, to which he
should recommend Mr. Fitzgerald. I forgot both to thank him and
to acquaint your ladyship, who probably know it without my
communication. I have certainly lost my memory! This is so idle
and young, that I begin to fear I have acquired something of the
Fashionable man, which I so much dreaded. It is to England then
that I must return to recover friendship and attention? I
literally wrote to Lord Hertford, and forgot to thank him. Sure
I did not use to be so abominable! I cannot account for it; I am
as black as ink, and must turn Methodist, to fancy that
repentance can wash me white again. No, I will not; for then I
may sin again, and trust to the same nostrum.
I had the honour of sending your ladyship the funeral sermon on
the Dauphin, and a tract to laugh at sermons: "Your bane and
antidote are both before you." The first is by the Archbishop of
Toulouse,(946) who is thought the first man of the clergy. It
has some sense, no pathetic, no eloquence, and, I think, clearly
no belief in his own doctrine. The latter is by the Abb`e
Coyer,(947) written livelily, upon a single idea; and, though I
agree upon the inutility of the remedy he rejects, I have no
better opinion of that he would substitute. Preaching has not
failed from the beginning of the world till to-day, not because
inadequate to the disease, but because the disease is incurable.
If one preached to lions and tigers, would it cure them of
thirsting for blood, and sucking it when they have an opportunity
No; but when they are whelped in the Tower, and both caressed and
beaten, do they turn out a jot more tame when they are grown up?
So far from it, all the kindness in the world, all the attention,
cannot make even a monkey (that is no beast of prey) remember a
pair of scissors or an ensigncy.
Adieu, Madam! and pray don't forgive me, till I have forgiven
myself. I dare not close my letter with any professions; for
could you believe them in one that had so much reason to think
himself Your most obedient humble servant?
(946) Brionne de Lomenie, Archbishop of Toulouse, and afterwards
Cardinal de Lomenie or as he was nicknamed by the populace of
Paris, "Cardinal de l'Ignominie," was great-nephew to Madame du
Deffand. The spirit of political intrigue raised him to the
administration of affairs during the last struggles of the old
r`egime, and exposed him to the contempt he deserved for aspiring
to such a situation at such a moment. He was arrested at the
commencement of the Revolution, and escaped the guillotine by
dying in one of the prisons at Paris in 1794.-E.
(947) This pamphlet of the Abb`e Coyer, which was entitled "On
Preaching," produced a great sensation in Paris at the time of
its publication. Its object is to prove, that those who have
occupied themselves in preaching to others, ever since the world
began, whether poets, priests, or philosophers, have been but a
parcel of prattlers, listened to if eloquent, laughed at if dull;
but who have never corrected any body: the true preacher being
the government, which joins to the moral maxims which it
inculcates the force of example and the power of execution.
Baron de Grimm characterizes the Abb`e as being "l'homme du monde
le plus lourd, l'ennui personnifi`e," and relates the following
anecdote of him during his visit to Voltaire at the Chateau de
Ferney:-" "The first day, the philosopher bore his company with
tolerable politeness; but the next morning he interrupted him in
a long prosing narrative of his travels, by this question:
'Savez-vous bien, M. l'Abb`e, la difference qu'il y a entre Don
Quichotte et vous? c'est que Don Quichotte prenait toutes les
auberges pour des chateaux; et vous, vous prenez tous les
ch`ateaux pour des auberges.'" The Abb`e died in 1782.-E.
Letter 299 To George Montagu, Esq.
Paris, March 12, 1766. (page 474)
I can write but two lines, for I have been confined these four or
five days with a violent inflammation in my eyes, and which has
prevented my returning to Madame Roland. I did not find her at
home, but left your letter. My right eye is well again, and I
have been to take air.
How can you ask leave to carry any body to Strawberry? May not
you do what you please with me and mine? Does not
Arlington-street comprehend Strawberry? why don't you go and lie
there if you like it'? It will be, I think, the middle of April,
before I return; I have lost a week by this confinement, and
would fain satisfy my curiosity entirely, now I am here. I have
seen enough, and too much, of the people. I am glad you are upon
civil terms with Habiculeo. The less I esteem folks, the less I
would quarrel with them.
I don't wonder that Colman and Garrick write ill In concert,(948)
when they write ill separately; however, I am heartily glad the
Clive shines. Adieu! Commend me to Charles-street. Kiss Fanny,
and Mufti, and Ponto for me, when you go to Strawberry: dear
souls, I long to kiss them myself.
(948) The popular comedy of The Clandestine Marriage, the joint
production of Garrick and Colman, had just been brought out at
Drury-lane theatre.-E.
Letter 300 To George Montagu, Esq.
Paris, March 21, 1766. (page 474)
You make me very happy, in telling me you have been so
comfortable in my house. If you would set up a bed there, you
need never go out of it. I want to invite you, not to expel you.
April the tenth my pilgrimage will end, and the fifteenth, or
sixteenth, you may expect to see me, not much fattened with the
flesh-pots of Egypt, but almost as glad to come amongst you again
as I was to leave you.
Your Madame Roland is not half so fond of me as she tells me; I
have been twice at her door, left your letter and my own
direction, but have not received so much as a message to tell me
she is sorry she was not at home. Perhaps this is her first
vision of Paris, and it is natural for a Frenchwoman to have her
head turned with it; though what she takes for rivers of emerald,
and hotels of ruby and topaz, are to my eyes, that have been
purged with euphrasy and rue, a filthy stream, in which every
thing is washed without being cleaned, and dirty houses, ugly
streets, worse shops, and churches loaded with bad pictures.(949)
Such is the material part of this paradise; for the corporeal,,if
Madame Roland admires it, I have nothing to say; however, I shall
not be sorry to make one at Lady Frances Elliot's. Thank you for
admiring my deaf old woman; if I could bring my old blind one
with me, I should resign this paradise as willingly as if it was
built of opal, and designed by a fisherman, who thought that what
makes a fine necklace would make a finer habitation.
We did not want your sun; it has shone here for a fortnight with
all its lustre but yesterday a north wind, blown by the Czarina
herself I believe, arrived, and declared a month of March of full
age. This morning it snowed; and now, clouds of dust are
whisking about the streets and quays, edged with an east wind,
that gets under one's very shirt. I should not be quite sorry if
a little of it tapped my lilacs on their green noses, and bade
them wait for their master.
The Princess of Talmond sent me this morning a picture of two
pup-dogs, and a black and white greyhound, wretchedly painted. I
could not conceive what I was to do with this daub, but in her
note she warned me not to hope to keep it. It was only to
imprint on my memory the size, and features, and spots of Diana,
her departed greyhound, in order that I might get her exactly
such another. Don't you think my memory will return well stored,
if it is littered with defunct lapdogs. She is so devout, that I
did not dare send her word, that I am not possessed of a twig of
Jacob's broom, with which he streaked cattle as he pleased
T'other day, in the street, I saw a child in a leading-string,
whose nurse gave it a farthing for a beggar; the babe delivered
its mite with a grace, and a twirl of the hand. I don't think
your cousin's first grandson will be so well bred. Adieu! Yours
ever.
(949) Walpole's picture of Paris, in 1766, is not much more
favourable than that of Peter Heylin, who visited that city in
the preceding century:--"This I am confident of," says Peter,
"that the nastiest lane in London is frankincense and juniper to
the sweetest street in this city. The ancient by-word was (and
there is good reason for it) 'il destaient comme la fange de
Paris:' had I the power of making proverbs, I would only change
destaient' into 'il put,' and make the by-word ten times more
orthodox. That which most amazed me is, that in such a
perpetuated constancy of stinks, there should yet be variety--a
variety so special and distinct, that my chemical nose (I dare
lay my life on it), after two or three perambulations, would hunt
out blindfold each several street by the smell, as perfectly as
another by the eye."-E.
Letter 301 To George Montagu, Esq.
Paris, April 3, 1766. (page 475)
One must be just to all the world; Madame Roland, I find, has
been in the country, and at Versailles, and was so obliging as to
call on me this morning, but I was so disobliging as not to be
awake. I was dreaming dreams; in short, I had dined at Livry;
yes, yes, at Livry, with a Langlade and De la Rochefoucaulds.
The abbey is now possessed by an Abb`e de Malherbe, with whom I
am acquainted, and who had given me a general invitation. I put
it off to the last moment, that the bois and all`ees might set
off the scene a little, and contribute to the vision; but it did
not want it. Livry is situated in the For`et de Bondi, very
agreeably on a flat, but with hills near it, and in prospect.
There is a great air of simplicity and rural about it, more
regular than our taste, but with an old-fashioned tranquillity,
and nothing of coligichet. Not a tree exists that remembers the
charming woman, because in this country an old tree is a traitor,
and forfeits its head to the crown; but the plantations are not
young, and might very well be as they were in her time. The
Abb`e's house is decent and snug; a few paces from it is the
sacred pavilion built for Madame de S`evign`e by her uncle, and
much as it was in her day; a small saloon below for dinner, then
an arcade, but the niches now closed, and painted in fresco with
medallions of her, the Grignan, the Fayette, and the
Rochefoucauld. Above, a handsome large room, with a
chimney-piece in the best taste of Louis the Fourteenth's time; a
holy family in good relief over it, and the cipher of her uncle
Coulanges; a neat little bedchamber within, and two or three
clean little chambers over them. On one side of the garden,
leading to the great road, is a little bridge of wood, on which
the dear woman used to wait for the courier that brought her
daughter's letters. Judge with what veneration and satisfaction
I set my foot upon it! If you will come to France with Me next
year, we will go and sacrifice on that sacred spot together.
On the road to Livry I passed a new house on the pilasters of the
gate to which were two sphinxes in stone, with their heads
coquetly reclined, straw hats, and French cloaks slightly pinned,
and not hiding their bosoms. I don't know whether I or Memphis
would have been more diverted. I shall set out this day
se'nnight, the tenth, and be in London about the fifteenth or
sixteenth, if the wind is fair. Adieu! Yours ever.
P. S. I need not say, I suppose, that this letter is to Mr.
Chute, too.
Letter 302 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Paris, April 6, 1766. (page 476)
In a certain city of Europe(950) it is the custom to wear
slouched hats, long cloaks, and high capes. Scandal and the
government called this dress going in mask, and pretended that it
contributed to assassination. An ordonnance was published,
commanding free-born hats to be cocked, cloaks to be shortened,
and capes laid aside. All the world obeyed for the first day:
but the next, every thing returned into its old channel. In the
evening a tumult arose, and cries of,, "God bless the King! God
bless the kingdom! but confusion to Squillaci, the prime
minister."(951) The word was no sooner given, but his house was
beset, the windows broken, and the gates attempted. The guards
came and fired on the weavers(952) of cloaks. The weavers
returned the fire, and many fell on each side. As the hour of
supper approached and the mob grew hungry, they recollected a tax
upon bread, and demanded the repeal. the King yielded to both
requests, and hats and loaves were set at liberty. The people
were not contented, and still insisted on the permission of
murdering the first minister; though his Majesty assured his
faithful commons that the minister was never consulted on acts of
government, and was only his private friend, who sometimes called
upon him in an evening to drink a glass of wine and talk botany.
The people were incredulous, and continued in mutiny when the
last letters came away. If you should happen to suppose, as I
did, that this history arrived in London, do not be alarmed; for
it was at Madrid; and a nation who has borne the Inquisition
cannot support a cocked hat. So necessary it is for governors to
know when lead or a feather will turn the balance of human
understandings, or will not!
I should not have entrenched on Lord George's(953) province of
sending you news of revolutions, but he is at Aubign`e; and I
thought it right to advertise you in time, in case you should
have a mind to send a bale of slouched hats to the support of the
mutineers. As I have worn a flapped hat all my life, when I have
worn any at all, I think myself qualified, and would offer my
service to command them; but, being persuaded that you are a
faithful observer of treaties, though a friend to repeals, I
shall come and receive your commands in person. In the mean time
I cannot help figuring what a pompous protest my Lord Lyttelton
might draw up in the character of an old grandee against the
revocation of the act for cocked hats.
Lady Ailesbury forgot to send me word of your recovery, as she
promised; but I was so lucky as to hear it from other hands.
Pray take care of yourself, and do not imagine that you are as
weak as I am, and can escape the scythe, as I do, by being low:
your life is of more consequence. If you don't believe me, step
into the street and ask the first man you meet.
This is Sunday, and Thursday is fixed for my departure, unless
the Clairon should return to the stage on Tuesday se'nnight, as
it is said; and I do not know whether I should not be tempted to
borrow two or three days more, having never seen her; yet my
lilacs pull hard, and I have not a farthing left in the world.
Be sure you do not leave a cranny open for George Grenville to
wriggle it), till I have got all my things out of the
customhouse. Adieu! Yours ever.
(950) This account alludes to the insurrection at Madrid, on the
attempt of the court to introduce the French dress in Spain.
(951) Squillace, an Italian, whom the King was obliged to banish.
(952) Alluding to the mobs of silk-weavers which had taken place
in London.
(953) Lord George Lenox, only brother to the Duke of Richmond.
Letter 303 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Paris, April 8, 1766. (page 478)
I sent you a few lines by the post yesterday with the first of
the insurrection at Madrid. I have since seen Stahremberg,(954)
the imperial minister, who has had a courier from thence; and if
Lord Rochford(955) has not sent one, you will not be sorry to
know more particulars. The mob disarmed the Invalids; stopped
all coaches, to prevent Squillaci's flight; and meeting the Duke
de Medina Celi, forced him and the Duke d'Arcos to carry their
demands to the King. His most frightened Majesty granted them
directly; on which his highness the people despatched a monk with
their demands in writing, couched in four articles; the
diminution of the gabel on bread and oil; the revocation of the
ordonnance on hats and cloaks; the banishment of Squillaci; and
the abolition of some other tax, I don't know what. The King
signed all; yet was still forced to appear at a balcony, and
promise to observe what he had granted. Squillaci was sent with
an escort to Carthagena, to embark for Naples, and the first
commissioner of the treasury appointed to succeed him; which does
not look much like observation of the conditions. Some say
Ensenada is recalled, and that Grimaldi is in no good odour with
the people. If the latter and Squillaci are dismissed, we get
rid of two enemies.
The tumult ceased on the grant of the demands; but the King
retiring that night to Aranjuez, the insurrection was renewed the
next morning on pretence that this flight was a breach of the
capitulation The people seized the gates of the capital, and
permitted nobody to go out. In this state were things when the
courier came away. the ordonnance against going in disguise
looks as if some suspicions had been conceived; and yet their
confidence was so great as not to have two thousand guards in the
town. The pitiful behaviour of the court makes one think that
the Italians were frightened, and that the Spanish part of the
ministry were not sorry it took that turn. As I suppose there is
no great city in Spain which has not at least a bigger bundle of
grievances than the capital, one shall not wonder if the
pusillanimous behaviour of the King encourages them to redress
themselves too.
There is what is called a change of the ministry here; but it is
only a crossing over and figuring in. The Duc de Praslin has
wished to retire for some time; and for this last fortnight there
has been talk of his being replaced by the Duc d'Aiguillon. the
Duc de Nivernois, etc.; but it is plain, though not believed till
now, that the Duc de Choiseul is all-powerful. To purchase the
stay of his cousin Praslin, on whom he can depend, and to leave
no cranny open, he has ceded the marine and colonies to the Due
de Praslin, and taken the foreign and military department
himself. His cousin is, besides, named chef du conseil des
finances; a very honourable, very dignified, and very idle place,
and never filled since the Duc de Bethune had it. Praslin's
hopeful cub, the Viscount, whom you saw in England last year,
goes to Naples; and the Marquis de Durfort to Vienna--a cold,
dry, proud man, with the figure and manner of Lord Cornbury.
Great matters are expected to-day from the Parliament, which
re-assembles. A mousquetaire, his piece loaded with a lettre de
cachet, went about a fortnight ago to the notary who keeps the
parliamentary registers, and demanded them. They were refused--
but given up, on the lettre de cachet being produced. The
Parliament intends to try the notary for breach of trust, which I
suppose will make his fortune; though he has not the merit of
perjury, like Carteret Webb.
There have been insurrections at Bordeaux and Tailless, on the
militia, and twenty-seven persons were killed at the latter: but
both are appeased. These things are so much in vogue, that I
wonder the French do not dress `a la r`evolte. The Queen is in a
very dangerous way. This will be my last letter; but I am not
sure I shall set out before the middle of next week. Yours ever.
(954) Prince Stahremberg: he had married a daughter of the Duc
d'Arembert, by his Duchess, nee la Marche.
(955) William Henry Zuleistein de Nassau, Earl of Rochford, who
was at this time the English ambassador extraordinary at the
court of Spain.
Letter 304 To The Rev. Mr. COLE.
Arlington Street, May 10, 1766. (page 479)
At last I am come back, dear Sir, and in good health. I have
brought you four cups and saucers, one red and white, one blue
and white, and two coloured; and a little box of pastils. Tell
me whether and how I shall convey them to you; or whether you
will, as I hope, come to Strawberry this summer, and fetch them
yourself; but if you are in the least hurry, I will send them.
I flatter myself you have quite recovered your accident, and have
no remains of lameness. The spring is very wet and cold, but
Strawberry alone contains more verdure than all France.
I scrambled very well through the custom-house at Dover, and have
got all my china safe from that here in town. You will see the
fruits when you come to Strawberry Hill. Adieu!
Letter 305 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, May 13, 1766. (page 479)
Dear sir,
I am forced to do a very awkward thing, and send you back one of
your letters, and, what is still worse, opened. The case was
this: I received your two at dinner, opened one and laid the
other in my lap; but forgetting that I had taken one out of the
first, I took up the wrong 'Hand broke it open,. without
perceiving my mistake, till I saw the words, Dear Sister. I give
you my honour I read no farther, but had torn it too much to send
it away. Pray excuse me; and another time I beg you will put an
envelope, for you write just where the seal comes; and besides,
place the seals so together that though I did not quite open the
fourth letter, yet it stuck so to the outer seal, that I could
not help tearing it a little. Adieu!
Letter 306 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, May 25, 1766. (page 480)
When the weather will please to be in a little better temper, I
will call upon you to perform your promise; but I cannot in
conscience invite you to a fireside. The Guerchys and French
dined here last Monday, and it rained so that we could no more
walk in the garden than Noah could. I came again, to-day, but
shall return to town to-morrow, as I hate to have no sun in May,
but what I can make with a peck of coals.
I know no news, but that the Duke of Richmond is secretary of
state,(956) and that your cousin North has refused the
vice-treasurer of Ireland. It cost him bitter pangs, not to
preserve his virtue, but his vicious connexions. He goggled his
eyes, and groped in his money-pocket; more than half consented;
nay, so much more, that when he got home he wrote an excuse to
Lord Rockingham, which made it plain that he thought he had
accepted. As nobody was dipped deeper in the warrants and
prosecution of Wilkes, there is no condoling with the ministers
on missing so foul a bargain. They are only to be pitied, that
they can purchase nothing but damaged goods.
So, my Lord Grandison(957) is dead! Does the General inherit
much? Have you heard the great loss the church of England has
had? It is not avowed; but hear the evidence and judge. On
Sunday last, George Selwyn was strolling home to dinner at half
an hour after four. He saw my Lady Townshend's coach stop at
Caraccioli's(958) chapel. He watched, saw her go in; her footman
laughed; he followed. She Went up to the altar, a woman brought
her a cushion; she knelt, crossed herself, and prayed. He stole
up, and knelt by her. Conceive her face, if you can, when she
turned and found his close to her. In his demure voice, he said,
"Pray, Madam, how long has your ladyship left the pale of our
church!" She looked furies, and made no answer. Next day he
went to her, and she turned it off upon curiosity; but is any
thing more natural? No, she certainly means to go armed with
every viaticum, the church of England in one hand, Methodism in
the other, and the Host in her mouth.
Have you ranged your forest, and seen your lodge yourself? I
could almost wish it may not answer, and that you may cast an eye
towards our neighbourhood. My Lady Shelburne(959) has taken a
house here, and it has produced a bon-mot from Mrs. Clive. You
know my Lady Suffolk is deaf, and I have talked much of a
charming old passion I have at Paris, who is blind; "Well," said
the Clive, "if the new Countess is but lame, I shall have no
chance of ever seeing you." Good night!
(956) When the Duke of Grafton quitted the seals, they were
offered first to Lord Egmont, then to Lord Hardwicke, who both
declined them; "but, after their going a-begging for some time,"
says Lord Chesterfield, " the Duke of Richmond begged them, and
has them, faute de mieux."-E.
(957) John Villiers, fifth Viscount Grandison. He had bee
n elevated to the earldom in 1721; which title became extinct,
and the viscounty devolved upon William third Earl of Jersey.-E.
(958) The Marquis de Carraccioli, ambassador from the court of
Naples.-E
(959) Mary Countess of Shelburne, widow of the Hon. John
Fitzmaurice, first Earl of Shelburne. She was likewise his first
cousin, being the daughter of the Hon. William Fitzmaurice, of
Gailane, in the county of Kerry.-E.
Letter 307 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, June 20, 1766. (page 481)
I don't know when I shall see you, but therefore must not I write
to you? Yet I have as little to say as may be. I could cry
through a whole page over the bad weather. I have but a lock of
hay, you know; and I cannot get it dry, unless I bring it to the
fire. I would give half-a-crown for a pennyworth of sun. It is
abominable to be ruined in coals in the middle of June.
What pleasure have you to come! there is a new thing published,
that will make you split your cheeks with laughing. It is called
the New Bath Guide.(960) It stole into the world, and for a
fortnight no soul looked into it, concluding its name was the
true name. No such thing. It is a set of letters in verse, in
all kind of verses, describing the life at Bath, and incidentally
every thing else; but so much wit, so much humour, fun, and
poetry, so much originality, never met together before. Then the
man has a better ear than Dryden or Handel. Apropos to Dryden,
he has burlesqued his St. Cecilia, that you will never read it
again without laughing. There is a description of a milliner's
box in all the terms of landscape, painted lawns and chequered
shades, a Moravian ode, and a Methodist ditty, that are
incomparable, and the best names that ever were composed. I can
say it by heart, though a quarto, and if I had time would write
it you down; for it is not yet reprinted, and not one to be had.
There are two volumes, too, of Swift's Correspondence, that will
not amuse you less in another way, though abominable, for there
are letters of twenty persons now alive; fifty of Lady Betty
Germain, one that does her great honour in which she defends her
friend Lady Suffolk, with all the spirit in the world,(961)
against that brute, who hated every body that he hoped would get
him a mitre, and did not. His own Journal sent to Stella during
the four last years of the Queen, is a fund of entertainment.
You will see his insolence in full colours, and, at the same
time, how daily vain he was of being noticed by the ministers he
affected to treat arrogantly. His panic, at the Mohocks is
comical; but what strikes one, is bringing before one's eyes the
incidents of a curious period. He goes to the rehearsal of Cato,
and says the drab that acted Cato's daughter could not say her
part. This was only Mrs. Oldfield. I was saying before George
Selwyn, that this journal put me in mind of the present time,
there was the same indecision, irresolution, and want of system;
but I added, "There is nothing new under the sun." "No," said
Selwyn, "nor under the grandson."
My Lord Chesterfield has done me much honour: he told Mrs. Anne
Pitt that he would subscribe to any politics that I should lay
down. When she repeated this to me, I said, "Pray tell him I
have laid down politics."
I am got into puns and will tell you an excellent one of the King
of France, though it does not spell any better than Selwyn's.
You must have heard of Count Lauragais, and his horserace, and
his quacking his horse till he killed it. At his return the King
asked him what he had been doing in England? "Sire, j'ai appris
`a Penser"--"Des chevaux?" replied the King.(962) Good night! I
am tired, and going to bed. Yours ever.
(960) By Christopher Anstey. This production became highly
popular for its pointed and original humour, and led to numerous
imitations. Gray, in a letter to Dr. Wharton, says--"Have you
read the New Bath Guide? It is the only thing in fashion, and is
a new and original kind of humour. Miss Prue's conversation I
doubt you will paste down, as Sir W. St. Quintyn did before he
carried it to his daughter; yet I remember you all read Crazy
Tales without pasting." Works, vol. iv. p. 84.-E.
(961) The letter in question is dated Feb. 8, 1732-3, and the
following is the passage to which Walpole refers;--"Those out of
power and place always see the faults of those in, with dreadful
large spectacles. The strongest in my memory is Sir Robert
Walpole, being first pulled to pieces in the year 1720, because
the South Sea did not rise high enough; and since that, he has
been to the full as well banged about, because it did rise too
high. I am determined never wholly to believe any side or party
against@ the other; so my house receives them altogether, and
those people meet here that have, and would fight in any other
place. Those of them that have great and good qualities and
virtues, I love and admire; in which number is Lady Suffolk,
because I know her to be a wise, discreet, honest, and sincere
courtier."-E.
(962) See ant`e, p. 389, letter 248, note 802.-E.
Letter 308 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
Strawberry Hill, June 28, 1766. (page 482)
It is consonant to your ladyship's long experienced goodness, to
remove my error as soon as you could. In fact, the same post
that brought Madame d'Aiguillon's letter to you, brought me a
confession from Madame du Deffand of her guilt.(963) I am not
the less obliged to your ladyship for informing against the true
criminal. It is well for
me, however, that I hesitated, and did not, as Monsieur Guerchy
pressed me to do, constitute myself prisoner. What a ridiculous
vainglorious figure I should have made at Versailles, with a
laboured letter and my present! I still shudder when I think of
it, and have scolded(9
64) Madame du Deffand black and blue. However, I feel very
comfortable; and though it will be imputed to my own vanity, that
I showed the box as Madam de Choiseul's present, I resign the
glory, and submit to the Shame with great satisfaction. I have
no pain in receiving this present from Madame du Deffand; and
must own have great pleasure that nobody but she could write that
most charming of all letters. Did not Lord Chesterfield think it
so, Madam? I doubt our friend Mr. Hume must allow that not only
Madame de Boufflers, but Voltaire himself, could not have written
so well. When I give up Madame de S`evign`e herself, I think his
sacrifices will be trifling.
Pray, Madam, continue your waters; and, if possible, wash away
that original sin, the gout. What would one give for a little
rainbow to tell one one should never have it again! Well, but
then one should have a burning fever--for I think the greatest
comfort that good-natured divines give us IS, that we are not to
be drowned any more, in order that we may be burned. It will not
at least be this summer. here is nothing but haycocks swimming
round me. If it should cease raining by Monday se'nnight, I
think of' dining with your ladyship at Old Windsor; and if Mr.
Bateman presses me mightily, I may take a bed there.
As I have a waste of paper before me, and nothing more to say, I
have a mind to fill it with a translation of a tale that I found
lately in the Dictionnaire d'Anecdotes, taken from a German
author. The novelty of it struck me, and I put it into verse--
ill enough; but as the old Duchess of Rutland used to say of a
lie, it will do for news into the country.
"From Time's usurping power, I see,
Not Acheron itself is free.
His wasting hand my subjects feel,
Grow old, and wrinkle though in Hell.
Decrepit is Alecto grown,
Megaera worn to skin and bone;
And t'other beldam is so old,
She has not spirits left to scold.
Go, Hermes, bid my brother Jove
Send three new Furies from above."
To Mercury thus Pluto said:
The winged deity obey'd.
It was about the self same season
That Juno, with as little reason,
Rung for her abigail; and, you know,
Iris is chambermaid to Juno.
"Iris, d'ye hear? Mind what I say;
I want three maids--inquire--No, stay!
Three virgins--Yes, unspotted all;
No characters equivocal.
Go find me three, whose manners pure
Can Envy's sharpest tooth endure."
The goddess curtsey'd, and retired;
>From London to Pekin inquired;
Search'd huts and palaces in vain;
And tired, to Heaven came back again.
"Alone! are you return'd alone?
How wicked must the world be grown!
What has my profligate been doing?
On earth has he been spreading ruin?
Come, tell me all."--Fair Iris sigh'd,
And thus disconsolate replied:--
"'Tis true, O Queen! three maids I found--
The like are not on Christian ground--
So chaste, severe, immaculate,
The very name of man they hate:
These--but, alas! I came too late;
For Hermes had been there before--
In triumph off to Pluto bore
Three sisters, whom yourself would own
The true supports of Virtue's throne."
"To Pluto!--Mercy!" cried the Queen,
"What can my brother Pluto mean?
Poor man! he doats, or mad he sure is!
What can he want them for?"--"Three Furies."
You will say I am an infernal poet; but every body cannot write
as they do aux Champs Elys`ees. Adieu, Madam!
(963) Madame du Deffand had sent Mr. Walpole a snuff-box, on the
lid of which was a portrait of Madame de S`evign`e, accompanied
by a letter written in her name from the Elysian Fields, and
addressed to Mr. Walpole; who did not at first suspect Madame du
Deffand as the author, but thought both the present and the
letter had come from the Duchess of Choiseul. ("One of the
principal features, and it must be called, when carried to such
excess, one of the principal weaknesses of Mr. Walpole's
character, was a fear of ridicule--a fear which, , like most
others, often leads to greater dangers than that which it seeks
to avoid. At the commencement of his acquaintance with madame du
Deffand, he was near fifty, and she above seventy years of age,
and entirely blind. She had already long passed the first epoch
in the life of a Frenchwoman, that of gallantry, and had as long
been established as a bel esprit; and it is to be remembered
that, in the ante-revolutionary world of paris, these epochs in
life were as determined, and as strictly observed, as the changes
of dress on a particular day of the different seasons; and that a
woman endeavouring to attract lovers after she ceased to be
galante, would have been not less ridiculous as her wearing
velvet when the rest of the world were in demi-soisons. Madame
du Deffand, therefore, old and blind, had no more idea of
attracting Mr. Walpole to her as a lover than she had of the
possibility of any one suspecting her of such an intention; and
indeed her lively feelings, and the violent fancy she had taken
for his conversation and character, in every expression of
admiration and attachment which she really felt, and which she
never supposed capable of misinterpretation. By himself they
were not misinterpreted; but he seems to have had ever before his
eyes a very unnecessary dread of that being so by others--a fear
lest madame du Deffand's extreme partiality and high opinion
should expose him to suspicions of entertaining the same opinion
of himself, or of its leading her to some extravagant mark of
attachment; and all this, he persuaded himself, was to be exposed
in their letters to all the clerks of the post-office at paris
and all the idlers at Versailles. This accounts for the
ungracious language in which he often replied to the
importunities of her anxious affection; a language so foreign to
his heart, and so contrary to his own habits in friendship: this
too accounts for his constantly repressing on her part all
effusions of sentiment, all disquisitions on the human heart, and
all communications of its vexations, weaknesses, and pains."
