'•mm ^w ..,. ii'i; iii'-l li-iSi mm ii:;!i'iiK!''!t!:tii^ J'lJ!' r.i;";'!i! i' ^ I ' I :¦!" ' in 1 t';;:i!i ,' ¦ ¦ ij I' Isi' :j ,.i ¦, I,. . I ¦ ,11. 1, YALE UNIVEESITY LIBEARY 07ie t^^^^Act€^^€>llecli€>u PORMED BY Jam,es Abraham Hillhouse, B.A. 1749 James Hillhouse, B.A. 177 S James Abraham Hillhouse, B.A. 1808 James Hillhouse, B.A. 1875 Removed 1942 from the Manor House in Sachetn's Wood GIFT OF GEORGE DUDLEY SEYMOUR THE ^Letters of i^orace cmalpole VOLUME L HORACE TVAIPOLE, THI, AGE or l.f D i^ RXC^IHAL i '[L-PI TT^RE IIT 7'P T-. P'JSSE S ST jTT 01 ii^' ^BD^rOEr' THE LETTERS OF HORACE WALPOLE FOURTH EARL OF ORFORD EDITED BY PETER CUNNINGHAM ENTRANCE OF STRAWBERRY HILL WITH SIXTY- FOUR STEEL PORTRAITS VOL. L lebinburQb JOHN GRANT 1906 By 5( 76 f I FRANCES COUNTESS OF WALDEGRAVE, THE EE8T0REE OF STRAWBERRY HILL, tCbfa E&ftfon of tbc letters of HOEACB WALPOLE IS WITH PEEMIS3ION INSOEIBED BT HEE OBLIGED AKD OBEDIENT SEEVANT, PETER CUNNINGHAM. VOL. I. MR. CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. The leading features of this edition may be briefly stated : — I. The publication for the first time of the Entire Correspondence of Walpole (2665 Letters) in a chronological and uniform order. II. The reprinting greatly within the compass of nine Tolumes the fourteen, far from uniform, volumes, hitherto commonly known as the only edition of Walpole's Letters. III. The publication for the first time of 117 Letters written by Horace Walpole ; many in his best mood, all illustra tive of Walpole's period ; while others reveal matter of moment connected with the man himself. IV. The introduction for the first time into any collection of Walpole's Letters, of 35 letters hitherto scattered ovei' many printed books and papers. The letters hitherto unprinted are addressed to the following persons : — Duke of GLonoESiER. Mk. Pelham. Mk. Pox (Loed Holland). Horace Walpole, sen. SiK Edward Walpole. Lord Orpokd. Lord Haroouet. Lord Hertford. Lord Buohan. Geokob Montagd. Sir Horace Mann, jdn. Pish Ceawfcrd. Joseph Wartok. Edmund Malone. Robert Dodsley. Isaac Eeed. Grosvenor Bedford. Charles Bedford. Henderson the Actor. Edmund Lodge. DuoHESs OF Gloucester, Lady Lyttblton. Ladt Cecilia Johnston. Lady Browne. ETC. ETC. vi MR. CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. The letters now first collected are addressed to the following persons : — George Grenville. Thomas Pitt. Lord Lyttelton. Lady Suffolk. David Hume. Dr. Robertson. Joseph Warton. Thomas Warton. Dr. Percy. Mr. Pinkerton. Mr. Buneury. The Mayor of Lthn. Mrs. Carter. Miss BuRNRr. Bin. etc. I have received new and very important assistance in this long and anxious task : — I. To his Grace the Duke of Manchester, I am indebted for unrestricted access to the original letters addressed by Walpole to George Montagu, as well as to the original letters addressed to Walpole by Montagu. A coUation of Walpole's letters with the printed letters, has corrected many blunders, and supplied many omissions. It will be found that Montagu's letters, hitherto unseen by any editor, have furnished valuable illustrative notes to his correspondent's letters. II. To Frances Countess of Waldegrave, " the restorer of Strawberry Hill," I owe the opportunity of printing for the first time the correspondence, preserved at Nuneham, of Walpole with Lord Harcourt. This good service to literature has been, if possible, enhanced by the kindness of George Granville Harcourt, Esq., M. P. HI. To the late Right Honourable John Wilson Croker I am under many obligations ; but my friend, unhappily for me, did not live to receive my printed thanks, or render any assistance to me beyond my third volume. Through Mr. Croker I had access to Lord Hertford's unpubKshed correspondence with Horace Walpole. Nor was this all ; Mr. Croker kindly placed at my service his own annotated MR. CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. vli copies of Walpole's Works, and of Mr. Wright's edition of Walpole's Letters. IV. Thi'ough John Forster, Esq., author, among other works, of the "Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith," I obtained equally unrestricted access to the unpublished correspond ence, now in his possession, of Cole with Walpole. V. To Henry Charles Grosvenor Bedford, Esq., of the Admiralty, I am under deep obligation, for permission to make full use of Walpole's unpublished correspondence with his great grandfather and grandfather, Walpole's faithful Deputies in the Exchequer. To Mr. Bedford I am equally indebted for the two portraits of Walpole when young, first engraved for this edition of his Letters. For other services as kindly rendered, though of lesser importance, I beg to express my thanks to the following persons : — To the Honourable Mary Boyle, to Colonel Frederick Johnston (grandson of Walpole's favourite Lady Cecilia Johnston), John Riddell, Esq., J. Heneage Jesse, Esq., Mrs. Bedford, of Kensington, P. B. Ainslie, Esq., of the Mount, Guild ford, Thomas P. Fernie, Esq., of Kimbolton, and Algernon Brent, Esq., of Canterbury. With respect to the notes to this edition, I have to observe that I have (I hope) turned the services of preceding editors to the best account. To each note is afiixed the name of the writer. Some notes I have silently corrected, others I have enlarged with information between brackets. With respect to my own notes I have sought to make them appropriate, and above all things — accurate. In the year 1700, and on the SOth of July, Robert Walpole the younger, of Houghton, in the county of Norfolk, Esq., eldest son viii MR. CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. and heir of Robert Walpole, Esq., of the same place, was married at Knightsbridge Chapel, in the parish of St. Margaret's, Westminster, to Catherine Shorter, eldest daughter of John Shorter, of Bybrook, in the county of Kent, Esquire, and grand- daughter of Sir John Shorter, arbitrarily appointed Lord Mayor of London by King James II. in the revolutionary year of 1688. Mr. Walpole was then in his twenty-fourth year : — Miss Shorter a few years younger. The Walpoles, when this marriage took place, were a family of name, possessions, and position, in the county of Norfolk. They were among the leading commoners of the county, returning them selves to Parliament for Lynn and Castle Rising, and sharing with the Townshends and the Cokes the landed wealth of Northern Norfolk. The Shorters were originally from Staines in Middlesex, but nothing is known of them before the grandfather of the bride, the Lord Mayor I have had occasion to mention. By his will, he left the sum of 400/., on her marriage, or on her coming of age, to Catherine Shorter, the future wife of Sir Robert Walpole. Bybrook, near Ashford, in Kent, when Catherine Shorter was a girl, was a small Elizabethan house of red brick and stone dressings, built in the year 1577 by Richard Best, whose name, with a punning inscription in Latin and the date (" Omnia in Bonum R. Best, 1577,") is still to be seen over the door of all that remains of Bybrook in its best days. It was pleasantly seated in a dip or valley near a small, clear, quick running stream, in a good soil, with some weU-covered hiUs to add to its shelter and beauty. John (the bride's father) was a Norway timber-merchant, with his wharf and counting-house on the Southwark side of the Thames at London, and his town house in Norfolk Street in the Strand, then, and long after, a fashionable locality in London. "My grandfather (my mother's father)," writes Horace to Mason, " was a Danish timber merchant, an honest sensible Whig, and I am very proud of him." ' ' Letters to Mason, 25 Sept., 1771, and 13 April, 1782. Sir John Shorter in hia will speaks of his son John as a Norway merchant, Sir John was buried in the church of St. Saviour's, Southwark— but the inscription on his gravestone (imperfectlv given in Strype's Stow) is not there now. MR. CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. ix He had three sons, who survived their sister. Lady Walpole, and a second daughter, called Charlotte, the third wife (1718) of Francis, first Lord Conway of the Seymour family, by whom she was mother of the first Earl of Hertford of the last creation, and of Walpole's correspondent and constant friend. Field Marshal Conway. Lady Conway survived her husband, and died 12th Feb. 1733-4. Lady Walpole's three brothers were John, Arthur, and Erasmus. John, a placeman and a pensioner : was a Commissioner of Stamps, and his pension was 400/. a-year. Of Arthur I have not obtained any inteUigence. Erasmus was made by his ministerial brother- in-law one of the two Under Searchers at Gravesend, survived his sisters and brothers, and dying in 1753 without a wiU, left 30,000/. to be divided among Walpoles and Seymour-Conways. The issue of the maniage of Sir Robert Walpole with Catherine Shorter was three sons and two daughters. 1. Robert, second Earl of Orford, (father of the third earl, who sold the far-famed Houghton gallery). 2. Edward, afterwards knighted, father of the lovely -tsraca, Countess of Waldegrave and Duchess of Gloucester. 3. Horace, the great Letter-writer, afterwards fourth Earl of Orford, and the last male representative of Sir Robert Walpole. 4. Catherine, who died unmarried, at Bath, of consumption, aged nineteen. 5. Mary, who died in her mother's Hfetime, having married (14 Sept. 1723,) George, third Eari of Chohnondeley, through whom Houghton descended to the present family. There was a fourth son, WiUiam, who died young. It is said that latterly Sir Robert Walpole and his wife did not live happily together, and that Horace, the youngest, was not the X MR. CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. son of the great Prime Minister of England, but of Carr Lord Hervey, elder brother of Pope's antagonist, and reckoned, as Walpole records, of superior parts to his celebrated brother, John. The story rests on the authority of Lady Louisa Stuart, daughter of the minister Earl of Bute, and grand-daughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. She has related it in print in the Introductory Anecdotes to Lady Mary's Works ; and there is too much reason to believe that what she tells is true. Horace was bom eleven years after the birth of any other child that Sir Robert had by his wife ; in every respect he was unlike a Walpole, and in every respect, figure and formation of mind, very like a Hervey. Lady Mary Wortley divided mankind into men, women, and Herveys, and the division has been generally accepted. Walpole was certainly of the Hervey class. Lord Hervey's Memoirs and Horace Walpole's Memoires are most remarkably alike, yet Walpole never saw them. We have no evidence whatever that a suspicion of spurious parentage ever crossed the mind of Horace Walpole. His writings, from youth to age, breathe the most affectionate love for his mother, and the most unbounded filial regard for Sir Robert Walpole. In the exquisite chapel of Henry Vllth, where, beneath nameless stones, our Stuart kings and queens He with William of Orange, the piety of Horace Walpole erected a marble statue of his mother. The inscription, of his own writing, perpetuates her virtue, and when he collected his writings, he took care to record a saying of Pope's, that the mother of Horace Walpole was "untainted by a court." Horace hated Norfolk, the native county of his father, and delighted in Kent, the native county of his mother. He did not care for Norfolk ale, Norfolk turnips, Norfolk dumplings, or Norfolk turkeys. Its flat, sandy, aguish scenery was not to his taste. He dearly Uked what he calls most happily " the rich blue prospects of Kent." While his father was alive, he loved Houghton for the glory that surrounded it ; after his father's death, he cared little about it, for the glory departed with his father. "I saw Houghton," writes his friend Lady Hervey, " the most triste, melancholy place MR. CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. li I ever beheld : 'tis a heavy ugly black building, with an ugly black stone." Horace's two brothers were as little to his liking ; the eldest, heir to the peerage and to Houghton, was silly, dissolute, and careless ; Sir Edward, the second, was inactive, liking Art a little and his mistress more. With two such brothers Horace the youngest had nothing in common. His family caused him many a bitter pang. The widow of his eldest brother gave him an infinity of annoyance. Rich, and heiress to a peerage in her own right (to which she succeeded), she scattered her favours on the continent, then surrendered herself to a low Itahan adventurer, and became as dissolute as Lady Mary Wortley, without one particle of her wit. Her son, the third earl, ' my lunatic precursor ' as he calls him (ix. 435), was profligate with women, a sot, and a madman.' His own three beautiful nieces, natural children of Sir Edward Walpole, were Walpoles after his own heart. They had in a high degree the beauty which Pepys assm-es us a Walpole carried into the Pepys family.' He liked his half-sister. Lady Mary Churchill, and had been content to have settled Strawberry Hill on the descendants of the Cheshire Cholmondeleys by his sister Lady Malpas. "What vicissitudes," he exclaims, "have I seen in my family." He saw ministerial Houghton in its glory and its fall ; and learning a lesson from its fate, left Strawberry Hill to the daughter of his maternal cousin Mr. Conway, — foretelling (what he stiU tried to avoid) its destiny not far off — the hammer of the auctioneer. " Poor Httle Strawberry," as he loved to call it, has ' "I am afraid I am again too late for you, but I find this morning a portfolio con taining a dozen and a half of original letters and notes of Horace Walpole's, of various dates from 1746 to 1787. They are mostly to George Selwyn, and some of them little more than invitations to dinner ; but half a dozen are of more importance, and one of the 0 th of September, 1757, is peculiarly curious, as it contains an admission of his consciousness of being hereditarily mad." — Mr. Croker totheEditor, 5Aurj. 1857. ^ " 15 Dec. 166S. My brother's man come to tell me that my cousin Edward Pepys was dead, for which my wife and I are very sorry, and the more that his wife was the only handsome woman of our name." " 29 July, 1667. It hath been the very bad fortune of the Pepyses that ever 1 knew, never to marry an handsome woman, except Ned Pepys." Ned Pepys's wife was Elizabeth Walpole, daughter and coheir of John Walpole of Bransthorp, Norfolk. lii MR. CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. heard the hammer of George Robins, and Norfolk Houghton, onc-e the envy of England, — now bare but massive, is the property of the Cheshire Cholmondeleys. The character of this delightful letter-writer and accomplished author — this pleasant companion and faithful friend — who possessed the art of giving proper importance and enduring interest to every thing he touched, has been drawn by two distinguished Avriters in the leading Reviews of the last half century, by men who mixed with some of his latest friends, and who lived sufiiciently near his time to have heard much about him from reliable sources of information. The great Tory writer' in the Tory Review, has sought with indis putable art to fix on the delightful historian and more delightful letter -writer, many of the mean artifices of the WTiigs ; with a love of sinecures and an affectation of Hberty. The noble Whig writer * in the Whig review has, with art equally indisputable, endeavoured to revenge the dislike which Walpole bore to the Bedford faction, the followers of Fox and the Shelburne school. Both exaggerate. While the art and force with which the Whig essayist points and delivers his envenomed weapon are everywhere apparent, it is easy to see that a conscious smile pervades his face that what he writes will be read with a glow of satisfaction at Woburn, at Kensington, and in Berkeley Square. Of a man who flourished for sixty years in political circles and in the world of fashion — of one who has written so variedly and so well — who has spoken of himself and his doings so freely — and of others and their doings so approvingly, and at times so contemptuously — it is unwise to expect that, perhaps, any six men should agree respecting his personal character. While all unite in praising the perpetual charm of his letters, men differ about the man. Too frequently he assumes a character very unlike his own. It is his humour at times to think oddly, though always sensibly : to fall into a short track of observation worthy of a philosopher or divine ; to drop that for a vein after the manner of Montaigne : or an outburst of egotism worthy of Mr. Pepys. He laughs, no one heartier, at the small things chronicled by Ashmole or Antony Wood — yet his • The late Mr. Croker. » Lord Macaulay. MR. CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. liii own Httle doings are often as insignificant as those so duly set down by the friend of Tradescant or the Oxford antiquary. It is evident, we are told by the noble author of the Reform BiU, that Horace Walpole never was in the confidence of his father. This is an assertion which Lord John Russell seeks to confirm by the letters of father and son. No one supposes that Sir Robert en trusted his views of the Excise scheme to a lad of twenty, for no Prime Minister reHed more upon himself than Sir Robert Walpole. When his father was dispossessed of power, Horace was stiU yoimg, but he was of age and in Parliament ; and when his father retired to Houghton, never dreaming of a return to power, Horace retired with him and passed three years in the full confidence of the ex- minister. It was then that Sir Robert Walpole answered the inquiries of his son (no common enquirer) and revealed those passages of state which are to be found in his Correspondence, Reminiscences, and more largely and importantly in his Memoires. " I came into the world," he says, " at five years old." When Walpole died, his son Horace was twenty- eight years old. A letter (Vol. i. p. 356), now for the first time printed, gives us a peep into the private life at Houghton when Walpole was a boy, and of Httle incidents connected with his father, his brother, and himself, that are especially touching. His elder brother, Edward, was jealous of the notice which Sir Robert took of Horace, and carried his jealousy so far as to induce Horace to beg and beseech his father never to take notice of him in his brother's presence. This is certain, that Sir Robert foresaw with pride the fame that his son Horace was to achieve, and looked upon him with eyes of greater affection than on his other children. " What touches me most," Walpole writes to Mason, then busy upon Gray, " are your kind vroids fcwourite son. Alas ! if I ever was so, I was not so thus early [1741], nor, were I so, would I for the world have such a word dropped ; it would stab my Hving brother [Sir Edward] to the sold, who, I have often said, adored his father, and of all his children loved him the best." " ' Walpole to Mason, March 2, 1773. Compare Letter, vol. i., p. C.58. ' Lord John Russell, Preface to Bedford Correspondence, p. xxxviii. riv MR. CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. If this deHghtful letter-writer had not thought proper to forsake the Senate for Hterature and antiquities, it is easy to see that he would have attained a high position in ParHament, and in at least one administration. He studied oratory and spoke weU. Yorke (whom he hated) records that one of his speeches in the House while his father was stin alive, was admired by the many who heard it. But he lost heart with his father's death— with the folly of his elder brother— and sought in society, in literature and antiquities, those unceasing deHghts that have given a celebrity to his name which the Senate alone never could have obtained for him. The accuracy of Walpole's information of the state of parties in England, from his first appearance in Parliament until the faU of his father, is curiously and importantly confirmed by Lord Hervey's Memoirs. On one point alone he seems to have been a little mis informed. It was not Sir Robert Walpole who forced Mr. Pulteney into the House of Lords, but Lord Carteret and Lord Hervey.' Sir Robert doubtless approved of such a step, but his son has given a colour to the occurrence which the actual circumstances of the case fail to justify. It is not often that Walpole is misinformed, and T am thus particular in calling attention to the circumstance, that I may bear a general testimony to the painstaking accuracy of his statements. The Correspondence of Walpole from first to last reveals most deHghtfully his intense admiration of his father and the love he continued to cherish for his mother. In his quarrels with his uncle, he never falls to remind him that he owes everything to his illustrious brother. " That great man to whom you and I, Sir, owe all we have, and without whom I fear we had all remained in obscurity." (To his Uncle, April 13, 1756.) All his father's foes were his foes. He may have had a temporary liking for a few who disliked his father, but the old hatred returned, and may be read unmistakeably in his Memoires and his Letters. His highest ambition to the last was to be described as he described himself beneath M'Ardell's mezzotint, from his portrait by Sir Joshua ' See Lord Hervey's Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 682. MR. CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. .tv — ' Horace Walpok, youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole, Earl oj Orford' and this he would have lilj:ed to have had upon his grave at Houghton. Of the letters to his several correspondents, those to Montagu are, I think, the best. They have more heart, and are evidently written to a man who had a fine sense of humour, much curious information, and who held his correspondent's powers of writing in high esteem. And this esteem was shared by many of the Cues. At George's death, his brother Frederick asked Walpole's permission to retain his letters. Wfilpole consented, transmitting at the same time Montagu's letters addressed to himself : " Thinking," he observes in a memoran dum stiU with them, " that they wiU serve to explain passages in each other." To this good account I have been enabled to turn them, for the first time, by the HberaHty of the head of the ' Cues,' the Duke of Manchester.His correspondents (West and Gray excepted) were duU masters in the art of letter- writing. Mann's letters are absolutely unread able. Montagu he has himself called an abominable correspondent, who only wrote to beg letters (Hi. 480). Bentley's letters to Wal pole were destroyed by Walpole, and such specimens as I have seen of his writing are poor in manner and in matter. Cole, though his letters were preserved by Walpole, was Httle more than a dull antiquary. Mason is a marked exception to the rule that good poets write good prose. What Httle Lord Hertford had to tell he told without vivacity or taste. His brother Conway was of the same race of heavy correspondents. Madame du Deffand was not Madame de S^vigne, nor Lady Ossory Lady Mary Montagu. His matter varies with the predilection of his correspondents. At times he is as good a News-Letter Gossip as Garrard or Rowland Whyte. Of Walpole's letters it cannot be said that, meant for everybody, they were written to anybody. The bulk, as well as the best of his letters, are addressed to people at a distance — to Mann in Florence, to Montagu on the skirts of a Northamptonshire forest, to Bentley in exile for debt, to Cole in the fens of Cambridgeshire, to Mason in his Yorkshire xn MR. CUNNINGHAM'S PKEFACK parsonage, to bHnd Madame du Deffand in the gilded saloons of Paris, and to Lady Ossory seeking soHtude after her divorce in the woods of AmpthiU. His letters (his best works) are absolute jests and story books, and the exact standard of easy engaging writing. They preserve the dark jostHngs for place of the many Administrations which governed England from his father's fall to the accession of the younger Pitt. He knew the members of the Broad Bottom and CoaHtion ministries ; had seen or Imown (certainly knew a great deal about) the many mistresses of the four Georges, from the Duchess of Kendal to the Countess of Suffolk, from Miss Vane to Mrs. Fitzherbert. He was known to two kings and to their children. He Hved throughout a long Hfe in the best society, and in the best clubs. His means were ample, and every reasonable desire he seems to have gratified. As a boy he had kissed the hand of King George I., and as a man in years had conversed with two young men, who long after his own death succeeded King George III. on the throne of England. He had seen in the flesh two of the heroines of De Grammont and the Restoration, La BeUe Jennings, and ArabeUa ChurchiU, and lived long enough to offer his coronet to two ladies (Mary and Agnes Berry), who Hved far into the reign of Queen Victoria. He has the art to interest us in very Httle matters, and to enliven subjects seemingly the most barren. His aUusions, his appHcations, are the happiest possible. As his pen never lay faUow, so his goose- quiU never grew grey. We take an interest in his gout and his bootikins, in PhiHp and Margaret (his Swiss valet and housekeeper), and in his dogs Patapan, Tonton, and Rosette. We know every room in Strawberry Hill, and every miniature and fuU-length portrait in the Tribune and GaUery. We are admitted to the Holbein chamber and the Beauclerk closet, and as we wander in print over the stripped rooms and now newly furnished walls, we can pass a night in his favourite Blue Room, restore the Roman Eagle, replace the bust of Vespasian and the armour of Francis I. ; bring back from Knowsley the blue and white china bowl, com memorated in the Odes of Gray, and caU up Kirgate, the printer, MK. CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. irii carrying a proof of the ' Anecdotes of Painting ' to Conway's ' Elzevir Horace ' in the Gothic Library. As we become better acquainted with his letters, we can summon before us the skilful antiquary and Virtuoso midwife, and see Strawberry in IHac-tide — that period of the year in which its owner thought Strawberry in perfection. He himself tells us that his letters are to be looked upon " iii their proper character of newspapers," ' and that if they possess any exceUence in point of style, it is from his having studied with care the letters of Madame de S^vigne and his friend Gray. " I gene- raUy write in a hurry," he exclaims at another time, "and say anything that comes into my head." ^ . . " I cannot compose letters Hke Pliny and Pope." ' Nor did he. " Nothing is so pleasant in a letter," he writes to Lady Ossory, " as the occm-rences of society. I am always regretting in my correspondence with Madame du Deffand and Sir Horace Mann, that I must not make use of them, as the one has never Hved in England, and the other not these fifty years, and so, my private stories would want notes as much as Petromus." He was what he calls himself, an indefatigable correspondent. " Mine," he says to Montagu, " is a Hfe of letter- writing." He had made letter- writing a study, and was fond of showing his skiU in his favourite art. This was so weU known : — that Lady Ossory is said to have observed that when they were near neighbours in town, if Walpole had anything to say that he thought might be worked into an agreeable letter, Walpole would omit to pay her his customary visit. We must remember in reading these nine volumes of Corre spondence, that their writer was wilHng to be thought a Frenchman, and that he affected to despise authors. It has been said of him that he was the best Frenchman ever bom in England of an EngHsli race. When Madame de Boufilers saw Strawberry Hill, she described it, much to its owner's merriment, though not untruly, as To Ossory, Christmas night, 1773. ' lb.. 24 Aug. 1777. » lb., 16 Not. 1785. xyiii MR. CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. not "digne de la soHdite Anglaise." His disHke to authors by profession is never concealed. Yet his highest ambition hereafter was that of an author. He successfuUy concealed his secret longing. Though the pen was constantly in his hand, there is not a specu of ink on his ruffles to the last. He wrote with the greatest ease, with company in the room, and even talking to people at the time. This Bentley assured Cole was the case. That, however, he made brief memoranda for many of his letters there cannot be a doubt. On the back of a letter to him from Lord Hertford I have seen the heads of his letter to Montagu (No. 660), describing the trial of Lord Ferrers. The points used are scored through by Walpole's pen. Apparent ease is often the result of weU-concealed labour. He has strange partiaHties and distastes. He laughs at Falkland, made a hero, he says, by the friendship and happy solemnity of Lord Clarendon's diction ; but forgets that his own partiality (and I think a weaker one) endeavoured to exalt Conway, a virtuous, well-meaning man, with a moderate understanding, to a position scarcely less exalted. He disliked Johnson, detested his style, and depreciated his talents. Little did Walpole dream that the portrait of Johnson by Sir Joshua would fiU the place of honour in the dining-room of the great successor of his father as a financial minister, and that BosweU's Life of the great moraHst would take its place permanently high in the standard Hterature of his country. His brief correspondence with Chatterton has been the occasion of as much idle writing as our language, rich in such materials, wHl be found to supply. With the largest sympathy for struggHng genius, and the most earnest desire to assist the wilHng and the able — who win say that he would have done more, under the circumstances, than Walpole did ? A boy, marveUously ripe in genius, and in the eccentricities of genius, seeks the assistance of a scholar and a gentleman — but in what way does he seek it ? By a clever but iU-disguised schoolboy attempt to palm a record of former ages on the understanding of a scholar. Walpole, as he admits himself, had given but Httle attention to palseography, but he saw through the forgery, and though undeceived, repHed like any sensible mau MR, CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. ax in his situation would have done. Chatterton while yet a boy died by his own hand. His dismal catastrophe, and the promise of exceUence which his acknowledged writings evince, raised a childish contioversy respecting the reaHty of the monk created, as we now know, by the genius of Chatterton. Sympathy not undeserved with one so marvellously ripe, took a turn — easily understood — against the son of a prime minister (' Bob the poet's foe') with more than one sinecure, himself an author, though affecting not to be one, mth a house in town and a villa in the country crammed with antiquities of a monldsh period. Here was the very man who should have assisted Chatterton, have dashed the poison-bowl from his lip, and carried his early manhood into a riper age for death. As the Chatterton controversy waxed stronger, so did the con troversy about Walpole's conduct in the transaction. The result was foreseen by the wiser few. Rowley has vanished before the Ithuriel touch of many scholars ; — and poets, always sympathetic, while they regret that Chatterton died so young — acquit, amply and unmistakeably, the author of the "Anecdotes of Painting" from conduct in the least degree culpable in his correspondence with a boy he had never seen. Walpole himself regretted that it was not given to him to foresee and perhaps prevent : and this, and this alone, is now the sole wish of every sensible thinker on the subject. For fifty years, over which his correspondence extends, the days and nights of Horace Walpole were very much the same. After an evening of scandal, fifty years back, spent at Marble Hill with the Countess of Suffolk, and old Lady Blandford (Windham's widow as well), or ' taking a card ' at Httle Strawberry Hill with Kitty CHve, he would return to his Gothic Castle, and in the Library or Blue Room write letters of news to Mann or Montagu, acknowledge cards of invitation from peers and peeresses, give Hfe to the antiquarian notes of Vertue the engraver, paste Faithornes and HoUars into his volumes of English heads, annotate a favourite author, and retire to rest about two in the morning. He rose late, sauntered about his vUla and grounds, played with his dogs Patapan or Tonton, gave VOL. X. b EC MR. CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. directions to the workmen employed in repairing battiementa, repainting waUs, or gUding his favourite GaUery. At twelve his Hght bodied chariot was at the door with his EngHsh coachman and his Swiss valet. He was now on his daily drive to or from his viUa of Strawberry HiU to his town house on the non-ministerial side of Arlington Street, PiccadUly. In a few minutes he left Lord Radnor's viUa to the right, roUed over the grotto of Pope, saw on his left Whitton, rich with recoUections of KneUer and ArgyU, passed Gumley House, one of the country seats of his father's opponent and his own friend Pulteney, Earl of Bath, and Kendal House, the retreat of the mistress of George I., Ermengard de Schu- lenburg. Duchess of Kendal. At Sion, the princely seat of the Percys, the Seymours, and the Smithsons, he turned into the Hounslow Road, left Sion on his right, and Osterley, not unHke Houghton, on his left, and roUed through Brentford — " Brentford, the Bishopric of Parson Home," then, as now, infamous for its dirty streets, and famous for its white-legged chickens. Quitting Brentford, he approached the woods that concealed the stately mansion of Gunnersbury, buUt by Inigo Jones and Webb, and then inhabited by the Princess Amelia, the last surviving chUd of King George II. Here he was often a visitor, and seldom returned without being a winner at silver loo. At the Pack Horse on Turnham Green he would, when the roads were heavy, draw up for a brief bait. Starting anew, he would pass a few red brick houses on both sides, then the suburban villas of men well to do in the Strand and Charing Cross. At Hammersmith, he would leave the church on his right, caU on Mr. Fox at HoUand House, look at Campden House with recoUections of Sir Baptist Hickes, and not without an iU-suppressed wish to transfer some little part of it to his beloved Strawberry. He was now at Kensington church, then, as it still is, an ungraceful structure, but rife with associations which he would at times relate to the friend he had with him. On his left he would leave the gates of Kensington Palace, rich with reminiscences connected with his father and the first Hanoverian kings of this country. On his right he would quit MR. CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. xxi the red brick house in which the Duchess of Portsmouth Hved, and after a drive of half a mUe (skirting a heavy brick waU), reach Kingston House, replete with stories of Elizabeth Chudleigh, the Bigamist Maid of Honour, and Duchess-Countess of Kingston and Bristol. At Knightsbridge (even then the haunt of highwaymen less gallant than Maclean) he passed on his left the little chapel in which his father was married. At Hyde Park Comer he saw the Hercules PUlars ale-house of Fielding and Tom Jones, and at one door from Park Lane would occasionaUy call on old " Q." for the sake of Selwyn, who was often there. The trees which now grace Picca dUly were in the Green Park in Walpole's day ; they can recoUect Walpole, and that is something. On his left, the sight of Coventry House would remind him of the Gunnings, and he would teU his friend the story of the " beauties," with which (short story- teUer as he was) he had not completed when the chariot turned into Arlington Street on the right, or down Berkeley Street into Berkeley Square, on the left. He was born in Arlington Street, Hved uninterruptedly there for thirty-six years, and died in Berkeley Square. The person of Horace Walpole ¦ was short and slender, but compact and neatly formed. When viewed from behind, he had, from the simpHcity of his dress, somewhat of a boyish appearance : " fifty years ago," he says, " Mr. Winnington told me I ran along Hke a pewet." (ix. 337.) His forehead was high and pale. His eyes were remarkably bright and penetrating. His laugh was forced and uncouth, and his smile not the most pleasing. His walk, for more than half his Hfe, was enfeebled by the gout ; which not only affected his feet, but attacked his hands. Latterly his fingers were sweUed and deformed, having, as he would say, more chalk-stones than joints in them, and adding, with a smUe, that he must set up an inn, for he could chalk a score with more ease and rapidity than any man in England. His companions at Eton and at Cambridge were lads unfitted Hke himself for athletic exercises : Gray and West, George Montagu and Cole. " I was " (says Montagu in a MS. memoir now before me) "of a tender ' Drawn from Pinkerton, Miss Hawkins, Cole's MSS. and his own Letters. xiii MR. CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. deHcate constitution and turn of mind, and more adapted to reading than exercises, to sedentary amusements than robust play. I had an early passion for poetry : at Eton, when in the fifth form, I presumed to make English verses for my exercise, a thing not practised then." His entrance into a room was in that style of affected deHcacy, which fashion had made almost natural, chapeau bras between his hands as if he wished to compress it, or under his arm ; knees bent, and feet on tiptoe, as if afraid of a wet floor. His summer dress of ceremony was usually a lavender suit, the waistcoat embroidered with a Httle silver, or of white sUlc worked in the tambour, partridge silk stockings, gold buckles, ruffles and lace frUl. In winter he wore powder. He disHked hats, and in his grounds at Strawberry would even in winter walk without one. The same antipathy. Cole tells us, extended to a great coat. His appearance at the breakfast-table was proclaimed, and attended, by a fat and favourite little dog, the legacy of Madame du Deffand ; the dog and a favourite squirrel partook of his breakfast. He dined generally at four. " I am," he writes in 1789 (ix. 171), "so antiquated as stUl to dine at four, though frequently pre vented, as many are so good as to caU on me at that hour, because it is too soon for them to go home and dress so early in the morning." His dinner when at home was of chicken, pheasant, or any Hght lood, of which he eat sparingly. Pastry he disliked, as difficult of digestion, though he would taste a morsel of venison pie. Iced water, then a London disHke, was his favourite drink. The scent of the dinner was removed by a censer or pot of frankincense. The wine that was drunk was drunk during dinner. After his coffee he would take a pinch of snuff, and nothing more that night. His visitors to see Strawberry he caUed his customers. Of his habits of composition we have some account : — " I wrote," he said, " the ' Castle of Otranto ' in eight days, or rather nights : for my general hours of composition are from ten o'clock at night tiU two in the morning, when I am sure not to be disturbed by visitants. WhUe I am writing I take several cups of coffee." That MR. CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. icxiii he was always ready, when writing, to take a hint from his friends, IS the testimony which Bentiey bore to Cole, not only of his skiU but of his many amiable virtues and quaHties; though Bentley added that he thought whim, caprice and pride, were too predominant in him. One of the most remarkable features in his Hfe is the uninterrupted nature of his correspondence with his relative Sir Horace Mann. They saw much of one another at Florence in the year 1741, and never met again. Yet a correspondence was maintained between them from that period untU the death of Mann. For four and forty years he was what he caUs himself, Mann's " faithful inteUigencer." " Shall we not," he says, " be very venerable in the annals of friend ship ? What Orestes and Pylades ever wrote to each other for four and forty years without meeting. A correspondence of near half a century is not to be paraUeled in the annals of the Post Office." In the year 1784 the letters from Walpole to Mann, and then in Walpole's hand, were about eight hundred. The two series as printed amount to eight hundred and nine. Though Walpole certainly wrote more letters than are at present in print, or, with aU my exertions, wiU be included in this edition of liis letters, there is little prospect that any additions of moment can now be made to his correspondence. His letters to Mrs. Damer were destroyed by her own desire with the rest of her papers, and those to Mrs. CHve, (of Httle moment I suspect, — they were such near neighbom's) were returned to him by her brother at her death, and are not now known to exist. Walpole foresaw the value of his letters, and, on the death of a friend, constantly asked for his correspondence back. As a request, in every way so proper, has preserved many of his letters, so it has led to the destruction of others, and those there is reason to believe not the least important. West and Gray, as he observed to Mason, were good-natured enough to destroy his letters. He died rich, with, we are told, over and above his leases, and notwithstanding his losses, ninety- one thousand pounds in the three- per-cents. Yet he had Hved HberaUy, and indulged a taste for many years in what he caUs expensive baubles, loving what money would purchase, not money itself As to his wUl, writes Mason, it xxiv MR. CUNNINGHAM'S PREFACE. is fuU as rational a one as anybody had reason to expect. There were people of course who were disappointed, and Pinkerton was one. His pet creation of Strawberry Hill, with its patches of correct Gothic, and its bastard half-castle-half-cloister character through out, was a romance in lath-and-plaster, very much in advance of Batty Langley and James Wyatt, and most thoroughly Ulustrative — Abbotsford not more so — of the tastes of its owner. This chUd's baby-house, as he himself caUs it, though a betweenity in its way, led to the revival of Gothic architecture. It is much to be regretted that it was ever stripped of the treasures it contained. The spoUs of Strawberry are the leading attractions of many first-rate coUections. No article of intrinsic value that has been resold, but has sold for a much larger sum. Though sixteen years only have passed since its dispersion, it would seU notv for double the amount for which it went. And yet it sold high. To have seen it in Walpole's day with Walpole in it, must indeed have been a treat. To have seen it unstripped, as I am pleased to remember that I have seen it, was a treat only of a lesser kind. To see Strawberry as it now stands, (renewed in great good taste by Lady Waldegrave,) is what many travel from far distances to see, and wiU continue to visit from distances stUl further, so long as a battlement remains, Hterature is loved, these letters last, or the Thames runs before it, as the Thames wiU continue to run on. PETER CUNNINGHAM. 'JHERTSEY, Surrey, 18 iScpt., 1868. CONTENTS. Mr. Cunningham's Advertisement ..... Walpole's Advertisement to his Letters addressed to Sir Horace Mann ilr. Oroker's Preface Lord Dover s Preface , . , Mr. "Wright's Preface Miss Mary Berry's Advertisement Mr. Vernon Smith's Preface . Mr. Vernon Smith's Second Preface Mr. Bentley's Advertisement . Rev. John Mitford's Preface . Short Notes of my Life . Memoir respecting his Income Reminiscences ; written in 1788 for the amusement of Miss Mary and Agnes Berry Miss ?A01 xxxix xli xliii xlv xlix U li Ixii Ixiii Ixiv Ixv Ixxxiv LETTERS. 1735—1746. [The Letters now first published or collected are marked N.] LETTER 1. To West, November 9. — Picture of a University life — Cambridge sophs — Juvenile quadruple alliance ......... 2. To Montagu, May 2. — Marriage of Frederick, Prince of Wales, with the Princess Augusta of Saxe Gotha ........ 3. To the same, May 6. — Pleasures of youth and youthful recollections 4. To the same, May 20. — Jaunt to Oxfcffd— Wrest House — Easton Neston — Althorp 5. To the same, May 30. — Petronius Arbiter — Coventry's Dialogue between Philemon and Hydaspes on False Religion — Artemisia .... 6. To West, Aug. 17. — Gray, and other school-fellows — Eton recollections — Course of study at the University ..... CONTENTS. [1739-40. JiETTER 7. West to Walpole, Aug.— Encloses an ode to Mary Magdalene. 1113 1416 8. West to Walpole, Jan. 12. — Poetry and Poets 9. West to Walpole, Feb. 27.— Sick of Novelty— Transmitting a sort of Poetry 10. To Montagu, March 20. — French and English manners contrasted . II. To the same. — Feelings on revisiting Eton 12. To West, April 21. — Paris society — Amusements — Funeral of the Duke de Tresmes— St. Denis— Church of the Celestins— French love of show— Signs — Notions of honour .... 1^ 13. To the same.— Description of Versailles -Convent of the Chartreux— History of St. Bruno, painted by Le Soeur — Relics 18 14. To the same, June 18.— Rheims— Brooke's "QustavusVasa" . . , fiO 15. West to Walpole, June 21. — A musical supper — Crebillon's love-letters . 21 16. To West, July 20.— Rheims— Compiegne — Self-introduction .... 24 17. To the same, Sept. 28. — Mountains of Savoy— Grand Chartreuse— Aix— English visitors — Epigram . ... ... 26 18. To the same, Nov. 11. — Passage of Mount Cenis — Cruel accident — Chamberri — Inscription — Pas de Suza — Turin — Italian comedy — "L'Anima Damnata." — Conversazione ........... 28 19. West to Walpole, Dec. 13. — Death of Mr. Pelham's two children — Glover's "Leonidas." . . ........ 30 20. To West — Bologna — Letter- writing — Curl — Whitfield's Journal — Jingling epitaph — Academical exercises at the Franciscans' church — Dominicans' church — Old verses in a new light ........ 31 21. West to Walpole, January 23. — Transmitting a poetical translation — Pope's Letters ............ 33 22. To West, January 24. — Florence — Grand Duke's gaUery — Effect of travel — English and Italian character contrasted — Story of the Prince and the nut . 34 23. To the same, February 27. — Florence — The Carnival — Character of the Florentines — Their prejudice about nobility — Mr. Martin — Affair of honour 36 24. To Conway, March 6. — Complaints of his not writing — Attachment to Florence 38 25. To West, March 22. — Description of Siena — Romish superstitions — Climate of Italy — -Italian customs — Radicofani — Dome of Siena — Inscription — Entrance to Rome ........... 40 26. West to Walpole, March 29. — Transmitting portions of the first act of Pansanias, a tragedy .... 42 27. To West, April 16.— Rome— Ruins of the temple of Mmsrva Medica— Ignorance and poverty of the present Romans — The Coliseum — Relics — Superstitions . . 42 28. To Conway, April 23. — Society at Rome— The Moscovita — Roman Conver sations — The Conclave — Lord Deskfoord 4E 29. To West, May 7.— The Conclave- Antiquities of Rome— State of the public pictures — Probable condition of Rome a century hence 4 G 30. To the same, June 14.— Naples— Description of Herculaneum— Passage in Statins picturing out this latent city 4.f! 1741-2.^ CONTENTS. ixvii LETTER p^,jj5 31. To Conway, July 5. — Reasons for leaving Rome — Malaria — Radicofani described — Relics from Jerusalem — Society at Florence — Mr. Maun — Lady Pomfi-et — Princess Craon — Hosier's ghost — The Conclave — Lord Chancellor Hardwicke . . . . . .50 32. To West, July 31.— Medals aud Inscriptions- Taking of Porto Bello— The Conclave — Lady Mary Montagu — Life at Florence 54 33. To Conway, Sept. 25. — Character of the Florentines — Lady Mary Wortley Montagu described — Sortes Virgilianaj . . . . . 66 34. To West, Oct. 2.— Effect of travel— A wedding at Florence— Addison's Italy— Dr. Gocchi — Bondelmonti — A song — Bronzes and medals — Tartini — Lady Walpole — Platonic love . ... 58 36. To West, Nov. — Disastrous Flood at Florence . 62 36. To the Rev. Joseph Spence, Feb. 21. — Hopes to renewin England an acquaint ance begun in Italy — Owns him his master in the antique . . 64 37. To Conway, March 25. — Rejoices at George Selwyn's recovery — And at the result of Mr. Sandys' motion for the removal of Sir Robert Walpole — Middleton's Life of Cicero . ... .65 38. To West, May 10. — His opinion of the first act of West's tragedy of Pansanias — Description of Reggie during fair-time . . . . . 67 39. West to Walpole, June 22. — His aversion to the law as a profession — He has chosen the army instead . . . .... 69 40. To Mann, Sept. — Calais on his return to England — Amorevoli — The Vis- contina — Passage to Dover — Comfort and snugness of English country towns — The distinction of "meddling people" nowhere but in England — Stoi-y of Mr. Pope and the Prince of Wales ... . . 71 41. To the same, Oct. — Corsica — -Bianca Colonna — Baron Stosch, and his Maltese cats ..... . . . . 73 42. To Conway. — On his return to England — Changes produced by travel . 73 43. To Mann, Oct. 8. — Illness of Sir Robert Walpole — The Opera — Sir Benjamin Keene — Domenichino's Madonna and Child — Lady Dorothy Boyle — State of parties . . . . . 75 44. To the same, Oct. 13 . . 77 45. To the same, Oct. 19. — Unfavourable state of his father's health . . . 78 46. To the same, Oct. 22. — Duel between Winnington and Augustus Townshend — Long Sir Thomas Robinson — Mrs. Woffington — ' ' Les Cours de I'Europe " . 79 47. To the same, Nov. 2. — Sir Thomas Robinson's ball — The Euston embroil — The Neutrality— "The Balancing Captain," a new song . . 82 48. To the same, Nov. 6. — Opera House management ... .87 49. To the same, Nov. 12. — Admiral Vernon — The Opera — The Viscoutina , 89 50. To the same, Nov. 23. — Spanish design on Lombardy — Sir Edward Walpole's courtship — Lady Pomfret — "Going to Court" — Lord Lincoln — Paul Whitehead — "Manners" 90 61. To the same, Nov. 26. — His mother's tomb — Intaglio of the Gladiator . 93 xxviii CONTENTS. [1742 LETTER PAGE 52. To the same, Dec. 3.— Admiral Haddock— Meeting of Parliament — State of parties — CoUey Gibber . . .... 94 S3. To the same, Dec. 10.— Debate on the King's speech— Westminster petition- Triumph of Opposition— "Bright Bootle" 96 54. To the same, Dec. 16.— Chairman of election committees— Ministry in a minority . . . ¦ ..... 100 55. To the same, Dec. 17. — Wai-m debates in Westminster Election committee- Odd suicide .... ... 102 56. To the same, Dec. 24. — Anecdote of Sandys — Ministerial victory — Debates on the Westminster election— Story of the Duchess of Buckingham— Mr. Nugent — Lord Gage — Revolution in Russia 103 57. To the same, Dec. 29.— The Domenlchino— Passage of the Giogo— Bubb Dodmgton — Follies of the Opposition . . . . . 109 58. To the same, Jan. 7. — Reasons why he is not in fashion — His father's want of partiality for him— Character of General Churchill — Vote-trafficking during the hoUdays — Music party — The three beauty-Fitzroys — Lord Hervey — Hammond, the poet — Death of Lady Sundon — Anecdotes . . Ill 59. To the same, Jan. 22. — House of Commons — Merchants' petition — Leonidas Glover — Place BUI — Projected changes — King's message to the Prince — Pulteney's motion for a secret committee on Sir Robert Walpole's conduct — New opera . . . ...... 