213. To George Montagu, Esq. Strawberry Hill, June 18, 1764. (page 328)
I trust that you have thought I was dead, it is so long since you heard of me. In truth I had nothing to talk of but cold and hot weather, of rain and want Of rain, subjects that have been our summer conversation for these twenty years. I am pleased that you was content with your pictures, and shall be glad if you have ancestors out of them. You may tell your uncle Algernon that I go to-morrow, where he would not be ashamed to see me; as there are not many such spots at present, you and he will guess it is to Park-place.
Strawberry, whose glories perhaps verge towards their setting-, have been more sumptuous to-day than ordinary, and banquetted their representative majesties of France and Spain. I had Monsieur and Madame de Guerchy, Mademoiselle de Nangis their daughter, two other French gentlemen, the Prince of Masserano, his brother and secretary, Lord March, George Selwyn, Mrs. ADD Pitt, and my niece Waldegrave. The refectory never was so crowded; nor have any foreigners been here before that comprehended Strawberry. Indeed, every thing succeeded to a hair. A violent shower in the morning laid the dust, brightened the green, refreshed the roses, pinks, orange-flowers, and the blossoms with which the acacias are covered. A rich storm of thunder and lightning gave a dignity of colouring to the heavens; and the sun appeared enough to illuminate the landscape, without basking himself over it at his length. During dinner there were French horns and clarionets in the cloister, and after coffee I treated them with an English, and to them a very new collation, a syllabub milked Under the cows that were brought to the brow of the terrace. Thence they went to the printing-house, and saw a new fashionable French song printed. They drank tea in the gallery, and at eight went away to Vauxhall.
They really seemed quite pleased with the place and the day; but I must tell you, the treasury of the abbey will feel it, for without magnificence, all was handsomely done. I must keep maigre; at least till the interdict is taken off from my convent. I have kings and queens, I hear, in my neighbourhood, but this is no royal foundation. Adieu; your poor beadsman, The Abbot Of Strawberry.
P. S. Mr. T***'s servile poem is rewarded with one hundred and sixty pounds a ),ear in the post-office.
214. To George Montagu, Esq. Strawberry Hill, July 16, 1764. (page 329)
mr. chute says you are peremptory that you will not cast a look southwards. Do you know that in that case you will not set eyes on me the Lord knows when? My mind is pretty much fixed on going to Paris the beginning of September. I think I shall go, if it is only to scold my Lord and Lady Hertford for sending me their cousins, the Duke and Duchess of Berwick, who say they are come to see their relations. By their appearance, you would imagine they were come to beg money of their family. He has just the sort of capacity which you would expect in a Stuart engrafted on a Spaniard. He asked me which way he was to come to Twickenham? I told him through Kensington, to which I supposed his geography might reach. He replied, "Oh! du cot`e de la mer." She, who is sister of the Duke of Alva, is a decent kind of a body: but they talk wicked French. I gave them a dinner here t'other day, with the Marquis of Jamaica, their only child, and a fat tutor, and the few Fitzroys I could amass at this season. They were very civil, and seemed much pleased. To-day they arc gone to Blenheim by invitation. I want to send you something from the Strawberry press; tell me how I shall convey it; it is nothing less than the most curious book that ever set its foot into the world. I expect to hear you scream hither: if you don't I shall be disappointed, for I have kept it as a most profound secret from you, till I was ready to surprise you with it: I knew your impatience, and would not let you have it piecemeal. It is the Life of the great philosopher, Lord Herbert, written by himself.(631) Now are you disappointed? Well, read it--not the first forty pages, of which you will be sick--I will not anticipate it, but I will tell you the history. I found it a year ago at Lady Hertford's, to whom Lady Powis had lent it. I took it up, and soon threw it down again, as the dullest thing I ever saw. She persuaded me to take it home. My Lady Waldegrave was here in all her grief; Gray and I read it to amuse her. We could not get on for laughing, and screaming. I begged to have it to print: Lord Powis, sensible of the extravagance, refused--I persisted--he persisted. I told my Lady Hertford, it was no matter, I would print it, I was determined. I sat down and wrote a flattering dedication to Lord Powis, which I knew he would swallow: he did, and gave up his ancestor. But this was not enough; I was resolved the world should not think I admired it seriously, though there are really fine passages in it, and good sense too: I drew up an equivocal preface, in which you will discover my opinion, and sent it with the dedication. The Earl gulped down the one under the palliative of the other, and here you will have all. Pray take notice Of the pedigree, of which I am exceedingly proud; observe how I have clearly arranged so involved a descent: one may boast at one's heraldry. I shall send you too Lady Temple's poems.(632) Pray keep both under lock and key, for there are but two hundred copies of Lord Herbert, and but one hundred of the poems suffered to be printed.
I am almost crying to find the glorious morsel of summer, that we have had, turned into just such a watery season as the last. Even my excess of verdure, which used to comfort me for every thing, does not satisfy me now, as I live entirely alone. I am heartily tired of my large neighbourhood, who do not furnish me two or three rational beings at most, and the best of them have no vivacity. London, Whither I go at least once a fortnight for a night, is a perfect desert. As the court is gone into a convent at Richmond, the town is more abandoned than ever. I cannot, as you do, bring myself to be content without variety, without events; my mind is always wanting new food; summer does not suit me; but I will grow old some time or other. Adieu!
(631) Printed in quarto, This was the first edition of this celebrated piece of autobiography. It was reprinted at Edinburgh in 1807, with a prefatory notice, understood to be by Sir Walter Scott; and a third edition, which also contained his letters written during his residence at the French court, was published in 1826.-E.
(632) Poems by Anna Chambers, Countess Temple.-E.
215. To The Rev. Mr. Cole. Strawberry Hill, July 16, 1764. (page 330)
Dear Sir, You must think me a brute to have been so long without taking any notice of your obliging offer of coming hither. The truth is, I have not been at all settled here for three days together: nay, nor do I know when I shall be. I go tomorrow into Sussex; in August into Yorkshire, and in September into France. If, in any interval of these jaunts, I Can be sure of remaining here a week, which I literally have not been this whole summer, I will certainly let you know, and will claim your promise.
Another reason for my writing now is, I want to know how I may send you Lord Herbert's Life, which I have just printed. Did I remember the favour you did me of asking for my own print? if I did not, it shall accompany this book.
216. To The Rev. Henry Zouch. Arlington Street, July 21, 1764. (page 330)
Sir, You will have heard of the severe attendance which we have had for this last week in the House of Commons. It will, I trust, have excused me to you for not having answered sooner your very kind letter. My books, I fear, have no merit over Mr. Harte's Gustavus, but by being much shorter. I read his work, and was sorry so much curious matter should be so ill and so tediously, put together. His anecdotes are much more interesting than mine; luckily I was aware that mine were very trifling, and did not dwell upon them. To answer the demand, I am printing them with additions, but must wait a little for assistance and corrections to the two latter, as I have had for the former.
You are exceedingly obliging, Sir, to offer me one of your Fergussons. I thank you for it, as I ought; but, in truth, I have more pictures than room to place them; both my houses are full, and I have even been thinking of getting rid of some I have. That this is no declension of your civility, Sir, you will see, when I gladly accept either of your medals of King Charles. I shall be proud to keep it as a mark of your friendship; but then I will undoubtedly rob you of but one.
I condole with you, Sir, for the loss of your friend and relation, as I heartily take my share in whatever concerns you. The great and unmerited kindness I have received from you will ever make me your most obliged, etc.
Letter 217To The Rev. Mr. Cole. Arlington Street, July 21, 1764. (page 331)
Dear Sir, I must never send you trifles; for you always make me real presents in return. The beauty of the coin surprises me. Mr. White must be rich, when such are his duplicates. I am acquainted with him, and have often intended to visit his collection; but it is one of those things one never does, because one always may. I give you a thousand thanks in return, and what are not worth more, my own print, Lord Herbert's Life, (this is curious, though it cost me little,) and some orange flowers. I wish you had mentioned the latter sooner: I have had an amazing profusion this year, and given them away to the right and left by handfuls. These are all I could collect to-day, as I was coming to town; but you shall have more if you want them.
I consign these things as you ordered - I wish the print may arrive without being rumpled: it is difficult to convey mezzotintos; but if this is spoiled you shall have another.
If I make any stay in France, which I do not think I shall, above six weeks at most, you shall certainly hear from me but I am a bad commissioner for searching you out a hermitage. It is too much against my interest- and I had much rather find you one in the neighbourhood of Strawberry. Adieu!
218. To The Earl Of Hertford. Strawberry Hill, August 3, 1764. (page 332)
As my letters are seldom proper for the post now, I begin them at any time, and am forced to trust to chance for a conveyance. This difficulty renders my news very stale: but what can I do? There does not happen enough at this season of' the year to fill a mere gazette. I should be more sorry to have you think me silent too long. You must be so good as to recollect, when there is a large interval between my letters, that I have certainly one ready in my writing-box, and only wait for a messenger. I hope to send this by Lord Coventry. For the next three weeks, indeed, I shall not be able to write, as I go in a few days with your brother to Chatsworth and Wentworth Castle.
I am under more distress about my visit to you--but I will tell you the truth. As I think the Parliament Will not meet before Christmas, though they now talk of it for November, I would quit our Politics for a few weeks; but the expense frightens me, which did not use to be one of my fears. I cannot but expect, knowing the enemies I have, that the treasury may distress me.(633) I had laid by a little sum which I intended to bawble away at Paris; but I may have very serious occasion for it. The recent example of Lord Holderness,(634) Who has had every rag seized at the Custom-house, alarms my present prudence. I cannot afford to buy even clothes, which I may lose in six weeks. These considerations dispose me to wait till I see a little farther into this chaos. You know enough of the present actors in the political drama to believe that the present system is not a permanent one, nor likely to roll on till Christmas without some change. The first moment that I can quit party with honour, I shall seize. It neither suits my inclination nor the years I have lived in the world; for though I am not old, I have been in the world so long, and seen so much of those who figure in it, that I am heartily sick of its commerce. My attachment to your brother, and the apprehension that fear of my own interest would be thought the cause if I took no part for him, determined me to risk every thing rather than abandon him. I have done it, and cannot repent, whatever distresses may follow. One's good name is of more consequence than all the rest, my dear lord. Do not think I say this with the least disrespect to you; it is only to convince you that I did not recommend any thing to you that I would avoid myself; nor engaged myself, nor wished to engage you, in party from pique, resentment, caprice, or choice. I am dipped in it much against my inclination. I can suffer by it infinitely more than you could. But there are moments when one must take one's part like a man. This I speak solely with regard to myself. I allow fairly and honestly that you was not circumstanced as I was. You had not voted with your brother as I did; the world knew your inclinations were different. All this certainly composed serious reasons for you not to follow him, if you did not choose it. My motives for thinking you had better have espoused his cause were for your own sake - I detailed those motives to you in my last long letter; that opinion is as strong within me as ever.
The affront to you, the malice that aimed that affront, the importance that it gives one, upon the long-run to act steadily and uniformly with one's friends, the enemies you make in the opposition, composed of so many great families, and of your own principal allies,(635) and the little merit you gain with the ministry by the contrary conduct,--all these were, to me, unanswerable reasons, and remain so, for what I advised; yet, as I told you before, I think the season is passed, and that you must wait for an opportunity of disengaging yourself with credit. I am persuaded that occasion will be given you, from one or other of the causes I mentioned in my last; and if the fairest is, I entreat you by the good wishes which I am sure you know from my soul I bear you, to seize it. Excuse me: I know I go too far, but my heart is set on your making a great figure, and your letters are so kind, that they encourage me to speak with a friendship which I am sensible is not discreet:--but you know you and your brother have ever been the objects of my warmest affection and however partial you may think me to him, I must labour to have the world think as highly of you, and to unite you firmly for your lives. If this was not my motive, you must be sure I should not be earnest. It is not one vote in the House of Lords that imports us. Party is grown so Serious,(636) and will, I doubt, become every day more so, that one must make one's option; and it will go to my soul to see you embarked against all your friends, against the Whig principles you have ever professed, and with men, amongst whom you have not one well-wisher, and with whom you will not even be able to remain upon tolerable terms, unless you take a vigorous part against all you love and esteem.
In warm times lukewarmness is a crime with those on whose side you are ranged. Your good sense and experience will judge whether what I say is not strictly the case. It is not your brother or I that have occasioned these circumstances. Lord Bute has thrown this country into a confusion which will not easily be dissipated without serious hours. Changes may, and, as I said in the beginning of my letter, will probably happen but the seeds that have been sown will not be rooted up by one or two revolutions in the cabinet. It had taken an hundred and fifty years(637) to quiet the animosities of Whig and Tory; that contest is again set on foot, and though a struggle for places may be now, as has often been, the secret purpose of principals, the court and the nation are engaging on much deeper springs of action. I wish I could elucidate this truth, as I have the rest, but that is not fit for paper, nor to be comprised within the compass of a letter;--I have said enough to furnish you with ample reflections. I submit all to your own judgment:--I have even acted rightly by YOU, in laying before you what it was not easy for you, my dear lord, to see or know at a distance. I trust all to your indulgence, and your acquaintance with my character, which surely is not artful or mysterious, and which, to you, has ever been, as it ever shall be, most cordial and well-intentioned. I come to my gazette.
There is nothing new, but the resignation of Lord Carnarvon,(638) who has thrown up the bedchamber, and they say, the lieutenancy of Hampshire on Stanley being made governor of the Isle of Wight.
I have been much distressed this morning. The royal family reside chiefly at Richmond, whither scarce necessary servants attend them, and no mortal else but Lord Bute. The King and Queen have taken to going about to see places; they have been at Oatlands and Wanstead. A quarter before ten to-day, I heard the bell at the gate ring,--that is, I was not up, for my hours are not reformed, either at night or in the morning,--I inquired who it was? the Prince of Mecklenburgh and De Witz had called to know if they could see the house; my two Swiss, Favre and Louis, told them I was in bed, but if they would call again in an hour, they might see it. I shuddered at this report,--and would it were the worst part! The Queen herself was behind, in a coach: I am shocked to death, and know not what to do! It is ten times worse just now than ever at any other time: it will certainly be said, that I refused to let the Queen see my house. See what it is to have republican servants! When I made a tempest about it, Favre said, with the utmost sang froid, "Why could not he tell me he was the Prince of Mecklenburgh?" I shall go this evening and consult my oracle, Lady Suffolk. If she approves it, I will write to De Witz, and pretend I know nothing of any body but the Prince, and beg a thousand pardons, and assure him how proud I should be to have his master visit my castle at Thundertentronk.
August 4th.
I have dined to-day at Claremont, where I little thought I should dine,(639) but whither our affairs have pretty naturally conducted me. It turned out a very melancholy day. Before I got into the house, I heard that letters were just arrived there, with accounts of the Duke of Devonshire having had two more fits. When I came to see Lord John's(640) and Lord Frederick's letters, I found these two fits had been but one, and that very slight, much less than the former, and certainly nervous by all the symptoms, as Sir Edward Wilmot, who has been at Chatsworth, pronounces it. The Duke perceived it coming, and directed what to have done, and it was over in four minutes. The next event was much more real. I had been half round the garden with the Duke in his one-horse chair; we were passing to the other side of the house, when George Onslow met us, arrived on purpose to advertise the Duke of the sudden death of the Duchess of Leeds,(641) who expired yesterday at dinner in a moment: he called it apoplectic; but as the Bishop of Oxford,(642) who is at Claremont, concluded, it was the gout flown up into the head. The Duke received the news as men do at seventy-one: but the terrible part was to break it to the Duchess, who is ill. George Onslow would have taken me away to dinner with him, but the Duke thought that would alarm the Duchess too abruptly, and she is not to know it yet: with her very low spirits it is likely to make a deep impression. It is a heavy stroke too for her father, poor old Lord Godolphin, who is eighty-six. For the Duke, his spirits, under so many mortifications and calamities, are surprising: the only effect they and his years seem to have made on him is to have abated his ridicules.(643) Our first meeting to be sure was awkward, yet I never saw a man conduct any thing with more sense than he did. There were no notices of what is passed; nothing fulsome, no ceremony, civility enough, confidence enough, and the greatest ease. You would only have thought that I had been long abroad, and was treated like an old friend's son with whom he might make free. In truth, I never saw more rational behaviour: I expected a great deal of flattery, but we had nothing but business while we were alone, and common conversation while the Bishop and the Chaplain were present. The Duke mentioned to me his having heard Lord Holland's inclination to your embassy. He spoke very obligingly of you, and said that, next to his own children, he believed there was nobody the late Lord Hardwicke loved so much as you. I cannot say that the Duke spoke very affectionately of Sir Joseph Yorke. who has never written a single line to him since he was out. I told him that did not surprise me, for Sir Joseph has treated your brother in the same manner, though the latter has written two letters to him since his dismission.
Arlington Street, Tuesday night, 10 o'clock.
I am here alone in the most desolate of all towns. I came to-day to visit my sovereign Duchess(644) in her lying-in, and have been there till this moment, not a sole else but Lady Jane Scott.(645) Lady Waldegrave came from Tunbridge yesterday en passant, and reported a new woful history of a fracas there--don't my Lady Hertford's ears tingle? but she will not be surprised. A footman--a very homely footman--to a Mrs. Craster, had been most extremely impertinent to Lord Clanbrazil, Frederick Vane, and a son of Lady Anne Pope; they threatened to have him turned away-- he replied, if he was, he knew where he should be protected. Tunbridge is a quiet private place, where one does not imagine that every thing one does in one's private family will be known:- -yet so it happened that the morning after the fellow's dismission, it was reported that he was hired by another lady, the Lord knows who. At night, that lady was playing at loo in the rooms. Lord Clanbrazil told her of the report, and hoped she would contradict it: she grew as angry as a fine lady could grow, told him it was no business of his, and--and I am afraid, still more. Vane whispered her--One should have thought that name would have some weight--oh! worse and worse! the poor English language was ransacked for terms that came up to her resentment:- -the party broke up, and, I suppose, nobody went home to write an account of what happened to their acquaintance.
O'Brien and Lady Susan are to be transported to the Ohio, and have a grant of forty thousand acres. The Duchess of Grafton says sixty thousand were bestowed; but a friend of yours, and a relation of Lady Susan, nibbled away twenty thousand for a Mr. Upton.
By a letter from your brother to-day, I find our northern journey is laid aside; the Duke of Devonshire is coming to town; the physicians want him to go to Spa. This derangement makes me turn my eyes eagerly towards Paris; though I shall be ashamed to come thither after the wise reasons I have given you against it in the beginning of this letter; nous verrons--the temptation is strong, but patriots must resist temptations; it is not the etiquette to yield to them till a change happens.
I enclose a letter, which your brother has sent me to convey to you, and two pamphlets.(646) The former is said to be written by Shebbeare, under George Grenville's direction: the latter, which makes rather more noise, is certainly composed by somebody who does not hate your brother--I even fancy you will guess the same person for the author that every body else does. I shall be able to send you soon another pamphlet, written by Charles Townshend, on the subject of the warrants:-you see, at least, we do not ransack Newgate and the pillory(647) for writers. We leave those to the administration.
I wish you would be so kind as to tell me, what is become of my sister and Mr. Churchill. I received a letter from Lady Mary to-day, telling me she was that instant setting out from Paris, but does not say whither.
The first storm that is likely to burst in politics, seems to be threatened from the Bedford quarter. The Duke and Duchess have been in town but for two days the whole summer, and are now going to Trentham, whither Lord Gower, qui se donnoit pour favori, is retired for three months. This is very unlike the declaration in spring, that the Duke must reside at Streatham,(648) because the King could not spare him for a day.
The memorial(649) left by Guerchy at his departure, and the late arr`ets in France on our American histories, make much noise, and seem to say that I have not been a false prophet! If our ministers can stand so many difficulties from abroad, and so much odium at home, they are abler men than I take them for. Adieu, the whole H`otel de Lassay!(650) I verily think I shall see it soon.
(633) He had the lucrative office of usher of the exchequer, and a couple of other less considerable sinecures.-C.
(634) Robert, last Earl of Holderness, grandson of the great Duke Schomberg; he had been secretary of state at the accession.-C.
(635) Lady Hertford was daughter of the late, and cousin of the existing Duke of Grafton, who was one of the leaders of the opposition.-C.