Preface to "Letters of Madame du Deffand to Mr. Walpole."-E.
(964) Vous avez si bien fait," replied Madame du Deffand, "par vo
le`cons, vos pr`eceptes, vos gronderies, et, le pis do tous, par
vos ironies, que vous `etes presque parvenu `a me rendre fausse,
ou, pour le moins, fort dissimul`ee."-E.
Letter 309 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, July 10, 1766. (page 485)
Don't you think a complete year enough for any administration to
last? One, who at least can remove them, though he cannot make
them, thinks so; and, accordingly, yesterday notified that he had
sent for Mr. Pitt.(965) Not a jot more is known; but as this set
is sacrificed to their resolution to have nothing to do with Lord
Bute, the new list will probably not be composed Of such hostile
ingredients. The arrangement I believe settled in the outlines;
if it is not, it may still never take place: it will not be the
first time this egg has been addled. One is very sure that many
people on all sides will be displeased, and I think no side quite
contented. Your cousins, the house of Yorke, Lord George
Sackville, Newcastle, and Lord Rockingham, will certainly not be
of the elect. What Lord Temple will do, or if any thing will be
done for George Grenville, are great points of curiosity. The
plan will probably be, to pick and cull from all quarters, and
break all parties as much as possible.(966) From this moment I
date the wane of Mr. Pitt's glory; he will want the thorough-bass
of drums and trumpets, and is not made for peace. The dismission
of a most popular administration, a leaven of Lord Bute, whom,
too, he can never trust, and the numbers he will discontent, will
be considerable objects against him.
For my own part, I am much pleased, and much diverted. I have
nothing to do but to sit by and laugh; a humour you know I am apt
to indulge. You shall hear from me again soon.
(965) On the 7th the King addressed a letter to Mr. Pitt,
expressing a desire to have his thoughts how an able and
dignified ministry might be formed, and requesting him to come to
town for that salutary purpose. The letter will be found in the
Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 436.-E.
(966) "Here are great bustles at court," writes Lord
Chesterfield, on the 11th, "and a great change of persons is
certainly very near. My conjecture is, that, be the new
settlement what it will, Mr. Pitt will be at the head of it. If
he is, I presume, qu'il aura mis de l'eau dans son vin par
rapport `a My lord Bute: when that shall come to be known, as
known it certainly Will soon be, he may bid adieu to his
popularity."-E.
Letter 310 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, July 21, 1766. (page 485)
You may strike up your sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer; for Mr.
Pitt(967) comes in, and Lord Temple does not. Can I send you a
more welcome affirmative or negative? My sackbut is not very
sweet, and here is the ode I have made for it:
When Britain heard the woful news,
That Temple was to be minister,
To look upon it could she choose
But as an omen most sinister?
But when she heard he did refuse,
In spite of Lady Chat. his sister,
What could she do but laugh, O Muse?
And so she did, till she ***** her.
If that snake had wriggled in, he would have drawn after him the
whole herd of vipers; his brother Demogorcon and all. 'Tis a
blessed deliverance.
The changes I should think now would be few. They are not yet
known; but I am content already, and shall go to Strawberry
to-morrow, where I shall be happy to receive you and Mr. John any
day after Sunday next, the twenty-seventh, and for as many days
as ever you will afford me. Let me know your mind by the return
of the post. Strawberry is in perfection: the verdure has all
the bloom of spring: the orange-trees are loaded with blossoms,
the gallery all sun and gold, Mrs. Clive all sun and vermilion--
in short, come away to Yours ever.
P. S. I forgot to tell you, and I hate to steal and not tell,
that my ode is imitated from Fontaine.
(967) Mr. Pitt was gazetted, on the 30th of July, Viscount Pitt,
of Burton Pynsent, and Earl of Chatham. The same gazette
contained the notification of his appointment as lord privy seal
in the room of the Duke of Newcastle. "What shall I say to you
about the ministry?" writes Gray to Wharton: "I am as angry as a
common-councilman of London about my Lord Chatham, but a little
more patient, and will hold my tongue till the end of the year.
In the mean time, I do mutter in secret, and to you, that to quit
the House of Commons, his natural strength, to sap his own
popularity and grandeur, (which no man but himself could have
done,) by assuming a foolish title; and to hope that he could win
by it, and attach him to a court that hate him, and will dismiss
him as soon as ever they dare, was the weakest thing that ever
was done by so great a man. Had it not been for this, I should
have rejoiced at the breach between him and Lord Temple, and at
the union between him and the Duke of Grafton and Mr. Conway: but
patience! we shall see!" Works, vol. iv. p. 83.-E.
Letter 311 To David Hume, Esq.(968)
Arlington Street, July 26, 1766. (page 486)
Dear Sir,
Your set of literary friends are what a set of literary men are
apt to be, exceedingly absurd. They hold a consistory to consult
how to argue with a madman; and they think it very necessary for
your character to give them the pleasure of seeing Rousseau
exposed, not because he has provoked you, but them. If Rousseau
prints, you must; but I certainly would not till he does.(969)
I cannot be precise as to the time of my writing the King of
Prussia's letter; but I do assure you with the utmost truth that
it was several days before you left Paris, and before Rousseau's
arrival there, of which I can give you a strong proof; for I not
only suppressed the letter while you stayed there, out of
delicacy to you, but it was the reason why, out of delicacy to
myself, I did not go to see him, as you often proposed to me,
thinking it wrong to go and make a cordial visit to a man, with a
letter in my pocket to laugh at him. You are at full liberty,
dear Sir, to make use of what I say in your justification, either
to Rousseau or any body else. I should be very sorry to have you
blamed on my account; I have a hearty contempt of Rousseau, and
am perfectly indifferent what the literati of Paris think of the
matter. If there is any fault, which I am far from thinking, let
it lie on me. No parts can hinder my laughing at their
possessor, if he is a mountebank. If he has a bad and most
ungrateful heart, as Rousseau has shown in your case, into the
bargain, he will have my scorn likewise, as he will of all good
and sensible men. You may trust your sentence to such who are as
respectable judges as any that have pored over ten thousand more
volumes.
P. S. I will look out the letter and the dates as soon as I go to
Strawberry Hill.
(968) On the celebrated quarrel between Hume and Rousseau,
D'Alembert, and the other literary friends of the former, met at
Paris, and were unanimous in advising him to publish the
particulars. This Hume at first refused, but determined to
collect them and for that purpose had written to Mr. Walpole
respecting the pretended letter from the King of Prussia.
(969) "Your friend Rousseau, I doubt, grows tired of Mr.
Davenport and Derbyshire: he has picked up a quarrel with David
Hume, and writes him letters of fourteen pages folio, upbraiding
him with all his noirceurs; take one only as a specimen. He says
that at Calais they chanced to sleep in the same room together,
and that he overheard David talking in his sleep, and saying,
'Ah! je le tiens, ce Jean Jacques l`a.' In short, I fear, for
want of persecution and admiration (for these are his real
complaints), be will go back to the Continent." Gray to Wharton;
Works, vol. iv. P. 82.-E.
Letter 312 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, Sept. 18, 1766. (page 487)
Dear sir,
I am exceedingly obliged to you for your very friendly letter,
and hurt at the absurdity of the newspapers that occasioned the
alarm. Sure I am not of consequence enough to be lied about! It
is true I am ill, have been extremely so, and have been ill long,
but with nothing like paralytic, as they have reported me. It
has been this long disorder alone that has prevented my profiting
of your company at Strawberry, according to the leave you gave me
of asking it. I have lived upon the road between that place and
this, never settled there, and uncertain whether I should go to
Bath or abroad. Yesterday se'nnight I grew exceedingly ill
indeed, with what they say has been the gout in my stomach,
bowels, back, and kidneys. The worst seems over, and I have been
to take the air to-day for the first time, but bore it so ill
that I don't know how soon I shall be able to set out for Bath,
whither they want me to go immediately. As that journey makes it
very uncertain when I shall be at Strawberry again, and as you
must want your cups and pastils, will you tell me if I can convey
them to you any way safely? Excuse my saying more to-day, as I
am so faint and weak; but it was impossible not to acknowledge
your kindness the first minute I was able. Adieu!
Letter 313 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 18, 1766. (page 488)
I am this moment come hither with Mr. Chute, who has showed me
your most kind and friendly letter, for which I give you a
thousand thanks. It did not surprise me, for you cannot alter.
I have been most extremely ill; indeed, never well since I saw
you. However, I think it is over, and that the gout is gone
without leaving a codicil in my foot. Weak I am to the greatest
degree, and no wonder. Such explosions make terrible havoc in a
body of paper. I shall go to the Bath in a few days. which they
tell me will make my quire of paper hold out a vast while! as to
that, I am neither credulous nor earnest. If it can keep me from
pain and preserve me the power of motion, I shall be content.
Mr. Chute, who has been good beyond measure, goes with me for a
few days. A thousand thanks and compliments to Mr. and Mrs.
Whetenhall and Mr. John, and excuse me writing more, as I am a
little fatigued with my little journey.
Letter 314 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Bath, Oct. 2, 1766. (page 488)
I arrived yesterday at noon, and bore my journey perfectly well,
except that I had the headache all yesterday; but it is gone
to-day, or at least made way for a little giddiness which the
water gave me this morning at first. If it does not do me good
very soon, I shall leave it; for I dislike the place exceedingly,
and am disappointed in it. Their new buildings that are so
admired, look like a collection of little hospitals; the rest is
detestable; and all crammed together, and surrounded with
perpendicular hills that have no beauty. The river is paltry
enough to be the Seine or Tiber. Oh! how unlike my lovely
Thames!
I met my Lord Chatham's coach yesterday full of such
Grenville-looking children, that I shall not go to see him this
day or two; and to-day I spoke to Lady Rockingham in the street.
My Lords Chancellor and President are here, and Lord and Lady
Powis. Lady Malpas arrived yesterday. I shall visit Miss Rich
to-morrow. In the next apartment to [nine lodges *****. I have
not seen him some years; and he is grown either mad or
superannuated, and talks without cessation or coherence: you
would think all the articles in a dictionary were prating
together at once. The Bedfords are expected this week. There
are forty thousand others that I neither know nor intend to know.
In short, it is living in a fair, and I am heartily sick of it
already. Adieu!
Letter 315 To George Montagu, Esq.
Bath, Oct. 5, 1766. (page 489)
Yes, thank you, I am quite well again; and if I had not a mind to
continue so, I would not remain here a day longer, for I am tired
to death of the place. I sit down by the waters of Babylon and
weep, when I think of thee, oh Strawberry! The elements
certainly agree with me, but I shun the gnomes and salamanders,
and have not once been at the rooms. Mr. Chute stays with me
till Tuesday; when he is gone, I do not know what I shall do; for
I cannot play at cribbage by myself, and the alternative is to
see my Lady Vane open the ball, and glimmer at fifty-four. All
my comfort is, that I lodge close to the cross bath, by which
means I avoid the pump-room and all its works. We go to dine and
see Bristol to-morrow, which will terminate our sights, for we
are afraid of your noble cousins at Badminton; and, as Mrs. Allen
is dead and Warburton entered upon the premises, you may swear we
shall not go thither.
Lord Chatham, the late and present Chancellors, and sundry more,
are here; and their graces of Bedford expected. I think I shall
make your Mrs. Trevor and Lady Lucy a visit; but it is such an
age since we met, that I suppose we shall not know one another by
sight. Adieu! These watering places, that mimic a capital, and
add vulgarisms and familiarities of their own, seem to me like
abigails in cast gowns, and I am not young enough to take up with
either. Yours ever.
Letter 316 To John Chute, Esq.
Bath, Oct. 10, 1766. (page 489)
I am impatient to hear that your charity to me has not ended in
the gout to yourself--all my comfort is, if you have it, that you
have good Lady Brown to nurse you.
My health advances faster than my amusement. However, I have
been at one opera, Mr. Wesley's.(970) They have boys and girls
with charming voices, that sing hymns, in parts, to Scotch ballad
tunes but indeed so long, that one would think they were already
in eternity, and knew how much time they had before them. The
chapel is very neat, with true Gothic windows (yet I am not
converted); but I was glad to see that luxury is creeping in upon
them before persecution: they have very neat mahogany stands for
branches, and brackets of the same in taste. At the upper end is
a broad hautpas of four steps, advancing in the middle: at each
end of the broadest part are two of my eagles, with red cushions
for the parson and clerk. Behind them rise three more steps, in
the midst of which is a third eagle for pulpit. Scarlet armed
chairs to all three. On either hand, a balcony for elect ladies.
The rest of the congregation sit on forms. Behind the pit, in a
dark niche, is a plain table within rails; so you see the throne
is for the apostle. Wesley is a lean elderly man,
fresh-coloured, his hair smoothly combed, but with a soup`con of
curls at the ends. Wondrous clean, but as evidently an actor as
Garrick. He spoke his sermon, but so fast, and with so little
accent, that I am sure he has often uttered it, for it was like a
lesson. There were parts and eloquence in it; but towards the
end he exalted his voice, and acted very ugly enthusiasm; decried
learning, and told stories, like Latimer, of the fool of his
college, who said, "I thanks God for every thing." Except a few
from curiosity, and some honourable women, the congregation was
very mean. There was a Scotch Countess Of Buchan,(971) who is
carrying a pure rosy vulgar face to heaven, and who asked Miss
Rich, if that was the author of the poets. I believe she meant
me and the Noble Authors.
The Bedfords came last night. Lord Chatham was with me yesterday
two hours; looks and walks well, and is in excellent political
spirits. Yours ever.
(970) The idea of adapting the psalms of the church to secular
tunes had been put in practice long before Wesley's day. The
celebrated Clement Marot wrote a number of psalms to sing to the
popular airs of his time, for the accommodation of the ladies of
the French court who were devoutly inclined; but he left it to
Wesley to assign as a reason for doing so, that there were no
just grounds for letting the devil have all the best tunes
himself.-E.
(971) Agnes, second daughter of Sir James Stewart of Goodtrees;
married, in January 1739, to Henry David, fifth Earl of Buchan.
She was the mother of the celebrated Lord Erskine.-E.
Letter 317 To George Montagu, Esq.
Bath, Oct. 18, 1766. (page 490)
Well, I went last night to see Lady Lucy and Mrs. Trevor, was let
in, and received with great kindness. I found them little
altered; Lady Lucy was much undressed, but looks better than when
I saw her last, and as well as one could expect; no shyness nor
singularity, but very easy and conversable. They have a very
pretty house, with two excellent rooms on a floor, and extremely
well furnished. You may be sure your name was much in request.
If I had not been engaged, I could have staved much longer with
satisfaction; and if I am doomed, as probably I shall be, to come
hither again, they would be a great resource to me; for I find
much more pleasure now in renewing old acquaintances than in
forming new.
The waters do not benefit me so much as at firs,; the pains in my
stomach return almost every morning, but do not seem the least
allied to the gout. This decrease of their virtue is not near so
great a disappointment to me as you might imagine; for I am so
childish as not to think health itself a compensation for passing
my time very disagreeably. I can bear the loss of youth
heroically, provided I am comfortable, and can amuse myself as I
like. But health does not give one the sort of spirits that make
one like diversions, public places, and mixed company. Living
here is being a shopkeeper, who is glad of all kinds of
customers; but does not suit me, who am leaving Off trade. I
shall depart on Wednesday, even on the penalty of coming again.
To have lived three weeks in a fair appears to me a century! I
am not at all in love with their country, which so charms every
body. Mountains are very good frames to a prospect, but here
they run against one's nose, nor can one stir out of the town
without clambering. It is true one may live as retired as one
pleases, and may always have a small society. The place is
healthy, every thing is cheap, and the provisions better than
ever I tasted. Still I have taken an insupportable aversion to
it, which I feel rather than can account for; I do not think you
would dislike it: so you see I am just in general, though very
partial as to my own particular.
You have raised my curiosity about Lord Scarsdale's, yet I
question whether I shall ever take the trouble of visiting it. I
grow every year more averse to stirring from home, and putting
myself out of my way. If I can but be tolerably well at
Strawberry, my wishes bounded. If I am to live at
watering-places, and keep what is called good hours, life itself
will be very indifferent to me. I do not talk very sensibly, but
I have a contempt for that fictitious character styled
philosophy; I feel what I feel, and say I feel what I do feel.
Adieu! Yours ever.
Letter 318 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Bath, Oct. 18, 1766. (page 491)
You have made me laugh, and somebody else makes me stare. How
can one wonder at any thing he does, when he knows so little of
the world? I suppose the next step will be to propose me for
groom of the bedchamber to the new Duke of Cumberland. But why
me? Here is that hopeful young fellow, Sir John Rushout, the
oldest member of the House, and, as extremes meet, very proper to
begin again; why overlook him? However, as the secret is kept
from me myself, I am perfectly easy about it. I shall call
to-day or to-morrow to ask his commands, but certainly shall not
obey those you mention.(972)
The waters certainly are not so beneficial to me as at first: I
have almost every morning my pain in my stomach. I do not
pretend this to be the cause of my leaving Bath. The truth is, I
cannot bear it any longer. You laugh at my regularity; but the
contrary habit is so strong in me, that I cannot continue such
sobriety. The public rooms, and the loo, where we play in a
circle, like the hazard on Twelfth-night, are insupportable.
This coming into the world again, when I am so weary of it, is as
bad and ridiculous as moving an address would be. I have no
affectation; for affectation is a monster at nine-and-forty; but
if I cannot live quietly, privately,
and comfortably, I am perfectly indifferent about living at all.
I would not kill myself, for that is a philosopher's affectation,
and I will come hither again, if I must; but I shall always drive
very near, before I submit to do any thing I do not like. In
short, I must be as foolish as I please, as long as I can keep
without the limits of absurdity. What has an old man to do but
to preserve himself from parade on one hand, and ridicule on the
other?(973) Charming youth may indulge itself in either, may be
censured, will be envied, and has time to correct. Adieu
Monday evening.
You are a delightful manager of the House of Commons, to reckon
540, instead of 565! Sandwich was more accurate In lists, and
would not have miscounted 25, which are something in a division.
(972) Mr. Conway had intimated to Walpole, that it was the wish
of Lord Chatham, that he should move the address on the King's
speech at the opening of the session.-E.
(973) On the topic of ridicule, Walpole had, a few days before,
thus expressed himself in a letter to Madame du Deffand:--"Il y
avoit longtemps avant la date de notre connaissance, que cette
crainte de ridicule s'`etoit plant`ee dans mon esprit, et vous
devez assur`ement vous ressouvenir a quel point elle me
poss`edoit, et combien de fois je vous en ai entretenu. N'allez
pas lui chercher une naissance r`ecente. D`es le moment que je
cessais d'`etre jeune, j'ai eu une peur horrible de devenir un
veillard ridicule." To this the lady replied--"Vos craintes sur
le ridicule sont des terreurs paniques, mais on ne gu`erit point
de la peur; je n'ai point une semblable foiblesse; je sais qu'`a
mon age on est `a l'abri de donner du scandale: si l'on aime, on
n'a point `a s'en cacher; l'amiti`e ne sera jamais un sentiment
ridicule, quand elle ne fait pas faire des folies; mais
gardons-nous d'en prof`erer le nom, puisque vous avez de si
bonnes raisons de la vouloir proscrire."-E.
Letter 319 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 22, 1766. (page 492)
They may say what they will, but it does one ten times more good
to leave Bath than to go to it. I may sometimes drink the
waters, as Mr. Bentley used to say I invited company hither that
I did not care for, that I might enjoy the pleasure of their
going away. My health is certainly amended, but I did not feel
the satisfaction of it till I got home. I have still a little
rheumatism in one shoulder, which was not dipped in Styx, and is
still mortal; but, while I went to the rooms, or stayed in my
chambers in a dull court, I thought I had twenty complaints. I
don't perceive one of them.
Having no companion but such as the place afforded, and which I
did not accept, my excursions were very few; besides that the
city is so guarded with mountains, that I had not patience to be
jolted like a pea in a drum, in my chaise alone. I did go to
Bristol, the dirtiest great shop I ever saw, with so foul a
river, that, had I seen the least appearance of cleanliness, I
should have concluded they washed all their linen in it, as they
do at Paris. Going into the town, I was struck with a large
Gothic building, coal-black, and striped with white; I took it
for the devil's cathedral. When I came nearer, I found it was a
uniform castle, lately built, and serving for stables and offices
to a smart false Gothic house on the other side of the road.
The real cathedral is very neat and has pretty tombs, besides the
two windows of painted glass, given by Mrs. Ellen Gwyn. There is
a new church besides of' St. Nicholas, neat and truly Gothic,
besides a charming old church at the other end of the town. The
cathedral, or abbey, at Bath, is glaring and crowded with modern
tablet-monuments; among others, I found two, of my cousin Sir
Erasmus Phillips, and of Colonel Madan. Your cousin Bishop
Montagu, decked it much. I dined one day with an agreeable
family, two miles from Bath, a Captain Miller(974) and his wife,
and her mother, Mrs. Riggs. They have a small new-built house,
with a bow-window, directly opposite to which the Avon falls in a
wide cascade, a church behind it in a vale, into which two
mountains descend, leaving an opening into the distant country.
A large village, with houses of gentry, is on one of the hills to
the left. Their garden is little, but pretty, and watered with
several small rivulets among the bushes. Meadows fall down to
the road; and above, the garden is terminated by another view of
the river, the city, and the mountains. 'Tis a very diminutive
principality, with large Pretensions.
I must tell you a quotation I lighted upon t'other day from
Persius, the application of which has much diverted Mr. Chute.
You know my Lord Milton,(975) from nephew of the old usurer
Damer, of Dublin, has endeavoured to erect himself into the
representative of the ancient Barons Damory--
"----Momento turbinis exit
Marcus Dama."
Apropos, or rather not `apropos, I wish you joy of the
restoration of the dukedom in your house, though I believe we
both think it very hard upon my Lady Beaulieu.
I made a second visit to Lady Lucy and Mrs. Trevor, and saw the
latter One night at the rooms. She did not appear to me so
little altered as in the dusk of her own chamber. Adieu! Yours
ever.
(974) Captain John Miller, of Ballicasy, in the county of Clare.
In the preceding year he had married Anne, the only daughter of
Edward Riggs, Esq. In 1778, he was created an Irish baronet, and
in 1784, chosen representative for Newport in parliament. See
post, Walpole's letter to General Conway, of the 15th of January
1775.-E.
(975) Joseph Damer Lord Milton, of Shrone Hill, in the kingdom of
Ireland, was created a baron of Great Britain in May 1762, by the
title of Baron Milton of Milton Abbey, Dorsetshire.-E.
Letter 320 To Sir David Dalrymple.(976)
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 5, 1766. (page 494)
Sir,
On my return from Bath, I found your very kind and agreeable
present of the papers in King Charles's time;(977) for which and
all your other obliging favours I give you a thousand thanks.
I was particularly pleased with your just and sensible preface
against the squeamish or bigoted persons who would bury in
oblivion the faults and follies of princes, and who thence
contribute to their guilt; for if princes, who living are above
control, should think that no censure is to attend them when
dead, it would be new encouragement to them to play the fool and
act the tyrant. When they are so kind as to specify their crimes
under their own hands, it would be foppish delicacy indeed to
suppress them. I hope you will proceed, Sir, and with the same
impartiality. It was justice due to Charles to publish the
extravagancies of his enemies too. The comparison can never be
fairly made, but when we see the evidence on both sides. I have
done so in the trifles I have published, and have as much
offended some by what I have said of the Presbyterians at the
beginning of my third volume of the Painters, as I had others by
condemnation of King Charles in my Noble Authors. In the second
volume of my Anecdotes I praised him where he deserved praise;
for truth is my sole object, and it is some proof, when one
offends both. I am, Sir, your most obliged and obedient servant.
(976) Now first collected. In the March of this year, Sir David
Dalrymple was made a judge of the Court of session, when he
assumed the name of lord Hailes, by which he is best known.-E.
(977) "The Memorials and Letters relating to the History of
Britain in the Reigns of James the First and Charles the First,
published from the originals in the Advocates' Library at
Edinburgh," had just appeared, in two volumes, octavo.-E.
Letter 321 To David Hume, Esq.
Nov. 6, 1766. (page 494)
Dear sir,
You have, I own, surprised me by suffering your quarrel with
Rousseau to be printed, contrary to your determination when you
left London, and against the advice of all your best friends
here; I may add, contrary to your own nature, which has always
inclined you to despise literary squabbles, the jest and scorn of
all men of sense. Indeed, I am sorry you have let yourself be
over-persuaded, and so are all that I have seen who wish you
well: I ought rather to use your own word extorted. You say your
Parisian friends extorted your consent to this publication. I
believe so. Your good sense would not approve what your good
heart could not refuse. You add, that they told you Rousseau had
sent letters of defiance against you all over Europe? Good God!
my dear Sir, could you pay any regard to such fustian? All
Europe laughs at being dragged every day into these idle
quarrels, with which Europe only ***. Your friends talk as
loftily as of a challenge between Charles the Fifth and Francis
the First. What are become of all the controversies since the
days of Scaliger and Scioppius, of Billingsgate memory? Why,
they sleep in oblivion, till some Bayle drags them out of their
dust, and takes mighty pains to ascertain the date of each
author's death, which is of no more consequence to the world than
the day of his birth. Many a country squire quarrels with his
neighbour about game and manors; yet they never print their
wrangles, though as much abuse passes between them as if they
could quote all the philippics of the learned. You have acted,
as i should have expected if you would print, with sense, temper,
and decency, and, what is still more uncommon, with your usual
modesty. I cannot say so much for your editors. But editors and
commentators are seldom modest. Even to this day that race ape
the dictatorial tone Of the commentators at the restoration of
learning, when the mob thought that Greek and Latin could give
men the sense which they wanted in their native languages. But
Europe is now grown a little wiser, and holds these magnificent
pretensions in proper contempt.
What I have said is to explain why I am sorry my letter makes a
part of this controversy. When I sent it to you, it was for your
justification; and, had it been necessary, I could have added as
much more, having been witness to your anxious and boundless
friendship for Rousseau. I told you, you might make what use of
it you pleased. Indeed, at that time I did not-could not think
of its being printed, you seeming so averse to any publication on
that head. However, I by no means take it ill, nor regret my
part, if it tends to vindicate your honour.
I must confess that I am more concerned that you have suffered my
letter to be curtailed; nor should I have consented to that if
you had asked me. I guessed that your friends consulted your
interest less than their own inclination to expose Rousseau; and
I think their omission of what I said on that subject proves I
was not mistaken in my guess. My letters hinted, too, my
contempt of learned men and their miserable conduct. Since I was
to appear in print, I should not have been sorry that that
opinion should have appeared at the same \time. In truth, there
is nothing I hold so cheap as the generality of learned men; and
I have often thought that young men ought to be made scholars,
lest they should grow to reverence learned blockheads, and think
there is any merit in having read more foolish books than other
folks; which, as there are a thousand nonsensical books for one
good one, must be the case of any man who has read much more than
other people.
Your friend D'Alembert, who, I suppose, has read a vast deal, is,
it seems, offended with my letter to Rousseau.(978) He is
certainly as much at liberty to blame it, as I was to write it.
Unfortunately he does not convince me; nor can I think but that
if Rousseau may attack all governments and all religions, I might
attack him: especially on his affectation and affected
misfortunes; which you and your editors have proved are affected.
D'Alembert might be offended at Rousseau's ascribing my letter to
him; and he is in the right. I am a very indifferent author; and
there is nothing so vexatious to an indifferent author as to be
confounded with another of the same class. I should be sorry to
have his eloges and translations of scraps of Tacitus laid to me.
However, I can forgive him any thing, provided he never
translates me. Adieu! my dear Sir. I am apt to laugh, you know,
and therefore you will excuse me, though I do not treat your
friends up to the pomp of their claims. They may treat me as
freely: I shall not laugh the less, and I promise you I will
never enter into a controversy with them. Yours ever.
(978) For writing the pretended letter from the King of Prussia
to Rousseau, Walpole was severely censured by Warburton, in a
letter to Hurd:--"As to Rousseau," says the Bishop, "I entirely
agree with you, that his long letter to his brother philosopher,
Hume, shows him to be a frank lunatic. His passion of tears, his
suspicion of his friends in the midst of their services, and his
incapacity of being set right, all consign him to Monro.
Walpole's pleasantry upon him had baseness in its very
conception. It was written when the poor man had determined to
seek an asylum in England; and is, therefore, justly and
generously condemned by D'Alembert. This considered, Hume failed
both in honour and friendship not to show his dislike; which
neglect seems to have kindled the first spark of combustion in
this madman's brain. However, the contestation is very amusing,
and I shall be very sorry if it stops, now it is in so good a
train. I should be well pleased, particularly, to see so
seraphic a madman attack so insufferable a coxcomb as Walpole;
and I think they are only fit for one another."-E.
