343. To George Montagu, Esq. Strawberry Hill, June 15, 1768. (page 520)
No, I cannot be so false as to say I am glad you are pleased with your situation. You are so apt to take root, that it requires ten years to dig you out again when you once begin to settle. As you go pitching your tent up and down, I wish you were still more a Tartar, and shifted your quarters perpetually. Yes, I will come and see you, but tell me first, when do your Duke and Duchess travel to the north? I know that he is a very amiable lad, and I do not know that she is not as amiable a laddess, but I had rather see their house comfortably when they are not there.
I perceive the deluge fell upon you before it reached us. It began here but on Monday last, and then rained near eight-and-forty hours without intermission. My poor hay has not a dry thread to its back. I have had a fire these three days. In short, every summer one lives in a state of mutiny and murmur, and I have found the reason: it is because we will affect to have a summer, and we have no title to any such thing. Our poets learnt their trade of the Romans, and so adopted the terms of their masters. They talk of shady groves, purling streams, and cooling breezes, and we get sore throats and agues with attempting to realize these visions. Master Damon writes a song, and invites Miss Chloe to enjoy the cool of the evening, and the deuce a bit have we of any such thing as a cool evening. Zephyr is a northeast wind, that makes Damon button up to the chin, and pinches Chloe's nose till it is red and blue; and then they cry, this is a bad summer! as if we ever had any other. The best sun we have is made of Newcastle coal, and I am determined never to reckon upon any other. We ruin ourselves with inviting over foreign trees and make our houses clamber up hills to look at prospects. How our ancestors would laugh at us, who knew there was no being comfortable, unless you had a high hill before your nose, and a thick warm wood at your back! Taste is too freezing a commodity for us, and, depend upon it, will go out of fashion again.
There is indeed a natural warmth in this country, which, as you say, I am very glad not to enjoy any longer; I mean the hothouse in St. Stephen's chapel. My own sagacity makes me very vain, though there was very little merit in it. I had seen so much of all parties, that I had little esteem left for any; it is most indifferent to me who is in or -who is out, or which is set in the pillory, Mr. Wilkes or my Lord Mansfield. I see the country going to ruin, and no man with brains enough to save it. That is mortifying ; but what signifies who has the undoing it? I seldom suffer myself to think on this subject: my patriotism could do no good, and my philosophy can make me be at peace.
I am sorry you are likely to lose your poor cousin Lady Hinchinbrook;(1031) I heard a very bad account of her when I was last in town. Your letter to Madame Roland shall be taken care of; but as you are so scrupulous of making me pay postage, I must remember not to overcharge you, as I can frank my idle letters no longer; therefore, good night!
P. S. I was in town last week, and found Mr. Chute still confined. He had a return in his shoulder, but I think it more rheumatism than gout.
(1031) Elizabeth, wife of John Viscount Hinchinbroke, afterwards fifth Earl of Sandwich, was the only surviving daughter of George, second and last Earl of Halifax. Her ladyship died on the 1st of July 1768, leaving a son, George Viscount Hinchinbroke, who died sine prole, in 1790.-E.
344. To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(1032) Strawberry Hill, June 16, 1768. (page 521)
I am glad you have writ to me, for I wanted to write to you, and did not know what to say. I have been but two nights in town, and then heard of nothing but Wilkes, of whom I am tired to death, and of T. Townshend, the truth of whose story I did not know; and indeed the tone of the age has made me so uncharitable, that I concluded his ill-humour was put on, in order to be mollified with the reversion of his father's place, which I know he has long wanted; and the destination of the Pay-office has been so long notified, that I had no notion of his not liking the arrangement. For the new Paymaster,(1033) I could not think him worth writing a letter on purpose. By your letter and the enclosed I find Townshend has been very ill-treated, and I like his spirit in not bearing such neglect and contempt, though wrapped up in 2700 pounds a-year.
What can one say of the Duke of Grafton, but that his whole conduct is childish, insolent, inconstant, and absurd--nay, ruinous? Because we are not in confusion enough, he makes every thing as bad as possible, neglecting on one hand, and taking no precaution on the other. I neither see how it is possible for him to remain minister, nor whom to put in his place. No government, no police, London and Middlesex distracted, the colonies in rebellion, Ireland ready to be so, and France arrogant, and on the point of being hostile! Lord Bute accused of all and dying of a panic; George Grenville wanting to make rage desperate; Lord Rockingham the Duke of Portland, and the Cavendishes thinking we have no enemies but Lord Bute and Dyson, and that four mutes and an epigram can set every thing to rights, the Duke of Grafton like an apprentice, thinking the world should be postponed to a whore and a horserace; and the Bedfords not caring what disgraces we undergo, while each of them has 3000 pounds a-year and three thousand bottles of claret and champagne! Not but that I believe these last good folks are still not satisfied with the satisfaction of their wishes. They have the favour of the Duke of Grafton, but neither his confidence nor his company; so that they can neither sell the places in his gift nor his secrets. Indeed, they,' have not the same reasons to be displeased with him as you have; for they were his enemies and you his friend--and therefore he embraced them and dropped you, and I believe would be puzzled to give a tolerable reason for either.
As this is the light in which I see our present situation, you will not wonder that I am happy to have nothing to do with it. Not that, were it more flourishing, I would ever meddle again. I have no good opinion of any of our factions, nor think highly of either their heads or their hearts. I can amuse myself much more to my satisfaction; and, had I not lived to see my country at the period of its greatest glory, I should bear our present state much better. I cannot mend it, and therefore will think as little of it as I can. The Duke of Northumberland asked me to dine at Sion to-morrow; but, as his vanity of governing Middlesex makes him absurdly meditate to contest the county, I concluded he wanted my interest here, and therefore excused myself; for I will have nothing to do with it.
I shall like much to come to Park-place, if your present company stays, or if the Fitzroys or the Richmonds are there; but I desire to be excused from the Cavendishes, who have in a manner left me off, because I am so unlucky as not to think Lord Rockingham as great a man as my Lord Chatham, and Lord John more able than either. If you will let me know when they leave you, you shall see me: but they would not be glad of my company, nor I of theirs.
My hay and I are drowned; I comfort myself with a fire, but I cannot treat the other with any sun, at least not with one that has more warm than the sun in a harlequin-farce.
I went this morning to see the Duchess of Grafton, who has got an excellent house and fine prospect, but melancholy enough, and so I thought was she herself: I did not ask wherefore.
I go to town to-morrow to see the Devil upon Two Sticks,(1034) as I did last week, but could not get in. I have now secured a place in my niece Cholmondeley's box, and am to have the additional entertainment of Mrs. Macauley in the same company; who goes to see herself represented, and I suppose figures herself very like Socrates.
I shall send this letter by the coach, as it is rather free spoken, and Sandwich may be prying.
Mr. Chute has found the subject of my tragedy, which I thought happened in Tillotson's time, in the Queen of Navarre's Tales; and what is very remarkable, I had laid my plot at Narbonne and about the beginning of the Reformation, and it really did happen in Languedoc and in the time of Francis the First. Is not this singular?(1035)
I hope your canary hen was really with egg by the blue-bird, and that he will not plead that they are none of his and sue for a divorce. Adieu!
(1032) Now first printed. In the preceding January Mr. Conway had resigned his situation of secretary of state for the northern department.-E.
(1033) Mr. Rigby.
(1034) Foote's successful comedy of The Devil upon Two Sticks was first acted at the Haymarket on the 31st of May.-E.
(1035) See vol. i. p. 57.
345. To Monsieur De Voltaire. Strawberry Hill, June 21, 1768. (page 523)
Sir, You read English with so much more facility than I can write French, that I hope you will excuse my making use of my own tongue to thank you for the honour of your letter. If I employed your language, my ignorance in it might betray me into expressions that would not do justice to the sentiments I feel at being so distinguished.
It is true, Sir, I have ventured to contest the history of Richard the Third, as it has been delivered down to us; and I shall obey your commands, and send it to you, though with fear and trembling; for though I have given it to the world, as it is called, yet, as you have justly observed, that world is comprised within a very small circle of readers--and Undoubtedly I could not expect that you would do me the Honour of being one of the number. Nor do I fear you, Sir, only as the first genius in Europe, who has illustrated every science; I have a more intimate dependence on you than YOU Suspect. Without knowing it, you have been my master, and perhaps the sole merit that may be found in my writings is owing to my having studied yours; so far, Sir, am I from living in that state of barbarism and ignorance with which you tax me when you say que vous m'`etes peut-`etre inconnu. I was not a stranger to your reputation very many years ago, but remember to have then thought you honoured our house by dining with my mother--though I was at school, and had not the happiness of seeing you: and yet my father was in a situation that might have dazzled eyes older than mine. The plain name of that father, and the pride of having had so excellent a father, to whose virtues truth at last does justice , is all I have to boast. I am a very private man, distinguished by neither dignities nor titles, which I have never done any thing to deserve--but as I am certain that titles alone would not have procured me the honour of your notice, I am content without them.(1036)
But, Sir, if I can tell you nothing good of myself, I can at least tell you something bad; and, after the obligation you have conferred on me by your letter, I should blush if you heard it from any body but myself. I had rather incur your indignation than deceive you. Some time ago I took the liberty to find fault in print with the criticisms you had made on our Shakspeare. This freedom, and no wonder, never came to your knowledge. It was in a preface to a trifling romance, much unworthy of your regard, but which I shall send you, because I cannot accept even the honour of your correspondence, without making you judge whether I deserve it. I might retract, I might beg your pardon; but having said nothing but what I thought, nothing illiberal or unbecoming a gentleman, it would be treating you with ingratitude and impertinence, to suppose that you would either be offended with my remarks, or pleased with my recantation. You are as much above wanting flattery, as I am above offering it to you. You would despise me, and I should despise myself--a sacrifice I cannot make, Sir, even to you.
Though it is impossible not to know you, Sir, I must confess my ignorance on the other part of your letter. I know nothing of the history of Monsieur de Jumonville, nor can tell whether it is true or false, as this is the first time I ever heard of it. But I will take care to inform myself as well as I can, and, if you allow me to trouble you again, will send you the exact account as far as I can obtain It. I love my country, but I do not love any of my countrymen that have been capable, if they have been so, of a foul assassination. I should have made this inquiry directly, and informed you of the result of it in this letter, had I been in London; but the respect I owe you, Sir, and my impatience to thank you for so unexpected a mark of your favour, made me choose not to delay my gratitude for a single post. I have the honour to be, Sir, your most obliged and most obedient humble servant.
(1036) Voltaire had said, "Vous pardonnerez encore plus `a mon ignorance de vos titres; je n'en respecte pas moins votre personne; je connais plus votre m`erite que les dignit`es dont il doit `etre rev`etu."-E.
346. To The Earl Of Strafford. Strawberry Hill, June 25, 1768. (page 524)
You ordered me, my dear Lord, to write to you, and I am ready to obey you, and to give you every proof of attachment in my power: but it is a very barren season for all but cabalists, who can compound, divide, multiply No. 45 forty-five thousand different ways. I saw in the papers to-day, that somehow or other this famous number and the number of the beast in the Revelations is the same--an observation from which different persons will draw various conclusions. For my part, who have no ill wishes to Wilkes, I wish he was in Patmos, or the New Jerusalem, for I am exceedingly tired of his name. The only good thing I have heard in all this Controversy was of a man who began his letter thus: "I take the Wilkes-and-liberty to assure you," etc.
I peeped at London last week, and found a tolerably full opera. But now the birthday is over, I suppose every body will go to waters and races till his Majesty of Denmark arrives. He is extremely amorous; but stays so short a time, that the ladies who Intended to be undone must not hagle. They must do their business in the twinkling of an allemande, or he will be flown. Don't you think he will be a little surprised, when he inquires for the seriglio in Buckingham-house, to find, in full of all accounts, two old Mecklenburgheresses?
Is it true that Lady Rockingham is turned Methodist? It will be a great acquisition to the sect to have their hymns set by Giardini. I hope Joan Huntingdon will be deposed, if the husband becomes first minister. I doubt, too, the saints will like to call at Canterbury and Winchester in their way to heaven. My charity is so small, that I do not think their virtue a jot more obdurate than that of patriots.
We have had some severe rain; but the season is now beautiful, though scarce hot. The hay and the corn promise that we shall have no riots on their account. Those black dogs the whiteboys or coal-heavers are dispersed or taken; and I really- see no reason to think we shall have another rebellion this fortnight. The most comfortable event to me is, that we shall have no civil war all the summer at Brentford. I dreaded two kings there; but the writ for Middlesex will not be issued till the Parliament meets; so there will be no pretender against King Glynn.(1037) As I love peace, and have done with politics, I quietly acknowledge the King de facto; and hope to pass and repass unmolested through his Majesty's long, lazy, lousy capital.(1038)
My humble duty to my Lady Strafford and all her pheasants. I have just made two cascades; but my naiads are fools to Mrs. Chetwynd or my Lady Sondes, and don't give me a gallon of water in a week.--Well, this is a very silly letter! But you must take the will for the deed. Adieu, my dear Lord! Your most faithful servant.
(1037) Serjeant Glynn, Member of Parliament for Middlesex.
(1038) Brentford.
347. To Monsieur De Voltaire. Strawberry Hill, July 27, 1768. (page 525)
One can never, Sir, be sorry to have been in the wrong, when one's errors are pointed out to one in so obliging and masterly a manner. Whatever opinion I may have of Shakspeare, I should think him to blame, if he could have seen the letter you have done me the honour to -write to me, and yet not conform to the rules you have there laid down. When he lived, there had not been a Voltaire both to give laws to the stage, and to show on what good sense those laws were founded. Your art, Sir, goes still farther: for you have supported your arguments, without having recourse to the best authority, your own words. It was My interest perhaps to defend barbarism and irregularity. A great genius is in the right, on the contrary, to show that when correctness, nay, when perfection is demanded, he can still shine, and be himself, whatever fetters are imposed on him. But I will say no more on this head; for I am neither so unpolished as to tell you to your face how much I admire you, nor, though I have taken the liberty to vindicate Shakspeare against your criticisms, am I vain enough to think myself an adversary worthy of you. I am much more proud of receiving laws from you, than of contesting them. It was bold in me to dispute with you even before I had the honour of your acquaintance; it would be ungrateful now when you have not only taken notice of me, but forgiven me. The admirable letter you have been so good as to send me, is a proof that you are one of those truly great and rare men who know at once how to conquer and to pardon.