(636) The state of the public mind at this time is thus described by Gray:--"Grumble, indeed, every one does; but, since Wilkes's affair, they fall off their metal, and seem to shrink under the brazen hand of Norton and his colleagues. I hear there will be no Parliament till after Christmas. If the French should be so unwise as to suffer the Spanish court to go on in their present measures (for they refuse to pay the ransom of Manilla, and have driven away our logwood cutters already,) down go their friends in the ministry, and all the schemes of right divine and prerogative; and this is perhaps the best chance we have. Are you not struck with the great similarity there is between the first years of Charles the First and the present times? Who would have thought it possible five years ago?" Works, vol. iv. p. 34.-E.
(637) It is not easy to say what hundred and fifty years he alludes to; the contests of Whig and Tory were never so violent as in the last years of Queen Anne, just fifty years before this time.-C.
(638) The Marquis of Carnarvon, eldest son of the second Duke of Chandos.-E.
(639) See ant`e, p. 258, letter 184.
(640) Lord John and Lord Frederick Cavendish, his grace's brothers.-E.
(641) Lady Mary, daughter of the second Lord Godolphin, granddaughter of the great Duke of Marlborough, and sister of the Duchess of Newcastle.-E.
(642) Dr. John Hume.-E.
(643) The reader will not fail to observe the sudden effect of Mr. Walpole's conversion to the Duke of Newcastle's politics, how it abates all ridicules and sweetens all acerbities. As no writer has contributed so much as Mr. Walpole to depreciate the character of the Duke of Newcastle, this kind of palinode is not unimportant. See ant`e, p. 258, letter 184.-C.
(644) The Duchess of Grafton lay-in, on the 17th July 1764, of her youngest son, Lord Charles.-E.
(645) Eldest daughter of Francis, second Duke of Buccleugh, born 1723, died in 1777, unmarried.-E.
(646) They were called "An Address to the Public on the late dismission of a General Officer," and "A Counter Address." The latter was written by Mr. Walpole himself.-C.
(647) Dr. Shebbeare had been convicted of a libel, and, I believe, punished in the pillory-C. [By the indulgence of the under-sheriff of Midllesex, the Doctor was allowed to stand on, and not in, the pillory; for which indulgence he was prosecuted.)
(648) A villa of the Duke's at Streatham, derived from Mr. Howland, his maternal grandfather, from whom Howland-street is named.-C.
(649) The points in dispute between France and England at this period arose out of the non-performance of certain articles of the treaty-the payment of the Canada bills, and the expense of the prisoners of war, and certain claims for compensation for effects taken at Bellisle.-C.
(650) The house which Lord Hertford hired in Paris.-E.
219. To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, Aug. 16, 1764. (page 337)
I am not gone north, so pray write to me. I am not going south, so pray come to me. The Duke of Devonshire's journey to Spa has prevented the first, and twenty reasons the second; whenever therefore you are disposed to make a visit to Strawberry, it will rejoice to receive you in its old ruffs and fardingales, and without rouge, blonde, and run silks.
You have not said a word to me, ingrate as you are, about Lord Herbert; does not he deserve one line? Tell me when I shall see you, that I may make no appointments to interfere with it. Mr. Conway, Lady Ailesbury, and Lady Lyttelton, have been at Strawberry with me for four or five days, so I am come to town to have my house washed, for you know I am a very Hollander in point of cleanliness.
This town is a deplorable solitude; one meets nothing but Mrs. Holman, like the pelican in the wilderness. Adieu!
220. To The Earl Of Hertford. Strawberry Hill, Aug. 27, 1764. (page 338)
I hope you received safe a parcel and a very long letter that I sent you, above a fortnight ago, by Mr. Strange the engraver. Scarce any thing has happened since worth repeating, but what you know already, the death of poor Legge, and the seizure of Turk Island:(651) the latter event very consonant to all ideas. It makes much noise here especially in the city, where the ministry grow every day more and more unpopular. Indeed, I think there is not much probability of their standing their ground, even till Christmas. Several defections are already known, and others are ripe which they do not apprehend.
Doctor Hunter, I conclude, has sent you Charles Townshend's pamphlet: it is well written, but does not sell much, as a notion prevails that it has been much altered and softened.
The Duke of Devonshire is gone to Spa; he was stopped for a week by a rash, which those who wished it so, called a miliary fever, but was so far from it that if he does not find immediate benefit from Spa, he is to go to Aix-la-Chapelle, in hopes that the warm baths will supple his skin, and promote another eruption.
I have been this evening to Sion, which is becoming another Mount Palatine. Adam has displayed great taste, and the Earl matches it with magnificence. The gallery is converting into a museum in the style of a columbarium, according to an idea that I proposed to my Lord Northumberland. Mr. Boulby(652) and Lady Mary are there, and the Primate,(653) who looks old and broken enough to aspire to the papacy. Lord Holland, I hear, advises what Lord Bute much wishes, the removal of George Grenville, to make room for Lord Northumberland at the head of the treasury. The Duchess of Grafton is gone to her father. I wish you may hear no more of this journey! If you should, this time, the Complaints will come from her side.
You have got the Sposo(654) Coventry with you, have not you? And you are going to have the Duke of York. You will not want such a nobody as me. When I have a good opportunity, I will tell you some very sensible advice that has been given me on that head, which I am sure you will approve.
It is well for me I am not a Russian. I should certainly be knouted. The murder of the young Czar Ivan has sluiced again all my abhorrence of the czarina. What a devil in a diadem! I wonder they can spare such a principal performer from hell!
September 9th.
I had left this letter unfinished, from want of common materials, if I should send it by the post; and from want of private conveyance, if I said more than was fit for the post. being Just returned from Park-place, where I have been for three days, I not only find your extremely kind letter of August 21st, but a card from Madame de Chabot, who tells me she sets out for Paris in a day or two. and offers to carry a letter to you, which gives me the opportunity I wished for.
I must begin with what you conclude-your most friendly offer,(655) if I should be distressed by the treasury. I can never thank you enough for this, nor the tender manner in which you clothe it: though, believe me, my dear lord, I could never blush to be obliged to you. In truth, though I do not doubt their disposition to hurt me, I have had prudence enough to make it much longer than their reign Can last, before it could be in their power to make me feel want. With all my extravagance, I am much beforehand, and having perfected and paid for what I wished to do here, my common expenses are trifling, and nobody can live more frugally than I, when I have a mind to it. What I said of fearing temptations at Paris, was barely serious: I thought it imprudent, just now, to throw away my money; but that consideration, singly, would not keep me here. I am eager to be with you, and my chief reason for delaying is, that I wish to make a longer stay than I could just now. The advice I hinted at, in the former part of this letter, was Lady Suffolk's, and I am sure you will think it very sensible. She told me, should I now go to Paris, all the world would say I went to try to persuade you to resign; that even the report would be impertinent to you, to whom she knew and saw I wished so well; and that when I should return, it would be said I had failed in MY errand. Added to this, which was surely very prudent and friendly advice, I will own to you fairly, that I think I shall soon have it in my power to come to you on the foot I wish,--I mean, having done with politics, which I have told you all along, and with great truth, are as much my abhorrence as yours. I think this administration cannot last till Christmas, and I believe they themselves think so. I am cautious when I say this, because I promise you faithfully, the last thing I will do shall be to give you any false lights knowingly. I am clear, I repeat it, against your resigning now; and there is no meaning in all I have taken the liberty to say to you, and which you receive with so much goodness and sense, but to put you on your guard in such ticklish times, and to pave imperceptibly to the world the way to your reunion with your friends. In your brother, I am persuaded, you will never find any alteration; and whenever you find an opportunity proper, his credit with particular persons will remove any coldness that may have happened. I admire the force and reasoning with which you have stated your own situation; and I think there are but two points in which we differ at all. I do not see how your brother could avoid the part he chose. It was the administration that made it--no inclination of his. The other is a trifle; it regards Elliot, nor is it my opinion alone that he is at Paris on business: every body believes it, and considering his abilities, and the present difficulties of Lord Bute, Elliot's absence would be very extraordinary, if merely occasioned by idleness or amusement, or even to place his children, when it lasts so long.
The affair of Turk Island, and the late promotion of Colonel Fletcher(656) over thirty-seven older officers, are the chief causes, added to the Canada bills, Logwood, and the Manilla affairs, Which have ripened our heats to such a height. Lord Mansfield's violence against the press has contributed much--but the great distress of all to the ministers, is the behaviour of the Duke of Bedford, who has twice or thrice peremptorily refused to attend council. He has been at Trentham, and crossed the country back to Woburn, without coming to town.(657) Lord Gower has been in town but one day. Many causes are assigned for all this; the refusal of making Lord Waldegrave of the bedchamber; Lord Tavistocl('s inclination to the minority; and above all, a reversion, which it is believed Lord Bute has been so weak as to obtain, of Ampthill, a royal grant, in which the Duke has but sixteen years to come. You know enough of that court, to know that, in the article of Bedfordshire, no influence has any weight with his grace. At present, indeed, I believe little is tried. The Duchess and Lady Bute are as hostile as possible. Rigby's journey convinces me of what I have long suspected, that his reign is at an end. I have even heard, though I am far from trusting to the quarter from which I had my intelligence, that the Duke has been making overtures to Mr. Pitt,(658) which have not been received unfavourably; I shall know more of this soon, as I am to go to Stowe in three or four days. Mr. Pitt is exceedingly well-disposed to your brother, talks highly of him, and of the injustice done to him, and they are to meet on the first convenient opportunity. Thus much for politics, which, however, I cannot quit, without again telling you how sensible I am of all your goodness and friendly offers.
The Court, independent of politics, makes a strange figure. The recluse life led here at Richmond, which is carried to such an excess of privacy and economy, that the Queen's friseur waits on them at dinner, and that four pounds only of beef are allowed for their soup, disgusts all sorts of people. The drawing-rooms are abandoned: Lady Buckingham(659) was the only woman there on Sunday se'nnight. The Duke of York was commanded home. They stopped his remittances,(660) and then were alarmed on finding he still was somehow or other supplied with money. The two next Princes(661) are at the Pavilions at Hampton Court, in very private circumstances indeed; no household is to be established for Prince William, who accedes nearer to the malcontents every day. In short, one hears of nothing but dissatisfaction, which in the city rises almost to treason.
Mrs. Cornwallis(662) has found that her husband has been dismissed from the bedchamber this twelvemonth with no notice: his appointments were even paid; but on this discovery they are stopped.
You ask about what I had mentioned in the beginning of my letter, the dissensions in the house of Grafton. The world says they are actually parted: I do not believe that; but I will tell you exactly all I know. His grace, it seems, for many months has kept one Nancy Parsons,(663) one of the commonest creatures in London, one much liked, but out of date. He is certainly grown immoderately attached to her, so much, that it has put an end to all his decorum. She was publicly with him at Ascot races, and is now in the forest;(664) I do not know if actually in the house. At first, I concluded this was merely stratagem to pique the Duchess; but it certainly goes further. Before the Duchess laid in, she had a little house on Richmond-Hill, whither the Duke sometimes, though seldom, came to dine. During her month of confinement, he was scarcely in town at all, nor did he even come up to see the Duke of Devonshire. The Duchess is certainly gone to her father. She affected to talk of the Duke familiarly, and said she would call in the forest as she went to Lord Ravensworth's. I suspect she is gone thither to recriminate and complain. She did not talk of returning till October. It was said the Duke was going to France, but I hear no more of it. Thus the affair stands, as far as I or your brother, or the Cavendishes, know; nor have we heard one word from either Duke or Duchess of any rupture. I hope she will not be so weak as to part, and that her father and mother will prevent it. It is not unlucky that she has seen none of the Bedfords lately, who would be glad to blow the coals. Lady Waldegrave was with her one day, but I believe not alone.
There was nobody at Park-place but Lord and Lady William Campbell.(665) Old Sir John Barnard(666) is dead; for other news, I have none. I beg you will always say a great deal for me to my lady. As I trouble you with such long letters, it would be unreasonable to overwhelm her too. You know my attachment to every thing that is yours. My warmest wish is to see an end of the present unhappy posture of public affairs, which operate so shockingly even on our private. If I can once get quit of them, it will be no easy matter to involve me in them again, however difficult it may be, as you have found, to escape them. Nobody is more criminal in my eyes than George Grenville, who had it in his power to prevent what has happened to your brother. Nothing could be more repugnant to all the principles he has ever most avowedly and publicly professed--but he has opened my eyes--such a mixture of vanity and meanness, of falsehood(667) and hypocrisy, is not common even in this country! It is a ridiculous embarras after all the rest, and yet you may conceive the distress I am under about Lady Blandford,(668) and the negotiations I am forced to employ to avoid meeting him there, which I am determined not to do.
I shall be able, when I see you, to divert you with some excellent stories of a principal figure on our side; but they are too long and too many for a letter, especially of a letter so prolix as this. Adieu, my dear lord!
(651) A small island, also called Tortuga, near St. Domingo, of which a French squadron had dispossessed some English settlers. This proceeding was, however, immediately disavowed by the French, and orders were immediately despatched for restitution and compensation to the sufferers. We can easily gather from Mr. Walpole's own expressions why this affair was raised into such momentary importance.-C.
(652) Thomas Bouldby, Esq. and his lady, sister of the first Duke of Montagu, of the second creation.-E.
(653) Dr. George Stone.
(654) see ant`e, p. 332, letter 218.
(655) This affair is creditable to all the parties. When General Conway was turned out, Mr Walpole placed all his fortune at his disposal, in a very generous letter (p. 316, letter 205). This induced Mr. Walpole to think of economy, and to state in a former letter (p. 332, letter 218) some apprehension as to his circumstances; in reply to which, Lord Hertford, who had already made a similar proposition to General Conway, now offers to place Mr. Walpole above the pecuniary difficulties which he apprehended.-C.
(656) Colonel Fletcher of the 35th foot.-E.
(657) Not very surprising, however, as London would have been about eighty miles round.-C.
(658) The following is a passage from a letter written by Mr. Pitt to the Duke of Newcastle, in October, in reply to one of these overtures:--"As for my single self, I purpose to continue acting through life upon the best convictions I am able to form, and Under the obligation of principles, not by the force of any particular bargains. I presume not to judge for those who think they see daylight to serve their country by such means: but shall continue myself, as often as I think it worth the while to go to the House of Commons, to go there free from stipulation-, about every question under consideration, as well as to come out of the House as free as I entered it. Having seen the close of last session, and the system of that great war, in which my share of the ministry was so largely arraigned, given up by silence in a full House, I have little thoughts of beginning the world again upon a new centre of union. Your grace will not, I trust, wonder if, after so recent and so strange a phenomenon in politics, I have no disposition to quit the free condition of a man standing single, and daring to appeal to his country at large, upon the soundness of his principles and the rectitude of his conduct." See Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 296.-E.
(659) Mary Anne Drury, wife Of John, second Earl of Buckinghamshire.-E.
(660) Mr. Walpole gives an unfair turn to this circumstance. The stopping the Duke of York's remittances, and ordering him home, was a measure of prudence, not to say of necessity, for that young Prince's extravagance abroad had made a public clamour; so much so, that a popular preacher delivered, about this time, a sermon on the following text:--"The younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living." St. Luke, xv. 13. The letters and even the publications of the day allude to this extravagance, and surely it was the duty of his brother and sovereign to repress an indiscretion which occasioned such observations.-C.
(661) William, created, in November, 1764, Duke of Gloucester; and Henry created, in 1766, Duke of cumberland. The injustice of mr. Walpole's insinuations will be evident, when it is remembered that, at the date of this letter, the eldest of these Princes was but twenty, and the other eighteen years of age, and that they were both created Dukes, and had households established for them as soon as they respectively came of age-C.
(662) Mary, daughter of Charles, second Viscount Townshend, wife of Edward, sixth son of the third Lord Cornwallis. I suspect that here again Mr. Walpole's accusation is not correct. General Cornwallis had been groom of the bedchamber to George II., and was continued in the same office by the successor, till he was appointed Governor of Gibraltar, when Mr. Henry Seymour was appointed in his room.-C.
(663) This scandal has been immortalized by Junius.-C.
(664) At Wakefield Lodge, in Whittlebury Forest, Northamptonshire.-E.
(665) Lord William, brother of General Conway's lady, and third brother of the fifth Duke of Argyle; his wife was Sarah, daughter of W. Teard, Esq. of Charleston.-E.
(666) Father of the city, which he had represented in six parliaments. He had been a very leading member of the House of Commons, and was much deferred to on all matters of commerce.-C.
(667) See ant`e, p. 272, letter 188.
(668) Maria Catherine de Jonge, a Dutch Lady, widow of William Godolphin, Marquis of Blandford, and sister of Isabella Countess of Denbigh; they were near neighbours and intimate acquaintances of Mr. Walpole's.@.
221. To The Right Hon. William Pitt.(669) Arlington Street, Aug. 29, 1764. (page 343)
Sir, As you have always permitted me to offer you the trifles printed at my press, I am glad to have one to send you of a little more consequence than some in which I have had myself too great a share. The singularity of the work I now trouble you with is greater merit than its rarity; though there are but two hundred copies, of which only half are mine.(670) If it amuses an hour or two of your idle time, I am overpaid. My greatest ambition is to pay that respect which every Englishman owes to your character and services; and therefore you must not wonder if an inconsiderable man seizes every opportunity, however awkwardly, of assuring you, Sir, that he is Your most devoted, etc.
(669) Now first collected.
(670) The Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. See ant`e, p. 329, letter 214.-E.
222. To The Rev. Mr. Cole. Strawberry Hill, Aug. 29, 1764. (page 343)
Dear sir, Among the multitude of my papers I have mislaid, though not lost, the account you was so good as to give me of your ancestor Toer, as a painter. I have been hunting for it to insert it in the new edition of my Anecdotes. It is not very reasonable to save myself trouble at the expense of yours; but perhaps you can much sooner turn to your notes, than I find your letter. Will you be so good as to send me soon all the particulars you recollect of him. I have a print of Sir Lionel Jenkins from his painting.
I did not send you any more orange flowers, as you desired; for the continued rains rotted all the latter blow: but I had made a vast potpourri, from whence you shall have as much as you please, when I have the pleasure of seeing you here, which I should be glad might be in the beginning of October, if it suits your convenience. At the same time you shall have a print of Lord Herbert, which I think I did not send you.
P. S. I trust you will bring me a volume or two of your MSS. of which I am most thirsty.
223. To The Hon. H. S. Conway. September 1, 1764. (page 344)
I send you the reply to the Counter-address;(671) it is the lowest of all Grub-street, and I hear is treated so. They have nothing better to say, than that I am in love with you, have been so these twenty years, and am no giant. I am a very constant old swain: they might have made the years above thirty; it is so long I have the same unalterable friendship for you, independent of being near relations and bred up together. For arguments, so far from any new ones, the man gives up or denies most of the former. I own I am rejoiced not only to see how little they can defend themselves, but to know the extent of their malice and revenge. They must be sorely hurt, to be reduced to such scurrility. Yet there is one paragraph, however, which I think is of George Grenville's own inditing. It says, "I flattered, solicited, and then basely deserted him." I no more expected to hear myself accused of flattery, than of being in love with you; but I shall not laugh at the former as I do at the latter. Nothing but his own consummate vanity could suppose I had ever stooped to flatter him! or that any man was connected with him, but who was low enough to be paid for it. Where has he one such attachment?
You have your share too. The miscarriage at Rochfort now directly laid at your door! repeated insinuations against your courage. But I trust you will mind them no more than I do, excepting the flattery, which I shall not forget, I promise them.
I came to town yesterday on some business, and found a case. When I opened it, what was there but my Lady Ailesbury's most beautiful of all pictures!(672) Don't imagine I can think it intended for me: or that, if it could be so, I would hear of such a thing. It is far above what can be parted with, or accepted. I am serious--there is no letting such a picture, when one has accomplished it, go from where one can see it every day. I should take the thought equally kind and friendly, but she must let me bring it back, if I am not to do any thing else with it, and it came by mistake. I am not so selfish as to deprive her of what she must have such pleasure in seeing. I shall have more satisfaction in seeing it at Park-place; where, in spite of the worst kind of malice, I shall persist in saying my heart is fixed. They may ruin me, but no calumny shall make me desert you. Indeed your case would be completely cruel, if it was more honourable for your relations and friends to abandon you than to stick to you. My option is made, and I scorn their abuse as much as I despise their power.