Letter 322 To David Hume, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 11, 1766. (page 496)
Indeed, dear Sir, it was not necessary to make me any apology.
D'Alembert is certainly at liberty to say what he pleases of me;
and undoubtedly you cannot think that it signifies a straw to me
what he says. But how can you be surprised at his printing a
thing that he sent you so long ago? All my surprise consists in
your suffering him to Curtail my letter to you, when you might be
sure be would print his own at length. I am glad, however, that
he has mangled mine: it not only shows his equity, but is the
strongest proof that he was conscious I guessed right, when I
supposed he urged you to publish, from his own private pique to
Rousseau.
What you surmise of his censuring my letter because I am a friend
of Madame du Deffand, is astonishing indeed, and not to be
credited, unless you had suggested it. Having never thought him
any thing like a superior genius,(979) as you term him, I
concluded his vanity was hurt by Rousseau's ascribing my letter
to him; but, to carry resentment to a woman, to an old and blind
woman, so far as to hate a friend of hers qui ne lui avoit fait
de mal is strangely weak and lamentable. I thought he was a
philosopher, and that philosophers were virtuous, upright men,
who loved wisdom, and were above the little passions and foibles
of humanity. I thought they assumed that proud title as an
earnest to the world, that they intended to be something more
than mortal; that they engaged themselves to be patterns of
excellence, and would utter no opinion, would pronounce no
decision, but what they believed the quintessence of' truth; that
they always acted without prejudice and respect of persons.
Indeed, we know that the ancient philosophers were a ridiculous
composition of arrogance, disputation, and contradictions; that
some of them acted against all ideas of decency; that others
affected to doubt of their own senses; that some, for venting
unintelligible nonsense, pretended to think themselves superior
to kings; that they gave themselves airs of accounting for all
that we do and do not see-and yet, that no two of them agreed in
a single hypothesis; that one thought fire, another water, the
origin of all things; and that some were even so absurd and
impious, as to displace God, and enthrone matter in his place. I
do not mean to disparage such wise men, for we are really obliged
to them: they anticipated and helped us off with an exceeding
deal of nonsense, through which we might possibly have passed, if
they had not prevented us. But, when in this enlightened age, as
it is called, I saw the term philosophers revived, I concluded
the jargon would be omitted, and that we should be blessed with
only the cream of sapience; and one had more reason still to
expect this from any superior genius. But, alas! my dear Sir,
what a tumble is here! Your D'Alembert is a mere mortal oracle.
Who but would have laughed, if, when the buffoon Aristophanes
ridiculed Socrates, Plato had condemned the former, not for
making sport with a great man in distress, but because Plato
hated some blind old woman with whom Aristophanes was acquainted!
D'Alembert's conduct is the More Unjust, as I never heard Madame
du Deffand talk of him above three times in the seven months that
I passed at Paris; and never, though she does not love him, with
any reflection to his prejudice. I remember the first time I
ever heard her mention his name, I said I have been told he was a
good man but could not think him a good writer. (Craufurd(980)
remembers this, and it is a proof that I always thought of
D'Alembert as I do now.) She took it up with warmth, defended
his parts, and said he was extremely amusing. For her quarrel
with him, I never troubled my head about it one way or other;
which you will not wonder at. You know in England we read their
works, but seldom or never take any notice of authors. We think
them sufficiently paid if their books sell, and of course leave
them to their colleges and obscurity, by which means we are not
troubled with their variety and impertinence. In France, they
spoil us; but that was no business of mine. I, who am an author
must own this conduct very sensible; for in truth we are a most
useless tribe.
That D'Alembert should have omitted passages in which you was so
good as to mention me with approbation, agrees with his
peevishness, not with his philosophy. However, for God's sake,
do not state the passages. I do not love compliments, and will
never give my consent to receive any. I have no doubt of your
kind intentions to me, but beg they may rest there. I am much
more diverted with the philosopher D'Alembert's underhand
dealings, than I should have been pleased with panegyric even
from you.
Allow me to make one more remark, and I have done with this
trifling business for ever. Your moral friend pronounces me
ill-natured for laughing at an unhappy man who had never offended
me. Rousseau certainly never did offend me. I believed, from
many symptoms in his writings, and from what I heard of him, that
his love of singularity made him choose to invite misfortunes,
and that he hung out many more than he felt. I, who affect no
philosophy, nor pretend to more virtue than my neighbours,
thought this ridiculous in a man who is really a superior genius,
and joked upon it in a few lines never certainly intended to
appear in print. The sage D'Alembert reprehends this--and where?
In a book published to expose Rousseau, and which confirms by
serious proofs what I had hinted at in jest. What! does a
philosopher condemn me, and in the very same, breath, only with
ten times more ill-nature, act exactly as I had done? Oh! but
you will say, Rousseau had offended D'Alembert by ascribing the
King of Prussia's letter to him. Worse and worse: if Rousseau is
unhappy, a philosopher should have pardoned. Revenge is so
unbecoming the rex regum, the man who is precipue sanus--nisi cum
pituita molesta est. If Rousseau's misfortunes are affected,
what becomes of my ill-nature? In short, my dear Sir, to
conclude as D'Alembert concludes his book, I do believe in the
virtue of Mr. Hume, but not much in that of philosophers. Adieu!
Yours ever.
P. S. It occurs to me, that you may be apprehensive of my being
indiscreet enough to let D'Alembert learn your suspicions of him
on Madame du Deffand's account! but you may be perfectly easy on
that head. Though I like such an advantage over him, and should
be glad he saw this letter, and knew how little formidable I
think him, I shall certainly not make an ill use of a private
letter, and had much rather wave my triumph, than give a friend a
moment's pain. I love to laugh at an impertinent savant, but
respect learning when Joined to such goodness as yours, and never
confound ostentation and modesty.
I wrote to you last Thursday and, by Lady Hertford's advice,
directed my letter to Nine-Wells: I hope you will receive it.
Yours ever.
(979) "I believe I said he was a man of superior parts, not a
superior genius; words, if I mistake not, of a very different
import." Hume.-E.
(981) John Craufurd, Esq. of Auchinames, in Scotland.-E.
Letter 323 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Dec. 12, 1766. (page 499)
Pray what are you doing?
Or reading or feeding?
Or drinking or thinking?
Or praying or playing?
Or walking or talking?
Or riding about to your neighbours?(982)
I am sure you are not writing, for I have not had a word from you
this century; nay, nor you from me. In truth, we have had a busy
month, and many grumbles of a state-quake; but the session has
however ended very triumphantly for the great Earl. I mean, we
are adjourned for the holidays for above a month, after two
divisions of one hundred and sixty-six to forty-eight, and one
hundred and forty to fifty-six.(983) The Earl chaffered for the
Bedfords, and who so willing as they?(984) However, the bargain
went off, and they are forced to return to George Grenville.
Lord Rockingham and the Cavendishes have made a jaunt to the same
quarter, but could carry only eight along with them, which
swelled that little minority to fifty-six. I trust and I hope it
will not rise higher in haste. Your cousin, I hear, has been two
hours with the Earl, but to what purpose I know not. Nugent is
made Lord Clare, I think to no purpose at all.I came hither
to-day for two or three days, and to empty my head. The weather
is very warm and comfortable. When do you move your tents
southward? I left little news in town, except politics. That
pretty young woman, Lady Fortrose,(985) Lady Harrington's eldest
daughter, is at the point of death, killed, like Coventry and
others, by white lead, of which nothing could break her. Lord
Beauchamp is going to marry the second Miss Windsor.(986) It is
odd that those two ugly girls, though such great fortunes, should
get the two best figures in England, him and Lord Mount-Stuart.
The Duke of York is erecting a theatre at his own palace, and is
to play Lothario in the Fair Penitent himself. Apropos, have you
seen that delightful paper composed out of scraps in the
newspapers! I laughed till I cried, and literally burst out so
loud, that I thought Favre, who was waiting in the next room,
would conclude I was in a fit; I mean the paper that says,
"This day his Majesty will go in state to fifteen notorious,"
etc. etc.(987)
It is the newest piece of humour except the Bath Guide, that I
have seen of many years. Adieu! Do let me hear from you soon.
How does brother John? Yours ever.
(982 Thus playfully imitated by Lord Byron, in December, 1816;
"What are you doing now, oh Thomas Moore?
Sighing or suing now?
Rhyming or wooing now?
Billing or cooing now?
Which, Thomas Moore?"-E.
(983) On the bill of indemnity for those concerned in the embargo
on the exportation of corn.-E.
(984) The following is Lord Chesterfield's account of this
negotiation:--"No mortal can comprehend the present state of
affairs. Eight or nine persons, of some consequence, have
resigned their employments; upon which, Lord Chatham made
overtures to the Duke of Bedford and his people; but they could
by no means agree, and his grace went the next day, full of
wrath, to Woburn; so that negotiation is entirely at an end.
People wait to see who Lord Chatham will take in, for some he
must have; even he cannot be alone, contra mundum. Such a state
of things, to be sure, was never seen before, in this or in any
other country. When this ministry shall be settled, it will be
the sixth in six years' time."-E.
(985) Caroline, eldest daughter of William second Earl of
Harrington; married, on the 7th of October 1765, to Kenneth
M'Kenzie, created Baron of Andelon, Viscount Fortrose and Earl of
Seaforth in the peerage of Ireland. Her ladyship died on the 9th
of February 1767.-E.
(986) Francis Lord Beauchamp, son of the first Marquis of
Hertford. His first wife, by whom he had no issue, was Alice
Elizabeth, youngest daughter and coheiress of Herbert second
Viscount Windsor. This lady died in 1772; when his lordship
married, secondly, in 1776, Isabella Anne, daughter and heiress
of Charles Ingram, Viscount Irvine of Scotland.-E.
(987) Cross-readings from the Public Advertiser, by Caleb
Whitefoord. [The paper was entitled, "A New Method of reading
the Newspapers," and was subscribed, "Papyrius Cursor;" a
signature which Dr. Johnson thought singularly happy, it being
the real name of an ancient Roman, and expressive of the thing
done in this lively conceit--of which the following may serve as
a specimen:--
"Yesterday Dr. Jones preached at St. James's and performed it
with ease in less than 15 minutes.
The sword of state was carried before Sir J. Fielding, and
committed to Newgate.
There was a numerous and brilliant court; a down look, and cast
with one eye.
Last night the Princess Royal was baptized; Mary, alias Moll
Hacket, alias Black Nell.
This morning the Right Hon. the Speaker--was convicted of keeping
a disorderly house.
This day his Majesty will go in state to fifteen notorious common
prostitutes.
Their R. H. the Dukes of York and Gloucester were bound over to
their good behaviour.
At noon her R. H. the Princess dowager was married to Mr.
Jenkins, an eminent tailor.
Several changes are talked of at court, consisting of 8040 triple
bob-majors.
At a very full meeting of common council, the greatest show of
horned cattle this season.
An indictment for murder is preferred against the worshipful
company of Apothecaries.
Yesterday the new Lord Mayor was sworn in, and afterwards tossed
and gored several persons.
This morning will be married the Lord Viscount and afterwards
hung in chains, pursuant to his sentence.
Escaped from the new gaol, Terence M'Dernan, if he will return,
he will be kindly received,"
Letter 324 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 16, 1766. (p-age 500)
I wrote to You last post on the very day I ought to have received
yours; but being at Strawberry, did not get it in time. Thank
you for your offer of a doe; you know when I dine at home here,
it is quite alone, and venison frightens my little meal; yet, as
half of it is designed for dimidium animae meae Mrs. Clive (a
pretty round half), I must not refuse it; venison will make such
a figure at her Christmas gambols! only let me know when and how
I am to receive it, that she may prepare the rest of her banquet;
I will convey it to her. I don't like your wintering so late in
the country. Adieu!
Letter 325 To George Montagu, Esq.
Tuesday, Jan. 13, 1767. (page 501
I am going to eat some of your venison, and dare to say it is
very good; I am sure you are, and thank you for it. Catherine, I
do not doubt, is up to the elbows in currant jelly and Gratitude.
I have lost poor Louis, who died last week at Strawberry. He had
no fault but what has fallen upon himself, poor. soul! drinking:
his honesty and good-nature were complete; and I am heartily
concerned for him, which I shall seldom say so sincerely.
There has been printed a dull complimentary letter to me on the
quarrel of Hume and Rousseau. In one of the reviews they are so
obliging as to say I wrote it myself: it is so dull, that I
should think they wrote it themselves--a kind Of abuse I should
dislike much more than their criticism.
Are not you frozen, perished? How do you keep yourself alive on
your mountain! I scarce stir from my fireside. I have scarce
been at Strawberry for a day this whole Christmas, and there is
less appearance of a thaw to-day than ever. There has been
dreadful havoc at Margate and Aldborough, and along the coast.
At Calais, the sea rose above sixty feet perpendicular, which
makes people conclude there has been an earthquake somewhere or
other. I shall not think of my journey to France yet; I suffered
too much with the cold last year at Paris, where they have not
the least idea of comfortable, but sup in stone halls, with all
the doors open. Adieu! I must go dress for the drawing-room of
the Princess of Wales. Yours ever.
Letter 326 To Dr. Ducarel.
April 25, 1767. (page 501)
Mr. Walpole has been out of town, Or should have thanked Dr.
Ducarel sooner for the obliging favour of his most curious and
valuable work,(988) which Mr. Walpole has read with the greatest
pleasure and satisfaction. He will be very much obliged to Dr.
Ducarel if he will favour him with a set of the prints separate;
which Mr. Walpole would be glad to put into his volumes of
English Heads; and shall be happy to have an opportunity of
returning these obligations.
(988) Entitled "Anglo-Norman Antiquities considered, in a Tour
through part of Normandy."-E.
Letter 327 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, July 29, 1767. (page 502)
My dear lord,
I am very sorry that I must speak of a loss that will give you
and Lady Strafforct concern; an essential loss to me, who am
deprived of a most agreeable friend, with whom I passed here many
hours. I need not say I mean poor Lady Suffolk.(989) I was with
her two hours on Saturday night; and, indeed, found her much
changed, though I did not apprehend her in danger. I was going
to say she complained--but you know she never did complain--of
the gout and rheumatism all over her, particularly in her face.
It was a cold night, and she sat below stairs when she should
have been in bed; and I doubt this want of care was prejudicial.
I sent next morning. She had a bad night; but grew much better
in the evening. Lady Dalkeith came to her; and, when she was
gone, Lady Suffolk said to Lord Chetwynd, "She would eat her
supper in her bedchamber." He went up with her, and thought the
appearances promised a good night: but she was scarce sat down in
her chair, before she pressed her hand to her side, and died in
half an hour.
I believe both your lordship and Lady Strafford will be surprised
to hear that she was by no means in the situation that most
people thought. Lord Chetwynd and myself were the only persons
at all acquainted with her affairs, and they were far from being
even easy to her. It is due to her memory to say, that I never
saw more strict honour and justice. She bore knowingly the
imputation of being covetous, at a time that the strictest
economy could by no means prevent her exceeding her income
considerably. The anguish of the last years of her life, though
concealed, flowed from the apprehension of not satisfying her few
wishes, which were, not to be in debt, and to make a provision
for Miss Hotham.(990) I can give your lordship strong instances
of the sacrifices she tried to make to her principles. I have
not yet heard if her will is opened; but it will surprise those
who thought her rich. Lord Chetwynd's friendship to her has been
unalterably kind and zealous, and has not ceased. He stays in
the house with Miss Hotham till some of her family come to take
her away. I have perhaps dwelt too long on this subject; but, as
it was not permitted me to do her justice when alive, I own I
cannot help wishing that those who had a regard for her, may at
least know how much more she deserved it than even they
suspected. In truth, I never knew a woman more respectable for
her honour and principles, and have lost few persons in my life
whom I shall miss so much. I am, etc.
(989) Henrietta Hobart, Countess of Suffolk. She died at Marble
Hall, on the 24th of July.-E.
(990) Her great-niece.
Letter 328 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, July 31, 1767. (page 503)
I find one must cast you into debt, if one has a mind to hear of
you. You would drop one with all your heart, if one would let
you alone. Did not you talk of passing by Strawberry in June, on
a visit to the Bishop? I did not summon you, because I have not
been sure of my own motions for two days together for these three
months. At last all is subsided; the administration will go on
pretty much as it was, with Mr. Conway for part of it. The fools
and the rogues, or, if you like proper names, the Rockinghams and
the Grenvilles, have bungled their own game, quarrelled, and
thrown it away.
Where are you? What are you doing? Where are you going or
staying? I shall trip to Paris in about a fortnight, for a month
or six weeks. Indeed, I have had such a loss in poor Lady
Suffolk,(991) that my autumns at Strawberry will suffer
exceedingly, and will not be repaired by my Lord Buckingham. I
have been in pain, too, and am not quite easy about my brother,
who is in a bad state of health. Have you waded through or into
Lord Lyttelton?(992) How dull one may be, if one will but take
pains for six or seven-and-twenty years together! Except one
day's gout, which I cured with the boolikins, I have been quite
well since I saw you: nay, with a microscope you would perceive I
am fatter. Mr. Hawkins saw it with his naked eye, and told me
it was common for lean people to grow fat when they grow old. I
am afraid the latter is more certain than the former, I submit to
it with a good grace. There is no keeping off age by sticking
roses and sweet peas in one's hair, as Miss Chudleigh does still.
If you are not totally abandoned, you will send me a line before
I go. The Clive has been desperately nervous; but I have
convinced her it did not become her, and she has recovered her
rubicundity. Adieu!
(991) "Votre pauvre sourde!" writes Madame du Deffand to Walpole,
on the 3d of August. "Ah! mon Dieu! que j'en suis f`ach`ee;
c'est une veritable perte, et je la partage: j'aimais qu'elle
v`ecut; j'aimais son amiti`e pour vous; j'aimais votre
attachement pour elle: tout cela, ce me semble, m'`etait bon."-E.
(992) His "History of the Life of King Henry the Second, and of
the Age in which he lived," in four volumes quarto.-E.
Letter 329 To George Montagu, Esq.
Friday, Aug. 7, 1767. (page 503)
As I am turned knight-errant, and going again in search of my old
fairy,(993) I will certainly transport your enchanted casket, and
will endeavour to procure some talisman, that may secrete it from
the eyes of those unheroic harpies, the officers of the
customhouse, YOU must take care to let me have it before
to-morrow se'nnight.
The house at Twickenham with which you fell in love, is still
unmarried; but they ask a hundred and thirty pounds a-year for
it. If they asked one hundred and thirty thousand pounds for it,
perhaps my Lord Clive might snap it up; but that not being the
case, I don't doubt but it will fall, and I flatter myself, that
you and it may meet at last upon reasonable terms. That of
General Trapaud is to be had at fifty pounds a-year, but with a
fine on entrance of five hundred pounds. As I propose to return
by the beginning of October, perhaps I may see you, and then you
may review both. Since the loss of poor Lady Suffolk, I am more
desirous than ever of having you in my neighbourhood, as I have
not a rational acquaintance left. Adieu!
(993) Madame du Deffand. The following passages from her letters
to Walpole will best explain the reasons which induced him to
undertake the journey:--"Paris, 5 Juillet. Je crois entrevoir
que votre s`ejour ici vous inqui`ete, et que la complaisance qui
vous am`ene vous coute beaucoup; mais, mon Tuteur, songez au
plaisir que vous me ferez, quelle sera ma reconnaissance. Je ne
vous dirai point combien cette visite m'est necessaire; vous
jugerez par vous-m`eme si je vous en ai impose sur rien, et si
vous pourrez jamais vous repentir des marques d'amiti`e que vous
m'avez donn`ees. Mon Dieu! que nous aurons de sujets de
conversations!"--"Dimanche, 23 Ao`ut. Enfin, enfin, il n'y a plus
de mer qui nous s`epare; j'ai l'esperance de vous voir d`ees
aujoqrd'hui. J'ai pri`e hier Madame Simonetti d'envoyer chez moi
au moment de votre arriv`ee; si vous voulez venir chez MOi, comme
j'esp`ere, vous aurez sur le champ mon carrosse. Je me flatte
que demain vous dinerez et souperez avec moi t`ete-`a-t`ete; nous
en aurons bien `a dire. Sans cette maudite compagnie que j'ai si
sottement rassembl`ee, vous m'auriez trouv`ee chez vous `a la
d`escente de votre chaise; cela vous auroit fort d`eplu, mais je
m'en serois mocqu`ee." Madame Simonetti kept the H`otel garni du
Parc Royal, Rue du Colombie. In a journal which Walpole kept of
this journey to Paris, is the following entry:--"August 23.
Arrived at Paris a quarter before seven; at eight, to Madame du
Deffand's; found the Clairon acting Agrippine and Ph`edre. Not
tall; but I liked her acting better than I expected. Supped
there with her, and the Duchesse de Villeroi, d'Aiguillon, etC.
etc."-E.
Letter 330 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(994)
Paris, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 1767. (page 504)
Last night by Lord Rochford's courier, we heard of Townshend's
death;(995) for which indeed your letter had prepared me. As a
man of incomparable parts, and most entertaining to a spectator,
I regret his death. His good-humour prevented one from hating
him, and his levity from loving him; but, in a political light, I
own I cannot look upon it as a misfortune. His treachery alarmed
me, and I apprehended every thing from it. It was not advisable
to throw him into the arms of the Opposition. His death avoids
both kinds of mischief. I take for granted you will have Lord
North for chancellor of the exchequer.(996) He is very inferior
to Charles in parts; but what he wants in those, will be supplied
by firmness and spirit.
With regard to my brother, I should apprehend nothing, were he
like other men; but I shall not be astonished, if he throws his
life away; and I have seen so much of the precariousness of it
lately, that I am prepared for the event, if it shall happen. I
will say nothing about Mr. Harris; he is an old man, and his
death will be natural. For Lord Chatham, he is really or
intentionally mad,--but I still doubt which of the two. Thomas
Walpole has writ to his brother here, that the day before Lord
Chatham set out for Pynsent, he executed a letter of attorney,
with full powers to his wife, and the moment it was signed he
began singing.(997)
You may depend upon it I shall only stay here to the end of the
month: but if you should want me sooner, I will set out at a
moment's warning, on your sending me a line by Lord Rochf'ord's
courier. This goes by Lady Mary Coke, who sets out to-morrow
morning early, on notice of Mr. Townshend's death, or she would
have stayed ten days longer. I sent you a letter by Mr.
Fletcher, but I fear he did not go away till the day before
yesterday.
I am just come from dining en famille with the Duke de Choiseul:
he was very civil--but much more civil to Mr. Wood,(998) who
dined there too. I imagine this gratitude to the peacemakers. I
must finish; for I am going to Lady Mary, and then return to sup
with the Duchess de Choiseul, who is not civiller to any body
than to me. Adieu! Yours ever.
(994) Now first printed.
(995) Mr. Charles Townshend died very unexpectedly, on the 4th of
September; he being then only in his forty-second year.-E.
(996) "The chancellorship of the exchequer," says Adolphus, "was
filled up ad interim by Lord Mansfield. It was offered to Lord
North, who, for some reasons which are not precisely known,
declined accepting it. The offer was subsequently made to Lord
Barrington; who declared his readiness to undertake the office,
if a renewed application to Lord North should fail: a fresh
negotiation was attempted with the Duke of Bedford, but without
effect, and at length Lord North was prevailed on to accept the
office. Mr. Thomas Townshend succeeded Lord North as paymaster,
and Mr. Jenkinson was appointed a lord of the treasury; Lord
Northington and General Conway resigning, Lord Gower was made
president of the council; Lord Weymouth, secretary of state; and
Lord Sandwich, joint postmaster-general. These promotions
indicated an accommodation between the ministry and the Bedford
party; and the cabinet was further strengthened by the
appointment of Lord Hillsborough to the office of secretary of
state for America. The ministry, thus modelled, was called the
Duke of Grafton's administration; for, although Lord Chatham
still retained his place, he was incapable of transacting
business."-E.
(997) Lord Chatham's enemies were constantly insinuating, that
his illness was a political one. For the real state of his
health at the time Walpole was penning this uncharitable passage,
see Lady Chatham's letter to Mr. Nuthall of the 17th of August,
and his lordship's own grateful and affectionate letter to Mr.
Thomas Walpole of the 30th of October. Correspondence, Vol. iii.
p. 282, 289.-E.
(998) Mr. Robert Wood. He was under-secretary of state at the
time of the treaty of Paris.-E.
Letter 331 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, Oct. 24, 1767. (page 505)
Dear Sir,
It is an age since we have had any correspondence. My long and
dangerous illness last year, with my journey to Bath; my long
attendance in Parliament all winter, spring, and to the beginning
of summer: and my journey to France since, from whence I returned
but last week,(999) prevented my asking the pleasure Of Seeing
you at Strawberry Hill.
I wish to hear that you have enjoyed your health, and shall be
glad of any news of you. The season is too late, and the
Parliament too near opening, for me to propose a winter journey
to you. if you should happen to think at all of London, I trust
you would do me the favour to call on me. In short, this is only
a letter of inquiry after YOU, and to show you that I am always
most truly yours.
(999) Walpole left Paris the 9th of October; on the morning of
which Madame du Deffand thus resumes her correspondence with
him:--"Que de lachet`e, de faiblesse, et de ridicules je vous ai
laiss`e voir! Je m'`etais bien promis le contrire; mais, mais--
oubliez tout cela, pardonnez-le moi, mon Tuteur, et ne pensez
plus `a votre Petite que pour vous dire qu'elle est raisonnable,
ob`eissante, et par-dessus tout reconnaissante; que son respect,
oui, je dis respect, que sa crainte, mais sa crainte filiale, son
tendre mais s`erieux attachement, feront jusqu'`a son dernier
moment le bonheur de sa vie. Qu'importe d'`etre vielle, d'`etre
aveugle; qu'importe le lieu qu'on habite; qu'importe que tout ce
qui environne soit sot ou Extravagant: quand l'`ame est fortement
occup`ee, il ne lui manque rien que l'objet qui l'occupe; et
quand cet objet repond `a ce qu'on sent pour lui, on n'a plus
rien desirer."-E.
Letter 332 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Sunday, Nov. 1, 1767. (page 506)
The house is taken that you wot of, but I believe you may have
General Trapaud's for fifty pounds a-year, and a fine of two
hundred and fifty, which is less by half, look you, than you was
told at first. A jury of matrons, composed of Lady Frances, my
Dame Bramston, Lady Pembroke, and Lady Carberry, and the merry
Catholic Lady Brown, have sat upon it, and decide that you should
take it. But you must come and treat in person, and may hold the
congress here. I hear Lord Guildford is much better, so that the
exchequer will still find you in funds. You will not dislike to
hear, shall you, that Mr Conway does not take the appointments of
secretary of state. if it grows the fashion to give up above
five thousand pounds a-year, this ministry will last for ever;
for I do not think the Opposition will struggle for places
without salaries. If my Lord Ligonier does not go to heaven, or
Sir Robert Rich to the devil soon, our General will run
considerably in debt; but he had better be too poor than too
rich. I would not have him die like old Pulteney, loaded with
the spoils of other families and the crimes of his own. Adieu! I
will not write to you any more, so you may as well come. Yours
ever.
Letter 333 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Dec. 19, 1767. (page 506)
You are now, I reckon, settled in your new habitation:(1000) I
would not interrupt you in your journeyings, dear Sir, but am not
at all pleased that you are seated so little to your mind; and
yet I think you will stay there. Cambridge and Ely are
neighbourhoods to your taste, and if you do not again shift your
quarters, I shall make them and you a visit: Ely I have never
seen. I Could have wished that you had preferred this part of the
world; and yet, I trust, I shall see you here oftener than I have
done of late. This, to my great satisfaction, is my last session
of Parliament; to which, and to politics, I shall ever bid adieu!
I did not go to Paris for my health, though I found the journey
and the seasickness, which I had never experienced before,
contributed to it greatly. I have not been so well for some
years as I am at present, and if I continue to plump up as I do
at present, I do not know but by the time we may meet, whether
you may not discover, without a microscope, that I am really
fatter. I went to make a visit to my dear old blind woman, and
to see some things I could not see in winter.
For the Catholic religion, I think it very consumptive. With a
little patience, if Whitfield, Wesley, my Lady Huntingdon, and
that rogue Madan(1001) live, I do not doubt but we shall have
something very like it here. And yet I had rather live at the
end of a tawdry religion, than at the beginning; which is always
more stern and hypocritic.
I shall be very glad to see your laborious work of the maps; you
are indefatigable, I know: I think mapping would try my patience
more than any thing.
My Richard the Third will go to press this week, and you shall
have one of the first copies, which I think will be in about a
month, if you will tell me how to convey it: direct to Arlington
street. Mr. Gray went to Cambridge yesterday se'nnight: I wait
for some papers from him for my purpose. I grieve for your
sufferings by the inundation; but you are not only an hermit,
but, what is better, a real philosopher. Let me hear from you
soon. Yours ever.
(1000) Mr. Cole had lately removed from Bleckeley, Bucks, to
Waterbeach, near Cambridge.
(1001) The Rev. Martin Madan, author of "Thelypthora," a defence
of a plurality of wives. In 1767, he subjected himself to much
obloquy, by dissuading a clerical friend from giving up a
benefice, which he had accepted under a solemn promise of
eventual resignation.-E.
Letter 334 To Sir David Dalrymple.(1002)
Strawberry Hill, Jan. 17, 1768. (page 507)
I will begin, Sir, with telling you that I have seen Mr. Sherriff
and his son. The father desired my opinion on sending his son to
Italy. I own I could by no means advise it. Where a genius is
indubitable and has already made much progress, the study of
antique and the works of the great masters may improve a young
man extremely, and open lights to him which he might never
discover of himself: but it is very different sending a young man
to Rome to try whether he has genius or not; which may be
ascertained with infinitely less trouble and expense at home.