I have made all the inquiry I could into the story of M. de Jumonville; and though your and our accounts disagree, I own I do not think, Sir, that the strongest evidence is in our favour. I am told we allow he was killed by a party of our men, going to the Ohio. Your countrymen say he was going with a flag of truce. The commanding officer of our party said M. de Jumonville was going with hostile intentions; and that very hostile orders were found after his death in his pocket. Unless that officer had proved that he had previous intelligence of those orders, I doubt he will not be justified by finding them afterwards; for I am not at all disposed to believe that he had the foreknowledge of your hermit,(1039) who pitched the old woman's nephew into the river, because "ce jeune homme auroit assassin`e sa tante dans un an."
I am grieved that such disputes should ever subsist between two nations who have every thing in themselves to create happiness, and who may find enough in each other to love and admire. It is your benevolence, Sir, and your zeal for softening the manners of mankind; it is the doctrine of peace and amity which You preach which have raised my esteem for you even more than the brightness of your genius. France may claim you in the latter light, but all nations have a right to call you their countryman du c`ot`e du coeur. it is on the strength of that connexion that I beg you, Sir, to accept the homage of, Sir, your most obedient humble servant.(1040)
(1039) An allusion to the fable in Zadig, which is said to have been founded on Parnell's Hermit, but which was most probably taken from one of the Contes Devots, "De l'Hermite qu'un ange conduisit dans le Si`ecle," and of which a translation, or rather modernization, is to be found in the fifth volume of Le Grand d'Aussy, Fabliaux (p. 165, ed. 1829). The original old French version has been printed by Meou, in his Nouveau Recueil de Fabliaux et Contes, tom. ii. p. 916.-E.
(1040) The letter of Voltaire, to which the above is a reply, contained the following opinion of Walpole's Historical Doubts:- -"Avant le d`epart de ma lettre, j'ai eu le tems, Monsieur, de lire votre Richard Trois. Vous seriez un excellent attornei general; vous pesez toutes les probabilit`es; mais il paroit que vous avez une inclination secrette pour ce bossu. Vous voulez qu'il ait `et`e beau gar`con, et m`eme galant homme. Le b`en`edictin Calmet a fait une dissertation pour prouver que Jesus Christ avait un fort beau visage. Je veux croire avec vous, que Richard Trois n'`etait ni si laid, ni si m`echant, qu'on le dit; mais je n'aurais pas voulu avoir affaire `a lui. Votre rose blanche et votre rose rouge avaient de terribles `epines pour la nation.
"Those gracious kings are all a pack of rogues. En lisant l'histoire des York et des Lancastre, et de bien d'autres, on croit lire l'histoire des voleurs de grand chemin. Pour votre Henri Sept, il n'`etait que coupeur de bourses. Be a minister or an anti-minister, a lord or a philosopher, I will be, with an equal respect, Sir, etc."-E.
348. To The Hon. H. S. Conway. Strawberry Hill, August 9, 1768. (page 527)
You are very kind, or else you saw into my mind, and knew that I have been thinking of writing to you, but had not a penfull of matter. True, I have been in town, but I am more likely to learn news here; where at least we have it like fish, that could not find vent in London. I saw nothing there but the ruins of loo, Lady Hertford's cribbage, and Lord Botetourt, like patience on a monument, smiling in grief. He is totally ruined, and quite charmed. Yet I heartily pity him. To Virginia he cannot be indifferent: he must turn their heads somehow or other. If his graces do not captivate them, he will enrage them to fury; for I take all his douceur to be enamelled on iron.
My life is most uniform and void of events, and has nothing worth repeating. I have not had a soul with me, but accidental company now and then at dinner. Lady Holderness,. Lady Ancram, Lady Mary Coke, Mrs. Ann Pitt, and Mr. Hume, dined here the day before yesterday. They were but just gone, when George Selwyn, Lord Bolingbroke, and Sir William Musgrave, who had been at Hampton-court, came in, at nine at night, to drink tea. They told me, what I was very glad to hear, and what I could not doubt, as they had it from the Duke of Grafton himself, that Bishop Cornwallis(1041) goes to Canterbury. I feared it would be ****; but it seems he had secured all the backstairs, and not the great stairs. As the last head of the church had been in the midwife line, I supposed Goody Lyttelton(1042) had hopes; and as he had been president of an atheistical club, to be Sure Warburton did not despair. I was thinking it would make a good article in the papers, that three bishops had supped with Nancy Parsons at Vauxhall, in their way to Lambeth. I am sure ****, would have been of the number; and **** who told the Duke of Newcastle, that if his grace had commanded the Blues at Minden, they would have behaved better, would make no scruple to cry up her chastity.
The King of Denmark comes on Thursday; and I go to-morrow to see him. It has cost three thousand pounds to new furnish an apartment for him at St. James's; and now he will not go thither, supposing it would be a confinement. He is to lodge at his own minister Dieden's.
Augustus Hervey, thinking it the bel air, is going to sue for a divorce from the Chudleigh.(1043) He asked Lord Bolingbroke t'other day, who was his proctor'! as he would have asked for his tailor. The nymph has sent him word, that if he proves her his wife he must pay her debts; and she owes sixteen thousand pounds. This obstacle thrown in the way, looks as if she was not sure of being Duchess of Kingston. The lawyers say, it will be no valid plea; it not appearing that she was Hervey's wife, and therefore the tradesmen could not reckon on his paying them.
Yes, it is my Gray, Gray the poet, who is made professor of modern history, and I believe it is worth five hundred a-year. I knew nothing of it till I saw it in the papers; but believe //it was Stonehewer that obtained it for him.(1044)
Yes, again; I use a bit of alum half as big as my nail, Once or twice a-week, and let it dissolve in my mouth. I should not think that using it oftener could be prejudicial. You should inquire; but as you are in more hurry than I am, you should certainly use it oftener than I do. I wish I could cure my Lady Ailesbury too. Ice-water has astonishing effect on my stomach, and removes all pain like a charm. Pray, though the one's teeth may not be so white as formerly, nor t'other look in perfect health, let the Danish King see such good specimens of the last age--though, by what I hear, he likes nothing but the very present age. However, sure you will both come and look at him: not that I believe he is a jot better than the apprentices that flirt to Epsom in a Tim-whisky; but I want to meet you in town.
I don't very well know what I write, for I hear a caravan on my stairs, that are come to see the house; Margaret is chattering, and the dogs barking; and this I call retirement! and yet I think it preferable to your visit at Becket. Adieu! Let me know something more of your motions before you go to Ireland, which I think a strange journey, and better compounded for: and when I see you in town I will settle with you another visit to Park-place. Yours ever.
(1041) The Hon. Frederick Cornwallis, seventh son of Charles fourth Baron Cornwallis, was translated from the see of Lichfield and Coventry to that of Canterbury, on the death of Archbishop Secker.-E.
(1042) Bishop of Carlisle. He died in December following; upon which event, Warburton wrote to Dr. Hurd--"A bishop, more or less, in the world, is nothing; and perhaps of as small account in the next. I used to despise him for his antiquarianism, but of late, since I grow old and dull myself, I cultivated an acquaintance with him for the sake of what formerly kept us asunder."-E.
(1043) On the 8th of March, 1769,, the lady publicly espoused Evelyn Pierrepoint., Duke of Kingston; for which offence she was impeached before the House of Peers, and the marriage declared illegal. She subsequently retired to the continent, where she died in 1788.-E.
(1044) The following is Gray's own account, in a letter of the 1st of August:--"I write chiefly to tell you, that on Sunday se'nnight Brocket died by a fall from his horse, being, as I hear, drunk: that on the Wednesday following I received a letter from the Duke of Grafton, saying he had the King's command to offer me the vacant professorship; and he adds, that from private as well as public considerations, he must take the warmest part in approving so well-judged a measure, etc. There's for you!"-- In a letter to Dr. Beattie, of the 31st of October, he says--"It is the best thing the Crown has to bestow (on a layman) here; the salary is four hundred pounds per annum; but what enhances the value of it to me is, that it was bestowed without being asked. Instances of a benefit so nobly conferred, I believe, are rare; and therefore I tell you of it as a thing that does honour, not only to me, but to the minister." Works, vol. IV. pp. 123, 127.-E.
349. To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, Aug. 13, 1768. (page 529)
indeed, what was become of you, as I had offered myself to you so long ago, and you did not accept my bill; and now it is payable at such short notice, that as I cannot find Mr. Chute, nor know where he is, whether at your brother's or the Vine, I think I had better defer my visit till the autumn, when you say you will be less hurried, and more at leisure. I believe I shall go to Ragley beginning of September, and possibly on to Lord Strafford's, and therefore I may call on you, if it will not be inconvenient to you, on my return.
I came to town to see the Danish King. He is as diminutive as if he came out of a kernel in the Fairy Tales. He is not ill made, nor weakly made, though so small; and though his face is pale and delicate, it is not at all ugly, yet has a strong cast of the late King, and enough of the late Prince of Wales to put one upon one's guard not to be prejudiced in his favour. Still he has more royalty than folly in his air; and, considering he is not twenty, is as well as one expects any king in a puppet-show to be. He arrived on Thursday, supped and lay at St. James's. Yesterday evening he was at the Queen's and Carlton-house, and at night at Lady Hertford's assembly. He only takes the title of altesse, an absurd mezzotermine, but acts king exceedingly; struts in the circle like a cock-sparrow, and does the honours of himself very civilly. There is a favourite too, who seems a complete jackanapes; a young fellow called Holke, well enough in his figure, and about three-and-twenty, but who will be tumbled down long before he is prepared for it. Bernsdorff, a Hanoverian, his first minister, is a decent sensible man; I pity him, though I suppose he is envied. From Lady Hertford's they went to Ranelagh, and to-night go to the opera. There had like to have been an untoward circumstance: the last new opera in the spring, which was exceedingly pretty, was called "I Viaggiatori Ridicoli," and\ they were on the point of acting it for this royal traveller.
I am sure you are not sorry that Cornwallis is archbishop. He is no hypocrite, time-server, nor high-priest. I little expected so good a choice. Adieu! Yours ever.
350. To The Earl Of Strafford. Strawberry Hill, Aug. 16, 1768. (page 529)
As you have been so good, my dear lord, as twice to take notice of my letter, I am bound in conscience and gratitude to try to amuse you with any thing new. A royal visiter, quite fresh, is a real curiosity--by the reception of him, I do not think many more of the breed will come hither. He came from Dover in hackney-chaises; for somehow or other the master of the horse happened to be in Lincolnshire; and the King's coaches having received no orders, were too good subjects to go and fetch a stranger King of their own heads. However, as his Danish Majesty travels to improve himself for the good of his people, he will go back extremely enlightened in the arts of government and morality, by having learned that crowned heads may be reduced to ride in a hired chaise.
By another mistake, King George happened to go to Richmond about an hour before King Christiern arrived in London. An hour Is exceedingly long; and the distance to Richmond Still longer: so with all the despatch that could possibly be made, King George could not get back to his capital till next day at noon. Then, as the road from his closet at St. James's to the King of Denmark's apartment on t'other side of the palace is about thirty miles, which posterity, having no conception of the prodigious extent and magnificence of St. James's, will never believe, it was half an hour after three before his Danish Majesty's courier could go, and return to let him know that his good brother and ally was leaving the palace in which they both were, in order to receive him at the Queen's palace, which you know is about a million of snail's paces from St. James's. Notwithstanding these difficulties and unavoidable delays, Woden, Thor, Fria, and all the gods that watch over the Kings of the North, did bring these two invincible monarchs to each other's embraces about half an hour after five that same evening. They passed an hour in projecting a family compact that will regulate the destiny of Europe to latest posterity: and then, the Fates so willing it, the British Prince departed for Richmond, and the Danish potentate repaired to the widowed mansion of his royal mother-in-law, where he poured forth the fulness of his heart in praises on the lovely bride she had bestowed on him, from whom nothing but the benefit of his subjects could ever have torn him. And here let Calumny blush, who has aspersed so chaste and faithful a monarch with low amours; pretending that he has raised to the honour of a seat in his sublime council, an artisan of Hamburgh, known only by repairing the soles of buskins, because that mechanic would, on no other terms, consent to his fair daughter's being honoured with majestic embraces. So victorious over his passions is this young Scipio from the Pole, that though on Shooter's-hill he fell into an ambush laid for him by an illustrious Countess, of blood-royal herself, his Majesty, after descending from his car, and courteously greeting her, again mounted his vehicle, without being one moment eclipsed from the eyes of the surrounding multitude. Oh! mercy on me! I am out of breath--pray let me descend from my stilts, or I shall send you as fustiin and tedious a history as that of Henry II. Well then, this great King is a very little one; not ugly, nor ill-made. He has the sublime strut of his grandfather, or of a cock-sparrow; and the divine white eyes of all his family by the mother's side. His curiosity seems to have consisted in the original plan of travelling for I cannot say he takes notice of any thing in particular. His manner is cold and dignified, but very civil and gracious and proper. The mob adore him and huzza him; and so they did the first instant. At Present they begin to know why-- for he flings money to them out of his windows; and by the end of the week I do not doubt but they will want to choose him for Middlesex. His court is extremely well ordered; for they bow as low to him at every word as if his name was Sultan Amurat. You would take his first minister for only the first of his slaves. I hope this example, which they have been so good as to exhibit at the opera, will contribute to civilize us. There is indeed a pert young gentleman, who a little discomposes this august ceremonial. His name is Count Holke, his age three-and-twenty and his post answers to one that we had formerly in England, many ages ago, and which in our tongue was called the lord high favourite. Before the Danish monarchs became absolute, the most refractory of that country used to write libels, called North Danes, against this great officer; but that practice has long since ceased. Count Holke seems rather proud of his favour, than shy of displaying it.