I think of coming to you on Thursday next for a day or two, unless your house is full, or you hear from me to the contrary. Adieu! Yours ever.
(671) A pamphlet written by Mr. Walpole, in answer to another, called ,An Address to the Public on the late Dismissal of a General Officer."
(672) A landscape executed in worsteds by Lady Ailesbury. It is now at Strawberry Hill.
224. To The Rev. Dr. Birch. September 3, 1764. (page 345)
Sir, I am extremely obliged to you for the favour of your letter, and the enclosed curious one of Sir William Herbert. It would have made a very valuable addition to Lord Herbert's Life, which is now too late; as I have no hope that Lord Powis will permit any more to be printed. There were indeed so very few, and but half of those for my share, that I have not it in my power to offer you a copy, having disposed of my part. It is really a pity that so singular a curiosity should not be public; but I must not complain, as Lord Powis has been so good as to indulge my request thus far. I am, Sir, Your much obliged humble servant, H. W.
225. To The Earl Of Hertford. Strawberry Hill, Oct. 5, 1764. (page 345)
My dear lord, Though I wrote to you but a few days ago, I must trouble you with another line now. Dr. Blanchard, a Cambridge divine, and who has a good paternal estate in Yorkshire, is on his travels, which he performs as a gentleman; and, therefore, wishes not to have his profession noticed. He is very desirous of paying his respects to you, and of being countenanced by you while he stays at Paris. It will much oblige a particular friend of mine, and consequently me, if you will favour him with your attention. Every body experiences your goodness, but in the present case I wish to attribute it a little to my request.
I asked you about two books, ascribed to Madame de Boufflers. if they are hers, I should be glad to know where she found, that Oliver Cromwell took orders and went over to Holland to fight the Dutch. As she has been on the spot where he reigned (which is generally very strong evidence), her countrymen will believe her in spite of our teeth; and Voltaire, who loves all anecdotes that never happened, because they prove the manners of the times, will hurry it into the first history he publishes. I, therefore, enter my caveat against it; not as interested for Oliver's character, but to save the world from one more fable. I know Madame de Boufflers will attribute this scruple to my partiality to Cromwell (and, to be sure, if we must be ridden, there is some satisfaction when the man knows how to ride). I remember one night at the Duke of Grafton's, a bust of Cromwell was produced: Madame de Boufflers, without uttering a syllable, gave me the most speaking look imaginable, as much as to Say, Is it possible you can admire this man! Apropos: I am sorry to say the reports do not cease about the separation,(673) and yet I have heard nothing that confirms it.
I once begged you to send me a book in three volumes, called "Essais sur les Moeurs;" forgive me if I put you in mind of it, and request you to send me that, or any other new book. I am wofully in want of reading, and sick to death of all our political stuff; which, as the Parliament is happily at the distance of three months, I would fain forget till I cannot help hearing of it. I am reduced to Guicciardin, and though the evenings are so long, I cannot get through one of his periods between dinner and supper. They tell me Mr. Hume has had sight of King James's journal:(674) I Wish I could see all the trifling passages that he will not deign to admit into history. I do not love great folks till they have pulled off their buskins and put on their slippers, because I do not care sixpence for what they would be thought, but for what they are.
Mr. Elliot brings us woful accounts of the French ladies, of the decency of their conversation, and the nastiness of their behaviour.
Nobody is dead, married, or gone mad, since my last. Adieu!
P. S. I enclose an epitaph on Lord Waldegrave, written by my brother,(675) which I think you will like, both for the composition and the strict truth of it.
Arlington Street, Friday evening.
I was getting into my postchaise this morning with this letter in my pocket, and Coming to town for a day or two, when I heard the Duke of Cumberland was dead: I find it is not so. he had two fits yesterday at Newmarket, whither he would go. The Princess Amelia, who had observed great alteration in his speech, entreated him against it. He has had too some touches of the gout, but they were gone off, or might have prevented this attack. I hear since the fits yesterday, which are said to have been but slight, that his leg is broken out, and they hope will save him. Still, I think, one cannot but expect the worst.
The letters yesterday, from Spa, give a melancholy account of the poor Duke of Devonshire as he cannot drink the waters they think of removing him; I suppose, to the baths at Aix-la-Chapelle; but I look on his case as a lost one. There's a chapter for moralizing! but five-and-forty, with forty thousand pounds a-year and happiness wherever he turned him! My reflection is, that it is folly to be unhappy at any thing, when felicity itself is such a phantom.
(673) Of the Duke and Duchess of Grafton.-E.
(674) Since published, under the generous patronage of George the Third, by Dr. Clarke, his Majesty's librarian. The work is, however, not what Mr. Walpole contemplated: it is not a journal of private feelings, interests, and actions, but a relation rather of public affairs; and though the notes of James II. were undoubtedly the foundation of the work, it was, in truth, written by another hand, and that too a hand the least likely to have given us the kind of memoirs which Mr. Walpole justly thinks would have been so valuable. When an eminent person writes his own memoirs, we have, at least, the motives which he thinks it creditable to assign to his conduct--he has, generally the candour of vanity, and even when he has not that candour, he is sometimes blinded into discovering truth unawares; but nothing can be more futile and fastidious than the meagre notes of the original actor, fresh woven and discoloured by the hands of an obsequious servant, who conceals all the facts he cannot explain, and all the motives he cannot justify. Such memoirs resemble the real life as the skeleton does the living man.-C.
(675) Sir Edward Walpole, K.B., second son of Sir Robert, and the father of Ladies Dysart and Waldegrave, and Mrs. Keppel.-E.
226. To The Hon. H. S. Conway. Strawberry Hill, Oct. 5, 1764. (page 347)
It is over with us!--if I did not know your firmness, I would have prepared you by degrees; but you are a man, and can hear the worst at once. The Duke of Cumberland is dead. I have heard it but this instant. The Duke of Newcastle was come to breakfast with me, and pulled out a letter from Lord Frederick, with a hopeless account of the poor Duke of Devonshire. Ere I could read it, Colonel Schutz called at the door and told my servant this fatal news! I know no more--it must be at Newmarket, and very sudden; for the Duke of Newcastle had a letter from Hodgson, dated on Monday, which said the Duke was perfectly well, and his gout gone:--Yes, to be sure, into his head. Princess Amelia had endeavoured to prevent his going to Newmarket, having perceived great alteration in his speech, as the Duke of Newcastle had. Well! it will not be. Every thing fights against this country! Mr. Pitt must save it himself--or, what I do not know whether he will not like as well, share in overturning its liberty--if they will admit him; -which I question now if they will be fools enough to do.
You see I write in despair. I am for the whole, but perfectly tranquil. We have acted with honour, and have nothing to reproach ourselves with. We cannot combat fate. We shall be left almost alone; but I think you will no more go with the torrent than I will. Could I have foreseen this tide of ill fortune, I would have done just as I have done; and my conduct shall show I am satisfied I have done right. For the rest, come what come may, I am perfectly prepared and while there is a free spot of earth upon the globe, that shall be my country. I am sorry it will not be this, but to-morrow I shall be able to laugh as usual. What signifies what happens when one is seven-and-forty, as I am to-day!
"They tell me 'tis my birthday"--but I will not go on with Antony, and say
----"and I'll keep it With double pomp of sadness."
No. when they can smile, who ruin a great country'. sure those who would have saved it may indulge themselves in that cheerfulness which conscious integrity bestows. I think I shall come to you next week; and since we have no longer any plan of operations to settle, we will look over the map of Europe, and fix upon a pleasant corner for our exile--for take notice, I do not design to fall upon my dagger, in hopes that some Mr. Addison a thousand years hence may write a dull tragedy about me. I will write my own story a little more cheerfully than he would; but I fear now I must not print it at my own press. Adieu! You was a philosopher before you had any occasion to be so: pray continue so; you have ample occasion! Yours ever, H. W.
227. To The Hon. H. S. Conway. Strawberry Hill, Oct. 13, 1764. (page 348)
Lord John Cavendish has been so kind as to send me word of the Duke of Devonshire's(676) legacy to you.(677) You cannot doubt of the great joy this gives me; and yet it serves to aggravate the loss of so worthy a man! And when I feel it thus, I am sensible how much more it will add to your concern, instead of diminishing it. Yet do not wholly reflect on your misfortune. You might despise the acquisition of five thousand pounds simply; but when that sum is a public testimonial to your virtue, and bequeathed by a man so virtuous, it is a million. Measure it with the riches of those who have basely injured you, and it is still more! Why, it is glory, it is conscious innocence, it is satisfaction--it is affluence without guilt--Oh! the comfortable sound! It is a good name in the history of these corrupt days. There it will exist, when the wealth of your and their country's enemies will be wasted, or will be an indelible blemish on their descendants.
My heart is full, and yet I will say no more. My best loves to all your opulent family. Who says virtue is not rewarded in this world? It is rewarded by virtue, and it is persecuted by the bad. Can greater honour be paid to it?
(676) William, fourth Duke of Devonshire. During his administration in Ireland, Mr. Conway had been secretary of state there. He died at Spa on the 2d of October.-E.
(677) The legacy was contained in the following codicil, written in the Duke's own hand. "I give to General Conway five thousand pounds as a testimony of my friendship to him, and of my sense of his Honourable conduct and friendship for me."-E.
228. To The Hon. H. S. Conway. Strawberry Hill, Oct. 29, 1764. (page 348)
I am glad you mentioned it: I would not have had you appear without your close mourning for the Duke of Devonshire upon any account. I was once going to tell you of it, knowing your inaccuracy in such matters; but thought it still impossible you should be ignorant how necessary it is. Lord Strafford, who has a legacy of only two hundred pounds, wrote to consult Lady Suffolk. She told him, for such a sum, which only implies a ring,, it was sometimes not done but yet advised him to mourn. In your case it is indispensable; nor can you see any of his family without it. Besides it is much better on such an occasion to over, than under do. I answer this paragraph first, because I am so earnest not to have you blamed.
Besides wishing to see you all, I have wanted exceedingly to come to you, having much to say to you; but I am confined here, that is, Mr. Chute is: he was seized with the gout last Wednesday se'nnight, the day he came hither to meet George Montagu, and this is the first day he has been out of his bedchamber. I must therefore put off our meeting till Saturday, when you shall certainly find me in town.
We have a report here, but the authority bitter bad, that Lord March is going to be married to Lady Conway. I don't believe it the less for our knowing nothing of it; for unless their daughter were breeding, and it were to save her character, neither your brother nor Lady Hertford would disclose a tittle about it. Yet in charity they should advertise it, that parents and relations, if it is so, may lock up all knives, ropes, laudanum, and rivers, lest it should occasion a violent mortality among his fair admirers.
I am charmed with an answer I have just read in the papers of a man in Bedlam, who was ill-used by -,in apprentice because he Would not tell him why he was confined there. The unhappy creature said at last, "Because God has deprived me of a blessing which you never enjoyed." There never was any thing finer or more moving! Your sensibility will not be quite so much affected by a story I heard t'other day of Sir Fletcher Norton. He has a mother--yes, a mother: perhaps you thought that, like that tender urchin Love,
----duris in cotibus illum Ismarus, aut Rhodope, aut extremi Garamantes, Nec nostri generis puerum nec sanguinis edunt.
Well, Mrs. Rhodope lives in a mighty shabby hovel at Preston, which the dutiful and affectionate Sir Fletcher began to think not suitable to the dignity of one who has the honour of being his parent. He cheapened a better, in which were two pictures which the proprietor valued at threescore pounds. The attorney(678) insisted on having them for nothing, as fixtures- -the landlord refused, the bargain was broken off, and the dowager Madam Norton remains in her original hut. I could tell you another story which you would not dislike; but as it might hurt the person concerned, if it was known, I shall not send it by the post; but will tell you when I see you. Adieu!
(678) Sir Fletcher Norton, afterwards Lord Grantley, had been appointed attorney-general in the preceding December.-E.
229. To The Earl Of Hertford. Strawberry Hill, Nov. 1, 1764. (page 350)
I am not only pleased, my dear lord, to have been the first to announce your brother's legacy to you, but I am glad whenever my news reach you without being quite stale. I see but few persons here. I begin my letters without knowing when I shall be able to fill them, and then am to winnow a little what I hear, that I may not send you absolute secondhand fables: for though I cannot warrant all I tell you, I hate to send you every improbable tale that is vented. You like, as one always does in absence, to hear the common occurrences of your own country; and you see I am very glad to be your gazetteer, provided you do not rank my letters upon any higher foot. I should be ashamed of such gossiping, if I did not consider it as chatting with you en famille, as we used to do at supper in Grosvenor-street.
The Duke of Devonshire has made splendid provision for his younger children; to Lady Dorothy,(679) 30,000 pounds; Lord Richard and Lord George will have about 4,000 pounds a-year apiece: for, besides landed estates, he has left them his whole personal estate without exception, only obliging the present Duke to redeem Devonshire-house, and the entire collection in it, for 20,000 pounds: he gives 500 pounds to each of his brothers, and 200 pounds to Lord Strafford, with some other inconsiderable legacies. Lord Frederick carried the garter, and was treated by the King with very gracious speeches of concern.
The Duke of Cumberland is quite recovered, after an incision of many inches in his knee. Ranby(680) did not dare to propose that a hero should be tied, but was frightened out of his senses when the hero would hold the candle himself, which none of his generals could bear to do: in the middle of the operation, the Duke said, "Hold!" Ranby said, "For God's sake, Sir, let me proceed now--it will be worse to renew it." The Duke repeated, "I say hold!" and then calmly bade them give Ranby a clean waistcoat and cap; for, said he, the poor man has sweated through these. It was true; but the Duke did not utter a groan.
Have you heard that Lady Susan O'Brien's is not the last romance of the sort? Lord Rockingham's youngest sister, Lady Harriot,(681) has stooped even lower than a theatric swain, and married her footman; but still it is you Irish(682) that commit all the havoc. Lady Harriot, however, has mixed a wonderful degree of prudence with her potion, and considering how plain she is, has not, I think, sweetened the draught too much for her lover: she settles a single hundred pound a-year upon him for his life; entails her whole fortune on their children, if they have any; and, if not, on her own family; nay, in the height of the novel, provides for a separation, and insures the same pin-money to Damon, in case they part. This deed she has vested out of her power, by sending it to Lord Mansfield,(683) whom she makes her trustee; it is drawn up in her own hand, and Lord Mansfield says is as binding as any lawyer could make it. Did one ever hear of more reflection in a delirium! Well, but hear more: she has given away all her clothes, nay, and her ladyship, and says, linen gowns are properest for a footman's wife, and is gone to his family in Ireland, plain Mrs. Henrietta Surgeon. I think it is not clear that she is mad, but I have no doubt but Lady Bel(684) will be so who could not digest Dr. Duncan, nor even Mr. Milbank.
My last told you of my sister's promotion.(685) I hear she is to be succeeded at Kensington by Miss Floyd, who lives with Lady Bolingbroke; but I beg you not to report this till you see it in a Gazette of better authority than mine, who have it only from fame and Mrs. A. Pitt.
I have not seen M. de Guerchy yet, having been in town but one night since his return. You are very kind in accepting, on your own account, his obliging expressions about me: I know no foundation on which I should like better to receive them,: the truth is he has distinguished me extremely, and when a person in his situation shows much attention to a person so very insignificant as I am, one is apt to believe it exceeds common compliment: at least, I attribute it to the esteem which he could not but see I conceived for him. His civility is so natural, and his good nature so strongly marked, that I connected much more with him than I am apt to do with new acquaintances. I pitied the various disgusts he received, and I believe he saw I did. If I felt for him, you may judge how much I am concerned that you have your share. I foresaw it was unavoidable, from the swarms of your countrymen that flock to Paris, and generally the worst part; boys and governors are woful exports. I saw a great deal of it when I lived with poor Sir Horace Mann at Florence-but you have the whole market. We are a wonderful people-I would not be our King,(686) our minister, or our ambassador, for the Indies. One comfort, however, I can truly give you; I have heard their complaints, if they have any, from nobody but yourself. Jesus! if they are not content now, I wish they knew how the English were received at Paris twenty years ago--why, you and I know they were not received at all. Ay, and when the fashion of admiring English is past, it will be just so again; and very reasonably- -who would open their house to every staring booby from another country?
Arlington Street, Nov. 3.
I came to town to-day to meet your brother, who is going to Euston and Thetford,(687) and hope he will bring back a good account of the domestic history,(688) of which we can learn nothing authentic. Fitzroy(689) knows nothing. The town says the Duchess is going thither.
We have been this evening with Duchess Hamilton,(690) who is arrived from Scotland, visibly promising another Lord Campbell. I shall take this opportunity of seeing M. de Guerchy, and that opportunity, of sending this letter, and one from your brother. Our politics are all at a stand. The Duke of Devonshire's death, I concluded, would make the ministry all powerful, all triumphant, and all insolent. It does not appear to have done so. They are, I believe, extremely ill among themselves, and not better in their affairs foreign or domestic. The cider counties have instructed their members to join the minority. The house of Yorke seems to have laid aside their coldness and irresolution, and to look towards opposition. The unpopularity of the court is very great indeed--still I shall not be surprised if they maintain their ground a little longer.
There is nothing new in the way of publication: the town itself' is still a desert. I have twice passed by Arthur's(691) to-day, and not seen a chariot.
Hogarth is dead, and Mrs. Spence, who lived with the Duchess of Newcastle.(692) She had saved 20,000 pounds which she leaves to her sister for life, and after her, to Tommy Pelham. Ned Finch(693) has got an estate from an old Mrs. Hatton of 1500 pounds a year, and takes her name.
Adieu! my lord and lady, and your whole et cetera.
(679) Lady Dorothy married, in 1766, the Duke of Portland.-E.
(680) A celebrated surgeon of the day. He was serjeant-surgeon to the King, and F. R. S.-E.
(681) Lady Henrietta Alicia Wentworth, born in 1737; married Mr. William Surgeon.-E.
(682) Lord Hertford was an Irish peer; he had besides so large a fortune there, and paid so much attention to the interests of that country,, that Mr. Walpole calls him Irish.-C.
(683) Lord Mansfield had married Lady Harriot's aunt.-E.
(684) Lady Isibella Finch, lady of the bedchamber to Princess Amelia, was Lady Harriot's aunt. The Mr. Milbank here mentioned had married Lady Mary Wentworth, the elder sister of Lady Harriot.-C.
(685) From being housekeeper at Kensington Palace, to the same office at Windsor Castle; but Mr. Walpole is mistaken as to the name of her successor: it was Miss Roche loyd.-C.
(686) It is due to the character of the King and the ministers, whom Mr. Walpole so often and so wantonly depreciates, to solicit the reader's attention to such passages as this, in which he imputes to others, and therefore implies in himself, an unfair disposition to criticise and censure.-C.
(687) He was member for Thetford.-E.
(688) Of the Grafton family.-E.
(689) Colonel Charles Fitzroy. See ant`e, p. 261, Letter 185.-E.
(690) Elizabeth Gunning, widow of James, sixth Duke of Hamilton, and wife, in 1759, of John, fifth Duke of Argyle.-E.
(691) The fashionable club in St. James's Street.-E.
(692) The Duke of Newcastle, in a letter to Mr. Pitt of the 19th of October, says, "The many great losses, both public and private, which we have had this summer, have very greatly affected the Duchess; and the last of all, of her old friend and companion of above forty-five years, poor Mrs. Spence, has added much to the melancholy situation in which she was before." Chatham Correspondence, vol, ii. p. 295.-E.
(693) Edward, fifth son of the sixth Earl of Winchelsea. Mrs. Hatton was his maternal aunt, sister of the last Viscount Hatton.-C.
230. To The Rev. Mr. Cole. Strawberry Hill, Nov. 8, 1764. (page 352)
I am much disappointed, I own, dear Sir, at not seeing you: more so, as I fear it will be long before I shall, for I think of going to paris early in February. I ought indeed to go directly, as the winter does not agree with me here. Without being positively ill, I am positively not well: about this time of year, I have little fevers every night, and pains in my breast and stomach, which bid me repair to a more flannel climate. These little complaints are already begun, and as soon as affairs will permit me, I mean to transport them southward.