Young Mr. Sherriff has certainly a disposition to drawing; but
that may not be genius. His misfortune may have made him embrace
it as a resource in his melancholy hours. Labouring under the
misfortune of deafness, his friends should consider to what
unhappiness they may expose him. His family have naturally
applied to alleviate his misfortune, and to cultivate the parts
they saw in him: but who, in so long a journey and at such a
distance, is to attend him in the same affectionate manner? Can
he shift for himself, especially without the language? who will
take the trouble at Rome of assisting him, instructing him,
pointing out to him what he should study? who will facilitate
the means to him of gaining access to palaces and churches, and
obtain permission for him to work there? I felt so much for the
distresses he must undergo, that I could not see the benefits to
accrue, and those eventual, as a compensation. Surely, Sir, it
were better to place him here with some painter for a year or
two. He does not seem to me to be grounded enough for such an
expedition.
I will beg to know how I may convey my Richard to you, which will
be published to-morrow fortnight. I do not wonder you could not
guess the discovery I have made. It is one of the most
marvellous that ever was made. In short, it is the original
coronation roll of Richard the Third, by which it appears that
very magnificent robes were ordered for Edward the Fifth, and
that he did, or was to have walked at his uncle's coronation.
This most valuable monument is in the Great Wardrobe. It is not,
though the most extraordinary the only thing that will much
surprise you in my work. But I will not anticipate what little
amusement you may find there. I am, Sir, etc.
(1002) Now first collected.
Letter 335 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, Feb. 1, 1768. (page 508)
Dear Sir,
I have waited for the impression of my Richard, to send you the
whole parcel together. This moment I have conveyed to Mr.
Cartwright a large bundle for you, containing Richard the
Third,(1003) the four volumes of the new edition of the
Anecdotes, and six prints of your relation Tuer. You will find
his head very small: but the original was too inconsiderable to
allow it to be larger. I have sent you no Patagon`eans;(1004)
for they are out of print: I have only my own copy, and could not
get another. Pray tell me how, or what you heard of it; and
tell me sincerely, for I did not know it had made any noise.
I shall be much obliged to you for the extract relating to the
Academy of which a Walpole was president. I doubt if he was of
our branch; and rather think he was of the younger and Roman
Catholic branch.
Are you reconciled to your new habitation? Don't you find it too
damp? and if you do, don't deceive yourself, and try to surmount
it, but remove immediately. Health is the most important of all
considerations. Adieu! dear Sir.
(1003) "Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the
Third, by Mr. Horace Walpole;" London, 1768, 4to. Two editions
of this work, which occasioned a good deal of historical
controversy, were published during the year.-E.
(1004) "An Account of the Giants lately discovered; in a letter
to a friend in the country." London, 1766, 8vo. It was
afterwards translated into French by the Chevalier Redmond, an
Irish officer in the French service.-E.
Letter 336 To Sir David Dalrymple.(1005)
Arlington Street, Feb. 2, 1768. (page 509)
I have sent to Mr. Cadell my Historic Doubts, Sir, for you. I
hope they may draw forth more materials, which I shall be very
ready either to subscribe to or to adopt. In this view I must
beg you, Sir, to look into Speed's History of England, and in his
account of Perkin Warbeck you will find Bishop Leslie often
quoted. May I trouble you to ask, to what work that alludes, and
whether in print or MS.? Bishop Leslie lived under Queen
Elizabeth, and though he could know nothing of Perkin Warbeck,
was yet near enough to the time to have had much better materials
than we have. May I ask, too, if Perkin Warbeck's Proclamation
exists any where authentically? You will see in my book the
reason of all these questions.
I am so much hurried with it just now, that you will excuse my
being so brief. I can attribute to nothing but the curiosity of
the subject, the great demand for it; though it was sold publicly
but yesterday, and twelve hundred and fifty copies were printed,
Dodsley has been with me this morning to tell me he must prepare
another edition directly. I am, Sir, etc.
(1005) Now first collected.
Letter 337 To Mr. Gray.
Arlington Street, Feb. 18, 1768. (page 509)
You have sent me a long and very obliging letter, and yet I am
extremely out of humour with you. I saw Poems by Mr. Gray
advertised: I called directly at Dodsley's to know if this was to
be more than a new edition? He was not at home himself, but his
foreman told me he thought there were some new pieces, and notes
to the whole. It was very unkind, not only to go out of town
without mentioning them to me, without showing them to me, but
not to say a word of them in this letter. Do you think I am
indifferent, or not curious, about what you write? I have ceased
to ask you, because you have so long refused to show me any
thing. You could not suppose I thought that you never write.
No; but I concluded you did not intend, at least yet, to publish
what you had written. As you did intend it, I might have
expected a month's preference. You will do me the Justice to own
that I had always rather have seen your writings than have shown
you mine; which you know are the most hasty trifles in the world,
and which, though I may be fond of the subject when fresh, I
constantly forget in a very short time after they are published.
This would sound like affectation to others, but will not to you.
It would be affected, even to you, to say I am indifferent to
fame. I certainly am not, but I am indifferent to almost any
thing I have done to acquire it. The greater part are mere
compilations; and no wonder they are, as you say, incorrect, when
they are commonly written with people in the room, as Richard and
the Noble Authors were. But I doubt there is a more intrinsic
fault in them: which is, that I cannot correct them. If I write
tolerably, it must be -,it once; I can neither mend nor add. The
articles of Lord Capel and Lord Peterborough, in the second
edition of the Noble Authors, cost me more trouble than all the
rest together: and you may perceive that the worst part of
Richard, in point of ease and style, is what relates to the
papers you gave me on Jane Shore, because it was taken on so long
afterwards, and when my impetus was chilled. If some time or
other you will take the trouble of pointing out the inaccuracies
of' 'It, I shall be much obliged to you: at present I shall
meddle no more with it. It has taken its fate; nor did I mean to
complain. I found it was Condemned indeed beforehand, which was
what I alluded to. Since publication (as has happened to me
before) the success has gone beyond my expectation.
Not only at Cambridge, but here there have been people wise
enough to think me too free with the King of Prussia!(1006) A
newspaper has talked of my known inveteracy to him. Truly, I
love him as well as I do most kings. The greater offence is my
reflection on Lord Clarendon. It is forgotten that I had
overpraised him before. Pray turn to the new State Papers, from
which, it is said, he composed his history. You will find they
are the papers from which he did not compose his history. And
yet I admire my Lord Clarendon more than these pretended admirers
do. But I do not intend to justify myself. I can as little
satisfy those who complain that I do not let them know what
really did happen. If this inquiry can ferret out any truth, I
shall be glad. I have picked up a few more circumstances. I now
want to know what Perkin Warbeck's Proclamation was, which Speed
in his history says is preserved by Bishop Leslie. If you look
in Speed, perhaps you will be able to assist me.
The Duke of Richmond and Lord Lyttelton agree with you, that I
have not disculpated Richard of the murder of Henry VI. I own to
you, it is the crime of which in my own mind I believe him most
guiltless. Had I thought he committed it, I should never have
taken the trouble to apologize-for the rest. I am not at all
positive or obstinate on your other objections, nor know exactly
what I believe on many points of this story. And I am so
sincere, that, except a few notes hereafter, I shall leave the
matter to be settled or discussed by others. As you have written
much too little, I have written a great deal too much, and think
only of finishing the two or three other things I have begun--and
of those, nothing but the last volume of Painters is designed for
the present public. What has one to do when turned fifty, but
really think of finishing?(1007)
I am much obliged and flattered by Mr. Mason's approbation, and
particularly by having had almost the same thought with him. I
said, "People need not be angry at my excusing Richard; I have
not diminished their fund of hatred, I have only transferred it
from Richard to Henry." Well, but I have found you close with
Mason--No doubt, cry Prating I, something will come out.(1008)-
-Oh! no--leave us, both of you, to Annabellas and Epistles to
Ferney,(1009) that give Voltaire an account of his own tragedies,
to +Macarony fables that are more unintelligible than Pilpay's
are in the original, to Mr. Thornton's hurdy-gurdy poetry'(1010)
and to Mr. ***** who has imitated himself worse than any fop in
a magazine would have done. In truth, if you should abandon us,
I could not wonder--When Garrick's prologues and epilogues, his
own Cymons and farces, and the comedies of the fools that pay
court to him, are the delight of the age, it does not deserve any
thing better. Pray read the new account of Corsica. What
relates to Paoli will amuse you much. There is a deal about the
island and its divisions that one does not care a straw for. The
author, Boswell,(1011) is a strange being, and, like Cambridge,
has a rage of knowing any body that ever was talked of. He
forced himself upon me at Paris in spite of my teeth and my
doors, and I see has given a foolish account of all he could pick
up from me about King Theodore. He then took an antipathy to me
on Rousseau's account, abused me in the newspapers, and exhorted
Rousseau to do so too: but as he came to see me no more, I
forgave all the rest. I see he now is a little sick of Rousseau
himself; but I hope it will not cure him of his anger to me.
However, his book will I am sure entertain you.(1012)
I will add but a word or two more. I am criticised for the
expression tinker up in the preface. Is this one of those that
you object to? I own I think such a low expression, placed to
ridicule an absurd instance of wise folly, very forcible.
Replace it with an elevated word or phrase, and to my conception
it becomes as flat as possible.
George Selwyn says I may, if I please, write historic doubts on
the present Duke of Grafton too. Indeed, they would be doubts,
for I know nothing certainly.
Will you be so kind as to look into Leslie De Rebus Scotorum, and
see if Perkin's Proclamation is there, and if there, how
authenticated. You will find in Speed my reason for asking this.
I have written in such a hurry, I believe you will scarce be able
to read my letter--and as I have just been writing French,
perhaps the sense may not be clearer than the writing. Adieu!
(1006) Gray, in a letter to Mr. Walpole, of the 14th, had said--
"I have heard it objected, that you raise doubts and
difficulties, and do not satisfy them by telling us what is
really the case. I have heard you charged with disrespect to the
King of Prussia; and above all, to King William and the
Revolution. My own objections are little more essential: they
relate chiefly to inaccuracies of style, which either debase the
expression or obscure the meaning. As to your argument@ most of
the principal parts are made out with a clearness and evidence
that no one would expect, where materials are so scarce. Yet I
still suspect Richard of the murder of Henry the Sixth." Works,
vol. iv. p. 105.-E.
(1007) To this Gray, on the 25th, replied--"To what you say to me
so civilly, that I ought to write more, I answer in your own
words, (like the Pamphleteer, who is going to refute you out of
your own mouth,) what has one to do, when turned fifty, but
really to think of finishing? However, I will be candid (for you
seem to be so with me), and avow to you, that, till fourscore and
ten, whenever the humour takes me, I will write, because I like
it; and because I like myself better when I do so. If I do not
write much, it is because I cannot." Works, vol. iv. p. 111.-E.
(1008) "I found him close with Swift."--"Indeed?"--"No doubt,"
Cries prating Balbus, "something will come out." Pope.
(1009) Keate's "Ferney; an Epistle to M. Voltaire."-E.
(1010) His burlesque Ode on St. Cecilia's Day; with the humour of
which Dr. Johnson was much diverted, and used to repeat this
passage--
"In strains more exalted the salt-box shall join,
And clattering and battering and clapping combine,
With a rap and a tap, while the hollow side sounds,
Up and down leaps the flap, and with rattling rebounds.-E.
(1011) "Your history," wrote Dr. Johnson to Boswell, "is like
other histories, but your journal is, in a very high degree,
curious and delightful: there is between them that difference
which there will always be found between notions borrowed from
without and notions generated within. Your history was copied
from books; your journal rose out of your own experience and
observation. I know not whether I could name any narrative by
which curiosity is better excited or better gratified."-E.
(1012) To this Gray replies--,'Mr. Boswell's book has pleased and
moved me strangely; all, I mean, that relates to Paoli. He is a
man born two thousand years after his time! The pamphlet proves
what I have always maintained, that any fool may write a most
valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard
and saw with veracity. Of Mr. Boswell's truth I have not the
least suspicion, because I am sure be could invent nothing of
this kind. The true title of this part of his work is a Dialogue
between a Green Goose and a Hero." Works, vol. iv. p. 112.-E.
Letter 338 To Mr. Gray.
Arlington Street, Friday night, Feb. 26, 1768. (page 512)
I plague you to death, but I must reply a few more words. I
shall be very glad to see in print, and to have those that are
worthy, see your ancient Odes; but I was in hopes there were some
pieces. too, that I had not seen. I am sorry there are
not.(1013)
I troubled you about Perkin's Proclamation. because Mr. Hume lays
great stress upon it, and insists, that if Perkin affirmed that
his brother was killed, it must have been true, if he was true
Duke of York. Mr. Hume would have persuaded me that the
Proclamation is in Stowe, but I can find no such thing there;
nor, what is more, in Casley's Catalogue, which I have twice
looked over carefully. I wrote to Sir David Dalrymple In
Scotland, to inquire after it; because I would produce it if I
could, though it should make against me: but he, I believe,
thinking I inquired with the contrary view, replied very drily,
that it was published at York, and was not to be found in
Scotland. Whether he is displeased that I have plucked a hair
from the tresses of their great historian; or whether, as I
suspect, he is offended for King William; this reply was all the
notice he took of my letter and book. I only smiled; as I must
do when I find one party is angry with me on King William's, and
the other on Lord Clarendon's account.
The answer advertised is Guthrie's, who is furious that I have
taken no notice of his History. I shall take as little of his
pamphlet; but his end will be answered, if he sells that and one
or two copies of his History.(1014) Mr. Hume, I am told, has
drawn up an answer too, which I shall see, and, if I can, will
get him to publish; for, if I should ever choose to say any thing
more on this subject, I had rather reply to him than to
hackney-writers:--to the latter, indeed, I never will reply. A
few notes I have to add that will be very material; and I wish to
get some account of a book that was once sold at Osborn's, that
exists perhaps at Cambridge, and of which I found a memorandum
t'other day in my note-book. It is called A Paradox, or Apology
for Richard the Third, by Sir William Cornwallis.(1015) If you
could discover it, I should be much obliged to you.
Lord Sandwich, with whom I have not exchanged a syllable since
the general warrants, very obligingly sent me an account of the
roll at Kimbolton; and has since, at my desire, borrowed it for
me and sent it to town.(1016) It is as long as my Lord
Lyttelton's History; but by what I can read of it (for it is both
ill written and much decayed), it is not a roll of kings, but of
all that have been possessed of, or been Earls of Warwick: or
have not--for one of the first earls is Aeneas. How, or
wherefore, I do not know, but amongst the first is Richard the
Third, in whose reign it was finished, and with whom it
concludes. He is there again with his wife and son, and Edward
the Fourth, and Clarence and his wife, and Edward their son (who
unluckily is a little old man), and Margaret Countess of
Salisbury, their daughter.--But why do I say with these? There
is every body else too and what is most meritorious, the habits
of all the times are admirably well observed from the most savage
ages. Each figure is tricked with a pen, well drawn, but neither
Coloured nor shaded. Richard is straight, but thinner than my
print; his hair short, and exactly curled in the same manner; not
so handsome as mine, but what one might really believe intended
for the same countenance, as drawn by a different painter,
especially when so small; for the figures in general are not so
long as one's finger. His queen is ugly, and with just such a
square forehead as in my print, but I cannot say like it. Nor,
indeed, where forty-five figures out of fifty (I have not counted
the number) must have been imaginary, can one lay great stress on
the five. I shall, however, have these figures copied,
especially as I know Of no other image of the son. Mr. Astle is
to come to Me tomorrow morning to explain the writing.
I wish you had told me in what age your Franciscan friars lived;
and what the passage in Comines is. I am very ready to make
amende honorable. Thank you for the notes on the Noble Authors.
They shall be inserted when I make a new edition, for the sake of
the trouble the person has taken, though they are of little
consequence. Dodsley has asked me for a new edition; but I have
had little heart to undertake such work, no more than to mend my
old linen. It is pity one cannot be born an ancient, and have
commentators to do such jobs for one! Adieu! Yours ever.
Saturday morning.
On reading over your letter again this morning, I do find the age
in which the friars lived--I read and write in such a hurry, that
I think I neither know what I read or say.
(1013) Gray, in his letter of the 25th, had said:--"The Long
Story was to be totally omitted, as its only use (that of
explaining the plates) was gone; but, to supply the place of it
in bulk, lest my works should be mistaken for the works of a flea
or a pismire I promised to send him an equal weight of poetry or
prose; so I put up about two ounces of stuff, viz. The Fatal
Sisters; The Descent of Odin; a bit of something from the Welch,
and certain little Notes, partly from justice-,, partly from ill-
temper, just to tell the gentle reader that Edward 1. was not
Oliver Cromwell, nor Queen Elizabeth the Witch of Endor. This is
literally all; and with all this, I shall be but a shrimp of an
author." Works, vol. iv. P. 110.-E.
(1014) Gray, in his answer of the 6th of March, says--"Guthrie,
you see, has vented himself in the Critical Review. His History
I never saw, nor is it here, nor do I know any one that ever saw
it. He is a rascal; but rascals may chance to meet with curious
records." Works, vol. iv. p. 116.-E.
(1015) "The Praise of King Richard the Third," which was
published by Sir William Cornwallis, Knight, the celebrated
"Essayist," in 1617, is reprinted in the third volume of the
Somers' Collection of Tracts.-E.
(1016) From this roll were taken the two plates of portraits in
the Historic Doubts.
Letter 339 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, March 12, 1768. (page 514)
The house, etc. described in the enclosed advertisement I Should
think might suit you; I am sure its being in my neighbourhood
would make me glad, if it did. I know no more than what you will
find in this scrap of paper, nor what the rent is, nor whether it
has a chamber as big as Westminster-hall; but as you have flown
about the world, and are returned to your ark without finding a
place to rest your foot, I should think you might as well inquire
about the house I notify to you, as set out with your caravan to
Greatworth, like a Tartar chief; especially as the laws of this
country will not permit you to stop in the first meadow you like,
and turn your horses to grazing without saying by your leave.
As my senatorial dignity is gone,(1017) and the sight of my name
is no longer worth threepence, I shall not put you to the expense
of a cover, and I hope the advertisement will not be taxed, as I
seal it to the paper. In short, I retain so much iniquity from
the last infamous Parliament that you see I would still cheat the
public. The comfort I feel in sitting peaceably here, instead of
being at Lynn in the high fever of a contested election, which at
best would end in my being carried about that large town like the
figure of a pope at a bonfire, is very great. I do not think,
when that function is over, that I shall repent my resolution.
What could I see but sons and grandsons playing over the same
knaveries, that I have seen their fathers and Grandfathers act?
Could I hear oratory beyond my Lord Chatham's? Will there ever
be parts equal to Charles Townshend's? Will George Grenville
cease to be the most tiresome of beings? Will he not be
constantly whining, and droning, and interrupting, like a
cigala(1018) in a sultry day in Italy.
Guthrie has published two criticisms on my Richard;(1019) one
abusive in the Critical Review; t'other very civil and even
flattering in a pamphlet; both so stupid and contemptible, that I
rather prefer the first, as making some attempt at vivacity; but
in point of argument, nay, and of humour, at which he makes an
effort too, both things are below scorn. As an instance of the
former, he says, the Duke of Clarence might die of drinking sack,
and so be said to be drowned in a butt of malmsey; of the latter
sort, are his calling the Lady Bridget Lady Biddy, and the Duke
of York poor little fellow! I will weary you with no more such
stuff!
The weather is so very March, that I cannot enjoy my new holidays
at Strawberry yet; I sit reading and writing close to the fire.
Sterne has published two little volumes, called Sentimental
Travels. They are very pleasing, though too much dilated, and
infinitely preferable to his tiresome Tristram Shandy, of which I
never could get through three volumes. In these there is a great
good-nature and strokes of delicacy. Gray has added to his poems
three ancient Odes from Norway and Wales. The subjects of the
two first are grand and picturesque, and there is his genuine
vein in them; but they are not interesting, and do not, like his
other poems, touch any passion. Our human feelings, which he
masters at will in his former pieces, are here not
affected.(1020) Who can care through what horrors a Runic savage
arrived at all the joys and glories they could conceive, the
supreme felicity of boozing ale out of the skull of an enemy in
Odin's hall? Oh! yes, just now perhaps these odes would be
toasted at many a contested election. Adieu! Yours ever.
(1017) Walpole had retired from Parliament at the general
election in the beginning of this year.-E.
(1018) "The shrill cicalas, people of the pine,
Making their summer lives one ceaseless song,
Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine,
And vesper-bells that rose the boughs along."
Don Juan, c. iii. st. 106.-E.
(1019) Walpole's work is thus characterized by Sir Walter Scott:-
-"The Historical Doubts are an acute and curious example how
minute antiquarian research may shake our faith in the facts most
pointedly averred by general history. It is remarkable also to
observe how, in defending a system, which was probably at first
adopted as a mere literary exercise, Mr. Walpole's doubts
acquired, in his own eyes, the respectability of certainties, in
which he could not brook controversy." Prose Works; vol. iii. p.
304.-E.
(1020) "They strike, rather than please; the images are magnified
by affectation; the language is laboured into harshness. The
mind of the writer seems to work with unnatural violence.
Double, double, toil and trouble! There is too little appearance
of ease and nature." Johnson.-E.
Letter 340 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, April 15, 1768. (page 516)
Mr. Chute tells me that you have taken a new house in Squireland,
and have given yourself up for two years more to port and
parsons. I am very angry, and resign you to the works of the
devil or the church, I don't care which. You will get the gout,
turn Methodist, and expect to ride to heaven upon your own great
foe. I was happy with your telling me how well you love me, and
though I don't love loving, I could have poured out all the
fullness of my heart to such an old and true friend; but what am
I the better for it, if I am to see you but two or three days in
the year? I thought you would at last come and while away the
remainder of life on the banks of the Thames in gaiety and old
tales. I have quitted the stage, and the Clive is preparing to
leave it. We shall neither of us ever be grave: dowagers roost
all round us and you could never want cards or mirth. Will you
end like a fat farmer, repeating annually the price of oats, and
discussing stale newspapers? There have you got, I hear into an
old gallery that has not been glazed since Queen Elizabeth, and
under the nose of an infant Duke and Duchess, that will
understand you no more than if you wore a ruff and a coif, and
talked to them of a call of serjeants the year of the Spanish
armada! Your wit and humour will be as much lost upon them, as
if you talked the dialect of Chaucer; for with all the divinity
of wit, it grows out of fashion like a fardingale. I am
convinced that the young men at White's already laugh at George
Selwyn's bon-mots only by tradition. I avoid talking before the
youth of the age as I would dancing before them; for if one's
tongue don't move in the steps of the day, and thinks to please
by its old graces, it is only an object of ridicule, like Mrs.
Hobart in her cotilion. I tell you we should get together, and
comfort ourselves with reflecting on the brave days that we have
known--not that I think people were a jot more clever or wise in
our youth than now, are now; but as my system is always to live
in a vision as much as I can, and as visions don't increase with
years, there is nothing so natural as to think one remembers what
one does not remember.
I have finished my tragedy,(1021) but as you would not bear the
subject, I will say no more of it, but that Mr. Chute, who is not
easily pleased, likes it, and Gray, who is still more difficult,
approves it.(1022) I am not yet intoxicated enough with it to
think it would do for the stage, though I wish to see it acted;
but, as Mrs. Pritchard(1023) leaves the stage next month, I know
nobody could play the Countess; nor am I disposed to expose
myself to the impertinent eyes of that jackanapes Garrick, who
lets nothing appear but his own wretched stuff, or that of
creatures still duller, who suffer him to alter their pieces as
he pleases. I have written an epilogue in character for the
Clive, which she would speak admirably; but I am not so sure that
she would like to speak it. Mr. Conway, Lady Aylesbury, Lady
Lyttelton, and Miss Rich, are to come hither the day after
to-morrow, and Mr. Conway and I are to read my play to them; for
I have not strength enough to go through the whole alone.(1024)
My press is revived, and is printing a French play written by the
old President Henault.(1025) It was damned many years ago at
Paris, and yet I think it is better than some that have
succeeded, and much better than any of our modern tragedies. I
print it to please the old man, as he was exceedingly kind to me
at Paris; but I doubt whether he will live till it is
finished.(1026) He is to have a hundred copies, and there are to
be but a hundred more, Of Which You shall have one.
Adieu! though I am very angry with you, I deserve all your
friendship, by that I have for you, witness my anger and
disappointment. Yours ever.
P. S. Send me your new direction, and tell me when I must begin
to use it.
(1021) The Mysterious Mother. See vol. i. p. 57.-E.
(1022) Of this tragedy Lord Byron was also an approver: "It is
the fashion," he says, "to underrate Horace Walpole; firstly,
because he was a nobleman; and secondly, because he was a
gentleman; but, to say nothing of the composition of his
incomparable Letters, and of the Castle of Otranto, he is the
ultimus Romanorum, the author of the Mysterious Mother; a tragedy
of the highest order, and not a puling love.play."-E.
(1023) This celebrated actress, who excelled alike in tragedy and
comedy, took leave of the stage in May, in the part of Lady
Macbeth, and died at Bath in the following August.-E.
(1024) Walpole, in a letter to Madame du Deffand, of the 11th of
March, speaking of the "Honn`ete Criminel," a copy of which she
had sent him, gives her the following account of his own
tragedy:--"L'Honn`ete Criminel me paroit assez m`ediocre. Ma
propre trag`edie a de bien plus grands d`efauts, mais au moins
elle ne ressemble pas au toout compass`e tet r`egl`e du si`ecle.
Il ne vous plairoit pas assur`ement; il n'y a pas de beaux
Sentiments: il n'y a que des passions sans envelope, des crimes,
des repentis, et des horreurs. Je crois qu'il y a beaucoup plus
de mauvais que de bon, et je sais s`urement que depuis le premier
acte jusqu'a la derni`ere sc`ene l'int`er`et languit au lieu
d'augmenter: peut-il avoir on plus grand d`efaut?"-E.
(1025) Corn`elie, a manuscript tragedy, written by the Pr`esident
Henault in early life.
(1026) He died in Novembor 1770, at the age of eighty-six.-E.
Letter 341 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, April 16, 1768. (page 517)
Well, dear Sir, does your new habitation improve as the spring
advances? There has been dry weather and east wind enough to
parch the fens. We find that the severe beginning of this last
winter has made terrible havoc among the evergreens, though of
old standing. Half my cypresses have been bewitched, and turned
into brooms; and the laurustinus is every where perished. I am
Goth enough to choose now and then to believe in prognostics; and
I hope this destruction imports, that, though foreigners should
take root here, they cannot last in this climate. I would fain
persuade myself, that we are to be our own empire to eternity.
The Duke of Manchester has lent me an invaluable curiosity; I
mean invaluable to us antiquaries: but perhaps I have already
mentioned it to you; I forgot whether I have or no. It is the
original roll of the Earls of Warwick, as long as my gallery, and
drawn by John Rous(1027) himself. Ay, and what is more, there
are portraits of Richard III., his Queen, and son; the two former
corresponding almost exactly with my print; and a panegyric on
the virtues of Richard, and a satire, upwards and downwards, on
the illegal marriage of Edward IV., and on the extortions of
Henry VII. I have had these and seven other portraits copied,
and shall, some time or other, give plates of them. But I wait
for an excuse; I mean till Mr. Hume shall publish a few remarks
he has made on my book: they are very far from substantial; yet
still better than any other trash that has been written against
it, nothing of which deserves an answer.
I have long had thoughts of drawing up something for London like
St. Foix's Rues de Paris,(1028) and have made some collections.
I wish You Would be so good, in the course of your reading, to
mark down any passage to that end: as where any great houses of
nobility were situated; or in what street any memorable event
happened. I fear the subject will not furnish much till later
times, as our princes kept their courts up and down the country
in such a vagrant manner.
I expect Mr. Gray and Mr. Mason to pass the day with me here
to-morrow. When I am more settled here I shall put you in mind
of your promise to bestow more than one day on me.
I hope the Methodist, your neighbour, does not, like his
patriarch Whitfield, encourage the people to forge, murder, etc.
in order to have the benefit of being converted at the gallows.
That arch-rogue preached lately a funeral sermon on one Gibson,
hanged for forgery, and told his audience, that he could assure
them Gibson was now in heaven, and that another fellow, executed
at the same time, had the happiness of touching Gibson's coat as
he was turned off. As little as you and I agree about a hundred
years ago, I don't desire a reign of fanatics. Oxford has begun
with these rascals, and I hope Cambridge will wake. I don't mean
that I would have them persecuted, which is what they wish; but I
would have the clergy fight them and ridicule them. Adieu! dear
Sir. Yours ever.
(1027) John Rous, the historian of Warwickshire, "who," according
to Walpole in his Anecdotes of Painting, "drew his own portrait,
and other semblances, but in too rude a style to be called
painting."-E.
(1028) Essais Historiques sur Paris, par
Germain-Fran`cois-Poulain de Saint Foix; of which an English
translation was published in 1767.-E.
Letter 342 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, June 6, 1768. (page 519)
You have told me what makes me both sorry and glad.(1029) Long
have I expected the appearance of Ely, and thought it at the eve
of coming forth. Now you tell me it is not half written; but
then I am rejoiced you are to write it. Pray do; the author is
very much in the right to make you author for him. I cannot say
you have addressed yourself quite so judiciously as he has. I
never heard of Cardinal Lewis de Luxembourg in my days, nor have
a scrap of the history of Normandy, but Ducarel's tour to the
Conqueror's kitchen. But the best way will be to come and
rummage my library yourself: not to set me to writing the lives
of prelates: I shall strip them stark, and you will have them to
reconsecrate. Cardinal Morton is at your service: pray say for
him, and of me, what you please. I have very slender opinion of
his integrity; but as I am not spiteful, It would be hard to
exact from you a less favourable account of him than I conclude
your piety will bestow on all his predecessors and successors.