I hope, my dear lord, you will be content with my Danish politics, for I trouble myself with no other. There is a long history about the Baron de Bottetourt and Sir Jeffery Amherst, who has resigned his regiment but it is nothing to me, nor do I care a straw about it. I am deep in the anecdotes of the new court; and if you want to know more of Count Holke or Count Molke, or the grand vizier Bernsdorff, or Mynheer Schimmelman, apply to me, and you shall be satisfied. But what do I talk of? You will see them yourself. Minerva in the shape of Count Bernsdorff, or out of all shape in the person of the Duchess of Northumberland, is to conduct Telemachus to York races; for can a monarch be perfectly accomplished in the mysteries of king-craft, as our Solomon James I. called it, unless he is initiated in the arts of jockeyship? When this northern star travels towards its own sphere, Lord Hertford will go to Ragley. I shall go with him; and, if I can avoid running foul of the magi that will be thronging from all parts to worship that star, I will endeavour to call at Wentworth Castle for a day or two, if it will not be inconvenient; I should think it would be about the second week in September, but your lordship shall hear again, unless you should forbid me, who am ever Lady Strafford's and your lordship's most faithful humble servant.
Letter 351To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(1045) Arlington Street, Aug. 25, 1768. (page 531)
heartily glad you do not go to Ireland; it is very well for the Duke of Bedford, who, as George Selwyn says, is going to be made a mamamouchi. Your brother sets out for Ragley on Wednesday next, and that day I intend to be at Park--place, and from thence shall go to Ragley on Friday. I shall stay three or four days, and then go to Lord Strafford's for about as many; and shall call on George Montagu on my return, so as to be at home in a fortnight, an infinite absence in my account. I wish you could join in with any part of this progress, before you go to worship the treasures that are pouring in upon your daughter by the old Damer's death.(1046)
You ask me about the harvest--you might as well ask me about the funds. I thought the land flowed with milk and honey. We have had forty showers, but they have not lasted a minute each; and as the weather continues warm and my lawn green,
"I bless my stars, and call it luxury."
They tell me there are very bad accounts from several colonies, and the papers are full of their remonstrances; but I never read such things. I am happy to have nothing to do with them, and glad you have not much more. When one can do no good, I have no notion of sorrowing oneself for every calamity that happens in general. One should lead the life of a coffee-house politician, the most real patriots that I know, who amble out every morning to gather matter for lamenting over their country. I leave mine, like the King of Denmark, to ministers and Providence; the latter of which, like an able chancellor of the exchequer to an ignorant or idle first lord, luckily does the business. That little King has had the gripes, which have addled his journey to York. I know nothing more of his motions. His favourite is fallen in love with Lady Bel Stanhope,(1047) and the monarch himself demanded her for him. The mother was not averse, but Lady Bel very sensibly refused--so unfortunate are favourites the instant they set their foot in England! He is jealous of Sackville,(1048) and says, "ce gros noir n'est pas beau;" which implies that he thinks his own whiteness and pertness charming. Adieu! I shall see you on Wednesday.
(1045) Now first printed.
(1046) J. Damer, Esq., of carne in Dorsetshire, brother to the first Lord Milton.-E.
)1047) Afterwards Countess of Sefton.-E.
(1048) Who afterwards succeeded to the Dukedom of Dorset.-E.
352. To The Rev. Mr. Cole. Strawberry Hill, Aug. 30, 1768. (page 532)
You are always heaping so many kindnesses on me, dear Sir, I think I must break off all acquaintance with you, unless I can find some way of returning them. The print of the Countess of Exeter Is the greatest present to me in the world. I have been trying for years to no purpose to get one. Reynolds the painter promised to beg one for me of a person he knows, but I have never had it. I wanted it for four different purposes. 1. As a grandmother (in law, by the Cranes and Allingtons): 2. for my collection of heads: 3. for the volumes of prints after pieces in my collection: and, above all, for my collection of Faithornes, which though so fine, wanted such a capital print: and to this last I have preferred it. I give you unbounded thanks for it: and yet I feel exceedingly ashamed to rob you. The print of Jane Shore I had: but as I have such various uses for prints I easily bestowed it. It is inserted in my Anecdotes, where her picture is mentioned.
Thank you, too, for all your notices. I intend next summer to set about the last volume of my Anecdotes, and to make still further additions to my former volumes, in which these notes find their place. I am going to reprint all my pieces together, and, to my shame be it spoken, find they will at least make two large quartos. You, I know, will be partial enough to give them a place on a shelf, but as I doubt many persons will not be so favourable, I Only think of leaving the edition behind me.
Methinks I should like for your amusement and my own, that you settled to Ely: yet I value your health so much beyond either, that I must advise Milton, Ely being, I believe, a very damp, and, consequently, a very unwholesome situation. Pray let me know on which you fix; and if you do fix this summer, remember the hopes you have given me of a visit. My summer, that is, my fixed residence here, lasts till November. My gallery is not only finished, but I am going on with the round chamber at the end of it; and am besides playing with the little garden on the other side of the road, which was old Franklin's, and by his death came into my hands. When the round tower is finished, I propose to draw up a description and catalogue of the whole house and collection, and I think you will not dislike lending me your assistance.
Mr. Granger,(1049) of Shiplake, is printing his laborious and curious Catalogue of English heads, with an accurate though succinct account of almost all the persons. It will be a very valuable and useful work, and I heartily wish may succeed; though I have some fears. There are of late a small number of persons who collect English heads but not enough to encourage such a work: I hope the anecdotic part will make it more known and tasted. It is essential to us, who shall love the performance, that it should sell: for he prints no farther at first than to the end of the first Charles: and, if this part does not sell well, the bookseller will not purchase the remainder of the copy, though he gives but a hundred pounds for this half'; and good Mr. Granger is not in circumstances to afford printing it himself. I do not compare it with Dr. Robertson's writings, who has an excellent genius, with admirable style and manner; and yet I cannot help thinking, that there is a good deal of Scotch puffing and partiality, when the booksellers have given the Doctor three thousand pounds for his Life of Charles V., for composing which he does not pretend to have obtained any new materials.
I am going into Warwickshire; and I think shall go on to Lord Strafford's, but propose returning before the end of September. Yours ever.
(1049) The Rev. James Granger, Vicar of Shiplake in Oxfordshire; where he died in 1776. See post, May 27, 1769.-E.
353. To The Earl Of Strafford. Strawberry Hill, Monday, Oct. 10, 1768. (page 534)
I give you a thousand thanks, my dear Lord, for the account of the ball at Welbeck. I shall not be able to repay it with a relation of the masquerade to-night;(1050) for I have been confined here this week with the gout in my foot, and have not stirred off my bed or couch since Tuesday. I was to have gone to the great ball at Sion on Friday, for which a new road, paddock, and bridge were made, as other folks make a dessert. I conclude Lady Mary Coke has, and will tell you of all these pomps, which Health thinks so serious, and Sickness with her grave face tells one are so idle. Sickness may make me moralize, but I assure you she does not want humour. She has diverted me extremely with drawing a comparison between the repose (to call neglect by its dignified name) which I have enjoyed in this fit, and the great anxiety in which the whole world was when I had the last gout, three years ago--you remember my friends were then coming into power. Lord Weymouth was so good as to call at least once every day, and inquire after me; and the foreign ministers insisted that I should give them the satisfaction of seeing me, that they might tranquillize their sovereigns with the certainty of My not being in any danger. The Duke and Duchess of Newcastle were So kind, though very nervous themselves, as to send messengers and long messages every day from Claremont. I cannot say this fit has alarmed Europe quite so much. I heard the bell ring at the gate, and asked with much majesty if it was the Duke of Newcastle had sent? "No, Sir, it was only the butcher's boy." The butcher's boy is, indeed, the only courier i have had. Neither the King of France nor King of Spain appears to be under the least concern about me.
My dear Lord, I have had so many of these transitions in my life, that you will not wonder they divert me more than a masquerade. I am ready to say to most people, "Mask, I know you." I wish I might choose their dresses!
'When I have the honour of seeing Lady Strafford, I shall beseech her to tell me all the news: for I am too nigh and too far to know any. Adieu, my dear Lord!
(1050) A masquerade given at the Opera-house by the King of Denmark; one of the most magnificent which had ever been given in England. The jewels worn on the occasion by the maskers were estimated to be of the value of two millions.-E.
354. To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, Nov. 10, 1768. (page 535)
I have not received the cheese, but I thank you as much beforehand. I have been laid up with a fit of the gout in both feet and a knee; at Strawberry for an entire month, and eight days here: I took the air for the first time the day before yesterday, and am, considering, surprisingly recovered by the assistance of the bootikins and my own perseverance in drinking water. I moulted my stick to-day, and have no complaint but weakness left. The fit came just in time to augment my felicity in having quitted Parliament. I do not find it so uncomfortable to grow old, when One is not obliged to expose oneself in public.
I neither rejoice nor am sorry at your being accommodated in your new habitation. It has long been plain to me that you choose to bury yourself in the ugliest spot you can find, at a distance from almost all your acquaintance; so I give it up; and then I am glad you are pleased.
Nothing is stirring but politics, and chiefly the worst kind of politics, elections. I trouble myself with no sort, but seek to pass what days the gout leaves me or bestows on me, as quietly as I can. I do not wonder at others, because I doubt I am more singular than they are; and what makes me happy would probably not make them so. My best compliments to your brother; I shall be glad to see you both when you come; though for you, you don't care how little time you pass with your friends. Yet I am, and ever shall be Yours most sincerely.
355. To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, Nov. 15, 1768. (page 535)
You cannot wonder when I receive such kind letters from you, that I am vexed our intimacy should be reduced almost to those letters. It is selfish to complain, when you give me such good reasons for your system: but I grow old; and the less time we have to live together, the more I feel a separation from a person I love so well; and that reflection furnishes me with arguments in vindication of my peevishness. Methinks, though the contrary is true in practice, prudence should be the attribute of youth, not of years. When we approach to the last gate of life, what does it signify to provide for new furnishing one's house? Youth should have all those cares; indeed, charming youth is better employed. It leaves foresight to those that have little occasion for it. You and I have both done with the world, the busy world, and therefore I would smile with you over what we have both seen of it, and luckily we can smile both, for we have quitted it willingly, not from disgust nor mortifications. However, I do not pretend to combat your reasons, much less would I draw you to town a moment sooner than it is convenient to you, though I shall never forget your offering it. Nay, it is not so much in town that I wish we were nearer, as in the country. Unless one lives exactly in the same set of company, one is not much the better for one's friends being in London. I that talk of giving up the world, have only given up the troubles of it, as far as that is possible. I should speak more properly in saying, that I have retired out of the world into London. I always intend to place some months between me and the moroseness of retirement. We are not made for Solitude. It gives us prejudices, it indulges us in our own humours, and at last we cannot live without them.
My gout is quite gone; and if I had a mind to disguise its remains, I could walk very gracefully, except on going down stairs. Happily, it is not the fashion to hand any body; the nymph and I should soon be at the bottom.
Your old cousin Newcastle is going; he has had a stroke of the palsy, and they think will not last two days.(1051) I hope he is not sensible, as I doubt he would be too averse to his situation. Poor man! he is not like my late amiable friend, Lady Hervey;(1052) two days before She died, she wrote to her Son Bristol these words: "I feel my dissolution coming on, but I have no pain; what can an old woman desire more?" This was consonant to her usual propriety--yes, propriety IS grace, and thus every body may be graceful, when other graces are fled. Oh! but you will cry, is not this a contradiction to the former part of your letter? Prudence is one of the graces of age;-why--yes, I do not know but it may and yet I don't know how, it is a musty quality; one hates to allow it to be a grace--come, at least it is only like that one of the graces that hides her face. In Short, I have ever been so imprudent, that though I have much corrected myself, I am not at all vain of such merit. I have purchased it for much more than it was worth. I wish you joy of Lord Guildford's amendment; and always take a full part in your satisfaction or sorrow. Adieu! Yours ever.
(1051) The Duke of Newcastle died on the 17th.-E.
(1052) Lady Hervey died on the 2d of September, in the sixty-eighth year of her age.-E.
356. To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, Dec. 1, 1768. (page 536)
I like your letter, and have been looking at my next door but one. The ground-story is built, and the side walls will certainly be raised another floor, before you think of arriving. I fear nothing for you but the noise of workmen, and of this street in front and Picadilly on the other side. If you can bear such a constant hammering and hurricane, it will rejoice me to have you so near me; and then I think I must see you oftener than I have done these ten years. Nothing can be more dignified than this position. From my earliest memory Arlington-street has been the ministerial street. The Duke of Grafton is actually coming into the house of Mr. Pelham, which my Lord president is quitting, and which occupies too the ground on which my father lived; and Lord Weymouth has just taken the Duke of Dorset's; yet you and I, I doubt, shall always live on the wrong side of the way.
Lord Chatham is reconciled to Lord Temple and George Grenville.(1053) The second is in great spirits on the occasion; and yet gives out that Lord Chatham earnestly solicited it. The insignificant Lepidus patronizes Antony, and is sued to by Augustus! Still do I doubt whether Augustus will ever come forth again. Is this a peace patched up by Livia for the sake of her children, seeing the imbecility of her husband? or is Augustus to own he has been acting changeling, like the first Brutus, for near two years? I do not know, I remain in doubt.
Wilkes has struck an artful stroke.(1054) The ministers, devoid of all management in the House of Commons, consented that he should be heard at the bar of the House, and appointed to-morrow, forgetting the election for Middlesex is to come on next Thursday: one would think they were impatient to advance riots. Last Monday Wilkes demanded to examine Lord Temple: when that was granted, he asked for Lord Sandwich and Lord March. As the first had not been refused, the others could not. The Lords were adjourned till to-day @ , and, I suppose, are now sitting on this perplexing demand. If Lord Temple desires to go to the bar of the Commons, and the others desire to be excused, it will be difficult for the Lords to know what to do. Sandwich is frightened out of his senses,(1055) and March does not like it. Well! this will cure ministers and great lords of being flippant in dirty tyranny, when they see they may be worried for it four years afterwards.
The Commons, I suppose, are at this minute as hotly engaged on the Cumberland election between Sir James Lowther and the Duke of Portland. Oh! how delightful and comfortable to be sitting quietly here a scribbling to you, perfectly indifferent about both houses! You will Just escape having your brains beaten out, by not coming this fortnight. The Middlesex election will be over. Adieu! Yours ever.