I am sorry it is out of my power to make the addition you wish to Mr. Tuer's article: many of the following sheets are printed off, and there is no inserting any thing now, without shoving the whole text forward, which you see is impossible. You promised to bring me a portrait of him: as I shall have four or five new plates, I can get his head into one of them: will you send it as soon as you can possibly to my house in Arlington-street; I will take great care of it-, and return it to you safe.
231. To The Earl Of Hertford. Strawberry Hill, Nov. 9, 1764. (page 353)
I don't know whether this letter will not reach you, my dear lord, before one that I sent to you last week by a private hand, along with one from your brother. I write this by my Lord Chamberlain's order--you may interpret it as you please, either as by some new connexion of the Bedford squadron with the opposition, or as a commission to you, my lord ambassador. As yet, I believe you had better take it upon the latter foundation, though the Duke of Bedford has crossed the country from Bath to Woburn, without coming to town. Be that as it may, here is the negotiation intrusted to you. You are desired by my Lord Gower to apply to the gentilhomme de la chambre for leave for Doberval(694) the dancer, who was here last year, to return and dance at our Opera forthwith. If the court of France -will comply with this request, we will send them a discharge in full, for the Canada bills and the ransom of their prisoners, and we will permit Monsieur D'Estain to command in the West Indies, whether we will or not. The city of London must not know a word of this treaty, for they hate any mortal should be diverted but themselves, especially by any thing relative to harmony. It is, I own, betraying my country and my patriotism to be concerned in a job of this kind. I am sensible that there is not a weaver in Spitalfields but can dance better than the first performer in the French Opera; and yet, how could I refuse this commission? Mrs. George Pitt delivered it to me just now, at Lord Holderness's at Sion, and as my virtue has not yet been able to root out all my good-breeding--though I trust it will in time--I could not help promising that I would write to you--nay, and engaged that you would undertake it. When I venture, sure you may, who are out of the reach of a mob!
I believe this letter will go by Monsieur Beaumont. He breakfasted here t'other morning, and pleased me exceedingly: he has great spirit and good-humour. It is incredible what pains he has taken to see. He has seen Oxford, Bath, Blenheim, Stowe, Jews, Quakers, Mr. Pitt, the Royal Society, the Robinhood, Lord Chief-Justice Pratt, the Arts-and-Sciences, has dined at Wildman's, and, I think, with my Lord Mayor, or is to do. Monsieur de Guerchy is full of your praises; I am to go to Park-place with him next week, to make your brother a visit.
You know how I hate telling you false news: all I can do, is to retract as fast as I can. I fear I was too hasty in an article I sent you in my last, though I then mentioned it only as a report. I doubt, what we wish in a private family(695) will not be exactly the event.
The Duke of Cumberland has had a dangerous sore-throat, but is recovered. In one of the bitterest days that could be felt, he would go upon the course at Newmarket with the windows of his landau down. Newmarket-heath, at no time of the year, is placed under the torrid zone. I can conceive a hero welcoming death, or at least despising it; but if I was covered with more laurels than a boar's head at Christmas, I should hate pain, and Ranby, and an operation. His nephew of York has been at Blenheim, where they gave him a ball, but did not put themselves to much expense in dancers; the figurantes were the maid-servants. You will not doubt my authority, when I tell you my Lady Bute was my intelligence. I heard to-day, at Sion, of some bitter verses made at Bath, on both their graces of Bedford. I have not seen them, nor, if I had them, would I send them to you before they are in print, which I conclude they will be, for I am sorry to say, scandalous abuse is not the commodity which either side is sparing of. You can conceive nothing beyond the epigrams which have been in the papers, on a pair of doves and a parrot that Lord Bute has sent to the Princess.(696)
I hear-but this is another of my paragraphs that I am far from giving you for sterling--that Lord Sandwich is to have the Duke of Devonshire's garter; Lord Northumberland stands against Lord Morton,(697) for president of the Royal Society, in the room of Lord Macclesfield. As this latter article will have no bad consequences if it should prove true, you may believe it. Earl Poulet is dead, and Soame, who married Mrs. Naylor's sister.
You will wonder more at what I am going to tell you in the last place: I am preparing, in earnest, to make you a visit-not next week, but seriously in February. After postponing it for seven idle months, you will stare at my thinking of it just after the meeting Of the Parliament. Why, that is just one of my principal reasons. I will stay and see the opening and one or two divisions; the minority will be able to be the majority, or they will not: if they can, they will not want me, who want nothing of them: if they cannot, I am sure I can do them no good, and shall take my leave of them;--I mean always, to be sure, if things do not turn on a few votes: they shall not call me a deserter. In every other case, I am so sick of politics, which I have long detested, that I must bid adieu to them. I have acted the part by your brother that I thought right. He approves what I have done, and what I mean to do; so do the few I esteem, for I have notified my intention; and for the rest of the world, they may think what they please. In truth, I have a better reason, which would prescribe my setting out directly, if it was consistent with my honour. I have a return of those nightly fevers and pains in my breast, which have come for the three last years -,it this season: change of air and a better climate are certainly necessary to me in winter. I shall thus indulge my inclinations every way. I long to see you and my Lady Hertford, and am wofully sick of the follies and distractions of this country, to which I see no end, come what changes will! Now, do you wonder any longer at my resolution? In the mean time adieu for the present!
(694) D'Auberval was not only a celebrated dancer, but a composer of ballets.@.
(695) The reconciliation of the Duke and Duchess of Grafton.-E.
(696) The Princess Dowager of Wales.
(697) Lord Morton was elected.
232. To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey. November 10, 1764. (page 355)
Soh! madam, you expect to be thanked, because you have done a very obliging thing.(698) But I won't thank you, and I won't be obliged. It is very hard one can't come into your house and commend any thing, but you must recollect it and send it after one! I will never dine in your house again; and, when I do, I will like nothing; and when I do, I will commend nothing; and when I do, you shan't remember it. You are very grateful indeed to Providence that give you so good a memory, to stuff it with nothing but bills of fare of what every body likes to eat and drink! I wonder you are not ashamed! Do you think there is no such thing as gluttony of the memory?--You a Christian! A pretty account you will be able to give of yourself!-Your fine folks in France may call this friendship and attention, perhaps--but sure, if I was to go to the devil, it should be for thinking of nothing but myself, not of others, from morning to night. I would send back your temptations; but, as I will not be obliged to you for them, verily I shall retain them to punish you; ingratitude being a proper chastisement for sinful friendliness. Thine in the spirit, Pilchard Whitfield.
(698) Lady Hervey, it is supposed, had sent Mr. Walpole some potted pilchards.
233. To The Earl Of Hertford. Strawberry Hill, Nov. 25, 1764. (page 356)
Could you be so kind, my dear lord, as to recollect Dr. Blanchard, after so long an interval. It will make me still more cautious of giving recommendations to you, instead of drawing upon the credit you give me. I saw Mr. Stanley last night at the Opera, who made his court extremely to me by what he said of you. It was our first opera, and I went to town to hear Manzoli,(699) who did not quite answer my expectation, though a very fine singer, but his voice has been younger, and wants the touching tones of Elisi.(700) However, the audience was not so nice, but applauded him immoderately, and encored three of his songs. The first woman was advertised for a perfect beauty, with no voice; but her beauty and voice are by no means so unequally balanced: she has a pretty little small pipe, and only a pretty little small person, and share of beauty, and does not act ill. There is Tenducci, a moderate tenor, and all the rest intolerable. If you don't make haste and send us Doberval, I don't know what we shall do. The dances were not only hissed, as truly they deserved to be, but the gallery, `a la Drury-lane, cried out, , Off! off!" The boxes were empty, for so is the town, to a degree. The person,(701) who ordered me to write to you for Dobeval, was reduced to languish in the Duchess of Hamilton's box. My Duchess(702) does not appear yet--I fear.
Shall I tell you any thing about D'Eon? it is sending coals to Paris: you must know his story better than me; so in two words Vergy, his antagonist, is become his convert:(703) has wrote for him and sworn for him,--nay, has made an affidavit before Judge Wilmot, that Monsieur de Guerchy had hired him to stab or poison D'Eon. Did you ever see a man who had less of an assassin than your pendant, as Nivernois calls it! In short, the story is as clumsy, as abominable. The King's Bench cited D'Eon to receive his sentence: he absconds: that court issued a warrant to search for him and a house in Scotland-yard, where he lodged, was broken open, but in vain. If there is any thing more, you know it yourself. This law transaction is buried in another. The Master of the Rolls, Sir Thomas Clarke, is dead, and Norton succeeds. Who do you think succeeds him? his predecessor.(704) The house of York is returned to the house of Lancaster: they could not keep their white roses pure. I have not a little suspicion that disappointment has contributed to this faux-pas. Sir Thomas made a new will the day before he died, and gave his vast fortune, not to Mr. Yorke, as was expected, but to Lord Macclesfield, to whom, it is come out, he was natural brother. Norton, besides the Rolls, which are for lite, and near 3,000 pounds a-year, has a pension of 1,200 pounds. Mrs. Anne Pitt, too, has got a third pension: so you see we are not quite such beggars as you imagined!
Prince William, you know, is Duke of Gloucester, with the same appanage as the Duke of York. Legrand(705) is his Cadogan; Clinton(706) and Ligonier(707) his grooms.
Colonel Crawford is dead at Minorca, and Colonel Burton has his regiment; the Primate (Stone) is better, but I suppose, from his distemper, which is a dropsy in his breast, irrecoverable. Your Irish queen(708) exceeds the English Queen, and follows her with seven footmen before her chair--well! what trumperies I tell you! but I cannot help it--Wilkes is outlawed, D'Eon run away, and Churchill dead--till some new genius arises, you must take up with the operas, and pensions, and seven footmen. But patience! your country is seldom sterile long.
George Selwyn has written hither his lamentations about that Cossack Princess. I am glad of it, for I did but hint it to my Lady Rervey, (though I give you my word, without quoting you, which I never do upon the most trifling occurrences,) and I was cut very short, and told it was impossible. A la bonne heure! Pray, who is Lord March(709) going to marry? We hear so, but nobody named. I had not heard of your losses at whisk; but if I had, should not have been terrified: you know whisk gives no fatal ideas to any body that has been at Arthur's and seen hazard, Quinze, and Trente-et-Quarante. I beg you will prevail on the King of France to let Monsieur de Richelieu give as many balls and f`etes as he pleases, if it is only for my diversion. This journey to Paris is the last colt's tooth I intend ever to cut, and I insist upon being prodigiously entertained, like a Sposa Monacha, whom they cram with this world for a twelvemonth, before she bids adieu to it for ever. I think, when I shut myself up in my convent here, it will not be with the same regret. I have for some time been glutted with the world, and regret the friends that drop away every day; those, at least, with whom I came into the world, already begin to make it appear a great void. Lord Edgecumbe, Lord Waldegrave, and the Duke of Devonshire leave a very perceptible chasm. At the Opera last night, I felt almost ashamed to be there. Except Lady Townshend, Lady Schaub, Lady Albemarle, and Lady Northumberland, I scarce saw a creature whose debut there I could not remember: nay, the greater part were maccaronies. You see I am not likely, like my brother Cholmondeley (who, by the way, was there too), to totter into a solitaire at threescore. The Duke de Richelieu(710) is one of the persons I am curious to see--oh! am I to find Madame de Boufflers, Princess of Conti? Your brother and Lady Aylesbury are to be in town the day after to-morrow to hear Manzoli, and on their way to Mrs. Cornwallis, who is acting l'agonisante; but that would be treason to Lady Ailesbury. I was at Park-place last week: the bridge is finished, and a noble object.
I shall come to you as soon as ever I have my cong`e, which I trust will be early in February. I will let you know the moment I can fix my time, because I shall beg you to order a small lodging to be taken for me at no great distance from your palace, and only for a short time, because, if I should like France enough to stay some months I can afterwards accommodate myself to my mind. I should like to be so near you that I could see you whenever it would not be inconvenient to you, and without being obliged to that intercourse with my countrymen, which I by no means design to cultivate. If I leave the best company here, it shall not be for the worst. I am getting out of the world, not coming into it, and shall therefore be most indifferent about their acquaintance, or what they think of my avoiding it. I come to see you and my Lady Hertford, to escape from politics, and to amuse myself with seeing, which I intend to do with all my eyes. I abhor show, am not passionately fond of literati, don't want to know people for a few months, and really think of nothing but some comfortable hours with you, and indulging my curiosity. Excuse almost a page about myself, but it was to tell you how little trouble I hope to give you.
(699) "Manzoli's voice was the most powerful and voluminous soprano that had been heard on our stage since the time of Farinelli; and his manner of singing was grand and full of taste and dignity. The lovers of music in London were more unanimous in approving his voice and talents, than those of any other singer within my memory." Burney.--E.
(700) Elisi, though a great singer, was a still greater actor: his figure was large and majestic, and he had a great compass of voice." Ibid.-E.
(701) Probably Mrs. George Pitt.-C.
(702) Of Grafton.
(703) This is altogether a very mysterious affair: M. de Vergy was the cause of D'Eon's violent behaviour at Lord Halifax's (see ant`e, p. 254, letter 181,); he afterwards took D'Eon's part, and had the effrontery and the infamy to say, that he was suborned by the French ministry to quarrel with and ruin D'Eon.-C.
(704) Mr. Charles Yorke; but we shall see, in the next letter, that the fact on which all this imputation was built was false.-C.
(705) Edward Legrand, Esq., treasurer to the Duke of Gloucester; as the Hon. C. S. Cadogan was to the Duke of York.-E.
(706) Colonel Henry Clinton, afterwards commander-in-chief in America, and K. B.-E.
(707) Colonel Edward Ligonier, aide-de-camp to the King.-E.
(708) The Countess of Northumberland.-E.
(709) James, third Earl of March, a lord of the bedchamber, who subsequently, in 1778, succeeded to the dukedom of queensberry, and was the last of that title.-E.
(710) The celebrated Mareschal Duc de Richelieu: he was born in 1696, and died in 1788. The whole of his long life was full of adventures so extraordinary as to justify Mr. Walpole's curiosity. The most remarkable, however, of all, had not at this period occurred. In the year 1780, and at the age of eighty-four, he married his third wife, and was severely afflicted that a miscarriage of the Duchess destroyed his hopes of another Cardinal de Richelieu; for to that eminence he destined the child of his age. His biographer adds, that the Duchess was an affectionate and attentive wife, notwithstanding that her octogenarian husband tried her patience by reiterated infidelities.-C.
234. To The Earl Of Hertford. Arlington Street, Dec. 3, 1764. (page 358)
I love to contradict myself as fast as I can when I have told you a lie, lest you should take me for a chambermaid, or Charles Townshend. But how can I help it? Is this a consistent age? How should I know people's minds, if they don't know them themselves? In short, Charles Yorke is not attorney-general, nor Norton master of the rolls. A qualm came across the first, and my Lord lorn across the second, who would not have Norton in his court. I cannot imagine why; it is so gentle, amiable, honest a being! But I think the Chancellor says, Norton does not understand equity, so he remains prosecutor-general. Yorke would have taken the rolls, if they would have made it much more considerable; but as they would not, he has recollected that it will be clever for one Yorke to have the air of being disinterested, so he only disgraces himself,(711) and takes a patent of precedence over the Solicitor-General:--but do not depend upon this--he was to have kissed hands on Friday, but has put it off till Wednesday next--between this and that, his Virtue may have another fit. The court ridicule him even more than the opposition. What diverts me most, is, that the pious and dutiful house of Yorke, who cried and roared over their father's memory, now throw all the blame on him, and say, he forced them into opposition--amorent nummi expellas furc`a, licet usque recurret.(712) Sewell(713) is master of the rolls.
Well! I may grow a little more explicit to you; besides, this letter goes to you by a private hand. I gave you little hints, to prepare you for the separation of the house of Grafton. It is so, and I am heartily sorry for it. Your brother is chosen by the Duke, and General Ellison by the Duchess, to adjust the terms, which are not yet settled. The Duke takes all on himself, and assigns no reason but disagreement of tempers. He leaves Lady Georgina' with her mother, who, he says, is the properest person to educate her, and Lord Charles, till he is old enough to be taken from the women. This behaviour is noble and generous-- still I wish they could have agreed!
This is not the only parting that makes a noise. His grace of Kingston(714) has taken a pretty milliner from Cranborn-alley, and carried her to Thoresby. Miss Chudleigh, at the Princess's birthday on Friday, beat her side till she could not help having a real pain in it, that people might inquire what was the matter; on which she notified a pleurisy, and that she is going to the baths of Carlsbad, in Bohemia. I hope she will not meet with the Bulgares that demolished the Castle of Thundertentronck.(715 y) My Lady Harrington's robbery is at last come to light, and was committed by the porter,(716) who is in Newgate.
Lady Northumberland (who, by the way, has added an eighth footman since I wrote to you last) told Me this Morning that the Queen is very impatient to receive an answer from Lady Hertford, about Prince George's letters coming through your hands, as she desired they might.
A correspondence between Legge and Lord Bute about the Hampshire election is published to-day, by the express desire of the former, When he was dying.(717) He showed the letters to me in the spring, and I then did not-think them so strong or important as he did. I am very clear it does no honour to his memory to have them printed now. It implies want of resolution to publish them in his lifetime, and that he died with more resentment than I think one should care to own. I would Send them to you, but I know Dr. Hunter takes care of such things. I hope he will send you, too, the finest piece that I think has been written for liberty since Lord Somers. It is called an Inquiry into the late Doctrine on Libels, and is said to be written by one Dunning,(718) a lawyer lately started up, who makes a great noise. He is a sharp thorn in the sides of Lord Mansfield and Norton, and, in truth, this book is no plaster to their pain. It is bitter, has much unaffected wit, and is the Only tract that ever made me understand law.(719) If Dr. Hunter does not send you these things, I suppose he will convey them himself, as I hear there will be a fourteenth occasion for him. Charles Fitzroy says, Lord Halifax told Mrs. Crosby that you are to go to Ireland. I said he l(nows you are not the most communicative person in the world, and that you had not mentioned it--nor do I now, by way of asking impertinent questions; but I thought you would like to know what was said.
I return to Strawberry Hill to-morrow, but must return on Thursday, as there is to be something at the Duke of York's that evening, for which I have received a card. He and his brother are most exceedingly civil and good-humoured--but I assure you every place is like one of Shakspeare's plays:--Flourish, enter the Duke of York, Gloucester, and attendants. Lady Irwin(720) died yesterday.
Past eleven.
I have just come from a little impromptu ball at Mrs. Ann Pitt's. I told you she had a new pension, but did I tell you it was five hundred pounds a year? It was entertaining to see the Duchess of Bedford and Lady Bute with their respective forces, drawn up on different sides of the room; the latter's were most numerous. My Lord Gower seemed very willing to promote a parley between the two armies. It would have made you shrug up your shoulders at dirty humanity, to see the two Miss Pelhams sit neglected, without being asked to dance. You may imagine this could not escape me, who have passed through the several grradations in which Lady Jane Stuart and Miss Pelham are and have been; but I fear poor Miss Pelham feels hers a little more than ever I did.(721) The Duke of York's is to be a dinner and a ball for Princess Amelia.
Lady Mary Bowlby(722) gave me a commission, a genealogical one, from my Lady Hertford, which I will execute to the best of my power. I am glad my part is not to prove eighteen generations Of nobility for the Bruces. I fear they have made some mes-alliances since the days of King Robert-at least, the present Scotch nobility are not less apt to go into Lombard-street than the English.
My Lady Suffolk was at the ball; I asked the Prince of Masserano whom he thought the oldest woman in the room, as I concluded he would not guess she was. He did not know my reason for asking, and would not tell me. At last, he said very cleverly, his own wife.
Mr. Sarjent has sent me this evening from Les Consid`erations sur les Moeurs," and "Le Testament Politique,"(723) for which I give you, my dear lord, a thousand thanks. Good night!
P.S. Manzoli(724) has come a little too late, or I think he would have as many diamond watches and snuff-boxes as Farinelli.