Seriously, you know how little I take contradiction to heart, and
beg you will have no scruples about defending Morton. When I
bestow but a momentary smile on the abuse of any answerers, I am
not likely to stint a friend in a fair and obliging remark.
The man that you mention, who calls himself "Impartialis," is, I
suppose some hackney historian, I shall never inquire, whom,
angry at being censured in the jump, and not named. I foretold he
would drop his criticisms before he entered on Perkin Warbeck,
which I knew he could not answer; and so it happened. Good night
to him!
Unfortunately, I am no culinary antiquary - the Bishop of
Carlisle, who is, I have oft heard talk of a sotelle, as an
ancient dish. He is rambling between London, flagley, and
Carlisle, that I do not know where to consult him: but, if the
book is not printed before winter, I am sure he could translate
your bill of fare into modern phrase. As I trust I shall see you
some time this summer, you might bring your papers with you, and
we will try what we can make of them. Tell me, do, when it will
be most convenient for you to come, from now to the end of
October. At the same time, I will beg to see the letters of the
university to King Richard; and shall be still more obliged to
you for the print of Jane Shore.(1030) I have a very bad
mezzotinto of her, either from the picture at Cambridge or Eton.
I wish I could return these favours by contributing to the
decoration of your new old house: but, as you know, I erected an
old house, not demolished one. I had no windows, or frames for
windows, but what I bespoke on purpose for the places where they
are. My painted glass was so exhausted, before I got through my
design, that I was forced to have the windows in the Battery
painted on purpose by Pecket. What scraps I have remaining are
so bad I cannot make you pay for the carriage of them, as I think
there is not one whole piece; but you shall see them when you
come hither, and I will search if I can find any thing for your
purpose. I am sure I owe it you. Adieu! Yours ever.
(1029) This is in reply to one of Mr. Cole's letters, wherein he
had informed Mr. Walpole, that he had undertaken to write the
history of some of' the Bishops of Ely for the History of Ely
Cathedral, and requested some particulars relating to Cardinal
Lewis de Luxembourg; and to be informed the meaning of the French
word sotalle or sotelle. Mr. Cole also proposed to controvert an
opinion of Mr. Walpole's respecting Cardinal Morton.
(1030) This appears, from the copy of Cole's previous letter, to
have been an engraving done by Mr. Tyson of Bennett's College,
from the picture in the Provost's lodge.
Letter 343 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, June 15, 1768. (page 520)
No, I cannot be so false as to say I am glad you are pleased with
your situation. You are so apt to take root, that it requires
ten years to dig you out again when you once begin to settle. As
you go pitching your tent up and down, I wish you were still more
a Tartar, and shifted your quarters perpetually. Yes, I will
come and see you, but tell me first, when do your Duke and
Duchess travel to the north? I know that he is a very amiable
lad, and I do not know that she is not as amiable a laddess, but
I had rather see their house comfortably when they are not there.
I perceive the deluge fell upon you before it reached us. It
began here but on Monday last, and then rained near
eight-and-forty hours without intermission. My poor hay has not
a dry thread to its back. I have had a fire these three days.
In short, every summer one lives in a state of mutiny and murmur,
and I have found the reason: it is because we will affect to have
a summer, and we have no title to any such thing. Our poets
learnt their trade of the Romans, and so adopted the terms of
their masters. They talk of shady groves, purling streams, and
cooling breezes, and we get sore throats and agues with
attempting to realize these visions. Master Damon writes a song,
and invites Miss Chloe to enjoy the cool of the evening, and the
deuce a bit have we of any such thing as a cool evening. Zephyr
is a northeast wind, that makes Damon button up to the chin, and
pinches Chloe's nose till it is red and blue; and then they cry,
this is a bad summer! as if we ever had any other. The best sun
we have is made of Newcastle coal, and I am determined never to
reckon upon any other. We ruin ourselves with inviting over
foreign trees and make our houses clamber up hills to look at
prospects. How our ancestors would laugh at us, who knew there
was no being comfortable, unless you had a high hill before your
nose, and a thick warm wood at your back! Taste is too freezing
a commodity for us, and, depend upon it, will go out of fashion
again.
There is indeed a natural warmth in this country, which, as you
say, I am very glad not to enjoy any longer; I mean the hothouse
in St. Stephen's chapel. My own sagacity makes me very vain,
though there was very little merit in it. I had seen so much of
all parties, that I had little esteem left for any; it is most
indifferent to me who is in or -who is out, or which is set in
the pillory, Mr. Wilkes or my Lord Mansfield. I see the country
going to ruin, and no man with brains enough to save it. That is
mortifying ; but what signifies who has the undoing it? I seldom
suffer myself to think on this subject: my patriotism could do no
good, and my philosophy can make me be at peace.
I am sorry you are likely to lose your poor cousin Lady
Hinchinbrook;(1031) I heard a very bad account of her when I was
last in town. Your letter to Madame Roland shall be taken care
of; but as you are so scrupulous of making me pay postage, I must
remember not to overcharge you, as I can frank my idle letters no
longer; therefore, good night!
P. S. I was in town last week, and found Mr. Chute still
confined. He had a return in his shoulder, but I think it more
rheumatism than gout.
(1031) Elizabeth, wife of John Viscount Hinchinbroke, afterwards
fifth Earl of Sandwich, was the only surviving daughter of
George, second and last Earl of Halifax. Her ladyship died on
the 1st of July 1768, leaving a son, George Viscount
Hinchinbroke, who died sine prole, in 1790.-E.
Letter 344 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(1032)
Strawberry Hill, June 16, 1768. (page 521)
I am glad you have writ to me, for I wanted to write to you, and
did not know what to say. I have been but two nights in town,
and then heard of nothing but Wilkes, of whom I am tired to
death, and of T. Townshend, the truth of whose story I did not
know; and indeed the tone of the age has made me so uncharitable,
that I concluded his ill-humour was put on, in order to be
mollified with the reversion of his father's place, which I know
he has long wanted; and the destination of the Pay-office has
been so long notified, that I had no notion of his not liking the
arrangement. For the new Paymaster,(1033) I could not think him
worth writing a letter on purpose. By your letter and the
enclosed I find Townshend has been very ill-treated, and I like
his spirit in not bearing such neglect and contempt, though
wrapped up in 2700 pounds a-year.
What can one say of the Duke of Grafton, but that his whole
conduct is childish, insolent, inconstant, and absurd--nay,
ruinous? Because we are not in confusion enough, he makes every
thing as bad as possible, neglecting on one hand, and taking no
precaution on the other. I neither see how it is possible for
him to remain minister, nor whom to put in his place. No
government, no police, London and Middlesex distracted, the
colonies in rebellion, Ireland ready to be so, and France
arrogant, and on the point of being hostile! Lord Bute accused of
all and dying of a panic; George Grenville wanting to make rage
desperate; Lord Rockingham the Duke of Portland, and the
Cavendishes thinking we have no enemies but Lord Bute and Dyson,
and that four mutes and an epigram can set every thing to rights,
the Duke of Grafton like an apprentice, thinking the world should
be postponed to a whore and a horserace; and the Bedfords not
caring what disgraces we undergo, while each of them has 3000
pounds a-year and three thousand bottles of claret and champagne!
Not but that I believe these last good folks are still not
satisfied with the satisfaction of their wishes. They have the
favour of the Duke of Grafton, but neither his confidence nor his
company; so that they can neither sell the places in his gift nor
his secrets. Indeed, they,' have not the same reasons to be
displeased with him as you have; for they were his enemies and
you his friend--and therefore he embraced them and dropped you,
and I believe would be puzzled to give a tolerable reason for
either.
As this is the light in which I see our present situation, you
will not wonder that I am happy to have nothing to do with it.
Not that, were it more flourishing, I would ever meddle again. I
have no good opinion of any of our factions, nor think highly of
either their heads or their hearts. I can amuse myself much more
to my satisfaction; and, had I not lived to see my country at the
period of its greatest glory, I should bear our present state
much better. I cannot mend it, and therefore will think as
little of it as I can. The Duke of Northumberland asked me to
dine at Sion to-morrow; but, as his vanity of governing Middlesex
makes him absurdly meditate to contest the county, I concluded he
wanted my interest here, and therefore excused myself; for I will
have nothing to do with it.
I shall like much to come to Park-place, if your present company
stays, or if the Fitzroys or the Richmonds are there; but I
desire to be excused from the Cavendishes, who have in a manner
left me off, because I am so unlucky as not to think Lord
Rockingham as great a man as my Lord Chatham, and Lord John more
able than either. If you will let me know when they leave you,
you shall see me: but they would not be glad of my company, nor I
of theirs.
My hay and I are drowned; I comfort myself with a fire, but I
cannot treat the other with any sun, at least not with one that
has more warm than the sun in a harlequin-farce.
I went this morning to see the Duchess of Grafton, who has got an
excellent house and fine prospect, but melancholy enough, and so
I thought was she herself: I did not ask wherefore.
I go to town to-morrow to see the Devil upon Two Sticks,(1034) as
I did last week, but could not get in. I have now secured a
place in my niece Cholmondeley's box, and am to have the
additional entertainment of Mrs. Macauley in the same company;
who goes to see herself represented, and I suppose figures
herself very like Socrates.
I shall send this letter by the coach, as it is rather free
spoken, and Sandwich may be prying.
Mr. Chute has found the subject of my tragedy, which I thought
happened in Tillotson's time, in the Queen of Navarre's Tales;
and what is very remarkable, I had laid my plot at Narbonne and
about the beginning of the Reformation, and it really did happen
in Languedoc and in the time of Francis the First. Is not this
singular?(1035)
I hope your canary hen was really with egg by the blue-bird, and
that he will not plead that they are none of his and sue for a
divorce. Adieu!
(1032) Now first printed. In the preceding January Mr. Conway
had resigned his situation of secretary of state for the northern
department.-E.
(1033) Mr. Rigby.
(1034) Foote's successful comedy of The Devil upon Two Sticks was
first acted at the Haymarket on the 31st of May.-E.
(1035) See vol. i. p. 57.
Letter 345 To Monsieur De Voltaire.
Strawberry Hill, June 21, 1768. (page 523)
Sir,
You read English with so much more facility than I can write
French, that I hope you will excuse my making use of my own
tongue to thank you for the honour of your letter. If I employed
your language, my ignorance in it might betray me into
expressions that would not do justice to the sentiments I feel at
being so distinguished.
It is true, Sir, I have ventured to contest the history of
Richard the Third, as it has been delivered down to us; and I
shall obey your commands, and send it to you, though with fear
and trembling; for though I have given it to the world, as it is
called, yet, as you have justly observed, that world is comprised
within a very small circle of readers--and Undoubtedly I could
not expect that you would do me the Honour of being one of the
number. Nor do I fear you, Sir, only as the first genius in
Europe, who has illustrated every science; I have a more intimate
dependence on you than YOU Suspect. Without knowing it, you have
been my master, and perhaps the sole merit that may be found in
my writings is owing to my having studied yours; so far, Sir, am
I from living in that state of barbarism and ignorance with which
you tax me when you say que vous m'`etes peut-`etre inconnu. I
was not a stranger to your reputation very many years ago, but
remember to have then thought you honoured our house by dining
with my mother--though I was at school, and had not the happiness
of seeing you: and yet my father was in a situation that might
have dazzled eyes older than mine. The plain name of that
father, and the pride of having had so excellent a father, to
whose virtues truth at last does justice , is all I have to
boast. I am a very private man, distinguished by neither
dignities nor titles, which I have never done any thing to
deserve--but as I am certain that titles alone would not have
procured me the honour of your notice, I am content without
them.(1036)
But, Sir, if I can tell you nothing good of myself, I can at
least tell you something bad; and, after the obligation you have
conferred on me by your letter, I should blush if you heard it
from any body but myself. I had rather incur your indignation
than deceive you. Some time ago I took the liberty to find fault
in print with the criticisms you had made on our Shakspeare.
This freedom, and no wonder, never came to your knowledge. It
was in a preface to a trifling romance, much unworthy of your
regard, but which I shall send you, because I cannot accept even
the honour of your correspondence, without making you judge
whether I deserve it. I might retract, I might beg your pardon;
but having said nothing but what I thought, nothing illiberal or
unbecoming a gentleman, it would be treating you with ingratitude
and impertinence, to suppose that you would either be offended
with my remarks, or pleased with my recantation. You are as much
above wanting flattery, as I am above offering it to you. You
would despise me, and I should despise myself--a sacrifice I
cannot make, Sir, even to you.
Though it is impossible not to know you, Sir, I must confess my
ignorance on the other part of your letter. I know nothing of
the history of Monsieur de Jumonville, nor can tell whether it is
true or false, as this is the first time I ever heard of it. But
I will take care to inform myself as well as I can, and, if you
allow me to trouble you again, will send you the exact account as
far as I can obtain It. I love my country, but I do not love any
of my countrymen that have been capable, if they have been so, of
a foul assassination. I should have made this inquiry directly,
and informed you of the result of it in this letter, had I been
in London; but the respect I owe you, Sir, and my impatience to
thank you for so unexpected a mark of your favour, made me choose
not to delay my gratitude for a single post. I have the honour
to be, Sir, your most obliged and most obedient humble servant.
(1036) Voltaire had said, "Vous pardonnerez encore plus `a mon
ignorance de vos titres; je n'en respecte pas moins votre
personne; je connais plus votre m`erite que les dignit`es dont il
doit `etre rev`etu."-E.
Letter 346 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, June 25, 1768. (page 524)
You ordered me, my dear Lord, to write to you, and I am ready to
obey you, and to give you every proof of attachment in my power:
but it is a very barren season for all but cabalists, who can
compound, divide, multiply No. 45 forty-five thousand different
ways. I saw in the papers to-day, that somehow or other this
famous number and the number of the beast in the Revelations is
the same--an observation from which different persons will draw
various conclusions. For my part, who have no ill wishes to
Wilkes, I wish he was in Patmos, or the New Jerusalem, for I am
exceedingly tired of his name. The only good thing I have heard
in all this Controversy was of a man who began his letter thus:
"I take the Wilkes-and-liberty to assure you," etc.
I peeped at London last week, and found a tolerably full opera.
But now the birthday is over, I suppose every body will go to
waters and races till his Majesty of Denmark arrives. He is
extremely amorous; but stays so short a time, that the ladies who
Intended to be undone must not hagle. They must do their
business in the twinkling of an allemande, or he will be flown.
Don't you think he will be a little surprised, when he inquires
for the seriglio in Buckingham-house, to find, in full of all
accounts, two old Mecklenburgheresses?
Is it true that Lady Rockingham is turned Methodist? It will be a
great acquisition to the sect to have their hymns set by
Giardini. I hope Joan Huntingdon will be deposed, if the husband
becomes first minister. I doubt, too, the saints will like to
call at Canterbury and Winchester in their way to heaven. My
charity is so small, that I do not think their virtue a jot more
obdurate than that of patriots.
We have had some severe rain; but the season is now beautiful,
though scarce hot. The hay and the corn promise that we shall
have no riots on their account. Those black dogs the whiteboys
or coal-heavers are dispersed or taken; and I really- see no
reason to think we shall have another rebellion this fortnight.
The most comfortable event to me is, that we shall have no civil
war all the summer at Brentford. I dreaded two kings there; but
the writ for Middlesex will not be issued till the Parliament
meets; so there will be no pretender against King Glynn.(1037)
As I love peace, and have done with politics, I quietly
acknowledge the King de facto; and hope to pass and repass
unmolested through his Majesty's long, lazy, lousy capital.(1038)
My humble duty to my Lady Strafford and all her pheasants. I
have just made two cascades; but my naiads are fools to Mrs.
Chetwynd or my Lady Sondes, and don't give me a gallon of water
in a week.--Well, this is a very silly letter! But you must take
the will for the deed. Adieu, my dear Lord! Your most faithful
servant.
(1037) Serjeant Glynn, Member of Parliament for Middlesex.
(1038) Brentford.
Letter 347 To Monsieur De Voltaire.
Strawberry Hill, July 27, 1768. (page 525)
One can never, Sir, be sorry to have been in the wrong, when
one's errors are pointed out to one in so obliging and masterly a
manner. Whatever opinion I may have of Shakspeare, I should
think him to blame, if he could have seen the letter you have
done me the honour to -write to me, and yet not conform to the
rules you have there laid down. When he lived, there had not
been a Voltaire both to give laws to the stage, and to show on
what good sense those laws were founded. Your art, Sir, goes
still farther: for you have supported your arguments, without
having recourse to the best authority, your own words. It was My
interest perhaps to defend barbarism and irregularity. A great
genius is in the right, on the contrary, to show that when
correctness, nay, when perfection is demanded, he can still
shine, and be himself, whatever fetters are imposed on him. But
I will say no more on this head; for I am neither so unpolished
as to tell you to your face how much I admire you, nor, though I
have taken the liberty to vindicate Shakspeare against your
criticisms, am I vain enough to think myself an adversary worthy
of you. I am much more proud of receiving laws from you, than of
contesting them. It was bold in me to dispute with you even
before I had the honour of your acquaintance; it would be
ungrateful now when you have not only taken notice of me, but
forgiven me. The admirable letter you have been so good as to
send me, is a proof that you are one of those truly great and
rare men who know at once how to conquer and to pardon.
I have made all the inquiry I could into the story of M. de
Jumonville; and though your and our accounts disagree, I own I do
not think, Sir, that the strongest evidence is in our favour. I
am told we allow he was killed by a party of our men, going to
the Ohio. Your countrymen say he was going with a flag of truce.
The commanding officer of our party said M. de Jumonville was
going with hostile intentions; and that very hostile orders were
found after his death in his pocket. Unless that officer had
proved that he had previous intelligence of those orders, I doubt
he will not be justified by finding them afterwards; for I am not
at all disposed to believe that he had the foreknowledge of your
hermit,(1039) who pitched the old woman's nephew into the river,
because "ce jeune homme auroit assassin`e sa tante dans un an."
I am grieved that such disputes should ever subsist between two
nations who have every thing in themselves to create happiness,
and who may find enough in each other to love and admire. It is
your benevolence, Sir, and your zeal for softening the manners of
mankind; it is the doctrine of peace and amity which You preach
which have raised my esteem for you even more than the brightness
of your genius. France may claim you in the latter light, but
all nations have a right to call you their countryman du c`ot`e
du coeur. it is on the strength of that connexion that I beg
you, Sir, to accept the homage of, Sir, your most obedient humble
servant.(1040)
(1039) An allusion to the fable in Zadig, which is said to have
been founded on Parnell's Hermit, but which was most probably
taken from one of the Contes Devots, "De l'Hermite qu'un ange
conduisit dans le Si`ecle," and of which a translation, or rather
modernization, is to be found in the fifth volume of Le Grand
d'Aussy, Fabliaux (p. 165, ed. 1829). The original old French
version has been printed by Meou, in his Nouveau Recueil de
Fabliaux et Contes, tom. ii. p. 916.-E.
(1040) The letter of Voltaire, to which the above is a reply,
contained the following opinion of Walpole's Historical Doubts:-
-"Avant le d`epart de ma lettre, j'ai eu le tems, Monsieur, de
lire votre Richard Trois. Vous seriez un excellent attornei
general; vous pesez toutes les probabilit`es; mais il paroit que
vous avez une inclination secrette pour ce bossu. Vous voulez
qu'il ait `et`e beau gar`con, et m`eme galant homme. Le
b`en`edictin Calmet a fait une dissertation pour prouver que
Jesus Christ avait un fort beau visage. Je veux croire avec
vous, que Richard Trois n'`etait ni si laid, ni si m`echant,
qu'on le dit; mais je n'aurais pas voulu avoir affaire `a lui.
Votre rose blanche et votre rose rouge avaient de terribles
`epines pour la nation.
"Those gracious kings are all a pack of rogues. En lisant
l'histoire des York et des Lancastre, et de bien d'autres, on
croit lire l'histoire des voleurs de grand chemin. Pour votre
Henri Sept, il n'`etait que coupeur de bourses. Be a minister or
an anti-minister, a lord or a philosopher, I will be, with an
equal respect, Sir, etc."-E.
Letter 348 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, August 9, 1768. (page 527)
You are very kind, or else you saw into my mind, and knew that I
have been thinking of writing to you, but had not a penfull of
matter. True, I have been in town, but I am more likely to learn
news here; where at least we have it like fish, that could not
find vent in London. I saw nothing there but the ruins of loo,
Lady Hertford's cribbage, and Lord Botetourt, like patience on a
monument, smiling in grief. He is totally ruined, and quite
charmed. Yet I heartily pity him. To Virginia he cannot be
indifferent: he must turn their heads somehow or other. If his
graces do not captivate them, he will enrage them to fury; for I
take all his douceur to be enamelled on iron.
My life is most uniform and void of events, and has nothing worth
repeating. I have not had a soul with me, but accidental company
now and then at dinner. Lady Holderness,. Lady Ancram, Lady
Mary Coke, Mrs. Ann Pitt, and Mr. Hume, dined here the day before
yesterday. They were but just gone, when George Selwyn, Lord
Bolingbroke, and Sir William Musgrave, who had been at
Hampton-court, came in, at nine at night, to drink tea. They
told me, what I was very glad to hear, and what I could not
doubt, as they had it from the Duke of Grafton himself, that
Bishop Cornwallis(1041) goes to Canterbury. I feared it would be
****; but it seems he had secured all the backstairs, and not the
great stairs. As the last head of the church had been in the
midwife line, I supposed Goody Lyttelton(1042) had hopes; and as
he had been president of an atheistical club, to be Sure
Warburton did not despair. I was thinking it would make a good
article in the papers, that three bishops had supped with Nancy
Parsons at Vauxhall, in their way to Lambeth. I am sure ****,
would have been of the number; and **** who told the Duke of
Newcastle, that if his grace had commanded the Blues at Minden,
they would have behaved better, would make no scruple to cry up
her chastity.
The King of Denmark comes on Thursday; and I go to-morrow to see
him. It has cost three thousand pounds to new furnish an
apartment for him at St. James's; and now he will not go thither,
supposing it would be a confinement. He is to lodge at his own
minister Dieden's.
Augustus Hervey, thinking it the bel air, is going to sue for a
divorce from the Chudleigh.(1043) He asked Lord Bolingbroke
t'other day, who was his proctor'! as he would have asked for his
tailor. The nymph has sent him word, that if he proves her his
wife he must pay her debts; and she owes sixteen thousand pounds.
This obstacle thrown in the way, looks as if she was not sure of
being Duchess of Kingston. The lawyers say, it will be no valid
plea; it not appearing that she was Hervey's wife, and therefore
the tradesmen could not reckon on his paying them.
Yes, it is my Gray, Gray the poet, who is made professor of
modern history, and I believe it is worth five hundred a-year. I
knew nothing of it till I saw it in the papers; but believe //it
was Stonehewer that obtained it for him.(1044)
Yes, again; I use a bit of alum half as big as my nail, Once or
twice a-week, and let it dissolve in my mouth. I should not
think that using it oftener could be prejudicial. You should
inquire; but as you are in more hurry than I am, you should
certainly use it oftener than I do. I wish I could cure my Lady
Ailesbury too. Ice-water has astonishing effect on my stomach,
and removes all pain like a charm. Pray, though the one's teeth
may not be so white as formerly, nor t'other look in perfect
health, let the Danish King see such good specimens of the last
age--though, by what I hear, he likes nothing but the very
present age. However, sure you will both come and look at him:
not that I believe he is a jot better than the apprentices that
flirt to Epsom in a Tim-whisky; but I want to meet you in town.
I don't very well know what I write, for I hear a caravan on my
stairs, that are come to see the house; Margaret is chattering,
and the dogs barking; and this I call retirement! and yet I think
it preferable to your visit at Becket. Adieu! Let me know
something more of your motions before you go to Ireland, which I
think a strange journey, and better compounded for: and when I
see you in town I will settle with you another visit to
Park-place. Yours ever.
(1041) The Hon. Frederick Cornwallis, seventh son of Charles
fourth Baron Cornwallis, was translated from the see of Lichfield
and Coventry to that of Canterbury, on the death of Archbishop
Secker.-E.
(1042) Bishop of Carlisle. He died in December following; upon
which event, Warburton wrote to Dr. Hurd--"A bishop, more or
less, in the world, is nothing; and perhaps of as small account
in the next. I used to despise him for his antiquarianism, but
of late, since I grow old and dull myself, I cultivated an
acquaintance with him for the sake of what formerly kept us
asunder."-E.
(1043) On the 8th of March, 1769,, the lady publicly espoused
Evelyn Pierrepoint., Duke of Kingston; for which offence she was
impeached before the House of Peers, and the marriage declared
illegal. She subsequently retired to the continent, where she
died in 1788.-E.
(1044) The following is Gray's own account, in a letter of the
1st of August:--"I write chiefly to tell you, that on Sunday
se'nnight Brocket died by a fall from his horse, being, as I
hear, drunk: that on the Wednesday following I received a letter
from the Duke of Grafton, saying he had the King's command to
offer me the vacant professorship; and he adds, that from private
as well as public considerations, he must take the warmest part
in approving so well-judged a measure, etc. There's for you!"--
In a letter to Dr. Beattie, of the 31st of October, he says--"It
is the best thing the Crown has to bestow (on a layman) here; the
salary is four hundred pounds per annum; but what enhances the
value of it to me is, that it was bestowed without being asked.
Instances of a benefit so nobly conferred, I believe, are rare;
and therefore I tell you of it as a thing that does honour, not
only to me, but to the minister." Works, vol. IV. pp. 123,
127.-E.
Letter 349 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Aug. 13, 1768. (page 529)
indeed, what was become of you, as I had offered myself to you so
long ago, and you did not accept my bill; and now it is payable
at such short notice, that as I cannot find Mr. Chute, nor know
where he is, whether at your brother's or the Vine, I think I had
better defer my visit till the autumn, when you say you will be
less hurried, and more at leisure. I believe I shall go to
Ragley beginning of September, and possibly on to Lord
Strafford's, and therefore I may call on you, if it will not be
inconvenient to you, on my return.
I came to town to see the Danish King. He is as diminutive as if
he came out of a kernel in the Fairy Tales. He is not ill made,
nor weakly made, though so small; and though his face is pale and
delicate, it is not at all ugly, yet has a strong cast of the
late King, and enough of the late Prince of Wales to put one upon
one's guard not to be prejudiced in his favour. Still he has
more royalty than folly in his air; and, considering he is not
twenty, is as well as one expects any king in a puppet-show to
be. He arrived on Thursday, supped and lay at St. James's.
Yesterday evening he was at the Queen's and Carlton-house, and at
night at Lady Hertford's assembly. He only takes the title of
altesse, an absurd mezzotermine, but acts king exceedingly;
struts in the circle like a cock-sparrow, and does the honours of
himself very civilly. There is a favourite too, who seems a
complete jackanapes; a young fellow called Holke, well enough in
his figure, and about three-and-twenty, but who will be tumbled
down long before he is prepared for it. Bernsdorff, a
Hanoverian, his first minister, is a decent sensible man; I pity
him, though I suppose he is envied. From Lady Hertford's they
went to Ranelagh, and to-night go to the opera. There had like
to have been an untoward circumstance: the last new opera in the
spring, which was exceedingly pretty, was called "I Viaggiatori
Ridicoli," and\ they were on the point of acting it for this
royal traveller.
I am sure you are not sorry that Cornwallis is archbishop. He is
no hypocrite, time-server, nor high-priest. I little expected so
good a choice. Adieu! Yours ever.
Letter 350 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 16, 1768. (page 529)
As you have been so good, my dear lord, as twice to take notice
of my letter, I am bound in conscience and gratitude to try to
amuse you with any thing new. A royal visiter, quite fresh, is a
real curiosity--by the reception of him, I do not think many more
of the breed will come hither. He came from Dover in
hackney-chaises; for somehow or other the master of the horse
happened to be in Lincolnshire; and the King's coaches having
received no orders, were too good subjects to go and fetch a
stranger King of their own heads. However, as his Danish Majesty
travels to improve himself for the good of his people, he will go
back extremely enlightened in the arts of government and
morality, by having learned that crowned heads may be reduced to
ride in a hired chaise.
By another mistake, King George happened to go to Richmond about
an hour before King Christiern arrived in London. An hour Is
exceedingly long; and the distance to Richmond Still longer: so
with all the despatch that could possibly be made, King George
could not get back to his capital till next day at noon. Then,
as the road from his closet at St. James's to the King of
Denmark's apartment on t'other side of the palace is about thirty
miles, which posterity, having no conception of the prodigious
extent and magnificence of St. James's, will never believe, it
was half an hour after three before his Danish Majesty's courier
could go, and return to let him know that his good brother and
ally was leaving the palace in which they both were, in order to
receive him at the Queen's palace, which you know is about a
million of snail's paces from St. James's. Notwithstanding these
difficulties and unavoidable delays, Woden, Thor, Fria, and all
the gods that watch over the Kings of the North, did bring these
two invincible monarchs to each other's embraces about half an
hour after five that same evening. They passed an hour in
projecting a family compact that will regulate the destiny of
Europe to latest posterity: and then, the Fates so willing it,
the British Prince departed for Richmond, and the Danish
potentate repaired to the widowed mansion of his royal
mother-in-law, where he poured forth the fulness of his heart in
praises on the lovely bride she had bestowed on him, from whom
nothing but the benefit of his subjects could ever have torn him.