(1053) Through the mediation of their mutual friend, Mr. Calcraft, a reconciliation between Lord Chatham and Earl Temple took place at Hayes, on the 25th of November, to which Mr. Grenville heartily acceded. See Chatham Correspondence, vol, iii. p. 349.-E.
(1054) Mr. Wilkes, on the 14th of November, had presented a petition to the House of Commons, praying for a redress of his grievances.-E.
(1055) By a reference to Sir Henry Cavendish's Debates, vol. i. pp. 93, 131, it will be seen, that Lord Sandwich expressed, through Mr. Rigby, his readiness to be examined, and that he was examined on the 31st of January.-E.
357. To George Montagu, Esq. Strawberry Hill, Sunday, March 26, 1769. (page 538)
I beg your pardon; I promised to send you news, and I had quite forgot that we have had a rebellion; at least, the Duke of Bedford says so. Six or eight hundred merchants, English, Dutch, Jews, Gentiles, had been entreated to protect the Protestant succession, and consented.(1056) They set out on Wednesday noon in their coaches and chariots, chariots not armed with scythes like our Gothic ancestors. At Temple-bar they met several regiments of foot dreadfully armed with mud, who discharged a sleet of dirt on the royal troop. Minerva, who had forgotten her dreadful Egis, and who, in the shape of Mr. Boehm, carried the address, was forced to take shelter under a Cloud in Nando's coffeehouse, being more afraid of Buckhorse than ever Venus was of Diomed; in short, it was a dismal day; and if Lord Talbot had not recollected the patriot feats of his youth,(1057) and recommenced bruiser, I don't know but the Duchess of Kingston,(1058) who has so long preserved her modesty, from both her husbands, might not have been ravished in the drawing-room. Peace is at present restored, and the rebellion adjourned to the thirteenth of April; when Wilkes and Colonel Luttrell are to fight a pitched battle at Brentford, the Phillippi of antoninus. Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fogi, know nothing of these broils. You don't convert your ploughshares into falchions, nor the mud of Adderbury into gunpowder. I tremble for my painted windows, and write talismans of number forty-five on every gate and postern of my castle. Mr. Hume is writing the Revolutions of Middlesex, and a troop of barnacle geese are levied to defend the capital. These are melancholy times! Heaven send we do not laugh till we cry!
London, Tuesday, 28th.
Our ministers, like their Saxon ancestors, are gone to bold a wittenagemoot on horseback at Newmarket. Lord Chatham, we are told, is to come forth after the holidays and place himself at the head of the discontented. When I see it I shall believe it. Lord Frederick Campbell is, at last, to be married this evening to the Dowager-countess of Ferrers.(1059) The Duchess of Grafton is actually Countess of Ossory.(1060) This is a short gazette; but, consider, it is a time of truce. Adieu!
(1056) A great riot took place on the 22d of March 1769, when a cavalcade of the merchants and tradesmen of the city of London, who were proceeding to St. James's with a loyal address, was so maltreated by the populace, that Mr. Boehm, the gentleman to whom the address was entrusted, was obliged to take refuge in Nando's coffeehouse. His coach was rifled; but the address escaped the search of the rioters, and was, after considerable delay, during which a second had been voted and prepared, eventually presented at St. James's.-E.
(1057) Lord Talbot behaved with great intrepidity upon this occasion: though he had his staff of office broken in his hand, and was deserted by his servants, he secured two of the most active of the rioters. His example recalled the military to their duty, who, without employing either guns or bayonets, captured fifteen more.-E.
(1058) The Duke of Kingston had married Miss Chudleigh on the 8th of this instant; the Consistory Court of London having declared, on the 11th of February previous, that the lady was free from any matrimonial contract with the Hon. Augustus John Hervey. On the 19th, she was presented, upon her marriage, to their Majesties; who honoured her by wearing her favours, as did all the great officers of state.-E.
(1059) See vol. iii. p. 58, letter 24. This unfortunate lady was burnt to death at Lord Frederick's seat at Combe Bank, in July 1807.-E.
(1060) Lady Anne Liddel, only daughter of Henry Liddel, Lord Ravensworth, married, in 1756, to Augustus Henry, third Duke of Grafton; from whom being divorced by act of parliament, she was married secondly, on the 26th of March, to the Earl of Ossory.-E.
358. To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, April 15, 1769. (page 539)
I should be very sorry to believe half your distempers. I am heartily grieved for the vacancy that has happened in your mouth, though you describe it so comically. As the only physic I believe in is prevention, you shall let me prescribe to you. Use a little bit of alum twice or thrice in a week, no bigger than half your nail, till it has all dissolved in your mouth, and then spit out. This has fortified my teeth, that they are as strong as the pen of Junius.(1061) I learned it of Mrs. Grosvenor, who had not a speck in her teeth to her death. For your other complaints, I revert to my old sermon, temperance. If you will live in a hermitage, methinks it is no great addition to live like a hermit. Look in Sadeler's prints, they had beards down to their girdles; and with all their impatience to be in heaven, their roots and water kept them for a century from their wishes. I have lived all my life like an anchoret in London, and within ten miles, shed my skin after the gout, and am as lively as an eel in a week after. Mr. Chute, who has drunk no more wine than a fish, grows better every year. He has escaped this winter with only a little pain in one hand. Consider that the physicians recommended wine, and then can you doubt of its being poison? Medicines may cure a few acute distempers, but how should they mend a broken constitution? they would as soon mend a broken leg. Abstinence and time may repair it, nothing else can; for when time has been employed to spoil the blood, it cannot be purified in a moment.
Wilkes, who has been chosen member of Parliament almost as often as Marius was consul, was again re-elected on Thursday. The House of Commons, who are as obstinate as the county, have again rejected him. To-day they are to instate Colonel Luttrell in his place.(1062) What is to follow I cannot say, but I doubt grievous commotions. Both sides seem so warm, that it Will be difficult for either to be in the right. This is not a merry subject, and therefore I will have done with it. If it comes to blows, I intend to be as neutral as the gentleman that was going out with his hounds the morning of Edgehill. I have seen too much of parties to list with any of them.
You promised to return to town, but now say nothing of it. You had better come before a passport is necessary: Adieu!
(1061) The Letters of Junius, the first of which appeared on the 21st of January, were now in course of publication, and exciting great attention, not only in this country, but, as it would seem, also in France: "On parle ici beaucoup de votre `ecrit de Junius," writes Madame du Deffand to Walpole.-E.
(1062) Wilkes, having been expelled the House of Commons on the 3d of February 1769, was a third time elected for Middlesex on the 16th of March. On the 17th, the election was declared by the House to be null and void, and a new writ was ordered to be issued. On the day of election, the 13th of April, Wilkes, Luttrell, and Serjeant Whitaker presented themselves as candidates, when the former, having a majority, was declared duly elected. On the 14th, this election was pronounced void, and on the 15th Henry Laws Luttrell, Esq. was duly elected, by 197 against 143, and took his seat accordingly.-E.
359. To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, May 11, 1769. (page 540)
You are so wayward, that I often resolve to give you up to your humours. Then something happens with which I can divert you, and my good-humour returns. Did not you say you should return to London long before this time? At least, could you not tell me you had changed your mind? why am I to pick it out from your absence and silence, as Dr. Warburton found a future state in Moses's saying nothing of the matter! I could go on with a chapter of severe interrogatories, but I think it more cruel to treat You as a hopeless reprobate; yes, you are graceless, and as I have a respect for my own scolding, I shall not throw it away upon you.
Strawberry has been in great glory; I have given a festino there that will almost mortgage it. Last Tuesday all France dined there: Monsieur and Madame du Chatelet,(1063) the Duc de Liancourt,(1064) three more French ladies, whose names you will find in the enclosed paper, eight other Frenchmen, the Spanish and Portuguese ministers, the Holdernesses, Fitzroys, in short we were four-and-twenty. They arrived at two. At the gates of the castle I received them, dressed in the cravat of Gibbons's carving, and a pair of gloves embroidered up to the elbows that had belonged to James the First. The French servants stared, and firmly believed this was the dress of English country gentlemen. After taking a survey of the apartments, we went to the printing-house, where I had prepared the enclosed verses, with translations by Monsieur de Lille,(1065) one of the company. The moment they were printed off, I gave a private signal, and French horns and clarionets accompanied this compliment. We then went to see Pope's grotto and garden, and returned to a magnificent dinner in the refectory. In the evening we walked, had tea, coffee, and lemonade in the gallery, which was illuminated with a thousand, or thirty candles, I forgot which, and played at whist and loo till midnight. Then there was a cold supper, and at one the company returned to town, saluted by fifty nightingales, who, as tenants of the manor, came to do honour to their lord.
I cannot say last night was equally agreeable. There was what they called a ridotto el fresco at Vauxhall,(1066) for which one paid half-a-guinea, though, except some thousand more lamps and a covered passage all round the garden, which took off from the gardenhood, there was nothing better than on a common night. Mr. Conway and I set out from his house at eight o'clock; the line and torrent of coaches was so prodigious, that it was half-an-hour after nine before we got half-way from Westminster- bridge. We then alighted; and after scrambling under bellies of horses, through wheels, and over posts and rails, we reached the gardens, where were already many thousand persons. Nothing diverted me but a man in a Turk's dress and two nymphs in masquerade without masks, who sailed amongst the company, and, which was surprising seemed to surprise nobody. It had been given out that people were desired to come in fancied dresses without masks. We walked twice round and were rejoiced to come away, though with the same difficulties as at our entrance; for we found three strings of coaches all along the road, who did not move half a foot in half-an-hour. There is to be a rival mob in the same way at Ranelagh to-morrow; for the greater the folly and imposition the greater is the crowd. I have suspended the vestimenta that were torn off my back to the god of repentance, and shall stay away. Adieu! I have not a word more to say to you. Yours ever.
P. S. I hope you will not regret paying a shilling for this packet.
(1063) Le Marquis du Chatelet, was son to la Marquise du Chatelet, the commentator upon Newton, and the Am`elie of Voltaire. The scandalous chronicles of the time accord to the philosopher the honour of his paternity.-E.
(1064) The Duc de Liancourt, of the family de la Rochefoucauld, grand ma`itre de la garde-robe du Roi. At the commencement of the Revolution, his conduct was much blamed by those attached to the court. He eventually emigrated to England, and, after residing here some time, visited America, and published an account of his travels in that country. In 1799, after the 19th Brumaire, he returned to France. He died in March 1827, in his eightieth year.-E.
(1065) M. de Lille was an officer of the French cavalry, an agreeable man in society, and author of several pretty ballads and vers de soci`et`e.
(1066) "They went to the Ridotto-'tis a hall Where people dance, and sup, and dance again; Its proper name, perhaps, were a masqued ball, But that's of no importance to my strain; 'Tis (on a smaller scale) like our Vauxhall, Excepting that it can't be spoilt by rain: The company is 'mix'd'--the phrase I quote is As much as saying, they're below your notice." Beppo, st. 58.-E.
360. To The Rev. Mr. Cole. Arlington Street, May 27, 1769. (page 541)
Dear Sir, I have not heard from you this century, nor knew where you had fixed yourself. Mr. Gray tells me you are still at Waterbeche. Mr. Granger has published his Catalogue of Prints and Lives down to the Revolution;(1067) and as the work sells well, I believe, nay, do not doubt, we shall have the rest. There are a few copies printed but on one side of the leaf. As I know you love scribbling in such books as well as I do, I beg you will give me leave to make you a present of one set. I shall send it in about a week to Mr. Gray, and have desired him, as soon as he has turned it over, to convey it to you. I have found a few mistakes, and you will find more. To my mortification, though I have four thousand heads, I find, upon a rough calculation, that I still want three or four hundred.
Pray, give me some account of yourself, how you do, and whether you are fixed. I thought you rather inclined to Ely. Are we never to have the history of that cathedral? I wish you would tell me that you have any thoughts of coming this way, or that you would make me a Visit this Summer. I shall be little from home this summer till August, when I think of going to Paris for six weeks. To be sure you have seen the History of British Topography,(1068) which was published this winter, and it is a delightful book in our way. Adieu! dear Sir. Yours ever.
(1067) A Biographical History of England, from Egbert the Great to the Revolution. A continuation, bringing the work down from the Revolution to the end of George I.'s reign, was published in 1806, by the Rev. Mark Noble. In a letter to Boswell, of the 30th of August 1776, Dr. Johnson says--"I have read every word of Granger's Biographical History. It has entertained me exceedingly, and I do not think him the Whig that you supposed. Horace Walpole being his patron is, indeed, no good sign of his political principles; but he denied to Lord Mansfield that he was a Whig, and said he had been accused by both parties of partiality. It seems he was like Pope--
'While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory.'
I wish you would look more into his book; and as Lord Mountstuart wishes much to find a proper person to continue the work upon Granger's plan, and has desired I would mention it to you, if such a man occurs, please to let me know. His lordship will give him generous encouragement."-E.
(1068) By Richard Gough, the well-known antiquary. The second edition, published in 1780, is a far better one.-E.
361. To The Rev. Mr. Cole. Strawberry Hill, June 14, 1769. (page 542)
Dear Sir, Among many agreeable passages in your last, there is nothing I like so well as the hope you give me of seeing you here in July. I will return that visit immediately: don't be afraid; I do not mean to incommode you at Waterbeche; but, if you will come, I promise I will accompany you back as far as Cambridge: nay, carry you on to Ely, for thither I am bound. The Bishop(1068) has sent a Dr. Nichols to me, to desire I would assist him in a plan for the east window of his cathedral, which he intends to benefactorate with painted glass. The window is the most untractable of all Saxon uncouthness: nor can I conceive what to do with it, but by taking off the bottoms for arms and mosaic, splitting the crucifixion into three compartments, and filling the five lights at top with prophets, saints, martyrs, and such like; after shortening the windows like the great ones. This I shall propose. However, I choose to see the spot myself, as it will be a proper attention to the Bishop after his civility, and I really would give the best advice I could. The Bishop, like Alexander VIII., feels that the clock has struck half-an-hour past eleven, and is impatient to be let depart in peace after his eyes shall have seen his vitrification: at least, he is impatient to give his eyes that treat; and yet it will be a pity to precipitate the work. If you can come to me first, I shall be happy; if not, I must come to you: that is, will meet you at Cambridge. Let me know your mind, for I would not press you unseasonably. I am enough obliged to you already; though, by mistake, you think it is you that are obliged to me. I do not mean to plunder you of any more prints; but shall employ a little collector to get me all that are getable. The rest, the greatest of us all must want.