117 60. To Mann, Feb. 4.— Sir Robert's morning levees — His resignation — Created Eari of Orford . . ... . . 123 61. To the same, Feb. 9. — Political changes — Opposition meeting at the Fountain — Cry against Sir Robert — Instructions to members — Lord Wilmington first lord of the treasury — New ministry — Crebillon's "Sofa" . . . . 125 62. To the same, Feb. 18. — Rumoured impeachments — Popular feeling — "The Unhappy Favom-ite'' — "Broad Bottom" ministry — The Prince at the King's levee — Sii- Robert takes his seat in the House of Lords — Grand masquerade ........... 129 63. To the same, Feb. 25. — House of Commons — Shippen — Murray — Story of Sir R. Godschall — Impeachments — Changes — "England in 1741," by Sir C. H. Williams . .... 133 64. To the same, March 3. — Merchant's petition — Leonidas Glover — New story of the Lord Mayor — Speech of Dodiugton — Heydon election — "The Broad Bottom" — Duchess of Marlborough's Memoirs — Lord Oxford's sale — New opera — Sir Robert at Richmond ... ... 136 65. To the same, March 10. — The Coalition — Motion for a committee of inquiry into the conduct of the last twenty years thrown out — Duke of Argyle resigns — Old Sarah's Memoirs 141 66. To the same, March 22.— Queen of Hungary's successes —Lord Oxford's sale ..... ....... 144 67. To the same, March 24. — Secret Committee to inquire into the conduct of the Earl of Orford appointed — Horace Walpole's speech on the occasion 146 68. To the same, April 1.— Secret Committee baUoted for— Court and Opposition lists — Bill for repealmg the Septennial Act rejected . . . . \i? 1742-3.] CONTENTS. xxix LETTER PAOE 69. To the same, April 8. — Lady Walpole's extravagant schemes -Subsidy for the Queen of Hungary — Lord Orford's crowded levees — Rage of the mob against him. Place Bill rejected by the Lords .... 152 70. To the same, April 15. — Progress of the Secret Committee — Committal of Paxton . . ..... 165 71. To the same, April 22. — Secret Committee — Examination of Sir John Rawdon — Opening of Rauelagh Gardens . . .... 157 72. To the same, April 29. — Preparations for war in Flanders — Examinations before the Secret Committee — Scuffle at the Opera . . . . . 159 73. To West, May 4. — Anxiety for the recovery of his health aud spirits — The age most unpoetical — Wit monopolised by politics — Royal reconciliation — Asheton's sermons — Death of Mr. West . . . , 160 74. To Mann, May 6. — Florentine nobility — Embarkations for Germany — Doings of the Secret Committee — The Opera ... .102 75. To the same. May 13. — First Report of the Secret Committee — Bill to indem nify evidence against Lord Orford brought in . . ..164 76. To the same. May 20. —Indemnity Bill carried in the Commons — Party dinner at the Fountain — Place Bill — Mr. Nugent's attack on the bishops . . 165 77. To the same, May 26. — Rauelagh — Vauxliall— The Opera — Mrs. Clive — "Miss Lucy in Town" — Ganick at Goodman's Fields: "a very good mimic ; but nothing wonderful in his acting " — Mrs. Bracegirdle — Meeting at the Fountain — The Indemnity Bill flung out by the Lords — Epigram on Pulteney — Committee to examine the public accounts — Epitaph on the Indemnity Bill — Kent and symmetry — " The Irish Register " . . 167 78. To Mann, June 3. — Epigi-am on Lord Islay's garden . . 172 79. To the same, June 10. — Lady Walpole and her son — Royal reviews — Death of Hammond — Process against the Duchess of Beaufort ... 173 80. To the same, June 14. — Peace between Austria and Prussia — Ministerial movements — Perplexities of the Secret Committee — Conduct of Mr. Scrope — Lady Vane's adventures ... . . 175 81. To the same, June 25. — Successes of the Queen of Hungary — Mr. Pulteney created Earl of Bath ...... . 178 82. To the same, June 30. — Second Report of the Secret Committee — The Pre tender — Intercepted letters — Lord Barrymore .... .179 83. To the same. — Lines on the death of Richard West, Esq. — "A Receipt to make a Lord" . .... 183 84. To the same, July 7. — New Place BiU — General Guise — Monticelli . . 184 85. To the same, July 14. — Ned and Will Finch — Lord Sidney Beauclerc — Pulte ney takes up his patent as Earl of Bath — Rauelagh masquerade — Fire in Downing Street . . 187 86. To the same. — Prorogation — End of the Secret Committee — Paxton released from Newgate — Ceretesi — Shocking scene of murder — Items from his grand father's account-book — Lord Orford at Court . . . . . . 189 87. To the same, July 29. — About to set out for Houghton — Evening at Rauelagh with his father — Lord Orford's increasing popularity — " The Wife of Batli " XXX CONTENTS. [1743 LETTER PAGB — Cibber's pamphlet against Pope — Dodingt«n's "Comparisop of the Old and New Ministry" . . . . ... 193 88. To the same. — New BaUads — Lord Orford at Houghton . . . . 194 89. To the same, Aug. 20 . 196 90. To the same, Aug. 28. — Marshal Belleisle — Cardinal Tencin — "Lessons for the Day'' — " An honourable man " . 197 91. To the same, Sept. 11.— -Visit to Woolterton — "A Catalogue of New French Books" . . . . . . .199 92. To the same, Sept. 25. — Admiral Matthews — The King's journey to Flanders — Siege of Prague — History of the Princess Eleonora of Guastalla — MoliSre's Tartuffe 201 93. To the same, Oct. 8. — Siege of Prague raised — Great preparations for the King's journey to Flanders — Odes on Pulteney — Story of the Pigwiggins — Fracas at Kensington Palace .... . . 204 94. To the same, Oct. 16. — Admiral Matthews — " Yarmouth Roads " ; A ballad, by Lord Hervey . . .... 206 95. To the same, Oct. 23 . . . . 211 96. To the same, Nov. 1. — The King's levee and drawing-room described — State of Parties — A piece of absence — Duo d'Aremberg . . . 212 97. To thesame, Nov. 15. — Projects of Opposition — Lord Orford's reception at the levee — Revolution in the French court — The Opera — Lord Tyrawley — Dodington's marriage . . . ... 214 98. To the same, Dec. 2. — House of Commons — Motion for a new Secret Committee thrown out — Union of the Whigs 216 99. To the same, Dec. 9. — Debate on disbanding the army in Flanders — "Han over," the word for the winter .... ... 218 100. To the same, Dec. 23. — DiiEculty of writing upon nothing . . . 219 101. To the same, Jan. 6. — Admiral Vernon — Reply of the Duchess of Queens- berry . . . 221 102. To the same, Jan. 13. — House of Commons — "Case of the Hanover Forces" — Difficulty of raising the suppUes — Lord Orford's popularity . . . 223 103. To Mann, Jan. 27.— Accession of the Dutch to the King's measures . . 226 104. To the same, Feb. 2.— Debate in the Lords on disbanding the Hanoverian ti'oops • . .... 228 105. To the same, Feb. 13 229 106. To the same, Feb. 24.— Austrian victory over the Spaniards in Italy. King Theodore's declaration— Handel and the Opera 230 107. To the same, March 3.— Death of the Eleotress— Story of Lord Hervey— The Oratorios ... . . . . _ 231 108. To the same, March 14.— Duel between his uncle Horace and Mr. Chetwynd — Death of the Duchess of Buckingham . 232 109. To the same, March 25.— Epidemic— Death of Dr. Blackburne, Archbishop of ^"""^ 235 110. To the same, April 4.— Funeral of the Duchess of Buckingham . . . 237 1743-4.] CONTENTS. xxxi LETTER PAGB 111. To the same, April 14. — Army in Flanders — King Theodore — The Opera ruined by gentlemen-directors — DUettanti Club — London versus the country 238 112. To the same, April 25. — Departure of the King and Duke of Cumberland for the army in Flanders — The Regency — Princess Louisa and the Prince of Denmark — Lord Stafford and Miss Cantillon — Irish fracas — SUvia and PhUander ... . . ... 240 113. To the same, May 4. — King Theodore — Admiral Vernon's frantic speech — Ceretesi — Low state of the Opera — Freemasonry . . . . . 243 114. To the same. May 12. — Death of the Duchess of Kendal — Story of Old Sarah — Maids of honour . . ... .245 115. To the same, ilay 19. —Mutiny of a Highland regiment . 246 116. To the same, June 4. — Marriages, deaths, and promotions — Sale of Corsica . 247 117. To the same, June 10. — ^Expected battle in Flanders — Alarms for Mr. Con way — Houghton gaUery — Life of Theodore . 249 118. To the same, June 20. — Visit to Euston— Kent — Anecdote of Lord Euston — Lady Dorothy Boyle ... 262 119. To the same, June 29. — Battle of Dettingen— Conduct of the King— Anecdotes 253 120. To the same, July 4. — Further anecdotes of the battle — Public rejoicings — Lines on the victory — Lord Halifax's poem of the battle of the Boyne . 256 121. To the same, July 11. — Another battle expected 257 122. To the same, July 19.— Conduct of General Iltou — " The Confectioner " . 258 123. To the same, July 31. — Temporising conduct of the Regency— Bon-mot of Winnington ....... 261 124. To the same, Aug. 14.— Arrival of the Dominichini — Description — Pun of Madame de S6vigne ... . . 262 125. To Chute, Aug. 20. — Life at Houghton— Stupifying quaUties of beef, ale, and wine — The Dominichini .... . 264 126. To Mann, Aug. 29. — Undoubted originality of the Dominichini — Mr. Pelham first lord of the treasury • 266 127. To the same, Sept. 7.— The marrying Princesses— French players at Cliefden Our faith in politics— Story of the Duke of Buckingham — Extraordinary miracle . ... 267 128. To the same, Sept. 17.— The King and Lord Stair . . 269 129. To the same, Oct. 3.— Journey to town — Newmarket described— No solitude in the country — Delights of a London life— Admiral Matthews and the Pope —Story of Sir James of the Peak— Mrs. White's brown bob— Old Sarazinat two in the morning — Lord Perceval's "Faction Detected "—Death of the Duke of ArgyU and Greenwich ... .... 270 130. To the same, Oct. 12.— Conduct of Sir Horace's father— The army in Flanders in winter quarters— Distracted state of parties— Patapaniana-Imitation of an epigram of Martial ... ¦ .... 274 l31. To Mann, Nov. 17. — The King's arrival and reception — His cool beha viour to the Prince of Wales— Lord Holderness's Dutch bride— The Prince of Denmark— The Opera 277 xxxii CONTENTS. [1744-6. PAGE LETTER 132. To the same, Nov. 30.— Meeting of Parliament— Strength of Opposition- Conduct of Lord Carteret— Treasury dish-clouts— Debate on the Address . 279 133. To the same, Deo. 15.— Debates on the Hanoverian troops— Resignation of Lord Gower— Ministerial changes- Sandys made a peer— Verses addressed to the House of Lords, on its receiving a new peer 281 134. To the same, Dec. 26 • ... 283 135, To the same . ^^^ 136. To the same, Jan. 24.— The Brest fleet at sea— Motion for continuing the Hanover troops carried by the exertions of Lord Orford .... 285 137. To the same, Feb. 9.— Appearance of the Brest squadron off the Land's End — Pretender's son at Paris 288 138. To the same, Feb. 16.— French squadron off Torbay — King's message con cerning the young Pretender and designed invasion — Activity and zeal of Lord Orford ... 289 139. To the same, Feb. 23.— Welsh election carried against Sir Watkyn Williams — Prospect of invasion — Preparations 291 140. To the same, March 1.— The French expected every moment— Escape of the Brest squadron from Sir John Norris — Dutch troops sent for — Spirit of the nation — Addresses — Lord Barrymore and Colonel CecU taken up — Suspen sion of the Habeas Corpus— The young Pretender 291 141. To the same, March 5. — Great storm— French transports destroyed, aud troops disembarked . ... . . 294 142. To the same, March 15.— Fears of invasion dispelled — Mediterranean en gagement — Admiral Lestock ........ 294 113. To the same, March 22. — French declaration of war— Affair in the Medi- ten-anean — Sir John Norris — Hymeneals — Lord Carteret and Lady Sophia Fermor — Codington and Mrs. Behan ... ... 296 144. To the same, AprU 2 . . . . ... 297 145. To the same, April 15. — Nuptials of the great Quixote and the fair Sophia — Invasion from Dunku-k laid aside ....... 299 146. To the same. May 8. — Debate on the Pretender's Correspondence BUI 30O 147. To the same. May 29. — Movements of the army in Flanders — Illness of his father — Death of Pope — Mr. Henry Fox's private marriage with Lady Charlotte Lenox — Bishop Berkeley and tar water ... . . 302 148. To the same, June 11. — Successes of the French army in Flanders — State of the combined army — And of our sea-force ..... 304 149. To the same, June 18. — Return of Admiral Anson — Ball at Rauelagh — Pur chase of Dr. Middleton's Collection — Lord Orford's pension . . . 306 160. To Conway, June 29. — Eton recoUections — Lines out of a new poem — Opinion of the present great men — Ranelagh described .... 307 161. To Mann, June 29. — Cluster of good news — Our army joined by the Dutch — Success of the King of Sardinia over the Spaniards — The Rhine passed by Prince Charles — Lines on the death of Pope — Epitaph on him by RoIU . 310 162. To Conway, July 20. — Happiness at receiving a letter of confidence — 1746.] CONTENTS. xxxiii LETTER PAUE Advice on the subject of an early attachment — Arguments for breaking off the aoquaintanee — Offer of the immediate use of his fortune . . .313 153. To Mann, July 22. — Letter-writing one of the first duties— Difficulty of keeping up a correspondence after long absence — History writing — Carte and the City aldermen — Inscription on Lady Euston's picture — Lady Carteret — Epigram on her ........ 315 154. To the same, Aug. 6. — Marquis de la Clietardie dismissed by the Empress of Russia — The Grifona — Lord Surrey's sonnets 317 155. To the same, Aug. 16. — Preparations for a journey to Houghton — Rule for conquering the passions — Country Life — King of Prussia's address to the people of England — A dialogue on the battle of Dettingen . . .319 156. To the same, Sept. 1. — Victory at VeUetri — Illness of the King of France — Epigram on Bishop Berkeley's tar-water . . . 322 157. To Conway, Oct. 6. . . . . .... 324 158. To Mann, Oct. 6. — Self-scolding — Neapolitan expedition . . . . 325 159. To the same, Oct. 19. — Defeat of the King of Sardinia — Loss of the ship Victory, with Sir John Balchen — Death of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, of the Countess Granville, and Lord Beauchamp — Marriage of Lord Lincoln — French King's dismissal of M.adame de Chateauroux — Discretion of a Scotch soldier 326 160. To the same, November 9. — Lord Middleton's wedding — ThePomfrets — Lady Granville's At Home — Old Marlborough's wUl — Glover's " Leonidas " . 329 161. To the same, Nov. 26. — History of Lord GranvUle's resignation — Voild le monde I — Decline of his father's health — Outcry against pantomimes — Drury Lane uproar — Bear-garden bruisers — Walpole turned popular orator 330 162. To the same, Dec. 24. — Conduct of the King — Prostitution of patriots — List of ministerial changes — Mr. Pitt declines office — Opposition seUing them selves for profit — The Pretender's son owned in France .... 333 163. To the same, Jan. 4. — Dearth of news — His ink at low-water mark — Lord Sandwich's first-rate tie-wig — Lady Granville's assemblies — Marshal Belleisle a prisoner at Hanover ........ 335 164. To the same, Jan. 14. — M. de Magnan's history — Prince Lobkowitz — Doings of the Granville faction — Anecdote of Lord Baltimore — Illness of Lord Orford — Mrs. Stephens's remedy — Sir Thomas Hanmer's " Shakspeare " — Absurd alteration therein ......... 337 165. To the same, Feb. 1. — Vanity of poUtics — Lord GranviUe characterised — Progress of the coalition ........ 340 166. To the same, Feb. 28. — Alarming illness of Lord Orford — Success of the coalition — Situation of the Pelhams — Masquerade at the Venetian ambassa dress's — Lady Townshend' s ball — Marshal Belleisle at Nottingham — Matri- monials on the tapis . ....... 342 167. To the same, March 29. — Death of Lord Orford — Inquiry into the miscarriage of the fleet in the action off Toulon — Matthews and Lestock — Instability of the ministry — Thomson's Tancred and Sigismnnda — Glover's " Leonidas" — "The Seasons" — Akenside's Odes — Quarrel between the Duchesses of Queensberry and Richmond — Rage for conundmmB . . . . 345 xxxiv CONTENTS. [1746-« LETTER PAGB 168. To the same, April 15. — Reflections on his father's death — Compliments paid to his memory — Mediterranean miscarriages ...... 349 169. To the same, AprU 29. — Disadvantages of a distant correspondence — Death of Mr. Francis Chute, and of poor Patapan — Prospect of a battle in Flanders — Mar.shal Saxe . ... . ... 351 170. To the same. May 11. — Battle of Fontenoy — Bravery of the Duke of Cumber land — Song, written after the news of the battle, by the Prince of Wales . 352 171. Sir Edward Walpole to Walpole, May 17. — The election for Castle Rising (a family borough) — Indignant letter. N. ..... . 355 172. To Sir Edward Walpole. — Answer to the letter — The answer not sent. N. . 356 173. To the same. — This answer sent. N. . . ... 360 174. To Montagu, May 18. — Condolence on the death of Mr. Montagu's brother at Fontenoy . ... .... 300 175. To Mann, May 24.— Popularity of the Duke of Cumberland— Lady Walpole — Story of Lord Bath's parsimony ....... 361 176. To Montagu, May 25. — Account of the famUy at Englefield Green — Sir Edward Walpole — Dr. Styan Thirlby . .... 362 177. To Conway, May 27. — Despau-s of seeing his friend a perfect hero — ^The Why 363 178. To Mann. — Recommendatory of Mr. Hobart, afterwards Lord Buokingham- sliii'e . - . ... ... 365 179. To the same, June 2i. — Expected arrival from Italy of Lady Orford — Sur render of the citadel of Tournai — -Defeat of Charles of Lorrain — Revolution in the Prince of Wales's court — Miss Neville — Lady Abergavenny . , 365 180. To Montagu, June 25. — Mistley, the seat of Mr. Rigby, described— -Fasiiion- able At Homes— Lady Brown's Sunday parties — Lady Arciiibald Uamiiton — Miss Granville — Jemmy Lumley's assembly . . 3gg 181. To Conway, July 1. — Tournai and Fontenoy — Gaming act . . 369 182. To Mann, July 5.— Seizure of Ghent and Bruges by the French . 371 183. To the same, July 12. ... . . girg 184. To Montagu, July 13.— Success of the French in Flanders— Lord Baltimore — Mrs. Comyns . o^k 185. To Mann, July 15 . . . o^p 186. To the same, July 26. — Projected invasion— Disgraces in Flanders . . 378 187. To Montagu, Aug. 1.— Portrait of M. de Grignan— Livy's Patavinity-Mar- shalBelleisleinLondou— Duke of Newcastle described— Duchess of Bolton's geographical resolution . .... Sgn 188. To Mann, Aug. 7.— Rumours of an invasion— Proclamation for apprehending the Pretender's son 189. To the Rev. Thomas Birch, Aug. 15. -Respecting a projected History of George II. . . . 190. To Mann, Sept. 6.— Landing and progress of the young Pretender— Hi manifestoes ...... 191. To the same, Sept. 13.— Progress of the RebelUon— The Duke of Newcastle' „ speech to the Regency . . . _ „„, 382 384 384 1745-6.'1 CONTENTS. LETTER PAGE 192. To the same, Sept. 17.— . .... . . 388 193. To the same, Sept. 20. - Edinburgh taken by the rebels — Our strength at Sea — Plan of raising regiments — Lady Orford's reception in England . . 389 194. To the same, Sept. 27.— Successes of Prince Charles in Scotland . . . 392 196. To the same, Oct. 4. — Operations against the rebels — Spirited conduct of the Archbishop of York . . . . 394 196. To thesame, Oct. 11.— Death of Lady Granville. . . .396 197. To the same, Oct. 21. — Excesses of the rebels at Edinburgh — Proceedings in ParUament ........... 397 198. To the same, Nov. 4. — State of the rebellion — Debates respecting the new raised regiments — Ministerial changes . . . . 399 199. To the same, Nov. 15.-^ — Disturbance about the new regiments — Advance of the rebels into England — Their desperate situation — Lord Clanoarty . . 401 200. To the same, Nov. 22.— The rebels advance to Penrith— The Mayor of Carlisle's heroic letter — And surrender of the town — Proceedings in Pariiament . .403 201. To Mann, Nov. 29. — The sham Pretender — Lord Derwentwater taken — The rebels at Preston — Marshal Wade . ..... 405 202. To the same, Dec. 9. — Conduct of the rebels at Derby — BUick Friday — Preparations against a French invasion — Rising spirit of the people . 409 203. To the same, Deo. 20. — Flight of the rebels from Derby— Capture of the Martinico fleet — Debate on employing the Hessian troops — Marriage of the Duchess of Bridgewater and Dick Lyttelton — A good Irish letter . . 411 204. To the same, Jan. 3. — Recapture of Carlisle — General Hawley— Preparations at Dimiirk — IiKnisterial movements , . ... H4 you I. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE 1. Horace Walpole at the age of Ten. Prom the original oil-picture in the possession of Mrs. Bedford . Frontispiece 11. Shield showing the Quarterings of The Right Hon. Horace WiU,POLE, Fourth Earl of Orfoed . . ... xovii HI. Arms and Crest of the Eight Hon. Horace Walpole, Fourth Earl op Orford . 1 IV. Horace Walpole when a Boy. From a ring (in Mrs. Bedford's possession), presented by Horace Walpole to his friend and Deputy in the Exchequer, Mr. Bedford . . 18 V. The Honourable Henry Seymour Conway, General Conwat, Walpole's Cousin and Cobeespondest. From the original by Eckhardt, formerly in the Collection at Strawberry Hill ... 38 VI. Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. From the original by Sir Godfrey KneUer, at Althorp . . 139 VII. Henry St. John, First Viscount Bolingbeoke. From the original by Sir Godfrey Kneller, in the possession of the Earl of Egremont . 268 VIII. Horace Walpole. From a miniature, in enamel, painted by Zincke in 1745, and formerly in the Collection at StrawbeiTy HUl . 360 IX, Countess of Nithisdale. From a drawing, by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., from the original by Sir Godfrey Kneller, at Terregles . 389 ADVERTISEMENT. The leading features of this edition consist in the pubHcation for the first time of the Entire Correspondence of Walpole in a chrono logical and uniform order, and in the publication equauy for the first time of many letters either now first coUected or first made pubHc, The unprinted letters wUl be found to reveal much curious matter Ulustrative of the famUy quarrels of Horace with his brother Sir Edward, and with his uncle, old Horace, whom he hated so heartily ; while the letters first coUected in this edition, and addressed to men like Hume, Robertson, and Joseph Warton, wiU be found to contain the best quaHties of his style on other subjects than masquerades and marriages. His correspondence with his deputies in the Exchequer, Mr. Grosvenor Bedford, and Mr. Charles Bedford, kindly placed at my service, in consequence of an arrangement with Mr. Bentley, by Mrs. Bedford of Kensington, runs over many years, and though often on matters of official detaU, and therefore of no pubHc moment, is not unfrequently highly characteristic of the writer. It reveals to us (as the reader wiU find) what Walpole revealed to no other person, his unostentatious charity and his active sympathy with persons incarcerated for debt. The same correspondence xl ADVERTISEMENT. suppHes other and frequent gHmpses of his working behind the scenes as an anonymous correspondent of newspapers, and fuUy supports what indeed his own " Short Notes " of his Hfe have sufficiently told us, that he was not " Junius." The notes to this edition are by the editors of previous editions, and bear the names of the writers. Some I have sUently corrected, others I have enlarged with information between brackets. With respect to my own notes i nave sougnt to make them appropriate to the text, and above aU things — accurate. PET.ER CONNINGHAJH. Kensington. 26th NovemJier, 18.56. WALPOLE'S ADVERTISEMENT TO THE COLLECTION OF LETTERS ADDRESSED TO SIR HORACE MANN. The foUowing Collection of Letters, written very carelessly by a young man, had been preserved by the person to whom they were addressed. The Author, some years after the date of the first, borrowed them, on account of some anecdotes interspersed. On the perusal, among many trifling relations and stories, which were only of consequence or amusing to the two persons concerned in the correspondence, he found some facts, characters, and news, which, though below the dignity of History, might prove entertaining to many other people : and knowing how much pleasure, not only himself, but many other persons have often found in a series of private and famUiar Letters, he thought it worth his whUe to pre serve these, as they contain something of the customs, fashions, poHtics, diversions, and private history of several years ; which, if worthy of any existence, can be properly transmitted to posterity only in this manner. The reader wiU find a few pieces of inteUigence which did not prove true ; but which are retained here as the Author heard and related them, lest correction should spoU the simple air of the Narra tive.' When the Letters were written, they were never intended for pubHc inspection ; and now they are far from being thought correct, or more authentic than the general turn of epistolatory cor respondence admits. The Author would sooner have burnt them, than have taken the trouble to correct such errant trifles, which are here presented to the Reader, with scarce any variation or omissions, but what private friendships and private history, or the great haste ' They arc marked in the notes. — Walpole. xlii WALPOLE'S ADVERTISEMENT. with which the Letters were written, made indispensably necessary^ as wUl plainly appear, not only by the unavoidable chasms, where the originals were worn out or torn away, but by many idle relations and injudicious remarks and prejudices of a young man ; for which the only excuse the Author can pretend to make, is, that as some future reader may possibly be as young as he was when he first wrote, he hopes they may be amused with what graver people, (if into such hands they should faU,) wiU very justly despise. Who ever has patience to peruse the series, wiU find, perhaps, that as the Author grew older some of his faults became less striking. MR. CROKER'Si PREFACE.'' No apology, it is presumed, is necessary for the foUowing PubHca tion. The Letters of Mr. Walpole have already attained the highest rank in that department of EngHsh Hterature, and seem to deserve their popularity, whether they are regarded as objects of mere amusement, or as a coUection of anecdotes iUustrative of the poHtics, Hterature, and manners of an important and interesting period. The first part of the foUowing coUection is composed of his Letters to his cousin, the Earl of Hertford, while Ambassador at Paris, from 1763 to 1765, which seem, at least as much as those which have preceded them, deserving of the pubHc attention. It appears from some circumstances connected with the Letters themselves, that Mr. Walpole ^vrote them in the intention and hope that they might be preserved ; and although they are enHvened by his characteristic vivacity, and are not deficient in the lighter matters with which he was in the habit of amusing all his correspondents, they are, on the whole, written in a more careful style, and are employed on more important subjects than any others which have yet come to Hght. Of the former coUections, anecdote and chit-chat formed the principal topics, and poHtics were introduced only as they happened to be the news of the day. Of the series now offered to the PubHc, poHtics are the ground- work, and the town-talk is only the accidental embroidery. Mr. Walpole's lately pubHshed " Memoires " ' have given proof of his abUity in sketching parliamentary portraits and condensing parHa- mentary debates. In the foUowing Letters powers of the same class ' The Right Hon. John Wilson Croker. — Cunningham. ' To " Letters from the Hon. Horace Walpole, to the Earl of Hertford, during hi? lordship's embassy in Paris : to which are added Mr. Walpole's letters to the Rev. Henry Zouch." 1825, 4to. — Cunningham. 3 " Memoires of the last Ten Years of the Reign of King George II." 1822. 2 vols. 4to. Edited by Fox, Lord Holland (died 1840), the grandson of Plenry Fox, first Lord PloUand (died 1774). — Cunningham. xliv MR. CROKER'S PREFACE. wUl, it is thought, be recognised ; and as the published parHamentary debates are extremely imperfect for the whole time to which this correspondence relates, Mr. Walpole's spirited sketches are addition- aUy valuable. These Letters also give a near view of the proceedings of poHtical parties during that interesting period, and although the representa tion of so warm a partisan must be read with due caution, a great deal of authentic information on this subject wiU be found, and even the very errors of the writer wiU sometimes tend to elucidate the state of parties during one of the busiest periods of our domestic dis sensions. Mr. Walpole's party feelings were, indeed, so warm, and his judgment of individuals was so often affected by the poHtical Hghts in which he viewed them, that the Editor has thought it due to many eminent poHtical characters to a,dd a few notes to endeavour to explain the prejudices and to correct the misapprehensions under which Mr. Walpole wrote. In doing so, the Editor has, he hopes, shown (what he certainly felt) a perfect impartiaHty, and he flatters himself that he has only endeavoured to perform (however imper fectly) what Mr. Walpole himself, after the heat of party had subsided, would have been incHned to do. Some other notes have been added explanatory of aUusions already by the lapse of time obscure, or Hkely to become so ; and some attempt has been made to save the reader the trouble of referring to magazines and peerages for information relative to the principal persons whom Mr. Walpole had occasion to mention. The second coUection of Letters to the Rev. Henry Zouch, is of a different class from the former ; they are entirely occupied with literary subjects, and principaUy with topics connected with Mr. Walpole's very entertaining " Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors." They wUl be read with interest by those who have paid any critical attention to Mr. Walpole's pubHcations ; aitd they afford a specimen of his Hterary Hfe which may be properly, it is hoped, added to the "general coUection oi his Works." LORD DOVER'S PREFACE^ TO THE FIRST SERIES OF LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. [1833.] In the Preface to the " Memoires of the last Ten Years of the Reign of George II., by Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford," pubHshed in the year 1822, is the foUowing statement. " Among the papers found at Strawberry HUl, after the death of Lord Orford, was the foUowing memorandum, wrapped in an envelope, on which was -written, ' Not to be opened tiU after my wiU.' " ' In my Hbrary at Strawberry Hill are two wainscot chests or boxes, the larger marked with an A, the lesser with a B : — I desire, that as soon as I am dead, my executor and executrix wUl cord up strongly and seal the larger box, marked A, and deUver it to the Honourable Hugh Conway Seymour,^ to be kept by him unopened and unsealed tUl the eldest son of [Laura] Lady Waldegrave, or whichever of her sons, being Earl of Waldegrave, sliaU attain the age of twenty- five years ; when the said chest, with whatever it con tains, shaU be deUvered to him for his own. And I beg that the Honourable Hugh Conway Seymour, when he shaU receive the said chest, wiU give a promise in writing, signed by him, to Lady Walde- ' The editing of these volumes was the last of the useful and modest services rendered to literature by a nobleman of amiable manners, of untarnished public and private character, and of cultivated mind. On this, as on other occasions. Lord Dover performed his part diligently, judiciously, and without the slightest ostenta tion. He had two merits, both of which are rarely found together in a commentator : he was content to be merely a commentator, — to keep in the background, and to leave the foreground to the author whom he had undertaken to illustrate : yet, though willing to be an attendant, he was by no means a slave ; nor did he consider it as part of his editorial duty to see no faults in the writer to whom he faithfully and assiduously rendered the humblest literary offices. — Macaulay (Edinburgh Review, vol. Iviii.) Lord Dover died 10 July, 1833, aged 36. — Cunnikoham. * Son of Walpole's cousin, the Earl of Hertford. He married, in 1786, Anne Horatia, third daughter of James, second Earl of Waldegrave, and died in 1801. — Cunninuuam. ilvi LORD DOVER'S PREFACE. grave, that he or his representatives wiU deHver the said chest, un opened and unsealed, by my executor and executrix, to the first son of Lady Waldegrave who shaU attain the age of twenty-five years. The key of the said chest is in one of the cupboards of the green closet, within the blue breakfast-room, at Strawberry HiU ; and that key, I desire, may be deHvered to Laura, Lady Waldegrave, to be kept by her tUl her son shaU receive the chest. "March 21st, 1790. (Signed) Hon. Horace Walpole Earl of Orford. "Aug. 19, 1796." " In obedience to these directions, the box described in the pre ceding memorandum was corded and sealed with the seals of the Honourable Mrs. Damer and the late Lord Frederick Campbell, the executrix and executor ' of Lord Orford, and by them deHvered to the late Lord Hugh Seymour, by whose representatives it was given up, unopened and unsealed, to the present Earl of Waldegrave,^ when he attained the age of twenty-five. On examining the box, it was found to contain a number of manuscript voliraies and other papers, among which were the Memoires now pubHshed. " The correspondence of Horace Walpole with Sir Horace Mann, now first pubHshed, was also contained in the same box. It appears that Walpole, after the death of Sir Horace, became again the pos sessor of his own letters. He had them copied very carefuUy in three volumes, and annotated them with short notes, explanatory of the persons mentioned in them, with an evident view to their even tual pubHcation. It is from these volumes that the present pubHcation is taken. The notes of the Author have also been printed verbatim. As, how ever, in the period of time which has elapsed since Walpole's death, many of the personages mentioned in the Letters, whom he appears to have thought sufficiently conspicuous not to need remark, have become almost forgotten, the Editor has deemed it necessary to add, as shortly as possible, some account of them ; and he has taken care, whenever he has done so, to distinguish his notes from those of the original author, by the letter D. placed at the end of them. ' The Honourable Mrs. Damer (daughter of General Conway) died 1828, and Lord Frederick Campbell, her uncle. In 1816. — Cunningham. ' John James, sixth Earl of Waldegrave, died 1836. He attained the age of 25 in 1810. — Cokninohak. LORD DOVER'S PREFACE. xlvii This correspondence is perhaps the most interesting one of Walpole's that has as yet appeared ; as, in addition to his usual merit as a letter writer, and the advantage of great ease, which his extreme intimacy with Sir Horace Mann gives to his style, the letters to him are the most uninterrupted series which has thus far been offered to the pubHc. They are also the only letters of Walpole which give an account of that very curious period when his father, Sir Robert Walpole, left office. In his letters hitherto pubHshed, there is a great gap at this epoch ; probably in consequence of his other corre spondents being at the time either in or near London. A single letter to Mr. Conway, dated " London, 1741 " — one to Mr. West, dated " May 4th, 1742," — (none in 1743,) and one to Mr. Conway, dated " Houghton, Oct. 6th, 1744," are aU that appear tUl " May 18th, 1745," when his letters to George Montagu recommence, after an interval of eight years. Whereas, in the correspondence now pub Hshed, there are no less than 117 letters during that interval. The Letters of Walpole to Sir H. Mann have also another ad vantage over those of the same author previously pubHshed — namely, that Sir Horace's constant absence from home, and the distance of his residence from the British Islands, made every occun'ence that happened acceptable to him as news. In consequence, his corre spondent relates to him every thing that takes place, both in the court and in society, — whether the anecdotes are of a pubHc or private nature, — and hence the coUection of letters to him becomes a most exact chronicle of the events of the day, and elucidates verj' amusingly both the manners of the time, and the characters of the persons then alive. In the sketches, however, of character, which Walpole has thus left us, we must always remember that, though a very quick and accurate observer, he was a man of many preju dices ; and that, above aU, his hostUity was unvarying and unbounded with regard to any of his contemporaries, who had been adverse to the person or administration of Sir Robert Walpole. This, though an amiable feeHng, occasionally carries him too far in his invectives, and renders him unjust in his judgments. The answers of Sir Horace Mann are also preserved at Strawberry HUl ' — they are very voluminous, but particularly devoid of interest, as they are written in a dry heavy style, and consist almost entirely of trifling detaUs, of forgotten Florentine society, mixed with small ' Such portions as I have seen of Mann's Letters to Walpole, fully justify Lord Dover's description of their dulness. — Cunningham. xlviii LORD DOVER'S PREFACE. portions of ItaHan poHtical news of the day, which are even stiU less amusing than the former topic. They have, however, been found useful to refer to occasionaUy, in order to explain aUusions in the letters of Walpole. Sir Horace Mann was a contemporary and early friend of Horace Walpole.' He was the second son of Robert Mann, of Linton, in the county of Kent, Esq." He was appointed in 1740 Minister Pleni potentiary from England to the Court of Florence — a post he con tinued to occupy for the long period of forty-six years, tUl his death, at an advanced age, Nov. 6, 1786. In 1755, he was created a Baronet, with remainder to the issue of his brother Galfridus Mann, and in the reign of George the Third, a Knight of the Bath. D. ' The coincidence of remarkable names in the two families of Mann and Walpole, would lead one to imagine that there was also some connexion of relationship between them — and yet none is to be traced in the pedigree of either family. Sir Robert Walpole had two brothers named Horace and Galfridus — and Sir Horace Mann's next brother was named Galfridus Mann. If such a relationship did exist, it probably came through the Burwells, the family of Sir Robert Walpole's mother. — Dover. For Lord Dover's mistake see p. 72, of this volume. — Cunningham. - Sir Horace Mann's father was Deputy-Treasurer of Chelsea Hospital, an appoint ment which he doubtless owed to Sir Robert Walpole. He died at Linton, in Kent March 12, 1752. — Cunnikoham. Students of Walpole have long been enabled to decide for themselves as to the justice of the severe criticisms of Lord Dover and Mr. Peter Cunningham on the letters of Sir Horace Mann. The brilliance of Horace Walpole, it would seem, had so dazzled his editors that they could not even perceive the " lesser light'" of his corres pondent ; but in 1876 appeared two volumes by Dr. Doran, entitled " 'Mann' and Manners at Florence,"* in which copious extracts from Mann's letters, linked together by a vivacious commentary, afford a curious and vivid picture of the Florentine Court. Dr. Doran's editorial hand, it is true, adorned everything it touched; but even he could not make bricks without straw, and whilst admitting that he had to discard from some thousands of letters an immense mass " of mere repetition of Walpole's home news oi- dull comments thereupon," he adds that what remained was " rich in illustrations of life in Italy .'I This is amply proved by his selections, in which Mann chronicles the social and political gossip, describes the Church ceremonials and State pageants of the period, and sketches the famous (and infamous) people who took part in them, generally with a characteristic anecdote or comment, such as his statement that he has become " quite a favourite " with the Duchess of Modena, " by means of an attention of a Barril of small beer which I have procured for her from the fleet" (vol. i. page 161) ; or his announce ment of the marriage of the Young Pretender to the Princess of Stolberg Gadem, " who," Mann says, " will be condemned to live ' alone ' with him, for he is drunk half the day and mad tbe other half" (vol. ii. page 236). In short, these volumes give ample evidence that it was not merely the glamour of friendship which made Walpole so eagerly solicit and so anxiously await Mann's despatches, and on one occasion rejoicingly exclaim— " This has been a noble week 1 I have received three letters at once (rom y°"-" G. T. M. * ¦' 'Mann' and Manners at the Court of Florence," 1740-1786 ; founded on the Letters oi Horace Mann to Horace Walpole. By Dr. Doran, F. S. A. In two volumes. London : Richard Bentley and Son. 1876. MR. WRIGHT'S PREFACE.^ [1840.] The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, as hitherto pubHshed, have consisted of, — 1 . The letters contained in the quarto edition of his works, pubHshed in the year 1798. — 2. His letters to George Montagu, Esq., from 1736 to 1770, which formed one quarto volume, pubHshed in 1818. — 3. His letters to the Rev. WUHam Cole and others, from 1745 to 1782, pubHshed in the same form and year. — 4. His letters to the Earl of Hertford, during his lord ship's embassy to Paris, and also to the Rev. Henry Zouch, which appeared in quarto, in 1825. — And, 5. His letters to Sir Horace ]\iann, British Envoy at the Court of Tuscany, from 1741 to 1760, first published in 1833, in three volumes octavo, from the originals in the possession of the Earl of Waldegrave ; edited by Lord Dover, with an original memoir of the author. To the above are now added several hundred letters, which have hitherto existed only in manuscript, or made their appearance singly and incidentaUy in other works. In this new collection, besides the letters to Miss Berry, are some to the Hon. H. S. Conway, and John Chute, Esq., omitted in former editions ; and many to Lady Suffolk, his brother-in-law Charles Churchill, Esq., Captain Jephson, Sir David Dalrymple, Lord HaUes, the Earl of Buchan, the Earl of Charlemont, Mr. Gibbon, Mr. Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, George Hardinge, Esq., Mr. Pinkerton, and other distinguished characters. The letters to the Rev. WiUiam Cole have been care fuUy examined with the originals, and many explanatory notes added, from the manuscript coUections of that indefatigable antiquary, deposited in the British Museum. ' Prefixed to the first collected edition of Walpole's Letters, published in 1840. Mr. John Wright, editor of the seventeen-volume edition of Byron's Works, of the ten-volume edition of BosweU's Johnson, &c. Mr. Wright, originally a publisher in Piccadilly, died February 25, 1844.— Cunningham. 1 MR. WRIGHT'S PREFACE Besides being the only complete edition ever pubHshed of the incomparable letters of this " prince of epistolary writers," as he has been designated by an eminent critic, the present work possesses the further advantage of exhibiting the Letters themselves in chrono logical order. Thus the whole series forms a lively and most interesting commentary on the events of the age, as well as a record of the most important transactions, invaluable to the historian and poHtician, from 1735 to 1797 — a period of more than sixty years. As a suitable introduction, prefixed to the whole coUection of Letters are the author's admirable " Reminiscences of the Courts of George the First and Second," which were first narrated to, and, in 1788, written for the amusement of. Miss Mary and Miss Agnes Berry. To the former of these ladies the pubHc is indebted for a curious commentary on the Reminiscences, contained in extracts from the letters of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, to the Earl of Stair, now first pubHshed from the original manuscripts. Of the Remi niscences themselves it has been truly observed, that, both in manner and matter, they are the very perfection of anecdote writing, and make us better acquainted with the manners of George the First and Second and their Courts, than we should be after perusing a hundred heavy historians. It remains only to add, that the original notes of Horace Walpole are throughout retained, undistinguished by any signature ; whereas, those of the various editors are indicated by a characteristic initial. which is explained in the progress of the work. [MR. WRIGHT'S " ADVERTISEMENT " TO VOL. VI.] The present volume will be found to contain upwards of one hundred letters introduced into no former edition of the Cor respondence of Horace Walpole. The greater part of them were written between the years 1789 and 1797, and were addressed to the Miss Berrys, during their residence in Italy. MISS MARY BERRY'S ADVERTISEMENT TO THE LETTERS ADDRESSED TO THE MISSES BERRY.' [1840.] To the first edition of Lord Orford's works, which was pubHshed the year after he died, no Memoir of his life was prefixed: his death was too recent, his Hfe and character too weU known, his works too popular, to require it. His political Memoirs, and the coUections of his Letters which have been subsequently published, were edited by persons, who, though well quaUfied for their task in every other respect, have faUcd in their account of his private life, and their appreciation of his individual character, from the want of a personal acquaintance with their author. The Hfe contained in Sir Walter Scott's Biographical Sketches of the EngHsh NoveHsts labours under the same disadvantages. He had never seen Lord Orford, nor even Hved much with such of his intimates and contemporaries in society as survived him. Lord Dover, who has so admirably edited the first part of his correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, knew Lord Orford only by having been carried sometimes, when a boy, by his father Lord Clifden to Strawberry Hill.^ His editorial labours with these Letters were the last occupation of his accompHshed mind, and were pursued whUe his body was fast sinking under the compHcation of disease, which so soon after depiived society of one of its most distinguished members, the arts of an enHghtened patron, and his intimates of an amiable and attaching friend. Of the meagreness and insufficiency of his memoir of Lord Orford's Hfe prefixed to the Letters, he was himself aware,' and expressed to the author of these pages his ' From volume vi. of Mr. Wright's Collected Edition of Walpole's Letters. — Cunningham. ^ Lord Dover was a baby not two months old when Lord Orford died. — Cun ningham. * It is so slight and meagre that J have omitted it altogether. Walpole's " Short VOL. 1. '^ Iii MISS BERRY'S ADVERTISEMENT. inabiHty then to improve it, and his regret that circumstances had deprived him, while it was yet time, of the assistance of those who could have furnished him with better materials. His account of the latter part of Lord Orford's Hfe is deficient in detaUs, and sometimes erroneous as to dates. He appears Hkewise to have been unac quainted with some of his writings, and the circumstances which led to and accompanied them. In the present pubHcation these defi ciencies are suppHed from notes, in the hands of the writer,' left by Lord Orford, of the dates of the principal events of his own Hfe, and of the writing and pubHcation of aU his works. It is only to be regretted that his autobiography is so short, and so entirely confined to dates. In estimating the character of Lord Orford, and in the opinion which he gives of his talents. Lord Dover has evinced much candour and good taste. He praises with discrimination, and draws no unfair inferences from the pecuHarities of a character with which he was not personaUy acquainted. It is by the Review'' of the Letters to Sir Horace Mann, that the severest condemnation has been passed and the most unjust impres sions given, not only of the genius and talents, but of the heart and character, of Lord Orford. The mistaken opinions of the eloquent and accompHshed author of that review are to be traced chiefly to the same causes which defeated the intentions of the two first biographers. In his case, these causes were increased, not only by no acquaintance with his subject, but by stiU farther removal from the fashions, the social habits, the little minute detaUs, of the age to which Horace Walpole belongs, — an age so essentiaUy different from the business, the movement, the important stiuggles, of that which claims the critic as one of its most distinguished ornaments. A conviction that these reasons led to his having drawn up, from the supposed evidence of Walpole's works alone, a character of their author so entirely and offensively unlike the original, has forced the pen into the feeble and failing hand of the writer of these pages, — has imposed the pious duty of attempting to rescue, by incon trovertible facts acquired in long intimacy, the memory of an old and beloved friend, from the giant grasp of an author and a critic Notes " of his life (which Lord Dover had never seen), together with his Letters as here arranged, form an ample autobiography. — Cunningham. ' The " Short Notes," first printed in the Second Series of the Letters to Mann, and here reprinted. — Cunningham. 2 By Mr. Macaulay, of the First Series of Walpole's Letters to Mann.