And here let Calumny blush, who has aspersed so chaste and
faithful a monarch with low amours; pretending that he has raised
to the honour of a seat in his sublime council, an artisan of
Hamburgh, known only by repairing the soles of buskins, because
that mechanic would, on no other terms, consent to his fair
daughter's being honoured with majestic embraces. So victorious
over his passions is this young Scipio from the Pole, that though
on Shooter's-hill he fell into an ambush laid for him by an
illustrious Countess, of blood-royal herself, his Majesty, after
descending from his car, and courteously greeting her, again
mounted his vehicle, without being one moment eclipsed from the
eyes of the surrounding multitude. Oh! mercy on me! I am out of
breath--pray let me descend from my stilts, or I shall send you
as fustiin and tedious a history as that of Henry II. Well then,
this great King is a very little one; not ugly, nor ill-made. He
has the sublime strut of his grandfather, or of a cock-sparrow;
and the divine white eyes of all his family by the mother's side.
His curiosity seems to have consisted in the original plan of
travelling for I cannot say he takes notice of any thing in
particular. His manner is cold and dignified, but very civil and
gracious and proper. The mob adore him and huzza him; and so
they did the first instant. At Present they begin to know why--
for he flings money to them out of his windows; and by the end of
the week I do not doubt but they will want to choose him for
Middlesex. His court is extremely well ordered; for they bow as
low to him at every word as if his name was Sultan Amurat. You
would take his first minister for only the first of his slaves.
I hope this example, which they have been so good as to exhibit
at the opera, will contribute to civilize us. There is indeed a
pert young gentleman, who a little discomposes this august
ceremonial. His name is Count Holke, his age three-and-twenty
and his post answers to one that we had formerly in England, many
ages ago, and which in our tongue was called the lord high
favourite. Before the Danish monarchs became absolute, the most
refractory of that country used to write libels, called North
Danes, against this great officer; but that practice has long
since ceased. Count Holke seems rather proud of his favour, than
shy of displaying it.
I hope, my dear lord, you will be content with my Danish
politics, for I trouble myself with no other. There is a long
history about the Baron de Bottetourt and Sir Jeffery Amherst,
who has resigned his regiment but it is nothing to me, nor do I
care a straw about it. I am deep in the anecdotes of the new
court; and if you want to know more of Count Holke or Count
Molke, or the grand vizier Bernsdorff, or Mynheer Schimmelman,
apply to me, and you shall be satisfied. But what do I talk of?
You will see them yourself. Minerva in the shape of Count
Bernsdorff, or out of all shape in the person of the Duchess of
Northumberland, is to conduct Telemachus to York races; for can a
monarch be perfectly accomplished in the mysteries of king-craft,
as our Solomon James I. called it, unless he is initiated in the
arts of jockeyship? When this northern star travels towards its
own sphere, Lord Hertford will go to Ragley. I shall go with
him; and, if I can avoid running foul of the magi that will be
thronging from all parts to worship that star, I will endeavour
to call at Wentworth Castle for a day or two, if it will not be
inconvenient; I should think it would be about the second week in
September, but your lordship shall hear again, unless you should
forbid me, who am ever Lady Strafford's and your lordship's most
faithful humble servant.
Letter 351To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(1045)
Arlington Street, Aug. 25, 1768. (page 531)
heartily glad you do not go to Ireland; it is very well for the
Duke of Bedford, who, as George Selwyn says, is going to be made
a mamamouchi. Your brother sets out for Ragley on Wednesday
next, and that day I intend to be at Park--place, and from thence
shall go to Ragley on Friday. I shall stay three or four days,
and then go to Lord Strafford's for about as many; and shall call
on George Montagu on my return, so as to be at home in a
fortnight, an infinite absence in my account. I wish you could
join in with any part of this progress, before you go to worship
the treasures that are pouring in upon your daughter by the old
Damer's death.(1046)
You ask me about the harvest--you might as well ask me about the
funds. I thought the land flowed with milk and honey. We have
had forty showers, but they have not lasted a minute each; and as
the weather continues warm and my lawn green,
"I bless my stars, and call it luxury."
They tell me there are very bad accounts from several colonies,
and the papers are full of their remonstrances; but I never read
such things. I am happy to have nothing to do with them, and
glad you have not much more. When one can do no good, I have no
notion of sorrowing oneself for every calamity that happens in
general. One should lead the life of a coffee-house politician,
the most real patriots that I know, who amble out every morning
to gather matter for lamenting over their country. I leave mine,
like the King of Denmark, to ministers and Providence; the latter
of which, like an able chancellor of the exchequer to an ignorant
or idle first lord, luckily does the business. That little King
has had the gripes, which have addled his journey to York. I
know nothing more of his motions. His favourite is fallen in
love with Lady Bel Stanhope,(1047) and the monarch himself
demanded her for him. The mother was not averse, but Lady Bel
very sensibly refused--so unfortunate are favourites the instant
they set their foot in England! He is jealous of
Sackville,(1048) and says, "ce gros noir n'est pas beau;" which
implies that he thinks his own whiteness and pertness charming.
Adieu! I shall see you on Wednesday.
(1045) Now first printed.
(1046) J. Damer, Esq., of carne in Dorsetshire, brother to the
first Lord Milton.-E.
)1047) Afterwards Countess of Sefton.-E.
(1048) Who afterwards succeeded to the Dukedom of Dorset.-E.
Letter 352 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 30, 1768. (page 532)
You are always heaping so many kindnesses on me, dear Sir, I
think I must break off all acquaintance with you, unless I can
find some way of returning them. The print of the Countess of
Exeter Is the greatest present to me in the world. I have been
trying for years to no purpose to get one. Reynolds the painter
promised to beg one for me of a person he knows, but I have never
had it. I wanted it for four different purposes. 1. As a
grandmother (in law, by the Cranes and Allingtons): 2. for my
collection of heads: 3. for the volumes of prints after pieces in
my collection: and, above all, for my collection of Faithornes,
which though so fine, wanted such a capital print: and to this
last I have preferred it. I give you unbounded thanks for it:
and yet I feel exceedingly ashamed to rob you. The print of Jane
Shore I had: but as I have such various uses for prints I easily
bestowed it. It is inserted in my Anecdotes, where her picture
is mentioned.
Thank you, too, for all your notices. I intend next summer to
set about the last volume of my Anecdotes, and to make still
further additions to my former volumes, in which these notes find
their place. I am going to reprint all my pieces together, and,
to my shame be it spoken, find they will at least make two large
quartos. You, I know, will be partial enough to give them a
place on a shelf, but as I doubt many persons will not be so
favourable, I Only think of leaving the edition behind me.
Methinks I should like for your amusement and my own, that you
settled to Ely: yet I value your health so much beyond either,
that I must advise Milton, Ely being, I believe, a very damp,
and, consequently, a very unwholesome situation. Pray let me
know on which you fix; and if you do fix this summer, remember
the hopes you have given me of a visit. My summer, that is, my
fixed residence here, lasts till November. My gallery is not
only finished, but I am going on with the round chamber at the
end of it; and am besides playing with the little garden on the
other side of the road, which was old Franklin's, and by his
death came into my hands. When the round tower is finished, I
propose to draw up a description and catalogue of the whole house
and collection, and I think you will not dislike lending me your
assistance.
Mr. Granger,(1049) of Shiplake, is printing his laborious and
curious Catalogue of English heads, with an accurate though
succinct account of almost all the persons. It will be a very
valuable and useful work, and I heartily wish may succeed; though
I have some fears. There are of late a small number of persons
who collect English heads but not enough to encourage such a
work: I hope the anecdotic part will make it more known and
tasted. It is essential to us, who shall love the performance,
that it should sell: for he prints no farther at first than to
the end of the first Charles: and, if this part does not sell
well, the bookseller will not purchase the remainder of the copy,
though he gives but a hundred pounds for this half'; and good Mr.
Granger is not in circumstances to afford printing it himself. I
do not compare it with Dr. Robertson's writings, who has an
excellent genius, with admirable style and manner; and yet I
cannot help thinking, that there is a good deal of Scotch puffing
and partiality, when the booksellers have given the Doctor three
thousand pounds for his Life of Charles V., for composing which
he does not pretend to have obtained any new materials.
I am going into Warwickshire; and I think shall go on to Lord
Strafford's, but propose returning before the end of September.
Yours ever.
(1049) The Rev. James Granger, Vicar of Shiplake in Oxfordshire;
where he died in 1776. See post, May 27, 1769.-E.
Letter 353 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, Monday, Oct. 10, 1768. (page 534)
I give you a thousand thanks, my dear Lord, for the account of
the ball at Welbeck. I shall not be able to repay it with a
relation of the masquerade to-night;(1050) for I have been
confined here this week with the gout in my foot, and have not
stirred off my bed or couch since Tuesday. I was to have gone to
the great ball at Sion on Friday, for which a new road,
paddock, and bridge were made, as other folks make a dessert. I
conclude Lady Mary Coke has, and will tell you of all these
pomps, which Health thinks so serious, and Sickness with her
grave face tells one are so idle. Sickness may make me moralize,
but I assure you she does not want humour. She has diverted me
extremely with drawing a comparison between the repose (to call
neglect by its dignified name) which I have enjoyed in this fit,
and the great anxiety in which the whole world was when I had the
last gout, three years ago--you remember my friends were then
coming into power. Lord Weymouth was so good as to call at least
once every day, and inquire after me; and the foreign ministers
insisted that I should give them the satisfaction of seeing me,
that they might tranquillize their sovereigns with the certainty
of My not being in any danger. The Duke and Duchess of Newcastle
were So kind, though very nervous themselves, as to send
messengers and long messages every day from Claremont. I cannot
say this fit has alarmed Europe quite so much. I heard the bell
ring at the gate, and asked with much majesty if it was the Duke
of Newcastle had sent? "No, Sir, it was only the butcher's boy."
The butcher's boy is, indeed, the only courier i have had.
Neither the King of France nor King of Spain appears to be under
the least concern about me.
My dear Lord, I have had so many of these transitions in my life,
that you will not wonder they divert me more than a masquerade.
I am ready to say to most people, "Mask, I know you." I wish I
might choose their dresses!
'When I have the honour of seeing Lady Strafford, I shall beseech
her to tell me all the news: for I am too nigh and too far to
know any. Adieu, my dear Lord!
(1050) A masquerade given at the Opera-house by the King of
Denmark; one of the most magnificent which had ever been given in
England. The jewels worn on the occasion by the maskers were
estimated to be of the value of two millions.-E.
Letter 354 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 10, 1768. (page 535)
I have not received the cheese, but I thank you as much
beforehand. I have been laid up with a fit of the gout in both
feet and a knee; at Strawberry for an entire month, and eight
days here: I took the air for the first time the day before
yesterday, and am, considering, surprisingly recovered by the
assistance of the bootikins and my own perseverance in drinking
water. I moulted my stick to-day, and have no complaint but
weakness left. The fit came just in time to augment my felicity
in having quitted Parliament. I do not find it so uncomfortable
to grow old, when One is not obliged to expose oneself in public.
I neither rejoice nor am sorry at your being accommodated in your
new habitation. It has long been plain to me that you choose to
bury yourself in the ugliest spot you can find, at a distance
from almost all your acquaintance; so I give it up; and then I am
glad you are pleased.
Nothing is stirring but politics, and chiefly the worst kind of
politics, elections. I trouble myself with no sort, but seek to
pass what days the gout leaves me or bestows on me, as quietly as
I can. I do not wonder at others, because I doubt I am more
singular than they are; and what makes me happy would probably
not make them so. My best compliments to your brother; I shall
be glad to see you both when you come; though for you, you don't
care how little time you pass with your friends. Yet I am, and
ever shall be Yours most sincerely.
Letter 355 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 15, 1768. (page 535)
You cannot wonder when I receive such kind letters from you, that
I am vexed our intimacy should be reduced almost to those
letters. It is selfish to complain, when you give me such good
reasons for your system: but I grow old; and the less time we
have to live together, the more I feel a separation from a person
I love so well; and that reflection furnishes me with arguments
in vindication of my peevishness. Methinks, though the contrary
is true in practice, prudence should be the attribute of youth,
not of years. When we approach to the last gate of life, what
does it signify to provide for new furnishing one's house? Youth
should have all those cares; indeed, charming youth is better
employed. It leaves foresight to those that have little occasion
for it. You and I have both done with the world, the busy world,
and therefore I would smile with you over what we have both seen
of it, and luckily we can smile both, for we have quitted it
willingly, not from disgust nor mortifications. However, I do
not pretend to combat your reasons, much less would I draw you to
town a moment sooner than it is convenient to you, though I shall
never forget your offering it. Nay, it is not so much in town
that I wish we were nearer, as in the country. Unless one lives
exactly in the same set of company, one is not much the better
for one's friends being in London. I that talk of giving up the
world, have only given up the troubles of it, as far as that is
possible. I should speak more properly in saying, that I have
retired out of the world into London. I always intend to place
some months between me and the moroseness of retirement. We are
not made for Solitude. It gives us prejudices, it indulges us in
our own humours, and at last we cannot live without them.
My gout is quite gone; and if I had a mind to disguise its
remains, I could walk very gracefully, except on going down
stairs. Happily, it is not the fashion to hand any body; the
nymph and I should soon be at the bottom.
Your old cousin Newcastle is going; he has had a stroke of the
palsy, and they think will not last two days.(1051) I hope he is
not sensible, as I doubt he would be too averse to his situation.
Poor man! he is not like my late amiable friend, Lady
Hervey;(1052) two days before She died, she wrote to her Son
Bristol these words: "I feel my dissolution coming on, but I have
no pain; what can an old woman desire more?" This was consonant
to her usual propriety--yes, propriety IS grace, and thus every
body may be graceful, when other graces are fled. Oh! but you
will cry, is not this a contradiction to the former part of your
letter? Prudence is one of the graces of age;-why--yes, I do not
know but it may and yet I don't know how, it is a musty quality;
one hates to allow it to be a grace--come, at least it is only
like that one of the graces that hides her face. In Short, I
have ever been so imprudent, that though I have much corrected
myself, I am not at all vain of such merit. I have purchased it
for much more than it was worth. I wish you joy of Lord
Guildford's amendment; and always take a full part in your
satisfaction or sorrow. Adieu! Yours ever.
(1051) The Duke of Newcastle died on the 17th.-E.
(1052) Lady Hervey died on the 2d of September, in the
sixty-eighth year of her age.-E.
Letter 356 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 1, 1768. (page 536)
I like your letter, and have been looking at my next door but
one. The ground-story is built, and the side walls will
certainly be raised another floor, before you think of arriving.
I fear nothing for you but the noise of workmen, and of this
street in front and Picadilly on the other side. If you can bear
such a constant hammering and hurricane, it will rejoice me to
have you so near me; and then I think I must see you oftener than
I have done these ten years. Nothing can be more dignified than
this position. From my earliest memory Arlington-street has been
the ministerial street. The Duke of Grafton is actually coming
into the house of Mr. Pelham, which my Lord president is
quitting, and which occupies too the ground on which my father
lived; and Lord Weymouth has just taken the Duke of Dorset's; yet
you and I, I doubt, shall always live on the wrong side of the
way.
Lord Chatham is reconciled to Lord Temple and George
Grenville.(1053) The second is in great spirits on the occasion;
and yet gives out that Lord Chatham earnestly solicited it. The
insignificant Lepidus patronizes Antony, and is sued to by
Augustus! Still do I doubt whether Augustus will ever come forth
again. Is this a peace patched up by Livia for the sake of her
children, seeing the imbecility of her husband? or is Augustus
to own he has been acting changeling, like the first Brutus, for
near two years? I do not know, I remain in doubt.
Wilkes has struck an artful stroke.(1054) The ministers, devoid
of all management in the House of Commons, consented that he
should be heard at the bar of the House, and appointed to-morrow,
forgetting the election for Middlesex is to come on next
Thursday: one would think they were impatient to advance riots.
Last Monday Wilkes demanded to examine Lord Temple: when that was
granted, he asked for Lord Sandwich and Lord March. As the first
had not been refused, the others could not. The Lords were
adjourned till to-day
@ , and, I suppose, are now sitting on this perplexing demand.
If Lord Temple desires to go to the bar of the Commons, and the
others desire to be excused, it will be difficult for the Lords
to know what to do. Sandwich is frightened out of his
senses,(1055) and March does not like it. Well! this will cure
ministers and great lords of being flippant in dirty tyranny,
when they see they may be worried for it four years afterwards.
The Commons, I suppose, are at this minute as hotly engaged on
the Cumberland election between Sir James Lowther and the Duke of
Portland. Oh! how delightful and comfortable to be sitting
quietly here a scribbling to you, perfectly indifferent about
both houses! You will Just escape having your brains beaten out,
by not coming this fortnight. The Middlesex election will be
over. Adieu! Yours ever.
(1053) Through the mediation of their mutual friend, Mr.
Calcraft, a reconciliation between Lord Chatham and Earl Temple
took place at Hayes, on the 25th of November, to which Mr.
Grenville heartily acceded. See Chatham Correspondence, vol,
iii. p. 349.-E.
(1054) Mr. Wilkes, on the 14th of November, had presented a
petition to the House of Commons, praying for a redress of his
grievances.-E.
(1055) By a reference to Sir Henry Cavendish's Debates, vol. i.
pp. 93, 131, it will be seen, that Lord Sandwich expressed,
through Mr. Rigby, his readiness to be examined, and that he was
examined on the 31st of January.-E.
Letter 357 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Sunday, March 26, 1769. (page 538)
I beg your pardon; I promised to send you news, and I had quite
forgot that we have had a rebellion; at least, the Duke of
Bedford says so. Six or eight hundred merchants, English, Dutch,
Jews, Gentiles, had been entreated to protect the Protestant
succession, and consented.(1056) They set out on Wednesday noon
in their coaches and chariots, chariots not armed with scythes
like our Gothic ancestors. At Temple-bar they met several
regiments of foot dreadfully armed with mud, who discharged a
sleet of dirt on the royal troop. Minerva, who had forgotten her
dreadful Egis, and who, in the shape of Mr. Boehm, carried the
address, was forced to take shelter under a Cloud in Nando's
coffeehouse, being more afraid of Buckhorse than ever Venus was
of Diomed; in short, it was a dismal day; and if Lord Talbot had
not recollected the patriot feats of his youth,(1057) and
recommenced bruiser, I don't know but the Duchess of
Kingston,(1058) who has so long preserved her modesty, from both
her husbands, might not have been ravished in the drawing-room.
Peace is at present restored, and the rebellion adjourned to the
thirteenth of April; when Wilkes and Colonel Luttrell are to
fight a pitched battle at Brentford, the Phillippi of antoninus.
Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fogi, know nothing of
these broils. You don't convert your ploughshares into
falchions, nor the mud of Adderbury into gunpowder. I tremble for
my painted windows, and write talismans of number forty-five on
every gate and postern of my castle. Mr. Hume is writing the
Revolutions of Middlesex, and a troop of barnacle geese are
levied to defend the capital. These are melancholy times!
Heaven send we do not laugh till we cry!
London, Tuesday, 28th.
Our ministers, like their Saxon ancestors, are gone to bold a
wittenagemoot on horseback at Newmarket. Lord Chatham, we are
told, is to come forth after the holidays and place himself at
the head of the discontented. When I see it I shall believe it.
Lord Frederick Campbell is, at last, to be married this evening
to the Dowager-countess of Ferrers.(1059) The Duchess of Grafton
is actually Countess of Ossory.(1060) This is a short gazette;
but, consider, it is a time of truce. Adieu!
(1056) A great riot took place on the 22d of March 1769, when a
cavalcade of the merchants and tradesmen of the city of London,
who were proceeding to St. James's with a loyal address, was so
maltreated by the populace, that Mr. Boehm, the gentleman to whom
the address was entrusted, was obliged to take refuge in Nando's
coffeehouse. His coach was rifled; but the address escaped the
search of the rioters, and was, after considerable delay, during
which a second had been voted and prepared, eventually presented
at St. James's.-E.
(1057) Lord Talbot behaved with great intrepidity upon this
occasion: though he had his staff of office broken in his hand,
and was deserted by his servants, he secured two of the most
active of the rioters. His example recalled the military to
their duty, who, without employing either guns or bayonets,
captured fifteen more.-E.
(1058) The Duke of Kingston had married Miss Chudleigh on the 8th
of this instant; the Consistory Court of London having declared,
on the 11th of February previous, that the lady was free from any
matrimonial contract with the Hon. Augustus John Hervey. On the
19th, she was presented, upon her marriage, to their Majesties;
who honoured her by wearing her favours, as did all the great
officers of state.-E.
(1059) See vol. iii. p. 58, letter 24. This unfortunate lady was
burnt to death at Lord Frederick's seat at Combe Bank, in July
1807.-E.
(1060) Lady Anne Liddel, only daughter of Henry Liddel, Lord
Ravensworth, married, in 1756, to Augustus Henry, third Duke of
Grafton; from whom being divorced by act of parliament, she was
married secondly, on the 26th of March, to the Earl of Ossory.-E.
Letter 358 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, April 15, 1769. (page 539)
I should be very sorry to believe half your distempers. I am
heartily grieved for the vacancy that has happened in your mouth,
though you describe it so comically. As the only physic I
believe in is prevention, you shall let me prescribe to you. Use
a little bit of alum twice or thrice in a week, no bigger than
half your nail, till it has all dissolved in your mouth, and then
spit out. This has fortified my teeth, that they are as strong
as the pen of Junius.(1061) I learned it of Mrs. Grosvenor, who
had not a speck in her teeth to her death. For your other
complaints, I revert to my old sermon, temperance. If you will
live in a hermitage, methinks it is no great addition to live
like a hermit. Look in Sadeler's prints, they had beards down to
their girdles; and with all their impatience to be in heaven,
their roots and water kept them for a century from their wishes.
I have lived all my life like an anchoret in London, and within
ten miles, shed my skin after the gout, and am as lively as an
eel in a week after. Mr. Chute, who has drunk no more wine than
a fish, grows better every year. He has escaped this winter with
only a little pain in one hand. Consider that the physicians
recommended wine, and then can you doubt of its being poison?
Medicines may cure a few acute distempers, but how should they
mend a broken constitution? they would as soon mend a broken
leg. Abstinence and time may repair it, nothing else can; for
when time has been employed to spoil the blood, it cannot be
purified in a moment.
Wilkes, who has been chosen member of Parliament almost as often
as Marius was consul, was again re-elected on Thursday. The
House of Commons, who are as obstinate as the county, have again
rejected him. To-day they are to instate Colonel Luttrell in his
place.(1062) What is to follow I cannot say, but I doubt
grievous commotions. Both sides seem so warm, that it Will be
difficult for either to be in the right. This is not a merry
subject, and therefore I will have done with it. If it comes to
blows, I intend to be as neutral as the gentleman that was going
out with his hounds the morning of Edgehill. I have seen too
much of parties to list with any of them.
You promised to return to town, but now say nothing of it. You
had better come before a passport is necessary: Adieu!
(1061) The Letters of Junius, the first of which appeared on the
21st of January, were now in course of publication, and exciting
great attention, not only in this country, but, as it would seem,
also in France: "On parle ici beaucoup de votre `ecrit de
Junius," writes Madame du Deffand to Walpole.-E.
(1062) Wilkes, having been expelled the House of Commons on the
3d of February 1769, was a third time elected for Middlesex on
the 16th of March. On the 17th, the election was declared by the
House to be null and void, and a new writ was ordered to be
issued. On the day of election, the 13th of April, Wilkes,
Luttrell, and Serjeant Whitaker presented themselves as
candidates, when the former, having a majority, was declared duly
elected. On the 14th, this election was pronounced void, and on
the 15th Henry Laws Luttrell, Esq. was duly elected, by 197
against 143, and took his seat accordingly.-E.
Letter 359 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, May 11, 1769. (page 540)
You are so wayward, that I often resolve to give you up to your
humours. Then something happens with which I can divert you, and
my good-humour returns. Did not you say you should return to
London long before this time? At least, could you not tell me you
had changed your mind? why am I to pick it out from your absence
and silence, as Dr. Warburton found a future state in Moses's
saying nothing of the matter! I could go on with a chapter of
severe interrogatories, but I think it more cruel to treat You as
a hopeless reprobate; yes, you are graceless, and as I have a
respect for my own scolding, I shall not throw it away upon you.
Strawberry has been in great glory; I have given a festino there
that will almost mortgage it. Last Tuesday all France dined
there: Monsieur and Madame du Chatelet,(1063) the Duc de
Liancourt,(1064) three more French ladies, whose names you will
find in the enclosed paper, eight other Frenchmen, the Spanish
and Portuguese ministers, the Holdernesses, Fitzroys, in short we
were four-and-twenty. They arrived at two. At the gates of the
castle I received them, dressed in the cravat of Gibbons's
carving, and a pair of gloves embroidered up to the elbows that
had belonged to James the First. The French servants stared, and
firmly believed this was the dress of English country gentlemen.
After taking a survey of the apartments, we went to the
printing-house, where I had prepared the enclosed verses, with
translations by Monsieur de Lille,(1065) one of the company. The
moment they were printed off, I gave a private signal, and French
horns and clarionets accompanied this compliment. We then went
to see Pope's grotto and garden, and returned to a magnificent
dinner in the refectory. In the evening we walked, had tea,
coffee, and lemonade in the gallery, which was illuminated with a
thousand, or thirty candles, I forgot which, and played at whist
and loo till midnight. Then there was a cold supper, and at one
the company returned to town, saluted by fifty nightingales, who,
as tenants of the manor, came to do honour to their lord.
I cannot say last night was equally agreeable. There was what
they called a ridotto el fresco at Vauxhall,(1066) for which one
paid half-a-guinea, though, except some thousand more lamps and a
covered passage all round the garden, which took off from the
gardenhood, there was nothing better than on a common night. Mr.
Conway and I set out from his house at eight o'clock; the line
and torrent of coaches was so prodigious, that it was
half-an-hour after nine before we got half-way from Westminster-
bridge. We then alighted; and after scrambling under bellies of
horses, through wheels, and over posts and rails, we reached the
gardens, where were already many thousand persons. Nothing
diverted me but a man in a Turk's dress and two nymphs in
masquerade without masks, who sailed amongst the company, and,
which was surprising seemed to surprise nobody. It had been
given out that people were desired to come in fancied dresses
without masks. We walked twice round and were rejoiced to come
away, though with the same difficulties as at our entrance; for
we found three strings of coaches all along the road, who did not
move half a foot in half-an-hour. There is to be a rival mob in
the same way at Ranelagh to-morrow; for the greater the folly and
imposition the greater is the crowd. I have suspended the
vestimenta that were torn off my back to the god of repentance,
and shall stay away. Adieu! I have not a word more to say to
you. Yours ever.
P. S. I hope you will not regret paying a shilling for this
packet.
(1063) Le Marquis du Chatelet, was son to la Marquise du
Chatelet, the commentator upon Newton, and the Am`elie of
Voltaire. The scandalous chronicles of the time accord to the
philosopher the honour of his paternity.-E.
(1064) The Duc de Liancourt, of the family de la Rochefoucauld,
grand ma`itre de la garde-robe du Roi. At the commencement of
the Revolution, his conduct was much blamed by those attached to
the court. He eventually emigrated to England, and, after
residing here some time, visited America, and published an
account of his travels in that country. In 1799, after the 19th
Brumaire, he returned to France. He died in March 1827, in his
eightieth year.-E.
(1065) M. de Lille was an officer of the French cavalry, an
agreeable man in society, and author of several pretty ballads
and vers de soci`et`e.
(1066) "They went to the Ridotto-'tis a hall
Where people dance, and sup, and dance again;
Its proper name, perhaps, were a masqued ball,
But that's of no importance to my strain;
'Tis (on a smaller scale) like our Vauxhall,
Excepting that it can't be spoilt by rain:
The company is 'mix'd'--the phrase I quote is
As much as saying, they're below your notice."
Beppo, st. 58.-E.
Letter 360 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, May 27, 1769. (page 541)
Dear Sir,
I have not heard from you this century, nor knew where you had
fixed yourself. Mr. Gray tells me you are still at Waterbeche.
Mr. Granger has published his Catalogue of Prints and Lives down
to the Revolution;(1067) and as the work sells well, I believe,
nay, do not doubt, we shall have the rest. There are a few
copies printed but on one side of the leaf. As I know you love
scribbling in such books as well as I do, I beg you will give me
leave to make you a present of one set. I shall send it in about
a week to Mr. Gray, and have desired him, as soon as he has
turned it over, to convey it to you. I have found a few
mistakes, and you will find more. To my mortification, though I
have four thousand heads, I find, upon a rough calculation, that
I still want three or four hundred.
Pray, give me some account of yourself, how you do, and whether
you are fixed. I thought you rather inclined to Ely. Are we
never to have the history of that cathedral? I wish you would
tell me that you have any thoughts of coming this way, or that
you would make me a Visit this Summer. I shall be little from
home this summer till August, when I think of going to Paris for
six weeks. To be sure you have seen the History of British
Topography,(1068) which was published this winter, and it is a
delightful book in our way. Adieu! dear Sir. Yours ever.
(1067) A Biographical History of England, from Egbert the Great
to the Revolution. A continuation, bringing the work down from
the Revolution to the end of George I.'s reign, was published in
1806, by the Rev. Mark Noble. In a letter to Boswell, of the
30th of August 1776, Dr. Johnson says--"I have read every word of
Granger's Biographical History. It has entertained me
exceedingly, and I do not think him the Whig that you supposed.
Horace Walpole being his patron is, indeed, no good sign of his
political principles; but he denied to Lord Mansfield that he was
a Whig, and said he had been accused by both parties of
partiality. It seems he was like Pope--
'While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory.'
I wish you would look more into his book; and as Lord Mountstuart
wishes much to find a proper person to continue the work upon
Granger's plan, and has desired I would mention it to you, if
such a man occurs, please to let me know. His lordship will give
him generous encouragement."-E.