(711) We can venture to state, that there never was any idea of Mr. Yorke's accepting the rolls; and it is believed that they never were offered to him; certainly, be himself never thought of taking that office. The patent of precedence which he did accept, was an arrangement, which, though convenient for the conduct of the business in court, could give no addition of either rank or profit to a person in Mr. Yorke's circumstances. The facts were as follow: when Mr. Yorke, in 1756, was made solicitor-general, he was not a King's counsel; he succeeded to be attorney-general, but on his resignation in October 1763, he lost the precedence which his offices had given him, and he returned to the outer bar and a stuff gown. It was a novel and anomalous sight to see a man who had led the Chancery bar so long, and filled the greatest office of the law, retire to comparatively, so humble a rank in the court in which he might be every day expected to preside; and accordingly, on his first appearance after his resignation, the Chancellor, with the concurrence (indeed, it has been said on the suggestion) of the bar, called to Mr. Yorke, out of his turn, next after the King's counsel: this irregular pre-audience had lasted above a year, when it was thought more proper and more convenient for the business of the court to give Mr. Yorke that formal patent of precedence, the value and circumstances of which Mr Walpole so much misunderstands. We have heard from old lawyers, that Mr. Yorke's business at this period was more extensive and less lucrative than any other man ever possessed in Chancery, and we find no less than four other barristers had at this time patents of precedence.-C.
(712) The reader is requested to look back to p. 272, letter 188, where he will find Mr. Walpole himself stating--long before Lord Hardwickc's death, and even before his illness--that "the old Chancellor was violent against the court, and that Mr. Charles Yorke had resigned, contrary to his own; and Lord Royston's inclination." The fact was in no way true; for it is well known that there never was the slightest difference of opinion between the old Lord Hardwicke and his son Charles upon their political conduct.-C.
(713) Sir Thomas Sewell, Knight.-E.
(714) Evelyn, last Duke of Kingston: he soon after married Miss Chudleigh, who was supposed to have been already married to Mr. Augustus Hervey, afterwards Earl of Bristol.-C.
(715) An allusion to a loose incident in Voltaire's Candide.
(716) See ant`e, p. 260, letter 184.
(717) Mr. Legge had, in 1759, while chancellor of the exchequer to George II. been requested by Lord Bute, in the name of the Prince of Wales, to pledge himself to support a Mr. Stuart at the next election for Hampshire: this Mr. Legge, for very sufficient reasons, refused to do; and for this refusal (as he thought, and wished to persuade the public) he was turned out of office at the accession of the young King.-C.
(718) Mr. Dunning soon rose into great practice and eminence; in 1767 he was made solicitor-general, which office he held till 1770. He then made a considerable figure in the opposition, till the accession to the ministry, in 1782, of his friend Lord Shelburne, when he was created Lord Ashburton; he died next year.-C.
(719) Mr. Dunning's pamphlet was intituled "Inquiry into the Doctrine lately propagated concerning Juries, Libels, etc. upon the principles of the Law and the Constitution." Gray, in a letter to Walpole of the 30th, thus characterizes it:--"Your canonical book I have been reading with great satisfaction. He speaketh as one having authority. If Englishmen have any feeling, methinks they must feel now; and if the ministry have any feeling (Whom nobody will suspect of insensibility) they must cut off the author's ears; for if is in all the forms a most wicked libel. Is the old man and the lawyer put on, or is it real? or has some real lawyer furnished a good part of the materials, and another person employed them? This I guess." Works, vol. iv. p. 40.-E.
(720) Anne Howard, daughter of the third Earl of Carlisle, and widow of the third Viscount Irwin. She was lady of the bedchamber to the Princess Dowager. Mr. Park has introduced her into his edition of the Noble Authors.-C.
(721) Mr. Walpole means that he was courted during his father's power, and neglected after his fall, as the daughters of a succeeding prime minister, Mr. Henry Pelham, now were; but as Lady Jane Stuart was but two-and-twenty years old, and Miss Pelham was thirty-six, we may account for the preference given to her ladyship at a ball, without any reference to the meanness and political time-serving of mankind. Both the Misses Pelham died unmarried.-C.
(722) Sister of the Duke of Montagu.
(723) A French forgery called "Le Testament Politique du Chevalier Robert Walpole," of which Mr. Walpole drew up an exposure, which is to be found in the second volume of his works.-C.
(724) The enthusiasm, however, ran pretty high, as we learn from the following passage, in one of the periodical papers of the day:--"Signor Manzoli, the Italian singer at the Haymarket, got no less, after paying all charges of every kind, by his benefit last week (March, 1765), than 1000 guineas. This added to a sum of 1,500 which he has already saved, and the remaining profits of the season, is surely an undoubted proof of British generosity. One particular lady complimented the singer with a 200 pound bill for a ticket on that occasion."-C.''
235. To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, Dec. 16, 1764. (page 362)
As I have not read in the paper that you died lately at Greatworth, in Northamptonshire, nor have met with any Montagu or Trevor in mourning, I conclude you are living: I send this, however, to inquire, and if you should happen to be departed, hope your executor will be so kind as to burn it. Though you do not seem to have the same curiosity about my existence, you may gather from my handwriting that I am still in being; which being perhaps full as much as you want to know of me, I will trouble you with no farther particulars about myself--nay, nor about any body else; your curiosity seeming to be pretty much the same about all the world. News there are certainly none; nobody is even dead, as the Bishop of Carlisle told me to-day, which I repeat to you in general, though I apprehend in his own mind he meant no possessor of a better bishopric.
If you like to know the state of the town, here it is. In the first place, it is very empty; in the next, there are more diversions than the week will hold. A charming Italian opera, with no dances and no company, at least on Tuesdays; to supply which defect, the subscribers are to have a ball and supper--a plan that in my humble opinion will fill the Tuesdays and empty the Saturdays. At both playhouses are woful English operas; which, however, fill better than the Italian, patriotism being entirely confined to our ears: how long the sages of the law may leave us those I cannot say. Mrs Cornelis, apprehending the future assembly at Almack's, has enlarged her vast room, and hung it with blue satin, and another with yellow satin; but Almack's room, which is to be ninety feet long, proposes to swallow up both hers, as easy as Moses's rod gobbled down those Of the magicians. Well, but there are more joys; a dinner and assembly every Tuesday at the Austrian minister's; ditto on Thursdays at the Spaniard's; ditto on Wednesdays and Sundays at the French ambassador's; besides Madame de Welderen's on Wednesdays, Lady Harrington's Sundays, and occasional private mobs at my lady Northumberland's. Then for the mornings, there are lev`ees and drawing-rooms without end. Not to mention the maccaroni-club, which has quite absorbed Arthur's; for you know old fools will hobble after young ones. Of all these pleasures, I prescribe myself a very small pittance,--my dark corner in my own box at the Opera, and now and then an ambassador, to keep my French going till my journey to Paris. Politics are gone to sleep, like a paroli at pharaoh, though there is the finest tract lately published that ever was written, called an Inquiry into the Doctrine of Libels. It would warm your old Algernon blood; but for what any body cares, might as well have been written about the wars of York and Lancaster. The thing most in fashion is my edition of Lord Herbert's Life; people are mad after it, I believe because only two hundred were printed; and, by the numbers that admire it, I am convinced that if I had kept his lordship's counsel, very few would have found out the absurdity of it. The caution with which I hinted at its extravagance, has passed with several for approbation, and drawn on theirs. This is nothing new to me; it is when one laughs out at their idols that one angers people. I do not wonder now that Sir Philip Sydney was the darling hero, when Lord Herbert, who followed him so close and trod in his steps, is at this time of day within an ace of rivalling him. I wish I had let him; it was contradicting one of my own maxims, which I hold to be very just; that it is idle to endeavour to cure the world of any folly, unless We Could cure it of being foolish.
Tell me whether I am likely to see you before I go to Paris, which will be early in February. I hate you for being so indifferent about me. I live in the world, and yet love nothing, care a straw for nothing, but two or three old friends, that I have loved these thirty years. You have buried yourself with half a dozen parsons and isquires, and Yet never cast a thought upon those you have always lived with. You come to town for two Months, grow tired in six weeks, hurry away, and then one hears no more of you till next winter. I don't want you to like the world, I like it no more than you; but I stay awhile in it, because while one sees it one laughs at it, but when one gives it up one grows angry with it; and I hold it to be much wiser to laugh than to be out of humour. You cannot imagine how much ill blood this perseverance has cured me of; I used to say to myself, "Lord! this person is so bad, that person is so bad, I hate them." I have now found out that they are all pretty much alike, and I hate nobody. Having never found you out, but for integrity and sincerity, I am much disposed to persist in a friendship with you; but if I am to be at all the pains of keeping it up, I shall imitate my neighbours (I don't mean those at next door, but in the Scripture sense of my neighbour, any body,) and say "That is a very good man, but I don't care a farthing for him." Till I have taken my final resolution on that head, I am yours most cordially.
236. To George Montagu, Esq. Christmas-eve, 1764. (page 364)
You are grown so good, and I delight so much in your letters when you please to write them, that though it is past midnight, and I am to go out of town tomorrow morning, I must thank you.
I shall put your letter to Rheims into the foreign post with a proper penny, and it will go much safer and quicker than if I sent it to Lord Hertford, for his letters lie very often till enough are assembled to compose a jolly caravan. I love your good brother John, as I always do, for keeping your birthday; I, who hate ceremonious customs, approve of what I know comes so much from the heart as all he and you do and say. The General surely need not ask leave to enclose letters to me.
There is neither news, nor any body to make it, but the clergy, who are all gaping after or about the Irish mitre,(725) which your old antagonist has quitted. Keene has refused it; Newton hesitates, and they think will not accept it; Ewer pants for it, and many of the bench I believe do every thing but pray for it. Goody Carlisle hopes for Worcester if it should be vacated, but I believe would not dislike to be her Grace.
This comes with your muff, my Anecdotes of Painting, the fine pamphlet on libels, and the Castle of Otranto, which came out to-day. All this will make some food for your fireside. Since you will not come and see me before I go, I hope not to be gone before you come, though I am not quite in charity with you about it. Oh! I had forgot; don't lend your Lord Herbert, it will grow as dirty as the street; and as there are so few, and They have been so lent about, and so dirtied, the few clean copies will be very valuable. What signifies whether they read it or not? there will be a new bishop, or a new separation, or a new something or other, that will do just as well, before you can convey your copy to them; and seriously, if you lose it, I have not another to give you; and I would fain have you keep my editions together, as you had the complete set. As I want to make you an economist of my books, I will inform you that this second' set of Anecdotes sells for three guineas. Adieu!
P. S. I send you a decent smallish muff, that you may put in your pocket, and it costs but fourteen shillings.
(7250 Dr. John Stone, Archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland, died on the 19th of December 1764.-E.
237. To The Earl Of Hertford. Arlington Street, Jan. 10, 1765. (page 364)
I should prove a miserable prophet or almanac maker, for my predictions are seldom verified. I thought the present session likely to be a very supine one, but unless the evening varies extremely from the morning, it will be a tempestuous day--and yet it was a very southerly and calm wind that began the hurricane. The King's Speech was so tame, that, as George Montagu said of the earthquake, you might have stroked it.(726) Beckford (whom I certainly did not mean by the gentle gale) touched on Draper'S(727) Letter about the Manilla money. George Grenville took up the defence of the Spaniards, though he said he only stated their arguments. This roused your brother, who told Grenville he had adopted the reasoning of Spain; and showed the fallacy of their pretensions. He exhorted every body to support the King's government, "which I," said he, "ill-used as I have been, wish and mean to support-not that of ministers, when I see the laws and independence of Parliament struck at in the most profligate manner." You may guess how deeply this wounded. Grenville took it to himself, and asserted that his own life and character were as pure, uniform, and little profligate as your brother's. The silence of the House did not seem to ratify this declaration. Your brother replied with infinite spirit, that he certainly could not have meant Mr. Grenville, for he did not take him for the minister-(I do not believe this was the least mortifying part)--that he spoke of public acts that were in every body's mouth, as the warrants, and the disgrace thrown on the army by dismissions for parliamentary reasons; that for himself he was an open enemy, and detested men who smiled in his face and stabbed him I do not believe he meant this personally, but unfortunately the whole House applied it to Mr. Grenville's grimace); that for his own disgrace, he did not know where to impute it, for every minister had disavowed it. It was to the warrants, he said, he owed what had happened; he had fallen for voting against them, but had he had ten regiments, he would have parted with them all to obey his conscience; that he now could fall no lower, and would speak as he did then, and would not be hindered nor intimidated from speaking the language of Parliament. Grenville answered, that he had never avowed nor disavowed the measure of dismissing Mr. Conway--(he disavowed it to Mr. Harris,)(728) that he himself had been turned out for voting against German connexions; that he had never approved inquiring into the King's prerogative on that head-(I can name a person who can repeat volumes of what he has said on the subject,) and that the King had as much right to dismiss military as civil officers, and then drew a ridiculous parallel betwixt the two, in which he seemed to give himself the rank of a civil lieutenant-general. This warmth was stopped by Augustus Hervey, who spoke to order, and called for the question; but young T. Townshend confirmed, that the term profligacy was applied by all mankind to the conduct on the warrants. It was not the most agreeable circumstance to Grenville, that Lord Granby closed the debate, by declaring how much he disapproved the dismission of officers for civil reasons, and the more, as he was persuaded it would not prevent officers from acting according to their consciences; and he spoke of your brother with many encomiums. Sir W. Meredith then notified his intention of taking up the affair of the warrants on Monday se'nnight. Mr. Pitt was not there, nor Lord Temple in the House of Lords; but the latter is ill. I should have told you that Lord Warkworth(729) and Thomas Pitt(730) moved our addresses; as Lord Townshend and Lord Botetourt did those of the Lords. Lord Townshend said, though it was grown unpopular to praise the King, yet he should, and he was violent against libels; forgetting that the most ill-natured branch of them, caricatures, his own invention, are left off. Nobody thought it worth while to answer him, at which he was much offended.
So much for the opening of Parliament, which does not promise serenity. Your brother is likely to make a very great figure: they have given him the warmth he wanted, and may thank Themselves for it. Had Mr. Grenville taken my advice, @e had avoided an opponent that he will find a tough one, and must already repent having drawn upon him.
With regard to yourself, my dear lord, you may be sure I did not intend to ask you any impertinent question. You requested me to tell you whatever I heard said about you; you was talked of for Ireland, and are still; and Lord Holland within this week told me, that you had solicited it warmly. Don't think yourself under any obligation to reply to me on these occasions. It is to comply with your desires that I repeat any thing I hear of you, not to make use of them to draw any explanation from you, to which I have no title; nor have I, you know, any troublesome curiosity. I mentioned Ireland with the same indifference that I tell you that the town here has bestowed Lady Anne,(731) first on Lord March, and now on Stephen Fox(732)--tattle not worth your answering.
You have lost another of your Lords Justices, Lord Shannon, of whose death an account came yesterday.
Lady Harrington's porter was executed yesterday, and went to Tyburn with a white cockade in his hat, as an emblem of his innocence.
All the rest Of My news I exhausted in my letter to Lady Hertford three days ago. The King's Speech, as I told her it was to do, announced the contract between Princess Caroline(733) and the Prince Royal of Denmark. I don't think the tone the session has taken will expedite my visit to you; however, I shall be able to judge when a few of the great questions are over. The American affairs are expected to occasion much discussion; but as I understand them no more than Hebrew, they will throw no impediment in my way. Adieu! my dear lord; you will probably hear no more politics these ten days. Yours ever, Horace Walpole.
Friday.
The debate on the warrants is put off to the Tuesday; therefore, as it will probably be so long a day, I shall not be able to give you an account of it till this day fortnight.
(726) Gray, in a letter to Dr. Wharton, written in July 1764, in giving an account of an illness, says, "Towards the end of my confinement, during which I lived on nothing, came, the gout in one foot, but so tame you might have stroked it." To this passage, the learned editor of the last edition of his works has sub-joined this note:--"I have mentioned several coincidences of thought and expression of this kind in the letters of Gray and Walpole, which I conceived to be a kind of common property; the reader, indeed, will recognise much of that species of humour which distinguishes Gray's correspondence in the letters of Walpole, inferior, I think, in its comic force; sometimes deviating too far from propriety in search of subjects for the display of its talent, and not altogether free from affectation." Vol. iv. p. 33.-E.
(727) Sir William Draper, K.B. best known by his controversy with Junius. The letter here alluded to was entitled, "An Answer to the Spanish Arguments for Refusing the Payment of the Ransom Bills."-E.
(728) General Conway's brother-in-law.-E.
(729) Afterwards Duke of Northumberland-E.
(730) Afterwards Lord Camelford.-E.
(731) ant`e, p. 299, letter 196.
(732) Second son of the first Earl of Ilchester-E.
(733) The unhappy Queen of Denmark, who was afterwards divorced and exiled.-E.
238. To The Earl Of Hertford. Sunday, Jan. 20, 1765. (page 367)
Do you forgive me, if I write to you two or three days sooner than I said I would. Our important day on the warrants is put off for a week, in compliment to Mr. Pitt's gout--can it resist such attention I shall expect in it a prodigious quantity of black ribands. You have heard, to be sure, of the great fortune that is bequeathed to him by a Sir William Pynsent, an old man of near ninety, who quitted the world on the peace of Utrecht; and, luckily for Mr. Pitt, lived to be as angry with its pendant, the treaty of Paris. I did not send you the first report, which mounted it to an enormous sum: I think the medium account is two thousand pounds a-year, and thirty thousand pounds in money. This Sir William Pynsent, whose fame, like an aloe, did not blow till near an hundred, was a singularity. The scandalous chronicle of Somersetshire talks terribly of his morals(734) *****. Lady North was nearly related to Lady Pynsent, which encouraged Lord North to flatter himself that Sir William's extreme propensity to him would recommend even his wife's parentage for heirs; but the uncomeliness of Lady North, and a vote my lord gave against the Cider-bill, offended the old gentleman so much, that he burnt his would-be heir in effigy. How will all these strange histories sound at Paris!
This post, I suppose, will rain letters to my Lady Hertford. on her death and revival. I was dreadfully alarmed at it for a moment; my servant was so absurd as to wake me, and bid me not be frightened--an excellent precaution! Of all moments, that between sleeping and waking is the most subject to terror. I started up, and my first thought was to send for Dr. Hunter; but, in two minutes, I recollected that it was impossible to be true, as your porter had the very day before been with me to tell me a courier was arrived from you, was to return that evening. Your poor son Henry, whom you will doat upon for it, was not tranquillized so soon. He instantly sent away a courier to your brother, who arrived in the middle of the night. Lady Milton,(735) Lady George SackVille,(736) and I, agreed this evening to tell my Lady Hertford, that we ought to have believed the news, and to have imputed it to the gaming rakehelly life my lady leads at Paris, which scandalizes all us prudes, her old friends. In truth, I have not much right to rail at any body to.- living in a hurricane. I found myself with a violent cold on Wednesday, and till then had not once reflected on all the hot and cold climates I have passed through the day before: I had been at the Duke of Cumberland's levee; then at the Princess Amelia's drawing-room; from thence to a crowded House of Commons; to dinner at your brother's; to the Opera; to Madame Seillern's; to Arthur's; and to supper at Mrs. George Pitt's;--it is scandalous; but, who does less? The Duke looked much better than I expected; is gone to Windsor, and mends daily.
It was Lady Harcourt's(737) death that occasioned the confusion, and our dismay. She died at a Colonel Oughton's; such a small house, that Lord Harcourt has been forced to take their family into his own house. Poor Lady Digby(738) is dead too, of a fever, and was with child. They were extremely happy, and -her own family adored her. My sister has begged me to ask a favour, that will put you to a little trouble, though only for a moment. It is, if you will be so good to order one of your servants when you have done with the English newspapers, to put them in a cover, and send them to Mr. Churchill, au Chateau de Nubecourt, pr`es de Clermont, en Argone; they cannot get a gazette that does not cost them six livres.
Monday evening.
We have had a sort of a day in the House of Commons. The proposition for accepting the six hundred and seventy thousand pounds for the French prisoners passed easily. Then came the Navy: Dowdeswell, in a long and very sensible speech, proposed to reduce the number of sailors to ten thousand. He was answered by--Charles Townshend--oh! yes!--are you surprised? Nobody here was: no, not even at his assertion, that he had always applauded the peace, though the whole House and the whole town knew that, on the Preliminaries, he came down prepared to speak against them; but that on Mr. Pitt's retiring, he plucked up courage, and spoke for them. Well, you want to know what place he is to have- -so does he too. I don't want to know what place, but that he has some one; for I am sure he will always do most hurt to the side on which he professes to be; consequently, I wish him with the administration, and I wish so well to both sides, that I would have him more decried, if that be possible, than he is. Colonel Barr`e spoke against Dowdeswell's proposal, though not setting himself up at auction, like Charles, nor friendly to the ministry, but temperately and sensibly. There was no division. You know my opinion of Charles Townshend is neither new nor singular. When Charles Yorke left us,(739) I hoped for this event, and my wish then slid into this couplet:
To The Administration.