— See Ediu burgh Review, vol. Iviii., and Mr. Macaulay's Essays. — Cunninoham. MISS BERRY'S ADVERTISEMENT. liil from whose judgment, when deliberately formed, few can hope to appeal with success. The candour, the good-nature of this critic, — the inexhaustible stores of his literary acquirements, which place him in the first rank of those most distinguished for historical knowledge and critical acumen, — wUl aUow him, I feel sure, to forgive this appeal from his hasty and general opinion, to the iudgment of his better informed mind, on the peculiarities of a character often remarkably dissimUar from that of his works. Lord Dover has justly and forcibly remarked, " that what did the most honour both to the head and the heart of Horace Walpole, was the friendship which he bore to Marshal Conway ; a man who, according to aU the accounts of him that have come down to us, was so truly worthy of inspiring such a degree of affection.' " He then quotes the character given of him by the editor of Lord Orford's works in 1798. This character of Marshal Conway was a portrait drawn from the Hfe, and, as it proceeded from the same pen which now traces these Hues, has some right to be inserted here. " It is only those who have had the opportunity of penetrating into the most secret motives of his public conduct, and into the inmost recesses of his private Hfe, who can do real justice to the unsulHed purity of his character ; — who saw and knew him in the evening of his days, retired from the honourable activity of a soldier and of a statesman, to the calm enjoyments of private Hfe ; happy in the resources of his own mind, and in the cultivation of useful science, in the bosom of domestic peace — ^unenriched by pensions or places — undistinguished by titles or ribbons — unsophisticated by pubHc life, and unwearied by retirement." To this man. Lord Orford's attachment, from their boyish days at Eton school to the death of Marshal Conway in 1795, is already a circumstance of sufficiently rare occurrence among men of the world. Could such a man, of whom the foregoing lines are an unvamished sketch — of whose character, simpHcity was one of the distinguished ornaments — could such a man have endured the intimacy of such an individual as the reviewer describes Lord Orford to have been ? Could an intercourse of uninterrupted friendship and undiminished confidence have existed between them during a period of nearly sixty years, undisturbed by the business and bustle of middle Hfe, so apt to cool, and often to terminate, youthful friendships ? Could such an intercourse ever have existed, with the supposed * Sketch of the Life of Horace Walpole, by Lord Dover, — Berry liv MISS BERRY'S ADVERTISEMENT. selfish indifference, and artificial coldness and conceit of Lord Orford's character ? The last correspondence included in the present publication' wiU, it is presumed, furnish no less convincing proof, that the warmth of his feelings, and his capacity for sincere affection, continued unen- feebled by age. It is with this view, and this alone, that the corre spondence aUuded to is now, for the first time, given to the pubHc. It can add nothing to the already established epistolary fame of Lord Orford, and the pubHc can be as Httle interested in his senti ments for the two individuals addressed. But, in forming a just estimate of his character, the reader wiU hardly fail to observe, that those sentiments were entertained at a time of life when, for the most part, the heart is too Httle capable of expansion to open to new attachments. The whole tone of these Letters must prove the unim paired warmth of his feeHngs, and form a striking contrast to the cold harshness of which he has been accused, in his intercourse with Madame du Deffand, at an earlier period of his life. This harshness, fis was noticed by the editor of Madame du Deffand's letters,'' in the preface to that publication, proceeded solely from a dread of ridicule, which formed a principal feature of Mr. Walpole's character, and which, carried, as in his case, to excess, must be caUed a principal weakness. " This accounts for the ungracious language in which he so often replies to the importunities of her anxious affection ; a lan guage so foreign to his heart, and so contrary to his own habits in friendship."^ Is this, then, the man who is supposed to be " the most eccentric, the most artificial, the most fastidious, the most capricious of mortals — his mind a bundle of inconsistent whims and affectations — ^his features covered with mask within mask, which, when the outer dis guise of obvious affectation was removed, you were stiU as far as ever from seeing the real man." — " Affectation is the essence of the man. It pervades all his thoughts, and all his expressions. If it were taken away, nothing would be left.'" He affected nothing ; he played no part ; he was what he appeared to be. Aware that he was Ul quaHfied for poHtics, for pubHc Hfe, for parHamentary business, or indeed for business of any sort, the ' Walpole's Letters to Miss Berry, and her sister, Miss Agues Berry, first pub lished by Mr. Wright in 1840.— Cunningham. ^ Miss Berry herself. — Cunningham. ^ See Preface to Madame du Deff'and's Letters, p. xi.— Berry. * See Edinburgh Review, vol. Iviii. p. 233. — Berry. MISS BERRY'S ADVERTISEMENT. 1» whole tenour of his life was consistent with this opinion of himself. Had he attempted to effect what belongs only to characters of another stamp — ^had he endeavoured to take a lead in the House of Commons — ^had he sought for place, dignity, or office — had he aimed at intrigue, or attempted to be a tool for others — then, indeed, he might have deserved the appeUation of artificial, eccentric, and capricious. From the retreat of his father, which happened the year after he entered ParHament, the only real interest he took in poHtics was when their events happened immediately to concern the objects of his private friendships. He occupied himself with what reaUy amused him. If he had affected anything, it would certainly not have been a taste for the trifling occupations with which he is reproached. Of no person can it be less truly said, that " affectation was the essence of the man." What man, or even what woman, ever affected to be the frivolous being he is described ? When his critic says, that he had " the soul of a gentleman-usher," he was little aware that he only repeated what Lord Orford often said of himself — that from his knowledge of old ceremonials and etiquettes, he was sure that in a former state of existence, he must have been a gentleman-usher about the titne of Elizabeth.'' In poHtics, he was what he professed to be, a Whig, in the sense which that denomination bore in his yotmger days, — never a Re- pubHcan. In his old and enfeebled age, the horrors of the first French revo lution made him a Tory ; whUe he always lamented, as one of the worst effects of its excesses, that they must necessarily retard to a distant period the progress and estabHshment of civU Hberty. But why are we to beHeve his contempt for crowned heads should have prevented his writing a memoir of " Royal and Noble Authors ? " Their Hterary labours, when aU brought together by himself, woiUd not, it is beHeved, tend much to raise, or much to alter his opinion of them. In his letters fr-om Paris, written in the years 1765, 1766, 1767, and 1771, it wiU be seen, that so far from being infinitely more occupied •with " the fashions and gossip of VersaiUes and MarH than with a great moral revolution which was taking place in his sight," ' Ma.T0u had said as much before Mr. Macaulay was born, and to Walpole himself. Who, had he lived in the Third Richard's reign. Had been Lord Steward or Lord Chamberlain. Mason to Walpole. — Ccnninouak. hi MISS BERRY'S ADVERTISEMENT. he was truly aware of the state of the pubHc mind, and foresaw all that was coming on. Of Rousseau he has proved that he knew more, and that he judged him more accm-ately, than Mr. Hume, and many others who were then duped by his mad pride and disturbed understanding. Voltaire had convicted himself of the basest of vain Hes in the inter- coui-se he sought with Mr. Walpole. The details of this transaction, and the letters which passed at the time, are afready printed in the quarto edition of his Works. In the " Short Notes " of his Hfe left by himself, and from which aU the dates in this notice are taken, it is thus mentioned : " .Although Voltaire, with whom I had never had the least acquaint ance, had voluntarUy written to me first, and asked for my book, he wrote a letter to the Duohesse de Choiseul, in which, without saying a syUable of his having written to me first, he told her I had offi ciously sent him my works, and declared war with him in defence ' de ce bouffbn de Shakspeare,' whom in his reply to me he pretended so much to admire. The Duchesse sent me Voltaire's letter ; which gave me such a contempt for his disingenuity, that I dropped aU correspondence with him." When he spoke with contempt of d'Alembert, it was not of his abiUties ; of which he never pretended to judge. Professor Saunder- son had long before, when he was a lad at Cambridge, assured him, that it would be robbing him to pretend teaching him mathematics, of which his mind was perfectly incapable, so that any comparison " of the inteUectual powers of the two men " would indeed be as " exquisitely ridiculous " as the critic declares it. But Lord Orford, speaking of d'Alembert, complains of the overweening importance which he, and aU the men of letters of those days in France, attri buted to their squabbles and disputes. The idleness to which an absolute government necessarily con demns nine- tenths of its subjects, sufficiently accounts for the exag gerated importance given to and assumed by the French writers, even before they had become, in the language of the Reviewer, " the interpreters between England and mankind :" he asserts, " that aU the great discoveries in physics, in metaphysics, in poHtical science, are ours ; but no foreign nation, except France, has received them from us by direct communication : isolated in our situation, isolated by our manners, we found tmth, but did not impart it." ' It may ' Edinburgh Review, vol Ivin. p. 233. — Berry, MISS BERRY'S ADVERTISEMENT. Ivii surely be asked, whether France wiU subscribe to this assertion of superiority, in the whole range of science ? If she does, her cha racter has undergone a greater change than any she has yet expe rienced in the course of aU her revolutions. Lord Orford is beHeved by his critic to have " sneered " at every body. Sneering was not his way of showing dislike. He had very strong prejudices, sometimes adopted on very insufficient grounds, and he therefore often made great mistakes in the appreciation of cha racter ; but when influenced by such impressions, he always expressed his opinions directly, and often too violently. The affections of his heart were bestowed on few ; for in early Hfe they had never been cultivated, but they were singularly warm, pure, and constant ; characterised not by the ardour of passion, but by the constant preoccupation of real affection. He had lost his mother, to whom he was fondly attached, early in life ; and with his father, a man of coarse feeHngs and boisterous manners, he had few sentiments in common. Always feeble in constitution, he was unequal to the sports of the field, and to the drinking which then accompanied them ; so that dming his father's retreat at Houghton, however much he respected his abUities and was devoted to his fame, he had Httle sympathy in his tastes, or pleasure in his society. To the friends of his own selection his devotion was not confined to professions or words : on aU occasions of difficulty, of whatever nature, his active affection came forward in defence of their character, or assistance in their affairs. When his friend Conway, as second in command under Sir John Mordaunt, in the expedition to St. Maloes, partook in some degree of the pubHc censure caUed forth by the faUure of these repeated iU- judged attempts on the coast of France, Walpole's pen was imme diately employed in rebutting the accusations of the popular pamphlet of the day on this subject, and estabHshing his friend's exemption from any responsibUity in the failure. When, on a more important occa sion, Mr. Conway was not only dismissed from being Equerry to the King, George III., but fr-om the command of his Regiment, for his constitutional conduct and votes in the House of Commons, in the memorable affair of the legaHty of General Warrants for the seizure of persons and papers, Walpole immediately stepped forward, not with cold commendations of his friend's upright and spirited conduct, but with aU the confidence of long-tried affection, and all the security of noble minds incapable of misunderstanding each other, he insisted on being aUowed to share in future his fortune with his friend, and Iviii iiISS BERRY'S ADVERTISEMENT. thus more than repair the pecuniary loss he had incurred. Mr. Conway, in a letter to his brother Lord Hertford, of this period, says, " Horace " Walpole has on this occasion shown that warmth of friendship " that you know him capable of so strongly, that I want words to " express my sense of it ; " thus proving the justice he did to Walpole's sentiments and intentions. In the case of General Conway's near relationship and intimacy from chUdhood, the cause in which his fortunes were suffering might have warmed a colder heart, and opened a closer hand, than Mr. Walpole's : but Madame du Deffand was a recent acquaintance, who had no claim on him, but the pleasure he received from her society, and his desire that her bHnd and helpless old age might not be deprived of any of the comforts and aUeviations of which it was capable. When, by the financial arrangements of the French government, under the unscrupiUous administration of the Abbe Terray, the creditors of the state were considerably reduced in income, Mr. AValpole, in the most earnest manner, begged to prevent the unpleasantness of his old friend's exposing her necessities, and imploring aid from the minister of the day, by aUowing him to make up the deficit in her revenue, as a loan, or in any manner that would be most satisfactory to her. The loss, after aU, did not faU on that stock from which she derived her income, and the assistance was not accepted ; but Madame du Deffand's confidence in, and opinion of, the offer, we see in her letters. Du*-ing his after life, although no ostentatious contributor to pubHo diarities and schemes of improvement, the friends in whose opinion he knew he could confide, had always more difficulty to repress than to excite his HberaHty. That he should have wished his friend Conway to be employed as Commander on mUitary expeditions, which, as a soldier fond of his profession, he naturaUy coveted, although Mr. Walpole might dis approve of the policy of the minister in sending out such expeditions, surely impHes neither disguise, nor contradiction in his opinions. The dread which the Reviewer supposes him to have had, lest he should lose caste as a gentleman, by ranking as a -wit and an author, he was much too fine a gentleman to have beHeved in the possibiHty of feeHng. He knew he had never studied since he left coUege ; he knew that he was not at aU a learned man : but the reputation that he had acquired by his -wit and by his -writings, not only, among fine gentlemen but -with society in general, made him nothing loath to cultivate every opportunity of increasing it. The account he gave MISS BERRY'S ADVERTISEMENT. lix of the idleness of his Hfe to Sir Horace Mann, when he disclaims the title of " the learned gentleman," was HteraUy true ; and it is not easy to imagine any reason why a man at the age of forty-three, who admits that he is idle, and who renounces being either a learned man or a poHtician, should be " ashamed " of playing loo in good company tUl two or three o'clock in the morning, if he neither ruins himself nor others.' Ho -wrote his letters as rapidly as his disabled fingers would aUow him to form the characters of a remarkably legible hand. No rough draughts or sketches of familiar letters were found amongst his papers at Strawberry EtiU : but he was in the habit of putting do-wn on the backs of letters or on sHps of paper, a note of facts, of news, of witticisms, or of anything he -wished not to forget, for the amusement of his correspondents. -Mter reading " The Mysterious Mother," who -wiU accede to the opinion, that his works are " destitute of every charm that is derived from elevation, or from tenderness, of sentiment ? " ' But, with opinions as to the genius, the taste, or the talents of Lord Orford, this Httle notice has nothing to do. It aims solely at rescuing his indi-vidual character from misconceptions. Of the means necessary for this purpose, its -writer, by the " painful pre eminence " of age, remains the sole depositary, and being so, has submitted to the task of repelling such misconceptions. It is done -with the reluctance which must always be experienced in differing from, or caUing in question, the opinions of a person, for whom is felt aU the admiration and respect due to super- eminent abUities, and aU the grateful pride and affectionate regard inspired by personal friendship. m. October 1840. ' See Edinburgh Review, vol. Iviii. page 232. — Berby, ' Ibid, page 237.— Berri. MR. VERNON SMITH'S^ PREFACE TO WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO LADY OSSORY, FROM 1769 TO 1797. [2 VOLS. 8vo. 1848.] HoE-ACT Walpole has so long been a favourite in the Hterary world, that I need hardly offer any explanation to the PubHc for the pubHcation of the present Series of Letters. They comprise perhaps as complete and continuous a correspondence -with one indi-vidual as any that has appeared. As they are -written to a lady, they Ulustrate the tone of society of that day ; for while they preserve a formaHty of address which no one woiUd now use after so long an acquaintance, they contain aUusions and anecdotes scarcely permis sible to the more refined taste of our o-wn times. Lady Ossory was said by those who knew her best, to have been " gifted with high endo-wments of mind and person, high-spirited, and noble in her ways of thinking, and generous in her disposition." " She was a beautiful woman, her mental faculties superior ; she possessed a Hvely imagination, quick discernment, ready -wit, great -vivacity both in conversation and -writing. In her last illness, which was long and painftU, she e-vinced the greatest fortitude, stiength of mind, tenderness, resignation, and patience." It does not appear that Lord Orford preserved any of her letters : indeed, his correspondents generaUy appear to have entertained greater regard for his abiHties than he did for theirs. From the specimens I have seen of Lady Ossory's letters they were easy and negHgent, but perhaps intentionally calculated rather to eHcit answers than to convey much information, or express any -vigorous opinions themselves. The few notes which I have added relate only to such circum- ' The Right Honourable Richard Vernon Smith, M.P., President of the Board of Control. — Cunningham. MR. VERNON SMITH'S PREFACE. Ixi stances as my relationship enabled me to explain of family history. I have purposely abstained from the repetition of accounts of persons which have been given in former editions of Walpole's letters, which are derived from registers and magazines, open to the observation of all who think it worth whUe to pursue such inquiries. I present the Work to the pubHc for their amusement : if they derive any from it, the obHgation is to the writer, of whose thoughts I am only the vehicle of communication. If they adopt my impres sion of these Letters, it is that they place Lord Orford in a more amiable attitude, as to feeHngs and friendships, than he has hitherto stood. At any rate, ha-ving been urged by persons of whose judgment I hold a high opinion, to pubHsh them, it seems to me not right to withhold them ; and I am not aware that there is any one now aUve who can be offended by one word in them. R, V. S. Parmihg-Woods, April 26, 1848. MR. VERNON SMITH'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION OF WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO LADY OSSORY. [1840.] Much fault has been found with the absence of Notes to explain the aUusions in the Letters of Walpole to Lady Ossory. In the few sentences prefixed to them, it was stated, that I was only the vehicle of their communication to the pubHc, and claimed no further merit. I am quite sensible, that if great dUigence had been employed upon them, the pubHcation might have been made more agreeable to readers. The critical writers who have complained of my negHgence in this respect, may be assured that it arose from no want of respect for their art or labours, but from not ha-ving the leisure or abUity to irrutate them. If, being aware of this, the PubHc should think I ought to have abstained from pubHcation altogether, I must submit to be condemned for my intrusion upon their time.' * * * R. V. S. Farming-Woods, October, 1848. ' I have here omitted Mr. Smith's successful vindication of himself, from an error attributed to him in the " Quarterly Review ;" Mr. Smith's information will, in this edition, be found in its more appropriate place, the letter to which it relates. — Cunninoham. MK. BENTLEY'S "ADVERTISEMENT" TO THE CONCLUDING 3BRIES OF LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN [4 VOLS. 8vo. 1843.] '.I'he foUo-wing Letters, -written by the celebrated Horace Walpole, complete his Correspondence -with Sir Horace Mann, a portion of which was pubHshed by Lord Dover in 1833. It was beHeved that the immediate descendants of the subjects of some of Walpole's racy anecdotes might be pained by their early pubHcation, and the wit of the dead was reserved untU it could appear -without pain to the Hving. That period ha-ving now arrived, the Earl of Euston,' sur- ¦vi-ving Executor of the late Earl of Waldegrave, has placed the whole of Walpole's unpubHshed Manuscripts, including his Letters, Memoirs, Private Journals, &c., in the hands of Mr. Bentley. June 23, 1843. ' The present (1856) Duke of Grafton, grandson of Laura, Count«83 of Waldegrave, and Duchess of Gloucester. — Conninoua,"!!. EXTRACT FROM THE REV. JOHN MITFORD'S PREFACE TO THE CORRESPONDENCE OP WALPOLE AND THE REV. WILLIAM MASON. [2 VOLS. 8vo. 1851.] The Letters of Mason, now first printed, formed part of the CoUection of Manuscripts purchased of the Duke of Grafton; as executor of the late Earl of Waldegrave, and were entrusted to me for publication ; and whUe I was lamenting the imperfect manner in which they would appear, from want of the answers of the corres pondent, my friend, Archdeacon Burney informed me that the corresponding Letters of Walpole were carefuUy, and in their entire form, preserved at the Rectory House at Aston. The Introduction which I obtained from him was most kindly received by Mr. .Alderson,' the present possessor of the place, and -with a HberaHty for which my thanks are now to be paid, he aUowed me the use of the volumes, that for more than half a century had been under the safe protection of his father and himself. I do not think that any other in the long series of Walpole's Epistolary Works exceeds them in general interest ; and in the information which relates to Hterature, they perhaps excel them aU. ****** ¦" J. M. Benhall, May 1, 1861. ' The Rev.Charles Alderson was Mason's intimate friend and sole executor, and succeeded him in the rectory of Aston, which was subsequently possessed by his son, the present rector. — Mitford, 1851. — Cunningham. - Other portions of Mr. Mitford's Preface will be found in this edition, attached to the letters they more immediately relate to. — Cunningham. ^i)ort 0OUQ of mp iltfe SHORT NOTES OF MY LIFE.^ [1717-1779.] I -WAS bom in -Arlington Stieet, near St. James's, London, Sep tember 24th, 1717, O.S. My godfathers were Charles Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton,' and my uncle Horatio Walpole ; ' my godmother, my aunt Dorothy, Lady Viscountess Townshend.* I was inoculated for the smaU-pox in 1724. In 1725 I went to Bexley, in Kent, -with my cousins, the four younger sons * of Lord To-wnshend, and -with a tutor, Edward Weston,* one of the sons of Stephen, Bishop of Exeter [1724-1742] ; and continued there some months. The next summer I had the same education at Twickenham, Middlesex ; and the intervening -winters I went every day to study under Mr. Weston, at Lord To-wnshend's. April 26th, 1727, I went to Eton school, where Mr. Henry Bland ' These Notes were evidently compiled for the use of Miss Berry and her father ; and were first published in 1843, in the fourth volume of the second and concluding series of the Letters to Mann. — Cunningham. 2 Charles Fitzroy, second Duke of Grafton (died 1757), son of the first Duke, whose father was Charles II., and his mother Barbara Villiers Duchess of Cleveland. — Cunningham. ^ Horatio Walpole ("old Horace,") created 1756 Baron Walpole of Wolterton, died 5th Feb. 1767 : old and young Horace did not live on very friendly terms, and throughout the correspondence of young Horace, his contempt for his uncle is very apparent. — Cunningham . * The only sister of Sir Robert Walpole, and second wife of Charles second Viscount Townshend ; died 1726. — Cunningham. * George, who died a rear-admiral in 1762, aged 54 ; Augustus, the captain of an Indiaman, who died unmarried in 1746; Horatio, who died unmarried in 1764; and Edward, who died Dean of Norwich in 1765. — Cunningham. ° Weston, the son of the late bishop of Exeter, the present Gazetteer by profession, by inclination a Methodist, and connected with Thomas and Sherlock, is writing against my conclusion of the Dedication to the Jews concermng Naturalisation. It seems he wrote in defence of that Bill. The father was tutor to Walpole, and the son is one of his pupils. I am afraid he will be a sharer in that silent contempt with which I treat my answerers. — Warburton to Hurd, Feb. 17, 1759. — Cunningham. VOL. I. « Ixviii SHORT NOTES OF MY LIFE. (since Prebendary of Durham), eldest son of Dr. Henry Bland, master of the school, and since Dean of Durham and Provost of Eton, was my tutor.' I was entered at Lincoln's Inn, May 27th, 1731, my father intending me for the law ; but I never went thither, not caring for the profession. I left Eton school September 23rd, 1734 ; and March 11th, 1735, went to King's CoUege, Cambridge. My pubHc tutor was Mr. John Smith ; my private, Mr. .Ajistey : afterwards Mr. John Whaley was my tutor. I went to lectures in ci-vU law to Dr. Dickens, of Trinity- haU ; to mathematical lectures, to bHnd Professor Saunderson,^ for a short time ; afterwards, Mr. Trevigar read lectures to me in mathe matics and phUosophy. I heard Dr. Battie's anatomical lectures. I had learned French at Eton. I learnt ItaHan at Cambridge, of Signer Piazza. At home I learned to dance and fence ; and to draw of Bernard Lens,^ master to the Duke [of Cumberland] and [the] Princesses [Mary and Louisa]. In 1736 I -wrote a copy of Latin verses, pubHshed in the Oratu- latio Acad. Cantab., on the marriage of Frederic, Prince of Wales. My mother died August 20th, 1737. Soon after, my father gave me the place of Inspector of the Imports and Exports in the Custom-house, which I resigned on his appointing me Usher of the Exchequer, in the room of Colonel WUHam To-wnshend, January 29th, 1738 — and as soon as I came of age, I took possession of two other Httle patent-places in the Exchequer, caUed ComptioUer of the Pipe, and Clerk of the Estreats. They had been held for me by Mr. Fane. My father's second -wife, Mrs. Maria Skerret, died June, 1738. I had continued at Cambridge, though -with long intervals, tiU towards the end of 1738, and did not leave it in form tiU 1739, in which year, March 10th, I set out on my travels with my friend Mr. Thomas Gray, and went to Paris. From thence, after a stay of about two months, we went -with my cousin Henry Conway, to Rheims, in ' Dr. Henry Bland died 24th May, 1746. Hie Latin version of Gate's Soliloquy was honoured by insertion in The Spectator, No. 628; and compare Letter 29th June, 1744. — Cunningham. ' Compare Letter to Miss Berry, 16th August, 1796.— Cunningham. ' He [Bernard Lens, died 1741] was drawing master to the Duke of Cumberland and the Princesses Mary and Louisa, and to one whom nothing but gratitude can justify my joining with such names, the author of this work ; my chief reason for it is to bear testimony to the virtues and integrity of so good a man, as weU as excellent artist. — Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting. — Cunningham, SHORT NOTES OF MY LIFK. liix Champagne, staid there three months ; and passing by Geneva, where we left Mr. Conway, Mr. Gray and I went by Lyons to Turin, over the .Alps, and from thence to Genoa, Parma, Placentia, Modena, Bologna, and Florence. There we staid three months, chiefiy for the sake of Mr. Horace Maim, the EngHsh Minister. Clement the Twelfth dying whUe we were in Italy, we went to Rome in the end of March, 1740, to see the election of the new Pope ; but the Con clave continuing, and the heats coming on, we (after an excursion to Naples) returned in June to Florence, where we continued in the house of Mr. Horace Mann tUl May of the foUo-wing year, 1741, when we went to the fair of Reggie. There Mr. Gray left me, going to Venice -with Mr. Francis Whithed and Mr. John Chute, for the festival of the .Ascension. I feU iU at Reggio of a kind of quinzy, and was given over for five hours, escaping -with great difficulty. I went to Venice -with Henry CHnton, Earl of Lincoln,' and Mr. Joseph Spence, Professor of Poetiy," and after a month's stay there, returned -with them by sea from Genoa, landing at .Antibes, and by the way of Toulon, MarseUles, Aix, and through Languedoc to MontpeUier, Toulouse, and Orleans, arrived at Paris, where I left the Earl and Mr. Spence, and landed at Dover, September 12th, 1741, O.S., having been chosen Member of ParHament for KeUington, in ComwaU, at the preceding General Election, which ParHament put a period to my father's administiation, which had continued above twenty years. February 9th, 1742, my father resigned, and was created Earl of Orford. He left the house in Downing-stieet belonging to the Exchequer, and retired to one in Arlington- street, opposite to that in which I was bom, and which stood where the additional buUding to Mr. Pelham's ' house now stands. March 23rd, 1742, I spoke in the House of Commons for the first time, against the motion for a Secret Committee on my father. This speech was pubHshed in the Magazines, but was entirely false, and had not one paragraph of my real speech in it.* ' Lord Lincoln and Mr, \Valpole (youngest son to Sir Robert) left this place two days ago ; they visited me during their short stay ; they are gone to Marseilles and design passing some months in the south of France. — Lady M. W. Montagu to Mr. Wortley, Genoa, July 15, 1741. — Cunningham. ' The friend of Pope, and author of the well-known " Anecdotes " which bear his name. See vol i. p. 30 and p, 64. — Cunninghajl ^ Henry Pelham, died 1754. — Cunningham. ¦¦ See the speech itself in a letter from Walpole to Mann, dated 24th March, 1742. Vol. L p. 147. — Cunningham. Ixx SHORT NOTES OF MY LIFE. July 14th, I wrote the Lesson for the Bay,^ in a letter to Mr. Mann; and Mr. Coke,' son of Lord Level,' coming in whUe I was -writing it, took a copy, and dispersed it tiU it got into print, but -with many additions, and was the original of a great number of things of that sort." In the summer of 1742 I wrote a Sermon on Painting, for the amusement of my father in his retirement. It was preached before him by his chaplain ; again, before my eldest brother at Stanno, near Houghton ; and was afterwards published [1747] in the Mies WalpoHanae. June 18th, 1743, was printed, in a weekly paper caUed Old England, or the Constitutional Journal, my " Parody on some Scenes of Macbeth, caUed The Dear Witches." It was a ridicule of the new Ministry. The same summer, I -wrote Patapan,' or the Little White Dog, a tale, imitated from Fontaine ; it was never printed. October 22nd, 1743, was pubHshed No. 38 of the Old England Journal, -written by me to ridicule Lord Bath. It was reprinted with three other particular numbers. In the summer of 1744 I wrote a Parody of a Scene in ComeiUe's Cinna ; the interlocutors, Mr. Pelham, Mr. Arundel, and Mr. Sel-wyn. My father died March 28th, 1745. He left me the house in Arlington-street in which he died, 5000/. in money, and 1000/. a-year from the CoUector's place in the Custom-house, and the surplus to be di-vided between my brother Edward and me. April 12th, 1746, was pubHshed, in a magazine called The Museum, my Scheme for a Tax on Message Cards and Notes ; and soon after, an Advertisement of a pretended new book, which I had written in Florence in 1741. ' The Lessons for the Day : being the First and Second Chapters of the Book ot Preferment. London : Printed for W. Webb, near St. Paul's. 1'742. — Cunningham. ^ Edward, Lord Viscount Coke, only son of the Earl of Leicester. He died in 1753. His wife. Lady Mary Coke (a daughter of the great Duke of Argyll and Greenwich), survived her husband, without remarrying, fifty-eight years. — Cunningham. ^ Thomas Level, afterwards, 1744, Viscount Coke and Earl of Leicester; died 1759. Pope has introduced him into his verses to Lady Frances Shirley and Sir C, H&nbnry Williams into his poem of "Morning." — Cunningham. ¦¦ It is reprinted in Sir C. H. WUliams's Works, iii. 28, but of course in error. At the same time appeared, price sixpence, and by the same publisher, "The Evening Lessons." — Cunningham. ' The name of a favourite dog which Walpole brought from Rome to England, See Letter to Conway, March 27, 1741. — Cunningham. SHORT NOTES OF MY LIFE. Ixii In July of the same year, I wrote The Beauties, which was handed about tUl it got into print, very incorrectly.' In August I took a house within the precincts of the Castle at Windsor. November 4th and 5th, Mrs. Pritchard spoke my EpUogue to " Tamerlane," on the suppression of the RebeUion, at the theatre in Covent Garden ; it was printed by Dodsley the next day. About the same time, I paraphrased some Hues of the first book of Lucan ; but they have not been printed. In 1747 I printed my account of the coUection at Houghton, under the title of " .^des WalpoHanae." It had been dra-wn up in the year 1743. I printed but two hundi-ed copies, to give away. It was very incorrectly printed ; another edition, more accurate, and enlarged, was pubHshed March 10th, 1752. In May 1747 I took a smaU house near Twickenham, for seven years. I afterwards [1748] bought it, by Act of ParHament, it belong ing to minors ; " and have made great additions and improvements to it. In one of the deeds I found it was caUed Strawberry HiU. In this year (1747) and the next, and in 1749, I -wrote thirteen numbers in a weekly paper, called Old England, or the Broad-bottom Journal, but being sent to the printer -without a name, they were pub Hshed horribly deformed and spoUed. I was re-chosen in the new ParHament for KeUington, in ComwaU. About the same time was pubHshed a Letter to the Tories, -written, as I then beHeved, by Mr. George Lyttelton, who -with his famUy had come over to Mr. Pelham. As Mr. Lyttelton had been a great enemy of and -writer against my father, and as Mr. Pelham had used my father and his friends extremely Ul, and neglected the Whigs to court the Tories, I pubHshed an answer to that piece, and caUed it a Letter to the Whigs. It was a careless performance, and -written in five days. At the end of the year I -wrote two more Letters to the Whigs, but did not pubHsh them tUl AprU the next year, when they went through three editions immediately.' I had intended to suppress them, but some attacks being made by the GrenviUes on Lord Chief Justice WiUes, an intimate friend of my father, particularly by ' " The Beauties," addressed to Eckhart the painter. Published in September, 1746, by Cooper, price 6d. — Cunningham. - Minors of the name of Mortimer. He gave 1356^. 10«. for the property, (Printed Act). — Cunningham. ' Three Letters to the Whigs. Occasioned by the Letter to the Tories. The third edition. London : Printed for M. Cooper, &c., 1748, 8vo. — Compare note on Letter to Bentley of 18th May, 1754. — Cunningham. Ixxii SHORT NOTES OF MY LIFE. obtaining an Act of ParHament to transfer the assizes from Ailesbm-y to Buckingham, I printed them and other pieces. On the same occasion I had a remarkable quarrel -with the Speaker of the House of Commons, Mr. Onslow. The BUI was returned from the Lords -with amendments. The friends of the Chief Justice resolved to oppose it again. Mr. Potter desired me to second him. He rose, but entering on the merits of the BiH, Mr. T. To-wnshend, and my uncle, Horace Walpole (to prevent me), insisted that nothing could be spoken to but the amendments. The Speaker supporting this, I said, "I had intended to second Mr. Potter, but should submit to his oracular decision, though I would not to the complaisant pee-vishness of anybody else." The Speaker was in a great rage, and complained to the House. I said, " I begged his pardon, but had not thought that submitting to him was the way to offend him." During the course of the same bUl, Sir WUHam Stanhope ' had like-wise been interrupted, in a very bitter speech against the Gren-viUes. I formed part of the speech I had intended to make, into one for Sir WUHam, and pubHshed it in his name. It made a great noise. CampbeU answered it for a bookseUer. I pubHshed another, caUed the speech of Richard White- Hver, in answer to CampbeU's. AU these things were only excusable by the lengths to which party had been carried against my father ; or rather, were not excusable even then. In 1748 were pubHshed, in Dodsley's CoUection of Miscellaneous Poems, three of mine ; an " Epistle to Mr. Ashton'' from Florence," (written in 1740,) "The Beauties," and the "EpUogue to Tamerlane." I next wrote two papers of " The Remembrancer," and two more of the same in the year 1749. In the latter year, too, I -wrote a copy of verses on the Fireworks for the Peace ; they were not printed. About the same time I -wrote a pamphlet, caUed " Delenda est Oxonia." It was to assert the Hberties of that University, which the Ministry had a plan of attacking, by vesting in the Cro-wn the nomination of the ChanceUor. This piece (which I think one of my best) was seized at the printer's and suppressed. One night in the beginning of November, 1749, as I was returning from HoUand House by moonlight, about ten at night, I was attacked ' Brother of the witty Earl of Chesterfield, and himself a wit ; now chiefly remem bered for puUing down Pope's vUla at Twickenham. — Cunningham. ' Thomas Ashton, FeUow of Eton CoUege, Rector of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, in London, and Preacher of Lincoln's Inn. See note 2, vol i. p. 2. — Cunningham. SHORT NOTES OF MY LIFF^ Ixiiii oy two highwamen in Hyde Park, and the pistol of one of them going off accidentaUy, razed the skin under my eye. left some marks of shot on my face, and stunned me. The baU went through the top of the chariot, and if I had sat an inch nearer to the left side, must have gone through my head.' January 11th, 1751, I moved the Address te the King, on his Speech at the opening of the Session. March 20th, 1751, died my eldest brother Robert, Earl of Orford. About this time I began to write my "Memoirs."' At first, I only intended to -write the history of one year. About the same time happened a great family quarrel. My friend Mr. Chute ^ had engaged ^liss NicoU, a most rich heiress, to run away from her guardians, who had used her very Ul ; and he pro posed to marry her to my nephew. Lord Orford, who refused her, though she had above 150,000/. I -wrote a particular account of the whole tiansaction." In this year, too, I imitated a fable of Fon taine, caUed the Fimeral of the Lioness. In 1752, I was appointed by Sir Hans Sloane's -wiU one of his trustees. Feb. 8th, 1753, was pubHshed a paper I had written in a perio dical work, caUed " The World," published by E. [dward] Moore. I -wrote eight more numbers, besides two that were not printed then ; and one contaitdng a character of Mr. Fox [Lord HoUand], which I had -written some years before. This year I pubHshed a fine edition of Six Poems of Mr. Gray, with prints from designs of Mr. R. Bentley. In November I -wrote a burlesque poem, caUed The Judgment of Solomon. In December died Erasmus Shorter, Esq.,' the last and yoimgest of my mother's brothers. He, dying -without a -wiU, his fortune of 30,000/. came in equal shares between my brother Sir Edward, me, and my cousins, Francis Earl of Hertford, Col. Henry Seymour Con way, and Miss Anne Seymour Conway. ' Compare Walpole's paper in ¦ The World," No. 103, of Dec. 19, 1754. — Cunningham. ^ That is his " Memoires of the last ten years of the reign of George II."— CUKHINOHAM. ¦' John Chute, Esq., of the Vine, in Hampshire, the last of the male line, bom 1703, died 1776.— Conningham. * This "particular account " is referred to for the first time in this edition of Walpole's Letters. See vol. ix. p. 485. — Cukninqham. ' 23rd November, 1753, Captain Shorter, brother of the first Lady of Sir Robert Walpole. (Obituary of the Gentleman's Magazine, 1763, p. 541.)-- Cunningham. Ixxiv SHORT NOTES OF MY LIFE. In 1754, I was chosen for Castlerising, in Norfolk, in the new ParHament. In July of that year I -wrote The Entail, a fable, in verse. About the same time I erected a cenotaph for my mother in Westminster Abbey, ha-ving some years before prepared a statue of her by Valory at Rome. The pedestal was carved by Rysbrach. In March, 1755, I was very Ul-used by my nephew Lord Orford, upon a contested election in the House of Commons, on which I -wrote him a long letter, -with an account of my o-wn conduct in poHtics. In Feb. 1757, I vacated my seat for Castlerising in order to be chosen for Lynn ; and about the same time used my best endeavours, but in vain, to save the unfortunate Admiral Byng. May 12th of that year, I -wrote in less than an hour and a half the " Letter from Xo Ho ; " it was pubHshed on the 17th, and immediately passed through five editions. June 10th, was pubHshed a Catalogue of the coUection of Pictures of Charles the First, to which I had -written a Httle introduction. I afterwards -wrote short prefaces or advertisements in the same manner to the Catalogues of the coUections of James the Second and the Duke of Buckingham. June 25th, I erected a printing-press at my house at Stiawberry HUl. Aug. 8th, I pubHshed two Odes by Mr. Gray, the first production of my press. In Sept. I erected a tomb in St. ^Anne's Churchyard, Soho, for Theodore King of Corsica. In Oct. 1767, was finished at my press an edition of Hentznerus, translated by Mr. Bentley, to which I -wrote an advertisement. I dedicated it to the Society of Antiquaries, of which I am a member, as weU as of the Royal Society. In AprU, 1758, was finished the first impression of my " Cata logue of Royal and Noble Authors," which I had -written the pre ceding year in less than five months. About the same time Mrs. Porter pubHshed [for her benefit] Lord Hyde's play,' to which I had -written the advertisement. In the summer of 1758, 1 printed some of my o-wn Fugitive Pieces, aud dedicated them to my cousin. General Conway. About autumn I erected at Linton, in Kent, a tomb for my friend Galfridus Mann;' ' A comedy caUed " The Mistakes, or the Happy Resentment." Lord Hyde was Henry Lord Cornbury, immortalised by Pope and Thomson. This " amiable and disinterested lord," as Walpole calls him, died by a fall from his horse in 1758, before his father the last Earl of Clarendon. See vol. i. p. 412. — Cunningham. - Brother of Sir Horace Mann. Walpole had an uncle who died early of the same name — Galfridus Walpole. — Cuhninoham. SHORT NOTES OP MY LIFK lixv the design was by Mr. Bentley. The beginning of October I pubHshed Lord AVhitworth's account of Russia, to which I wrote the advertisement. Nov. 22nd was pubHshed a pamphlet, -written by Mr. Bentley, caUed " Reflections on the different Ideas of the French and EngHsh in regard to Cruelty." It was designed to promote a BUI (that I meditated) of perpetual insolvency. I -wrote the dedication. [To the Most Humane Person aHve, — whoever that is.] It was not printed at Strawberry HiH. [Printed for J. and R. Tonson.] Dec. 5th was published the second edition of my " Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors." Two thousand were printed, but not at Strawberry HiU. I was much abused for it in the " Critical Re- -view," and more gently in the " Monthly Re-view ;" by the former for disHking the Stuftrts ; by the latter for liking my father, — opinions I am not Hkely to change. In the "Gentleman's Magazine" of February [January] foUo-wing was another raUing criticism, but so fooHsh, that some parts of my book were printed in itaHcs, to turn them into puns ; and it was caUed uninteUigible for such reasons as my not ha-ving specified Francis the First by his title of King of France ! 1759. Feb. 2nd. I pubHshed Mr. Spence's Parallel of MagHa- becchi and Mr. HUl, a tailor of Buckingham ; calculated to raise a Httle sum of money for the latter poor man. Sis hundred copies were sold in a fortnight, and it was reprinted in London. Feb. 10th. Some anonymous author (I could not discover who it was — it was said to be Dr. HUl) pubHshed a pamphlet, called " Ob servations on the Accoimt given of the ' Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors of England, &c.,' in the 'Critical Review,' No. 35, for Dec. 1758, where the unwarrantable Hberties taken -with that work, and the honourable author of it, are examined and exposed." This defence of me was fuU of gross flattery, and displeased me so much, that I was going to advertise my disapprobation of it, and ignorance of the author, but was dissuaded by my friends. March 17. I began to distribute some copies of my " Fugitive Pieces," coUected and printed together at Strawberry HUl, and dedi cated to General Conway. May 5th was pubHshed a pamphlet, caUed " Remarks on Mr. Walpole's ' Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, &c.,' in which many of his censures and arguments are examined and disproved ; his false principles are confuted, and true ones estabHshed ; several material facts are set in a true Hght ; and the characters and con duct of several cro-wned heads, and others, are vindicated. Part the Ixxvi SHORT NOTES OF MF LIFE. first." And it advertised that in a few days would be pubHshed, " Walpolian Principles exposed and confuted." It was -written by one Carter, who had been bred a surgeon, and who had married the daughter of Deacon of Manchester, who was hanged in the last RebeUion. This Carter had lost an estate of eight hundred pounds a-year, which had been intended for him, rather than renounce his principles, and was turned a Non-Juring preacher, and had lately been sent away from an apothecary's, where he lodged, for his treasonable conversation, and for sending fifteen or sixteen letters every post-night, which the people of the house suspected were written for purposes not more innocent. Whatever his designs were, he had too Httle prudence to do much harm, and too Httle sense. His book was a rhapsody of Jacobitism, made stUl more fooHsh by the style and manner, and of the lowest scurriHty. I -wish I may never have -wiser enemies, or tjrranny abler advocates ! It is observ able that this Carter distributed hand-bUls, and left them at doors, promising this answer, and begging assistance towards it. In May, too, was pubHshed in the " Critical Review " a letter to the authors of it, from some anonymous person, denying the fact mentioned in the Hfe of the Duke of Wharton in the same Catalogue, of Sergeant Wynne borrowing and using Bishop Atterbury's speech : yet it was absolutely true. Mr. Morrice, the bishop's grandson, often told it to Mr. Selwyn ; Mr. Fox [Lord HoUand] remembered the fact, when he was at Oxford ; and Mr. Baptist Leveson Gower says he perfectly remembers it, and that his (then) party affected to cry him up for it ; that he got three thousand pounds the first year on the credit of it ; but they were forced to drop him, as he had no parts to support his reputation. In truth, when I -wrote the passage in question, I did not know Mr. Wynne was stUl H-ving, am sorry to have shocked a man who had given me no provocation, and therefore, to avoid adding one mortification to another, which I did not mean, I have chosen to make no reply.' In August, I -wrote a copy of verses, caUed " The Parish Register of Twickenham." It is a Hst of aU the remarkable persons who have lived there. Sept. 1st. I began to look over Mr. Vertue's MSS., which I bought last year for one hundred pounds, in order to compose the ' If \ralpole had made a " reply," he would have saved Mr. Park, the editor of the enlarged edition of his Catalogue (5 vols. Svo, 1806), the necessity of designating his author's statement as "a fallacious assertion." (See Park's edition of Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, iv. 124.) — Cuksingham. SHORT NOTES OF MY LIFE. Ixxvii Lives of EngHsh Painters. September 21st. I gave my Lady To-wnshend ' an epitaph and design for a tomb for her youngest son, kUled [25th July, 1759] at Ticonderoga ; neither were used. Oct. 28th. I finished the eighth book of my " Memoirs." Oct. 29th. I began the account of a new discovery of painting upon wax ; it was invented at Paris by the Comte de Oaylus, and was improved here by Mr. Miintz. Nov. 12th. I dismissed Mr. Miintz ; and, upon his lea-ving me, laid aside the intention of publishing the account of the new encaustic. 1760. Jan. 1st. I began the Lives of EngHsh Artists, from Vertue's MSS. (that is, " Anecdotes of Painting," &c.) About the same time, there being thoughts of erecting a monument for Sir Charles Hanbury WUHams in Westminster Abbey, I -wrote an epitaph for it. March 13th. Wrote the " Dialogue between Two Great Ladies." It was pubHshed AprU 23rd, being deferred tiU after the trials of Lord G. Sack-viUe and Lord Ferrers. April. In this month -wrote a poem on the " Destruction of the French Navy," as an exercise for Lord Beauchamp at Christchurch, Oxford. Aug. 14th. Finished the first volume of my " Anecdotes of Paint ing in England." Sept. 5th, began the second volume. Oct. 23rd, finished the second volume. 1761. Jan. 4th, began the third volume. In March, I was appointed tiustee for Mrs. Day by Richard Lord Edgcumbe, in his -wUl. May 30th, wrote a mock sermon to dissuade Lady Mary Coke from going to the King's birthday, as she had lately been Ul. June 11th, wrote an epigram on the Duchess of Grafton [Lady Ossory] going abroad. June 29th, resumed the third volume of my " Anecdotes of Paint ing," which I had laid aside after the first day. July 16th, -wrote " The Garland,'" a poem on the King, and sent it to Lady Bute, but not in my o-wn hand, nor -with my name, nor did ever o-wn it. ' Audrey Harrison, daughter of Edward Harrison of Balls, in the county ol Hertford, Esq. The monument was erected in Westminster Abbey— with an epitaph —poor enough. She was a wit, and was parted from her husband. Walpole has preserved many of her clever sayings. — Cunningham. ' First printed in the Quarterly Review for March, 1852. It was transcribed by Walpole's deputy, Mr. Bedford. — Cunninoham. Ixxviii SHORT NOTES OF MY LIFE. Aug. 22nd, finished the third volume of my " -Anecdotes of Paint ing." Dec. 20th, -wrote a few Hues to Lady Mary Coke, on her having St. .Anthony's fire in her cheek. Dec. 23rd, wrote a portrait of [Carteret] Lord Gran-viUe, m verse, to serve as an epitaph for him. March 24th [1762]. I was chosen a Member of the Society of Arts and Sciences. June 12th. I was attacked in a new weekly paper, No. 2, caUed " The North Briton," and accused of ha-ving flattered the Scotch in my " Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors." I made no answer to it. I could not have been charged -vrith anything of which I am less guUty than flattery. The passage was -written and pubHshed five years before this period, and in the reign of the late King [George II.], when partiaHty to Scotland was no merit at Court ; and so Httle was it calculated to make a friend of Lord Bute, that, ha-ving had occasion to write two or three letters to him, I constantly disclaimed any desire or intention of ha-ving a place. I have copies of these letters, and of others to the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pitt, equaUy, and as fuUy disinterested. Before this accusation was made Lord Bute had had two levies ; I was at neither, nor ever was at the levee of any Minister, but my father, and once at the Duke of Newcastle's, whUe my father was in power.' I beHeve the author of " The North Briton " wiU ask for and have a place before I shaU. Aug. 2nd, began the " Catalogue of Engravers." October 10th, finished it.