(1068) By Richard Gough, the well-known antiquary. The second
edition, published in 1780, is a far better one.-E.
Letter 361 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, June 14, 1769. (page 542)
Dear Sir,
Among many agreeable passages in your last, there is nothing I
like so well as the hope you give me of seeing you here in July.
I will return that visit immediately: don't be afraid; I do not
mean to incommode you at Waterbeche; but, if you will come, I
promise I will accompany you back as far as Cambridge: nay, carry
you on to Ely, for thither I am bound. The Bishop(1068) has sent
a Dr. Nichols to me, to desire I would assist him in a plan for
the east window of his cathedral, which he intends to
benefactorate with painted glass. The window is the most
untractable of all Saxon uncouthness: nor can I conceive what to
do with it, but by taking off the bottoms for arms and mosaic,
splitting the crucifixion into three compartments, and filling
the five lights at top with prophets, saints, martyrs, and such
like; after shortening the windows like the great ones. This I
shall propose. However, I choose to see the spot myself, as it
will be a proper attention to the Bishop after his civility, and
I really would give the best advice I could. The Bishop, like
Alexander VIII., feels that the clock has struck half-an-hour
past eleven, and is impatient to be let depart in peace after his
eyes shall have seen his vitrification: at least, he is impatient
to give his eyes that treat; and yet it will be a pity to
precipitate the work. If you can come to me first, I shall be
happy; if not, I must come to you: that is, will meet you at
Cambridge. Let me know your mind, for I would not press you
unseasonably. I am enough obliged to you already; though, by
mistake, you think it is you that are obliged to me. I do not
mean to plunder you of any more prints; but shall employ a little
collector to get me all that are getable. The rest, the greatest
of us all must want.
I am very sorry for the fever you have had: but, Goodman Frog, if
you will live in the fens, do not expect to be as healthy as if
you were a fat Dominican at Naples. You and your MSS. will all
grow mouldy. When our climate is subject to no sign but Aquarius
and Pisces, would one choose the dampest country under the
heavens! I do not expect to persuade you, and so I will say no
more. I wish you joy of the treasure you have discovered: six
Saxon bishops and a Duke of Northumberland!(1069) You have had
fine sport this season. Thank you much for wishing to see my
name on a plate in the history. But, seriously, I have no such
vanity. I did my utmost to dissuade Mr. Granger from the
dedication, and took especial pains to get my virtues left out of
the question; till I found he would be quite hurt if I did not
let him express his gratitude, as he called it: so, to satisfy
him, I was forced to accept of his present; for I doubt I have
few virtues but what he has presented me with; and in a
dedication, you know, One is permitted to have as many as the
author can afford to bestow. I really have another objection to
the plate: which is, the ten guineas. I have so many
draughts on my extravagance for trifles, that I like better than
vanity, that I should not care to be at that expense. But I
should think either the Duke or Duchess of
Northumberland would rejoice at such an Opportunity of buying
incense; and I will tell you what you shall do. Write to Mr.
Percy, and vaunt the discovery of Duke Brithnoth's bones, and ask
him to move their graces to contribute a plate. They Could not
be so unnatural as to refuse; especially if the Duchess knew the
size of his thigh-bone.
I was very happy to show civilities to your friends, and should
have asked them to stay and dine, but unluckily expected other
company. Dr. Ewin seems a very good sort of man, and Mr.
Rawlinson a very agreeable one. Pray do not think it
was any trouble to me to pay respect to your recommendation.
I have been eagerly reading Mr. Shenstone's Letters, which,
though containing nothing but trifles, amused me extremely, as
they mention so many persons I know; particularly myself. I
found there, what I did not know, and what, I believe, Mr.
Gray,(1070) himself never knew, that his ode on my cat was
written to ridicule Lord Lyttelton's monody. It is just as true
as that the latter will survive, and the former be forgotten.
There is another anecdote equally vulgar, and
void of truth:
that my father, sitting in George's coffee-house, (I suppose Mr.
Shenstone thought that, after he quitted his place, he went to
the coffee-houses to learn news,) was asked to contribute to a
figure of himself that was to be beheaded by the mob. I do
remember something like it, but it happened to myself. I met a
mob, just after my father was out, in Hanover-square, and drove
up to it to know what was the matter. They were carrying about a
figure of my sister.(1071) This probably gave rise to the other
story. That on my uncle I never heard; but it Is a good story,
and not at all improbable. I felt great pity on reading these
letters for the narrow circumstances of the author, and the
passion for fame that he was tormented with; and yet he had much
more fame than his talents entitled him to. Poor man! he wanted
to have all the world talk of him for the pretty place he had
made; and which he seems to have made only that it might be
talked of.(1072) The first time a company came to see my house,
I felt this joy. I am now so tired of it, that I shudder when
the bell rings at the gate. It is as bad as keeping an
inn, and I am often tempted to deny its being shown, if it would
not be ill-natured to those that come, and to my housekeeper. I
own, I was one day too cross, I had
been plagued all the week with staring crowds. At
last, it rained a deluge. Well, said
I, at last, nobody will come to-day. The words were scarce
uttered, when the bell rang. I replied, "Tell them they cannot
possibly see the house, but they are very welcome to walk in the
garden."(1073) Observe; nothing above alludes to Dr. Ewin and
Mr. Rawlinson: I was not only much pleased with them, but quite
glad to show them how entirely you may command my house, and your
most sincere friend and servant.
(1068) Dr. Matthias Mawson, translated from Llandaff to the see
of Ely in 1754. He died in November 1770, in his eighty-seventh
year. His character was thus drawn, in 1749, by the Rev. W.
Clarke:--"Our Bishop is a better sort of man than most of the
mitred order. He is, indeed, awkward, absent, etc.; but then, he
has no ambition, no desire to please, and is privately munificent
when the world thinks him parsimonious. He has given more to the
Church than all the bishops put together for almost a
century."-E.
(1069) The following is an extract from a previous letter of Mr.
Cole's, and to this Mr. Walpole alludes:--"An old wall being to
be taken down behind the choir (at Ely], on which were painted
seven figures of six Saxon bishops, and a Duke, as he is called,
of Northumberland, one Brithnoth; which painting I take to be as
old as any we have in England--I guessed by seven arches in the
wall, below the figures, that the bones of these seven
benefactors to the old Saxon conventual church were reposited in
the wall under them: accordingly, we found seven separate holes,
each with the remains of the Said persons," etc. etc. Mr. Cole
proposed that Mr. Walpole should contribute an Engraving from
this painting to the history of Ely Cathedral, a work about to be
published, or to use his interest to induce the Duke of
Northumberland to do so.
(1070) "I have read," says Gray, in a letter to Mr. Nicholls, "an
octavo volume of Shenstone's Letters. Poor man! he was always
wishing for money, for fame, and other distinctions; and his
whole philosophy consisted in living against his will in
retirement, and in a place which his taste had adorned; but which
he only enjoyed when people of note came to see and commend it:
his correspondence is about nothing else but this place and his
own writings, with two or three neighbouring clergy, who wrote
verses too." Works, vol. iv. p. 135-E.
(1071) See vol. i. p. 244, letter 61.-E.
(1072) "In the infancy of modern gardening, a false taste was
introduced by Shenstone, in his ferme orn`ee at the Leasowes;
where, instead of surrounding his house with such a quantity of
ornamental lawn or park Only, as might be consistent with the
size of the mansion or the extent of the property, his taste,
rather than his ambition, led him to ornament the whole of his
estate; and in the vain attempt to combine the profits of a farm
with the scenery of a park, he lived under the continual
mortification of disappointed hope; and with a mind exquisitely
sensible, he felt equally the sneer of the great man at the
magnificence of his attempts and the ridicule of the farmer at
the misapplication of his paternal acres." Repton.-E.
(1073) Walpole having complained of these intrusions on his
privacy to Madame du Deffand, the lady replied: "Oh! vous n'`etes
point f`ach`e qu'on vienne voir votre chateau; vous ne l'avez pas
fait singulier; vous ne l'avez pas rempli de choses precieuses,
de raret`es; vous ne b`atissez pas un cabinet rond, dans lequel
le lit est un trone, et o`u il n'y a que des tabourets, pour y
rester seul oou ne recevoir que vos amis. Tout le monde a les
m`emes passions, les m`emes vertus, les m`emes vices; il n'y a
que les modifications qui en fond la diff`erence; amour propre,
vanit`e, crainte de l'ennui," etc.-E.
Letter 362 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Monday, June 26, 1769. (page 545)
Dear Sir,
Oh! yes, yes, I shall like Thursday or Friday, 6th or 7th,
exceedingly; I shall like your staying with me two days
exceedinglier; and longer exceedingliest; and I will carry you
back to Cambridge on our pilgrirnage to Ely. But I should not at
all like to be catched in the glories
of an installation, and find myself a doctor, before I knew where
I was. It will be much more agreeable to find the whole caput
asleep, digesting turtle, dreaming of bishoprics, and humming old
catches of Anacreon, and scraps of Corelli. I wish Mr. Gray
may not be set out for the north ; which is
rather the case than setting out for
the summer. We have no summers, I think, but what we raise, like
pineapples, by fire. My bay is an absolute water-soochy, and
teaches me how to feel for you. You are quite in the right to
sell your fief in Marshland. I should be glad if you would take
one step more, and quit Marshland. We live, at least, on terra
firma in this part of the world, and
can saunter out without stilts. Item,
we do not wade into pools, and call
it going upon the water, and get sore throats. I trust yours
is better ; but I recollect this is not the first you have
complained of. Pray be not incorrigible, but come to shore.
Be so good as to thank Mr. Smith, my old tutor, for his
corrections, If ever the Anecdotes are reprinted, I will
certainly profit of them.
I joked, it is true, about Joscelin de Louvain(1074) and his
Duchess; but not at all in advising you to make Mr. Percy pimp
for the plate. On the contrary, I wish you success , and think
this an infallible method of obtaining the benefaction. It is
right to lay vanity under contribution; for then both sides are
pleased.
It will not be easy for you to dine with Mr. Granger from hence,
and return at night. It cannot be less than six or
seven-and-twenty miles to Shiplake. But I go to
Park-place to-morrow, which is within two miles of him, and I
will try if I can tempt him to meet you here. Adieu!
(1074) The Duke of Northumberland. His grace having been
originally a baronet, Sir Hugh
Smithson, and having married the daughter of Algernon Seymour,
Duke of Somerset and Earl of Northumberland, in 1750 assumed the
surname and arms of Percy, and was created Duke of Northumberland
in 1766. Walpole's allusion is to his becoming a Percy by
marriage, as Joscelin had done before him: Agnes de Percy,
daughter of William de Percy the third baron, having only
consented to marry Joscelin of Louvain, brother of Queen
Adelicia, second wife of Henry I., and son of Godfrey Barbatus,
Duke of Lower Lorraine and Count of Brabant, who was descended
from the Emperor Charlemagne, upon his agreeing to adopt either
the surname or arms of Percy.-E.
Letter 363 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Arlington Street, July 3, 1769. (page 546)
When you have been so constantly good to me, my dear lord,
without changing, do you wonder that our friendship has lasted so
long? Can I be so insensible to the honour or pleasure of your
acquaintance When the advantage lies much on my side, am I likely
to alter the first? Oh, but it will last now! We have seen
friendships without number born and die. Ours was not formed on
interest, nor alliance; and politics, the poison of all English
connexions, never entered into ours. You have given me a new
proof by remembering the chapel of Luton. I hear it is to be
preserved; and am glad of it, though I might have been the better
for its ruins.
I should have answered your lordship's last post, but was at
Park-place. I think Lady Ailesbury quite recovered; though her
illness has made such an impression that she does not yet believe
it.
It is so settled that we are never to have tolerable weather in
June, that the first hot day was on Saturday-hot by comparison:
for I think it is three years since we have really felt the feel
of summer. I was, however, concerned to be forced to come to
town yesterday on some business; for, however the country feels,
it looks divine, and the verdure we buy so dear is delicious. I
shall not be able, I fear, to profit of it this summer in the
loveliest of all places, as I am to go to Paris in August. But
next year I trust I shall accompany Mr. Conway and Lady Ailesbury
to Wentworth Castle. I shall be glad to visit Castle Howard and
Beverley; but neither would carry me so far, if Wentworth Castle
was not in the way.
The Chatelets are gone, without any more battles with the
Russians.(1075) The papers say the latter have been beaten by
the Turks;(1076) which rejoices me, though against all rules of
politics: but I detest that murderess, and like to have her
humbled. I don't know that this Piece Of news is true: it is
enough to me that it is agreeable. I had rather take it for
granted, than be at the trouble of inquiring about what I have so
little to do with. I am just the same about the City and Surrey
petitions. Since I have dismembered(1077) myself, it is
incredible how cool I am to all politics.
London is the abomination of desolation; and I rejoice to leave
it again this evening. Even Pam has not a lev`ee above once or
twice a week. Next winter, I suppose, it will be a fashion to
remove into the city: for, since it is the mode to choose
aldermen at this end of the town, the maccaronis will certainly
adjourn to Bishopsgate-street, for fear of being fined for
sheriffs. Mr. James and Mr. Boothby will die of the thought of
being aldermen of Grosvenor-ward and Berkeley-square-ward. Adam
and Eve in their paradise laugh at all these tumults, and have
not tasted of the tree that forfeits paradise; which I take to
have been the tree of politics, not of knowledge. How happy you
are not to have your son Abel knocked on the head by his brother
Cain at the Brentford election! You do not hunt the poor deer
and hares that gambol around you. If Eve has a sin, I doubt it
is angling;(1078) but as she makes all other creatures happy, I
beg she would not Impale worms nor whisk carp out of one element
into another. If she repents of that guilt, I hope she will live
as long as her grandson Methuselah. There is a commentator that
says his life was protracted for never having boiled a lobster
alive. Adieu, dear couple, that I honour as much as I could
honour my first grandfather and grandmother! Your most dutiful
Hor. Japhet.
(1075) The Duc de Chatelet, the French ambassador, had affronted
Comte Czernicheff, the Russian ambassador, at a ball at court, on
a point of precedence, and a challenge ensued, but their meeting
was prevented.
(1076) Before Choczim. The Russians were at first victorious;
but, like the King of Prussia at the battle of Zorndorff, they
despatched the messenger with the news too soon; for the Turks
having recovered their surprise, returned to the charge, and
repulsed the Russians with great slaughter.-E.
(1077) Mr. Walpole means, since he quitted Parliament.
(1078) Walpole's abhorrence of the pastime of angling has been
already noticed. See vol. iii. p. 70, letter 29.-E.
Letter 364 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Friday, July 7, 1769. (page 547)
You desired me to write, if I knew any thing particular. How
particular will content you? Don't imagine I would send you such
hash as the livery's petition.(1079) Come; would the apparition
of my Lord Chatham satisfy you? Don't be frightened; it was not
his ghost. He, he himself in propria persona, and not in a strait
waistcoat, came into the King's lev`ee this morning, and was in
the closet twenty minutes after the lev`ee; and was to go out of
town to-night again.(1080) The deuce is in it if this is not
news. Whether he is to be king, minister, lord mayor, or
alderman, I do not know; nor a word more than I have told you.
Whether he was sent for to guard St. James's gate, or whether he
came alone, like Almanzor, to storm it, I cannot tell: by
Beckford's violence I should think the latter. I am so
indifferent what he came for, that I shall wait till Sunday to
learn: when I lie in town on my way to Ely. You will probably
hear more from your brother before I can write again. I send
this by my friend Mr. Granger, who will leave it at your
park-gate as he goes through Henley home. Good-night! it is past
twelve, and I am going to bed. Yours ever.
(1079) The petition of the livery of London, complaining of the
unconstitutional conduct of the King's ministers, and the undue
return of Mr. Luttrell, when he Opposed Mr. Wilkes at the
election for Middlesex.
(1080) In a letter to the Earl of Chatham, of the 11th, Lord
Temple says:--"Your reception at St. James's where I am glad you
have been, turns out exactly such as I should have expected--full
of the highest marks of regard to your lordship: full of
condescension, and of all those sentiments of grace and goodness
which his Majesty can so well express. I think that you cannot
but be happy at the result of this experiment." Chatham
Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 361.-E.
Letter 365 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, July 15, 1769. (page 548)
Dear Sir,
Your fellow-travellers, Rosette(1081) and I, got home safe and
perfectly contented with our expedition, and wonderfully obliged
to you. Pray receive our thanks and barking; and pray say, and
bark a great deal for us to Mr. and Mrs. Bentham, and all that
good family.
After gratitude, you know, always comes a little self-interest;
for who would be at the trouble of being grateful, if he had no
further expectations? Imprimis, then, here are the directions
for Mr. Essex for the piers of my gates. Bishop Luda must not be
offended at my converting his tomb into a gateway. Many a saint
and confessor, I doubt, will be glad soon to be passed through,
as it will, at least, secure his being passed over. When I was
directing the east window at Ely, I recollected the lines of
Prior:--
"How unlucky were Nature and Art to poor Nell!
She was painting her cheeks at the time her nose fell."
Adorning cathedrals when the religion itself totters, is very
like poor Nell's mishap.(1082) ***** I will trouble you with no
more at present, but to get from Mr. Lort the name of the Norfolk
monster, and to give it to Jackson. Don't forget the list of
English heads in Dr. Ewin's book for Mr. Granger; particularly
the Duchess of Chenreux. I will now release you, only adding my
compliments to Dr. Ewin, Mr. Tyson, Mr. Lort, Mr. Essex, and once
more to the Benthams. Adieu, dear Sir! Yours ever
Remember to ask me for icacias, and any thing else with which I
can pay some of my debts to you..
(1081) A favourite dog of Mr. Walpole's.
(1082) Here follow some minute directions for building the
gateway, unintelligible without the sketch that accompanied the
letter, and uninteresting with it, and a list of prints that Mr.
Walpole was anxious to procure.
Letter 366 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, August 12, 1769. (page 549)
Dear Sir,
I was in town yesterday, and found the parcel arrived very safe.
I give you a thousand thanks, dear Sir, for all the contents; but
when I sent you the list of heads I wanted, it was for Mr.
Jackson, not at all meaning to rob you; but your generosity much
outruns my prudence, and I must be upon my guard with you. The
Catherine Bolen was particularly welcome; I had never seen it--it
is a treasure, though I am persuaded not genuine, but taken from
a French print of the Queen of Scots, which I have. I wish you
could tell me from whence it was taken; I mean from what book: I
imagine the same in which are two prints, which Mr. Granger
mentions, and has himself (with Italian inscriptions, too), of a
Duke of Northumberland and an Earl of Arundel. Mr. Bernardiston
I never saw before--I do not know in what reign he lived--I
suppose lately: nor do I know the era of the Master of Benet.
When I come back, I must beg you to satisfy these questions. The
Countess of Kent is very curious, too; I have lately got a very
dirty one, so that I shall return yours again. Mrs. Wooley I
could not get high or low. But there is no end of thanking you-
-and yet I must for Sir J. Finet, though Mr. ; but I am sure
they will be very useful to me. I hope he will not forget me in
October. It will be a good opportunity of
sending you some good acacias, or any thing you Want
from hence. I am sure you ought to ask me for any thing in
my power, so much I am in your debt: I must
beg to be a little more, by entreating you to pay Mr. Essex
whatever he asks for his drawing, which is
just what I wished. The iron gates I have.
With regard to a history of Gothic architecture, in which he
desires my advices, the plan, I think, should lie in a very
simple compass. Was I to execute it, it
should be thus:--I would give a series of
plates, even from the conclusion of Saxon architecture, beginning
with the round Roman arch, and going on to show how they
plaistered and zigzagged it, and then how better ornaments crept
in till the beautiful Gothic arrived at its perfection: then how
it deceased in Henry the Eighth's reign--Abp. Wareham's tomb at
Canterbury, being I believe the last example of unbastardized
Gothic. A very few plates more would demonstrate its change:
though Holbein embroidered it with some morsels of true
architecture. In Queen Elizabeth's reign there was scarce any
architecture at all: I mean no pillars, or seldom, buildings then
becoming quite plain. Under James a barbarous composition
succeeded. A single plate of something of Inigo
Jones, in his heaviest and worst style, should terminate the
work; for he soon stepped into the true and perfect Grecian.
The next part, Mr. Essex can do better than any body, and is,
perhaps, the only person that can do it. This should
consist of observations on the art, proportions, and method of
building, and the reasons observed by the Gothic architects for
what they did. This would show what great men they
were, and how they raised such aerial and stupendous masses;
though unassisted by half the lights now enjoyed by their
successors. The prices and the wages of workmen, and
the comparative value of money and provisions at the several
periods, should be stated, as far as it is possible to get
materials.
The last part (I don't know whether it should not be the first
part) nobody can do so well as yourself. This must be to
ascertain the chronological period of each building; and not only
of each building but of each tomb, that shall be exhibited: for
you know the great delicacy and richness of Gothic ornaments were
exhausted on small chapels, oratories and tombs. For my own
part, I should wish to have added detached samples of the various
patterns of ornaments, which would not be a great many; as,
excepting pinnacles, there is scarce one which does not branch
from the trefoil; quadrefoils, cinquefoils, etc. being but
various modifications of it. I believe almost all the
ramifications of windows are so, and of them there should be
samples, too.
This work you see could not be executed by one hand; Mr. Tyson
could give great assistance. I wish the plan was drawn out, and
better digested. This is a very rude sketch, and first thought.
I should be very glad to contribute what little I know, and to
the expense too, which would be considerable; but I am sure we
could get assistance-and it had better not be undertaken than
executed superficially. Mr. Tyson's History of Fashions and
Dresses would make a valuable part of the work; as, in elder
times especially, much must be depended on tombs for dresses.
I have a notion the King might be inclined to encourage such
a work; and, if a proper plan was drawn out, for which I have not
time now, I would endeavour to get it laid before him, and his
patronage solicited. Pray talk this over with Mr. Tyson and Mr.
Essex. It is an idea worth pursuing.
You was very kind to take me out of the scrape about the organ
and yet if my insignificant name could carry it to one side, I
would not scruple to lend it.(1084) Thank you, too, for St.
Alban and Noailles. The very picture the latter describes was in
my father's collection, and is now at Worksop. I have scarce
room to crowd in my compliments to the good house of Bentham, and
to say, yours ever.
(1083) The Rev. Michael Tyson, of Bennet College, Cambridge. He
was elected F. S. A. in 1768, and died in
1780. He was greatly Esteemed by Mr. Gough, and is described as a
good antiquary and a gentleman artist. He engraved a remarkable
portrait of Jane Shore, some of the old
masters of his college, and some of the noted characters in and
about Cambridge.-E.
(1084) There was a dispute among the chapter at Ely respecting
the situation of the organ.
letter 367 To George Montagu, Esq.
August 18, 1769. (page 551)
As I have heard nothing of you since the Assyrian calends, which
is much longer ago than the Greek, you may perhaps have died in
Media, at Ecbatana, or in Chaldoea, and then to be sure I have no
reason to take it ill that you have forgotten me. There is no
Post between Europe and the Elysian fields, where I hope in the
Lord Pluto you are; and for the letters that are sent by Orpheus,
Aeneas, Sir George Villiers, and such accidental passengers, to
be sure one cannot wonder if they miscarry. You might indeed
have sent one a scrawl by Fanny, as Cock-lane is not very distant
from Arlington-street; but, when I asked her, she scratched the
ghost of a no, that made One's ears tingle again. If, contrary
to all probability, you still be above ground, and if, which is
still more improbable, you should repent of your sins while you
are yet in good health, and should go strangely further, and
endeavour to make Atonement by writing to me again, I think it
conscientiously right to inform you, that I am not in
Arlington-street, nor at Strawberry-hill, nor even in Middlesex;
nay, not in England; I am--I am--guess where--not in Corsica, nor
at Spa--stay, I am not at Paris yet, but I hope to be there in
two days. In short, I am at Calais, having landed about two
hours ago, after a tedious passage of nine hours. Having no soul
with me but Rosette, I have been amusing myself with the arrival
of a French officer and his wife in a berlin, which carried their
ancestors to one of Moli`ere's plays: as Madame has no maid with
her, she and Monsieur very prudently untied the trunks, and
disburthened the venerable machine of all its luggage themselves;
and then with a proper resumption of their equality, Monsieur
gave his hand to Madame, and conducted her in much ceremony
through the yard to their apartment. Here ends the beginning of
my letter; when I have nothing else to do, perhaps, I may
continue it. You cannot have the confidence to complain, if I
give you no more than my moments perdus; have you deserved any
better of me?
Saturday morning.
Having just recollected that the whole merit of this letter will
consist in the Surprise, I hurry to finish it, and send it away
by the captain of the packet, who is returning. You may repay me
this surprise by answering my letter, and by directing yours to
Arlington-street, from whence Mary will forward it to me. You
will not have much time to consider, for I shall set out on my
return from Paris the first of October,(1085) according to my
solemn promise to Strawberry; and you must know, I keep my
promises to Strawberry much better than you do. Adieu! Boulogne
hoy!
(1085) Mr. Walpole arrived at Paris on the 18th of august, and
left it on the 5th of October. On the 18th of July, Madame du
Deffand had written to him--"Vous souhaitez que je vive
quatre-vingt-huit ans; et pourquoi le souhaiter, si votre premier
voyage ici doit `etre le dernier'! Pour que ce souhait m'e`ut
`et`e agr`eable, il falloit y ajouter, 'Je verrai encore bien des
fois ma Petite, et je jouerai d'un bonheur qui n'`etoit r`eserv`e
qu'a moi, L'amiti`e la plus tendre, la plus sincere, et la plus
constants qu'il f`ut jamais.' Adieu! mon plaisir est troubl`e,
je l'avoue; je crains que ce ne soit un exc`es de complaisance
qui vous fasse faire ce voyage."-E.
Letter 368 To John Chute, Esq.
Paris, August 30, 1769. (page 552)
I have been so hurried with paying and receiving visits, that I
have not had a moment's worth of time to write. My passage was
very tedious, and lasted near nine hours for want of wind. But I
need not talk of my journey; for Mr. Maurice, whom I met on the
road, will have told you that I was safe on terra firma.
Judge of my surprise at hearing four days ago, that my Lord
Dacre(1086) and my lady were arrived here. They are lodged
within a few doors of me. He is come to consult a Doctor
Pomme,(1087) who has prescribed wine, and Lord Dacre already
complains of the violence of his appetite. If you and I had
pommed him to eternity, he would not have believed us. A man
across the sea tells him the plainest thing in the world; that
man happens to be called a doctor; and happening for novelty to
talk common sense, is believed, as if he had talked nonsense!
and what is more extraordinary, Lord Dacre thinks himself better,
though he is so.
My dear old woman(1088) is in better health than when I left her,
and her spirits so increased, that I tell her she will go mad
with age. When they ask her how old she is, she answers, "J'ai
soixante et mille ans." She and I went to the Boulevard last
night after supper, and drove about there till two in the
morning. We are going to sup in the country this evening, and
are to go tomorrow night at eleven to the puppet-show. A
prot`eg`e of hers has written a piece for that theatre. I have
not yet seen Madame du Barri, nor can get to see her picture at
the exposition at the Louvre, the crowds are so enormous that go
thither for that purpose. As royal curiosities are the least
part of my virt`u, I wait with patience. Whenever I have an
opportunity I visit gardens, chiefly with a view to Rosette's
having a walk. She goes nowhere else, because there is a
distemper among the dogs.
There is going to be represented a translation of Hamlet: who
when his hair is cut, and he is curled and powdered, I suppose
will be exactly Monsieur le Prime Oreste. T'other night I was at
M`erope. The Dumenil was as divine as Mrs. Porter; they said her
familiar tones were those of a poisonni`ere. In the last act,
when one expected the catastrophe, Narbas, more interested than
any body to see the event, remained coolly on the stage to hear
the story. The Queen's maid of honour entered without her
handkerchief, and with her hair most artfully undressed, and
reeling as if she was maudlin, sobbed Out a long narrative, that
did not prove true; while Narbas, with all the good breeding in
the world, was more attentive to her fright than to what had
happened. So much for propriety. Now for probability. Voltaire
has published a tragedy, called "Les Gu`e,bres." Two Roman
colonels open the piece: they are brothers, and relate to one
another, how they lately in company destroyed, by the Emperor's
mandate, a city of the Guebres, in which were their own wives and
children: and they recollect that they want prodigiously to know
whether both their families did perish in the flames. The son of
the one and the daughter of the other are taken up for heretics,
and, thinking themselves brother and sister, insist upon being
married, and upon being executed for their religion. The son
stabs his father, who is half a Gu`ebre, too. The high-priest
rants and roars. The Emperor arrives, blames the pontiff for
being a persecutor, and forgives the son for assassinating his
father (who does not die) because--I don't know why, but that he
may marry his cousin. The grave-diggers in Hamlet have no
chance, when such a piece as the Guebres is written agreeably to
all rules and unities. Adieu, my dear Sir! I hope to find you
quite well at my return. Yours ever.
(1086) Thomas Barret Lennard, seventeenth Baron Dacre. His
lordship married Ann Maria, daughter of Sir John Pratt, lord
chief-justice of the court of King's Bench.-E.
(1087) At that time the fashionable physician of Paris. He was
originally from Arles, and attained his celebrity by curing the
ladies of fashion in the French metropolis of the vapours.-E.
(1088) Madame du Deffand.
\Letter 369 To George Montagu, Esq.