One Charles, who ne'er was ours, you've got-'tis true: To make the grace complete, take t'other too.
The favours I ask of them, are not difficult to grant. Adieu! my dear lord. Yours ever, H. W.
Tuesday, 4 o'clock.
I had sealed my letter and given it to my sister, who sets out to-morrow, and will put it into the post at Calais; but having received yours by the courier from Spain, I must add a few words. You may be sure I shall not mention a tittle of what you say to me. Indeed, if you think it necessary to explain to me, I shall be more cautious Of telling you what I hear. If I had any curiosity, I should have nothing to do but to pretend I had heard some report, and so draw from you what you might not have a mind to mention: I do tell you when I hear any, for your information, but insist on your not replying. The vice-admiral of America is a mere feather; but there is more substance in the notion of the Viceroy's quitting Ireland. Lord Bute and George Grenville are so ill together, that decency is scarce observed between their adherents: and the moment the former has an opportunity or resolution enough, he will remove the latter, and place his son-in-law(740) in the treasury. This goes so far, that Charles Townshend, who is openly dedicated to Grenville, may possibly find himself disappointed, and get no place at last. However, I rejoice that we have got rid of him. It will tear up all connexion between him and your brother, root and branch: a circumstance you will not be more sorry for than I am. In the mean time, the opposition is so staunch that, I think, after the three questions on Warrants, DismisSion of officers, and the Manilla-money, I shall be at liberty to come to you, when I shall have a great deal to tell you. If Charles Townshend gets a place, Lord George Sackville expects another, by the same channel, interest, and connexion; but if Charles may be disappointed himself, what may a man be who trusts to him? Adieu!
(734) The original contains an imputation against Sir W. Pynsent, which, if true, would induce us to suspect him of a disordered mind.-C.
(735) Lady Caroline Sackville, daughter of the Duke of Dorset, married, in 1742, to the first Lord Milton.-E.
(736) Diana, second daughter of J. Sambrook, Esq.-E.
(737) Rebecca, daughter of Charles Le Bas, Esq., wife of the first Earl of Harcourt.-E.
(738) Elizabeth Fielding, niece to the fourth Earl of Denbigh, and wife of Henry, first Lord Digby.-E.
(739) It is remarkable enough, that the epigram which Mr. Walpole thus introduces, admits that Charles Yorke had never joined them, and therefore could not be said to have left them.-C.
(740) There is some obscurity here: Lord Warkworth (afterwards Duke of Northumberland), who had lately married Lord Bute's third daughter, was, at this period, a very young man, little known but for his attachment to his profession--the army, and the idea of his being placed at the head of the treasury must have been absurd. His father, Lord Northumberland, indeed, had been spoken of for that office: and, perhaps, Mr. Walpole, in his epigrammatic way, has taken this mode of explaining the motive which might have induced Lord Bute to advance his son-in-law's father.-C.
239. To The Earl Of Hertford. Arlington Street, Jan. 27, 1765. (page 370)
The brother of your brother's neighbour, Mr. Freeman, who is going to Paris, and I believe will not be sorry to be introduced to you, gives me an opportunity which I cannot resist, of sending you a private line or two, though I wrote you a long letter, which my sister was to put into the post at Calais two or three days ago.
We had a very remarkable day on Wednesday in the House of Commons--very glorious for us, and very mortifying to the administration, especially to the principal performer, who was severely galled by our troops, and abandoned by his own. The business of the day was the Army, and, as nothing was expected, the House was not full. The very circumstance of nothing being expected, had encouraged Charles Townshend to soften a little what had passed on Monday; he grew profuse of' his whispers and promises to us, and offered your brother to move the question on the Dismission of officers: the debate began; Beckford fell foul on the dismissions, and dropped some words on America. Charles, who had placed himself again under the wing of Grenville, replied on American affairs; but totally forgot your brother. Beckford, in his boisterous Indian style, told Charles, that on a single idea he had poured forth a diarrhoea of words. He could not stand it, and in two minutes fairly stole out of the House. This battery being dismounted, the whole attack fell on Grenville, and would have put you in mind of former days. You never heard any minister worse treated than he was for two hours together, by Tommy Townshend, Sir George Saville, and George Onslow--and what was worse, no soul stepped forth in his defence, but Rigby and Lord Strange, the latter of whom was almost as much abashed as Charles Townshend; conscience flew in his black face, and almost turned it red. T. Townshend was still more bitter on Lord Sandwich, whom he called a profligate fellow--hoped he was present,(741) and added, if he is not, I am ready to call him so to his face in any private company: even Rigby, his accomplice, said not a word in behalf of his brother culprit. You will wonder how all this ended--what would be the most ridiculous conclusion to such a scene'! as you cannot imagine, I will tell you. Lord Harry Paulet(742) telling Grenville, that if Lord Cobham was to rise from the dead, he would, if he could be ashamed of any thing, be ashamed of him; by the way, every body believes he meant the apostrophe stronger than he expressed it: Grenville rose in a rage, like a basket-woman, and told Lord harry that if he chose to use such language, he knew where to find him. Did you ever hear of a prime minister, even soi-disant tel, challenging an opponent, when he could not answer him? Poor Lord Harry, too, was an unfortunate subject to exercise his valour upon! The House interposed; Lord Harry declared he should have expected Grenville to breakfast with him next morning; Grenville explained off and on two or three times, the Scotch laughed, the opposition roared, and the treasury-bench sat as mute as fishes. Thus ended that wise Hudibrastic encounter. Grenville however, attended by every bad omen, provoked your brother, who had not intended to speak, by saying that some people had a good opinion of the dismissed officers, others had not. Your brother rose, and surpassed himself: he was very warm, though less so than on the first day; very decent in terms, but most severe in effect; he more than hinted at the threats that had been used to him--said he would not reveal what was improper; yet left no mortal in the dark on that head. He called on the officers to assert their own freedom and independence. In short, made such a speech as silenced all his adversaries, but has filled the whole town with his praises: I believe, as soon as his speech reaches Hayes, it will contribute extremely to expel the gout, and bring Mr. Pitt to town, lest his presence should be no longer missed. Princess Amelia told Me the next night, that if she had heard nothing of Mr. Conway's speech, she should have known how well he had done by my spirits. I was not sorry she made this reflection, as I knew she would repeat it to Lady (Betty) Waldegrave; and as I was willing that the Duchess of Bedford, who, when your brother was dismissed, asked the Duchess of Grafton if she was not sorry for poor Mr. Conway, who has lost every thing, should recollect that it is they who have cause to lament that dismission, not we.
There was a paragraph in Rigby's speech, and taken up, and adopted by Goody Grenville, which makes much noise, and, I suppose, has not given less offence; they talked of "arbitrary Stuart principles," which are supposed to have been aimed at the Stuart favourite: that breach is wider than ever: not one of Lord Bute's adherents have opened their lips this session. I conclude a few of them will be ordered to speak on Friday; but unless we go on too triumphantly and reconcile them, I think this session will terminate Mr. Grenville's reign, and that of the Bedfords too, unless they make great submissions.
Do you know that Sir W. Pynsent had your brother in his eye! He said to his lawyer, "I know Mr. Pitt is much younger than I but he has very bad health: as you will hear it before me, if he dies first, draw up another will with mr. Conway's name instead of Mr. Pitt's, and bring it down to me directly." I beg Britannia's pardon, but I fear I could have supported the loss on these grounds.
A very unhappy affair happened last night at the Star and Garter; Lord Byron(743) killed a Mr. Chaworth there in a duel. I know none of the particulars, and never believe the first reports.
My Lady Townshend was arrested two days ago in the street, at the suit of a house painter, who, having brought her a bill double the estimate he had given in, she would not pay it. As this is a breach of Privilege, I should think the man would hear of it.
There is no date set for our intended motion on the Dismission of officers; but, I believe, Lord John Cavendish and Fitzroy will be the movers and seconders. Charles Townshend, we conclude, Will be very ill that day; if one could pity the poor toad, one should: there is jealousy of your brother,--fear of your brother,--fear of Mr. Pitt,--influence of his own brother,-- connexions entered into both with Lord Bute and Mr. Grenville, and a trimming plan concerted with Lord George Sackville and Charles Yorke, all tearing him or impelling him a thousand ways, with the addition of his own vanity and irresolution, and the contempt of every body else. I dined with him yesterday at Mr. Mackinsy's, where his whole discourse was in ridicule of George Grenville.
The enclosed novel(744) is much in vogue; the author is not known, but if you should not happen to like it, I could give you a reason why you need not say so. There is nothing else now, but a play called the Matonic Wife, written by an Irish Mrs. Griffiths, Which in charity to her was suffered to run three nights.(745)
Since I wrote my letter, the following, is the account nearest the truth that I can learn of the fatal duel last night: a club of Nottinghamshire gentlemen had dined at the Star and Garter, and there had been a dispute between the combatants, whether Lord Byron, who took no care of his game, or Mr. Chaworth, who was active in the association, had most game on their manor. The company, however, had apprehended no consequences, and parted at eight o'clock; but Lord Byron stepping into an empty chamber, and sending the drawer for Mr. Chaworth, or calling him hither himself, took the candle from the waiter, and bidding Mr. Chaworth defend himself, drew his sword. Mr. Chaworth, who was an excellent fencer, ran Lord Byron through the sleeve of his coat, and then received a wound fourteen inches deep into his body. He was carried to his house in Berkeley-street,--made his will with the greatest composure, and dictated a paper, which they say, allows it was a fair duel, and died at nine this morning. Lord Byron is not gone off, but says he will take his trial, which, if the Coroner brings in a verdict of manslaughter, may, according to precedent, be in the House of Lords, and without the ceremonial of Westminster Hall. George Selwyn is much missed on this occasion, but we conclude it will bring him over.(746) I feel for both families, though I know none of either, but poor Lady Carlisle,(747) Whom I am sure you will pity.
Our last three Saturdays at the Opera have been prodigious. and a new opera by Bach(748) last night, was so crowded, that there were ladies standing behind the scenes during the whole performance. Adieu! my dear lord: as this goes by a private hand, you may possibly receive its successor before it.
(741) It seems, from a subsequent letter, that Lord Sandwich was present. See post, p. 375, letter 240.
(742) Lord Henry Paulet, member for Hampshire, vice-admiral of the White, brother of the Duke of Bolton; to which dignity he himself succeeded on the 5th July, 1764.-E.
(743) William, fifth Lord Byron, born in 1722, died in 1798. The Star and Garter was a tavern in Pall Mall.-C.
(744) His own Castle of Otranto.-E.
(745) It came out at Drury-lane, and was acted six nights. The hint of it was taken from Marmontel's "Heureux Divorce."
(746) Mr. Selwyn's morbid curiosity after trials and executions is well known.-C.
(747) Isabella, only sister of Lord Byron, wife of the fourth Earl of Carlisle.-E.
(748) Adriano in Siria." The expectations of the public the first night this drama was performed occasioned such a crowd at the King's theatre as has seldom been seen there before; but whether from heat or inconvenience, the unreasonableness of expectation, the composer being Out Of fancy, or too anxious to please, Dr. Burney says the opera failed, and that every one came out of the theatre disappointed.-E.
240. To The Earl Of Hertford. Arlington Street, Feb. 12, 1765. (page 373)
A great many letters pass between us, my dear lord, but I think they are almost all of my writing. I have not heard from you this age. I sent you two packets together by Mr. Freeman, with an account of our chief debates. Since the long day, I have been much out of order with a cold and cough, that turned to a fever: I am now taking James's powder, not without apprehensions of the gout, which it gave me two or three years ago.
There has been nothing of note in Parliament but one slight day on the American taxes,(749) which Charles Townshend supporting, received a pretty heavy thump from Barr`e, who is the present Pitt, and the dread of all the vociferous Norths and Rigbys, on whose lungs depended so much of Mr. Grenville's power. Do you never hear them to Paris?
The operations of the opposition are suspended in compliment to Mr. Pitt, who has declared himself so warmly for the question on the Dismission of officers, that that motion waits for his recovery. A call of the house is appointed for next Wednesday, but as he has had a relapse, the motion will probably be deferred. I should be very glad if it was to be dropped entirely for this session, but the young men are warm and not easily bridled.
If it was not too long to transcribe, I would send you an entertaining petition(750) of the periwig-makers to the King, in which they complain that men will wear their own hair. Should one almost wonder if carpenters were to remonstrate, that since the peace their trade decays, and that there is no demand for wooden legs Apropos, my Lady Hertford's friend, Lady Harriot Vernon,(751) has quarrelled with me for smiling at the enormous head-gear of her daughter, Lady Grosvenor. She came one night to Northumberland-house with such a display of friz, that it literally spread beyond her shoulders. I happened to say it looked as if her parents had stinted her in hair before marriage, and that she was determined to indulge her fancy now. This, among ten thousand things said by all the world, was reported to Lady Harriot, and has occasioned my disgrace. As she never found fault with any body herself, I excuse her! You will be less surprised to hear that the Duchess of Queensberry has not yet done dressing herself marvellously: she was at court on Sunday in a gown and petticoat of red flannel. The same day the Guerchys made a dinner for her, and invited Lord and Lady Hyde,(752) the Forbes's and her other particular friends: in the morning she sent word she was to go out of town, but as soon as dinner was over, arrived at Madame de Guerchy's, and said she had been at court.
Poor Madame de Seillern, the imperial ambassadress, has lost her only daughter and favourite child, a young widow of twenty-two, whom she was expecting from Vienna. The news Came this day se'nnight; and the ambassador, who is as brutal as she is gentle and amiable, has insisted on her having company at dinner to-day, and her assembly as usual. The town says that Lord and Lady Abergavenny(753) are parted, and that he has not been much milder than Monsieur de Seillern on the chapter of a mistress he has taken. I don't know the truth of this; but his lordship's heart, I believe, is more inflammable than tender.
Lady Sophia Thomas,(754) has begged me to trouble you with a small commission. It is to send me for her twelve little bottles of "le Baume de Vie, compos`e par le Sieur Lievre, apoticaire distillateur du Roi." If George Selwyn or Lord March are not set out, they would bring it with pleasure, especially as she lives at the Duke of Queensberry's.
We have not a new book, play, intrigue, marriage, elopement, or quarrel; in short, we are very dull. For politics, unless the ministers wantonly thrust their hands into some fire, I think there will not even be a smoke. I am glad of it, for my heart is set on my journey to Paris, and I hate every thing that stops me. Lord Byron's foolish trial is likely to protract the session a little; but unless there is any particular business, I shall not stay for a puppet-show. Indeed, I can defend my staying here by nothing but my ties to your brother. My health, I am sure, would be better in another climate in winter. Long days in the House kill me, and weary me into the bargain. The individuals of each party are alike indifferent to me; nor can I at this time of day grow to love men whom I have laughed at all my lifetime--no, I cannot alter;--Charles Yorke or Charles Townshend are alike to me, whether ministers or patriots. Men do not change in my eyes, because they quit a black livery for a white one. When one has seen the whole scene shifted round and round so often, one only smiles, whoever is the present Polonius or the grave digger, whether they jeer the Prince, or flatter his frenzy.
Thursday night, 14th.
The new assembly-room at Almack's was opened the night before last, and they say is very magnificent, but it was empty; half the town is ill With colds, and many were afraid to go, as the house is scarcely built yet. Almack advertised that it was built with hot brick and boiling water--think what a rage there must be for public places, If this notice, instead of terrifying, could draw any body thither. They tell me the ceilings were dropping with wet--but can you believe me, when I assure you the Duke of Cumberland was there?--Nay, had had a levee in the morning, and went to the Opera before the assembly! There is a vast flight of steps, and he was forced to rest two or three times. If he dies of it--and how should he not?--it will sound very silly when Hercules or Theseus ask him what he died of, to reply, "I caught my death on a damp staircase at a new club-room."
Williams, the reprinter of the North Briton, stood in the pillory to-day in Palace-yard. He went in a hackney-coach, the number of which was 45. The mob erected a gallows opposite to him, on which they hung a boot(755) with a bonnet of straw. Then a collection was made for Williams, which amounted to near 200 pounds.(756) In short, every event informs the administration how thoroughly they are detested, and that they have not a friend whom they do not buy. Who can wonder, when every man of virtue is proscribed, and they have neither parts nor characters to impose even upon the mob! think to what a government is sunk, when a Secretary of State is called in Parliament to his face "the most profligate sad dog in the kingdom,"(757) and not a man can open his lips in his defence. Sure power must have some strange unknown charm, when it can compensate for such contempt! I see many who triumph in these bitter pills which the ministry are so often forced to swallow; I own I do not; it is more mortifying to me to reflect how great and respectable we were three years ago, than satisfactory to see those insulted who have brought such shame upon us. 'Tis moor amends to national honour to know, that if a printer is set in the pillory, his country wishes it was my Lord This, or Mr. That. They will be gathered to the Oxfords, and Bolingbrokes, and ignominious(758) of former days; but the wound they have inflicted is perhaps indelible. That goes to my heart, who had felt all the Roman pride of being one of the first nations upon earth!--Good night!--I will go to bed, and dream of Kings drawn in triumph; and then I will go to paris, and dream I am proconsul there; pray, take care not to let me be wakened with an account of an invasion having taken place from Dunkirk!(759) Yours ever, H. W.
(749) The resolutions which were the foundation of the famous Stamp-act.-E.
(750) The substance of this petition, and the grave answer which the King was advised to give to such a ludicrous appeal, are preserved in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1765, p. 95; where also we learn that Mr. Walpole's idea of the Carpenters' petition was put in practice, and his Majesty was humbly entreated to wear a wooden leg himself, and to enjoin all his servants to do the same. It may, therefore, be presumed that this jeu d'esprit was from the pen of Mr. Walpole.-C.
(751) Lady Hirriot Wentworth, sister of the last Lord Strafford, wife of Henry Vernon, Esq., and mother of Lady Grosvenor, whose intrigue with the Duke of Cumberland made so much noise.-C.
(752) Thomas Villers, second son of Lord Jersey, first Lord Hyde of his family: his lady was Charlotte, daughter of Lady Jane Hyde, wife of William Earl of Essex, daughter of Henry, second Earl of clarendon, and sister of the Duchess of Queensberry.-C.
(753) George, fifteenth Lord Abergavenny; and his lady, Henrieta Pelham, sister of the first Earl of Chichester: she died in 1768.-E.
(754) Lady Sophia Keppel, daughter of the first Earl of Albemarle, and wife of Colonel Thomas.-E.
(755) A Jack-boot, in allusion to the Christian name and title of Lord Bute.-C.
(756) In a blue purse trimmed with orange, the colour of the revolution, in opposition to the Stuart.-C.
(757) ant`e, p. 370, letter 239.
(758) We might be surprised at finding a person of Mr. Walpole's taste and judgment, describing Harley and St. John as ignominious, if we did not recollect, that during their administration his father had been sent to the Tower, and expelled the House of commons for alleged official corruptions. It were to be wished that Mr. Walpole's personal prejudices could always be traced to so amiable a source.-C.
(759) The demolition of Dunkirk was one of the articles of the late treaty of peace, on which discussions were still depending.-C.
241. To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, Feb. 19, 1765. (page 376)
Your health and spirits and youth delight me; yet I think you make but a bad use of them, when you destine them to a triste house in a country solitude. If you were condemned to retirement, It would be fortunate to have spirits to support it; but great vivacity is not a cause for making it one's option.