= I had been told [by Garrick] that Bishop Warburton resented something in the chapter of jAi-chitecture, in the second volume of my " Anecdotes of Painting," and that he intended to abuse me in the new edition of Mr. Pope's Works, which he proposed to have printed at Birmingham.' As I had not once thought of him in that work, it was not easy to guess at what he was offended. On looking over the chapter, I concluded he had writ some nonsense about the Phenicians, but ha-ving read very few of his works, it was impossible for me to know where to find it. As I would not disobHge even a ' I was once, forty years ago [1742], at the late Duke of Newcastle's levge, the only minister's levge at which I ever was present except my own father's. — Walpole, Memoir Relative to his Income (dated 1782). — Cunningham. ^ This is the date affixed by Walpole to the last page. — Cunningham. ' By Basfcorville.— Cunningham. SHORT NOTES OF MY LIFE. Ixxix coxcomb ' unprovoked, and know how siUy a Hterary controversy is, in which the world only laughs at both sides, I desired Dr. Charles Lyttelton, Bishop of OarHsle, to ask him if what I had said of the Phenicians was the rock of offence, and to assure him I had read few of his things, and had had no intention of laughing at hi'm. I name Bishop Lyttelton, because if it had not come from one of his o-wn order, aU- arrogant and absurd as Warburton is, one should scarce beHeve it possible that he could have pushed vanity and foUy to such a height as appeared in his answer. He repHed, " The Phenicians ! no, no. He aUuded to my note in the edition of Pope, in which I have spoken of Gothic architecture ; I have exhausted the subject." I -wUl only remark on this excess of impertinent seU- conceit, that if he can exhaust subjects in so few Hues, it was very unnecessary for him to -write so many thousands. .After this, I would as soon have a controversy -with a peacock, or "with an only daughter that her parents think handsome. The fowl, the miss, and the bishop, are aHke incorrigible. The first struts naturaUy ; the second is spoUed ; reason itself has been of no use to the last." 1763. Beginning of September -wrote the Dedication and Preface to Lord Herbert's Life. 1764. May 29th. Began an answer to a pamphlet against Mr. Conway, caUed " An Address to the PubHc on the late Dismission of a General Officer." My answer was finished June 12th, but not pubHshed tUl Aug. 2nd, imder the title of "A Counter- Address to the PubHc," &c. [Printed for J. AHnon.] ' Odd enough, Warburton in a letter to Hurd, dated Nov. 16, 1766, calls Walpole " an insuflferable coxcomb." — Cunningham. - I have my fribbles as well as you. In the " Anecdotes of Painting," just pub lished, the author, by the most unprovoked malice, has a fling at your friend obliquely, and puts him in company where you would not expect to find him (it ia vol. i. p, 106. 107), with Tom Heame and Browne WUIis. It is about Gothic edifices, for which I shaU be about his pots, as Bentley said to Lord Halifax of Rowe. But I say it better ; I mean the galley-pots and washes of his toUet. I know he has a fribble- tutor at his elbow, as sicklied over with affectation as himself. — Warburton to Oarrich, Feb. 17, 1762. It was most kindly done of you to represent my complaint to Mr. Walpole. If an abuse had been intended, it was altogether unprovoked. His denying any such intention on his honour, gives me full satisfaction : though neither I nor my friends know what the passage aims at, if it had not that intention. And to confess to you, inter no$, when the new antiquarian Bishop of Carlisle mentioned this affair to me impertinently enough, for I never had that familiarity of acquaintance with him to expect he should busy himself in my concerns, I gave him to understand, that Mr. Walpole must give me farther satisfaction than what he brought, which was that gentleman's declaring, on his honour, he had not me in his thoughts. And my reason was this ; I knew Mr W. to be a wag, and such are never better pleased than when they have an opportunity of laughing at an antiquarian. — Warbui-ton to Garrick, April 22, 1762. — Cunningham. Ixxx SHORT NOTES OF MY LIFE. June. I began " The Castle of Otranto," a gothic story, and finished it Aug. 6 th. Oct. 15th. Wrote the fable of " The Magpie and her Brood " for Miss Hotham, then near eleven years old, great niece of Henrietta Hobart, Countess Dowager of Suffolk. It was taken from Les Nouvelles Recreations de Bonaventure des Penirs, Valet-de-Chambre to the Queen of Navarre. Dec. 24th. " The Castle of Otianto " was pubHshed ; 500 copies. 1765. AprU 11th. The 2nd edition of " The Castie of Otianto ; " 500 copies. Sept. 9th. Set out for Paris. End of this year -wrote the " Letter from the King of Prassia to Rousseau." 1766. AprU 22nd. Aa-rived in London, from Paris. June 28th, 29th. Wrote an " Account of the Giants lately discovered." It was published Aug. 25th foUo-wing. Aug. 18th. Began " Memoirs of the Reign of George the Third." 1767. Feb. 1. Began the " Detection oi the Testament Politique of my Father," at Strawberry HUl ; and finished it the next time I went thither, Feb. 17th. Did not print it, as no translation was made into EngHsh of that fictitious work. March 13th. Wrote to the Mayor of Lynn, that I did not intend to come into Parliament again. A bad tianslation of " The Castle of Otranto " into French was pubHshed at Paris this month. May 28th. My Letter to the Mayor of Lynn was first pubHshed in the St. James's Chronicle.' Aug. 20th. I went to Paris. Wrote there an accoimt of my whole concern in the affair of Rousseau, not -with intention to publish it yet. In Sept. were pubHshed, in the PubHc Advertiser, two Letters I had -written on PoHtical Abuse in Newspapers. They were signed, Toby, and A Constant Correspondent.' 1768. Feb. 1. Published my "Historic Doubts on Richard the Third." I had begun it in the "winter of 1767 ; continued it in the summer, and finished it after my return from Paris. Twelve hundred copies were printed, and sold so very fast that a new edition was ' Reprinted in the Gentleman's Magazine for June, 1767, p. 293, and in this edition (for the first time in any edition of Walpole). " I was told that I should regret quit ting my seat in Parliament ; but I knew myself better than those prophets did. Four years are past, and I have done nothing but applaud my resolution."— Walpole to Mann, Nov. 18, 1771. — Cunningham. ' Transcribed for this i-dition, but reluctantly omitted, and now first included in Walpole's Works. — Cunmngham. SHORT NOTES OF MY LIFE. Ixxx^ undertaken the next day of 1000 more, aud pubHshed the next week. March 15. I finished a tragedy caUed " The Mysterious Mother," which I had begun Dec. 25, 1766 ; but I had laid it aside for several months whUe I went to Paris ; and while I was -writing my " Historic Doubts on Richard the Thfrd." The two last acts were not now as much finished as I intended. June 20. Received a letter from Voltaire desiring my " Historic Doubts." I sent them, and " The Castle of Otranto," that he might see the preface, of which I told him. He did not like it, but returned a very civil answer, defending his opinion. I repHed -with more ci-vUity, but dropping the subject, not caring to enter into a contioversy ; especiaUy on a matter of opinion, on which whether we were right or wrong, aU France would be on his side, and all England on mine. Nov. 18. At the desire of her son George WUHam Hervey, [second] Earl of Bristol, I -wrote the elegj^ for the monument of Mary LepeUe Lady Hervey, to be erected in the Church at Ickworth, in SuffoUi. I should have mentioned that on the Dissolution of the ParHa ment this year, I refused to serve again, agreeably to a letter I had -written to the Mayor of Lynn, and which was pubHshed in the newspapers. 1769. April 24. Mrs. CHve spoke an EpUogue I had -written for her on her quitting the stage. It aUuded to Robertson's " History of Charles the Fifth," then lately pubHshed. May. Mr. Da-vid Hume had infeoduced to me one Diverdim, a S-wiss in the Secretary's office. This man -wrote Memoires Litteraires de la Grande Bretagne ; and Mr. Hume desired I would give hiTn a copy of Lord Herbert's Life, that he might insert an extract in his Journal. I did. In AprU this Diverdun went to tiavel -with a young EngHsh gentleman, and a few days afterwards a S-wiss clergy man deHvered to me from him his Memoirs for the year 1768 ; he pubHshed but one before, for 1767. In this new journal I found a criticism on my " Historic Doubts," -with notes by Mr. Hume, to which the critic declared he gave the preference. Mr. Hume had sho-wn me the notes last year in manuscript, but this conduct appeared so paltry, added to Mr. Hume's total sUence, that I imme diately -wrote an answer, not only to these notes, but to other things that had been -written against my " Doubts." However, as I tieated Mr. Hume with the severity he deserved, I resolved not to print Ijjjii SHORT NOTES OF MY LIFE. this answer, only to show it to him in manuscript, and to leave it behind as an appendix to, and confirmation of, my "Historic Doubts." About the same time Voltaire pubHshed in the Mercure the letter he had -written to me, but I made no answer, because he had treated me more dirtUy than Mr. Hume had. Though Voltaire, -with whom I had never had the least acquaintance or correspondence, had voluntarUy -written to me first, and asked for my book, he wrote a letter to the Duchess of Choiseul, in which, -without saying a syUable of his ha-ving -written to me first, he told her I had officiously sent him my Works, and declared war with him in defence de ce bouffon Shakspeare, whom in his reply to me he pretended so much to admire. The Duchess sent me Voltaire's letter, which gave me such contempt for his disingenuity that I dropped aU correspondence -with him. In July and August finished two more books of my " Memoirs " for the years 1765, 1766. 1770. In the summer of this year -wrote an answer to Dr. MUles' Remarks on my " Richard the Third." 1771. End of September, -wrote the Advertisement to the " Letters of Kmg Edward the Sixth." 1772. Finished my " Memoirs " which conclude -with the year 1771 ; intending for the future only to carry on a Journal. This year, the last, and sometime before, wrote some Hieroglyphic Tales. There are only five. I had long left off going to the .Antiquarian Society. This summer I heard that they intended printing some more fooHsh notes against my " Richard the Third ; " and though I had taken no notice of their first pubHcation, I thought they might at last provoke me to expose them. I determined, therefore, to be at Hberty by breaking with them first ; and Foote having brought them on the stage [in " The Nabob "] for sitting in councU, as they had done, on Whittington and his Cat,' I was not sorry to find them so ridiculous, or to mark their being so, and upon that nonsense, and the laughter that accompanied it, I struck my name out of their book. This was at the end of July. In July -wrote the " Life of Sir Thomas Wyat," No. 11 of my edition of " MisceUaneous Antiquities." ' There is no account in the " ArchEeologia " of this inquiry. It was Pegge who brought, in 1771, the subject of Whittington and his Cat before the meeting. (See Gough to Tyson, 27 Dec. 1771, in Nichols's " Literary Anecdotes," viii. 575.) Pegge could make " nothing at all of the Cat." — Cunningham. SHORT NOTES OF MY LIFE. Ixxxiii Sept. 16. The Duke of Gloucester notified to the King his marriage -with my niece Lady Waldegrave.' Sept. Wrote some Hues to Lady Anne Fitzpatrick with a present of sheUs.1773. Wrote " Nature -wiU PrevaU," a moral entertainment in one act, which I sent anonymously to Mr. Colman, manager of Covent Garden. He was much pleased -with it, but thinking it too short for a farce, pressed to have it enlarged, which I would not take the tiouble to do for so sHght and extempore a performance. 1774. Wrote an Intioduction to, and a Parody of. Lord Chester field's three first Letters. At the beginning of this year -wrote my answer to Mr. Master's Remarks in the " Archseologia." In July wrote the verses on the Three Vernons. 1775. In February -wrote the EpUogue to " Braganza ;" and three Letters to the Author, Mr. Jephson, on Tragedy. 1777. In AprU my nephew. Lord Orford, went mad again, and was under my care, but as he had employed a la-wyer, of whom I had a bad opinion, in his affairs, I refused to take care of them. 1778. Lord Orford recovering in March, I gave up the care of him. 1778. In June was acted " Nature -wiU PrevaU," at the Httle Theatre in the Haymarket, with success.' At the end of July^ -wi-ote my answer to the Editor of Chatterton's Works. 1779. In the preceding autumn had -written a defence of myself against the imjust aspersions in the Preface to the MisceUanies of Chatterton. Printed 200 copies at Strawberry HiU this January, and gave them away. It was much enlarged from what I had written in July. At the end of May -wrote a Commentary and Notes to Mr. Mason's later poems. [Here the Manuscript terminates.] ' They were married 6 Sept. 1766. (See Walpole to Mann, June 15, 1772.) Their eldest child, the Princess Sophia Matilda, was born 29 May, 1773. Compare Walpole to Mann, 8 May, 1771. "The Duke of Gloucester has professed a passion for the Dowager Waldegrave. He is never from her elbow. This flatters Horey Walpole not a little, though he pretends to dislike it." — Gilly Williams to Selwyn, Dec. 1764. — Cun ningham. " It was acted seven times. (See Genest's " English Stage," vL 21.) — Cun ningham. ^ The printed answer is dated " Strawberry Hill, May 23, 1778." — Cunningham. VOL. I. ACCOUNT OF MY CONDUCT RELATIVE TO THE PLACES I HOLD UNDER GOVERNMENT. AND TOWARDS MINISTERS.' [1782.] In my youth, my father, Sir Robert Walpole, then Prime Minister, gave me the two patent Httle places I stiU hold, of Clerk of the Estreats and ComptioUer of the Pipe, which, together, produce about or near 300/. per annum. When I was about eighteen or nineteen, he gave me the place of Inspector of the Imports and Exports in the Custom-house, which I resigned in about a year, on his giving me the patent place of Usher of the Exchequer, then reckoned worth 900/. a-year. From that time I Hved on my own income, and tia- veUed at my o-wn expense, nor did I during my father's Hfe receive from him but 250/. at different times ; which I say, not in deroga tion of his extieme tendemess and goodness to me, but to show that I was content with what he had given to me, and that from the age of twenty I was no charge to my famUy. Before my father's quitting his post, he, at the instance of my eldest brother. Lord Walpole, had altered the deHvery of Exchequer bUls from ten pounds to an hundred pounds. My deputy, after that alteration was made, observed, that as Usher of the Exchequer, who furnishes the materials of Exchequer bUls, on which, by the table of rates in the Exchequer, I had a stated profit, I should lose ten pei cent., which he represented to my father, who, ha-ving altered them to obHge my brother, would not undo what he had done : but, to repair the prejudice I had suffered. Sir Robert, -with his wonted equity and tendemess, determined to give me 2000/. in Heu of what I lost, and would have added that legacy in a codicU to his -wUl ; but this happening only two days before his death, when he was ' From Walpole's Works (5 vols. 4to, 1798), vol. ii. pp, 363-370.— Cunningham. MEMOIR RESPECTING HIS INCOME. lixxv little capable of making that codicU, my brother. Lord Walpole, engaged, at my father's desire, to pay me 400/. a-year, which, not long after, my brother redeemed for the intended 2000/. King George the First had graciously bestowed on my father the patent-place of CoUector of the Customs, for his o-wn Hfe, and for the lives of his two elder sons, Robert and Edward ; but my father reserved in himself a right of disposing of the income of that place as he should please, during the existence of the grant. Accordingly, having afterwards obtained for his eldest son Robert the great place of Auditor of the Exchequer, and for his second son Edward that of Clerk of the PeUs, he bequeathed, by an instrument under his hand, 1000/. a-year to me, out of the patent, for the remainder of the term, and devised the remainder, about 800/. a-year, to be di-vided between my brother Edward and me. Ha-ving provided thus largely for my brother Edward and me, and lea-ving nothing but an estate in land, of nominaUy 8000/. a-year, and a debt of between 40,000/. and 50,000/., he gave to my brother Edward and me only 5000/. a-piece ; of which I have never received but 1000/., and none of the interest. He also gave to my brother Edward a freehold house in PaU MaU, and to me the remainder of a house in ArHngton-stieet ; which went away from me in 1781, the term being expired. Though my portion was much inferior to my brother's, stUl it was a noble fortune for a third son, and much beyond what I expected or deserved. Yet, undoubtedly, so exceUent a parent would not have made so very slender a pro-vision as 5000/. for a son he loved, if he had not had the opportunity and the legal right of gi-ving me a much ampler fortune of what he had obtained by his long and faithful and very essential services to the Kings George I. and II. I presume boldly to say that my father had a legal right of making the pro-vision for me he did in the places I hold.' Patent-places for Hfe have existed from time immemorial, by law, and under all changes of Government. He who holds an ancient patent-place enjoys it as much by law as any gentleman holds his estate, and by more ancient tenure than most gentlemen hold theirs, and from the same fountain, only of ancienter date, than many of the nobiHty and gentry hold their estates, who possess them only by grants from the Crown, as I possess my places ; which were not -wrung from the ' In a letter to Conway, dated July 20, 1744, Walpole states his then income from his places (his father was still alive) as near two thousand pounds a-year.— Cunningham. Ixxxvi MEMOIR RESPECTING HIS INCOME. Church, and in -violation of the intention of the donors, as a vast number of estates were : nor can I think myself as a patent-place man a more useless or a less legal engrosser of part of the wealth of the nation than deans and prebendaries, who fatten on Christianity Hke any less holy incumbent of a fee. WhUe there are distinctions of ranks, and unequal di-visions of property, not acquired by personal merit, but by birth or favours, some -wiU be more fortunate than others. The poor are most intitled to complain ; but an archdeacon, or a country gentleman, has very Httle grace in complaining that any other improfitable class is indulged by the laws in the enjoyment of more than an equal share of property -with the meanest labourer or lowest mechanic. Ha-ving said this -with the confidence that does not misbecome a legal possessor, I am far from pretending to any other plea, much less to any merit in myself A tender parent la-vished riches on me greatly beyond my desert, of which I am so Httle conscious in my self, that, if the distresses of the pubHc require a revocation of gifts bestowed by the Crown in its splendour, I know no man who can plead fewer ser-vices to his country, or less merit in himself than I can. In one Hght only I can -wipe off an aspersion, in which patent- placemen have been confounded -with other placemen. No man who holds a place for Hfe is dependent on the Cro-wn, farther than his duty or his gratitude binds him. I, perhaps, by the nature of my office, which I shaU explain hereafter, am more dependent than almost any patent-holder ; and yet I may presume to say that, having suffered ' by that dependence, because I would not violate my principles and conscience, I cannot be deemed a ser-vUe placeman. Endowed so bountifuUy by a fond parent, as I have aUowed my self to be, it would be ridiculous to say that I have been content. Yet, not ha-ving unfolded some pecuHarities in my situation, I may venture to say that I have shown that I could be content -with a considerable diminution. I have never made any merit of that moderation ; but when I am held out to the pubHc as one whom the pubHc are caUed upon to reduce to an humbler lot, which I am ready to admit, if it be but aUowed that aU my guUt consists in holding what somebody else would have held if I did not, it may be per mitted to me to prove, that whUe I assumed no claim of merit, I have decHned every offered opportunity of enlarging or securing my ' My conduct, while 1 sat in Parliament is most probably forgotten ; but no man can recoUect that it looked like servility to Ministers. It ia needless to 'obviate what never was objected to me.— Walpole. MEMOIR RESPECTING HIS INCOME. lixxvii fortune, because I would not be bound to serve any Minister contrary to my principles, and because I chose to have no obHgations but to one to whom I owed everything, and to whom it was my duty, and whom it would be my pride, to obey, if he were on earth to exact that obedience. I have said that my father left me much the larger share in the income of the patent- place in the Custom-house. I have also men tioned that the patent was granted to my father during the Hves of him and his two elder sons, — on his death there remained the Hves of my two brothers, — and that my share would consequently cease entirely if T sm-vived them. The health of my eldest brother de clining, and my brother Edward being eleven years older than me, two or three of my best friends urged me to ask to have my Hfe added to the patent. I refused, but o-wn I was at last over-per suaded to make application to Mr. Pelham ' — how un-willingly -wUl appear by my beha-viour on that occasion, which did not last two minutes. I went to him and made my request. He repHed ci-vUly, he could not ask the King to add my Hfe to the patent ; but, if I could get my brother Edward to let my Hfe stand in Heu of his, he would endeavour to serve me. I answered quickly, " Sir, I -wUl never ask my brother to stand in a precarious Hght instead of me ; " and, hurrying out of his house, returned to two of my friends who waited for me, and said to them, " I have done what you desired me to do, but, thank God, I have been refused." This was in the year 1751, and was the first and last favour I ever asked of any Minister for myself. Had I been an ambitious or an interested man, I certainly have had eminent opportunities of indulging either passion. At the be ginning of the present reign, an overtiire presented itself to me, which a more selfish man would have thought flattering to his views. I may be allowed to say that I have waived more substantial and real offers. Twice I have been offered what I was over-persuaded to ask of Mr. Pelham. Twice I have been offered to have my share of the patent, which I now hold only during my brother's Hfe, con ferred on me for my o-wn. Both times I positively refused to accept that offer. Having rejected a certainty of 1400/. per annum for my ' Walpole's letter to Mr. Pelham, dated 25th Nov., 1762, renewing his request tc have his life added to the patent, will be found printed for the first time in this edition of Walpole's Letters. It wUl be observed that in this Accoimt of his Conduct Walpole makes no mention of a second application — a year after the first. Mr. Pelham, gave him little encouragement. He said he would mention it to the King, but did not believe it would succeed. Walpole replied, " He knew best," and took his leave.— Conningham. IxxxTiii MEMOIR RESPECTING HIS INCOME. O-wn Hfe, instead of holding it during the Hfe of one eleven years older I hope I shall not be thought a very interested man. I -wUl now explain the nature of my office of Usher of the Exche quer, stated by the Commissioners of Accounts to render to me clear 4200/. a-year, and which I said was given to me as producing but 900/. a-year, and which, on an additional tax being laid on places, I gave in as producing 1800/. a-year, and which, had it been adverted to, would make me seem to have given in a very fraudulent estimate ; but I am so conscious of my innocence and integrity in that respect, that I chuse — perhaps out of vanity — to recoUect that circumstance myself, as it certainly reflects no dishonour on me. When I was caUed on to give in the value of my place, I took my book of accounts and receipts for the last twelve years, and gave in the medium of those twelve years, which was 1800/. a-year. As mine has been an increasing place by three wars and other circumstances, and as for the first years of my holding that place, it was much less, the medium sum would have been less than 1800/. a-year, if I had taken my receipts farther back than twelve years ; so that I plainly exaggerated, instead of diminishing, what I had received annuaUy from my first nomination to the office. If I have enjoyed too much, as I confess I have, at least I have not sought to increase my income by any indu-ect or dirty methods. The duty of my office is to shut the gates of the Exchequer, and to furnish paper, pens, ink, wax, sand, tape, penknives, scissors, parchment, and a great variety of other articles, to the Exchequer, Treasury, and their offices, and to pay the bUls of the workmen and tradesmen who serve those offices. Many of the articles specified are stated in a very ancient table of rates in the Exchequer (I think of the time of Edward III., so that my office is, if a grievance, no very novel one) ; and, on those, large profits are aUowed to the Usher, whence my profit arises, and whence, if it is largely augmented of late years, a candid examiner -wiU observe that that increase proceeds from the prodigious additional consumption of paper, pens, ink, wax, which the excessive increase of business at the Treasury must occasion ; and therefore, should a much less quantity of those implements be employed, my profits would decrease in proportion. When, therefore, I am charged as receiver of 4200/. a-year, it should be remembered, that though I was so in the year 1780, (though I shaU show that even that is an arbitrary statement, not calculated on any medium), yet I cannot equitably be reckoned communibus annis to receive so large a sum. I have sho-wn thai MEMOIR RESPECTING HIS INCOME. Ixxiix 1800/. a-year was the medium on twelve years, and those not of my last receipts. It is very difficult to state my case, and not seem to defend it. But I am teUing the truth, and not pleading for favour ; at least, my object is to obtain a favourable opinion of my character. I am far more indifferent about my fortune. But surely any impartial man wiU reflect how grievous it must be to a disinterested mind to be held up to the pubHc as a blood-sucker, under the invidious name of a placeman ; to be one of those pointed at by County Associations ' as grievances that caU for speedy correction and removal ; in short, to be confounded -with contiactors and other leeches, that have grown out of the profusions and abuses of the time ; though my office has existed from the oldest times, and has existed under the best Government. PubHc distiess demands economy and correction. Be they exercised ; I desire no exception. But being guUty of no servUe, of no indirect means in obtaining, augmenting, or retaining my office, I am ready to resign that office ; but I wiU prove (and defy aU mankind to detect me in a single falsehood) that I have held my place -with honour, and have nothing to paUiate or conceal in my execution of it. The place is held under many disagreeable circumstances. I advance money to the tradesmen and workmen. I contiact to pay the principal merchant -with whom I deal for paper, though I should never be repaid. There is no specific time appointed for my being paid ; it depends on the good pleasure of the First Lord of the Treasury ; and yet, though a mere tiadesman in that respect, I believe no man -will accuse me of ha-ving ever paid court, or even attendance, on a First Lord of the Treasmy. I was once, forty years ago [1742], at the late Duke of Newcastle's lev^e,' the only Minister's lev^e at which I ever was present except my o-wn father's. Yet -with very few have I had cause not to be content in my own particular : if I have been proud, they have been just.^ Yet some ' Such as were formed in Yorkshire about this time. The York Association in which Mason took an active part was the cause of the coolness, if indeed we may not caU it quarrel, between Walpole and Mason. — Cunningham. - The minister Duke of Newcastle (died 1768), who was in high official power for a longer period than any other minister seems destined to be again in this country.- CUNNINGHAM. ¦¦' From Lord North I always received regular justice and civility, though I never paid any court to him, nor disguised my disinclination to his measures. This compli ment, which now cannot be misinterpreted, is due to him, and is an unsuspicious evidence of his good humour and averseness from all malignity. When I am grateful to the living for civilities, I scorn to recoUect the rancour of the dead.— Walpole. xc MEMOIR RESPECTING HIS INCOME. of my predecessors have met with harder fates. Mr. Nayloi, my imme diate predecessor but one, lost 20,000/. by the death of Queen Anne. Risks by prudent men are calculated as drawbacks ; but, where advantage preponderates, even the terrors of calculation are sur mounted. More prudent men than I am would have combated those risks, by making the most of their advantages. I have ever disdained that pitiful arithmetic. AU the goods I furnish have always been purchased by me at the highest prices ; and never came a complaint from the Treasury that was not instantly remedied by my order. In more than forty years I have never received an important complaint, nor given occasion to one. Ha-ving said that there is no certain time settled for my being paid, and as I have sometimes had large arrears due, and, conse quently, as one year frequently runs into another, and thence I may in one year receive four or five thousand pounds, because in the preceding I did not receive half so much, the Commissioners of Accounts, ha-ving examined my dej)uty but on a single year, were just in their report of what I received that year ; but, had they gone farther back, would certainly not have given in 4200/. as my receipt communibus annis. This unintended misrepresentation ' I bore in sUence ; it ha-ving been my steadfast purpose not to interfere -with the pubHc examination of places, nor take the smaUest step to mitigate my o-wn fate, which I submit impHcitly to the discretion of the Legislature. What I hold, I hold by law ; if the law deprives me, I have too much reverence for the laws of my country to complain. No man ever heard me utter a syUable in my o-wn behalf. My nearest friends know that I have required them not to interpose to save me. This dread of seeming to make interest to save my place, preponderated -with me to appear ungrateful for a time, lest it should look like a selfish compHment. I have never yet thanked Mr. Burke for the overflo-wing pleasure he gave my heart, when, on moving his bUl, he paid that just compHment to the -virtues of my honest, exceUent father. This acknowledgment I hope he wiU accept as a proof that, though sUent, I was not insensible to the ' My deputy received my positive orders to give to the Commissioners the most particular detail of my profits, and to offer them in my name my account-books of all my receipts, which they declined accepting, and which would have shown them a very different state of the medium of my place. Had they accepted those books, I intended to send them word that they were welcome to examine my receipts, but that I hoped, as they were gentlemen, they would not look at the foolish manner In which I had' flung away most of what I had recnved.— Walpole. The papers of Walpole's deputy (Mr. Bedford) fully confirm the statement in the text and note. — Cunningham. MEMOIR RESPECTING HIS INCOME. xot obHgation. Just praise out of his mouth is an epitaph of sterHng value, and, standing in his printed speech on that occasion, -wUl enjoy an immortaHty which happens to few epitaphs. This apology for my conduct -wiU, I hope, be accepted from a man who has nothing to boast but his disinterestedness, and is grievously wounded by standing in a Hght of one by whom the pubHc suffers. Were my place worth double 4000/., I could resign it cheerfuUy, at the demand of my countiy ; but having never flattered the Ministers I disapproved, nor profited to the value of a shilling by my dearest friends when in power, — which they have been twice of late years, — (and ha-ving so much reason to be proud of their friendship, why should I not name two such -virtuous upright men as the Duke of Richmond ' and General Conway ?) I cannot bear to appear in the predicament of one enriched to the detriment of the country. This stab has been given to my peace ; and the loss of my place "wiU find, not cause, the wound, nor -wUl the retention of the place heal it. It is this most scrupulous state of facts that alone can rehabUitate me in the eyes of the pubHc, if anything can ; and though nothing would have dra-wn a vain detaU from me, unprovoked, it cannot be thought arrogant to endeavour to -wipe off reproach, nor impertinent to aim at negative merit -with the pubHc, instead of submitting to undeserved and in-vidious obloquy, Horace Walpole. March 30th, 1782. Charles, third Duke of Richmond, to whom Walpole dedicated the fourth volume of his Anecdotes of Painting. He died in 1806. — Cunningham. HEMIKISCEKCESr written in 1788, FOR THE AMUSEMENT OF MISS MARY AND MISS AGNES BERRY, II ne faut point d'esprit pour s'occuper des vieux evSnemens. — Voltaire. Vol Iv., Lett. Ivi. p. 114. He [Lord Orford] repeatedly said to me, "You will remember that I am the son of Sir Robert Walpole, and therefore must be prejudiced in his favour : Facts I will not misrepresent or disguise, bnt my opinions and reflections on those facts you will receive with caution, and adopt or reject at you discretion." — Coxe's Life of Sir Robert Walpole, vol. i. p. xxiii. (3 vols. 4to. 1798.) — Cunningham. » First printed m W;ilpole'B Works. 5 vols. -Ito. 1798. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Motives to the undertaking — Precedents — George I.'s reign a proem to the history of the reigning house of Brunswick — The Reminiscent introduced to that monarch — His person and dress — The duchess of Kendal — Her jealousy of Sir Robert Walpole's credit with the King, and intrigues to displace him and make Bolingbroke minister CHAPTER II. Marriage of George I., while Electoral Prince, to the Princess Sophia Dorothea — Assassination of Count Konigsmark — Separation from the Princess — Left-handed espousal — Piety of the Duchess of Kendal — Confinement and death of Sophia Dorothea in the Castle of Alden — French prophetess — The King's superstition — Mademoiselle Schulemberg — Royal inconstancy — Countess of Platen — Anne Brett — Sudden death of George I. CHAPTER III. Quarrel between George I. and his son — Earl of Sunderland — Lord Stanhope — South Sea scheme — Death of Craggs — Royal reconcilement — Peerage bill defeated — Project for seizing the Prince of Wales and conveying him to America — Duke of Newcastle — Royal christening — Open rupture — Prince and Princess of Wales ordered to leave the palace cxii CHAPTER IV. Bill of pains and penalties against Bishop Atterbury — Projected assassination of Sir Robert Walpole — Revival of the Order of the Bath — Instance of George I.'s good-humoured presence of mind cxviii CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. PAGB .Accession of George II. — Sir Spencer Compton — Expected change in administration — Continuation of Lord Townshend and Sir Robert Walpole by the intervention of Queen Caroline — Mrs. Howard, after wards Countess of Suffolk — Her character by Swift, and by Lord Chesterfield cxxii CHAPTER VI. Destruction of George I.'s will cxxvi CHAPTER VIL History of Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk — Miss Bellenden — Her marriage with Colonel John Campbell, afterwards fourth Duke of Argyle — Anecdotes of Queen Caroline — Her last illness and death — Anecdotes of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough — Last years of George II. — Mrs. Clayton, afterwards Lady Sundon — Lady Diana Spencei — Frederick, Prince of Wales — Sudden removal of the Prince and Princess from Hampton Court to St. James's — Birth of a Princess — Rupture with the King — Anecdotes of Lady Yarmouth - cxxviii CHAPTER VIII. George II.'s daughters — Anne, Princess of Orange — Princess Amelia — Princess Caroline — Lord Hervey — Duke of Cumberland cxii CHAPTER IX. Anecdotes of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough — and of Catherine, Duchess of Buckingham cxliv BXTRAOTS PROM THE LETTERS OP SARAH, DUOHESS OF MARLBOROUGH, TO THE EARL OP STAIR, ILLUSTRATIVE OP "TEE RKMINISCENCKS." cliii ^. Sl.f^^ IV REMINISCENCES. CHAPTER I. Motives to the Undertaking — Precedents — George I.'s Reign a Proem to the History of the reigning House of Brunswick — The Reminiscent introduced to that Monarch — his Person and Dress — The Duchess of Kendal — Her Jealousy of Sir Robert Walpole's credit with the King, and intrigues to displace him, and make Bolingbroke Minister. You were both so entertained -with the old stories I told you one evening lately, of what I recoUected to have seen and heard from my chUdhood of the Courts of King George I., and of his son the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II., and of the latter's princess, since Queen CaroHne ; and you expressed such -wishes that I would commit those passages (for they are scarce worthy of the title even of Anecdotes) to writing, that, having no greater pleasure than to please you both, nor any more important or laudable occupation, I "wUl begin to satisfy the repetition of your curiosity. But observe, I promise no more than to begin ; for I not only cannot answer that I shaU have patience to continue, but my memory is stUl so fresh, or rather so retentive of trifles which first made impression on it, that it is very possible my Hfe (turned of seventy-one) may be ex hausted before my stock of remembrances ; especiaUy as I am sen sible of the garruHty of old age, and of its eagerness of relating whatever it recoUects, whether of moment or not. Thus, whUe I fancy I am complying -with you, I may only be indulging myself, and consequently may wander into many digressions for which you -wiU not care a stiaw, and which may intercept the completion of my design. Patience, therefore, young ladies ; and if you coin an old gentleman into narratives, you must expect a good deal of aUoy. I engage for no method, no regularity, no poHsh. My loviii REMINISCENCES OP THE COURTS OF [ohap. i. narrative -wiU probably resemble siege-pieces, which are struck of any promiscuous metals ; and, though they bear the impress of some sovereign's name, only serve to quiet the garrison for the moment, and afterwards are merely hoarded by coUectors and -virtuosos, who think their series not complete, unless they have even the coins of base metal of every reign. As I date from my nonage, I must have laid up no state secrets. Most of the facts I am going to teU you, though new to you and to most of the present age, were kno-wn perhaps at the time to my nurse and my tutors. Thus, my stories will have nothing to do -with history. Luckily, there have appeared -within these three months two pub Hcations, that wiU serve as precedents for whatever I am going to say : I mean Les Fragmens of the Correspondence of the Duchess of Orleans,' and those of the Mimoires of the Due de St. Simon.^ No thing more cUcousu than both : they teU you what they please ; or rather, what their editors have pleased to let them teU. In one respect I shaU be less satisfactory. They knew and were well acquainted, or thought they were, -with the characters of their personages. I did not at ten years old penetrate characters ; and as George I. died [1727] at the period where my reminiscence begins, and was rather a good sort of man than a shining king ; and as the Duchess of Kendal' was no genius, I heard very Httle of either when he and her power were no more. In fact, the reign of George I. was Httle more than the proem to the history of England under the House of Bruns-wick. That family was established here by surmounting a rebeUion ; to which settlement perhaps the pHrensy of the South Sea scheme contributed, by diverting the national attention from the game of faction to the deHiium of stock-jobbing ; and even faction was split into fractions by the quarrel between the King and the heir- apparent — another interlude, which authorises ' Charlotte Elizabeth, daughter of the Elector of Bavaria. In 1671 she became the second wife (his first being poisoned) of the brother of Louis XIV.; by whom she was the mother of the regent, Duke of Orleans. She died in 1722. .4 collection of her letters, addressed to Prince Ulric of Brunswick, and to the Princess of Wales afterwards Queen Caroline, was published at Paris in 1788. — Wright. ^ These celebrated Memoires of the Court of Louis XIV. were first published, in a mutilated state, in 1788. A complete edition, in thirteen volumes, appeared in 1791.— Wright. ^ Eremgard de Schulemberg, Duchess of Munster, in Ireland ; created for life 30 April, 1719, Baroness Glastonbury, co. Somerset, Countess of Feversham, co. Kent, and Duchess of Kendal, co. Westmoreland. She lived at Kendal House on the Hounslow and Isleworth Road, aud died 1743. — Cunningham. CDAP, 1.] GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. xcix me to caU the reign of George I. a proem to the history of the reign ing House of Brunswick, so successively agitated by paraUel feuds. Commenfons. As my first hero was going off the stage before I ought to have come upon it, it -wiU be necessary to teU you why the said two per sonages happened to meet just two nights before they were to part for ever ; a rencounter that barely enables me to give you a general idea of the former's person and of his mistiess's — or, as has been supposed, his -wife's. As I was the youngest by eleven years of Sir Robert Walpole's chUdren by his first -wife,' and was extremely weak and deHcate, as you see me stUl, though with no constitutional complaint tUl I had the gout after forty, and as my two sisters' were consumptive, and died of consumptions, the supposed necessary care of me (and I have overheard persons saying, "That chUd cannot possibly Hve") so engrossed the attention of my mother, that compassion and tender ness soon became extreme fondness ; and as the infinite good-nature of my father never thwarted any of his chUdren, he suffered me to be too much indulged, and permitted her to gratify the first vehement inclination that ever I expressed, and which, as I have never since felt any enthusiasm for royal persons, I must suppose that the female attendants in the famUy must have put into my head, to long to see the King. This chUdish caprice was so strong, that my mother soHcited the Duchess of Kendal to obtain for me the honour of kissing his Majesty's hand before he set out for Hanover. A favour so unusual to be asked for a boy of ten years old, was stiU too sHght to be refused to the -wife of the First Minister for her darling chUd ; yet not being proper to be made a precedent, it was settled to be in private, and at night. Accordingly, the night but one before the King began his last journey, my mother carried me at ten at night to the apartment of the Countess of Walsingham,' on the ground-fioor, towards the ' Catherine Shorter, daughter of John Shorter, of Bybrook, in Kent, Esq., and grand-daughter of Sir John Shorter, Lord Mayor of London in 1688. She died 1737. — Cunningham. '¦^ Catherine Walpole and Mary Viscountess Malpas. — Walpole. ^ Melusina de Schulemberg, niece of the Duchess of Kendal, or rather as was suspected, her daughter by King George I. She was created for life, 7 April, 1722, Baroness of Aldborough, co. Suffolk, and Countess of Walsingham, co. Norfolk. She married, 6 Sept., 1733, the famous Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield (d. 1773), and died 16 Sept., 1778.— Cunningham. VOL. 1. c REMINISCEiirCES OF THE COURTS OF [ohap. i. garden at St. James's, which opened into that of her aunt the Duchess of Kendal's : apartments occupied by George II. after his Queen's death, and by his successive mistresses, the Countesses of Suffolk [Mrs. Howard] and Yarmouth [Madame de Walmoden]. Notice being given that the King was come do-wn to supper. Lady Walsingham took me alone into the Duchess's ante-room, where we found alone the King and her. I knelt down, and kissed his hand. He said a few words to me, and my conductress led me back to my mother.' The person of the King is as perfect in my memory as if I saw him but yesterday. It was that of an elderly man, rather pale, and exactly Hke his pictures and coins ; not taU ; of an aspect rather good than august ; -with a dark tie--wig, a plain coat, waistcoat, and breeches of snuff-coloured cloth, -with stockings of the same colour, and a blue riband over aU. So entirely was he my object that I do not beHeve I once looked at the Duchess ; but as I could not avoid seeing her on entering the room, I remember that just beyond his Majesty stood a very taU, lean, Ul-favoured old lady ; but I did not retain the least idea of her features, nor know what the colour of her dress was. My chUdish loyalty, and the condescension in gratifying it, were, I suppose, causes that contributed, very soon afterwards, to make me shed a flood of tears for that sovereign's death, when, -with the other scholars at Eton CoUege, I walked in procession to the proclamation of the successor ; and which (though I think they partly feU because I imagined it became the son of a Prime Minister to be more con cerned than other boys) were no doubt imputed by many of the spectators who were poHticians, to fears of my father's most probable faU, but of which I had not the smaUest conception, nor should have met -with any more concern than I did when it reaUy arrived, in the year 1742 ; by which time I had lost aU taste for Courts and Princes and Power, as was natural to one who never felt an ambitious thought for himself. It must not be inferred from her obtaining this grace for me, that the Duchess of Kendal was a friend to my father ; on the contiary, at that moment she had been labouring to displace him, and intio- ' The following is the account of this introduction given in " Walpoliana : " — " 1 do remember something of George I. My father took me to St. James's while I was a very little boy : after waiting some time in an ante-room, a, gentleman came in all dressed in brown, even his stockings, and with a riband and star. He took me up in his arms, kissed me, and chatted some time." — Wright. OHAP. I,] GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. ci duce Lord Bolingbroke' into the administiation ; on which 1 shall say more hereafter. It was an instance of Sir Robert's singular fortune, or evidence of his talents, that he not only preserved his power under two succes sive monarchs, but in spite of the efforts of both their mistresses' to remove him. It was perhaps stiU more remarkable, and an instance unparaUeled, that Sir Robert govemed George I. in Latin, the King not speaking English,' and his minister no German, nor even French." It was much talked of, that Sir Robert, detecting one of the Hanoverian ministers in some tiick or falsehood before the King's face, had the firmness to say to the German, " Mentiris impuden- tissime ! " The good-humoured monarch only laughed, as he often did when Sir Robert complained to him of his Hanoverians seUing places, nor would be persuaded that it was not the practice of the EngHsh court ; and which an incident must have planted in his mind with no favourable impression of EngHsh disinterestedness. " This is a strange country ! " said his Majesty ; " the first morning after my arrival at St. James's, I looked out of the -window, and saw a park with walks, a canal, &c., which they told me were mine. The next day. Lord Chet-wynd,' the ranger of my park, sent me a fine brace of carp out of my canal ; and I was told I must give five ' The well-known Henry St. John, Viscount BoUngbroke, secretary of state to Queen Anne ; on whose death he fled, and was attainted. — Walpole. " We have the authority of Sir Robert Walpole himself," says Coxe, " that the restoration of Lord Bolingbroke was the work of the Duchess of Kendal. He gained the duche-ss by a present of eleven thousand pounds, and obtained a promise to use her influence over the King, for the purpose of forwarding his complete restoration." — Wright. Com pare " Lord Hervey's Memoirs," Vol. i. p. 14. — Cunningham. " The Duchess of Kendal and Lady Suffolk. — Walpole. ' " Sir Robert was frequently heard to say, that during the reign of the first George, he govemed the kingdom by means of bad Latin : it is a matter of wonder that[ under such disadvantages, the King should take pleasure in transacting business with him ; a circumstance which was principally owing to the method and perspicuity of his calculations, and to the extreme facility with which he arranged and explained the most abstruse and difficult combinations of finance." — Coxe. — Weight. ¦' Prince WiUiam, (afterwards Duke of Cumberiand,) then a child, being carried to his grandfather on his birthday, the King asked him at what hour he rose. The Prince repUed, "when the chimney-sweepers went about." — "Vat is de chimney sweeper?" said the King.—" Have you been so long in England," said the boy, " and do not know what a chimney-sweeper is? Why, they are like that man there-" pointing to Lord Finch, afterwards Eari of Winchilsea aud Nottingham, of a family uncommonly swarthy and dark — " the black funereal Finches — " Sir Charles Williams's Ode to a Number of Great Men, 1742.— Walpole. " Walter, first Viscount Chetwynd (died 1735). In the Suffolk Correspondence (1. 