Paris, Sept. 7, 1769. (page 553)
Your two letters flew here together in a breath. I shall answer
the article of business first. I could certainly buy many things
for you here, that you would like, the reliques of the last age's
magnificence; but, since my Lady Holderness invaded the
custom-house with a hundred and fourteen gowns, in the reign of
that two-penny monarch George Grenville, the ports are so
guarded, that not a soul but a smuggler can smuggle any thing
into England; and I suppose you would not care to pay
seventy-five per cent, on second-hand commodities. All I
transported three years ago, was conveyed under the canon of the
Duke of Richmond. I have no interest in our present
representative; nor if I had, is he returning. Plate, of all
earthly vanities, is the most impassable: it is not Counerband in
its metallic capacity, but totally so in its personal; and the
officers of the custom-house not being philosophers enough to
separate the substance from the superficies, brutally hammer both
to pieces, and return you only the intrinsic: a compensation
which you, who are a member of Parliament, would not, I trow, be
satisfied with. Thus I doubt you must retrench your generosity
to yourself, unless you can contract into an Elzevir size, and be
content with any thing one can bring in one's pocket.
My dear old friend was charmed with your mention of her, and made
me vow to return you a thousand compliments. She cannot conceive
why you will not step hither. Feeling in herself no difference
between the spirits of twenty-three and seventy-three, she thinks
there is no impediment to doing whatever one will but the want of
eyesight. If she had that, I am persuaded no consideration would
prevent her making me a visit at Strawberry Hill. She makes
songs, sings them, remembers all that ever were made; and, having
lived from the most agreeable to the most reasoning age, has all
that was amiable in the last, all that is sensible in this,
without the vanity of the former, or the pedant impertinence of
the latter. I have heard her dispute with all sorts of people,
on all sorts of subjects, and never knew her in the wrong. She
humbles the learned, sets right their disciples, and finds
conversation for every body. Affectionate as Madame de
S`evign`e, she has none of her prejudices, but a more universal
taste; and, with the most delicate frame, her spirits hurry her
through a life of fatigue that would kill me, if I was to
continue here. If we return by one in the morning from supping
in the country, she proposes driving to the Boulevard or to the
Foire St. Ovide, because it is too early to go to bed. I had
great difficulty last night to persuade her, though she was not
well, not to sit up till' between two or three for the comet; for
which purpose she had appointed an astronomer to bring his
telescopes to the President Henault's, as she thought it would
amuse me. In short, her goodness to me is so excessive, that I
feel unashamed at producing my withered person in a round of
diversions, which I have quitted at home. I tell a story; I do
feel ashamed, and sigh to be in my quiet castle and cottage; but
it costs me many a Pang, when I reflect that I shall probably
never have resolution enough to take another journey to see this
best and sincerest of friends, who loves me as much as my mother
did! but it is idle to look forward--what is next year?-a bubble
that may burst for her or me, before even the flying year can
hurry to the end of its almanack! To form plans and projects in
such a precarious life as this, resembles the enchanted
castles"of fairy legends, in which every gate Was guarded by
giants, dragons, etc. Death or diseases bar every portal through
which we mean to pass; and, though we may escape them and reach
the last chamber, what a wild adventurer is he that centres his
hopes at the end of such an avenue! I am contented with the
beggars of the threshold, and never propose going on, but as the
gates open of themselves.
The weather here is quite sultry, and I am sorry to say one can
send to the corner of the street and buy better peaches than all
our expense in kitchen gardens produces. Lord and Lady Dacre are
a few doors from me, having started from Tunbridge more suddenly
than I did from Strawberry Hill, but on a more unpleasant motive.
My lord was persuaded to come and try a new physician. His faith
is greater than mine! but, poor man! can one wonder that he is
willing to believe? My lady has stood her shock, and I do not
doubt will get over it.
Adieu, my t'other dear old friend! I am sorry to say I see you
almost as seldom as I do Madame du Deffand. However, it is
comfortable to reflect that we have not changed to each other for
some five-and-thirty years, and neither you nor I haggle about
naming so ancient a term. I made a visit yesterday to the Abbess
of Panthemont, General Oglethorpe's niece,(1089) and no chicken.
I inquired after her mother, Madame de Meziers, and I thought I
might to a spiritual votary to immortality venture to say, that
her mother must be very old; she interrupted me tartly, and said,
no, her mother had been married extremely young. Do but think of
its seeming important to a saint to sink a wrinkle of her own
through an iron grate! Oh, we are ridiculous animals; and if
animals have any fun in them, how we must divert them.
(1089) Sister of the Princess de Ligne.
Letter 370 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Paris, Sept. 8, 1769. (page 555)
T'other night, at the Duchess of Choiseul's at supper, the
intendant of Rouen asked me, if we have roads of communication
all over England and Scotland'@--I suppose he thinks that in
general we inhabit trackless forests and wild mountains, and that
once a year a few legislators come to Paris to learn the arts of
civil life, as to sow corn, plant vines, and make operas. If
this letter should contrive to scramble through that desert
Yorkshire, where your lordship has attempted to improve a dreary
hill and uncultivated vale, you will find I remember your
commands of writing from this capital of the world, whither I am
come for the benefit of my country, and where I am intensely
studying those laws and that beautiful frame of government, which
can alone render a nation happy, great, and flourishing; where
lettres de cachet soften manners, and a proper distribution of
luxury and beggary ensures a common felicity. As we have a
prodigious number of students in legislature of both sexes here
at present, I will not anticipate their discoveries; but as your
particular friend, will communicate a rare improvement on nature,
which these great philosophers have made, and which would add
considerable beauties to those parts which your lordship has
already recovered from the waste, and taught to look a little
like a Christian country. The secret is very simple, and yet
demanded the effort of a mighty genius to strike it out. It is
nothing but this: trees ought to be educated as much as men, and
are strange awkward productions when not taught to hold
themselves upright or bow on proper occasions. The academy de
belles-lettres have even offered a prize for the man that shall
recover the long lost art of an ancient Greek, called le sieur
Orph`ee, who instituted a dancing-school for plants, and gave a
magnificent ball on the birth of the Dauphin of Thrace, which was
performed entirely by forest-trees. In this whole kingdom there
is no such thing as seeing a tree that is not well-behaved. They
are first stripped up and then cut down; and you would as soon
meet a man with his hair about his ears as an oak or ash. As the
weather is very hot now, and the soil chalk, and the dust white,
I assure you it is very difficult, powdered as both are all over,
to distinguish a tree from a hairdresser. Lest this should sound
like a travelling hyperbole, I must advertise your lordship, that
there is little difference in their heights; for, a tree of
thirty years' growth being liable to be marked as royal timber,
the proprietors take care not to let their trees live to the age
of being enlisted, but burn them, and plant others as often
almost as they change their fashions. This gives an air of
perpetual youth to the face of the country, and if adopted by us
would realize Mr. Addison's visions, and
"Make our bleak rocks and barren mountains smile."
What other remarks I have made in my indefatigable search after
knowledge must be reserved to a future opportunity; but as your
lordship is my friend, I may venture to say without vanity to
You, that Solon nor any Of the ancient philosophers who travelled
to Egypt in quest of religions. mysteries, laws, and fables,
never sat up so late with the ladies and priests and presidents
de parlement at Memphis, as I do here--and consequently were not
half so well qualified as I am to new-model a commonwealth. I
have learned how to make remonstrances, and how to answer them.
The latter, it seems, is a science much wanted in my own
country(1090)--and yet it is as easy and obvious as their
treatment of trees, and not very unlike it. It was delivered
many years ago in an oracular sentence of my namesake,
"Odi profanum vulgus, et arceo." You must drive away the vulgar,
and you must have an hundred and fifty thousand men to drive them
away with--that is all. I do not wonder the intendant of Rouen
thinks we are still in a state of barbarism, when we are ignorant
of the very rudiments of government.
The Duke and Duchess of Richmond have been here a few days, and
are gone to Aubign`e. I do not think him at all well, and am
exceedingly concerned for it; as I know no man who has more
estimable qualities. They return by the end of the month. I am
fluctuating whether I shall not return with them, as they have
pressed me to do, through Holland. I never was there, and could
never go so agreeably; but then it would protract my absence
three weeks, and I am impatient to be in my own cave,
notwithstanding the wisdom I imbibe every day. But one cannot
sacrifice one's self wholly to the public: Titus and Wilkes have
now and then lost a day. Adieu, my dear lord! Be assured that I
shall not disdain yours and Lady Strafford's conversation, though
you have nothing but the goodness of your hearts, and the
simplicity of your manners, to recommend you to the more
enlightened understanding of your old friend.
(1090) Alluding to the number of remonstrances, under the name of
petitions, which were presented this year from the livery of
London, and many other corporate bodies, on the subject of the
Middlesex election.
Letter 371 To George Montagu, Esq.
Paris, Sunday night, Sept. 17, 1769. (page 557)
I am heartily tired; but, as it is too early to go to bed, I must
tell you how agreeably I passed the day. I wished for you; the
same scenes strike us both, and the same kind of visions has
amused us both ever since we were born.
Well then: I went this morning to Versailles with my niece Mrs.
Cholmondeley, Mrs. Hart, Lady Denbigh's sister, and the Count de
Grave, one of the most amiable, humane, and obliging men alive.
Our first object was to see Madame du Barri.(1091) Being too
early for mass, we saw the Dauphin and his brothers at dinner.
The eldest is the picture of the Duke of Grafton, except that he
is more fair, and will be taller. He has a sickly air, and no
grace. The Count de Provence has a very pleasing countenance,
with an air of more sense than the Count d'Artois, the genius of
the family. They already tell as many bon-mots of the latter as
of Henri Quatre and Louis Quatorze. He is very fat, and the most
like his grandfather of all the children. You may imagine this
royal mess did not occupy us long: thence to the chapel, where a
first row in the balconies was kept for us. Madame du Barri
arrived over against us below, without rouge, without powder, and
indeed sans avoir fait sa toilette; an odd appearance, as she was
so conspicuous, close to the altar, and amidst both court and
people. She is pretty, when you consider her; yet so little
striking, that I never should have asked who she was. There is
nothing bold, assuming, or affected in her manner. Her husband's
sister was alone, with her. In the tribune above, surrounded by
prelates, was the amorous and still handsome King. One could not
help smiling at the mixture of piety, pomp, and carnality. From
chapel we went to the dinner of the elder Mesdames. We were
almost stifled in the antechamber, where their dishes were
heating over charcoal, and where we could not stir for the press.
When the doors are opened every body rushes in, princes of the
blood, cordons bleus, abb`es, housemaids, and the Lord knows who
and what. Yet, so used are their highnesses to this trade, that
they eat as comfortably and heartily as you or I could do in our
own parlours.
Our second act was much more agreeable. We quitted the court and
a reigning mistress, for a dead one and a cloister. In short, I
had obtained leave from the Bishop of Chartres to enter into St.
Cyr; and, as Madame du Deffand never leaves any thing undone that
can give me satisfaction, she had written to the abbess to desire
I might see every thing that could be seen there. The Bishop's
order was to admit me, Monsieur de Grave, et les dames de ma
compagnie: I begged the abbess to give me back the order, that I
might deposit it in the archives of Strawberry, and she complied
instantly. Every door flew open to us: and the nuns vied in
attentions to please us. The first thing I desired to see was
Madame de Maintenon's apartment. It consists of' two small
rooms, a library, and a very small chamber, the same in which the
Czar saw her, and in which she died. The bed is taken away, and
the room covered now with bad pictures of the royal family, which
destroys the gravity and simplicity. It is wainscotted with oak,
with plain chairs of the same, covered with dark blue damask.
Every where else the chairs are of blue cloth. The simplicity and
extreme neatness of the whole house, which is vast, are very
remarkable. A large apartment above, (for that I have mentioned
is on the ground-floor,) consisting of five rooms, and destined
by Louis Quatorze for Madame de Maintenon, is now the infirmary,
with neat white linen beds, and decorated with every text of
Scripture by which could be insinuated that the foundress was a
Queen. The hour of vespers being come, we were conducted to the
chapel, and, as it was my curiosity that had led us thither, I
was placed in the Maintenon's own tribune; my company in the
adjoining gallery. The pensioners two and two, each band headed
by a man, March orderly to their seats, and sing the whole
service, which I confess was not a little tedious. The young
ladies to the number of two hundred and fifty are dressed in
black, with short aprons of the same, the latter and their stays
bound with blue, yellow, green or red, to distinguish the
classes; the captains and lieutenants have knots of a different
colour for distinction. Their hair is curled and powdered, their
coiffure a sort of French round-eared caps, with white tippets, a
sort of ruff and large tucker: in short, a very pretty dress.
The nuns are entirely in black, with crape veils and long trains,
deep white handkerchiefs, and forehead cloths, and a very long
train. The chapel is plain but very pretty, and in the middle of
the choir under a flat marble lies the foundress. Madame de
Cambis, one of the nuns, who are about forty, is beautiful as a
Madonna.(1092) The abbess has no distinction but a larger and
richer gold cross: her apartment consists of two very small
rooms. Of Madame de Maintenon we did not see less than twenty
pictures. The young one looking over her shoulder has a round
face, without the least resemblance to those of her latter age.
That in the roil mantle, of which you know I have a copy, is the
most repeated; but there is another with a longer and leaner
face, which has by far the most sensible look. She is in black,
with a high point head and band, a long train, and is sitting in
a chair of purple velvet. Before her knees stands her niece
Madame de Noailles, a child; at a distance a view of Versailles
or St. Cyr, I could not distinguish which. We were shown some
rich reliquaries, and the corpo santo that was sent to her by the
Pope. We were then carried into the public room of each class.
In the first, the young ladies, who were playing at chess, were
ordered to sing to us the choruses of Athaliah; in another, they
danced minuets and country-dances while a nun, not quite so able
as St. Cecilia, played on a violin. In the others, they acted
before us the proverbs or conversations written by Madame de
Maintenon for their instruction; for she was not only their
foundress but their saint, and their adoration of her memory has
quite eclipsed the Virgin Mary. We saw their dormitory, and saw
them at supper; and at last were carried to their archives. where
they produced volumes of her letters, and where one of the nuns
gave me a small piece of paper with three sentences in her
handwriting. I forgot to tell you, that this kind dame, who took
to me extremely, asked me if we had many convents and many relics
in England. I was much embarrassed for fear of destroying her
good opinion of me, and so said we had but few now. Oh! we went
to the apothecaries where they treated us with cordials, and
where one of the ladies told me inoculation was a sin, as it was
a voluntary detention from mass, and as voluntary a cause of
eating gras. Our visit concluded in the garden, now grown very
venerable, where the young ladies played at little games before
us. After a stay of four hours we took our leave. I begged the
abbess's blessing; she smiled, and said, she doubted I should not
place much faith in it. She is a comely old gentlewoman, and
very proud of having seen Madame de Maintenon. Well! was not I
in the right to wish you with me? could you have passed a day
more agreeably!
I will conclude my letter with a most charming trait of Madame de
Mailly, which cannot be misplaced in such a chapter of royal
concubines. Going to St. Sulpice, after she had lost the King's
heart, a person present desired the crowd to make way for her.
Some brutal young officers said, "Comment, pour cette catin-l`a!"
She turned to them, and, with the most charming modesty said,
"Messieurs, puisque vous me COnnoissez, priez Dieu pour moi." I
am sure it will bring tears into your eyes. Was not she the
Publican, and Maintenon the Pharisee? Good night! I hope I am
going to dream of all I have been seeing. As my impressions and
my fancy, when I am pleased, are apt to be strong. My night
perhaps, may still be more productive of ideas than the day has
been. It will be charming, indeed, if Madame de Cambis is the
ruling tint. Adieu! Yours ever.
(1091) Madame du Barry, the celebrated mistress of Louis XV., was
born in the lowest rank of society, and brought up in the most
depraved habits; being known only by the name which her beauty
had acquired for her, Mademoiselle l'Ange. She became the
mistress of the Comte du Barry, (a gentleman belonging to a
family of Toulon, of no distinction, well known as Le Grand du
Barry, or, Du Barry le Rou`e,) and eventually the mistress of the
King; and, when the influence she exercised over her royal
protector had determined him to receive her publicly at court and
a marriage was necessary to the purpose, Du Barry le Rou`e
brought forward his younger brother, the Comte Guillaume du
Barry, who readily submitted to this prostitution of his name and
family.-E.
(1092) Madame du Deffand, in her letter to Walpole of the 10th of
May 1776, enclosed the following portrait of Madame de Cambise,
by Madame de la Valli`ere:--"Non, non, Madame, je ne farai point
votre portrait: vous avez une mani`ere d'`etre si noble, si fine,
si piquante, si d`elicate, si s`eduisaitte; votre gentilesse et
vos graces changent si souvent pour n'en `etre que plus aimable,
que l'on ne peut saisir aucun de vos traits ni au physique ni au
moral." She was niece of La Marquise de Boufflers, and, having
fled to England at the breaking out of the French Revolution,
resided here until her death, which took place at Richmond in
January 1809.-E.
Letter 372 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Oct. 13, 1769. (page 560
I arrived last night at eleven o'clock, and found a letter from
you, which gave me so much pleasure, that I must write you a
line, though I am hurried to death. You cannot imagine how
rejoiced I am that Lord North(1093) drags you to light again; it
is a satisfaction I little expected. When do you come? I am
impatient. I long to know your projects.
I had a dreadful passage of eight hours, was drowned, though not
shipwrecked, and was sick to death. I have been six times at sea
before, and never suffered the least, which makes the
mortification the greater: but as Hercules was not more robust
than I, though with an air so little Herculean, I have not so
much as caught cold, though I was wet to the skin with the rain,
had my lap full of waves, was washed from head to foot in the
boat at ten o'clock at night, and stepped into the sea up to my
knees. Q'avois-je `a faire dans cette gal`ere?(1094) In truth,
it is a little late to be seeking adventures. Adieu! I must
finish, but I am excessively happy with what you have told me.
Yours ever.
(1093) Lord North had appointed Mr. Montagu his private
secretary.
(1094) Walpole left Paris on the 5th of October. Early on the
morning of the 6th, Madame du Deffand thus wrote to him:-
-"N'exigez point de gaiet`e, contentez-vous de ne pas trouver de
tristesse: je n'envoyai point chez vous hier matin; j'ignore `a
quelle heure vous partites; tout ce que je sais c'est que vous
n'`etes plus ici." And again, on the 9th:--"Je ne respirerai `a
mon aise qu'apr`es une lettre de Douvres. Ah! je me ha`is bien
de tout le mal que je vous cause; trois journ`ees de route,
autant de nuits d`etestables, une embarquement, un passage, le
risque de mille accidens, voil`a le bien que je vous procure.
Ah! c'est bien vous qui pouvez dire en pensant de moi,
'Qu'allais-je faire dans cette gal`ere?'"-E.
Letter 373 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 16, 1769. (page 560)
I arrived at my own Louvre last Wednesday night, and am now at my
Versailles. Your last letter reached me but two days before I
left Paris, for I have been an age at Calais and upon the sea. I
could execute no commission for you, and, in truth, you gave me
no explicit one; but I have brought you a bit of china, and beg
you will be content with a little present, instead of a bargain.
Said china is, or will be soon, in the custom-house; but I shall
have it, I fear, long before you come to London.
I am sorry those boys got at my tragedy. I beg you would keep it
under lock and key; it is not at all food for the public; at
least not till I am "food for worms, good Percy." Nay, it is not
an age to encourage any body, that has the least vanity, to step
forth. There is a total extinction of all taste: our authors are
vulgar, gross, illiberal: the theatre swarms with wretched
translations, and ballad operas, and we have nothing new but
improving abuse. I have blushed at Paris, when the papers came
over crammed with ribaldry, or with Garrick's insufferable
nonsense about Shakspeare. As that man's writings will be
preserved by his name, who will believe that he was a tolerable
actor? Cibber wrote as bad odes, but then Cibber wrote The
Careless Husband and his own Life, which both deserve
immortality. Garrick's prologues and epilogues are as bad as his
Pindarics and pantomimes.(1095)
I feel myself here like a swan, that, after living six weeks in a
nasty pool upon a common, is got back into its own Thames. I do
nothing but plume and clean myself, and enjoy the verdure and
silent waves. Neatness and greenth are so essential in my
opinion to the country, that in France, where I see nothing but
chalk and dirty peasants, I seem in a terrestrial purgatory that
is neither town nor country. The face of England is so
beautiful, that I do not believe Tempe or Arcadia were half so
rural; for both lying in hot climates, must have wanted the turf
of our lawns. It IS unfortunate to have so pastoral a taste,
when I want a cane more than a crook. We are absurd creatures;
at twenty, I loved nothing but London.
Tell me when you shall be in town. I think of passing Most Of my
time here till after Christmas. Adieu!
(1095) Mr. J. Sharp, in a letter to Garrick, of the 29th of March
in this year, says--"I met Mr. Gray at dinner last Sunday: he
spoke handsomely of your happy knack of epilogues; but he calls
the Stratford Jubilee, Vanity Fair." See Garrick Correspondence,
vol. i. p. 337.-E.
Letter 374 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Tuesday, Nov. 14, 1769. (page 561)
I am here quite alone, and did not think of going to town till
Friday for the opera, which I have not yet seen. In compliment
to you and your Countess, I will make an effort, and be there on
Thursday; and will either dine with you at your own house, or at
your brother's; which you choose. This is a great favour, and
beyond my Lord Temple's journey to dine with my Lord Mayor.(1096)
I am so sick of the follies of all sides, that I am happy to be
at quiet here, and to know no more of them than what I am forced
to see in the newspapers; and those I skip over as fast as I can.
The account you give me of Lady *** was just the same as I
received from Paris. I will show you a very particular letter I
received by a private hand from France; which convinces me that I
guessed right, contrary to all the wise, that the journey to
Fontainbleau would overset Monsieur de Choiseul. I think he
holds but by a thread, which will snap soon.(1097) I am
labouring hard with the Duchess(1098) to procure the Duke of
Richmond satisfaction in the favour he has asked about his
duchy;' but he shall not know it till it is completed, if I can
be so lucky as to succeed. I think I shall, if they do not fall
immediately.
You perceive how barren I am, and why I have not written to you.
I pass my time in clipping and pasting prints; and do not think I
have read forty pages since I came to England. I bought a poem
called Trinculo's Trip to the Jubilee; having been struck with
two lines in an extract in the papers,
"There the ear-piercing fife,
And the ear-piercing wife--"
Alas! all the rest, and it is very long, is a heap of
unintelligible nonsense, about Shakspeare, politics, and the Lord
knows what. I am grieved that, with our admiration of
Shakspeare, we can do nothing but write worse than ever he did.
One would think the age studied nothing but his Love's Labour
Lost, and Titus Andronicus. Politics and abuse have totally
corrupted our taste. Nobody thinks of writing a line that is to
last beyond the next fortnight. We might as well be given up to
a controversial divinity, The times put me in mind of the
Constantinopolitan empire; where, in an age of learning, the
subtlest wits of Greece contrived to leave nothing behind them,
but the memory of their follies and acrimony. Milton did not
write his Paradise Lost till he had Outlived his politics. With
all his parts, and noble sentiments of liberty, who would
remember him for his barbarous prose? Nothing is more true than
that extremes meet. The licentiousness of the press makes us as
savage as our Saxon ancestors, who could only set their marks;
and an outrageous pursuit of individual independence, grounded on
selfish views, extinguishes genius as much as despotism does.
The public good of our country is never thought of by men that
hate half their country. Heroes confine their ambition to be
leaders of the mob. Orators seek applause from their faction,
not from posterity; and ministers forget foreign enemies, to
defend themselves against a majority in Parliament. When any
Caesar has conquered Gaul, I will excuse him for aiming at the
perpetual dictature. If he has only jockeyed somebody out of the
borough of Veii or Falernum, it is too impudent to call himself a
patriot or a statesman. Adieu!
(1096) At Guildhall, on the 9th of November, in the second
mayoralty of Alderman Beckford.-E.
(1097) Walpole had received a letter, of the 2d, from Madame du
Deffand, describing the growing influence of Madame du Barry, and
her increasing enmity to the Duc de Choiseul.-E.
(1098) The Duchess of Aubign`e.
Letter 375 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 14, 1769. (page 562)
I cannot be silent, when I feel for you. I doubt not but the
loss of Mrs. Trevor is very sensible to you, and I am heartily
sorry for you. One cannot live any time, and not perceive the
world slip away, as it were, from under one's feet: one's
friends, one's connexions drop off, and indeed reconcile one to
the same passage; but why repeat these things? I do not mean to
write a fine consolation; all I intended was to tell you, that I
cannot be indifferent to what concerns you.
I know as little how to amuse you: news there are none but
politics, and politics there will be as long as we have a
shilling left. They are no amusement to me, except in seeing two
or three sets of people worry one another, for none of whom I
care a straw.
Mr. Cumberland has produced a comedy called The Brothers. It
acts well, but reads ill; though I can distinguish strokes of Mr.
Bentley in it. Very few of the characters are marked, and the
serious ones have little nature, and the comic ones are rather
too much marked; however, the three middle acts diverted me very
well.(1099)
I saw the Bishop of Durham(1100) at Carlton House, who told me he
had given you a complete suit of armour. I hope you will have no
occasion to lock yourself in it, though, between the fools and
the knaves of the present time, I don't know but we may be
reduced to defend our castles. If you retain any connexions with
Northampton, I should be much obliged to you if you could procure
from thence a print of an Alderman Backwell.(1101) It is
valuable for nothing but its rarity, and it is not to be met with
but there. I would give eight or ten shillings rather than not
have it. When shall you look towards us?, how does your brother
John? make my compliments to him. I need not say how much I am
yours ever.
(1099) "The Brothers," Cumberland's first comedy, came out at
Covent-Garden theatre on the 2d of December, and met with no
inconsiderable success.-E.
(1100) The Hon. Dr. Richard Trevor, consecrated Bishop of St.
David's in 1744, and translated to the see of Durham in 1762. He
died in June 1771.-E.
(1101) Edward Backwell, alderman of London, of whom Granger gives
the following character:--"He was a banker of great ability,
industry, integrity, and very extensive credit. With such
qualifications, he, in a trading nation, would, in the natural
event of things, have made a fortune, except in such an age as
that of charles the Second, when the laws were overborne by
perfidy, violence, and rapacity; or in an age when bankers become
gamesters, instead of merchant-adventurers; when they affect to
live like princes, and are, with their miserable creditors, drawn
into the prevailing vortex of luxury. Backwell carried on his
business in the same shop which was afterwards occupied by Child.
He, to avoid a prison, retired into Holland, where he died. His
body was brought for sepulture to Tyringham church, near Newport
Pagnel." Frequent mention of the Alderman is made by Pepys, in
whose Diary is the following entry:--"April 12, 1669. This
evening, coming home, we overtook Alderman Backwell's coach and
his lady, and followed them to their house, and there made them
the, first visit, where they received us with extraordinary
civility, and owning the obligation But I do, contrary to my
expectation, find her something a proud and vainglorious woman,
in telling the number of her servants and family, and expenses;.
He is also so, but he was ever of that strain. But here he
showed me the model of his houses that he is going to build in
Cornhill and Lombard-street; but he has purchased so much there
that it looks like a little town, and must have cost him a great
deal of money."-E.
Letter 376 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.(1102)
Arlington Street, Dec. 21, 1769. (page 563)
Dear sir,
I am very grateful for all your communications, and for the
trouble you are so good as to take for me. I am glad you have
paid Jackson, Though he is not only dear, (for the prints he has
got for me are very common,) but they are not what I wanted, and
I do not believe were mentioned in my list. However, as paying
him dear for what I do not want, may encourage him to hunt for
what I do want, I am very well content he should cheat me a
little. I take the liberty of troubling you with a list I have
printed (to avoid copying it several times), and beg you will be
so good as to give it to him, telling him these are exactly what
I do want, and no others. I will pay him well for any of these,
and especially those marked thus x; and still more for those with
double or treble marks. The print I want most is the Jacob Hall.
I do not know whether it is not one of the London Cries, but he
must be very sure it is the right. I will let you know certainly
when Mr. West comes to town, who has one.
I shall be very happy to contribute to your garden: and if you
will let me have exact notice in February how to send the shrubs,
they shall not fail you; nor any thing else by which I can pay
you any part of my debts. I am much pleased with the Wolsey and
Cromwell, and beg to thank you and the gentleman from whom they
came. Mr. Tyson's etchings will be particulary acceptable. I
did hope to have seen or heard of him in October. Pray tell him
he is a visit in my debt, and that I will trust him no longer
than to next summer. Mr. Bentham, I find, one must trust and
trust without end. It is pity so good a sort of man should be so
faithless. Make my best compliments, however, to him and to my
kind host and hostess.
I found my dear old blind friend at Paris perfectly well, and am
returned so myself. London is very sickly, and full of bilious
fevers, that have proved fatal to several persons, and in my Lord
Gower's family have even seemed contagious. The weather is
uncommonly hot, and we want frost to purify the air.
I need not say, I suppose, that the names scratched out in my
list are of such prints as I have got since I printed it, and
therefore what I no longer want. If Mr. Jackson only stays at
Cambridge till the prints drop into his mouth, I shall never have
them. If he would take the trouble of going to Bury, Norwich,
Ely, Huntingdon, and such great towns, nay, look about in inns, I
do not doubt but he would find at least some of them. He should
be no loser by taking pains for me; but I doubt he chooses to be
a great gainer without taking any. I shall not pay for any that
are not in my list; but I ought not to trouble you, dear Sir,
with these particulars. It is a little your own fault, for you
have spoiled me.
Mr. Essex distresses me by his civility. I certainly would not
have given him that trouble, if I had thought he would not let me
pay him. Be so good as to thank him for me, and to let me know
if there is any other way I could return the obligation. I hope,
at least, he will make me a visit at Strawberry Hill, whenever he
comes westward. I shall be very impatient to see you, dear Sir,
both there and at Milton. Your faithful humble servant.
(1102) Now first printed, from the original in the British
Museum.-E.
END OF THE THIRD VOLUME.
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