Why waste your sweetness on the desert air! at least, why bestow so little of your cheerfulness on your friends? I do not wish you to parade your rubicundity and gray hairs through the mobs and assemblies of London; I should think you bestowed them as ill as on Greatworth; but you might find a few rational creatures here, who are heartily tired of what are called our pleasures, and who would be glad to have you in their chimney-corner. There you might have found me any time this fortnight; I have been dying of the worst and longest cold I ever had in my days, and have been blooded, and taken James's powder to no purpose. I look almost like the skeleton that Frederick found in the oratory;(760) my only comfort was, that I should have owed my death to the long day in the House of Commons, and have perished with Our liberties; but I think I am getting the better of my martyrdom, and shall live to See you; nay, I shall not be gone to Paris. As I design that journey for the term of my figuring in the world, I would fain wind up my politics too, and quit all public ties together. As I am not old yet, and have an excellent though delicate constitution, I may promise myself some agreeable years, if I could detach myself from all connexions, but with a very few persons that I value. Oh, with what joy I could bid adieu to loving and hating; to crowds, public places, great dinners, visits; and above all, to the House of Commons; but pray mind when I retire, it shall only be to London and Strawberry Hill--in London one can live as one will, and at Strawberry I will live as I will. Apropos, my good old tenant Franklin is dead, and I am in possession of his cottage, which will be a delightfully additional plaything at Strawberry. I shall be violently tempted to stick in a few cypresses and lilacs there before I go to Paris. I don't know a jot of news: I have been a perfect hermit this fortnight, and buried in Runic poetry and Danish wars. In short, I have been deep in a late history of Denmark, written by one Mallet, a Frenchman,(761) a sensible man, but I cannot say he has the art of making a very tiresome subject agreeable. There are six volumes, and I am stuck fast in the fourth.
Lord Byron's trial I hear is to be in May. If you are curious about it, I can secure you a ticket for Lord Lincoln's gallery. The Antiquarian Society have got Goody Carlisle(762) for their president, and I suppose she will sit upon a Saxon chalkstone till the return of King Arthur. Adieu!
(760) An allusion to the scene in the last chapter of his Castle of Otranto.- E.
(761) Paul Henry Mallet was born at Geneva in 1731, and was for some time professor of history in his native city. He afterwards became professor royal of the belles lettres at Copenhagen. The introduction to his History of Denmark was afterwards translated by Dr. Percy, under the title of Northern Antiquities, including the Edda.-E.
(762) Dr. Charles Lyttelton, Bishop of Carlisle. See ant`e, p. 207, letter 149. On his death, in 1768, he made a very valuable bequest of manuscripts and printed books to the Society.-E.
242. To The Rev. Mr. Cole. Strawberry Hill, Feb. 28, 1765. (page 377)
Dear sir, As you do not deal with newspapers, nor trouble Yourselves with occurrences of modern times, you may perhaps conclude from what I have told you, and from my silence, that I am in France. This will tell you that I am not; though I have been long thinking of it, and still intend it, though not exactly yet. My silence I must lay on this uncertainty, and from having been much out of order above a month with a very bad cold and cough, for which I am come hither to try change of air. Your brother Apthorpe, who was so good as to call upon me about a fortnight ago in town, found me too hoarse to speak to him. We both asked one another the same question--news of you?
I have lately had an accession to my territory here, by the death of good old Franklin, to whom I had given for his life the lease of the cottage and garden cross the road. Besides a little pleasure in planting, and in crowding it with flowers, I intend to make, what I am sure you are antiquarian enough to approve, a bower, though your friends the abbots did not indulge in such retreats, at least not under that appellation: but though we love the same ages, you must excuse worldly me for preferring the romantic scenes of antiquity. If you will tell me how to send it, and are partial enough to me to read a profane work in the style of former centuries, I shall convey to you a little story-book, which I published some time ago, though not boldly with my own name: but it has succeeded so well, that I do not any longer entirely keep the secret. Does the title, The Castle of Otranto(763) tempt you? I shall be glad to hear you are well and happy.
(763) In the first edition of this work, of which but very few copies were printed, the title ran thus:--"The Castle of Otranto, a Story, translated by William Marshal, Gent., from the original Italian of onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the church of St. Nicholas at Otranto. London: printed for Thomas Lownds, in Fleet Street, 1765."-E.
243. To The Rev. Mr. Cole. Strawberry Hill, March 9, 1765. (page 378)
Dear sir, I had time to write but a short note with the Castle of Otranto, as your messenger called on me at four o'clock, as I was going to go abroad. Your partiality to me and Strawberry have, I hope, inclined you to excuse the wildness of the story. You will even have found some traits to put you in mind of this place.(764)--When you read of the Picture quitting its panel,(765) did not you recollect the portrait of Lord Falkland, all in white, in my gallery? Shall I even confess to you, what was the origin of this romance! I waked one morning, in the beginning of last June, from a dream, of which, all I could recover was, that I had thought myself in an ancient castle, (a very natural dream for a head filled like mine with Gothic story,) and that on the uppermost bannister of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the evening I sat down, and began to write, without knowing in the least what I intended to say or relate. The work grew on my hands, and I grew fond of it--add, that. I was very glad to think of any thing, rather than politics. In short, I was so engrossed with my tale, which I completed in less than two months, that one evening, I wrote from the time I had drunk my tea, about six o'clock, till after one in the morning when my hand and fingers were so weary, that I- could not hold my pen to finish the sentence, but left Matilda and Isabella talking, in the middle of a paragraph. You will laugh at my earnestness; but if I have amused you by retracing with any fidelity the manners of ancient days, I am content, and give you leave to think me as idle as you please.
You are, as you have long been to me, exceedingly kind, and I should, with great satisfaction, embrace your offer of visiting the solitude of Bleckely, though my cold is in a manner gone, and my cough quite, if I was at liberty: but as I am preparing for my French journey, and have forty businesses upon my hands, and can only now and then purloin a day, or half a day, to come hither. You know I am not cordially disposed to your French journey, which is much more serious, as it is to be much more lasting. However, though I may suffer by your absence, I would not dissuade what may suit your inclination and circumstances. One thing, however, has struck me, which I must mention, though it would depend on a circumstance, that would give me the most real concern. It was suggested to me by that real fondness I have for your MSS. for your kindness about which I feel the utmost gratitude. You would not, I think, leave them behind you: and are you aware of the danger you would run, If, you settled entirely in France? Do You know that the King of France is heir to all strangers who die in his dominions, by what they call the Droit d'Aubaine. Sometimes by great interest and favour, persons have obtained a remission of this right in their lifetime: and yet that, even that, has not secured their effects from being embezzled. Old Lady Sandwich(766) had obtained this remission, and yet, though she left every thing to the present lord, her grandson, a man for whose rank one should have thought they would have had regard, the King's officers forced themselves into her house, after her death, and plundered. You see, if you go, I shall expect to have your MSS. deposited with me. Seriously, you must leave them in safe custody behind you.
Lord Essex's trial is printed with the State Trials. In return for your obliging offer, I can acquaint you with a delightful publication of this winter, a Collection of Old Ballads and Poetry, in three volumes, many from Pepys's Collection at Cambridge.(767) There were three such published between thirty and forty years ago, but very carelessly, and wanting many in this set: indeed, there were others, a looser sort,(768) which the present editor, who is a clergyman, thought it decent to omit.
When you go into Cheshire, and upon your ramble, may I trouble you with a commission? but about which you must promise me not to go a Step Out of your way. Mr. Bateman has got a cloister at Old Windsor, furnished with ancient wooden chairs, most of them triangular, but all of various patterns, and carved and turned in the most uncouth and whimsical forms. He picked them up one by one, for two, three, five, or six shillings apiece from different farmhouses in Herefordshire. I have long envied and coveted them. There may be such in poor cottages, in so neighbouring a county as Cheshire. I should not grudge any expense for purchase or carriage; and should be glad even of a couple such for my cloister here. When you are copying inscriptions in a churchyard in any village, think of me, and step into the first cottage you see--but don't take further trouble than that.
I long to know what your bundle of manuscripts from Cheshire contains.
My bower is determined, but not at all what it is to be. Though I write romances, I cannot tell how to build all that belongs to them. Madame Danois, in the Fairy Tales, used to tapestry them with jonquils; but as that furniture will not last above a fortnight in the year, I shall prefer something more huckaback. I have decided that the outside shall be of treillage, which, however, I shall not commence, till I have again seen some of old Louis's old-fashioned Galanteries at Versailles. Rosamond's bower, you, and I, and Tom Hearne know, was a labyrinth:(769) but as my territory will admit of a very short clew, I lay aside all thoughts of a mazy habitation: though a bower is very different from an arbour, and must have more chambers than one. In short, I both know, and don't know, what it should be. I am almost afraid I must go and read Spenser, and wade through his allegories, and drawling stanzas, to get at a picture. But, good night! you see how one gossips, when one is alone, and at quiet on one's own dunghill!--Well! it may be trifling; yet it is such trifling as Ambition never is happy enough to know! Ambition orders palaces, but it is Content that chats for a page or two over a bower. Yours ever.
(764) "As, in his model of a Gothic modern mansion, Mr. Walpole had studiously endeavoured to fit to the purpose of modern convenience or luxury the rich, varied, and complicated tracery and carving of the ancient cathedral, so, in the Castle of Otranto, it was his object to unite the marvellous turn of incident and imposing tone of chivalry exhibited in the ancient romance, with that accurate display of human character and contrast of feelings and passions, which is, or ought to be, delineated in the modern novel." Sir Walter Scott; Prose Works, vol. iii. p. 307.-E.
(765) The forms of the grim knight and pictured saint Look living in the moon; and as you turn Backward and forward, to the echoes faint Of your own footsteps--voices from the urn Appear to wake, and shadows wild and quaint Start from the frames which fence their aspects stern, As if to ask how you can dare to keep A vigil there, where all but death should sleep." Don Juan, c. xvi. st. 18.-E.
(766) Elizabeth, second daughter of John Wilmot Earl of Rochester, and sister and co-heiress of Charles third Earl, and widow of Edward Montagu third Earl of Sandwich, who died 20th of October, 1729.-E.
(767) Edited by the Rev. Thomas Percy, fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, and afterwards Bishop of Dromore. "The reviver of minstrel poetry in Scotland was the venerable Bishop of Dromore, who, in 1765, published his elegant collection of heroic ballads, songs, and pieces of early poetry under the title of 'Reliques Of Ancient English Poetry.' The plan of the work was adjusted in concert with Mr. Shenstone, but we own we cannot regret that the execution of it devolved upon Dr. Percy alone; of whose labours, as an editor, it might be said, 'Nihil quod tetigit non ornavit.'" Sir W. Scott. Prose Works, vol. xvii. P. 120.-E.
(768) The work was entitled "A Collection of Old Ballads, corrected from the best and most ancient copies extant, with Introductions, historical, critical, or humorous." Sir Walter Scott observes, that the editor was an enthusiast in the cause of old poetry, and selected his matter without much regard to decency, as will appear from the following singular preface to one or two indelicate pieces of humour:--"One of the greatest complaints made by the ladies against the first volume of our collection, and, indeed, the only one which has reached my ears, is the want of merry songs. I believe I may give a pretty good guess at what they call mirth in such pieces as These, and shall endeavour to satisfy them." Prose Works, vol. xvii. p. 122.-E.
(769) The Bower of Rosamond is said, or rather fabled, to have been a retreat built at Woodstock by Henry II. for the safe residence of his mistress, Rosamond Clifford; the approaches of which were so intricate, that it could not be entered without the guidance of a thread, which the King always kept in his own possession. His Queen, Eleanor, having, however, gained possession of the thread, obtained access to, and speedily destroyed her fair rival.-E.
244. To Monsieur Elie De Beaumont.(770) Strawberry Hill, March 18, 1765. (page 381)
Sir, When I had the honour of seeing you here, I believe I told you that I had written a novel, in which I was flattered to find that I had touched an effusion of the heart in a manner similar to a passage in the charming letters of the Marquis de Roselle.(771) I have since that time published my little story, but was so diffident of its merit, that I gave it as a translation from the Italian. Still I should not have ventured to offer it to so great a mistress of the passions as Madame de Beaumont, if the approbation of London, that is, of a country to which she and you, Sir, are so good as to be partial, had not encouraged me to send it to you. After I have talked of the passions, and the natural effusion-, of the heart, how will you be surprised to find a narrative of the most improbable and absurd adventures! How will you be amazed to hear that a country of whose good sense you have an opinion should have applauded so wild a tale! But you must remember, Sir, that whatever good sense we have, we are not yet in any light chained down to precepts and inviolable laws. All that Aristotle or his superior commentators, your authors, have taught us, has not yet subdued us to regularity: we still prefer the extravagant beauties of Shakspeare and Milton to the cold and well-disciplined merit of Addison, and even to the sober and correct march of Pope. Nay, it was but t'other day that we were transported to hear Churchill rave in numbers less chastised than Dryden's, but still in numbers like Dryden's.(772) You will not, I hope, think I apply these mighty names to my own case with any vanity, when it is only their enormities that I quote, and that in defence, not of myself' but of my countrymen, who have good-humour enough to approve the visionary scenes and actors in the Castle of Otranto.
To tell you the truth, it was not so much my intention to recall the exploded marvels of ancient romance, as to blend the wonderful of old stories with the natural of modern novels. The world is apt to wear out any plan whatever; and if the Marquis de Roselle had not appeared, I should have been inclined to say, that that species had been exhausted. Madame de Beaumont must forgive me if I add, that Richardson had, to me at least, made that kind of writing insupportable. I thought the nodus was become dignus vindice, and that a god, at least a ghost, was absolutely necessary to frighten us out of too much senses. When I had so wicked a design, no wonder if the execution was answerable. If I make you laugh, for I cannot flatter myself that I shall make you cry, I shall be content; at least I shall be satisfied, till I have the pleasure of seeing you, with putting you in mind of, Sir, your, etc.
P. S. The passage I alluded to in the beginning of my letter is where Matilda owns her passion to Hippolita. I mention it, as I fear so unequal a similitude would not strike Madame de Beaumont.
(770) M. Elie de Beaumont was admitted an advocate at the French bar in 1762. The weakness of his voice militated against his success as a pleader, but the beauty and eloquence with which he drew up his M`emoires, and especially the one in favour of the unfortunate Calas family, gained him great reputation. He was born in 1732, and died in 1786.-E.
(771) A French epistolary novel written by Madame Elie de Beaumont. She also wrote the third part of "Anecdotes de la Cour et du R`egne de Edouard II." She was born at Caen in 1729, and died in 1783.-E.
(772) "Churchill," observes Mr. Campbell, in his Specimens of the British Poets, " may be ranked as a satirist immediately after Pope and Dryden, with perhaps a greater share of humour than either. He has the bitterness of Pope, with less wit to atone for it; but no mean share of the free manner and energetic plainness of Dryden," Vol. vi. P. 5.-E.
245. To The Earl Of Hertford. Arlington Street, March 28, 1765. (page 382)
Three weeks are a great while, my dear lord, for me to have been without writing to you; but besides that I have passed many days at Strawberry, to cure my cold (which it has done), there has nothing happened worth sending across the sea. Politics have dozed, and common events been fast asleep. Of Guerchy's affair,(773) you probably know more than I do; it is now forgotten. I told him I had absolute proof of his innocence, for I was sure, that if he had offered money for assassination, the men who swear against him would have taken it.
The King has been very seriously ill,; and in great danger. I would not alarm you, as there were hopes when he was at the worst. I doubt he is not free yet from his complaint, as the humour fallen on his breast still oppresses him. They talk of his having a levee next week, but he has not appeared in public, and the bills are passed by commission; but he rides out. The Royal Family have suffered like us mortals; the Duke of Gloucester has had a fever, but I believe his chief complaint is of a youthful kind. Prince Frederick is thought to be in a deep consumption; and for the Duke of Cumberland, next post will probably certify you of his death, as he is relapsed, and there are no hopes Of him. He fell into his lethargy again, and when they waked him, he said he did not know whether he could call himself obliged to them.
I dined two days ago at Monsieur de Guerchy's, with the Comte de Caraman,(774) who brought me your letter. He seems a very agreeable Man, and you may be sure, for Your sake, and Madame de Mirepoix's, no civilities in my power shall be wanting. I have not yet seen Schouvaloff,(775) about whom one has more curiosity--it is an opportunity of gratifying that passion which one can so seldom do in Personages of his historic nature, especially remote foreigners. I wish M. de Caraman had brought the "Siege of Calais,"(776) which he tells me is printed, though your account has a little abated my impatience. They tell us the French comedians are to act at Calais this summer--is it possible they can be so absurd, or think us so absurd as to go thither, if we would not go further? I remember, at Rheims, they believed that English ladies went to Calais to drink champagne!--is this the suite of that belief? I was mightily pleased with the Duc de Choiseul's answer to the Clairon;(777) but when I hear of the French admiration of Garrick, it takes off something of my wonder at the prodigious admiration of him at home. I never could conceive the marvellous merit of repeating the words of other's in one's own language with propriety, however well delivered. Shakspeare is not more admired for writing his plays, than Garrick for acting them. I think him a very good and very various player--but several have pleased me more, though I allow not in so many parts. Quin in Falstaff, was as excellent as Garrick in Lear. Old Johnson far more natural in every thing he attempted. Mrs. Porter and your Dumesnil surpassed him in passionate tragedy; Cibber and O'Brien were what Garrick could never reach, coxcombs, and men of fashion.(778) Mrs. Clive is at least as perfect in low comedy--and Yet to me, Ranger was the part that suited Garrick the best of all he ever performed. He was a poor Lothario, a ridiculous Othello, inferior to Quin(779) in Sir John Brute and Macbeth, and to Cibber in Bayes, and a woful Lord Hastings and Lord Townley. Indeed, his Bayes was original, but not the true part: Cibber was the burlesque of a great poet, as the part was designed, but Garrick made it a Garretteer. The town did not like him in Hotspur, and yet I don't know whether he did not succeed in it beyond all the rest. Sir Charles Williams and Lord Holland thought so too, and they were no bad judges. I am impatient to see the Clairon, and certainly will, as I have promised, though I have not fixed my day. But do you know you alarm me! There was a time when I was a match for Madame de Mirepoix at pharaoh, to any hour of the night, and believe did play, with her five nights in a week till three and four in the morning--but till eleven o'clock to-morrow morning- -Oh! that is a little too much even at loo. Besides, I shall not go to Paris for pharaoh--if I play all night, how shall I see every thing all day?
Lady Sophia Thomas has received the Baume de vie, for she gives you a thousand thanks, and I ten thousand.
We are extremely amused with the wonderful histories of your hyena(780) in the Gevaudan: but our fox-hunters despise you: it is exactly the enchanted monster of old romances. If I had known its history a few months ago, I believe it would have appeared in the Castle of Otranto,--the success of which has, at last, brought me to own it, though the wildness of it made me terribly afraid: but it was comfortable to have it please so much, before any mortal suspected the author: indeed, it met with too much honour far, for at first it was universally believed to be Mr. Gray's. As all the first impression is sold, I am hurrying out another, with a new preface, which I will send you.
There is not so much delicacy of wit as in M. de Choiseul's speech to the Clairon, but I think the story I am going to tell you in return, will divert you as much: there was a vast assembly at Marlborough-house, and a throng in the doorway. My Lady Talbot said, "Bless me! I think this is like the Straits of Thermopylae!" My Lady Northumberland replied, "I don't know what Street that is, but I wish I could get my - through." I hope you admire the contrast. Adieu! my dear lord! Yours ever.
(773) This alludes, it is presumed, to a bill of indictment which was found in the beginning of March, at the sessions at Hick's Hall, against the Count de Guerchy, for the absurd charge of a conspiracy to murder D'Eon.-C.
(774) Probably fran`cois Joseph, Count de Caraman, who married a Princess de Chimay, heiress of the house of Benin, niece of Madame de Mirepoix.-C.
(775) He had been favourite to the Empress Catherine; and, as Mr. Walpole elsewhere says, "a favourite without an enemy."-C.
(776) A tragedy by M. du Belloy, which, with little other merit than its anti-Anglicism, (which, in all times, has passed in France for patriotism,) "faisait fureur" at this time.-C.