251) is a curious letter from Lady Chetwynd about her lord's retention of the Rangership at the accession of King George II. —Cunningham. cii REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OP [chap. i. guineas to Lord Chetwynd's servant for bringing me my own carp out of my oion canal in my own park ! " I have said that the Duchess of Kendal was no friend of Sir Robert, and wished to make Lord BoHngbroke minister in his room. I was too young to know anything of that reign, nor was acquainted -with the poHtical cabals of the Court, which, however, I might have leamt from my father in the three years after his retirement [1742 — 1745] ; but being too thoughtless at that time, nor having youi laudable curiosity, I neglected to inform myself of many passages and circumstances, of which I have often since regretted my faulty ignorance. By what I can at present recoUect, the Duchess seems to have been jealous of Sir Robert's credit -with the King, which he had acquired, not by paying court, but by his superior abUities in the House of Commons, and by his knowledge in finance, of which Lord Sunderland and Craggs had betrayed their ignorance in countenanc ing the South Sea scheme ; and who, though more agreeable to the King, had been forced to give way to Walpole, as the only man capable of repairing that mischief The Duchess, too, might be alarmed at his attachment to the Prince of Wales ; from whom, in case of the King's death, her grace could expect no favour. Of her jealousy I do know the foUo-wing instance : Queen Anne had bestowed the rangership of Richmond New Park on her relations the Hydes for three Hves, one of which was expired. King George, fond of shooting, bought ' out the term of the last Earl of Clarendon, and of his son Lord Cornbury, and frequently shot there ; ha-ving appointed my eldest brother, Lord Walpole, Ranger nominaUy, but my father in reaHty, who -wished to hunt there once or twice a week. The Park had run to great decay under the Hydes, nor was there any mansion' better than the common lodges of the keepers. The King ordered a stone lodge, designed by Henry, Earl of Pembroke, to be erected for himself, but merely as a banqueting-house,' -with a large eating- ' For 5000?. — Cunningham. ^ The Earl of Rochester, who succeeded [1723] to the title of Clarendon on the extinction of the elder branch, had a villa close without the park ; but it had been burnt down [1721], and only one wing was left, W. Stanhope, [first] Earl of Har rington [died 1756], purchased the ruins, and built the bouse, since bought by Lord Camelford. — Walpole. From whom it was bought, in 1790, by King WUliam IV., then Duke of Clarence. — Wright. ' It was afterwards enlarged by the Princess Amelia ; to whom her father, George II., had granted the reversion of the rangership after Lord Walpole. Her Royal Highness sold it to George III. for a pension on Ireland of 12001. a-year, and his Majesty appointed Lord Bute [died 1792] ranger for life, — Walpole, OHAP, i.j GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. ciii room, kitchen, and necessary offices, where he might dine after his sport. Sir Robert began another of brick, for himself and the under- ranger, which, by degrees, he much enlarged ; usuaUy retiring thither from business, or rather, as he said himself, to do more busi ness than he could in to-wn, on Saturdays and Sundays. On that edifice, on the thatched house, and other improvements, he laid out fourteen thousand pounds of his own money. In the mean time, he hired a smaU house for himself on the HUl -without the Park ; and in that smaU tenement the King did him the honour of dining -with him more than once after shooting. His Majesty, fond of private' jo-viaHty, was pleased -with punch after dinner, and indulged in it freely. The Duchess, alarmed at the advantage the Minister might make of the openness of the King's heart in those con-vi-vial, unguarded hours, and at a crisis when she was conscious Sir Robert was apprised of her inimical machinations in favour of Bolingbroke, enjoined the few Germans who accompanied the Bang at those dinners to prevent his Majesty from drinking too freely. Her spies obeyed too punctuaUy, and -without any address. The King was offended, and silenced the tools by the Cuarsest epithets in the German language. He even, before his departure [for Han over], ordered Sir Robert to have the stone lodge finished against his return : no symptom of a falling minister, as has since been sup posed Sir Robert then was, and that Lord BoHngbroke was to have replaced him, had the King Hved to come back. But my presump tion to the contrary is more stiongly corroborated by what had recently passed : the Duchess had actuaUy prevaUed on the King to see BoHngbroke secretly in his closet. That intriguing Proteus, aware that he might not obtain an audience long enough to efface former prejudices, and make sufficient impression on the King against Sir Robert, and in his o-wn favour, went pro-vided -with a long me morial' which he left in the closet, and begged his Majesty to ' The King [George I.] hated the parade of royalty. When he went to the opera, it was in no state ; nor did he sit in the stage box, nor forwards, but behind the Duchess of Kendal and Lady Walsingham, in the second box, now [1788] allotted to the Maids of Honour. — Walpolk. ' When he [Sir Robert Walpole] retired from office, he destroyed a large quantity [of papers]. Not long before his death, he said to his son, " Horace, when I am gone, you will find many curious papers in the drawer of this table," and mentioned among others, the memorial which had been drawn up by Bolingbroke, and presented by the Duchess of Kendal to the King. When his son, some time after his death, inspected the drawer, the papers were lost, and were never afterwards recovered. In relating this anecdote, the late Earl of Orford declared his opinion that the papers had been either inadvertently destroyed by his elder brother, or stolen by civ REMINISCENCES OP THE COURTS OF [ohap. i. peruse cooUy at his leisure. The King kept the paper, but no longer than tUl he saw Sir Robert, to whom he deHvered the poisoned remonstiance.' If that communication prognosticated the Minister's faU, I am at a loss to know what a mark of confldence is. Nor was that discovery the first intimation that Walpole had received of the measure of BoHngbroke's gratitude. The minister, against the earnest representations of his famUy and most intimate friends, had consented to the recaU of that incendiary from banish ment,' excepting only his re-admission to the House of Lords, that every field of annoyance might not be open to his mischievous tur bulence. Bolingbroke, it seems, deemed an embargo laid on his tongue, would warrant his hand to launch every envenomed shaft against his benefactor, who by restricting had paid him the compH ment of avowing that his eloquence was not totaUy inoffensive. Craftsmen, pamphlets, Hbels, combinations, were showered on or employed for years against the Prime Minister, -without shaking his power or ruffHng his temper ; and BoHngbroke had the mortification of finding his rival had abilities to maintain his influence against the mistresses of two kings, -with whom his antagonist had plotted in vain to overturn him.' a steward. — Coxe, Preface to Life of Sir Robert Walpole, 3 vols. 4to. 1798. — Cun ningham. ' All this is curiously confirmed by Lord Hervey's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 18. — Cunningham. ^ Bolingbroke at his return [1723] could not avoid waiting on Sir Robert to thank him, and was invited to dine with him at Chelsea ; but whether tortured at witnessing Walpole's serene frankness and felicity, or suffocated with indignation and confusion at being forced to be obliged to one whom he hated and envied, the first morsel he put into his mouth was near choking him, and he was reduced to rise from table and leave the room for some minutes. I never heard of their meeting more. — Walpole. For the story of Bolingbroke's pardon, see Lord Hervey's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 14 ; and the curious minute made by Mr. Etough of the conversation with Sir Robert Walpole in Coxe's Walpole, ii. 345. — Cunningham. ^ George II. parted with Lady Suffolk, on Princess Amelia informing Queen Caroline from Bath, that the mistress had interviews there with Lord Bolingbroke. Lady Suffolk, above twenty years after, protested to me that she had not once seen his lordship there ; and I should believe she did not, for she was a woman of truth : but her great intimacy and connection with Pope and Swift, the intimate friends of Bolingbroke, even before the death of George I., and her being the channel through whom that faction had flattered themselves they should gain the ear of the new King, can leave no doubt of Lady Suffolk's support of that party. Her dearest friend to her death was WiUiam, afterwards [1767 third] Lord Chetwynd [died 1770], the known and most trusted confidant of Lord Bolingbroke. Of those political intrigues 1 shall say more in these Reminiscences. — Walpole. GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. CHAPTER II. Marriage of George I. whUe Electoral Prince, to the Princess Sophia Dorothea —Assassination of Count Konigsmark— Separation from the Princess— Left handed Espousal— Piety of the Duchess of Kendal— Confinement and Death of Sophia Dorothea in the Castle of Alden— French Prophetess— The King's Superstition — MademoiseUe Schulemberg — Royal Inconstancy— Countess of Platen — ^Anne Brett — Sudden Death of George I. George L, while Electoral Prince, had married his cousin, the Princess Dorothea,' only child of the Duke of ZeU ; a match of con venience to re-unite the dominions of the famUy. Though she was very handsome, the Prince, who was extremely amourous, had several mistiesses ; which provocation, and his absence in the army of the confederates, probably disposed the Princess to indulge some degree of coquetiy. At that moment arrived at Hanover the famous and beautiful Count Konigsmark,' the charms of whose person ought not to have obHterated the memory of his -vUe assassination of Mr. Thynne.^ His vanity, the beauty of the Electoral Princess, and the neglect under which he found her, encouraged his presumption to ' Her names were Sophia Dorothea ; but I call her by the latter, to distinguish her from the Princess Sophia, her mother-in-law, on whom the crown of Great Britain was settled. — Walpole. ^ Konigsmark behaved with great intrepidity, aud was wounded at a bull-feast in Spain. See " Letters from Spain of the Comtesse D'Anois," vol. ii. He was brother of the beautiful Comtesse de Konigsmark, mistress of Augustus II., King of Poland. — Walpole. ' It was not this Count Konigsmark, but an elder brother, who was accused of having suborned Colonel Vratz, Lieutenant Stern, and one George Boroskey, to murder Mr. Thynne in Pall-Mail, on the 12th of February, 1682, and for which they were executed in that street on the 10th of March. For the particulars, see Howell's " State Trials," vol. ix. p. 1, and Sir John Reresby's " Memoirs," p. 1 35. " This day," says Evelyn, in his Diary of the 10th of March, " was executed Colonel Vrats, for the execrable murder of Mr. Thynne, set on by the principal, Konigsmark : he went to execution like an undaunted hero, as one that had done a friendly office for that base coward. Count Konigsmark, who had hopes to marry his widow, the rich Lady Ogle, and was acquitted by a corrupt jury, and so got away : Vrats told a friend of mine, who accompanied him to the gallows, and gave him some advice, that he did not value dying of a rush, and hoped and believed God would deal with him like a gentleman." Mr. Thynne was buried in Westminster Abbey ; the manner of his death being represented on his monument. He was the Issachar of Absalom and cvi REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OF [chap, it make his addresses to her, not covertly ; and she, though beHeved not to have transgressed her duty, did receive them too indiscreetly. The old Elector flamed at the insolence of so stigmatised a pretender, and ordered him to quit his dominions the next day. The Princess, surrounded by women too closely connected -with her husband, and consequently enemies of the lady they injured, was persuaded by them to suffer the Count to kiss her hand before his abrupt de parture ; and he was actuaUy intioduced by them into her bed chamber the next morning before she rose. From that moment he disappeared ; nor was it known what became of him, tUl on the death of George I. [1727], on his son the new King's first journey to Han over, some alterations in the palace being ordered by him, the body of Konigsmark was discovered under the floor of the Electoral Princess's dressing-room — the Count ha-ving probably been strangled there the instant he left her, and his body secreted. The discovery was hushed up ; George II. entrusted the secret to his -wife, Queen Caro Hne, who told it to my father : but the King was too tender of the honour of his mother to utter it to his mistress ; nor did Lady Suffolk ever hear of it, tUl I informed her of it several years afterwards. The disappearance of the Count made his murder suspected, and various reports of the discovery of his body have of late years been spread, but not with the authentic circumstances. The second George loved his mother as much as he hated his father, and purposed, as was said, had the former survived,' to have brought her over and declared her Queen Dowager.' Lady Suffolk, Achitophel ; in which poem Dryden, describing the respect and favour with which Monmouth was received upon his progress in the year 1681, says — Hospitable hearts did most commend Wise Issachar, his wealthy, western friend. Reresby states, that Lady Ogle, immediately after the marriage, " repenting herself of the match, fled from him into Holland, before they were bedded." This circum stance, added to the fact, that Mr. Thynne had formerly seduced Miss Trevor, one of the maids of honour to Catherine of Portugal, wife of Charles II., gave birth to the following lines : — Here lies Tom Thynne, of Longleat Hall, Who never would have miscarried. Had he married the woman he lay withal . Or lain with the woman he married. On the 30th of May, in the same year, Lady Ogle was married to Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset. — Wright. ' She died 13 Nov. 1726.— Cunningham. ^ Lady Suffolk thought he rather would have made her Regent of Hanover; and she also told me, that George I. had offered to live again with his wife, but she refused, unless her pardon were asked pubUcly. She said, what most affected her was the dis grace that would be brought on her chUdren ; and if she were only pardoned, that would not remove it. Lady Suffolk thought she was then divorced, though the divorce OHAP. ii.j GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. ovii has told me her surprise, on going to the new Queen the morning after the news arrived of the death of George I., at seeing hung up in the Queen's dressing-room a whole-length of a lady in royal robes ; and in the bed-chamber a half-length of the same person, neither of which Lady Suffolk had ever seen before. The Prince had kept them concealed, not daring to produce them during the Hfe of his father. The whole-length he probably sent to Hanover ;' the haK-length I have frequently and frequently seen in the Hbrary of Princess AmeHa,' who told me it was the portiait of her grandmother. She bequeathed it [1786], -with other pictures of her famUy, to her nephew, the Landgrave of Hesse. Of the circumstances that ensued on Konigsmark's disappearance I am ignorant ; nor am I acquainted -with the laws of Germany relative to divorce or separation : nor do I know or suppose that despotism and pride aUow the law to insist on much formaHty when a sovereign has reason or mind to get rid of his -wife. Perhaps too much difficulty of untying the Gordian knot of matiimony thro-wn in the way of an absolute prince would be no kindness to the ladies, but might prompt him to use a sharper weapon, Hke that butchering husband, our Henry VIII. Sovereigns, who narrow or let out the law of God according to their prejudices and passions, mould their o-wn laws no doubt to the standard of their convenience. Genealogic purity of blood is the predominant foUy of Germany ; and the code of Malta seems to have more force in the empire than the ten com mandments. Thence was introduced that most absurd evasion of the indissolubility of marriage, espousals -with the left hand — as if the Almighty had restiained his ordinance to one half of a man's person, was never published ; and that the old Elector consented to his son's marrying the Duchess of Kendal with the left hand — but it seems strange that George I. should offer to live again with his wife, and yet be divorced from her. Perhaps George II., to vindicate his mother, supposed that offer and her spirited refusal. — Walpole. ' George II. was scrupulously exact in separating and keeping in each country whatever belonged to England or Hanover. Lady Suffolk told me, that on his acces sion he could not find a knife, fork, and spoon of gold which had belonged to Queen Anne, and which he remembered to have seen here at his first arrival. He found them at Hanover on his first journey thither after he came to the crown, and brought them back to England. He could not recollect much of greater value; for, on Queen Aime's death [1714], and in the interval before the arrival of the new family, such a clearance had been made of her Majesty's jewels, or the new King so instantly distri buted what he found amongst his German favourites, that, as Lady S. told me, Queen Caroline never obtained of the late Queen's jewels but one pearl necklace. — Walpole. ^ At Gunnersbury, near Brentford. The Princess Amelia, the daughter of King George II. was bom in 1711, and died in 1786. She was the last survivor of the children of King George II. — Cunningham. cviii REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OF [ohap. ii. and aUowed a greater latitude to his left side than to his right, or pronounced the former more ignoble than the latter. The con sciences both of princely and noble persons in Germany are quieted, if the more plebeian side is married to one who would degrade the more iUustrious moiety — ^but, as if the laws of matrimony had no reference to the chUdren to be thence propagated, the chUdren of a left-handed aUiance are not entitled to inherit. — Shocking con sequence of a senseless equivocation, that only satisfies pride, not justice ; and calciUated for an acquittal at the Heralds' Office, not at the last tribunal. Separated the Princess Dorothea certainly was, and never ad mitted even to the nominal honours of her rank, being thenceforward always styled Duchess of HaUe. Whether divorced' is problematic, at least to me ; nor can I pronounce, as, though it was generaUy beHeved, I am not certain that George espoused the Duchess of Kendal with his left hand. As the Princess Dorothea died only some months before him,^ that ridiculous ceremony was scarcely deferred tUl then ; and the extreme outward devotion of the Duchess, who every Sunday went seven times to Lutheran chapels, seemed to announce a legaHsed wife. As the genuine -wife was always detained in her husband's power, he seems not to have whoUy dissolved their union ; for, on the approach of the French army towards Hanover during Queen Anne's reign, the Duchess of HaUe was sent home to her father and mother, who doted on their only chUd, and did retain her for a whole year, and did implore, though in vain, that she might continue to reside -with them. As her son too, George II., had thoughts of bringing her over and declaring her Queen Dowager, one can hardly beHeve that a ceremonial divorce had passed, the existence of which process would have glared in the face of her royalty. But though German casuistry might aUow her husband to take another -wife -with his left hand, because his legal -wife had suffered her right hand to be kissed in bed by a gaUant, even West- phaHan or AuHc counseUors could not have pronounced that such a momentary adieu constituted adultery ; and therefore a formal divorce I must doubt — and there I must leave that case of conscience ' " George I.," says Coxe, " who never loved his wife, gave implicit credit to the account of her infidelity, as related by his father ; consented to her imprisonment, and obtained from the ecclesiastical consistory a divorce, which was passed on the 28th of December, 1694." — Memoirs of Walpole, vol. i. p. 268. — Wright. 2 " The unfortunate Sophia was confined in the castle of Alden, situated on the small river AUer, in the Duchy of ZeU. She terminated her miserable existence, after along captivity of thirty-two years, on the 13th of November, 1726, only seven months OHAP. n.l GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cix undecided, tUl future search into the Hanoverian chancery shaU clear up a point of Httle real importance. I have said that the disgraced Princess died but a short time before the King. It is known that in Queen Anne's time there was much noise about French prophets. A female of that vocation (for we know from Scripture that the gift of prophecy is not Hmited to one gender) warned George I. to take care of his -wife, as he would not survive her a year. That oracle was probably dictated to the French Deborah by the Duke and Duchess of ZeU, who might be appre hensive lest the Duchess of Kendal should be tempted to remove entirely the obstacle to her conscientious union -with their son-in- law. Most Germans are superstitious, even such as have few other impressions of reHgion. George gave such credit to the denuncia tion, that on the eve of his last departure he took leave of his son and the Princess of Wales -with tears, teUing them he should never see them more. It was certainly his o-wn approaching fate that melted him, not the thought of quitting for ever two persons he hated. He did sometimes so much justice to his son as to say, " II est fougueux, mais U a de I'honneur." — For Queen Caroline, to his confidants he termed her " cette diablesse Madame la Princesse." I do not know whether it was about the same period, that in a tender mood he promised the Duchess of Kendal, that if she survived him, and it were possible for the departed to return to this world, he would make her a -visit. The Duchess, on his death [1727], so much expected the accompHshment of that engagement, that a large raven, or some black fowl, flying into one of the -vrindows of her vUla at Isleworth, she was persuaded it was the soul of her departed monarch so accoutred, and received and treated it -with aU the respect and tenderness of duty, tUl the royal bird or she took their last ffight. George II. no more addicted than his father to too much reHgious creduHty, had yet impHcit faith in the German notion of vampires, and has more than once been angry with my father for speaking irreverently of those imaginary blood-suckers. The Duchess of Kendal, of whom I have said so much, was, when MademoiseUe Schulemberg, Maid of Honour to the Electress before the death of George I. ; and she was announced in the Gazette, under the title of the Electress Dowager of Hanover. During her whole confinement she behaved with no less mildness than dignity; and, on receiving the sacrament once every week never omitted making the most solemn asseverations, that she was not guilty of the' crime laid to her charge." — Coxe, vol. i. p. 268. — Wright. ex REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OF [chap. n. Sophia, — ^mother of King George I. and destined by King WiUiam and the Act of Settlement to succeed Queen Anne. George feU in love with MademoiseUe Schulemberg, though by no means an in-viting object — so Httle, that one evening when she was in waiting behind the Electress's chair at a baU, the Princess Sophia, who had made herself mistress of the language of her future subjects, said in EngHsh to Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk, then at her court, " Look at that mawkin, and think of her being my son's passion ! " Mrs. Howard, who told me the story, protested she was terrified, forgetting that MademoiseUe Schulemberg did not under stand EngHsh. The younger MademoiseUe Schulemberg, who came over with her and was created Countess of Walsingham, passed for her niece ; but was so Hke to the King, that it is not very credible that the Duchess, who had affected to pass for cruel, had waited for the left-handed marriage. The Duchess, under whatever denomination, had attained and preserved to the last her ascendant over the King : but notwith standing that influence, he was not more constant to her than he had been to his avowed -wife ; for another acknowledged mistress, whom he also brought over, was Madame KUmansegge, Countess of Platen, who was created [1722] Countess of DarHngton,' and by whom he was indisputably father of Charlotte,' married [1719] to Lord Viscount Howe, and mother of the present Earl [1788]. Lady Howe was never pubHcly acknowledged as the King's daughter ; but Princess .AmeHa tieated her daughter, Mrs. Howe,' upon that foot, and one evening, when I was present, gave her a ring, -with a smaU portiait of George I. with a crown of diamonds. Lady Darlington, whom I saw at my mother's in my infancy, and whom I remember by being terrified at her enormous figure, was as corpulent and ample as the Duchess was long and emaciated. Two fierce black eyes, large and roUing beneath two lofty arched eye brows, two acres of cheek spread with crimson, an ocean of neck that overflowed and was not distinguished from the lower part of her body, and no part restiained by stays — ^no wonder that a child ' Madame KUmansegge, the Countess of Darlington, died 1730. — Cunningham. 2 Mary Sophia Charlotte, married, 1719, to Emanuel, second Viscount Howe. She died in 1782. — Cunninguam. ^ CaroUne, the eldest of Lady Howe's chUdren, had married a gentleman of her own name, John Howe, Esq. of Hanslop, in the county of Bucks. — Walpole. Mrs. Howe died in 1814, in her 93rd year. Compare Walpole to Miss Berry, 14 Dec, 1793. — Cunningham. ohap. ii.] GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cxi dreaded such an ogress, and that the mob of London were highly diverted at the importation of so uncommon a seraglio ! They were food for aU the venom of the Jacobites ; and, indeed, nothing coiUd be grosser than the ribaldry that was vomited out m lampoons, Hbels, and every channel of abuse, against the sovereign and the new court, and chanted even in their hearing about the public streets.' On the other hand, it was not tiU the last year or two of his reign that their foreign sovereign paid the nation the compHment of taking openly an EngHsh mistiess. That personage was Amne Brett, eldest daughter by her second husband ' of the repudiated -wife of the Earl of Macclesfield, the unnatural mother of Savage the poet. Miss Brett was very handsome, but dark enough by her eyes, complexion, and hair, for a Spanish beauty. Abishag was lodged in the palace under the eyes of Bathsheba, who seemed to maintain her power, as other favourite sultanas have done, by suffering partners in the sovereign's affections. When his Majesty should ' One of the German ladies, being abused by the mob, was said to have put her head out of the coach, and cried in bad English, " Good people, why you abuse us i We come for all your goods." "Yes, damn ye," answered a fellow in the crowd, " and for all our chattels too." I mention this, because on the death [1786] of Princess Amelia, the newspapers revived the story and told it of her, though I had heard it three-score years before of one of her grandfather's mistresses. — Walpole. * Colonel Henry Brett. " Colonel Brett was a remarkably handsome man. The Countess of Rivers [Macclesfield], looking out of her window on a disturbance in the street, saw him assaulted by bailiffs who were going to arrest him. She paid his debt, released him from their pursuit, and soon after married him. When she died, she left him more than he expected; with which he bought an estate in the country, built a very handsome house upon it, and fiirnished it in the highest taste ; went down to see the finishing of it, returned to London in hot weather and in too much hurry; got a fever by it, and died. Nobody had a better taste of what would please the town, and his opinion was much regarded by the actors and dramatic poets." — Dr. Young, in Spence's Anecdotes, bp Singer, p. 355. — Wright. "This was written in 1744. Mrs. Brett (formerly Countess of Macclesfield) died Oct. 11, 1753, at her house in Old Bond Street, aged above eighty. " CoUey Gibber, I am informed, had so high an opinion of her taste and judgment as to genteel life and manners, that he submitted every scene of his ' Careless Hus band ' to Mrs. Brett's revisal and correction. Colonel Brett was reported to be free in his gaUantries with his lady's maid. Mrs. Brett came into a room one day in her own house and found the Colonel and her maid both fast asleep in two chairs. She tied a white handkerchief round her husband's neck, which was a sufficient proof that she had discovered his intrigue ; but she never at any time took notice of it to him. This incident, as I am told, gave occasion to the well-wrought scene of Sir Charles and Lady Easy and Edging."- £o«weK, ed. Croker, 1847, p. 53. " Her marriage, ten years after her royal lover's death, is thus announced in the Gent.'s Mag. 1737 : — 'Sept. 17. Sir Wm. Leman, of Northall, Bart., to Miss Brett, of Bond Street, an heiress ;' and again next month : ' Oct. 8. Sir Wm. Leman, of NorthaU, Bart., to Miss Brett, half-sister to Mr. Savage, son to the late Earl Rivers.' For the difference of date I know not how to account, but the second insertion was no dowbt made by Savage to countenance his own pretensions." — Croker, Boswell, ed. 1847, p. 53, — Cunningham, cxii REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OF [ohap. iii. return to England, a Countess's coronet was to have rewarded the young lady's compliance, and marked her secondary rank. She might, however, have proved a tioublesome rival, as she seemed so confident of the power of her charms, that, whatever predominant ascendant the Duchess might retain, her o-wn authority in the palace she thought was to yield to no one else. George I. when his son the Prince of Wales and the Princess had quitted St. James's on their quarrel -with him, had kept back their three eldest daughters, who Hved -with him to his death, even after there had outwardly been a reconciUation between the King and Prince. Miss Brett, when the King set out, ordered a door to be broken out of her apartment into the royal garden. .Anne, the eldest of the Princesses,' offended at that freedom, and not choosing such a companion in her walks, ordered the door to be waUed up again. Miss Brett as imperiously reversed that command. The King died suddenly, and the empire of the new mistress and her promised coronet vanished. She after wards [1737] married Sir WUHam Leman, and was forgotten before her reign had transpired beyond the confines of Westminster ! CHAPTER in. Quarrel between George I. and his Son — Earl of Sunderland— Lord Stanhope — South Sea Scheme — Death of Craggs — Royal Reconcilement — Peerage Bill defeated — Project for seizing the Prince of Wales and conveying him to America — Duke of Newcastle — Royal Christening — Open Rupture— Prince and Princess of Wales ordered to leave the Palace. One of the most remarkable occurrences in the reign of George I. was the open quarrel between him and his son the Prince of Wales. Whence the dissension originated ; whether the Prince's attachment to his mother embittered his mind against his father, or whether hatied of his father occasioned his devotion to her, I do not pretend to know. I do suspect from circumstances, that the hereditary enmity in the House of Brunswick between the parents and their eldest sons dated earHer than the di-visions between the first two Georges. The Princess Sophia was a woman of parts and great vivacity : in the earHer part of her Hfe she had professed much zeal ' Anne, Princess Royal, born 1709, died 1759, having married, 1734, WiUiam Charles Henry, Prince of Orange. — Cunningham. OHAP. III.J GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cxiii for the deposed House of Stuart, as appeared by a letter of hers in print, addressed, I think, to the ChevaHer de St. George. It is natural enough for all princes, who have no prospect of being benefited by the deposition of a cro-wned head, to choose to think royalty an indeHble character. The Queen of Prussia, daughter of George I., Hved and died an avowed Jacobite. The Princess Sophia, youngest chUd of the Queen of Bohemia, was consequently the most remote from any pretensions to the British cro-wn ; ' but no sooner had King WiUiam procured a settlement of it, after Queen Anne, on her Electoral Highness, than nobody became a stancher Whig than the Princess Sophia, nor could be more impatient to mount the throne of the expeUed Stuarts. It is certain that during the reign of Anne, the Elector George was incHned to the Tories ; though after his mother's death and his o-wn accession he gave himself to the opposite party. But if he and his mother espoused different factions, Sophia found a ready partisan in her grandson the Electoral Prince ; " and it is true, that the demand made by the Prince of his -writ of summons to the House of Lords as Duke of Cambridge, which no wonder was so offensive to Queen Anne, was made in concert -with his grandmother, -without the privity of the Elector his father. Were it certain, as was beHeved, that BoHngbroke and the Jacobites prevaUed on the Queen ' to consent to her brother [the old Pretender] coming secretly to England, and to seeing him in her closet ; she might have been induced to that step, when provoked by an attempt to force a distant and foreign heir upon her whUe stUl aUve. The Queen and her heiress being dead, the new King and his son came over in apparent harmony ; and on his Majesty's first visit to his electoral dominions, the Prince of Wales was even left Regent ; but never being trusted afterwards -with that dignity on Hke ' It Is remarkable, that either the weak propensity of the Stuarts to popery, or the visible connection between regal and ecclesiastic power, had such operation on many of the branches of that famUy, who were at a distance from the crown of England, to wear which it is necessary to be a Protestant, that two or three of the daughters of the King and Queen of Bohemia, though their parents had lost every thing in the straggle between the two religions, turned Roman Catholics; and so did one or more of the sons of the Princess Sophia, brothers of the Protestant candidate, George I. — Walpole. ^ Afterwards George II. — Walpole. •• I believe it was a fact, that the poor weak Queen, being disposed even to cede the crown to her brother, consulted Bishop Wilkins, called the Prophet, to know what would be the consequence of such a step. He replied, " Madam, you would be in the Tower in a month, and dead in three." This sentence, dictated by common sense, her Majesty took for inspiration, and dropped all thoughts of resigning the orown.-- Walpolb. cxi'v REMINISCENCES OP THE COURTS OF [ohap. iu. occasions, it is probable that the son discovered too much fondness for acting the king, or that the father conceived a jealousy of his ha-ving done so. Sure it is, that on the King's return great divisions arose in the Court ; and the Whigs were di-vided — some devoting themselves to the wearer of the cro-wn, and others to the expectant. I shall not enter into the detaU of those squabbles, of which I am but superficiaUy informed. The predominant ministers were the Earls of Sunderland and Stanhope. The brothers-in-law, the Viscount To-wnshend and Mr. Robert Walpole, adhered to the Prince. Lord Sunderland is said to have too much resembled as a poHtician the Earl his father, who was so principal an actor in the reign of James II. and in bringing about the revolution. Between the Earl in question and the Prince of Wales grew mortal antipathy; of which an anecdote told me by my father himself -wiU leave no doubt. When a reconcUiation had been patched up between the two courts, and my father became First Lord of the Treasury a second time. Lord Sunderland in a tete-a-tete -with him said, " WeU, Mr. Walpole, we have settled matters for the present ; but we must think whom we -wiU have next " (meaning in case of the King's demise). Walpole said, "Your lordship may think as you please, but my part is taken ; " meaning to support the estabHshed settlement. Earl Stanhope was a man of strong and -violent passions, and had dedicated himself to the army ; and was so far from thinking of any other line, that when Walpole, who first suggested the idea of appointing him Secretary of State, proposed it to him, he flew into a furious rage, and was on the point of a do-wnright quarrel, looking on himself as totaUy unqualified for the post, and suspecting it for a plan of mocking him. He died [1721] in one of those tempestuous saUies, being pushed in the House of Lords on the explosion of the South Sea scheme. That iniquitous affair, which Walpole had early exposed, and to remedy the mischiefs of which he alone was deemed adequate, had replaced him at the head of affairs, and obHged Sunderland to submit to be only a coadjutor of the administiation. The younger Craggs,' a sho-wy vapouring man, had been brought ' James Craggs, jun., buried in Westminster Abbey, with an epitaph by Pope. — Walpole. Craggs died on the 16th of February, 1721. His monument was executed by Guelphi, whom Lord Burlington invited into the kingdom. Walpole considered it graceful and simple, but that the artist was an indifferent sculptor. Dr. Johnson objects to Pope's inscription, that it is partly in Latin and partly in English. " If either language," he says, " be preferable to the other, let that only be used ; for no ohap. III.] GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cxv forward by the ministers to oppose Walpole ; but was soon reduced to beg his assistance on one ' of their ways and means. Craggs caught his death by calling at the gate of Lady March,' who was iU of the smaU pox ; and being told so by the porter, went home directly, feU Ul of the same distemper, and died. His father, the elder Craggs,' whose very good sense Sir R. Walpole much admired, soon foUowed his son, and his sudden death was imputed to grief ; but having been deeply dipped in the iniquities of the South Sea, and wishing to prevent confiscation and save his Ul-acquired wealth for his daughters, there was no doubt of his having despatched himself. When his death was di-vulged, Sir Robert o-wned that the unhappy man had in an obHque manner hinted his resolution to him. The reconciHation of the Royal FamUy was so Httle cordial, that I question whether the Prince did not resent Sir Robert Walpole's return to the King's service. Yet had Walpole defeated a plan of Sunderland that would in futurity have exceedingly hampered the successor, as it was calculated to do ; nor do I affect to ascribe Sir Robert's -victory directly to zeal for the Prince : personal and just views prompted his opposition, and the Commoners of England were not less indebted to him than the Prince. Sunderland had devised a biU to restrain the cro-wn from ever adding above six peers to a number Hmited.'' The actual peers were far from disliking the measure ; but Walpole, taking fire, instantly communicated his dissatisfaction to aU the great Commoners, who might for ever be excluded from the peerage. He spoke, he -wrote,' he persuaded, and reason can be given why part of the information should be given in one tongue, and part in another, on a tomb more than in any other place or any other occasion : such an epitaph resembles the conversation of a foreigner, who tells part of his meaning by words, and conveys part by signs." — Wright. ' I think it was the sixpenny tax on offices. — Walpole. " Sarah Cadogan, afterwards Duchess of Richmond. — Walpole. ' " One who came out of the city, told me he believed Mr. Craggs dying, if not actually dead, and gave some circumstances in confirmation of a whisper of his having taken a dose, if so, it resembles in a great measure Lord Essex's case." — Thomas Brodrick to Lord Middleton, March 16, 1720-1. — Coxe's Sir R. Walpole, vol ii. p. 213. Compare Walpole to Mann, 1 Sept., 1750. — Cunningham. ¦* Queen Anne's creation of twelve peers at once, to obtain a majority in the House of Lords, offered an ostensible plea for the restriction. — Walpole. ' Sir Robert published a pamphlet against the biU, entitled, " The Thoughts of a Member of the Lower House, in relation to a project for restraining and limiting the powers of the Crown in the future creation of Peers." On the other side, Addison's pen was employed in defending the measure in a paper called The Old Whig, against Steele, who attacked it in a pamphlet entitled The Plebeian.— Wright. cxvi REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OF [chap, hi the BUl was rejected by the Commons with disdain, after it had passed the House of Lords.' But the hatred of some of the junto at Court had gone farther, horribly farther. On the death of George I. [1727] Queen CaroHne found in his cabinet a proposal of the Earl of Berkeley,' then, I think. First Lord of the Admiralty, to seize the Prince of Wales,' and convey him to America, whence he should never be heard of more. This detestable project, copied probably from the Earl of Falmouth's offer to Charles II. -with regard to his Queen, was in the hand-writing of Charles Stanhope, elder brother of the Earl of Harrington ; " and so deep was the impression deservedly made on the mind of George II. by that abominable paper, that aU the favour of Lord Harrington, when Secretary of State, could never obtain the smallest boon to his brother, though but the subordinate transcriber.' George I. was too humane to Hsten to such an atrocious deed. It was not very kind to the conspirators to leave such an instiument behind him ; and if -virtue and conscience -wUl not check bold bad men fr-om paying court by detestable offers, the King's carelessness or indifference in such an instance ought to warn them of the Httle gratitude that such machinations can inspire or expect. .Among those who had preferred the ser-vice of the King to that of the Heir apparent, was the Duke of Newcastle," who ha-ving married his sister to Lord Townshend, both his Royal Highness and the Viscount had expected would have adhered to that connection — and neither forgave his desertion. 1 am aware of the desultory manner in which I have told my story, ha-ving mentioned the recon- ' " The effect of Sir Robert's speech on the House," says Coxe, "exceeded the most sanguine expectations : it fixed those who had before been wavering and irresolute, brought over many who had been tempted by the speciousness of the measure to favour its introduction, and procured its rejection, by a triumphant majority of 269 against 177." — Memoirs, vol. i. p. 125. — Wright. ^ James, third Earl of Berkeley, knight of the garter, &c. — Walpole. In March 1718 he was appointed first lord of the Admiralty, in which post he continued all the reign of George I. He died at the castle of Aubigny, in France, in 1736. — Wright. ^ See Lord Hervey's Memoirs, i. 61, and ii. 478. — Cunningham. • William Stanhope, first Earl of Harrington of that family. — Walpole. ' Coxe states, that such was the indignation which the perusal of this paper excited, that, when Sir Robert espoused Charles Stanhope's interest, the King rejected the application with some expressions of resentment, aud declared that no con sideration should induce him to assign to him any place of trust or honour. — Wright. ' Thomas Holies Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, lord Chamberlain, then secretary of state, and lastly first lord of the treasury under George II. ; the same king to whom he had been so obnoxious in the preceding reign. He was obliged by George III. to resign his post. — Walpole. OHAF. III.J GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cxvii cUiation of the King and Prince before I have given any account of their public rupture. The chain of my thoughts led me into the preceding detaUs, and, if I do not flatter myself, -wUl have let you into the motives of my dramatis personee better than if I had more exactly observed chronology : and as I am not -writing a regular tiagedy, and profess but to relate facts as I recoUect them ; or (U you -wiU aUow me to imitate French -writers of tragedy) may I not plead that I have unfolded my piece as they do, by intro ducing two courtiers to acquaint one another, and by bricole the audience, -with what had passed in the penetiaHa before the tragedy commences ? The exordium thus duly prepared, you must suppose, ladies, that the second act opens -with a royal christening. The Princess oi Wales had been deHvered [1717] ' of a second son. The prince had intended his uncle, the Duke of York, Bishop of Osnaburg, should with his Majesty be godfathers. Nothing could equal the indignation of his Royal Highness when the King named the Duke of Newcastle for second sponsor, and woiUd hear of no other. The christening took place as usual in the Princess's bed-chamber. Lady Suffolk, then in waiting as woman of the bed-chamber, and of most accurate memory, painted the scene to me exactly. On one side of the bed stood the godfathers and godmother ; on the other the Prince and the Princess's ladies. No sooner had the Bishop closed the ceremony, than the Prince, crossing the feet of the bed in a rage, stepped up to the Duke of Newcastle, and, holding up his hand and fore-finger in a menacing attitude, said, " You are a rascal, but I shaU find you ; " meaning, in broken EngHsh, " I shaU find a time to be revenged." — " What was my astonishment," continued Lady Suffolk, " when going to the Princess's apartment the next morning, the yeomen in the guard-chamber pointed their halberds at my breast, and told me I must not pass ! I urged that it was my duty to attend the Princess. They said, ' No matter ; I must not pass that way.' " In one word, the King had been so provoked at the Prince's out rage in his presence, that it had been determined to inflict a still greater insult on his Royal Highness. His threat to the Duke [of Newcastle] was pretended to be understood as a chaUenge ; and to prevent a duel he had actuaUy been put under arrest — as if a Prince of Wales could stoop to fight -with a subject. The arrest was soon taken off; but at night the Prince and Princess were ordered to ' Prince George WUliam, bom 1717, died 1718. — Cunningham. cxviii REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OF [chap. iv. leave the Palace,' and retired to the house of her Chamberlain, the Earl of Grantham, in Albemarle Stieet. CHAPTER IV. Bill of Pains and Penalties against Bishop Atterbury — Projected Assassination of Sir Robert Walpole — Revival of the Order of the Bath — Instance of George I.'s good-humoured Presence of Mind. As this trifling work is a misceUany of detached recoUections, I wiU, ere I quit the article of George I., mention two subjects of very unequal import, which belong pecuHarly to his reign. The first was the deprivation of Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester. Nothing more offensive to men of priestly principles could easUy have happened : yet, as in a country of which the constitution was founded on rational and Hberal grounds, and where thinking men had so recently exerted themselves to explode the prejudices attached to the persons of kings and churchmen, it was impossible to defend the Bishop's tieason, but by denying it ; or to condemn his condemnation, but by supposing iUegaHties in the process : both were vehemently urged by his faction, as his innocence was pleaded by himself. That punishment and expulsion from his country may stagger the virtue even of a good man, and exasperate him against his country, is perhaps natural, and humanity ought to pity it. But whatever were the prepossessions of his friends in his favour, charity must now beHeve that Atterbury was always an ambitious turbulent priest, attached to the House of Stuart, and consequently no friend to the ci-vU and reHgious Hberties of his country ; or it must be acknowledged, that the disappointment of his ambition by the Queen's death, and the proscription of his Ministerial associates, had driven on attempts to restore the expeUed family in hopes of reaHsing his aspiring -views. His letters published by Nichols breathe the impetuous spirit of his youth. His exclama tion on the Queen's death [1714], when he offered to proclaim the Pretender at Charing Cross in pontificaHbus, and swore, on not being supported, that there was the best cause in England lost for want of spirit, ia now beHeved also. His papers, deposited -with King ' " Notice was also formaUy given that no persons who paid their respects to the Prince and Princess of Wales would be received at court; and they were deprived o' their guard, and of all other marks of distinction." — Coxe, vol. i. p. 132. — Wright. ohap. IV.] GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cxix James's in the Scottish College at Paris,' proclaimed in what sentiments he died ; and the facsimUes of his letters pubHshed by Sir David Dalrymple leave no doubt of his having in his exile entered into the ser-vice of the Pretender. Culpable as he was, who but must lament that so classic a mind had only assumed so elegant and amiable a semblance as he adopted after the disappointment of his prospects and hopes ? His letter in defence of the authenticity of Lord Clarendon's History, is one of the most beautiful and touching specimens of eloquence in our language. It was not to load the character of the Bishop, nor to affect candour bj' applauding his talents, that I intioduced mention of him, much less to impute to him any consciousness of the intended crime that I am going to relate. The person against whom the blow was supposed to be meditated never, in the most distant manner, sus pected the Bishop of being pri-vy to the plot — No: animosity of parties, and malevolence to the champions of the House of Bruns wick, no doubt suggested to some bHnd zealots the perpetration of a crime which would necessarUy have injured the Bishop's cause, and could by no means have prevented his disgrace. Mr. Johnstone, an ancient gentleman, who had been secretary of state for Scotland, his country, in the reign of King WUHam,' was a zealous friend of my father. Sir Robert, and who, in that period of assassination plots, had imbibed such a tincture of suspicion that he was continually notifying similar machinations to my father, and warning him to be on his guard against them. Sir Robert, intiepid and unsuspicious,' used to raUy his good monitor ; and, when serious, ' The Stuart Papers since Walpole wrote have been carefully examined by Lord Mahon for his valuable History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles. — Cunningham. ^ James Johnstone, son of Sir Archibald Johnstone, Lord Warriston, beheaded 1663. He lived in what is now Orleans House, Twickenham, where he died in 1737. His gardens were very famous. Lord Hervey makes Queen Caroline refer to them. — Cunningham. ^ At the time of the Preston rebellion, a Jacobite, who sometimes furnished Sir Robert with intelligence, sitting alone with him one night, suddenly putting his hand into his bosom and rising, said, " Why do not I