I am very sorry for the fever you have had: but, Goodman Frog, if you will live in the fens, do not expect to be as healthy as if you were a fat Dominican at Naples. You and your MSS. will all grow mouldy. When our climate is subject to no sign but Aquarius and Pisces, would one choose the dampest country under the heavens! I do not expect to persuade you, and so I will say no more. I wish you joy of the treasure you have discovered: six Saxon bishops and a Duke of Northumberland!(1069) You have had fine sport this season. Thank you much for wishing to see my name on a plate in the history. But, seriously, I have no such vanity. I did my utmost to dissuade Mr. Granger from the dedication, and took especial pains to get my virtues left out of the question; till I found he would be quite hurt if I did not let him express his gratitude, as he called it: so, to satisfy him, I was forced to accept of his present; for I doubt I have few virtues but what he has presented me with; and in a dedication, you know, One is permitted to have as many as the author can afford to bestow. I really have another objection to the plate: which is, the ten guineas. I have so many draughts on my extravagance for trifles, that I like better than vanity, that I should not care to be at that expense. But I should think either the Duke or Duchess of Northumberland would rejoice at such an Opportunity of buying incense; and I will tell you what you shall do. Write to Mr. Percy, and vaunt the discovery of Duke Brithnoth's bones, and ask him to move their graces to contribute a plate. They Could not be so unnatural as to refuse; especially if the Duchess knew the size of his thigh-bone.
I was very happy to show civilities to your friends, and should have asked them to stay and dine, but unluckily expected other company. Dr. Ewin seems a very good sort of man, and Mr. Rawlinson a very agreeable one. Pray do not think it was any trouble to me to pay respect to your recommendation.
I have been eagerly reading Mr. Shenstone's Letters, which, though containing nothing but trifles, amused me extremely, as they mention so many persons I know; particularly myself. I found there, what I did not know, and what, I believe, Mr. Gray,(1070) himself never knew, that his ode on my cat was written to ridicule Lord Lyttelton's monody. It is just as true as that the latter will survive, and the former be forgotten. There is another anecdote equally vulgar, and void of truth: that my father, sitting in George's coffee-house, (I suppose Mr. Shenstone thought that, after he quitted his place, he went to the coffee-houses to learn news,) was asked to contribute to a figure of himself that was to be beheaded by the mob. I do remember something like it, but it happened to myself. I met a mob, just after my father was out, in Hanover-square, and drove up to it to know what was the matter. They were carrying about a figure of my sister.(1071) This probably gave rise to the other story. That on my uncle I never heard; but it Is a good story, and not at all improbable. I felt great pity on reading these letters for the narrow circumstances of the author, and the passion for fame that he was tormented with; and yet he had much more fame than his talents entitled him to. Poor man! he wanted to have all the world talk of him for the pretty place he had made; and which he seems to have made only that it might be talked of.(1072) The first time a company came to see my house, I felt this joy. I am now so tired of it, that I shudder when the bell rings at the gate. It is as bad as keeping an inn, and I am often tempted to deny its being shown, if it would not be ill-natured to those that come, and to my housekeeper. I own, I was one day too cross, I had been plagued all the week with staring crowds. At last, it rained a deluge. Well, said I, at last, nobody will come to-day. The words were scarce uttered, when the bell rang. I replied, "Tell them they cannot possibly see the house, but they are very welcome to walk in the garden."(1073) Observe; nothing above alludes to Dr. Ewin and Mr. Rawlinson: I was not only much pleased with them, but quite glad to show them how entirely you may command my house, and your most sincere friend and servant.
(1068) Dr. Matthias Mawson, translated from Llandaff to the see of Ely in 1754. He died in November 1770, in his eighty-seventh year. His character was thus drawn, in 1749, by the Rev. W. Clarke:--"Our Bishop is a better sort of man than most of the mitred order. He is, indeed, awkward, absent, etc.; but then, he has no ambition, no desire to please, and is privately munificent when the world thinks him parsimonious. He has given more to the Church than all the bishops put together for almost a century."-E.
(1069) The following is an extract from a previous letter of Mr. Cole's, and to this Mr. Walpole alludes:--"An old wall being to be taken down behind the choir (at Ely], on which were painted seven figures of six Saxon bishops, and a Duke, as he is called, of Northumberland, one Brithnoth; which painting I take to be as old as any we have in England--I guessed by seven arches in the wall, below the figures, that the bones of these seven benefactors to the old Saxon conventual church were reposited in the wall under them: accordingly, we found seven separate holes, each with the remains of the Said persons," etc. etc. Mr. Cole proposed that Mr. Walpole should contribute an Engraving from this painting to the history of Ely Cathedral, a work about to be published, or to use his interest to induce the Duke of Northumberland to do so.
(1070) "I have read," says Gray, in a letter to Mr. Nicholls, "an octavo volume of Shenstone's Letters. Poor man! he was always wishing for money, for fame, and other distinctions; and his whole philosophy consisted in living against his will in retirement, and in a place which his taste had adorned; but which he only enjoyed when people of note came to see and commend it: his correspondence is about nothing else but this place and his own writings, with two or three neighbouring clergy, who wrote verses too." Works, vol. iv. p. 135-E.
(1071) See vol. i. p. 244, letter 61.-E.
(1072) "In the infancy of modern gardening, a false taste was introduced by Shenstone, in his ferme orn`ee at the Leasowes; where, instead of surrounding his house with such a quantity of ornamental lawn or park Only, as might be consistent with the size of the mansion or the extent of the property, his taste, rather than his ambition, led him to ornament the whole of his estate; and in the vain attempt to combine the profits of a farm with the scenery of a park, he lived under the continual mortification of disappointed hope; and with a mind exquisitely sensible, he felt equally the sneer of the great man at the magnificence of his attempts and the ridicule of the farmer at the misapplication of his paternal acres." Repton.-E.
(1073) Walpole having complained of these intrusions on his privacy to Madame du Deffand, the lady replied: "Oh! vous n'`etes point f`ach`e qu'on vienne voir votre chateau; vous ne l'avez pas fait singulier; vous ne l'avez pas rempli de choses precieuses, de raret`es; vous ne b`atissez pas un cabinet rond, dans lequel le lit est un trone, et o`u il n'y a que des tabourets, pour y rester seul oou ne recevoir que vos amis. Tout le monde a les m`emes passions, les m`emes vertus, les m`emes vices; il n'y a que les modifications qui en fond la diff`erence; amour propre, vanit`e, crainte de l'ennui," etc.-E.
362. To The Rev. Mr. Cole. Strawberry Hill, Monday, June 26, 1769. (page 545)
Dear Sir, Oh! yes, yes, I shall like Thursday or Friday, 6th or 7th, exceedingly; I shall like your staying with me two days exceedinglier; and longer exceedingliest; and I will carry you back to Cambridge on our pilgrirnage to Ely. But I should not at all like to be catched in the glories of an installation, and find myself a doctor, before I knew where I was. It will be much more agreeable to find the whole caput asleep, digesting turtle, dreaming of bishoprics, and humming old catches of Anacreon, and scraps of Corelli. I wish Mr. Gray may not be set out for the north ; which is rather the case than setting out for the summer. We have no summers, I think, but what we raise, like pineapples, by fire. My bay is an absolute water-soochy, and teaches me how to feel for you. You are quite in the right to sell your fief in Marshland. I should be glad if you would take one step more, and quit Marshland. We live, at least, on terra firma in this part of the world, and can saunter out without stilts. Item, we do not wade into pools, and call it going upon the water, and get sore throats. I trust yours is better ; but I recollect this is not the first you have complained of. Pray be not incorrigible, but come to shore.
Be so good as to thank Mr. Smith, my old tutor, for his corrections, If ever the Anecdotes are reprinted, I will certainly profit of them.
I joked, it is true, about Joscelin de Louvain(1074) and his Duchess; but not at all in advising you to make Mr. Percy pimp for the plate. On the contrary, I wish you success , and think this an infallible method of obtaining the benefaction. It is right to lay vanity under contribution; for then both sides are pleased.
It will not be easy for you to dine with Mr. Granger from hence, and return at night. It cannot be less than six or seven-and-twenty miles to Shiplake. But I go to Park-place to-morrow, which is within two miles of him, and I will try if I can tempt him to meet you here. Adieu!
(1074) The Duke of Northumberland. His grace having been originally a baronet, Sir Hugh Smithson, and having married the daughter of Algernon Seymour, Duke of Somerset and Earl of Northumberland, in 1750 assumed the surname and arms of Percy, and was created Duke of Northumberland in 1766. Walpole's allusion is to his becoming a Percy by marriage, as Joscelin had done before him: Agnes de Percy, daughter of William de Percy the third baron, having only consented to marry Joscelin of Louvain, brother of Queen Adelicia, second wife of Henry I., and son of Godfrey Barbatus, Duke of Lower Lorraine and Count of Brabant, who was descended from the Emperor Charlemagne, upon his agreeing to adopt either the surname or arms of Percy.-E.
363. To The Earl Of Strafford. Arlington Street, July 3, 1769. (page 546)
When you have been so constantly good to me, my dear lord, without changing, do you wonder that our friendship has lasted so long? Can I be so insensible to the honour or pleasure of your acquaintance When the advantage lies much on my side, am I likely to alter the first? Oh, but it will last now! We have seen friendships without number born and die. Ours was not formed on interest, nor alliance; and politics, the poison of all English connexions, never entered into ours. You have given me a new proof by remembering the chapel of Luton. I hear it is to be preserved; and am glad of it, though I might have been the better for its ruins.
I should have answered your lordship's last post, but was at Park-place. I think Lady Ailesbury quite recovered; though her illness has made such an impression that she does not yet believe it.
It is so settled that we are never to have tolerable weather in June, that the first hot day was on Saturday-hot by comparison: for I think it is three years since we have really felt the feel of summer. I was, however, concerned to be forced to come to town yesterday on some business; for, however the country feels, it looks divine, and the verdure we buy so dear is delicious. I shall not be able, I fear, to profit of it this summer in the loveliest of all places, as I am to go to Paris in August. But next year I trust I shall accompany Mr. Conway and Lady Ailesbury to Wentworth Castle. I shall be glad to visit Castle Howard and Beverley; but neither would carry me so far, if Wentworth Castle was not in the way.
The Chatelets are gone, without any more battles with the Russians.(1075) The papers say the latter have been beaten by the Turks;(1076) which rejoices me, though against all rules of politics: but I detest that murderess, and like to have her humbled. I don't know that this Piece Of news is true: it is enough to me that it is agreeable. I had rather take it for granted, than be at the trouble of inquiring about what I have so little to do with. I am just the same about the City and Surrey petitions. Since I have dismembered(1077) myself, it is incredible how cool I am to all politics.
London is the abomination of desolation; and I rejoice to leave it again this evening. Even Pam has not a lev`ee above once or twice a week. Next winter, I suppose, it will be a fashion to remove into the city: for, since it is the mode to choose aldermen at this end of the town, the maccaronis will certainly adjourn to Bishopsgate-street, for fear of being fined for sheriffs. Mr. James and Mr. Boothby will die of the thought of being aldermen of Grosvenor-ward and Berkeley-square-ward. Adam and Eve in their paradise laugh at all these tumults, and have not tasted of the tree that forfeits paradise; which I take to have been the tree of politics, not of knowledge. How happy you are not to have your son Abel knocked on the head by his brother Cain at the Brentford election! You do not hunt the poor deer and hares that gambol around you. If Eve has a sin, I doubt it is angling;(1078) but as she makes all other creatures happy, I beg she would not Impale worms nor whisk carp out of one element into another. If she repents of that guilt, I hope she will live as long as her grandson Methuselah. There is a commentator that says his life was protracted for never having boiled a lobster alive. Adieu, dear couple, that I honour as much as I could honour my first grandfather and grandmother! Your most dutiful Hor. Japhet.
(1075) The Duc de Chatelet, the French ambassador, had affronted Comte Czernicheff, the Russian ambassador, at a ball at court, on a point of precedence, and a challenge ensued, but their meeting was prevented.
(1076) Before Choczim. The Russians were at first victorious; but, like the King of Prussia at the battle of Zorndorff, they despatched the messenger with the news too soon; for the Turks having recovered their surprise, returned to the charge, and repulsed the Russians with great slaughter.-E.
(1077) Mr. Walpole means, since he quitted Parliament.
(1078) Walpole's abhorrence of the pastime of angling has been already noticed. See vol. iii. p. 70, letter 29.-E.
364. To The Hon. H. S. Conway. Strawberry Hill, Friday, July 7, 1769. (page 547)
You desired me to write, if I knew any thing particular. How particular will content you? Don't imagine I would send you such hash as the livery's petition.(1079) Come; would the apparition of my Lord Chatham satisfy you? Don't be frightened; it was not his ghost. He, he himself in propria persona, and not in a strait waistcoat, came into the King's lev`ee this morning, and was in the closet twenty minutes after the lev`ee; and was to go out of town to-night again.(1080) The deuce is in it if this is not news. Whether he is to be king, minister, lord mayor, or alderman, I do not know; nor a word more than I have told you. Whether he was sent for to guard St. James's gate, or whether he came alone, like Almanzor, to storm it, I cannot tell: by Beckford's violence I should think the latter. I am so indifferent what he came for, that I shall wait till Sunday to learn: when I lie in town on my way to Ely. You will probably hear more from your brother before I can write again. I send this by my friend Mr. Granger, who will leave it at your park-gate as he goes through Henley home. Good-night! it is past twelve, and I am going to bed. Yours ever.
(1079) The petition of the livery of London, complaining of the unconstitutional conduct of the King's ministers, and the undue return of Mr. Luttrell, when he Opposed Mr. Wilkes at the election for Middlesex.