(777) Mademoiselle Clairon was at this moment in such vogue on the French stage, that her admirers struck a medal in honour of her, and wore it as a kind of order. A critic of the name of Fr`eron, however, did not partake these sentiments, and drew, in his journal, an injurious character of Mademoiselle Clairon. This insult so outraged the tragedy queen, that she and her admirers moved heaven and earth to have Fr`ron sent to the Bastile, and, failing in her solicitation to the inferior departments, she at last had recourse to the prime-minister, the Duke of Choiseul, himself. His answer, which Lord Hertford, no doubt, had communicated to Mr. Walpole, was admired for its polite persiflage of her theatric Majesty. "I am," said the Duke, "like yourself, a public performer, with this difference in your favour, that you choose the parts you please, and are sure to be crowned with the applause of the public (for I reckon as nothing the bad taste of one or two wretched individuals who have the misfortune of not admiring you). I, on the other hand, am obliged to act the parts imposed on me by necessity. I am sure to please nobody; I am satirized, criticised, libelled, hissed,--yet I continue to do my best. Let us both, then, sacrifice our little resentments and enmities to the public service, and serve our country each in our own station. Besides," he added, "the Queen has condescended to forgive Fr`eron, and you may, therefore, without compromising your dignity, imitate her Majesty's clemency." M`emoires de Bachaumont, t. i. p. 61. Such were the miserable intrigues and squabbles, and such the examples of ministerial pleasantry and prudence which occupied and amused the Parisian public!--this; is but a straw to show which way the wind blew; but such instances moderate our surprise and our sorrow at the storm which followed.-C.
(778) There was some little personal pique in Mr. Walpole's opinion of Garrick; yet it would be difficult to imagine a more forcible eulogium on that great actor than is here inadvertently pronounced, when, in order to find an equivalent for him, Mr. Walpole is obliged to bring together old Johnson and Colley Cibber, Quin and Clive, Porter and Dumesnil--two nations, two generations, and both sexes.-C.
(779) "In Brute he shone unequalled; all agree Garrick's not half so great a brute as he." Rosciad.-E.
(780) A wolf of enormous size, and, in some respects, irregular conformation, which for a long time ravaged the Gevaudan; it was, soon after the date of this letter, killed, and Mr. Walpole saw it in Paris.-C.
246. To George Montagu, Esq
Arlington Street, April 5, 1765. (page 384)
I sent you two letters t'other day from your kin, and might as well have written then as now, for I have nothing to tell you. Mr. Chute has quitted his bed to-day the first time for above five weeks, but is still swathed like a mummy. He was near relapsing; for old Mildmay, whose lungs, and memory, and tongue, will never wear out, talked to him t'other night from eight till half an hour after ten, on the Poor-bill; but he has been more comfortable with Lord Dacre and me this evening.
I have read the Siege of Calais, and dislike it extremely, though there are fine lines, but the conduct is woful. The outrageous applause it has received ,it Paris was certainly Political, and intended to stir up their spirit and animosity against us, their good, merciful, and forgiving allies. they will have no occasion for this ardour; they may smite one cheek, and we shall turn t'other.
Though I have little to say, it is worth while to write, only to tell you two bon-mots of Quin, to that turncoat hypocrite infidel, Bishop Warburton. That saucy priest was haranguing at Bath in behalf of prerogative: Quin said, "Pray, my lord, spare me, you are not acquainted with my principles, I am a republican; and perhaps I even think that the execution of Charles the First might be justified." "AY!" said Warburton, "by what law?" Quin replied, "By all the laws he had left them." The Bishop(781) would have got off upon judgments, and bade the player remember, that all the regicides came to violent ends; a lie, but no matter. "I would not advise your lordship," said Quin, "to make use of that inference; for, if I am not mistaken, that was the case of the twelve apostles." There was great wit ad hominem in the latter reply, but I think the former equal to any thing I ever heard. It is the sum of the whole controversy couched in eight monosyllables, and comprehends at once the King's guilt and the justice of punishing it. The more one examines it, the finer it proves. One can say nothing after it: so good night! Yours ever.
(781) Gray, in a letter of the 29th, relates the following anecdote:--"Now I am talking of bishops, I must tell you that, not long ago, Bishop Warburton, in a sermon at court, asserted that all preferments were bestowed on the most illiterate and worthless objects; and, in speaking, turned himself about and stared at the Bishop of London: he added, that if any one arose distinguished for merit and learning, there was a combination of dunces to keep him down. I need not tell you that he expected the bishopric of London when Terrick got it: so ends my ecclesiastical history." Works, vol. iv. p. 40.-E.
247. To The Earl Of Hertford. Strawberry Hill, Easter Sunday, April 7, 1765. (page 385)
Your first wish -will be to know how the King does: he came to Richmond last Monday for a week; but appeared suddenly and unexpected at his lev`ee at St. James's last Wednesday; this was managed to prevent a crowd. Next day he was at the drawing-room, and at chapel on Good Friday. They say, he looks pale; but it is the fashion to call him very well:--I wish it may be true.(782) The Duke of Cumberland is actually set out for Newmarket to-day: he too is called much better; but it is often as true of the health of princes as of their prisons, that there is little distance between each and their graves.(783) There has been a fire at Gunnersbury, which burned four rooms: her servants announced it to Princess Amalie with that wise precaution of " Madam, don't be frightened!"--accordingly, she was terrified. When they told her the truth, she said, "I am very glad; I had concluded my brother was dead."--So much for royalties!
Lord March and George Selwyn are arrived, after being wind-bound for nine days, at Calais. George is so charmed with my Lady Hertford, that I believe it was she detained him at Paris, not Lord March. I am full as much transported with Schouvaloff--I never saw so amiable a man! so much good breeding, humility, and modesty, with sense and dignity! an air of melancholy, without any thing abject. Monsieur de Caraman is agreeable too, informed and intelligent; he supped at your brother's t'other night, after being at Mrs. Anne Pitt's. As the first curiosity of foreigners is to see Mr. Pitt, and as that curiosity is one of the most difficult points in the world to satisfy, he asked me if Mr. Pitt was like his sister? I told him, "Qu'ils se ressembloient comme deux gouttes de feu."
The Parliament is adjourned till after the holidays, and the trial.(784) There have been two very long days in our own House, on a complaint from Newfoundland merchants on French encroachments. The ministry made a woful piece of work of it the first day, and we the second. Your brother, Sir George Savile, and Barr`e shone; but on the second night, they popped a sudden division upon us about nothing; some went out, and some stayed in; they were 161, we but 44, and then they flung pillows upon the question, and stifled it,--and so the French have not encroached.
There has been more serious work in the Lords, upon much less important matter; a bill for regulating the poor,--(don't ask me how, for you know I am a perfect goose about details of business,) formed by one Gilbert,(785) a member, and steward to the Duke of Bridgewater, or Lord Gower, or both,--had passed pacifically through the Commons, but Lord Egmont set fire to it in the Lords. On the second reading, he opposed it again, and made a most admired speech; however it passed on. But again, last Tuesday, when it was to be in the committee, such forces were mustered against the bill, that behold all the world regarded it as a pitched battle between Lord Bute and Lord Holland on One side, and the Bedfords and Grenville on the other. You may guess if it grew a day of expectation. When it arrived, Lord Bute was not present, Lord Northumberland voted for the bill, and Lord Holland went away. Still politicians do not give up the mystery. Lord Denbigh and Lord Pomfret, especially the latter, were the most personal against his Grace of Bedford. He and his friends, they say, (for I was not there, as you will find presently,) kept their temper well. At ten at night the House divided, and, to be sure, the minority was dignified; it consisted of the Dukes of York and Gloucester, the Chancellor, Chief Justice, Lord President, Privy Seal, Lord Chamberlain, Chamberlain to the Queen, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and a Secretary of State. Lord Halifax, the other Secretary, was ill. The numbers were 44 to 58. Lord Pomfret then moved to put off the bill for four months; but the cabinet rallied, and rejected the motion by a majority of one. So it is to come on again after the holidays. The Duke of Newcastle, Lord Temple, and the opposition, had once more the pleasure, which, I believe, they don't dislike, of being in a majority.
Now, for my disaster; you will laugh at it, though it was woful to me. I was to dine at Northumberland-house, and went a little after four: there I found the Countess, Lady Betty Mekinsy, Lady Strafford; my Lady Finlater,(787) who was never out of Scotland before; a tall lad of fifteen, her son; Lord Drogheda, and Mr. Worseley.(788) At five,(789) arrived Mr. Mitchell,(790) who said the Lords had begun to read the Poor-bill, which would take at least two hours, and perhaps would debate it afterwards. We concluded dinner would be called for, it not being Very precedented for ladies to wait for gentlemen:--no such thing. Six o'clock came,--seven o'clock came,--our coaches came,--well! we sent them away, and excuses were we were engaged. Still the Countess's heart did not relent, nor uttered a syllable of apology. We wore out the wind and the weather, the opera and the play, Mrs. Cornelys's and Almack's, and every topic that would do in a formal circle. We hinted, represented--in vain. The clock struck eight: my lady, at last, said, she would go and order dinner; but it was a good half hour before it appeared. We then sat down to a table for fourteen covers; but instead of substantials, there was nothing but a profusion of plates striped red, green, and yellow, gilt plate, blacks and uniforms! My Lady Finlater, who had never seen these embroidered dinners, nor dined after three, was famished. The first course stayed as long as possible, in hopes of the lords: so did the second. The dessert at last arrived, and the middle dish was actually set on when Lord Finlater and Mr. Mackay(791) arrived!--would you believe it?--the dessert was remanded, and the whole first course brought back again!--Stay, I have not done:--just as this second first course had done its duty, Lord Northumberland, Lord Strafford, and Mekinsy came in, and the whole began a third time! Then the second course, and the dessert! I thought we should have dropped from our chairs with fatigue and fumes! When the clock struck eleven, we were asked to return to the drawing-room, and drink tea and coffee, but I said I was engaged to supper, and came home to bed. My dear lord, think of four hours and a half in a circle of mixed company, and three great dinners, one after another, without interruption;--no, it exceeded our day at Lord Archer's! Mrs. Armiger,(792) and Mrs. Southwell,(793) Lady Gower's(794) niece, are dead, and old Dr. Young, the poet.(795) Good night!
(782) "In April 1765," says the Quarterly Review for June 1840, "his Majesty had a serious illness: its particular character was then unknown, but we have the best authority for believing that it was of the nature of those which thrice after afflicted his Majesty, and finally incapacitated him for the duties of government."-E.
(783) The French express this thought very dramatically; "Monseigneur est malade--Monscigneur est mieux--Monseigneur est mort!"-C.
(784) See ant`e, p. 296, letter 194.-E.
(785) Of Lord Byron.
(786) Thomas Gilbert, Esq. At this time member for Newcastle-under-Line, and comptroller of the King's wardrobe.-E.
(787) Lady Mary Murray, daughter of John first Duke of Athol, and wife of James sixth Earl of Finlater: her son, afterwards seventh Earl, was born in 1750.-E.
(788) Probably Thomas Worseley, Esq. member for Oxford, and surveyor-general of the board of works.-C.
(789) This was probably the hour of extreme fashion at this time.-C.
(790) Afterwards Sir Andrew Mitchell, K. B. He was at this time our minister at Berlin, and also member for the burghs of Elgin, etc.-E.
(791) Probably J. Ross Mackie, member for Kirkcudbright, treasurer of the ordnance.-C.
(792) The lady of Major-General Robert Armiger, who had been aide-de-camp to George II.-E.
(793) Catherine, heiress of Edward Watson, Viscount Sondes, by Lady Catherine Tufton, coheiress of the sixth Earl of Thanet, the son of Lady margaret Sackville, the heiress of the De Cliffords: she was the mother of Edward Southwell, Esq., member for Gloucestershire, who, on the death of the great-aunt, Margaret Tufton, Baroness de Clifford, was confirmed in that barony.-C.
(794) Mary, another daughter and coheiress of the sixth Earl Thanet, widow of Anthony Grey, Earl of harold, and third wife of John first Earl Gower.-C.
(795) Dr. Young died on the 5th of April, in his eighty-fourth year.-E.
248. To The Earl Of Hertford. Arlington Street, April 18, 1765. (page 388)
Lady Holland carries this, which enables me to write a little more explicitly than I have been able to do lately. The King has been in the utmost danger; the humour in his face having fallen upon his breast. He now appears constantly; yet, I fear, his life is very precarious, and that there is even apprehension of a consumption. After many difficulties from different quarters, a Regency-bill is determined; the King named it first to the ministers, who said, they intended to mention it to him as soon as he was well; yet they are not thought to be fond of it. The King is to come to the House on Tuesday, and recommend the provision to the Parliament.(796) Yet, if what is whispered proves true, that the nomination of the Regent is to be reserved to the King's will, it is likely to cause great uneasiness. If the ministers propose such a clause, it is strong evidence of their own instability, and, I should think, would not save them, at least, some of them. The world expects changes Soon, though not a thorough alteration; yet, if any takes place shortly, I should think It would be a material One than not. The enmity between Lord Bute and Mr. Grenville is not denied on either side. There is a notion, and I am inclined to think not ill founded, that the former and Mr. Pitt are treating. It is certain that the last has expressed wishes that the opposition may lie still for the remainder of the session. This, at least, puts an end to the question on your brother,(797) of which I am glad for the present. The common town-talk is, that Lord Northumberland does not care to return to Ireland,--that you are to succeed him there, Lord Rochford you, and that Sandwich is to go to Spain. My belief is, that there will be no change, except, perhaps, a single one for Lord Northumberland, unless there are capital removals indeed.
The Chancellor, Grenville, the Bedfords, and the two Secretaries are one body; at least, they pass for such: yet it is very lately, if one of them has dropped his prudent management with Lord Bute. There seems an unwillingness to discard the Bedfords, though their graces themselves keep little terms of civility to Lord Bute, none to the Princess (Dowager). Lord Gower is a better courtier, and Rigby would do any thing to save his place.
This is the present state, which every day may alter: even to-morrow is a day of expectation, as the last struggle of the Poor-bill. If the Bedfords carry it, either by force or sufferance, (though Lord Bute has constantly denied being the author of the opposition to it,) I shall less expect any great change soon. In those less important, I shall not wonder to find the Duke of Richmond come upon the scene, perhaps for Ireland, though he is not talked of.
Your brother is out of town, not troubling himself, though the time seems so critical. I am not so philosophic; as I almost wish for any thing that may put an end to my being concerned in the m`el`ee--for any end to a most gloomy prospect for the country: alas! I see it not.
Lord Byron's trial lasted two days, and he was acquitted totally by four lords, Beaulieu, Falmouth, Despenser,(798) and Orford,(799) and found guilty of manslaughter by one hundred and twenty. The Dukes of York and Gloucester were present in their places. The prisoner behaved with great decorum, and seemed thoroughly shocked and mortified. Indeed, the bitterness of the world against him has been great, and the stories they have revived or invented to load him, very grievous. The Chancellor has behaved with his usual, or, rather greater vulgarness and blunders. Lord Pomfret(800) kept away decently, from the similitude of his own story.
I have been to wait on Messrs. Choiseul(801) and De Lauragais,(802) as you desired, but have not seen then yet. The former is lodged with my Lord Pembroke, and the Guerchys are in terrible apprehensions of his exhibiting some scene.
The Duke of Cumberland bore the journey to Newmarket extremely well, but has been lethargic Since,; yet they have found out that Daffy's Elixir agrees with, and does him good. Prince Frederick is very bad. There is no private news at all. As I shall not deliver this till the day after to-morrow, I shall be able to give you an account of the fate of the Poor-bill.
The medals that came for me from Geneva, I forgot to mention to you, and to beg you to be troubled with them till I see you. I had desired Lord Stanhope(803) to send them; and will beg you too, if any bill is sent, to pay it for me, and I will repay it. you. I say nothing of my journey, which the unsettled state of my affairs makes it impossible for me to fix. I long for every reason upon earth to be with you.
April 20th, Saturday.
The Poor-bill is put off till Monday; is then to be amended, and then dropped: a confession of weakness, in a set of people not famous for being moderate! I was assured, last night, that Ireland had been twice offered to you, and that it hung on their insisting upon giving you a secretary, either Wood or Bunbury. I replied very truly that I knew nothing of it, that you had never mentioned it to me and I believed not even to your brother. The answer was, Oh! his particular friends are always the last that know any thing about him. Princess Amalie loves this topic, and is for ever teasing us about your mystery. I defend myself by pleading that I have desired you never to tell me any thing till it was in the gazette.
They say there is to be a new alliance in the house of Montagu: that Lord Hinchinbrook(804) is to marry the sole remaining daughter of Lord Halifax; that her fortune is to be divided into three shares, of which each father is to take one, and the third is to be the provision for the victims. I don't think this the most unlikely part of the story. Adieu! my dear lord.
(796) In a letter to his son, of the 22d of April, Chesterfield says:--"Apropos of a minority: the King is to come to the House tomorrow, to recommend a bill to settle a regency, in case of his demise while his successor is a minor. Upon his late illness, which was no trifling one, the whole nation cried out aloud for such a bill, for reasons which will readily occur to you, who know situations, persons, and characters here. I do not know the provisions of this intended bill; but I wish it may b(@ copied exactly from that which was passed in the late King's reign, when the present King was a minor. I am sure there cannot be a better."-E.
(797) As to his dismissal.-C.
(798) Sir Francis Dashwood, lately confirmed in this barony, as the heir of the Fanes by his mother. He had been chancellor of the exchequer in Lord Bute's administration.-E.
(799) George, third Earl of Orford, Mr. Walpole's nephew; on whose death, in 1791, he succeeded to the title.-E.
(800) George, second Earl of Pomfret, while Lord Lempster, had the misfortune to kill Captain Grey, of the Guards, in a duel: he was tried at the Old Bailey in April 1752, and found guilty of manslaughter only. See vol. ii. p. 124, letter 54.-E.
(801) The son, it is supposed, of the Duc de Praslin.-C.
(802) Louis L`eon de Brancas, the eldest son of the Duc de Villars Brancas: he was, during his father's life, known as the Comte, and afterwards Duc, de Lauragais, and was a very singular and eccentric person. He was a great Anglomane, and was the first introducer into France of horseraces `a l'Anglaise; it was to him that Louis XV.--not pleased at his insolent Anglomanie-- made so excellent a retort. The King had asked him after one of his journeys, what he had learned in England? Lauragais answered, with a kind of republican dignity, "A panser" (penser).--"Les chavaux?" inquired the King. On the other hand, he was one of the first promoters of the practice of inoculation. stories about him, both in England and France, are endless: "He was," says M. de Segur, who knew him well, "one of the most singular men of the long period in which he lived; he united in his person a combination of great qualities and great faults, the smallest portion of which would have marked any other man with a striking originality." He died in 1823, at the age of ninety-one--his youthful name and follies forgotten in the respectable old age of the Duc de Brancas.-C.
(803) Philip, second Earl Stanhope; for a character of whom, by his great-grandson, Lord Mahon, see vol. i. p. 308, letter 96, note 771.-E.
(804) Afterwards fifth Earl of sandwich. The match with lady Eliza Savile took place on the 1st of march 1766.-E.
249. To Sir David Dalrymple.(805) Strawberry Hill, April 21, 1765. (page 391)
Sir, Except the mass of Conway papers, on which I have not yet had time to enter seriously, I am sorry I have nothing at present that would answer your purpose. Lately, indeed, I have had little leisure, to attend to literary pursuits. I have been much out of order with a violent cold and cough for great part of the winter; and the distractions of this country, which reach even those who mean the least to profit by their country, have not left even me, who hate politics, without some share in them. Yet as what one does not love, cannot engross one entirely, I have amused myself a little with writing. Our friend Lord Finlater will perhaps show you the fruit of that trifling, though I had not the confidence to trouble you with such a strange thing as a miraculous story, of which I fear the greatest merit is the novelty.
I have lately perused with much pleasure a collection of old ballads, to which I see, Sir, you have contributed with your usual benevolence. Continue this kindness to the public, and smile as I do, when the pains you take for them are misunderstood or perverted. Authors must content themselves with hoping that two or three Intelligent persons in an age will understand the merit of their writings, and those authors are bound in good breeding to Suppose that the public in general is enlightened. They who arc in the secret know how few of that public they have any reason to wish should read their works. I beg pardon of my masters the public, and am confident, Sir, YOU Will not betray me; but let me beg you not to defraud the few that deserve your information, in compliment to those who are not capable of receiving it. Do as I do about my small house here. Every body that comes to see it or me, are so good as to wonder that I don't make this or that alteration. I never haggle with them; but always say I intend it. They are satisfied with the attention and themselves, and I remain with the enjoyment of my house as I like it. Adieu! dear Sir.
(805) Now first collected.