kill you now ? " Walpole, starting up, replied, " Because I am a younger man and a stronger." They sat down again, and discussed the person's information. But Sir Robert afterwards had reasons for thinking that the spy had no intention of assassination, but had hoped, by intimi dating, to extort money from him. Yet if no real attempt was made on his life, it was not from want of suggestions to it ; one of the weekly journals pointed out Sir Robert's frequent passing Putney-bridge late at night, attended but by one or two servants, on his way to New Park, as a proper place ; and after Sir Robert's death, the second Earl of Egmont told me, that he was once at a consultation of the Opposi tion, in which it was proposed to have Sir Robert murdered by a mob, of which the earl had declared his abhorrence. Such an attempt was actually made in 1733, at cxx REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OF [chap. ly. told him, that his life was too constantly exposed to his enemies to make it of any use to be watchful on any particular occasion ; nor, though Johnstone often hurried to him -with inteUigence of such designs, did he ever see reason, but once, to beHeve in the soundness of the information. That once arrived thus : a day or two before [ ] the BUl of Pains and Penalties was to pass the House of Commons against the Bishop of Rochester, Mr. Johnstone advertised Sir Robert to be circumspect, for three or four persons meditated to assassinate him as he should leave the House at night. Sir Robert laughed, and forgot the notice. The morning after the debate, Johnstone came to Sir Robert -with a kind of good-natured insult, teUing him, that though he had scoffed his advice, he had for once foUowed it, and by so doing preserved his Hfe. Sir Robert under stood not what he meant, and protested he had not given more credit than usual to his warning. " Yes," said Johnstone, "but you did ; for you did not come from the House last night in your o-wn chariot." Walpole affirmed that he did; but his friend persisting in his asseveration. Sir Robert caUed one of his footmen, who repHed, " I did caU up your honour's carriage ; but Colonel ChurchiU ' being with you, and his chariot driving up first, your honour stepped into that, and your o-wn came home empty." Johnstone triumphing on his own veracity, and pushing the examination farther. Sir Robert's coachman recoUected that, as he left Palace-yard, three men, much muffled, had looked into the empty chariot. The mystery was never farther cleared up ; and my father frequently said it was the only instance of the kind in which he had ever seen any appearance of a real design. The second subject that I promised to mention, and it shaU be very briefiy, was the re-vival [1725] of the Order of the Bath. It was the measure of Sir Robert Walpole, and was an artful bank of thirty- six Ribands to supply a fund of favours, in lieu of places. He meant, too, to stave off the demand for Garters, and intended the time of the famous Excise Bill. As the minister descended the stairs of the House of Commons on the night he carried the bill, he was guarded on one side by his second son Edward, and on the other by General Charles ChurchiU, [see vol. i. p. 83, note 9] but the crowd behind endeavoured to throw him down, as he was a bulky man, and trample him to death ; and that not succeeding, they tried to strangle him by pulling his red cloak tight — but fortunately the strings broke by the violence of the tug. — Walpole. ' Colonel Churchill, the natural son of Lieutenant-General Charles Churchill, by Mrs. Oldfield, the actress. Colonel ChurchiU married Sir Robert Walpole's daughter by his second wife. Miss Skerrett. Their daughter Mary married, 1777, Charles Sloane, first Earl of Cadogan. — Cunningham. CHAP. IV.] GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cxxi that the red should be a step to the blue, and accordingly took one of the former himself. He offered the new order to old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, for her grandson the Duke, and for the Duke of Bedford, who had married one of her grand-daughters.' She haughtUy repHed, they should take nothing but the Garter. " Madam," said Sir Robert cooUy, " they who take the Bath wiU the sooner have the Garter." The next year he took the latter him self -with the Duke of Richmond, both ha-ving been previously instaUed knights of the revived institution. Before I quit King George I., I -wUl relate a story, very expressive of his good humoured presence of mind. On one of his journeys to Hanover his coach broke. At a distance in -view was a chateau of a considerable German nobleman. The King sent to borrow assistance. The possessor came, conveyed the King to his house, and begged the honour of his Majesty's accepting a dinner whUe his carriage was repairing ; and, whUe the dinner was preparing, begged leave to amuse his Majesty -with a coUection of pictures which he had formed in several tours to Italy. But what did the King see in one of the rooms but an unkno-wn portrait of a person in the robes and -with the regaUa of the sovereigns of Great Britain! George asked whom it represented. The nobleman repHed, with much diffident but decent respect, that in various journeys to Rome he had been acquainted -with the Chevalier de St. George, who had done him the honour of sending him that picture. " Upon my word," said the King instantly, " it is very Hke to the famUy." It was impossible to remove the embarrassment of the proprietor -with more good breeding. ' Wriothesly, Duke of Bedford, had married Lady Anne Egerton, only daughter of Scroop, Duke of Bridgewater, by Lady Elizabeth Chm-chill, daughter of John. Duke of Marlborough. — Walpole. REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OF [cH.iP. CHAPTER V. Accession of George II. — Sir Spencer Compton — Expected Change in Administra tion — - Continuation of Lord Townshend and Sir Robert Walpole by the Intervention of Queen Caroline — Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk — Her Character by Swift and by Lord Chesterfield. The unexpected death of George I. on his road to Hanover was instantly notified by Lord To-wnshend, Secretary of State, who attended his Majesty, to his brother Sir Robert Walpole, who as expeditiously was the first to carry the news to the successor and haU him King. The next step was, to ask who his Majesty would please should draw his speech to the CouncU. " Sir Spencer Compton," ¦ repHed the new monarch. The answer was decisive, and impHed Sir Robert's dis mission. Sir Spencer Compton was Speaker of the House of Com mons, and treasurer, I think, at that time, to his Royal Highness, who by that first command impHed his intention of making Sir Spencer his Prime Minister. He was a worthy man, of exceedingly grave formaHty, but of no parts, as his conduct immediately proved. The poor gentleman was so Httle qualified to accommodate himself to the grandeur of the moment, and to conceive how a new sovereign should address himself to his Ministers, and he had also been so far from meditating to supplant the Premier,^ that, in his distress, it was to Sir Robert himself he had recourse, and whom he besought to make the draught of the King's speech for him. The new Queen, a better judge than her husband of the capacities of the two candi dates, and who had sUently watched for a moment proper for over- ' Sir Spencer Compton, second son of James, Earl of Northampton. He was created Earl of Wilmington, and died in 1743. Thomson dedicated his poem ol " Spring " to him. " The King gave him [Walpole] no other answer than ' go to Chiswick and take your directions from Sir Spencer Compton.' " — Hervey's Memoirs, i. 31. — Cunningham. ^ Sir Spencer Compton, afterwards Earl of Wilmington, was so far from resenting Sir Robert's superior talents, that he remained steadfastly attached to him ; and when the famous motion for removing Sir Robert was made in both Houses, Lord Wilmington, though confined to his bed, and with his head blistered, rose and went to the House of Lords, to vote against a measure that avowed its own injustice, by being grounded only on popular clamour. — Walpole, OHAP. v.] GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cxxiii turning the new designations, did not lose a moment in obser-ving to the King how prejudicial it would be to his affairs to prefer to the Minister in possession a man in whose o-wn judgment his predecessor was the fittest person to execute his office. From that moment there was no more question of Sir Spencer Compton as Prime Minister. He was created [1730] an Earl, soon received the Garter, and became President of that CouncU, at the head of which he was much fitter to sit than to direct. Fourteen years afterwards, he again was nominated by the same Prince to replace Sir Robert as First Lord of the Treasury on the latter's forced resignation, but not as Prime Minister ; the conduct of affairs being soon ravished from liim by that dashing genius the Earl of Gran-viUe," who reduced him to a cipher for the Httle year in which he sur-vived, and in which his incapacity had been ob-vious. The Queen, impatient to destroy aU hopes of change, took the earHest opportunity of declaring her own sentiments. The instance I shaU cite -will be a true picture of courtiers. Their Majesties had removed from Richmond to their temporarj"- palace in Leicester- fields ' on the very evening of their recei-ving notice of their accession to the cro-wn, and the next day aU the nobiHty and gentry in town crowded to kiss their hands ; my mother amongst the rest, who (Sir Spencer Compton's designation, and not its evaporation, being known,) could not make her way between the scornful backs and elbows of her late devotees, nor could approach nearer to the Queen than the third or fourth row ; but no sooner was she descried by hei Majesty than the Queen said aloud, " There, I am sure, I see a friend ! " The torrent di-vided and shrunk to either side ; " and as I came away," said my mother, " I might have walked over their heads if I had pleased." ' The pre-occupation of the Queen in favour of Walpole must be explained. He had early discovered that, in whatever gaUantries George Prince of Wales indulged or affected, even the person of his Princess .was dearer to him than any charms in his mistresses ; and though Mrs. Howard (afterwards Lady Suffolk) was openly his ' John Carteret, better known as Lord Carteret. He died iu 1763. Walpole has drawn a portrait of him in verse. — Cunningham. ^ It was the town residence of the Sidneys, Earls of Leicester, of whom it was hired, as it was afterwards by Frederick, Prince of Wales, on a simUar quarrel with hia father : he added to it Savile House, belonging to Sir George Savile, for his chUdren. —Walpole. ^ Compare the curious confirmation of Walpole's statement in Lord Hervey's " Memoirs," i, 37.— Cunningham. cxxiv REMINISCENCES OP THE COURTS OF [ohap. t. declared favourite, as avowedly as the Duchess of Kendal was his father's. Sir Robert's sagacity discerned that the power would be lodged -with the -wife, not -with the mistiess ; and he not only devoted himself to the Princess, but totaUy abstained from even -visiting Mrs. Howard ; whUe the injudicious multitude concluded, that the com mon consequences of an inconstant husband's passion for his concu bine would follow, and accordingly warmer, if not pubHc, vows were made to the supposed favourite than to the Prince's consort. They especiaUy, who in the late reign had been out of favour at Court, had, to pave their future path to favour, and to secure the faU of Sir Robert Walpole, sedulously, and no doubt zealously, dedicated themselves to the mistiess : Bolingbroke secretly, his friend S-wift openly, and as ambitiously, cultivated Mrs. Howard ; and the neighbourhood of Pope's viUa to Richmond facUitated their inter course, though his reHgion forbade his entertaining -views beyond those of serving his friends. Lord Bathurst,' another of that con nection, and Lord Chesterfield, too early for his interest, founded their hopes on Mrs. Howard's influence ; but astonished and disap pointed at finding Walpole not shaken from his seat, they determined on an experiment that should be the touch-stone of Mrs. Howard's credit. They persuaded her to demand of the new King an earl's coronet for Lord Bathurst.^ She did — the Queen put in her veto, and S-wift, in despair, returned to Ireland, to lament Queen Anne and curse Queen CaroHne, under the mask of patriotism, in a country he abhorred and despised.' To Mrs. Howard, S-wift's ingratitude was base. She indubitably had not only exerted aU her interest to second his and his faction's ' Allen Bathurst, first Earl Bathurst, one of.Queen Anne's twelve peers, and the correspondent of Swift and Pope. He died in 1'775, aged 91, and was the father of Lord Chancellor Bathurst. — Cunningham. ^ Lord Bathurst obtained the Earl's coronet sixty years after he was created a Baron, 1711 — 1771. — Cunningham. ^ " On this it is to be observed, that George II. was proclaimed on the 14th of June 1727, that Swift returned to Ireland in the September of the same year, and that the first creation of peers in that reign did not take place till the 28th of May 1728. Is it credible, that Mrs. Howard should have made such a request of the new King, and suffered so decided a refusal ten or eleven months before any peers were made? But, again, upon thia first creation of peers, Mrs. Howard's brother ia the second name. Is it probable that, with so great an object for her own family in view, she risked a solicitation for Lord Bathurst ? But that which seems most convincing, is Swift's own correspondence. In a letter to Mrs. Howard, of the 9th of July 1727, in which, rallying her on the solicitation to which the new King would be exposed, he says, ' for my part, you may be secure, that I will never venture to recommend even a mouse to Mrs. Cole's cat, or a shoe-cleaner to your meanest domestic' " — Croker, Suffolk Correspondence, vol. i. p. xxv.— Wright. oiiip. v.] GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cxxv interests, but loved Queen Caroline and the minister as Httle as they did ; yet, when S-wift died, he left behind him a character of Mrs. Howard by no means flattering, which was pubHshed in his post humous works. On its appearance, Mrs. Howard (become Lady Suffolk) said to me, in her calm, dispassionate manner, " AU I can say is, that it is very different from one that he drew out of me, and sent to me, many years ago, and which I have, -written by his o-wn hand." ' Lord Chesterfield, rather more ingenuous — as his character of her, but under a feigned name, was printed in his Hfe, though in a paper of which he was not kno-wn to be the author — was not more con sistent. Eudosia, described in the weekly joumal caUed Common Sense, for September 10, 1737, was meant for Lady Suffolk : yet was it no fault of hers that he was proscribed at Court ; nor did she perhaps ever know, as he never did tUl the year before his death, when I acquainted him -with it by his friend Sir John Irwin, why he had been put into the Queen's Index expurgatorius.^ The Queen had an obscure -window at St. James's that looked into a dark passage, Hghted only by a single lamp at night, which looked upon Mrs. Howard's apartment. Lord Chesterfield, one Twelfth-night, at Court, had won so large a sum of money, that he thought it impru dent to carry it home in the dark, and deposited it -with the mistiess. Thence the Queen inferred great intimacy, and thenceforwards Lord Chesterfield could obtain no favour from Court ; and finding him self desperate, went into Opposition. My father himself long after wards told me the story, and had become the principal object of the ' " This is a complete mistake, to give it no harsher name. The character which Swift left behind, and which was published in his posthumous works, is the very same which Lady Suffolk had in her possession. If it be not flattering, it is to Swift's honour that he did not condescend to flatter her in the days of her highest favour ; and the accusation of having written another less favourable, is wholly false." — Croker, Suffolk Correspondence, vol. i. p. xxxviii. — Wright. ^ " It certainly would have been extraordinary, that Lord Chesterfield, in 1737, when he was on terms of the most familiar friendship with Lady Suffolk, should have published a deprecatory character of her, aud in revenge, too, for being disgraced at court — Lady Suffolk being at the same time in disgrace also. But, unluckily for Walpole's conjecture, the character of Eudosia (a female savante, as the name imports) has not the slightest resemblance to Lady Suffolk, and contains no allusion to courts or courtiers." — Croker, Suffolk Correspondence, vol. i. p. xxxiii. — Wright. Her figure was above the middle size and well-shaped. Her face was not beautiful, but pleasing. Her hair was extremely fair and remarkably fine. Her arms were square and lean, that is, ugly. Her countenance was an undecided one, and announced neither good nor ill nature, neither sense nor the want of it, neither vivacity nor dulness .... To my knowledge she sincerely tried to serve some, but without effect ; she could not even procure a place of 200?. a year for John Gay, a very poor and honest man, and no bad poet, only because he was a poet, which the King considered as a mechanic. — Lord CheMerfield, Mahou's ed., ii. 440, and there first published. — Connikqham. cxxvi REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OP [jhap. vi peer's satiric wit, though he had not been the mover of his disgrace. The weight of that anger feU more disgracefully on the King, as I shaU mention in the next chapter. I -will here interrupt the detaU of what I have heard of the com mencement of that reign, and farther anecdotes of the Queen and the mistress, tiU I have related the second very memorable tiansaction of that sera ; and which would come in awkwardly, if postponed tUl I have despatched many subsequent particulars. CHAPTER VI. Destruction of George I.'s Will. At the first councU held by the new sovereign. Dr. Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, produced the WUl of the late King, and deHvered it to the successor, expecting it would be opened and read in CouncU. On the contiary, his Majesty put it into his pocket, and stalked out of the room -without uttering a word on the subject. The poor prelate was thunderstiuck, and had not the presence of mind or the courage to demand the testament's being opened, or at least to have it registered. No man present chose to be more hardy than the person to whom the deposit had been trusted — ^perhaps none of them immediately conceived the possible -violation of so solemn an act so notoriously existent ; stUl, as the King never men tioned the WiU more, whispers only by degrees informed the pubHc that the WUl was burnt ; at least, that its injunctions were never fdfiUed. What the contents were was never ascertained. Report said, that forty thousand pounds had been bequeathed to the Duchess of Kendal ; and more vague rumours spoke of a large legacy to the Queen of Prussia, daughter of the late King. Of that bequest demands were afterwards said to have been frequently and roughly made by her son the great King of Prussia, between whom and his uncle subsisted much inveteracy.' ' King George II. sunk two wiUs — his father's, and hia uncle's the Duke of York It was with respect to the Duke's will that the King of Prussia threatened to go to law — not the King's, as stated in the text. " The Queen told Lord Hervey, that the three things of which the Prince accused the King (besides the lobbing him of 100,OOOZ. a year) were, his Majesty's having thrice cheated him — by his sinking the late King's will and the Duke of York's will, and by seizing the revenues of the Duchy cnAi>. vi.j GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cxitvii The legacy to the Duchess was some time after on the brink of coming to open and legal discussion. Lord Chesterfield marrying [1733] her niece and heiress, the Countess of Walsingham, and resenting his o-wn proscription at Court, was beHeved to have insti tuted, or at least to have threatened, a suit for recovery of the legacy to the Duchess, to which he was then [1743] become entitled ; and it was as confidently beHeved that he was quieted by the payment of twenty thousand pounds. But if the Archbishop had too timidly betiayed the trust reposed in him from weakness and want of spirit, there were two other men who had no such plea of imbecUity, and who, being independent, and above being awed, basely sacrificed their honour and integrity for positive sordid gain. George I. had deposited dupHcates of his wiU -with two sovereign German princes : I -wiU not specify them, because at this distance of time I do not perfectly recollect their titles ; but I was actuaUy, some years ago, sho-wn a copy of a letter from one of our ambassadors abroad to a Secretary of State at that period, in which the ambassador said, one of the princes in question would accept the proffered subsidy, and had deHvered or would deHver the dupHcate of the King's WUl. The other trustee was, no doubt, as Httle conscientious and as corrupt. It is pity the late King of Prussia did not learn their infamous treachery. Discoursing once -with Lady Suffolk on that suppressed testament, she made the only plausible shadow of an excuse that could be made for George II. She told me, that George I. had burnt two -wUls made in favour of his son. They were, probably, the -wUls of the Duke and Duchess of ZeU ; or one of them might be that of his mother, the Princess Sophia. The crime of the first George could only paUiate, not justify, the criminaHty of the second ; for the second did not punish the guUty, but the innocent. But bad pre cedents are always dangerous, and too Hkely to be copied.' of Cornwall ; and as to the two first articles, she said the Prince was not named in either of the wills, and that the Duke of York (who died the year after the present King came to the throne) in his will had left everything he had, which came to about 50,000?., to his present Majesty, except his jewels, and his jewels he left to the Queen of Prussia, to whom the King had delivered them, after satisfying the King of Prussia (who, before the King showed him the will, had a mind to litigate it in favour of his wife) that the wUl would admit of no dispute." — Lord Hervey's Memoirs, ii. 467. Johnson. — " No ; Charles II. was not such a man as George II. He did not destroy his father's will." — BosweU's Johnson, by Croker, p. 444. — -Cunningham. ' On the subject of the royal will, Walpole, in his Memoires, vol. ii. p. 458, relates the foUowing anecdote : — " The morning after the death of George II., Lord Walde grave showed the Duke of Cumberland an extraordinary piece : it was endorsed, REJIINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OF [ohap. vn CHAPTER VII. History of Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk — Miss Bellenden — Her Marriarre with Colonel John Campbell, afterwards fourth Duke of Argyle — Anec dotes of Queen Caroline — Her last Illness and Death — Anecdotes of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough — Last Years of George II. — Mrs. Clayton, afterwards Lady Sundon — Lady Diana Spencer — -Frederick, Prince of Wales — Sudden Removal of the Prince and Princess from Hampton Court to St. James's — Birth of a Princess — Rupture with the King — Anecdotes of Lady Yarmouth. I -WILL now resume the story of Lady Suffolk, whose history, though she had none of that influence on the transactions of the Cabinet that was expected, wiU stUl probably be more entertaining to two young ladies, than a magisterial detaU of political events, the tiaces of which at least may be found in journals and brief chro nicles of the times. The interior of courts, and the lesser features of history, are precisely those -with which we are least acquainted, — I mean of the age preceding our o-wn. Such anecdotes are forgotten in the m.ultipHcity of those that ensue, or reside only in the memory of idle old persons, or have not yet emerged into pubHcity from the portefeuiUes of such garrulous Brantomes as myself. Trifling I -wUl not caU myself, whUe I have such charming disciples as you to inform ; and though acute or plodding politicians, for whom they are not meant, may condemn these pages, — ^which is preferable, the labour of an historian who toUs for fame and for applause from he knows not whom ; or my careless commission to paper of perhaps insignificant passages that I remember, but penned for the amusement of a pair hvery ' private paper,' and was a letter from the Duke of Newcastle to the first Earl of Waldegrave ; iu which his grace informed the Earl, then our ambassador in France, that he had received by the mesaenger the copy of the wUl aud codicil of George I. ; that he had delivered it to his Majeaty, who put it into the fire without opening it ; ' So,' adds the Duke, ' we do not know whether it confirms the other or not ; ' and he proceeds to say, ' Despatch a messenger to the Duke of Wolfenbuttle with the treaty, in which is granted all he desires ; and we expect, by return of the messenger, the original will from him.' George I. had left two wUla; one in the hands of Dr. Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, the other with the Duke of Wolfenbuttle. He had been in the right to take these precautions : he himself had burned his wife's testa ment, and her father's, the Duke of ZeU ; both of whom had made George II. their heir — a palliative of the latter's obliquity, if justice would allow of any violation. — Wright. OHAP. vii.l GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. oxxix of such sensible and cultivated minds as I never met at so early an age, and whose fine eyes I do know -wiU read me -with candour, and aUow me that mite of fame to which I aspire, their approbation of my endeavours to divert their evenings in the country. 0 Guic- ciardin ! is posthumous renown so valuable as the satisfaction of reading these court-tales to the lovely Berrys ? Henrietta Hobart was daughter of Sir Henry, and sister of Sir John Hobart, Knight of the Bath on the re-vival of the order, and afterwards [1728] by her interest made a Baron ; and since [1746] created Earl of Buckinghamshire. She was first married [1708 ?] to Mr. Howard, the younger brother of more than one Earl of Suffolk ; to which title he at last [1731] succeeded himself, and left a son by her, who was the last Earl of that branch. She had but the slender fortune of an ancient baronet's daughter ; ' and Mr. Howard's circumstances were the reverse of opulent. It was the close of Queen Anne's reign : the young couple saw no step more prudent than to resort to Hanover, and endeavour to ingratiate themselves -with the future sovereigns of England. StUl so narrow was their fortune, that Mr. Howard finding it expedient to give a dinner to the Hanoverian ministers; Mrs. Howard is said to have sacrificed her beautiful head of hair to pay for the expense. It must be recoUected, that at that period were in fashion those enormous fuU-bottomed -wigs, which often cost twenty and thirty guineas. Mrs. Howard was extremely acceptable to the inteUigent Princess Sophia ; but did not at that time make farther impression on the Electoral Prince, than, on his father's suc cession to the cro-wn, to be appointed one of the bedchamber women to the new Princess of Wales. The elder Whig poHticians became ministers to the King. The most promising of the young lords and gentlemen of that party, and the prettiest and HveHest of the young ladies, formed the new Court of the Prince and Princess of Wales. The apartment of the bed chamber-woman in waiting became the fashionable evening rendez vous of the most distinguished -wits and beauties. Lord Chesterfieldi (then Lord Stanhope), Lord Scarborough, Carr Lord Hervey, elder brother of the more kno-wn John Lord Hervey, and reckoned to have superior parts. General (at that time only Colonel) Charles ChurchiU, and others not necessary to rehearse, were constant attendants : Miss Lepel, afterwards [1720] Lady Hervey, my mother Lady Walpole, ' Her fortune was 6,000?. — Cunningham. exxx REMINISCENCES OP THE COURTS OP [ohap. vn. Mrs. Sel-wyn, mother of the famous George, and herself of much vivacity and pretty,' Mrs. Howard, and above aU for universa] admiration. Miss BeUenden,' one of the Maids of Honour. Her face and person were charming ; Hvely she was almost to itourderie : and so agreeable she was, that I never heard her mentioned after wards by one of her contemporaries who did not prefer her as the most perfect creature they ever knew. The Prince frequented the waiting-room, and soon felt a stionger inclination for her than he ever entertained but for his Princess. Miss BeUenden by no means felt a reciprocal passion. The Prince's gaUantry was by no means deHcate ; and his avarice disgusted her. One evening sitting by her, he took out his purse and counted his money. He repeated the numeration : the giddy BeUenden lost her patience, and cried out, " Sir, I cannot bear it ! if you count your money any more I -wUl go out of the room." The chink of the gold did not tempt her more than the person of his Royal Highness. In fact, her heart was engaged ; and so the Prince, finding his love fruitless, suspected. He was even so generous as to promise her, that if she would dis cover the object of her choice, and would engage not to marry -with out his privity, he would consent to the match, and would be kind to her husband. She gave him the promise he exacted, but -without acknowledging the person ; and then, lest his Highness should throw any obstacle in the way, married,' -without his knowledge, Colonel Campbell, one of the grooms of his bedchamber, and who long afterwards [1761] succeeded to the title of Argyle at the death of Duke .Archibald." The Prince never forgave the breach of her word ; and whenever she went to the dra-wing-room, as from her ' Mary Farringdon, brdchamber woman to Queen Caroline and wife of Colonel John Selwyn, Equerry to che Queen. See vol. i. p. 46. — Cunningham. ^ Mary Bellenden, youngest daughter of John, second Lord Bellenden, afterwards (1720) Mrs. Campbell (see note 4). She is called by Gay " Smiling Mary, soft and fair as down."— Cunningham. She is thus described in a ballad, made upon the quarrel between George I. and the Prince of Wales, when the Prince and his household were ordered to quit St. James's : — But Bellenden we needs must praise. Who, as down the stairs she jumps. Sings over the hUls and far away, Despising doleful dumps. — Wright. ¦• Oct. 22, 1720.^ Cunningham. " Colonel John Campbell succeeded to the dukedom, fourth duke, in 1761, died 1770: Mrs. Campbell died in Dec. 18, 1736. She was housekeeper at Somerset House. She was the mother of the fifth Duke of Argyle and three other sons, and of Lady Caroline, who married, first, the Eari of Aylesbury, and, secondly, Walpole's bosom friend. Marshal Conway.— Wright. OBiP. VII.] GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cxxxi husband's situation she was sometimes obliged to do, though trem bling at what she knew she was to undergo, the Prince always stepped up to her, and whispered some very harsh reproach in her ear. Mrs. Howard was the intimate friend of Miss Bellenden ; had been the confidante of the Prince's passion ; and, on Mrs. CampbeU's ecHpse, succeeded to her friend's post of favourite — ^but not to her resistance. From the steady decorum of Mrs. Howard, I should conclude that she would have preferred the advantages of her situation to the ostentatious ^clat of it ; but many obstacles stood in the way of total concealment ; nor do I suppose that love had any share in the sacri fice she made of her virtue. She had felt poverty, and was far from disHking power. Mr. Howard was probably as Httle agreeable to her as he proved worthless. The King, though very amorous, was certainly more attracted by a silly idea he had entertained of gallantry being becoming, than by a love of variety ; and he added the more egregious folly of fancying that inconstancy proved he was not governed ; but so awkwardly did he manage that artifice, that it but demonstrated more clearly the influence of the Queen. With such a disposition, secrecy would by no means have answered his Majesty's views ; yet the publicity of the intrigue was especiaUy o-wing to Mr. Howard, who, far from ceding his -wife quietly, went one night into the quadi'angle of St. James's, and vociferously demanded her to be restored to him before the guards and other audience. Being thrust out, he sent a letter to her by the Archbishop of Canterbury, reclaim ing her, and the Archbishop, by his instructions, consigned the sum mons to the Queen, who had the maHcious pleasure of deHvering the letter to her rival.' Such intemperate proceedings by no means invited the new mistress to leave the asylum of St. James's. She was safe whUe under the royal roof : even after the rupture between the King and Prince (for the affair commenced in the reign of the first George), and though the Prince, on quitting St. James's, resided in a private house, it was too serious an enterprise to take his -wife by force out of the palace of the Prince of Wales. The case was altered, when ' " The letter which Walpole alludes to is in existence. It is not a letter from Mr. Howard to his lady, bnt from the Archbishop to the Princess ; and although his grace urges a compliance with Mr. Howard's demand of the restoration of his wife, he treats it not as a matter between them,, but as an attack on the Princess herself ; whom the Archbishop considers as the direct protectress of Mrs. Howard, and the immediate cause of her resistance. So that, in this letter at least, there is no ground for imputing to Mrs. Howard any rivalry with the Princess, or to the Princess any malicious jealousy oi Mm. Howard." — -Croker, Suffolk Correspondence, vol. i. p. xiv ' — Wright. cxxxii REMINISCENCES OP THE COURTS OP [chap. vn. on the arrival of summer, their Royal Highnesses were to remove to Richmond. Being only woman of the bedchamber, etiquette did not aUow Mrs. Howard the entree of the coach with the Princess. She apprehended that Mr. Howard might seize her on the road. To baffle such an attempt, her friends, John, Duke of ArgyU, and his brother, the Earl of Islay,' caUed for her in the coach of one of them by eight o'clock in the morning of the day, at noon of which the Prince and Princess were to remove, and lodged her safely in their house at Richmond. During the summer a negotiation was com menced with the obstreperous husband, and he sold his o-wn noisy honour and the possession of his -wife for a pension of twelve hundred a-year.' These now Httle-kno-wn anecdotes of Mr. Howard's beha-viour I received between twenty and thirty years afterwards, from the mouth of Lady Suffolk herself. She had left the Court about the year 1735, and passed her summers at her villa of Marble HiU, at T-wickenham, H-ving very retired both there and in London. I pur chased Stiawberry Hill in 1747 ; and being much acquainted -with the houses of Dorset, Vere, and others of Lady Suffolk's intimates, was become kno-wn to her ; though she and my father had been at the head of two such hostUe factions at Court. Becoming neigh bours, and both, after her second husband's death [1746], Hving ' Afterwards third duke of Argyll. — Cunningham. ¦" Mr. Croker asserts, that " neither in Mrs. Howard's correspondence with the King, nor in the notes of her conversation with the Queen, nor in any of her most confidential papers, has he found a single trace of the feeling which Walpole so con fidently imputes." Upon this assertion. Sir Walter Scott, in a review of the Suffolk Correspondence, pleasantly remarks, — " We regret that the editor's researches have not enabled him to state, whether it is true whether the restive husband sold his own noisy honour and the possession of his lady for a pension of twelve hundred a-year. For our own parts, without believing all Walpole's details, we substantially agree in his opinion, that the King's friendship was by no means Platonic or refined ; but that the Queen and Mrs. Howard, by mutual forbearance, good sense, and decency, con trived to diminish the scandal ; after all, the question has no great interest for the present generation, since scandal is only valued when fresh, and the public have generally enough of that poignant fare, without ripping up the frailties of their grand mothers." Sir Walter sums up his notice of the inaccuracies occurring in these Reminiscences, with the following just and considerate reflection : " When it is recol lected that the noble owner of Strawberry Hill was speaking of very remote events, which he reported on hearsay, and that hearsay of old standing, such errors are scarcely to be wondered at, particularly when they are found to correspond with the partialities aud prejudices of the narrator. These, strengthening as we grow older, gradually pervert, or at least alter, the accuracy of our recollections, until they assimilate them to our feelings, while, " As beams of warm imagination play. The memory's faint traces melt away," — Scott's Miscellaneous Prose Works, vol, xix, p, 201. — Wright. OHAP. VII.] GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cixxHi single and alone, our acquaintance turned to intimacy. She was extremely deaf,' and consequently had more satisfaction in narrating than in Hstening ; her memory both of remote and of the most recent facts, was correct beyond beHef. I, Hke you, was indulgent to, and fond of old anecdotes. Each of us knew different parts of many Court stories, and each was eager to leam what either could relate more ; and thus, by comparing notes, we sometimes could make out discoveries of a third circumstance,^ before unknown to both. Those evenings, and I had many of them in autumnal nights, were ex tremely agreeable ; and if this chain of minutise proves so to you, you owe perhaps to those conversations the fidelity of my memory, which those repetitions recaUed and stamped so lastingly. In this narrative -wUl it be unwelcome to you, if I subjoin a faithful portiait of the heroine of this part ? Lady Suffolk was of a just height, weU made, extremely fair, -with the finest Hght bro-wn hair ; was remarkably genteel, and always weU dressed -with taste and simpHcity. Those were her personal charms, for her face was regular and agreeable rather than beautiful ; and those charms she retained -with Httle diminution to her death at the age of seventy- nine.' Her mental quaUfications were by no means shining ; her eyes and countenance showed her character, which was grave and mUd. Her strict love of truth and her accurate memory were always in unison, and made her too circumstantial on trifles. She was discreet -without being reserved ; and ha-ving no bad quaHties, and being constant to her connections, she preserved uncommon respect to the end of her life ; and from the propriety and decency of her behaviour was always treated as if her -virtue had never been ' Pope alludes to this personal defect in his Lines "On a certain Lady at Court :" — " I know a thing that's most uncommon ; (Envy be silent and attend !) 1 know a reasonable woman. Handsome and witty, yet a friend. Not warp'd by passion, awed by rumour; Not grave through pride, or gay through folly — ¦ An equal mixture of good-humour And sensible soft melancholy. ' Has she no faults then,' (Envy says,) ' Sir ? ' ' Yes, she has one, I must aver ; When all the world conspires to praise her — The woman's deaf, and does not hear.' " — Weight. -' The same thing has happened to me by books. A passage lately read has recalled some other formerly perused ; and both together have opened to me, or cleared up some third fact, which neither separately would have expounded. — Walpole. ' Lady Suffolk died in July 1767.— Wright. cxxxiv REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OF [chap. tii. questioned ; her friends even affecting to suppose, that her connection -with the King had been confined to pure friendship. Unfortunately, his Majesty's passions were too indelicate to have been confined to Platonic love for a woman who was deaf — sentiments he had expressed in a letter to the Queen, who, however jealous of Lady Suffolk, had latterly dreaded the King's contracting a new attach ment to a younger rival, and had prevented Lady Suffolk from leaving the court as early as she had -wished to do. " I don't know," said his Majesty, " why you -will not let me part -with an old deaf woman, of whom I am weary." Her credit had always been extremely limited by the Queen's superior influence, and by the devotion of the minister to her Majesty. Except a Barony, a red Riband, and a good place for her brother. Lady Suffolk could succeed but in very subordinate recom mendations. Her o-wn acquisitions were so moderate, that, besides Marble HUl, which cost the King ten or twelve thousand pounds, her complaisance had not been too dearly purchased. She left the Court -with an income so little to be en-vied, that, though an economist and not expensive, by the lapse of some annuities on lives not so prolonged as her own, she found herself straitened ; and, besides Marble HUl, did not at most leave twenty thousand pounds to her famUy. On quitting court [1735], she married Mr. George Berkeley, and outHved him.' No estabHshed mistress of a sovereign ever enjoyed less of the brUHancy of the situation than Lady Suffolk. Watched and thwarted by the Queen, disclaimed by the Minister, she owed to the dignity of her own behaviour, and to the contradiction of their enemies, the chief respect that was paid to her, and which but iU compensated for the slavery of her attendance, and the mortification she endured. She was elegant ; her lover the reverse, and most unentertaining, and void of confidence in her. His motions too ' Lady Suffolk was early affected with deafness. Cheselden, the surgeon, then in favour at Court, persuaded her that he had hopes of being able to cure deafness by some operation on the drum of the ear, and offered to try the experiment on a con demned convict [Charles Ray] then in Newgate, who was deaf. If the man could be pardoned, he would try it ; and, if he succeeded, would practise the same cure on her ladyship. She obtained the man'a pardon, who was oou.sin to Cheselden, who had feigned that pretended discovery to save hia relation — and no more was heard of the experiment. The man saved his ear too — but Cheselden was disgraced at Court. — Walpole. Compare Mr. Croker's note in Lady Suffolk's Letters, i. 310. — Cunningham. 2 Honourable George Berkeley [died 1746], youngest son of the second Earl of Berkeley. He was Master of St. Catherine's, in the Tower, and had served in two parliaments as member for Dover. — Wright. UHA1-. vii.J GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cxxxt were measured by etiquette and the clock. He -visited her every evening at nine ; but -with such dull punctuaHty, that he frequently walked about his chamber for ten minutes with his watch in his hand, if the stated minute was not arrived. But from the Queen she tasted more positive vexations. TUl she became Countess of Suffolk, she constantly dressed the Queen's head, who deHghted in subjecting her to such servUe offices, though always apologising to her good Howard.