(1080) In a letter to the Earl of Chatham, of the 11th, Lord Temple says:--"Your reception at St. James's where I am glad you have been, turns out exactly such as I should have expected--full of the highest marks of regard to your lordship: full of condescension, and of all those sentiments of grace and goodness which his Majesty can so well express. I think that you cannot but be happy at the result of this experiment." Chatham Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 361.-E.
365. To The Rev. Mr. Cole. Strawberry Hill, July 15, 1769. (page 548)
Dear Sir, Your fellow-travellers, Rosette(1081) and I, got home safe and perfectly contented with our expedition, and wonderfully obliged to you. Pray receive our thanks and barking; and pray say, and bark a great deal for us to Mr. and Mrs. Bentham, and all that good family.
After gratitude, you know, always comes a little self-interest; for who would be at the trouble of being grateful, if he had no further expectations? Imprimis, then, here are the directions for Mr. Essex for the piers of my gates. Bishop Luda must not be offended at my converting his tomb into a gateway. Many a saint and confessor, I doubt, will be glad soon to be passed through, as it will, at least, secure his being passed over. When I was directing the east window at Ely, I recollected the lines of Prior:--
"How unlucky were Nature and Art to poor Nell! She was painting her cheeks at the time her nose fell."
Adorning cathedrals when the religion itself totters, is very like poor Nell's mishap.(1082) ***** I will trouble you with no more at present, but to get from Mr. Lort the name of the Norfolk monster, and to give it to Jackson. Don't forget the list of English heads in Dr. Ewin's book for Mr. Granger; particularly the Duchess of Chenreux. I will now release you, only adding my compliments to Dr. Ewin, Mr. Tyson, Mr. Lort, Mr. Essex, and once more to the Benthams. Adieu, dear Sir! Yours ever
Remember to ask me for icacias, and any thing else with which I can pay some of my debts to you..
(1081) A favourite dog of Mr. Walpole's.
(1082) Here follow some minute directions for building the gateway, unintelligible without the sketch that accompanied the letter, and uninteresting with it, and a list of prints that Mr. Walpole was anxious to procure.
366. To The Rev. Mr. Cole. Strawberry Hill, August 12, 1769. (page 549)
Dear Sir, I was in town yesterday, and found the parcel arrived very safe. I give you a thousand thanks, dear Sir, for all the contents; but when I sent you the list of heads I wanted, it was for Mr. Jackson, not at all meaning to rob you; but your generosity much outruns my prudence, and I must be upon my guard with you. The Catherine Bolen was particularly welcome; I had never seen it--it is a treasure, though I am persuaded not genuine, but taken from a French print of the Queen of Scots, which I have. I wish you could tell me from whence it was taken; I mean from what book: I imagine the same in which are two prints, which Mr. Granger mentions, and has himself (with Italian inscriptions, too), of a Duke of Northumberland and an Earl of Arundel. Mr. Bernardiston I never saw before--I do not know in what reign he lived--I suppose lately: nor do I know the era of the Master of Benet. When I come back, I must beg you to satisfy these questions. The Countess of Kent is very curious, too; I have lately got a very dirty one, so that I shall return yours again. Mrs. Wooley I could not get high or low. But there is no end of thanking you- -and yet I must for Sir J. Finet, though Mr. ; but I am sure they will be very useful to me. I hope he will not forget me in October. It will be a good opportunity of sending you some good acacias, or any thing you Want from hence. I am sure you ought to ask me for any thing in my power, so much I am in your debt: I must beg to be a little more, by entreating you to pay Mr. Essex whatever he asks for his drawing, which is just what I wished. The iron gates I have.
With regard to a history of Gothic architecture, in which he desires my advices, the plan, I think, should lie in a very simple compass. Was I to execute it, it should be thus:--I would give a series of plates, even from the conclusion of Saxon architecture, beginning with the round Roman arch, and going on to show how they plaistered and zigzagged it, and then how better ornaments crept in till the beautiful Gothic arrived at its perfection: then how it deceased in Henry the Eighth's reign--Abp. Wareham's tomb at Canterbury, being I believe the last example of unbastardized Gothic. A very few plates more would demonstrate its change: though Holbein embroidered it with some morsels of true architecture. In Queen Elizabeth's reign there was scarce any architecture at all: I mean no pillars, or seldom, buildings then becoming quite plain. Under James a barbarous composition succeeded. A single plate of something of Inigo Jones, in his heaviest and worst style, should terminate the work; for he soon stepped into the true and perfect Grecian.
The next part, Mr. Essex can do better than any body, and is, perhaps, the only person that can do it. This should consist of observations on the art, proportions, and method of building, and the reasons observed by the Gothic architects for what they did. This would show what great men they were, and how they raised such aerial and stupendous masses; though unassisted by half the lights now enjoyed by their successors. The prices and the wages of workmen, and the comparative value of money and provisions at the several periods, should be stated, as far as it is possible to get materials.
The last part (I don't know whether it should not be the first part) nobody can do so well as yourself. This must be to ascertain the chronological period of each building; and not only of each building but of each tomb, that shall be exhibited: for you know the great delicacy and richness of Gothic ornaments were exhausted on small chapels, oratories and tombs. For my own part, I should wish to have added detached samples of the various patterns of ornaments, which would not be a great many; as, excepting pinnacles, there is scarce one which does not branch from the trefoil; quadrefoils, cinquefoils, etc. being but various modifications of it. I believe almost all the ramifications of windows are so, and of them there should be samples, too.
This work you see could not be executed by one hand; Mr. Tyson could give great assistance. I wish the plan was drawn out, and better digested. This is a very rude sketch, and first thought. I should be very glad to contribute what little I know, and to the expense too, which would be considerable; but I am sure we could get assistance-and it had better not be undertaken than executed superficially. Mr. Tyson's History of Fashions and Dresses would make a valuable part of the work; as, in elder times especially, much must be depended on tombs for dresses. I have a notion the King might be inclined to encourage such a work; and, if a proper plan was drawn out, for which I have not time now, I would endeavour to get it laid before him, and his patronage solicited. Pray talk this over with Mr. Tyson and Mr. Essex. It is an idea worth pursuing.
You was very kind to take me out of the scrape about the organ and yet if my insignificant name could carry it to one side, I would not scruple to lend it.(1084) Thank you, too, for St. Alban and Noailles. The very picture the latter describes was in my father's collection, and is now at Worksop. I have scarce room to crowd in my compliments to the good house of Bentham, and to say, yours ever.
(1083) The Rev. Michael Tyson, of Bennet College, Cambridge. He was elected F. S. A. in 1768, and died in 1780. He was greatly Esteemed by Mr. Gough, and is described as a good antiquary and a gentleman artist. He engraved a remarkable portrait of Jane Shore, some of the old masters of his college, and some of the noted characters in and about Cambridge.-E.
(1084) There was a dispute among the chapter at Ely respecting the situation of the organ.
367. To George Montagu, Esq. August 18, 1769. (page 551)
As I have heard nothing of you since the Assyrian calends, which is much longer ago than the Greek, you may perhaps have died in Media, at Ecbatana, or in Chaldoea, and then to be sure I have no reason to take it ill that you have forgotten me. There is no Post between Europe and the Elysian fields, where I hope in the Lord Pluto you are; and for the letters that are sent by Orpheus, Aeneas, Sir George Villiers, and such accidental passengers, to be sure one cannot wonder if they miscarry. You might indeed have sent one a scrawl by Fanny, as Cock-lane is not very distant from Arlington-street; but, when I asked her, she scratched the ghost of a no, that made One's ears tingle again. If, contrary to all probability, you still be above ground, and if, which is still more improbable, you should repent of your sins while you are yet in good health, and should go strangely further, and endeavour to make Atonement by writing to me again, I think it conscientiously right to inform you, that I am not in Arlington-street, nor at Strawberry-hill, nor even in Middlesex; nay, not in England; I am--I am--guess where--not in Corsica, nor at Spa--stay, I am not at Paris yet, but I hope to be there in two days. In short, I am at Calais, having landed about two hours ago, after a tedious passage of nine hours. Having no soul with me but Rosette, I have been amusing myself with the arrival of a French officer and his wife in a berlin, which carried their ancestors to one of Moli`ere's plays: as Madame has no maid with her, she and Monsieur very prudently untied the trunks, and disburthened the venerable machine of all its luggage themselves; and then with a proper resumption of their equality, Monsieur gave his hand to Madame, and conducted her in much ceremony through the yard to their apartment. Here ends the beginning of my letter; when I have nothing else to do, perhaps, I may continue it. You cannot have the confidence to complain, if I give you no more than my moments perdus; have you deserved any better of me?
Saturday morning.
Having just recollected that the whole merit of this letter will consist in the Surprise, I hurry to finish it, and send it away by the captain of the packet, who is returning. You may repay me this surprise by answering my letter, and by directing yours to Arlington-street, from whence Mary will forward it to me. You will not have much time to consider, for I shall set out on my return from Paris the first of October,(1085) according to my solemn promise to Strawberry; and you must know, I keep my promises to Strawberry much better than you do. Adieu! Boulogne hoy!
(1085) Mr. Walpole arrived at Paris on the 18th of august, and left it on the 5th of October. On the 18th of July, Madame du Deffand had written to him--"Vous souhaitez que je vive quatre-vingt-huit ans; et pourquoi le souhaiter, si votre premier voyage ici doit `etre le dernier'! Pour que ce souhait m'e`ut `et`e agr`eable, il falloit y ajouter, 'Je verrai encore bien des fois ma Petite, et je jouerai d'un bonheur qui n'`etoit r`eserv`e qu'a moi, L'amiti`e la plus tendre, la plus sincere, et la plus constants qu'il f`ut jamais.' Adieu! mon plaisir est troubl`e, je l'avoue; je crains que ce ne soit un exc`es de complaisance qui vous fasse faire ce voyage."-E.
368. To John Chute, Esq. Paris, August 30, 1769. (page 552)
I have been so hurried with paying and receiving visits, that I have not had a moment's worth of time to write. My passage was very tedious, and lasted near nine hours for want of wind. But I need not talk of my journey; for Mr. Maurice, whom I met on the road, will have told you that I was safe on terra firma.
Judge of my surprise at hearing four days ago, that my Lord Dacre(1086) and my lady were arrived here. They are lodged within a few doors of me. He is come to consult a Doctor Pomme,(1087) who has prescribed wine, and Lord Dacre already complains of the violence of his appetite. If you and I had pommed him to eternity, he would not have believed us. A man across the sea tells him the plainest thing in the world; that man happens to be called a doctor; and happening for novelty to talk common sense, is believed, as if he had talked nonsense! and what is more extraordinary, Lord Dacre thinks himself better, though he is so.
My dear old woman(1088) is in better health than when I left her, and her spirits so increased, that I tell her she will go mad with age. When they ask her how old she is, she answers, "J'ai soixante et mille ans." She and I went to the Boulevard last night after supper, and drove about there till two in the morning. We are going to sup in the country this evening, and are to go tomorrow night at eleven to the puppet-show. A prot`eg`e of hers has written a piece for that theatre. I have not yet seen Madame du Barri, nor can get to see her picture at the exposition at the Louvre, the crowds are so enormous that go thither for that purpose. As royal curiosities are the least part of my virt`u, I wait with patience. Whenever I have an opportunity I visit gardens, chiefly with a view to Rosette's having a walk. She goes nowhere else, because there is a distemper among the dogs.
There is going to be represented a translation of Hamlet: who when his hair is cut, and he is curled and powdered, I suppose will be exactly Monsieur le Prime Oreste. T'other night I was at M`erope. The Dumenil was as divine as Mrs. Porter; they said her familiar tones were those of a poisonni`ere. In the last act, when one expected the catastrophe, Narbas, more interested than any body to see the event, remained coolly on the stage to hear the story. The Queen's maid of honour entered without her handkerchief, and with her hair most artfully undressed, and reeling as if she was maudlin, sobbed Out a long narrative, that did not prove true; while Narbas, with all the good breeding in the world, was more attentive to her fright than to what had happened. So much for propriety. Now for probability. Voltaire has published a tragedy, called "Les Gu`e,bres." Two Roman colonels open the piece: they are brothers, and relate to one another, how they lately in company destroyed, by the Emperor's mandate, a city of the Guebres, in which were their own wives and children: and they recollect that they want prodigiously to know whether both their families did perish in the flames. The son of the one and the daughter of the other are taken up for heretics, and, thinking themselves brother and sister, insist upon being married, and upon being executed for their religion. The son stabs his father, who is half a Gu`ebre, too. The high-priest rants and roars. The Emperor arrives, blames the pontiff for being a persecutor, and forgives the son for assassinating his father (who does not die) because--I don't know why, but that he may marry his cousin. The grave-diggers in Hamlet have no chance, when such a piece as the Guebres is written agreeably to all rules and unities. Adieu, my dear Sir! I hope to find you quite well at my return. Yours ever.
(1086) Thomas Barret Lennard, seventeenth Baron Dacre. His lordship married Ann Maria, daughter of Sir John Pratt, lord chief-justice of the court of King's Bench.-E.
(1087) At that time the fashionable physician of Paris. He was originally from Arles, and attained his celebrity by curing the ladies of fashion in the French metropolis of the vapours.-E.
(1088) Madame du Deffand.
\Letter 369 To George Montagu, Esq.
Paris, Sept. 7, 1769. (page 553)
Your two letters flew here together in a breath. I shall answer the article of business first. I could certainly buy many things for you here, that you would like, the reliques of the last age's magnificence; but, since my Lady Holderness invaded the custom-house with a hundred and fourteen gowns, in the reign of that two-penny monarch George Grenville, the ports are so guarded, that not a soul but a smuggler can smuggle any thing into England; and I suppose you would not care to pay seventy-five per cent, on second-hand commodities. All I transported three years ago, was conveyed under the canon of the Duke of Richmond. I have no interest in our present representative; nor if I had, is he returning. Plate, of all earthly vanities, is the most impassable: it is not Counerband in its metallic capacity, but totally so in its personal; and the officers of the custom-house not being philosophers enough to separate the substance from the superficies, brutally hammer both to pieces, and return you only the intrinsic: a compensation which you, who are a member of Parliament, would not, I trow, be satisfied with. Thus I doubt you must retrench your generosity to yourself, unless you can contract into an Elzevir size, and be content with any thing one can bring in one's pocket.
