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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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."]
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.