^ Often her Majesty had more complete triumph. It happened more than once, that the King, coming into the room whUe the Queen was dressing, has snatched off the handkerchief, and, turning rudely to Mrs. Howard, has cried, " Because you have an ugly neck yourself, you hide the Queen's.'" It is certain that the King always preferred the Queen's person to that of any other woman ; nor ever described his idea of beauty, but he drew the picture of his -wife. Queen CaroHne was said to have been very handsome at her marriage, soon after which she had the smaU-pox ; but was Httle marked by it, and retained a most pleasing countenance. It was fuU of majesty or mUdness as she pleased, and her penetrating eyes expressed whatever she had a mind they should. Her voice too was captivating, and her hands beautifuUy smaU, plump, and graceful. Her understanding was uncommonly strong ; and so was her resolution. From their earHest connection she had determined to govern the King, and deserved to do so ; for her submission to his -wUl was unbounded, her sense much superior, and his honour and interest always took place of her own : so that her lave of power, that was predominant, was dearly bought, and rarely iU employed. She was ambitious too of fame ; but, shaclded by her devotion to the King, she seldom could pursue that object. She -wished to be a patroness of learned men : but George had no respect for them or their works ; and her Majesty's o-wn taste was not very exquisite, nor did he aUow her time to cultivate any studies. Her generosity would have displayed itself, for she valued money but as the instrument of ' A favourite expression with the Queen, " Go, my good Howard " {Herveijs Memoirs, ii. 16.) — " Are you mad, or are you asleep, my good Tichburn," was the Queen's exclamation when she heard that her son had hurried his wife from Hampton Court to St. James's in the last moments of her pregnancy. {Hervey's Memoirs, ii. 367 .) — Cunningham . " The duties of the bedchamber woman and bedchamber lady to the Queen are detailed by Dr. Arbuthnot, in a letter to Mrs. Howard, written from the information of Mrs. Masham, the Abigail of Queen Anne. See Lady Suffolk's Letters, i. 292. — Cunningham. exxxvi REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OF [chap. vii. her good purposes : but he stinted her alike in almost aU her passions ; and though she -wished for nothing more than to be Hberal, she bore the imputation of his avarice, as she did of others of his faults. Often, when she had made prudent and proper promises of preferment, and could not persuade the King to comply, she suffered the breach of word to faU on her, rather than reflect on him. Though his affection and confldence in her were impHcit, he Hved in dread of being supposed to be governed by her ; and that siUy parade was extended even to the most private moments of business with my father. Whenever he entered, the Queen rose, courtesyed, and retired, or offered to retire. Sometimes the King condescended to bid her stay — on both occasions she and Sir Robert had previously settled the business to be discussed. Sometimes the King would quash the proposal in question, and yield after retalking it over -with her — but then he boasted to Sir Robert that he himself had better considered it. One of the Queen's deHghts was the improvement of the garden at Richmond ; and the King beHeved she paid for aU -with her o-wn money — nor would he ever look at her intended plans, saying he did not care how she flung away her own revenue. He Httle suspected the aids Sir Robert furnished to her from the Treasury. When she died, she was indebted twenty thousand pounds to the King. Her learning I have said was superficial ; her knowledge of languages as little accurate. The King, -with a bluff WestphaHan accent, spoke EngHsh correctly. The Queen's chief study was di-vinity, and she had rather weakened her faith than enlightened it. She was at least not orthodox ; and her confidante, Lady Sundon, an absurd and pompous simpleton, swayed her countenance towards the less-beHe-ving clergy. The Queen, however, was so sincere at her death, that when Archbishop Potter was to administer the sacrament to her, she decHned taking it, very few persons being in the room When the Prelate retired, the Courtiers in the ante-room crowded round him, crying, " My lord, has the Queen received ? " His Grace artfuUy eluded the question, only saying, most devoutly, " Her Majesty was in a heavenly disposition " — and the truth escaped the pubHc' She suffered more unjustly by decHning to see her son, the ' Hang the sad verse on Carolina's urn. And hail her passage to the realms of rest. All parts perform'd and all her children blest. — Pope, Dialogue i. 1738. This was^not in the firet edition of the "Dialogue.'' — Cunningham. OHAP. VII.J GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cxxxvii Prince of Wales, to whom she sent her blessing aud forgi veness ; but concei-ving the extreme distress it would lay on the King, should he thus be forced to forgive so impenitent a son, or to banish him again if once recalled, she heroicaUy preferred a meritorious husband to a worthless child. The Queen's greatest error was too high an opinion of her own address and art ; she imagined that aU who did not dare to contradict her were imposed upon ; and she had the additional weakness of thinking that she could play off many persons -without being dis covered. That mistaken humoui-, and at other times her hazarding very offensive truths, made her many enemies ; and her duplicity in fomenting jealousies between the Ministers, that each might be more dependent on herself, was no sound -wisdom. It was the Queen who blew into a flame the Ul-blood between Sir Robert Walpole and his brother-in-law. Lord To-wnshend. Yet though she disHked some of the Cabinet, she never let her o-wn prejudices disturb the King's affairs, pro-vided the obnoxious paid no court to the Mistress. Lord Islay was the only man, who, by managing Scotland for Sir Robert Walpole, was maintained by him in spite of his attachment to Lady SuffoUi. The Queen's great secret was her o-wn rupture, which, till her last Ulness, nobody knew but the King, her German nurse Mrs. Mail- borne,' and one other person. To prevent aU suspicion, her Majesty would frequently stand some minutes in her shift talking to her ladies ; ' and though labouring -with so dangerous a complaint, she made it so invariable a rule never to refuse a desire of the King, that every morning at Richmond she walked several mUes with him; and more than once, when she had the gout in her foot, she dipped her whole leg in cold water to be ready to attend him. The pain, her bulk, and the exercise, threw her into such fits of perspiration as vented the gout ; but those exertions hastened the crisis of her dis temper. It was great shrewdness in Sir Robert Walpole, who before her distemper broke out, discovered her secret. On my ' See Hervey'a " Memoirs," ii. 162. — Cunningham. - While the Queen dressed, prayers used to be read in the outward room, where hung a naked Venus. Mrs. Selwyn, bedchamber-woman in waiting, was one day ordered to bid the chaplain. Dr. Mado.x, afterwards Bishop of Worcester [d. 1759], begin the service. He said archly, "And a very proper altar-piece is here. Madam!" Queen Anne had the same custom ; and once ordering the door to be shut while she shifted, the chaplain stopped. The Queen sent to ask why he did not proceed. He replied, " he would not whistle the word of God through the key-hole." — Walpole. Compare the scene at Court in Lord Hervey's Drama (Memoirs, ii. 162), curiously confirmatory of the passage in the text. — Cunningham. cxxxviii REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OF [ohap. vii. mother's death [1737], who was of the Queen's age, her Majesty asked Sir Robert many physical questions ; but he remarked, that she oftenest reverted to a rupture, which had not been the Ulness of his -wife. When he came home, he said to me, "Now, Horace, I know by possession of what secret Lady Sundon has preserved such an ascendant over the Queen." He was in the right. How Lady Sundon had wormed herself into that mystery was never kno-wn. As Sir Robert maintained his influence over the clergy by Gibson, Bishop of London, he often met -with troublesome obstruc tions from Lady Sundon, who espoused, as I have said, the heterodox clergy : and Sir Robert could never shake her credit. Yet the Queen was constant in her protection of Sir Robert, and the day before she died gave a stiong mark of her conviction that he was the firmest supporter the King had. As they two alone were standing by the Queen's bed, she patheticaUy recommended, not the Minister to the Sovereign, but the Master to the Servant. Sir Robert was alarmed, and feared the recommendation would leave a fatal impression ; but a short time after, the King reading -with Sir Robert some intercepted letters from Germany, which said that now the Queen was gone. Sir Robert would have no protection : " On the contrary," said the King, " you know she recommended me to you." This marked the notice he had taken of the expres sion ; and it was the only notice he ever took of it : nay, his Majesty's grief was so excessive and so sincere, that his kindness to his Minister seemed to increase for the Queen's sake. The' Queen's dread of a rival was a feminine weakness ; the behaviour of her eldest son ' was a real thorn. He early displayed his aversion to his mother, who perhaps assumed too much at first ; yet it is certain that her good sense, and the interest of her family, would have prevented, if possible, the mutual dislike of the father and son, and their reciprocal contempt. As the Opposition gave into aU adulation towards the Prince, his iU-poised head and vanity swaUowed aU their incense. He even early after his arrival had Hstened to a high act of disobedience. Money he soon wanted : old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough,' ever proud and ever maHgnant, ' Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of George III, — Cunningham. ''^ That woman, who had risen to greatness and independent wealth by the weakness of another Queen, forgot, like the Due d'Epernon, her own unmerited exaltation, and affected to brave successive courts, though spi-ung from the dregs of one. When the Prince of Orange came over [1731] to marry the Princess Royal, Anne, a boarded gallery with a pent-house roof was erected for the procession from the windows of the great drawing-room at St. James's cross the garden to the CHAP, vu.] GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cxxxix was persuaded to offer her favourite grand-daughter. Lady Diana Spencer, afterwards [1731] Duchess of Bedford,^ to the Prince of Wales, with a fortune of a hundred thousand pounds. He accepted the proposal, and the day was fixed for their being secretly married at the Duchess's Lodge in the great Park at Windsor. Sir Robert Walpole got intelligence of the project, prevented it, and the secret was buried in silence. Youth, foUy, and indiscretion, the beauty of the young lady, aud a large sum of ready money, might have offered something Hke a plea for so rash a marriage, had it taken place ; but what could excuse, what indeed could provoke, the senseless and barbarous insult offered to the King and Queen, by Frederick's taking [1737] his wife out of the Palace of Hampton Court in the middle of the night, when she was in actual labour, and carrying her, at the immi nent risk of the Hves of her and the chUd,' to the unaired palace and bed at St. James's ? Had he no way of affronting his parents but by venturing to kUl his -wife and the heir of the cro-wn ? A baby that wounds itself to vex its nurse is not more void of reflection. The scene which commenced by unfeeHng idiotism closed -with paltry hypocrisy. The Queen, on the fu'st notice of her son's exploits, set out for St. James's to visit the Princess by seven in the morning. The gracious Prince, so far from attempting an apology, spoke not a word to his mother ; but on her retreat gave her his hand, led her into the street to her coach — stUl dumb ! — ^but a crowd being assembled at the gate, he kneeled down in the dirt, and humbly Lutheran chapel in the Friary. The Prince being indisposed, and going to Bath, the marriage was deferred for some weeks, and the boarded gallery remained, darkening the windows of Marlborough House. The Duchess cried, " I wonder when my neigh bour George will take away his orange-chest ! " — which it did resemble. She did not want that sort of wit,* which ill-temper, long knowledge of the world, and insolence can sharpen — aud envying the favour which she no longer possessed. Sir R. Walpole was often the object of her satire. Yet her great friend. Lord Godolphin, the treasurer, had enjoined her to preserve very different sentiments. The Duchess and my father and mother were standing [1712] by the Earl's bed at St. Alban's as he was dying. Taking Sir Robert by the hand. Lord Godolphin turned to the Duchess, and said, " Madam, should you ever desert this young man, and there should be a possibility of returning from the grave, I shall certainly appear to you." — Her grace did not believe in spirits. — Walpole. ' The Duchess of Bedford died 27th September, 1735. — Cunningham. ^ Afterwards the Ducheaa of Brunswick, who died in Spring Gardens, in London, in March 1813. — Cunningham. * Baron Gleicken, minister fromDenmark to France, being at Paris soon after the King his master had been there, and a French lady being so ill-bred as to begin censuring the King to him, saying, " Ah I Monsieur, c'est une tfite ! " — " Couronnec," replied he instantly, stopping her by so genteel a hint. — Walpole. cxl REMINISCENCES OP THE COURTS OP Iohap. vii. kissed her Majesty's hand. Her indignation must have shrunk into contempt. After the death of the Queen [1737], Lady Yarmouth' came over, who had been the King's mistress at Hanover during his latter journeys — and -with the Queen's pri-vity, for he always made her the confidante of his amours ; which made Mrs. Selwyn once teU him, he should be the last man -with whom she would have an intrigue, for she knew he would teU the Queen. In his letters to the latter from Hanover, he said, " You must love the Walmoden, for she loves me." She was created [1739] a Countess, and had much weight -with him : but never employed her credit but to assist his Ministers, or to convert some honours and favours to her own advantage. She had two sons, who both bore her husband's name ; but the younger, though never acknowledged, was supposed the King's, and consequently did not miss additional homage from the courtiers. That incense being one of the recommendations to the coun tenance of Lady Yarmouth, drew Lord Chesterfield into a ridiculous distress. On his being made Secretary of State, he found a fair young lad in the ante-chamber at St. James's, who seeming much at home, the Earl concluding it was the Mistress's son, was profuse of attentions to the boy, and more prodigal stUl of his prodigious regard for his mamma. The shrewd boy received aU his Lordship's vows with indulgence, and -without betraying himseff : at last he said, " I suppose your Lordship takes me for Master Louis ; but I am only Sir WUHam Russel, one of the pages." ' The King's last years passed as regularly as clockwork. At nine at night he had cards in the apartment of his daughters, the Princesses AmeHa and CaroHne, with Lady Yarmouth, two or three of the late Queen's ladies, and as many of the most favoured officers of his o-wn Household. Every Saturday in summer he carried that uniform party, but -without his daughters, to dine at Richmond : they went in coaches and six, in the middle of the day, -with the hea-vy horse-guards kicking up the dust before them — dined, walked an hour in the garden, returned in the same dusty parade ; and his Majesty fancied himself the most gaUant and lively prince in Europe. ' Walpole has mistaken the visit at which thia acene was acted. Compare " Lord Hervey'a Memoirs," ii. 371 and 409. — Cunningham. ' Amelia Sophia, wife of the Baron de Walmoden, created Countess of Yarmouth in 1739.— Walpole. ^ See a somewhat similar story of Sir William Stanhope told by Walpole in vol. L p. 110, and compare vol. i. p. 328. — Cunningham. chap. VIII. J GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cxii His last year was glorious and triumphant beyond example ; and his death was most feHcitous to himself, being -without a pang, without tasting a reverse, and when his sight and hearing were so nearly extinguished that any prolongation could but have sweUed to calamities.' CHAPTER VEIL George II.'s Daughters — Anne, Princess of Orange — Princess Amelia — Princess Caroline — Lord Hervey — Duke of Cumberland. I AM tempted to drain my memory of aU its rubbish, and wUl set do-wn a few more of my recoUections, but -with less method than I have used even in the foregoing pages. I have said Httle or nothing of the King's two unmarried daughters. Though they Hved in the Palace with him, he never admitted them to any share in his poHtics ; and if any of the Ministers paid them the compHment of seeming attachment, it was more for the air than for the reaHty. The Princess Royal, Anne, married [1734] in HoUand, was of a most imperious and ambitious nature ; and on her mother's death [1737], hoping to succeed to her credit, came from HoUand on pretence of Ul health ; but the King, aware of her plan, was so offended that he sent her to Bath as soon as she arrived, and as peremptorily back to HoUand — I think, -with out suffering her to pass two nights in London. Princess -AmeHa, as weU disposed to meddle, was confined to recei-ving court from the Duke of Newcastle, who affected to be in love -with her ; and from the Duke of Grafton, in whose connection with her there was more reaHty. Princess CaroHne, one of the most exceUent of women, was devoted to the Queen, who, as weU as the King, had such confidence in her veracity, that on any disagreement amongst their chUdren, they said, " Stay, send for Caroline, and then we shaU know the truth." The memorable Lord Hervey had dedicated himself to the Queen, and certainly towards her death had gained great ascendance -with ' For an interesting account of the death of George the Second, on the 24th of October 1760, and also of hia funeral in Westminster Abbey, see Walpole's letters to Mr. Montagu of the 25th of that month, and of the 13th of November. — Wright. cxlii REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OP [ohap. viii. her. She had made him Privy-Seal ; ' and as he took care to keep as weU -with Sir Robert Walpole, no man stood in a more prosperous light. But Lord Hervey, who handled aU the weapons of the Court,' had also made a deep impression on the heart of the virtuous Princess Caroline ; and as there was a mortal antipathy between the Duke of Grafton and Lord Hervey, the Court was often on the point of being disturbed by the enmity of the favourites of the two Princesses. The death of the Queen [1737] deeply affected her daughter CaroHne ; and the change of the Ministry four years after, dislodged Lord Hervey ; whom for the Queen's sake the King would have saved, and who very ungratefully satirised the King in a baUad,' as if he had sacrificed him voluntarily. Disappointment, rage, and a distempered constitution, carried Lord Hervey off [1743], and overwhelmed his Princess : she never appeared in pubHc after the Queen's death ; ' and, being dreadfuUy afflicted -with the rheumatism, never stirred out of her apartment, and rejoiced at her o-wn dissolution some years before her father. Her sister AmeHa leagued herself -with the Bedford faction during the latter part of her father's Hfe. When he died [1760], she estabHshed herself respectably ; but enjoying no favour -with her nephew [George III.], and hating the Princess- dowager, she made a plea of her deafness, and soon totaUy abstained from St. James's.* The Duke of Cumberland " never, or very rarely, interfered in poHtics. Power he would have Hked, but never seemed to court it. His passion would have been to command the Army, and he would, I doubt, have been too ready to aggrandise the Crown by it ; but successive disgusts weaned his mind from aU pursuits, und the grandeur of his sense' and philosophy made him indifferent to a ' Here is a mistake. Lord Hervey was not made Privy-Seal till after Queen Caroline's death. — Cunningham. ^ He had broken with Frederick, Prince of Wales, on having shared the favours of his mistress. Miss Vane, one of the Queen's maids of honour. When she fell in labour at St. James's, and was deUvered of a son, which she ascribed to the Prince, Lord Hervey and Lord Harrington each told Sir Robert Walpole, that he believed himself father of the child. — Walpole. ' See the Ballad in a letter from Walpole to Mann, dated 16th of October, 1742. I have a copy in folio, with this title, " A New C — t BaUad. Dublin : Printed by James Stone, in High Street, 1742." — Cunningham. " That is, from 1737 to 1757, a period of twenty years. Compare Walpole to Mann, January 11th, 1758. — Cunningham. ' She lived at Gunnersbury, near Brentford (since pulled down), and in Cavendish Square at the corner of Harley Street. — Cunningham. " The so-called hero of CuUoden, the butcher Duke. He died in 1765, aged 44.— Cunningham. ' The Duke, iu his very childhood, gave a mark of his sense and firmness. He had displeased the Queen, and she sent him up to his chamber. When he appeared 3HAP. VIII.] GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND cxliii world that had disappointed all his -views. The unpopularity which the Scotch and Jacobites spread against him for his merit in sup pressing the RebeUion, his brother's jealousy, and the contempt he himself felt for the Prince, his own iU success in his battles abroad, and his father's treacherous sacrifice of him on the convention of Closter-seven, the dereHction of his two poHtical friends, Lord Holland and Lord Sand-wich, and the rebuffing spite of the Princess- dowager ; aU those mortifications centring on a constitution e-vidently tending to dissolution, made him totaUy neglect himself, and ready to shake off being, as an encumbrance not worth the attention of a superior understanding. From the time the Duke first appeared on the stage of the public, all his father's ministers had been blind to his Royal Highness's capacity, or were afraid of it. Lord Gran-vUle, too giddy himself to sound a young Prince, had treated him arrogantly when the King and the Earl had projected a match for him -with the Princess of Denmark.' The Duke, accustomed by the Queen aud his governor, Mr. Poyntz,' to venerate the -wisdom of Sir Robert Walpole, then on his death-bed, sent Mr. Poyntz, the day but one before Sir Robert expired [1 8th March, 1745], to consult him how to avoid the match. Sir Robert advised his Royal Highness to stipulate for an ample settlement. The Duke took the sage counsel, and heard no more of his intended bride. The low ambition of Lord Hard-wicke, the chUdish passion for power of the Duke of Newcastle, and the peevish jealousy of Mr. PeUiam, combined, on the death of the Prince of Wales [1751], to exclude the Duke of Cumberland from the Regency (in case of a minority), and to make them flatter themselves that they should gain the favour of the Princess-dowager by cheating her -with the semblance of power. The Duke resented the sHght, but scorned to again, he was sullen. "WUliam," said the Queen, "what have you been doing?" — " Reading." — " Reading what ! " — " The Bible." - " And what did you read there ? " — " About Jesus and Mary." — " And what about them ? " — " Why, that Jesus said to Mary, Woman ! what hast thou to do with me ? " — Walpole. ' That bolus, the Princess of Denmark. — Walpole to Mann, iith Feb. 1145.— Cunningham. * CuUoden's field, my glorious theme. My rapture, vision, and my dream. Gilds the young hero's days : Yet can there be one English heart. That does not give thee, Poyntz, thy part, And own thy share of praise ? Sir C. H. Williams's Ode to llie Right Hon. Stephen Poyntz. 4to. 1746.— Cunningham. cxliv REMINISCENCES OP THE COURTS OF [ohap. ix. make any claim. The Princess never forgave the insidious homage; and, in concurrence with Lord Bute, totaUy estranged the affection of the young King from his uncle, nor aUowed him a shadow of influence. CHAPTER IX. Anecdotes of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough — and of Catherine, Duchesa of Buckingham. I HAVE done with Royal personages : shaU I add a codicU on some remarkable characters that I remember ? As I am writing for young ladies, I have chiefly dwelt on heroines of your own sex : they, too, shaU compose my last chapter : enter the Duchesses of Marl borough and Buckingham. Those two women were considerable personages in their day. The first, her o-wn beauty, the superior talents of her husband in war, and the caprice of a feeble princess [Queen Anne], raised to the highest pitch of power ; and the prodigious wealth bequeathed to her by her lord, and accumulated in concert -with her, gave her weight in a free country. The other, proud of royal, though Ulegiti- mate birth, was, from the vanity of that birth, so zealously attached to her expeUed brother, the Pretender, that she never ceased labour ing to effect his restoration : and, as the opposition to the House of Brunswick was composed partly of principled Jacobites — of Tories, who either knew not what their own principles were, or dissembled them to themselves, and of Whigs, who, from hatred of the minister, both acted in concert with the Jacobites and rejoiced in their assistance — two women of such wealth, rank, and enmity to the Court, were sure of great attention from aU the discontented. The beauty of the Duchess of Marlborough had always been of the scornful and imperious kind, and her features and air announced nothing that her temper did not confirm ; both together, her beauty and temper, enslaved her heroic lord. One of her principal charms was a prodigious abundance of fine fair hair. One day at her toUet, in anger to him, she cut off those commanding tresses and flung them in his face. Nor did her insolence stop there, nor stop tiU it had totally estranged and worn out the patience of the poor Queen, her mistress. The Duchess was often seen to give her Majesty her OHAP. IX.] GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. oxK- fan and gloves, aud turn away her own head, as if the Queen had offensive smells. Incapable of due respect to superiors, it was no wonder she treated her children and inferiors -with supercUious contempt. Her eldest daughter ' and she were long at variance, and never reconcUed. When the younger Duchess exposed herself by placing a monument and sUly epitaph, of her own composition and bad spelling, to Congreve, in Westminster Abbey, her mother, quoting the words, said, " I know not what happiness'' she might have in his company, but I am sure it was no honour." With her youngest daughter, the Duchess of Montagu, old Sarah agreed as iU. "I wonder," said the Duke of Marlborough to them, " that you cannot agree, you are so alike ! " Of her grand-daughter, the Duchess of Manchester, daughter of the Duchess of Montagu, she affected to be fond. One day she said to her, " Duchess of Manchester, you are a good creature, and I love you mightily — but you have a mother ! " — " .And she has a mother ! " answered the Duchess of Manchester, who was aU spirit, justice, and honour, and could not suppress sudden truth. One of old Marlborough's capital mortifications sprung from a grand-daughter. The most beautiful of her four charming daughters. Lady Sunderland,' left two sons," — the second Duke of Marl borough, and John Spencer,' who became her heir, and Anne Lady ' The Lady Henrietta, married to Francis Earl Godolphin, who, by act of par liament, succeeded as Duchess of Marlborough. She died in 1733, childless; and the issue of her next sister [Anne], Lady Sunderland, succeeded to the duchy of Marlborough. — Wright. - Walpole had written pleasure, but happiness is the actual word on Congreve's monument, and I have so corrected the text. — Cunningham. ^ Lady Sunderland was a great politician ; and having, like her mother, a most beautiful head of hair, used, while combing it at her toilet, to receive men whose votes or interest she wished to influence. — Walpole. " She had an elder son, who died young, while only Earl of Sunderland. He had parts, and all the ambition of his parents and of his family (which his younger brothers had not) ; but George II. had conceived such an aversion to his father, that he would not employ him. The young Earl at last asked Sir Robert Walpole for an ensigncy in the Guards. The minister, astonished at so humble a request from a man of such consequence, expressed his surprise. " I ask it," said the young lord, " to ascertain whether it is determined that I shall never have anything." He died soon after at Paris. — Walpole. ° 1 have made a settlement of a very great estate that is in my own power, upon my grandson, John Spencer and his sons ; but they are all to forfeit it if any of them shall ever accept any employment military or civil, or any pension from any King or Queen of this realm, and the estate is to go to others in the entail. This, I think, ought to please everybody ; for it will secure my heirs in being very considerable men. None of them can put on a fool's coat, and take posts from soldiers of experience and service, who never did anything but kill pheasants and partridges. — Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, to Lord Stair, 1738. Compare vol. i, p. 191. — Cunningham. cxhi REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OF [ohap. ix, Bateman,' and Lady Diana Spencer, whom I have mentioned, and who became [1731] Duchess of Bedford.' The Duke [of Marlborough] and his brother, to humour thefr grand-mother, were m Opposition, though the eldest she never loved. He had good sense, infinite generosity, and not more economy than was to be expected from a young man of warm passions and such vast expectations. He was modest and ^ diffident too, but could not digest total dependence on a capricious and avaricious grandmother. His sister (Lady Bateman) had the intriguing spirit of her father and grandfather. Earls of Sunderland. She was connected with Henry Fox, the first Lord HoUand, and both had great influence over the [second] Duke of Marlborough. What an object would it be to Fox to convert to the Court so great a subject as the Duke ! Nor was it much less important to his sister to give him a wife, who, -with no reasons for expectation of such shining fortune, should owe the obligation to her. Lady Bateman struck the first stroke, and persuaded her brother to marry [23rd May, 1732] a handsome young lady, who, unluckily, was daughter of Lord Trevor, who had been a bitter enemy of his grand father, the victorious Duke.' The grandam's rage exceeded aU bounds. Having a portrait of Lady Bateman, she blackened the face, and wrote on it, " Now her outside is as black as her inside." The Duke she turned out of the Httle Lodge in Windsor Park ; and then pretending that the new Duchess and her female cousins (eight Trevors) had stripped the house and garden, she had a puppet-show made -with waxen figures, representing the Trevors tearing up the shrubs, and the Duchess carrying off the chicken-coop under her arm. Her fury did but increase when Mr. Fox prevaUed on the Duke to go over to the Court. With her coarse intemperate humour, she said, "that was the Fox that had stolen her goose." Repeated injuries at last drove the Duke to go to law -with her. Fearing that ' Wife of WilUam, Viscount Bateman, of the kingdom of Ireland, and of Shobdon Court in Herefordshire. She died 19th Feb. 1769, and was interred at Great Yeldham, in Essex. — Cunningham. ^ She died 27th of September, 1735, without issue. — Cunningham. ^ That great Captain, the Duke of Marlborough, when he was in the last stage of life, and very infirm, would walk from the public rooms in Bath to his lodginga in a cold dark night to aave sixpence in chair-hire. If the Duke, who left at his death more than a million and a half sterling, could have foreseen that all his wealth and honours was to be inherited by a grandson of Lord Trevor's, who had been one of his enemies, would he have been so careful to save sixpence for the aake of hi.^ heir? Mot for the sake of hia heir, but he would always have saved sixpence. — Dr. King'i Anecdotes, p. 102. — Cunningham. ohap. IX.] GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cxlvii even no la-wyer would come up to the BUHngsgate with which she was animated herself, she appeared in the court of justice, and with some wit and infinite abuse, treated the laughing public -with the spectacle of a woman who had held the reins of empire, metamor phosed into the widow Blackacre. Her grandson, in his suit, demanded a sword set -with diamonds, given to his grandsire by the Emperor. " I retained it," said the beldam, " lest he should pick out the diamonds and pawn them." I -wiU repeat but one more instance of her insolent asperity, which produced an admirable reply of the famous Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Lady Sundon had received a pair of diamond ear-rings as a bribe for procuring a considerable post in Queen Caroline's family for a certain peer ; ' and, decked with those jewels, paid a visit to the old Duchess ; who, as soon as she was gone, said, " What an impudent creature, to come hither -with her bribe in her ear ! " " Madam," repHed Lady Mary Wortley, who was present, " how should people know where wine is sold, unless a bush is hung out?" The Duchess of Buckingham was as much elated by owing her birth to James II. ' as the Marlborough was by the favour of his daughter. Lady Dorchester,' the mother of the foi-mer, endeavoured to curb that pride, and, one should have thought, took an effectual method, though one few mothers would have practised : " You need not be so vain," said the old proffigate, " for you are not the King's daughter, but Colonel Graham's." Graham was a fashionable man of those days and noted for dry humour. His legitimate daughter, the Countess of Berkshire, was extremely like to the Duchess of Buckingham : " WeU ! weU ! " said Graham, " kings are all- powerful, and one must not complain ; but certainly the same man ' Lord Pomfret. — Cunningham. ' By Catherine Sedley, created by her royal lover Countess of Dorchester for life.— Wright. ^ Lady Dorchester is well known for her wit, and for saying that she wondered for what James chose his mistresses : " We are none of us handsome," said she ; " and if we have wit, he has not enough to find it out." But I do not know whether it is as public, that her style was gross and shameless. Meeting the Duchess of Portsmouth and Lady Orkney, the favourite of King William, at the drawing-room of George the First, " God ! " said she, " who would have thought that we three whores should have met here?" Having, after the King's abdication, married Sir David Collyer, by whom she had two sons, she said to them, " If anybody should call you sons of a whore, you must bear it ; for you are so ; but if they call you bastards, fight till you die ; for you are an honest man's sons." Susan, Lady Bellasis, another of King James's mistresses, had wit too, and no beauty. Mrs. Godfrey had neither. Grammont has recorded why she was chosen. — Walpole. VOL. J, i civiii REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OF [ohap. ix. begot those two women." To discredit the wit of both parents, the Duchess never ceased labouring to restore the House of Stuart, and to mark her fiHal devotion to it. Frequent were her journeys to the Continent for that purpose.' She always stopped at Paris, visited the church where lay the unburied body of James, and wept over it. A poor Benedictine of the convent, observing her fiHal piety, took notice to her grace that the velvet pall that covered the coffin was become threadbare — and so it remained. Finding aU her efforts fruitless, and perhaps aware that her plots were not undiscovered by Sir Robert Walpole, who was remarkable for his inteUigence, she made an artful double, and resolved to try what might be done through him himself. I forget how she con tracted an acquaintance -with him : I do remember that more than once he received letters from the Pretender himself, which probably were transmitted through her. Sir Robert always carried them to George II., who endorsed and returned them. That negociation not succeeding, the Duchess made a more home push. Learning his extreme fondness for his daughter, (afterwards Lady Mary ChurchiU,) she sent for Sir Robert, and asked him if he recoUected what had not been thought too great a reward to Lord Clarendon for restoring the Royal FamUy ? He affected not to understand her. "Was not he aUowed," urged the zealous Duchess, " to match his daughter to the Duke of York ? " Sir Robert smUed, and left her. Sir Robert being forced from Court, the Duchess thought the moment ' favourable, and took a new journey to Rome ; but con scious of the danger she might run of discovery, she made over her estate to the famous Mr. Pulteney (afterwards Earl of Bath) and left the deed in his custody. What was her astonishment, when on her return she re-demanded the instrument ! — It was mislaid — he could not find it — he never could find it ! The Duchess grew clamorous. At last his friend Lord Mansfield told him plainly, he could never show his face unless he satisfied the Duchess. Lord Bath did then sign a release to her of her estate. The transaction was recorded in print by Sir Charles Hanbury WUHams, in a pamphlet that had great vogue, called a Congratulatory Letter, -with many other anec- ' See the curious letter from the Duchess to Sir Robert Walpole on her absence from England, printed in Coxe's "Walpole," and Lord Hervey to old Horace Walpole, Mahon's " England," vol. ii. page cxv.— Cunningham. = I am not quite certain that, writing by memory at the distance of fifty years, I place that journey exactly at the right period, nor whether it did not take place before Sir Robert's fall. Nothing material depends on the precise period.— Walpole. OHAP. IX.] GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cxlix dotes of the same personage, and was not less acute than Sir Charles's " Odes" on the same hero. The Duchess dying not long after Sir Robert's entrance into the House of Lords, Lord Oxford, one of her executors, told him there, that the Duchess had stiuck Lord Bath out of her will, and made him, Sir Robert, one of her trustees in his room. " Then," said Sir Robert, laughing, " I see, my lord, that I have got Lord Bath's place before he has got mine." Sir Robert had artfuUy prevented the last. Before he quitted the King, he persuaded his Majesty to insist, as a preHminary to the change, that Mr. Pulteney should go into the House of Peers, his great credit lying in the other house ; and I remember my father's action when he returned from Court and told me what he had done — " I have turned the key of the closet on him," — making that motion -with his hand. Pulteney had jumped at the proffered earldom, but saw his error when too late ; and was so enraged at his own oversight, that, when he went to take the oaths in the House of Lords, he dashed his patent on the floor, and vowed he would never take it up — but he had kissed the King's hand for it, and it was too late to recede.' But though Madam of Buckingham could not effect a coronation to her wUl, she indulged her pompous mind with such puppet-shows as were appropriate to her rank. She had made [1721] a funeral for her husband ' as splendid as that of the great Marlborough : she renewed that pageant [1735] for her only son, a weak lad, who died under age ; and for herself : and prepared and decorated waxen dolls of him and of herself to be exhibited in glass-cases in Westminster Abbey. It was for the procession at her son's burial that she -wrote to old Sarah of Marlborough to borrow the triumphal car that had transported the corpse of the Duke. " It carried my Lord Marl borough," repHed the other, " and shaU never be used for anybody ' The first time Sir Robert (who was now Earl of Orford) met Lord Bath in the House of Lords, he threw out this reproach : " My Lord Bath, you and I are now two as insignificant men as any in England." In which he spoke the truth of my Lord Bath, but not of himself For my Lord Orford was consulted by the ministers to the last day of his life."— Dr. King's Anecdotes, p. 43.— Cunningham. " Lord Carteret hates and detests Mr. Pulteney . . and knowing that the moment Mr. Pulteney goes into the House of Lords, he will become an absolute nullity, he is ready to feed the exorbitant appetite of his demands with any morsels it craves for at present, provided in return he can gain that one point of Mr. Pulteney's going into the House of Lords . If Mr. Pulteney goes into the House of Lorda, Lord Carteret dupes him ; if he does not, he dupes my Lord Carteret." — Lord Hervey tc his Father, July 15, 1742. '' So Walpole in a note at p. 185 of this volume. — Cunningham. cl REMINISCENCES OF THE COURTS OF [chap. ix. else." " I have consulted the undertaker," repHed the Buckingham, " and he teUs me I may have a flner for twenty pounds." One of the last acts of Buckingham's Hfe was marrying a grandson she had to a daughter of Lord Hervey.' That intriguing man, sore, as I have said, at his disgrace, cast his eyes everywhere to revenge or exalt himself. Professions or recantations of any principles cost him nothing : at least the consecrated day which was appointed for his first inter-view with the Duchess made it presumed, that to obtain her wealth, -with her grandson for his daughter, he must have sworn fealty to the House of Stuart. It was on the martyrdom of her grandfather : she received him in the great drawing-room of Buckingham House, seated in a chair of state, in deep mourning, attended by her women in Hke weeds, in memory of the royal martyr. It -wUl be a proper close to the history of those curious ladies to mention the anecdote of Pope relative to them. Ha-ving dra-wn his famous character of Atossa, he communicated it to each Duchess, pretending it was leveUed at the other. The Buckingham beHeved him : the Marlborough had more sense, and knew herself, and gave him a thousand pounds to suppress it ; — and yet he left the copy behind him ! ' Bishop Burnet, from absence of mind, had drawn as strong a picture of herself to the Duchess of Marlborough, as Pope did under covert of another lady. Dining with the Duchess after the Duke's disgrace, Burnet was comparing him to Belisarius : " But how," ' Lepel Hervey. "A fine black girl, as masculine as her father should be." — Walpole to Mann, Jan. 7, 1741-2. Married 26th February, 1743, to Con,stautine Phipps, first Baron Mulgrave. She died in 1780. Lord Hervey, her father, died 8 Aug, 1743. — Cunningham. ' These lines were shown to her grace, as if they were intended for the portrait of the Duchess of Buckingham ; but she soon stopped the person who was reading them to her, as the Duchess of Portland informed me, and called out aloud, " I cannot be sc imposed upon; I see plainly enough for whom they are designed; " and abused Pope most plentifully on the subject : though she was afterwards reconcUed to him, and courted him, and gave him a thousand pounds to suppress this portrait, which he accepted, it is said, by the persuasion of Mrs. M, Blount ; and, after the Duchess's death, it was printed in a folio aheet, 1746, and afterwarda inserted in his "Moral Essays." This is the greatest blemish in our poet's moral character. — Joseph Warton, Pope's works, Ed. 1797, vol. iii. p. 218. — Wright. Our friend Pope, it seems, corrected and prepared for the press just before his death an edition of the four Epistles that follow the " Essay on Man." They were then printed off, and are now ready for publication. I am sorry for it, because if he could be excused for writing the character of Atossa formerly, there is no excuse for his design of pub lishing it, after he had received the favour you and I know ; and the character of Atossa is inserted. I have a copy of the book. — Bolingbroke to Marchmont (no date), — Cunninoham. ohap. IX.] GEORGE THE FIRST AND SECOND. cli said she, "could so great a general be so abandoned?" "Oh! Madam," said the Bishop, " do not you know what a brimstone of a -wife he had ? " Perhaps you know this anecdote, and perhaps several others that I have been relating. No matter ; they -wiU go under the article of my dotage — and very properly — I began with tales of my nursery, and prove that I have been -writing in my second chUdhood. H. W. January 13th. 1789.^ ' Last night I read to him [Mr. Batt] certain Reminiscences. — Walpole to Miss Berry, 12 July, 1791. Walpole's first lettei to the Miss Berrys is dated Feb. 2, 1789 --CONNIITOHAM. The foUowing extracts from Letters of Sarah, Duchess of Marl- fa orougn, were copied by me from the original letters addressed to the Earl of Stair,' left by him to Sir Da-vid Dalrymple, his near relation, and lent to me by Sir Da-vid's brother, Mr. Alexander Dal rymple, long employed as Geographer in the service of the East India Company. They formed part of a large volume of MS. letters, chiefly from the same person. The Duchess of Marlborough's -virulence, her prejudices, her style of writing, are already well-known ; and every Hue of these extracts -wiU only serve to confirm the same opinion of aU three. But it wiU, probably, be thought curious thus to be able to compare the notes of the opposite poHtical parties, and their different account of the same trifling facts, magnified by the prejudices of both into affairs of importance. Mary Berry. January, 1840. ' John Dalrymple, second Earl of Stair. See note at p. 144 of this volume.- CONNIKOUA?,!. EXTRACTS FROM THE LETTERS OF SAEAH, DUCHESS OF MAELBOEOUGE TO THE EARL OF STAIR, ILLDSTRATIVE OF "THE REMINISCENCES.^ l^Princess of Wales' behaviour; Queen Caroline's conversation.] London, Feb. 2ith, 1738. . As to Norfolk House,' I have heard there is a great deal of company, and that the Princess of Wales, though so very young, behaves so as to please everybody ; and I think her conversa tion is much more proper and decent for a dra-wing-room than the wise Queen Caroline's was, who never was half an hour -without saying something shocking to somebody or other, even when she intended to obHge, and generally very improper discourse for a public room. l^The King sees Queen Caroline's Servants.] Mt Lord : London, December 2ith, 1737. I RECEIVED the favour of yours of the 17th December yesterday. 1 have nothing material to say to you since my last. His Majesty saw the Queen's women servants first, which was a very mournful sight, for they aU cried extremely ; and his Majesty was so affected that he began to speak, but went out of the room to recover himself. And yesterday he saw the foreign ministers and his horses, which I ' Where the Prince and Princess of Wales then resided. — Berej. cliv LETTERS OF THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH, remember Dean Swift gives a great character of ; and was very sorry to leave them for the conversation of his countrymen in England ; and I think he was much in the right. I Queen Caroline's last illness.] Marlborough House, Nov. 15, 1737. It is not many days since I wrote to your Lordship by the post, but one can't be sure those letters are sent. However, I have a mind to give you an account of what, perhaps, you may not have so particularly from any other hand. This day se'nnight the Queen was taken extremely Ul ; the physicians were sent for, and, from the account that was given, they treated her as if she had the gout in her stomach : but, upon a thorough investigation of the matter, a surgeon [Ranby]' desired that she would put her hand where the pain was that she complained of, which she did ; and the surgeon, folio-wing her -with his hand, found it was a very large rupture, which had been long-concealed. Upon this, immediately they cut it, and some Httle part of the gut, which was discoloured. Few of the kno-wing people have had any hopes for many days ; for they stiU apprehend a mortification, and she can't escape it unless the phy sicians can make something pass through her, which they have not yet been able to do in so many days. The King and the Royal Family have taken leave of her more than once ; and his Majesty has given her leave to make her WUl, which she has done ; but I fancy it -wiU be in such a manner that few, if any, wiU know what her money amounts to. Sir Robert Walpole was in Norfolk, and came to London but last night. I can't but think he must be extremely uneasy at this misfortune ; for I have a notion that many of his troops -wiU slacken very much, if not quite leave him, when they see he has lost his sure support. But there is so much foUy and mean corruption, &c. London, December \st, 1737. . . . . As to what has passed in the Queen's Ulness, and since her death, one can't depend on much one hears ; and they are things that it is no great matter whether they are true or false. But one thing was odd : whether out of folly, or anything else, I can't ' For full details of Queen Caroline's last illness and death, see Lord Hervey's " .Memoirs." — Conninoh am. ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE REMINISCENCES. dv say, but the Duke of Newcastle did not send Sir Robert Walpole news of her Ulness, nor of her danger, as soon an he might have done ; and after he came to to-wn, which was but a few days before she died, and when she could no more Hve than she can now come out of her cofiin, the physicians, and aU that attended her, were ordered to say she was better, and that they had some hopes. What the use of that was I cannot conceive. And the occasion of her death is stUl pretended to be a secret : yet it is known that she had a rupture, and had it for many years ; that she had imposthumes that broke, and that some of the guts were mortified. This is another mystery which I don't comprehend ; for what does it signify what one dies of, except the pain it gives more than common dissolutions ? &c. \_Most Princes are alike.] I AM of the opinion, from woful experience, that, from flattery and want of understanding, most princes are aHke ; and, therefore, it is to no purpose to argue against their passions, but to defend ourselves, at aU events, against them [ Conduct of Pi-edcrick, Prince of Wales, at the birth of his first child.] Wimbledon, Vlth August, 1737. . . . There has been a very extraordinary quarrel at Court, which, I beHeve, nobody wiU give you so exact an account of as myself. The 31st of last month the Princess feU in labour. The King and Queen both knew that she was to He in at St. James's, where everything was prepared. It was her first chUd,' and so Httle a way to London, that she thought it less hazard to go immediately away from Hampton Court to London, where she had aU the assist ance that could be, and every thing prepared, than to stay at Hampton Court, where she had nothing, and might be forced to make use of a country mid-wife. There was not a minute's time to be lost in debating this matter, nor in ceremonials ; the Princess begging earnestly of the Prince to carry her to St. James's, in such a hurry that gentlemen went behind the coach Hke footmen.' They ' Augusta, married 1764 to the Duke of Brunswick, who fell (1806) at Jena. She died in 1813. — Cunningham. ^ The accuracy of the Duchess's information is confirmed throughout, by Lord Hervey's " Memoirs,'' vol. ii. p. 365.— Cunningham. clvi LETTERS OF THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH, got to St. James's safe, and she was brought to bed in one hour after Her Majesty followed them as soon as she could, but did not come tiU it was aU over. However, she expressed a great deal of anger to the Prince for ha-ving carried her away, though she and the child were very weU. I should have thought it had been most natural for a gi-andmother to have said she had been mightUy frightened, but she was glad it was so weU over. The Prince said aU the respectful and dutiful things imaginable to her and the King ; desiring her Majesty to support the reasons which made him go away as he did ¦without acquainting his Majesty -with it : and, I beHeve, aU human creatures -wiU aUow that this was natural for a man not to debate a thing of this kind, nor to lose a minute's time in ceremony, which was very useless, considering that it is a great wlule since the King has spoke to him, or taken the least notice of him. The Prince told her Majesty he intended to go that morning to pay his duty to the King, but she ad-vised him not. This was Monday morning, and she said Wednesday was time enough ; and, indeed, in that I think her Majesty was in the right. The Prince submitted to her counsel, and only -writ a very submissive and respectful letter to his Majesty, gi-ving his reasons for what he had done. And this con versation ended, that he hoped his Majesty would do him the honour to be godfather to his daughter, and that he would be pleased to name who the godmothers should be ; and that he left aU the directions of the christening entirely to his Majesty's pleasure. The Queen answered that it would be thought the asking the King to be godfather was too great a Hberty, and ad-vised him not to do it. When the Prince led the Queen to her coach, which she would not have had him have done, there was a great concourse of people; and, not-withstanding aU that had passed before, she expressed so much kindness that she hugged and kissed him -with great passion. The King, after this, sent a message in -writing, by my Lord Essex,' in the foUo-wing words : — That his Majesty looked upon what the Prince had done, in carrying the Princess to London in such a manner, as a deHberate indignity offered to himself and to the Queen, and resented it in the highest degree, and forbid him the Court. I must own I cleared Sir Robert in my own mind of this counsel, thinking he was not in to-wn: but it has proved other wise, for he was in to-wn ; and the message is drawn up in such a manner that nobody doubts of its being done by Sir Robert The King's Lord of the Bedchamber in waiting. — Cunningham. ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE REMINISCENCES. dvii AU the sycophants and agents of the Court spread miUions of falsities upon this occasion ; and all the language there was, that this was so great a crime that even those that went -with the Prince ought to be prosecuted. How this -wUl end nobody yet knows, at least I am sure I don't ; but I know there was a CouncU to-day held at Hampton Court. I have not heard yet of any christening being directed, but for that I am in no manner of pain ; for if it be never christened, I think 'tis in a better state than a great many devout people that I know. Some talk as if they designed to take the chUd away from the Princess, to be under the care of her Majesty, who professes vast kindness to the Princess ; and aU the anger is at the Prince. Among common subjects I think the law is, that nobody that has any interest in an estate is to have anything to do -with the person who is heir to it. What prejudice this sucking child can do to the cro-wn I don't see ; but, to be sure, her Majesty -wiU be very careful of it. What I apprehend most is, that the cro-wn -vrill be lost long before this Httle Princess can possibly enjoy it ; and, if what I have heard to-day be true, I think the scheme of France is going to open ; for I was told there was an ambassador to come from France whose goods had been landed in England, and that they have been sent back. But I won't answer for the truth of that, as I wiU upon every thing else in this letter. [Arrival in England of Madame de Walmoden, afterwards Countess of Yarmouth.] Mt Lord : June 20th, 1738. I -WRITE to you this post, to give you an account of what I beHeve nobody else -wiU so particularly, that Madame Walmond was pre sented in the Dra-wing-Room to his Majesty on Thursday. As she arrived some days before, there can be no doubt that it was not the first meeting, though the manner of her reception had the appearance of it ; for his Majesty went up to her and kissed her on both sides, which is an honour, I believe, never any lady had from a king in pubHc. And when his Majesty went away. Lord Harrington' pre sented the great men in the Ministry and the Foreign Ministers in the Drawing-Room ; the former of which performed their part with the utmost respect and submission. This is, Hke-wise, quite new ; for, though aU kings have had mistresses, they were attended at ' As joint, Secretary of State.— Cunningham. clviii LETTERS OF THE ITUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH, their o^wn lodgings, and not in so pubHc a manner. I conclude they performed that ceremony too ; but they could not lose the first oppor tunity of paying their respects, though ever so improperly. These great men were, the Duke of Newcastle, Sir Robert Walpole, my Lord WUmington, my Lord Harrington, and Mr. Pelham. My Lord Hervey had not the honour to be on the foot of a minister .... I have nothing more to say, but that this Madame Walmond is at present in a mighty mean dirty lodging in St. James's Street. Her husband came -with her, but he is going away ; and that house that was Mr. Seymour's, in Hyde Park, which opens into the King's garden, is fitting up for her ; and the Duchess of Kendal's lodgings are making ready for her at St. James's. There is nothing more kno-wn at present as to the settlement, but that directions are given for one upon the estabHshment of Ireland. Perhaps that mayn't exceed the Duchess of Kendal's, which was three thousand pounds a-year. But 'tis easy for the First Minister to increase that as she pleases. \_Lord Hervey and Molly Lepel.] London, December 3rd, 1737. . . I SAW one yesterday that dined -with my Lord Fanny, who, as soon as he had dined, was sent for to come up to his Majesty, and there is aU the appearance that can be of great favour to his Lordship. I mentioned him in my last, and I -wiU now give you an account of some things concerning his character, that I beHeve you don't know. What I am going to say I am sure is as true as if I had been a transactor in it myself. -And I wUl begin the relation -with Mr. LepeUe, my Lord Fanny's -wife's father, ha-ving made her a comet in his regiment as soon as she was born, which is no more -wrong to the design of an Army than if she had been a son : and she was paid many years after she was a Maid of Honour. She was extreme forward and pert ; and my Lord Sunderland got her a pension of the late King [George I.], it being too ridiculous to continue her any longer an officer in the Aomy. And into the ' John, Lord Hervey, so called by Pope. — Berrt. Compare Mr. Croker's Preface to Lord Hervey's Memoirs, p. xx ; Walpole's Letter to Mann, 22nd Sept. 1768, unA Chesterfield's Letter to his Son, 22nd Oct. 1750.