My dear old friend was charmed with your mention of her, and made me vow to return you a thousand compliments. She cannot conceive why you will not step hither. Feeling in herself no difference between the spirits of twenty-three and seventy-three, she thinks there is no impediment to doing whatever one will but the want of eyesight. If she had that, I am persuaded no consideration would prevent her making me a visit at Strawberry Hill. She makes songs, sings them, remembers all that ever were made; and, having lived from the most agreeable to the most reasoning age, has all that was amiable in the last, all that is sensible in this, without the vanity of the former, or the pedant impertinence of the latter. I have heard her dispute with all sorts of people, on all sorts of subjects, and never knew her in the wrong. She humbles the learned, sets right their disciples, and finds conversation for every body. Affectionate as Madame de S`evign`e, she has none of her prejudices, but a more universal taste; and, with the most delicate frame, her spirits hurry her through a life of fatigue that would kill me, if I was to continue here. If we return by one in the morning from supping in the country, she proposes driving to the Boulevard or to the Foire St. Ovide, because it is too early to go to bed. I had great difficulty last night to persuade her, though she was not well, not to sit up till' between two or three for the comet; for which purpose she had appointed an astronomer to bring his telescopes to the President Henault's, as she thought it would amuse me. In short, her goodness to me is so excessive, that I feel unashamed at producing my withered person in a round of diversions, which I have quitted at home. I tell a story; I do feel ashamed, and sigh to be in my quiet castle and cottage; but it costs me many a Pang, when I reflect that I shall probably never have resolution enough to take another journey to see this best and sincerest of friends, who loves me as much as my mother did! but it is idle to look forward--what is next year?-a bubble that may burst for her or me, before even the flying year can hurry to the end of its almanack! To form plans and projects in such a precarious life as this, resembles the enchanted castles"of fairy legends, in which every gate Was guarded by giants, dragons, etc. Death or diseases bar every portal through which we mean to pass; and, though we may escape them and reach the last chamber, what a wild adventurer is he that centres his hopes at the end of such an avenue! I am contented with the beggars of the threshold, and never propose going on, but as the gates open of themselves.
The weather here is quite sultry, and I am sorry to say one can send to the corner of the street and buy better peaches than all our expense in kitchen gardens produces. Lord and Lady Dacre are a few doors from me, having started from Tunbridge more suddenly than I did from Strawberry Hill, but on a more unpleasant motive. My lord was persuaded to come and try a new physician. His faith is greater than mine! but, poor man! can one wonder that he is willing to believe? My lady has stood her shock, and I do not doubt will get over it.
Adieu, my t'other dear old friend! I am sorry to say I see you almost as seldom as I do Madame du Deffand. However, it is comfortable to reflect that we have not changed to each other for some five-and-thirty years, and neither you nor I haggle about naming so ancient a term. I made a visit yesterday to the Abbess of Panthemont, General Oglethorpe's niece,(1089) and no chicken. I inquired after her mother, Madame de Meziers, and I thought I might to a spiritual votary to immortality venture to say, that her mother must be very old; she interrupted me tartly, and said, no, her mother had been married extremely young. Do but think of its seeming important to a saint to sink a wrinkle of her own through an iron grate! Oh, we are ridiculous animals; and if animals have any fun in them, how we must divert them.
(1089) Sister of the Princess de Ligne.
370. To The Earl Of Strafford. Paris, Sept. 8, 1769. (page 555)
T'other night, at the Duchess of Choiseul's at supper, the intendant of Rouen asked me, if we have roads of communication all over England and Scotland'@--I suppose he thinks that in general we inhabit trackless forests and wild mountains, and that once a year a few legislators come to Paris to learn the arts of civil life, as to sow corn, plant vines, and make operas. If this letter should contrive to scramble through that desert Yorkshire, where your lordship has attempted to improve a dreary hill and uncultivated vale, you will find I remember your commands of writing from this capital of the world, whither I am come for the benefit of my country, and where I am intensely studying those laws and that beautiful frame of government, which can alone render a nation happy, great, and flourishing; where lettres de cachet soften manners, and a proper distribution of luxury and beggary ensures a common felicity. As we have a prodigious number of students in legislature of both sexes here at present, I will not anticipate their discoveries; but as your particular friend, will communicate a rare improvement on nature, which these great philosophers have made, and which would add considerable beauties to those parts which your lordship has already recovered from the waste, and taught to look a little like a Christian country. The secret is very simple, and yet demanded the effort of a mighty genius to strike it out. It is nothing but this: trees ought to be educated as much as men, and are strange awkward productions when not taught to hold themselves upright or bow on proper occasions. The academy de belles-lettres have even offered a prize for the man that shall recover the long lost art of an ancient Greek, called le sieur Orph`ee, who instituted a dancing-school for plants, and gave a magnificent ball on the birth of the Dauphin of Thrace, which was performed entirely by forest-trees. In this whole kingdom there is no such thing as seeing a tree that is not well-behaved. They are first stripped up and then cut down; and you would as soon meet a man with his hair about his ears as an oak or ash. As the weather is very hot now, and the soil chalk, and the dust white, I assure you it is very difficult, powdered as both are all over, to distinguish a tree from a hairdresser. Lest this should sound like a travelling hyperbole, I must advertise your lordship, that there is little difference in their heights; for, a tree of thirty years' growth being liable to be marked as royal timber, the proprietors take care not to let their trees live to the age of being enlisted, but burn them, and plant others as often almost as they change their fashions. This gives an air of perpetual youth to the face of the country, and if adopted by us would realize Mr. Addison's visions, and
"Make our bleak rocks and barren mountains smile."
What other remarks I have made in my indefatigable search after knowledge must be reserved to a future opportunity; but as your lordship is my friend, I may venture to say without vanity to You, that Solon nor any Of the ancient philosophers who travelled to Egypt in quest of religions. mysteries, laws, and fables, never sat up so late with the ladies and priests and presidents de parlement at Memphis, as I do here--and consequently were not half so well qualified as I am to new-model a commonwealth. I have learned how to make remonstrances, and how to answer them. The latter, it seems, is a science much wanted in my own country(1090)--and yet it is as easy and obvious as their treatment of trees, and not very unlike it. It was delivered many years ago in an oracular sentence of my namesake, "Odi profanum vulgus, et arceo." You must drive away the vulgar, and you must have an hundred and fifty thousand men to drive them away with--that is all. I do not wonder the intendant of Rouen thinks we are still in a state of barbarism, when we are ignorant of the very rudiments of government.
The Duke and Duchess of Richmond have been here a few days, and are gone to Aubign`e. I do not think him at all well, and am exceedingly concerned for it; as I know no man who has more estimable qualities. They return by the end of the month. I am fluctuating whether I shall not return with them, as they have pressed me to do, through Holland. I never was there, and could never go so agreeably; but then it would protract my absence three weeks, and I am impatient to be in my own cave, notwithstanding the wisdom I imbibe every day. But one cannot sacrifice one's self wholly to the public: Titus and Wilkes have now and then lost a day. Adieu, my dear lord! Be assured that I shall not disdain yours and Lady Strafford's conversation, though you have nothing but the goodness of your hearts, and the simplicity of your manners, to recommend you to the more enlightened understanding of your old friend.
(1090) Alluding to the number of remonstrances, under the name of petitions, which were presented this year from the livery of London, and many other corporate bodies, on the subject of the Middlesex election.
371. To George Montagu, Esq. Paris, Sunday night, Sept. 17, 1769. (page 557)
I am heartily tired; but, as it is too early to go to bed, I must tell you how agreeably I passed the day. I wished for you; the same scenes strike us both, and the same kind of visions has amused us both ever since we were born.
Well then: I went this morning to Versailles with my niece Mrs. Cholmondeley, Mrs. Hart, Lady Denbigh's sister, and the Count de Grave, one of the most amiable, humane, and obliging men alive. Our first object was to see Madame du Barri.(1091) Being too early for mass, we saw the Dauphin and his brothers at dinner. The eldest is the picture of the Duke of Grafton, except that he is more fair, and will be taller. He has a sickly air, and no grace. The Count de Provence has a very pleasing countenance, with an air of more sense than the Count d'Artois, the genius of the family. They already tell as many bon-mots of the latter as of Henri Quatre and Louis Quatorze. He is very fat, and the most like his grandfather of all the children. You may imagine this royal mess did not occupy us long: thence to the chapel, where a first row in the balconies was kept for us. Madame du Barri arrived over against us below, without rouge, without powder, and indeed sans avoir fait sa toilette; an odd appearance, as she was so conspicuous, close to the altar, and amidst both court and people. She is pretty, when you consider her; yet so little striking, that I never should have asked who she was. There is nothing bold, assuming, or affected in her manner. Her husband's sister was alone, with her. In the tribune above, surrounded by prelates, was the amorous and still handsome King. One could not help smiling at the mixture of piety, pomp, and carnality. From chapel we went to the dinner of the elder Mesdames. We were almost stifled in the antechamber, where their dishes were heating over charcoal, and where we could not stir for the press. When the doors are opened every body rushes in, princes of the blood, cordons bleus, abb`es, housemaids, and the Lord knows who and what. Yet, so used are their highnesses to this trade, that they eat as comfortably and heartily as you or I could do in our own parlours.
Our second act was much more agreeable. We quitted the court and a reigning mistress, for a dead one and a cloister. In short, I had obtained leave from the Bishop of Chartres to enter into St. Cyr; and, as Madame du Deffand never leaves any thing undone that can give me satisfaction, she had written to the abbess to desire I might see every thing that could be seen there. The Bishop's order was to admit me, Monsieur de Grave, et les dames de ma compagnie: I begged the abbess to give me back the order, that I might deposit it in the archives of Strawberry, and she complied instantly. Every door flew open to us: and the nuns vied in attentions to please us. The first thing I desired to see was Madame de Maintenon's apartment. It consists of' two small rooms, a library, and a very small chamber, the same in which the Czar saw her, and in which she died. The bed is taken away, and the room covered now with bad pictures of the royal family, which destroys the gravity and simplicity. It is wainscotted with oak, with plain chairs of the same, covered with dark blue damask. Every where else the chairs are of blue cloth. The simplicity and extreme neatness of the whole house, which is vast, are very remarkable. A large apartment above, (for that I have mentioned is on the ground-floor,) consisting of five rooms, and destined by Louis Quatorze for Madame de Maintenon, is now the infirmary, with neat white linen beds, and decorated with every text of Scripture by which could be insinuated that the foundress was a Queen. The hour of vespers being come, we were conducted to the chapel, and, as it was my curiosity that had led us thither, I was placed in the Maintenon's own tribune; my company in the adjoining gallery. The pensioners two and two, each band headed by a man, March orderly to their seats, and sing the whole service, which I confess was not a little tedious. The young ladies to the number of two hundred and fifty are dressed in black, with short aprons of the same, the latter and their stays bound with blue, yellow, green or red, to distinguish the classes; the captains and lieutenants have knots of a different colour for distinction. Their hair is curled and powdered, their coiffure a sort of French round-eared caps, with white tippets, a sort of ruff and large tucker: in short, a very pretty dress. The nuns are entirely in black, with crape veils and long trains, deep white handkerchiefs, and forehead cloths, and a very long train. The chapel is plain but very pretty, and in the middle of the choir under a flat marble lies the foundress. Madame de Cambis, one of the nuns, who are about forty, is beautiful as a Madonna.(1092) The abbess has no distinction but a larger and richer gold cross: her apartment consists of two very small rooms. Of Madame de Maintenon we did not see less than twenty pictures. The young one looking over her shoulder has a round face, without the least resemblance to those of her latter age. That in the roil mantle, of which you know I have a copy, is the most repeated; but there is another with a longer and leaner face, which has by far the most sensible look. She is in black, with a high point head and band, a long train, and is sitting in a chair of purple velvet. Before her knees stands her niece Madame de Noailles, a child; at a distance a view of Versailles or St. Cyr, I could not distinguish which. We were shown some rich reliquaries, and the corpo santo that was sent to her by the Pope. We were then carried into the public room of each class. In the first, the young ladies, who were playing at chess, were ordered to sing to us the choruses of Athaliah; in another, they danced minuets and country-dances while a nun, not quite so able as St. Cecilia, played on a violin. In the others, they acted before us the proverbs or conversations written by Madame de Maintenon for their instruction; for she was not only their foundress but their saint, and their adoration of her memory has quite eclipsed the Virgin Mary. We saw their dormitory, and saw them at supper; and at last were carried to their archives. where they produced volumes of her letters, and where one of the nuns gave me a small piece of paper with three sentences in her handwriting. I forgot to tell you, that this kind dame, who took to me extremely, asked me if we had many convents and many relics in England. I was much embarrassed for fear of destroying her good opinion of me, and so said we had but few now. Oh! we went to the apothecaries where they treated us with cordials, and where one of the ladies told me inoculation was a sin, as it was a voluntary detention from mass, and as voluntary a cause of eating gras. Our visit concluded in the garden, now grown very venerable, where the young ladies played at little games before us. After a stay of four hours we took our leave. I begged the abbess's blessing; she smiled, and said, she doubted I should not place much faith in it. She is a comely old gentlewoman, and very proud of having seen Madame de Maintenon. Well! was not I in the right to wish you with me? could you have passed a day more agreeably!
I will conclude my letter with a most charming trait of Madame de Mailly, which cannot be misplaced in such a chapter of royal concubines. Going to St. Sulpice, after she had lost the King's heart, a person present desired the crowd to make way for her. Some brutal young officers said, "Comment, pour cette catin-l`a!" She turned to them, and, with the most charming modesty said, "Messieurs, puisque vous me COnnoissez, priez Dieu pour moi." I am sure it will bring tears into your eyes. Was not she the Publican, and Maintenon the Pharisee? Good night! I hope I am going to dream of all I have been seeing. As my impressions and my fancy, when I am pleased, are apt to be strong. My night perhaps, may still be more productive of ideas than the day has been. It will be charming, indeed, if Madame de Cambis is the ruling tint. Adieu! Yours ever.
(1091) Madame du Barry, the celebrated mistress of Louis XV., was born in the lowest rank of society, and brought up in the most depraved habits; being known only by the name which her beauty had acquired for her, Mademoiselle l'Ange. She became the mistress of the Comte du Barry, (a gentleman belonging to a family of Toulon, of no distinction, well known as Le Grand du Barry, or, Du Barry le Rou`e,) and eventually the mistress of the King; and, when the influence she exercised over her royal protector had determined him to receive her publicly at court and a marriage was necessary to the purpose, Du Barry le Rou`e brought forward his younger brother, the Comte Guillaume du Barry, who readily submitted to this prostitution of his name and family.-E.
(1092) Madame du Deffand, in her letter to Walpole of the 10th of May 1776, enclosed the following portrait of Madame de Cambise, by Madame de la Valli`ere:--"Non, non, Madame, je ne farai point votre portrait: vous avez une mani`ere d'`etre si noble, si fine, si piquante, si d`elicate, si s`eduisaitte; votre gentilesse et vos graces changent si souvent pour n'en `etre que plus aimable, que l'on ne peut saisir aucun de vos traits ni au physique ni au moral." She was niece of La Marquise de Boufflers, and, having fled to England at the breaking out of the French Revolution, resided here until her death, which took place at Richmond in January 1809.-E.
372. To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, Oct. 13, 1769. (page 560
I arrived last night at eleven o'clock, and found a letter from you, which gave me so much pleasure, that I must write you a line, though I am hurried to death. You cannot imagine how rejoiced I am that Lord North(1093) drags you to light again; it is a satisfaction I little expected. When do you come? I am impatient. I long to know your projects.
I had a dreadful passage of eight hours, was drowned, though not shipwrecked, and was sick to death. I have been six times at sea before, and never suffered the least, which makes the mortification the greater: but as Hercules was not more robust than I, though with an air so little Herculean, I have not so much as caught cold, though I was wet to the skin with the rain, had my lap full of waves, was washed from head to foot in the boat at ten o'clock at night, and stepped into the sea up to my knees. Q'avois-je `a faire dans cette gal`ere?(1094) In truth, it is a little late to be seeking adventures. Adieu! I must finish, but I am excessively happy with what you have told me. Yours ever.
(1093) Lord North had appointed Mr. Montagu his private secretary.
(1094) Walpole left Paris on the 5th of October. Early on the morning of the 6th, Madame du Deffand thus wrote to him:- -"N'exigez point de gaiet`e, contentez-vous de ne pas trouver de tristesse: je n'envoyai point chez vous hier matin; j'ignore `a quelle heure vous partites; tout ce que je sais c'est que vous n'`etes plus ici." And again, on the 9th:--"Je ne respirerai `a mon aise qu'apr`es une lettre de Douvres. Ah! je me ha`is bien de tout le mal que je vous cause; trois journ`ees de route, autant de nuits d`etestables, une embarquement, un passage, le risque de mille accidens, voil`a le bien que je vous procure. Ah! c'est bien vous qui pouvez dire en pensant de moi, 'Qu'allais-je faire dans cette gal`ere?'"-E.
373. To George Montagu, Esq. Strawberry Hill, Oct. 16, 1769. (page 560)
I arrived at my own Louvre last Wednesday night, and am now at my Versailles. Your last letter reached me but two days before I left Paris, for I have been an age at Calais and upon the sea. I could execute no commission for you, and, in truth, you gave me no explicit one; but I have brought you a bit of china, and beg you will be content with a little present, instead of a bargain. Said china is, or will be soon, in the custom-house; but I shall have it, I fear, long before you come to London.
I am sorry those boys got at my tragedy. I beg you would keep it under lock and key; it is not at all food for the public; at least not till I am "food for worms, good Percy." Nay, it is not an age to encourage any body, that has the least vanity, to step forth. There is a total extinction of all taste: our authors are vulgar, gross, illiberal: the theatre swarms with wretched translations, and ballad operas, and we have nothing new but improving abuse. I have blushed at Paris, when the papers came over crammed with ribaldry, or with Garrick's insufferable nonsense about Shakspeare. As that man's writings will be preserved by his name, who will believe that he was a tolerable actor? Cibber wrote as bad odes, but then Cibber wrote The Careless Husband and his own Life, which both deserve immortality. Garrick's prologues and epilogues are as bad as his Pindarics and pantomimes.(1095)
I feel myself here like a swan, that, after living six weeks in a nasty pool upon a common, is got back into its own Thames. I do nothing but plume and clean myself, and enjoy the verdure and silent waves. Neatness and greenth are so essential in my opinion to the country, that in France, where I see nothing but chalk and dirty peasants, I seem in a terrestrial purgatory that is neither town nor country. The face of England is so beautiful, that I do not believe Tempe or Arcadia were half so rural; for both lying in hot climates, must have wanted the turf of our lawns. It IS unfortunate to have so pastoral a taste, when I want a cane more than a crook. We are absurd creatures; at twenty, I loved nothing but London.
Tell me when you shall be in town. I think of passing Most Of my time here till after Christmas. Adieu!
(1095) Mr. J. Sharp, in a letter to Garrick, of the 29th of March in this year, says--"I met Mr. Gray at dinner last Sunday: he spoke handsomely of your happy knack of epilogues; but he calls the Stratford Jubilee, Vanity Fair." See Garrick Correspondence, vol. i. p. 337.-E.
374. To The Hon. H. S. Conway
Strawberry Hill, Tuesday, Nov. 14, 1769. (page 561)
I am here quite alone, and did not think of going to town till Friday for the opera, which I have not yet seen. In compliment to you and your Countess, I will make an effort, and be there on Thursday; and will either dine with you at your own house, or at your brother's; which you choose. This is a great favour, and beyond my Lord Temple's journey to dine with my Lord Mayor.(1096) I am so sick of the follies of all sides, that I am happy to be at quiet here, and to know no more of them than what I am forced to see in the newspapers; and those I skip over as fast as I can.
The account you give me of Lady *** was just the same as I received from Paris. I will show you a very particular letter I received by a private hand from France; which convinces me that I guessed right, contrary to all the wise, that the journey to Fontainbleau would overset Monsieur de Choiseul. I think he holds but by a thread, which will snap soon.(1097) I am labouring hard with the Duchess(1098) to procure the Duke of Richmond satisfaction in the favour he has asked about his duchy;' but he shall not know it till it is completed, if I can be so lucky as to succeed. I think I shall, if they do not fall immediately.
You perceive how barren I am, and why I have not written to you. I pass my time in clipping and pasting prints; and do not think I have read forty pages since I came to England. I bought a poem called Trinculo's Trip to the Jubilee; having been struck with two lines in an extract in the papers,
"There the ear-piercing fife, And the ear-piercing wife--"
Alas! all the rest, and it is very long, is a heap of unintelligible nonsense, about Shakspeare, politics, and the Lord knows what. I am grieved that, with our admiration of Shakspeare, we can do nothing but write worse than ever he did. One would think the age studied nothing but his Love's Labour Lost, and Titus Andronicus. Politics and abuse have totally corrupted our taste. Nobody thinks of writing a line that is to last beyond the next fortnight. We might as well be given up to a controversial divinity, The times put me in mind of the Constantinopolitan empire; where, in an age of learning, the subtlest wits of Greece contrived to leave nothing behind them, but the memory of their follies and acrimony. Milton did not write his Paradise Lost till he had Outlived his politics. With all his parts, and noble sentiments of liberty, who would remember him for his barbarous prose? Nothing is more true than that extremes meet. The licentiousness of the press makes us as savage as our Saxon ancestors, who could only set their marks; and an outrageous pursuit of individual independence, grounded on selfish views, extinguishes genius as much as despotism does. The public good of our country is never thought of by men that hate half their country. Heroes confine their ambition to be leaders of the mob. Orators seek applause from their faction, not from posterity; and ministers forget foreign enemies, to defend themselves against a majority in Parliament. When any Caesar has conquered Gaul, I will excuse him for aiming at the perpetual dictature. If he has only jockeyed somebody out of the borough of Veii or Falernum, it is too impudent to call himself a patriot or a statesman. Adieu!
(1096) At Guildhall, on the 9th of November, in the second mayoralty of Alderman Beckford.-E.
(1097) Walpole had received a letter, of the 2d, from Madame du Deffand, describing the growing influence of Madame du Barry, and her increasing enmity to the Duc de Choiseul.-E.
(1098) The Duchess of Aubign`e.
375. To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, Dec. 14, 1769. (page 562)
I cannot be silent, when I feel for you. I doubt not but the loss of Mrs. Trevor is very sensible to you, and I am heartily sorry for you. One cannot live any time, and not perceive the world slip away, as it were, from under one's feet: one's friends, one's connexions drop off, and indeed reconcile one to the same passage; but why repeat these things? I do not mean to write a fine consolation; all I intended was to tell you, that I cannot be indifferent to what concerns you.
I know as little how to amuse you: news there are none but politics, and politics there will be as long as we have a shilling left. They are no amusement to me, except in seeing two or three sets of people worry one another, for none of whom I care a straw.
Mr. Cumberland has produced a comedy called The Brothers. It acts well, but reads ill; though I can distinguish strokes of Mr. Bentley in it. Very few of the characters are marked, and the serious ones have little nature, and the comic ones are rather too much marked; however, the three middle acts diverted me very well.(1099)
I saw the Bishop of Durham(1100) at Carlton House, who told me he had given you a complete suit of armour. I hope you will have no occasion to lock yourself in it, though, between the fools and the knaves of the present time, I don't know but we may be reduced to defend our castles. If you retain any connexions with Northampton, I should be much obliged to you if you could procure from thence a print of an Alderman Backwell.(1101) It is valuable for nothing but its rarity, and it is not to be met with but there. I would give eight or ten shillings rather than not have it. When shall you look towards us?, how does your brother John? make my compliments to him. I need not say how much I am yours ever.
(1099) "The Brothers," Cumberland's first comedy, came out at Covent-Garden theatre on the 2d of December, and met with no inconsiderable success.-E.
(1100) The Hon. Dr. Richard Trevor, consecrated Bishop of St. David's in 1744, and translated to the see of Durham in 1762. He died in June 1771.-E.
(1101) Edward Backwell, alderman of London, of whom Granger gives the following character:--"He was a banker of great ability, industry, integrity, and very extensive credit. With such qualifications, he, in a trading nation, would, in the natural event of things, have made a fortune, except in such an age as that of charles the Second, when the laws were overborne by perfidy, violence, and rapacity; or in an age when bankers become gamesters, instead of merchant-adventurers; when they affect to live like princes, and are, with their miserable creditors, drawn into the prevailing vortex of luxury. Backwell carried on his business in the same shop which was afterwards occupied by Child. He, to avoid a prison, retired into Holland, where he died. His body was brought for sepulture to Tyringham church, near Newport Pagnel." Frequent mention of the Alderman is made by Pepys, in whose Diary is the following entry:--"April 12, 1669. This evening, coming home, we overtook Alderman Backwell's coach and his lady, and followed them to their house, and there made them the, first visit, where they received us with extraordinary civility, and owning the obligation But I do, contrary to my expectation, find her something a proud and vainglorious woman, in telling the number of her servants and family, and expenses;. He is also so, but he was ever of that strain. But here he showed me the model of his houses that he is going to build in Cornhill and Lombard-street; but he has purchased so much there that it looks like a little town, and must have cost him a great deal of money."-E.
376. To The Rev. Mr. Cole.(1102) Arlington Street, Dec. 21, 1769. (page 563)
Dear sir, I am very grateful for all your communications, and for the trouble you are so good as to take for me. I am glad you have paid Jackson, Though he is not only dear, (for the prints he has got for me are very common,) but they are not what I wanted, and I do not believe were mentioned in my list. However, as paying him dear for what I do not want, may encourage him to hunt for what I do want, I am very well content he should cheat me a little. I take the liberty of troubling you with a list I have printed (to avoid copying it several times), and beg you will be so good as to give it to him, telling him these are exactly what I do want, and no others. I will pay him well for any of these, and especially those marked thus x; and still more for those with double or treble marks. The print I want most is the Jacob Hall. I do not know whether it is not one of the London Cries, but he must be very sure it is the right. I will let you know certainly when Mr. West comes to town, who has one.
I shall be very happy to contribute to your garden: and if you will let me have exact notice in February how to send the shrubs, they shall not fail you; nor any thing else by which I can pay you any part of my debts. I am much pleased with the Wolsey and Cromwell, and beg to thank you and the gentleman from whom they came. Mr. Tyson's etchings will be particulary acceptable. I did hope to have seen or heard of him in October. Pray tell him he is a visit in my debt, and that I will trust him no longer than to next summer. Mr. Bentham, I find, one must trust and trust without end. It is pity so good a sort of man should be so faithless. Make my best compliments, however, to him and to my kind host and hostess.
I found my dear old blind friend at Paris perfectly well, and am returned so myself. London is very sickly, and full of bilious fevers, that have proved fatal to several persons, and in my Lord Gower's family have even seemed contagious. The weather is uncommonly hot, and we want frost to purify the air.
I need not say, I suppose, that the names scratched out in my list are of such prints as I have got since I printed it, and therefore what I no longer want. If Mr. Jackson only stays at Cambridge till the prints drop into his mouth, I shall never have them. If he would take the trouble of going to Bury, Norwich, Ely, Huntingdon, and such great towns, nay, look about in inns, I do not doubt but he would find at least some of them. He should be no loser by taking pains for me; but I doubt he chooses to be a great gainer without taking any. I shall not pay for any that are not in my list; but I ought not to trouble you, dear Sir, with these particulars. It is a little your own fault, for you have spoiled me.
Mr. Essex distresses me by his civility. I certainly would not have given him that trouble, if I had thought he would not let me pay him. Be so good as to thank him for me, and to let me know if there is any other way I could return the obligation. I hope, at least, he will make me a visit at Strawberry Hill, whenever he comes westward. I shall be very impatient to see you, dear Sir, both there and at Milton. Your faithful humble servant.
(1102) Now first printed, from the original in the British Museum.-E.
END OF THE THIRD VOLUME.