— Conningham. ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE REMINISCENCES. clix bargain, she was to be a spy ; but what she could teU to deserve a pension, I cannot comprehend. However, King George the First used to taUc to her very much ; and this encouraged my Lord Fanny and her to undertake a very extiaordinary project : and she went to the Drawing-Room every night, and publicly attacked his Majesty in a most vehement manner, insomuch that it was the diversion of aU the to-wn ; which alarmed the Duchess of Kendal, and the Ministry that governed her, to that degree, lest the King should be put in the opposers' hands, that they determined to buy my Lady H off; and they gave her 4000/. to desist, which she did, and my Lord Fanny bought a good house -with it, and furnished it very weU. [Moll Skerrett (Lady Walpok) to be presented at Court.] Feb. 2Uh, 1738. Monday next is fixed for presenting Mrs. Skerrit at Court : and there has been great soHcitation from the court ladies who should do it, in which the Duchess of Newcastle has succeeded, and aU the apartment is made ready for Sir Robert's lady, at his house at the Cockpit.' I never saw her in my Hfe, but at auctions ; ' but I re member I liked her as to beha-viour very weU, and I beHeve she has a great deal of sense : and I am not one of the number that wonder so much at this match : for the King of France married Madame de Maintenon, and many men have done the same thing. But as to the pubHc, I do believe never was any man so great a -viUain as Sir Robert [Sir Robert Walpole and Moll Skerrett — Old Horace Walpole's Wife.] My Lord : London, March 19th, 1738. I HAVE received the favoui- of yours of the 11th by the post, but not that which you mention by another hand. And since you can Hke such sort of accounts as I am able to give you, I -will continue to do it. I think it is very plain now that Sir Robert don't think it worth his whUe to make any proposals where it was once suspected In Whitehall. — Cunningham. - Pope has satirised her as Phryne : Ask you why Phryne the whole auction buys, Phryne foresees a general excise. — To £«(/mrs^ ^Cunningham. clx LETTERS OF THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH, be would. And his wedding was celebrated ' as if he had been King of France, and the apartments furnished in the richest manner ; crowds of people of the first quaHty being presented to the bride, who is the daughter of a clerk that sung Psalms in a church where Dr. SachevereU was.' After the stiuggle among the court ladies who should have the honour of presenting her, which the Duchess of Newcastle obtained, it was thought more proper to have her pre sented by one of her o-wn famUy ; other-wise it would look as if she had no alliances : and therefore that ceremony was performed by Horace Walpole's -wife, who was daughter to my taUor, Lumbar.' I read in a print lately, that an old gentleman, very rich, had married a maiden lady with two fatherless chUdren ; but the printer did not then know the gentleman's name. [Sir Robert Walpole's Second Wife and Lady Betty Germaine.] March 21th, 1738. , , . I THINK I did not teU you that the Duke of Dorset ' waited on my Lady Walpole to congratulate her marriage, -^ith the same ceremony as if it had been one of the Royal FamUy, -with his white staff," which has not been used these many years, but when they attend the Cro-wn. But such a wretch as he is I hardly know : and his -wife," whose passion is only for money, assists him in his odious affair -with Lady Betty Jermyn, who has a great deal to dis pose of ; who, not-withstanding the great pride of the Berkeley famUy, married an innkeeper's son.' But indeed there was some reason for that ; for she was ugly, without a portion, and in her youth had an ' 6 March, 1738. Sir Robert Walpole having declared his marriage with Miss Skerret, that lady received the usual compliments. — Gent's Mag. for 1738, p. 164. — Cunningham. ^ St. Andrew's, Holborn. — Cunningham. ^ Compare Walpole to Mann, Sept. 20, 1772, and Lord Hervey's " Memoirs," i. 323. "21 July, 1720. Horatio Walpole, Esq., married to Mary, daughter of Mr. Peter Lombard." — Historical Register for 1720. — Cunningham. -* Lionel Sackville, first Duke of Dorset. — Cunningham. " Hyde Lord Rochester used to have his white staff of office as Lord High Treasurer carried in the streets outside hia chair. — Cunningham. ° Elizabeth, daughter of Lieutenant-General Walter PhUip Colyear, brother to David, Earl of Portmore. — Cunningham. ' Lady Elizabeth Berkeley, daughter of Charles, second Earl of Berkeley, married Sir John Germaine of Drayton, Bart. Sir John died in December, 1718, without issue, and left his estate to his wife, who survived till Dec. 16, 1769. Lady Betty bequeathed the greater pi^rt of her estate to the celebrated Lord George Sackville.— Oroker's Suffolk Correspondence, i. 72. — Cunningham. ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE REMINISCENCES. clxi unlucky accident with one of her father's^ servants; and by that match she got money to entertain herself all manner of ways. I tell you these things, which did not happen in your time of knowledge, which is a melancholy picture of what the world is come to ; for this strange woman has had a great influence over many. [Mi7iisterial Changes. — Lords Chesterfield and Gower.] Wednesday, Feb. 16, 1741. . . . . Some changes are made as to employments; but very few are brought in but such as will be easily governed, and brought to act so as to keep their places. I have inquired often about your Lordship, who I have not yet heard named in this alteration. And I have been told that Lords Chesterfield and Gower are to have nothing in the Government, which I think a very ill sign of what is intended ; because that can be for no reason but because you are all such men as are incapable of ever being prevailed on by any arts to act anything contrary to honour aud the true interests of our country. ' Charles, second Earl of Berkeley, died 1710 — Cunningham. Earl of 0 rf or D^ B A R^O Nof,H OUGHT O TSI . THE LETTERS HORACE WALPOLE. 1. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ.' Dear West : King's College, Nov. 9, 1735. You expect a long letter from me, and have said in verse aU that I intended to have said in far inferior prose. I intended fiUing three or four sides -with exclamations against a University Hfe ; but you have showed me how strongly they may be expressed in three or four Hues. I can't build without straw ; nor have I the ingenuity of the spider, to spin fine Hues out of dirt : a master of a coUege would make but a miserable figure as a hero of a poem, and Cam bridge sophs are too low to intioduce into a letter that aims not at punning : Hand equidem invideo vati, quem pulpita pascunt. But why mayn't we hold a classical correspondence ? I can never ' Richard West, only son of Richard West, Lord Chancellor of Ireland (died 1726), by Elizabeth, daughter of the celebrated Bishop Burnet. He was educated at Eton and Christchurch, Oxford, and dying 1st January, 1742, in his twenty-sixth year, was buried in the church of Hatfield, in Hertfordshire. Gray lamented his early end in an exquisite sonnet, and when he wrote his Elegy in a Country Churchyard, had a quatrain of his friend's still ringing in his ears : — Ah me, what boots us all our boasted power. Our golden treasure and our purple state ! They cannot ward the inevitable hour, Nor stay the fearful violence of fate. The Reply of Time to Tom Hearne is by West ; the most promising of all our young poets — Chatterton, perhaps, excepted. Walpole's letters to West, twenty in number, were first printed in 1798, in the quarto edition of Walpole's Works, edited by Miss Berry and her father — Cunningham. 2 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1736. forget the many agreeable hours we have passed in reading Horace and VfrgU ; and I think they are topics wiU never grow stale. Let us extend the Roman empire, and cultivate two barbarous to-wns o'er-run -with rusticity and mathematics. The creatures are so used to a circle, that they plod on in the same eternal round, -with their whole view confined to a punctum, cujus nulla est pars : Their time a moment, and a point their space. Orab-ant causas meliua, coelique meatus Describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent : Tu coluisse novem Musas, Romane, memento ; Hse tibi erunt artes We have not the least poetry stirring here ; for I can't call verses on the 5th of November and 30th of January by that name, more than four Hues on a chapter in the New Testament is an epigram. Tydeus ' [Walpole himself] rose and set at Eton : he is only kno-wn here to be a scholar of King's. Orosmades [Gray] and Almanzor [West] are just the same ; that is, I am almost the only person they are acquainted -with, and consequently the only person acquainted with their exceUencies. Plato [Ashton] ' improves every day ; so does my friendship with him. These three di-vide my whole time, though I beHeve you wiU guess there is no quadruple aUiance ; ' that was a happiness which I only enjoj^ed when you was at Eton. A short account of the Eton people at Oxford would much obHge, My dear West, your faithful friend, H. Walpole. 2. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.'' Dear Sir : King's College, May 2, 1733. Unless I were to be married myself, I should despair ever being able to describe a wedding so weU as you have done : had I kno-wn ' Tydeus [Walpole], Orosmades [Gray], Almanzor [West], and Plato [Ashton] were names which had been given to them by some of their Eton schoolfellows. — Berry. ^ Thomas Ashton, Fellow of Eton College, Rector of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, Loudon, and Preacher to the Society of Lincoln's Inn. Walpole, in 1740, addressed a Poetical Epistle from Florence to him : he was then tutor to the Earl of Plymouth. His poem on West's death breathes the manlineaa of friendship. He died at Bath in 1776, but his friendship with Walpole had ceased long before. There is a good mezzotinto of Ashton by M'Ardell, after Gainsborough. — Cunningham. ^ Thus as boys they had called the intimacy formed at Eton between Walpole, Gray, West, aud Ashton. — Berry. * George Montagu, Esq., of Reel, in the county of Gloucester, son of Brigadier- General Edward Montagu, and long M.P. for Northampton. He was the grandnephew of the first Earl of Halifax of the Montagu family, the statesman and poet, and was 1736.] TO MR. MONTAGU. your talent before, I would have desired an epithalamium. I beHeve the Princess ' -wiU have more beauties bestowed on her by the occa sional poets, than even a painter would afford her. They -will cook up a new Pandora, and in the bottom of the box enclose Hope, that aU they have said is true. A great many, out of excess of good breeding, having heard it was rude to talk Latin before women, pro pose complimenting her in English ; which she -wiU be much the better for. I doubt most of them, instead of fearing their composi tions shoiUd not be understood, should fear they should : they -write they don't know what, to be read by they don't know who. You have made me a very unreasonable request, which I -wiU answer -with another as extraordinary : you desire I would burn your letters : I desire you would keep mine. I know but of one way of making what I send you useful, which is, by sending you a blank sheet : sure you would 'not grudge three-pence for a half-penny sheet, when you give as much for one not worth a farthing. You drew this last paragraph on you by your exordium, as you call it, and conclusion. I hope, for the future, our correspondence -wiU run a little more glibly, -with dear George, and dear Harry ' [Conway] ; not as formaUy as if we were playing a game at chess in Spain and Portugal ; and Don Horatio was to have the honour of specifying to Don Georgio, by an epistle, whither he would move. In one point I would have our correspondence Hke a game at chess ; it should last aU our Hves — but I hear you cry check ; adieu ! Dear George, yours ever. the contemporary at Eton of Walpole and Gray. When his cousin, the Earl ol Halifax, was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, he was his secretary ; and when Frederick Lord North was ChanceUor of the Exchequer, he was his Secretary. He died 10 May, 1780, leaving the bulk of his fortune to Lord North. Walpole's letters to him, 272 in number, and dating between 1736 and 1770, were first published in 1818, "from the Originals in the possession of the Editor." There was a coolness between Walpole and Montagu several years before the latter's death, the correspondence dropping very abruptly. The cause is explained by Walpole in a letter to Cole, dated 11 May, 1780. Mr. Montagu's brother, Edward, was killed at Fontenoy. His sister, Arabella, was married to a Mr. WetenhaU — a relation of the WetenhaU mentioned in De Grammont. " Of Mr. Montagu, it is only remembered that he was a gentleman-like body of the vieiUe cour, and that he was usually attended by his brother John (the Little John of Walpole's correspondence), who was a midshipman at the age of sixty, and found his chief occupation in carrying about his brother's snuff-box." — {Quarterly Rev. for April, 1818, p. 131.) — Cunningham. ' Augusta, younger daughter of Frederic II., Duke of Saxe-Gotha, married (27th April, 1736) to Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of George III. — Cunningham. In 1736, I wrote a copy of Latin verses, published in the " Gratulatio Acad. Cantab." on the marriage of Frederick, Prince of Wales.— IToipoZe {Short Notes). — Cunningham. ' See note, p. 14. — Cunningham, HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. a736 3. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George : King's College, May 6, 1736. I AGREE with you entirely in the pleasure you take in talking over old stories, but can't say but I meet every day with new circum stances, which wiU be stiU more pleasure to me to recoUect. I think at our age 'tis excess of joy, to think, while we are running over past happinesses, that it is stiU in our power to enjoy as great. Narra tions of the greatest actions of other people are tedious in comparison of the serious trifles that every man can call to mind of himself while he was learning those histories. Youthful passages of life are the chippings of Pitt's diamond,' set into little heart-rings -with mottos ; the stone itself more worth, the filings more gentle and agreeable. — Alexander, at the head of the world, never tasted the true pleasure that boys of his own age have enjoyed at the head of a school. Little intrigues, little schemes, and poHcies engage their thoughts ; and, at the same time that they are laying the foundation for their middle age of Hfe, the mimic republic they Hve in furnishes mate rials of conversation for their latter age ; and old men cannot be said to be chUdi-en a second time -with greater truth from any one cause, than their H-ving over again their chUdhood in imagination. To reflect on the season when first they felt the titiUation of love, the budding passions, and the first dear object of their wishes ! how un experienced they gave credit to aU the tales of romantic loves ! Dear George, were not the playing fields at Eton food for all manner of fHghts ? No old maid's go-wn, though it had been tormented into all the fashions from King James to King George, ever underwent so many transformations as those poor plains have in my idea. At fijst I was contented -with tending a -visionary flock, and sighing some pastoral name to the echo of the cascade under the bridge. How happy should I have been to have had a kingdom only for the pleasure of being driven from it, and H-ving disguised in an humble vale ! As I got further into VirgU and CleHa, I found myself trans ported from Arcadia to the garden of Italy ; and saw Windsor Castle in no other view than the Capitoli immobile saxum. I -wish a ' The diamond bought by Thomas Pitt (grandfather of the Earl of Chatham), when Governor of Fort St. George, in the East Indies, and sold by him to the Regent Duke ot Orleans for at least 135,000^., some say 200,000^. The chippings were valued at 10,000i. Pitt died in 1726. He is the " honest factor" of Pope's Moral Essays. There ia a good account of Pitt's diamond in The Gentleman's Magazine for August, 1825, p. 105. — Cunningham. 1736.J TO MR. MONTAGU. ¦'> committee of the House of Commons may ever seem to be the senate ; or a biU appear half so agreeable as a billet-doux. You see how deep you have carried me into old stories ; I -write of them -with pleasure, but shall talk of them with more to you. I can't say I am sorry I was never quite a schoolboy : an expedition against bargemen, or a match at cricket, may be very pretty things to recol lect ; but, thank my stars, I can remember things that are very near as pretty. The beginning of my Roman history was spent in the asylum, or conversing in Egeria's hallowed grove ; not in thumping and pummelling king Amulius's herdsmen. I was sometimes troubled -with a rough creature or two fr-om the plough ; one, that one should have thought, had worked -with his head, as weU as his hands, they were both so caUous. One of the most agreeable circumstances I can recollect is the Triumvirate, composed of your self, Charles,' and Your sincere friend. 4. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George: King's CoUege, May 20, 1736. You -wiU excuse my not ha-ving written to you, when you hear I have been a jaunt to Oxford. As you have seen it, I shall only say I think it one of the most agreeable places I ever set my eyes on. In our way thither we stopped at the Duke of Kent's ' at Wrest [in Bedfordshire]. On the great staircase is a picture of the Duchess ; ° I said it was very Hke ; oh, dear sir ! said Mrs. House-keeper, it's too handsome for my lady-duchess ; her grace's chin is much longer than that. In the garden are monuments in memory of Lord Harold, ' Lady Glenorchy,' the late Duchess,' and the present Duke. At ' Colonel Charles Montagu, afterwards Lieutenant-General, and Knight of the Bath, and brother of George Montagu. He married Elizabeth Villiers, Viscountess Gran- dison, daughter of the Earl of Grandison. — (Note by the Anonymous Editor of the Letters to Montagu, 1818, 4to). — Cunningham. * Henry de Grey, Duke of Kent, died 1740. — Cunningham. ' Lady Sophia Bentinck, daughter to WiUiam Earl of Portland, and second wife of the Duke of Kent. — Cunningham. * Anthony, Earl of Harold, eldest son of the Dnke of Kent [d. 1723].— Ed. 1818. ' Amabella, eldest daughter of the Duke of Kent, married to John Campbell, Lord Viscount Glenorchy, son of Lord Breadalbane. — En. 1818. * Jemima, eldest daughter of Lord Crewe, and first wife :if the Dnke of Kent.— Ed. 1818. 8 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1736. Lord Clarendon's, at Cornbury' [in Oxfordshu-e], is a prodigious quantity of Vandykes ; but I had not time to take do-wn any of their dresses. By the way, you gave me no account of the last Masque rade. Coming back, we saw Easton Neston [in Northamptonshire], a seat of Lord Pomfret, where in an old green-house is a wonderful fine statue of TuUy, haranguing a numerous assembly of decayed emperors, vestal -virgins -with new noses, Colossus's, Venus's, head less carcases, and carcaseless heads, pieces of tombs, and hiero glyphics.' I saw Althorp [Earl Spencer's] the same day, where are a vast many pictures — some mighty good ; a gaUery -with the Windsor beauties, and Lady Bridgewater,' who is fuU as handsome as any of them ; a bouncing head of, I beHeve, Cleopatra, caUed there the Duchess of Mazarine. The park is enchanting. I forgot to tell you I was at Blenheim, where I saw nothing but a cross house keeper, and an impertinent porter, except a few pictures ; a quarry of stone ' that looked at a distance Hke a great house, and about this quarry, quantities of inscriptions in honour of the Duke of Marlborough, and I think of her grace too. Adieu ! dear George, Yours ever. The verses' are not yet pubHshed. 5. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George : King's College, May 30, 1736. You show me in the prettiest manner how much you like Petro nius Arbiter ; I have heard you commend him, but I am more ' The Cornbury CoUection — formed by the great Lord Chancellor Clarendon — is now (1856) partly at The Grove, in Hertfordshire, the seat of the present Lord Clarendon, and partly at Bothwell Castle, in Lanarkshire, the seat of Lord Douglas. The fine-art importance of the collection has been greatly exaggerated ; of the so-called Vandykes, some half-dozen only are originals. As a series of portraits, the collection is highly curious. — Cunningham. * Part of the collection of the Earl of Arundel, purchased by John Lord Jefferies; and in 1755 presented by his daughter, the Countess-Dowager of Pomfret [one of Walpole's heroines] to the University of Oxford. — Wright. ' Elizabeth, third daughter of the great Duke of Marlborough, and wife of Scroop, Earl and, after nis wife's death, first Duke of Bridgewater. Her beauty is almost proverbial : — An angel's sweetness or Bridgewater's eyes, ******* With Zeuxia' Helen thy Bridgewater vie. — Pope to Jervas. Jervas fancied himself in love with her. — Cunningham. ^ He is repeating what had been said before of Blenheim (somewhat unfairly) by Swift and Pope. — Cunningham. ' On the marriage of Frederick, Prince of Walea : see p. 3.— Cunningham. 1736.] TO MR. MONTAGU. 7 pleased with your tacit approbation of -writing Hke him, prose inter spersed -with verse ; I shaU send you soon in retm-n some poetry interspersed -with prose ; I mean the Cambridge congratulation -with the notes, as you desired. I have transcribed the greatest part of what was tolerable at the coffee-houses ; but by most of what you -wiU find, you -wUl hardly think I have left anything worse behind. There is lately come out a new piece, caUed A Dialogue between PhUemon and Hydaspes on false ReHgion, by one Mr. Coventiy,' A.M. and feUow, formerly feUow commoner, of Magdalen. He is a young man, but 'tis reaUy a pretty thing. If you cannot get it in to-wn, I -wiU send it -with the verses. He accounts for superstition in a new manner, and I think a just one ; attributing it to disappoint ments in love. He don't resolve it aU into that bottom ; ascribes it almost whoUy as the source of female enthusiasm ; and I dare say there's ne'er a girl from the age of fourteen to four-and-twenty, but wiU subscribe to his principles, and o-wn, if the dear man were dead that she loves, she would settle aU her affection on heaven, whither he was gone. Who would not be an .Artemisia, and raise the stately mausoleum to her lord ; then weep and watch incessant over it Hke the Ephesian mation ! I have heard of one lady,' who had not quite so great a veneration for her husband's tomb, but preferred lying alone in one, to lying on his left hand ; perhaps she had an aversion to the German custom of left-handed -wives. I met yesterday -with a pretty Httle dialogue on the subject of constancy ; 'tis between a traveUer and a dove Le Passant. Que faia tu dans ce bois, plaintive Tourterelle ? La Tourterelle. Je gemis, j'ai perdu ma compagne fidelle. Lb Passant. Ne crains tu pas que I'oiseleur Ne te fasse mourir comme elle ? ' Mr. Henry Coventry, son of Henry Coventry, Esq., bom 1710, died 1762. He wrote four additional Dialogues. — Wright. When Henry Coventry first came to the University, he was of a religious turn of mind, as was Mr. Horace Walpole ; even so much as to go with Ashton, his then great friend, to pray with the prisoners in the Castle. Afterwards both Mr. Coventry and Mr. Walpole took to the infidel side of the question. — Cole the Antkjuary. Walpole's uninterrupted sympathy with poor prisoners for debt is strikingly illustrated by his correspondence with hia Deputy in the Exchequer, now (1866) first published. — Cunningham. 2 The second wife of the first Earl of Exeter. The vacant space on the Earl's tomb in Westminster Abbey was left for the second Countess, who refused the situation.- Cunningham. 8 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1786. La Tourterelle. Si ce n'est lui, ce sera ma douleur. 'T would have been a Httle more apposite, if she had grieved for her lover. I have ventured to turn it to that -view, lengthened it, and spoiled it, as you shaU see. P. — Plaintive turtle, cease your moan ; Hence away ; In this dreary wood alone Why d'ye stay ? T. — These teara, alas ! you see flow For my mate ! P. — Dread you not from net or bow Hia sad fate ? T.— If, ah ! if they neither kill, Sorrow will. You -wiU excuse this gentle nothing, I mean mine, when I tell you, I translated it out of pure good-nature for the use of a discon solate wood-pigeon in our grove, that was made a -widow by the barbarity of a gun. She coos and caUs me so movingly, 'twould touch your heart to hear her. I protest to you it grieves me to pity her. She is so alHchoUy as any thing. I'U warrant you now she's as sorry as one of us would be. Well, good man, he's gone, and he died like a lamb. She's an unfortunate woman, but she must have patience ; 'tis what we must all come to, and so as I was saying, Dear George, good bye t'ye, P.S. I don't know yet when I shaU leave Cambridge. 6. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. Dear West : King's College, Aug. 17, 1736. Gray is at Bumham,' and, what is surprising, has not been at Eton. Could you live so near it -without seeing it? That dear scene of our quadruple- alliance would furnish me with the most agreeable recoUections. 'Tis the head of our genealogical table, that is since sprouted out into the two branches of Oxford and Cambridge. You seem to be the eldest son, by ha-ving got a whole inheritance to yourself; while the manor of Granta is to be di-vided between your three younger brothers, Thomas of Lancashire ' In Buckinghamshire, where hie uncle resided. — Wright. 173d.] WEST TO WALPOLE. 9 [Ashton], Thomas of London [Gray the poet], and Horace. We don't wish you dead to enjoy your seat, but your seat dead to enjoy vou. I hope you are a mere elder brother, and live upon what your fathei left you, and in the way you were brought up in, poetry : but we are supposed to betake ourselves to some trade, as logic, philoso phy, or mathematics. If I should prove a mere younger brother, and not turn to any profession, would you receive me, and supply me out of your stock, where you have such plenty ? I have been so used to the deHcate food of Parnassus, that I can never condescend to apply to the grosser studies of Alma Mater. Sober cloth of syUogism colour suits me ill ; or, what's worse, I hate clothes that one must prove to be of no colour at all. If the Muses coelique vias et sidera tnomtrent, and qua ri maria alia tumescant ; why accipiant : but 'tis thrashing, to study phUosophy in the abstruse authors. I am not against cultivating these studies, as they are certainly use ful ; but then they quite neglect all polite literature, all knowledge of this world. Indeed, such people have not much occasion for this latter ; for they shut themselves up from it, and study till they know less than any one. Great mathematicians have been of great use ; but the generaHty of them are quite unconversible : they frequent the stars, sub pedibusque vident mibes, but they can't see through them. I teU you what I see ; that by H-ving amongst them, I -write of nothing else : my letters are aU parallelograms, two sides equal to two sides ; and every paragraph an axiom, that teUs you nothing but what every mortal almost knows. By the way, your letters come under this description ; for they contain nothing but what almost every mortal knows too, that knows you — that is, they are extremely agreeable, which they know you are capable of making them : — no one is better acquainted with it than Your sincere friend. 7. WEST TO HORACE WALPOLE. Mt Dearest Walpole : Aug. 1736. Yesterday I received your Hvely — agreeable — gilt — epistolary — p-arallelogram, and to-day I am preparing to send you in return as exact a one as my little compass can afford you. And so far, sir, 1 am sure we and our letters bear some resemblance to parallel lines, that, like them, one of our chief properties is, seldom or never to meet. Indeed, lately my good fortune made some inclination from your 10 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1736. university to mine ; but whether I can reciprocate or no, I leave you to judge, from hence — I sent Ashton word that I should more than probably make an expedition to Cambridge this August ; but Prinsep, who was to have been my feUow-traveUer, and would have gone with me to Cambridge, though not to King's, is unhappUy disappointed ; and therefore my measures are broke, and I am very much in the spleen — else by this time I had flown to you -with aU the -wings of impatience, Ocyor cervia, et agente nimboa Ocyor Euro. But now, alas ! as Horace said on purpose for me to apply it, Sextilem totum mendax desideror This melancholy reflection would certainly infect aU the rest of my letter, if I were not re-vived by the sal volatUe of your most entertaining letter. I am afraid the younger brother -wUl make much the better gentleman, and so far verify the proverb : and indeed aU my brothers ' are so very forward, that, Hke the first and hea-viest element, I shaU have nothing but mere dirt for my share : — and reaUy such is the case of most of your landed elder brothers, whUe the younger run away -with the more fine and deHcate elements. -As for my patrimony of poetry, my dearest Horace, ut semper eris derisor ! what Httle I have I borrowed from my friends, and, Hke the poor ambitious jay in the trite fable, I Hve merely on the charity of my abounding acquaintance. Many a feather in my stock was stolen from your treasures ; but at present I find aU my poetical plumes moulting apace, and in a smaU time I shaU be nothing further than, what nobody can be more, or more sincerely. Your humble servant and obHged friend, R. West. Gray at Bumham, and not see Eton ? I am Ashton's evei', and intend him an answer soon. I beg pardon for what's over leaf; but as I am moulting my poetry, it is very natural to send it you, from whom and my other friends it originaUy came. I translated, and now I have ventured to imitate the divine lyiic poet. ' Of the quadruple alliance. — Cunningham. 1736.] WEST TO WALPOLE. 11 ODE.— TO MARY MAGDALENE. Saint of this learned awful grove, While alow along thy walks I rove, The pleasing acene, which all that see Admire, is lost to me. The thought, which still my breast invades. Nigh yonder springs, nigh yonder shades. Still, as I pass, the memory brings Of sweeter shades and springs. Lost and inwrapt in thought profound, Absent I tread Etonian ground ; Then starting from the dear mistake. As disenchanted, wake. What though from sorrow free, at best I'm thus but negatively bleat : Yet still, I find, true joy I miss ; True joy's a social bliss. Oh I how 1 long again with those, Whom first my boyish heart had chose. Together through the friendly shade To stray, as once I stray'd ! Their presence would the scene endear. Like paradise would all appear. More sweet around the flowers would blow, More soft the waters flow. Adieu! 8. WEST TO HORACE WALPOLE.' Dear Sir : Christchurch [Oxford^\, Jan. 12, 1736-7. Poetry, I take it, is as universaUy contagious as the smaU-pox ; every one catches it once in their Hfe at least, and the sooner the better ; for methinks an old rhymester makes as ridiculous a figure as Socrates dancing at fourscore. But I can never agree -with you that most of us succeed aHke ; at least I'm sure few do Hke you : I mean not to flatter, for I despise it heartily ; and I think I know you to be as much above flattery, as the use of it is beneath every honest, every sincere man. Flattery to men of power is analogous with hypocrisy to God, and both are aHke mean and contemptible ,• nor is the one more an instance of respect, than the other is a proof of devotion. I perceive I am gro^wing serious, and that is ' West's letters to Walpole, eight in number, are here reprinted from Walpole's Works, 6 vols. 4to, 1798. They were omitted by Mr. Wright in his edition; but they are both necessary for explanation, and excellent in themselves. — Cunningham, 12 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1736 the first step to dulness : but I beHeve you won't think that in the least extiaordinary, to find me duU in a letter, since you have known me so often duU out of a letter. As for poetry, I o-wn, my sentiments of it are very different from the vulgar taste. There is hardly any where to be found (says Shaftesbury) a more insipid race of mortals, than those whom the moderns are contented to caU poets — ^but methinks the tiue legiti mate poet is as rare to be found as TuUy's orator, qualis adhuc nemo fortasse fuerit. Truly, I am extremely to blame to talk to you at this rate of what you know much better than myself: but your letter gave me the hint, and I hope you -wUl excuse my impertinence in pursuing it. It is a difficult matter to account why, but certain it is that aU people, from the duke's coronet to the thresher's flail,' are desirous to be poets : Penelope herself had not more suitors, though every man is not Ulysses enough to bend the bow. The poetical world, like the terraqueous, has its several degrees of heat from the line to the pole — only differing in this, that whereas the temperate zone is most esteemed in the terraqueous, in the poetical it is the most despised. Parnassus is di-visible in the same manner as the mountain Chimaera. - mediis in partibus hircum. Pectus et ora leae, caudam aerpentis habebat. The medium between the rampant Hon and the creeping serpent is the filthy goat — the justest picture of a middHng poet, who is generaUy very bawdy and lasci-vious, and, Hke the goat, is mighty ambitious of cHmbing up the mountains, where he does nothing but browse upon weeds. Such creatures as these are beneath our notice. But whenever some wondrous sublime genius arises, such as Homer or Milton, then it is that different ages and countries aU join in an universal admiration. Poetry (I think I have read some where or other) is an imitation of Nature : the poet considers aU her works in a superior Hght to other mortals ; he discerns every secret tiait of the great mother, and paints it in its due beauty and proportion. The moral and the physical world aU open fairer to his enthusiastic imagination : Hke some clear-flo-wing stream, he reflects the beauteous prospect all around, and, Hke the prism-glass, he separates and disposes nature's colours in their justest and most delightful appearances. This sure is not the talent of every dauber: art, genius, learning, taste, must aU conspire to answer the fuU idea ' A hit at Stephen Duck the Thresher-poet, then an object of Queen Caroline's bounty and of Pope's satire. — Cunningham. 1736-7.] WEST TO WALPOLE. 13 I have of a poet ; a character which seldom agrees \vith any of our modern misceUany-mongers — But Quid loquor? aut ubi sum 1 quae mentem insania mutat 1 I am got into enchanted ground, and can hardly get out again time enough to finish my letter in a decent and laudable manner. Dear sir, excuse and pardon all this rambling criticism — I writ it out of pure idleness ; and I can assure you, I wish you idle enough to read it through. I am, my dear Walpole, Yours most sincerely, R. West. I wish you a happy new year. 9. WEST TO HORACE WALPOLE. My Dear Walpole ; Christchurch, February 27, 1736-7. It seems so long to me since I heard fr-om Cambridge, that I have been reflecting with myself what I could have done to lose any of my friends there. The uncertainty of my siUy health might have made me the duUer companion, as you know very weU ; for which reason Fate took care to remove me out of your way : but my letters, I am sure, at least carry sincerity enough in them to recommend me to any one that has a curiosity to know something concerning me and my amusements. As for Ashton, he has thought fit to forget me entirely ; and for Gray, if you correspond -with him as little as I do (wherever he be, for I know not), your correspondence is not very great. ^FuU in the midst of these refiections came yom- agreeable letter. I read it, and -wished myself among you. You can promise me no diversion, but the novelty of the place, you say, and a renewal of intimacies. Novelty, you must know, I am sick of ; I am surrounded with it, I see nothing else. I could teU you strange things, my dear Walpole, of anthropophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders. I have seen Learning drest in old frippery, such as was in fashion in Duns Scotus' days : I have seen Taste in changeable, feeding like the chameHon on air : I have seen Stupidity in the habit of Sense, Hke a footman in the master's clothes : I have seen the phantom mentioned in The Dunciad, -with a brain of feathers and a heart of lead : it walks here, and is called Wit. Your other inducement you suggested had aU its influence with me ; and I had before indulged the thought of -visiting you aU at Cambridge this next spring But Fata obstant — I am un-wiUingly 14 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1787. obHged to follow much less agreeable engagements. In the mean time I shaU pester you with quires of correspondence, such as it is : but remember, you were two letters in my debt — though indeed your last letter may fuUy cancel the obHgation. You may recoUect my last was a sort of a criticism upon poetry ; and this wiU present you with a sort of poetiy ' which nobody ever dreamt of but myself. I am, dear sir. Yours very sincerely, R. West. 10. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George : King's College, March 20, 1737. The first paragraph in my letter must be in answer to the last in yours ; though I should be glad to make you the return you ask, by waiting on you myself. 'Tis not in my power, from more circum stances than one, which are needless to teU you, to accompany you and Lord Conway ' to Italy : you add to the pleasure it woiUd give me, by asking it so kindly. You I am infinitely obHged to, as I was capable, my dear George, of making you forget for a minute that you don't propose stirring from the dear place you are now in. Poppies indeed are the chief flowers in love nosegays, but they seldom bend towards the lady ; at least not tiU the other flowers have been gathered. Prince Volscius's boots were made of love- leather, and honour-leather ; instead of honour, some people's are made of friendship : but since you have been so good to me as to draw on this, I can almost believe you are equipped for travelling farther than Rheims. 'Tis no Httle inducement to make me -wish myself in France, that I hear gaUantry is not left off there ; that you may be poHte, and not be thought awkward for it. You know the pretty men of the age in England use the women -with no more deference than they do their coach-horses, and have not half the regard for them that they have for themselves. The Httle freedoms you teU me you use take off from formaHty, by avoiding which ridiculous extreme we are d-windled into the other barbarous one, ' This poetry does not appear. — Berry. ' Walpole's cousin, Francis Seymour Conway (second Lord Conway), grandaon of Sir Edward Seymour, Speaker of the House of Commons, and aon of Francis Seymour Conway, Lord Conway (d. 1731-2), by his third wife, Charlotte (d. 1733-4), daughter of John Shorter, Esq., the father of Sir Robert Walpole's first wife. The Lord Con way of this letter is the Earl of Hertford, of Walpole's correspondence. He was created in 1793 Marquis of Hertford, and died 14th June, 1794. — CnNHiNGHAM. 1739.] TO MR. MONTAGU. 15 rusticity. If you had been at Paris, I should have inquired about the new Spanish ambassadress, who, by the accounts we have thence, at her first audience of the queen, sat do-wn -with her at a distance that suited respect and conversation. Adieu, dear George, Yours most heartUy. 11. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Christopher Inn, Eton. The Christopher.' Lord ! how great I used to think anybody just landed at the Christopher ! But here are no boys for me to send for — here I am, Hke Noah, just returned into his old world again, -with aU sorts of queer feels about me. By the way, the clock strikes the old cracked sound — I recoUect so much, and remember so Httle — and want to play about — and am so afraid of my playfeUows — and am ready to shirk Ashton — and can't help making fun of myself — and en-vy a dame over the way, that has just locked in her boarders, and is going to sit do-wn in a Httle hot parlour to a very bad supper, so comfortably ! and I could be so joUy a dog if I did not fat, which, by the way, is the first time the word was ever appHcable to me. In short, I should be out of aU bounds if I was to teU you half I feel, how young again I am one minute, and how old the next. But do come and feel with me, when you -wiU — to-morrow — adieu ! If I don't compose myself a Httle more before Sunday morning, when Ashton is to preach,' I shaU certainly be in a bill for laughing at church ; but how to help it, to see him in the pulpit, when the last time I saw him here, was standing up funking over against a conduit to be catechised. Good night ; yours. 12. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. Dear West : Paris, April 21, N. S. 1739.' You figure us in a set of pleasures, which, beHeve me, we do not ' The principal inn at Eton. " At Eton, he [the ever memorable John Hales] lodged (after his sequestration) at the next house, the Chriatopher, where I saw him." — Aubrey (Lives). — Cunningham. ^ Ashton had recently taken orders. See note, p. 2. — Cunningham. ' I had continued at Cambridge, though with long intervals, tiU towards the end of 1738, and did not leave it in form untU 1739, in which year, March 10th, I set out on my travels with my friend Mr. Thomas Gray, and went to Paris. — Walpole {Short Notes). — Cunningham. 16 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1789. find ; cards and eating are so universal, that they absorb aU vari ation of pleasures. The operas, indeed, are much frequented three times a week; but to me they would be a greater penance than eating maigre : their music resembles a gooseberry tart as much as it does harmony. We have not yet been at the ItaHan playhouse ; scarce any one goes there. Their best amusement, and which, in some parts, beats ours, is the comedy ; three or four of the actors excel any we have : but then to this nobody goes, if it is not one of the fashionable nights ; and then they go, be the play good or bad — except on Moliere's nights, whose pieces they are quite weary of. Gray and I have been at the Avare to-night : I cannot at all com mend their performance of it. Last night I was in the Place de Louis le Grand (a regular octagon, uniform, and the houses hand some, though not so large as Golden Square), to see what they reckoned one of the finest burials that ever was in France. It was the Duke de Tresmes, governor of Paris and marshal of France. It began on foot from his palace to his parish-church, and from thence in coaches to the opposite end of Paris, to be interred in the church of the Celestins, where is his family- vault. About a week ago we happened to see the grave digging, as we went to see the church, which is old and smaU, but fuUer of fine ancient monuments than any, except St. Denis, which we saw on the road, and excels Westminster ; for the windows are all painted in mosaic, and the tombs as fresh and weU preserved as if they were of yesterday. In the Celestins' church is a votive column to Francis II., which says, that it is one assurance of his being immortaHsed, to have had the martyr Mary Stuart for his -wife. After this long digression, I return to the burial, which was a most -vUe thing. A long proces sion of flambeaux and friars ; no plumes, trophies, banners, led horses, scutcheons, or open chariots ; nothing but friars. White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery. This godly ceremony began at nine at night, and did not fimsh till three this morning; for, each church they passed, they stopped for a hymn and holy water. By the bye, some of these choice monks, who watched the body while it lay in state, feU asleep one night, and let the tapers catch fire of the rich velvet mantle Hned -with ermine and powdered with gold flower-de-luces, which melted the lead coffin, and burnt off the feet of the deceased before it wakened them. The French love show ; but there is a meanness reigns 1739.] TO MR WEST. IT through it aU. At the house where T stood to see this procession, the room was hung -with crimson damask and gold, and the -windows were mended in ten or a dozen places with paper. At dinner they give you three courses ; but a third of the dishes is patched up -with sallads, butter, puff-paste, or some such miscarriage of a dish. None, but Germans, wear fine clothes ; but their coaches are tawdry enough tor the wedding of Cupid and Psyche. You would laugh extremely at their signs : some Hve at the Y grec, some at Venus's toUette, and some at the sucking cat. You would not easUy guess their notions of honour : I'U teU you one : it is very dishonourable for any gentleman not to be in the army, or in the king's service as they caU it, and it is no dishonour to keep pubHc gaming-houses : there are at least an hundred and fifty people of the first quality in Paris who live by it. You may go into their houses at aU hours of the night, and find hazard, pharaoh, &c. The men who keep the hazard-table at the duke de Gesvres' pay him twelve guineas each night for the pri-vUege. Even the princesses of the blood are dirty enough to have shares in the banks kept at their houses. We have seen two or three of them ; but they are not young, nor remarkable but for wearing their red of a deeper dye than other women, though all use it extiavagantly. The weather is stUl so bad, that we have not made any excursions to see VersaiUes and the environs, not even walked in the TuUe- ries ; but we have seen almost every thing else that is worth seeing in Paris, though that is very considerable. They beat us vastly in buUdings, both in number and magnificence. The tombs of Riche- Heu and Mazarin at the Sorbonne and the CoUege de Quatre Nations are wonderfuUy fine, especiaUy the former. We have seen very Httle of the people themselves, who are not inclined to be pro pitious to stiangers, especiaUy if they do not play and speak the language readUy. There are many EngHsh here : Lord Holdemess,' Conway' and CHnton,' and Lord George Bentinck;* Mr. Brand,' Offley, Frederic, Frampton, Bonfoy, &c. Sir John Cotton's son and a Mr. Vernon of Cambridge passed through Paris last week. ' Robert D'Arcy, the last Earl (d. 1778), the patron of the poet Mason. We shall hear more about him as we read on. — Cunningham. ^ See note, p. 14. — Cunningham. ' Hugh Fortescue, thirteenth Baron CUnton, created in 1746 Lord Fortescue and Earl of CUnton. He died unmarried in 1761.— Wright. * Son of Henry, second Eari and first Duke of Portland : he died in 1769.— Wright. ' Thomas Brand, of the Hoo, in Hertfordshire, Esq., married to Lady Caroline Pierrepoint, daughter (by his second wife) of the Duke of Kingston, and half-sister of Lady Mary Wortley.— Wright. 18 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1739, We shaU stay here about a fortnight longer, and then go to Rheims -with Mr. Conway for two or three months. When you have nothing else to do, we shaU be glad to hear from you; and any news. If we did not remember there was such a place as England, we should know nothing of it : the French never mention it, unless it happens to be in one of their proverbs. Adieu ! Yours ever. To-morrow we go to the Cid. They have no farces, but petites pieces Hke our ' DevU to Pay." 13. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. Dear West . From Paris, 1739. I SHOULD think myself to blame not to try to divert you, when you teU me I can. From the air of your letter you seem to want amusement, that is, you want spirits. I would recommend to you certain little employments that I know of, and that belong to you, but that I imagine bodUy exercise is more suitable to your complaint. If you would promise me to read them in the Temple garden, I would send you a Httle packet of plays and pamphlets that we have made up, and intend to dispatch to ' Dick's " the first opportunity. — Stand by, clear the way, make room for the pompous appearance of VersaiUes le Grand ! But no : it feU so short of my idea of it, mine, that I have resigned to Gray the office of writing its pane gyric' He Hkes it. They say I am to Hke it better next Sunday ; when the sun is to shine, the king is to be fine, the water- works are to play, and the new knights of the Holy Ghost are to be instaUed ! Ever since Wednesday, the day we were there, we have done nothing but dispute about it. They say, we did not see it to advantage, that we ran through the apartments, saw the garden en passant, and slubbered over Trianon. I say, we saw nothing. However, we had time to see that the great front is a lumber of Httleness, composed of black brick, stuck fuU of bad old busts, and fringed -with gold raUs. ' A Ballad Opera, by Coffey, produced at Drury Lane, 6th Aug. 1730. Mrs. Clive (then Miss Raftor), of whom we read so much in Walpole's Letters, made her first reputation as ' Nell ' in this piece. — Cunningham. ^ A celebrated coffee-house, near the Temple-gate, in Fleet Street, where (1 720 — 1770) quarto poems and pamphlets were taken in, much in the same way that news papers are now (1856).— Cunningham. ' For Gray's description of Versailles, which he styles " a huge heap of littleness,'' see his letter to West of the 22nd of May, 1739. (Works, by Mitford, voL ii. p. 46.) — Wright. HORACE VVALPOIE ^"^^-1 TO MR. WEST. in The rooms are aU smaU, except the great gaUery, which is noble, but totaUy wainscoted -with looking-glass. The garden is Uttered with statues and fountains, each of which has its tutelary deity. In particular, the elementary god of fu-e solaces himself in one. In another, Enceladus, in Heu of a mountain, is overwhelmed -with many waters. There are avenues of water-pots, who disport themselves much in squirting up cascadeHns. In short, 'tis a garden for a great chUd. Such was Louis Quatorze, who is here seen in his proper colours, where he commanded in person, unassisted by his armies and generals, and left to the pursuit of his o-wn puerUe ideas of glory. We saw last week a place of another Idnd, and which has more the air of what it would be, than anything I have yet met -with : it was the convent of the Chartieux. AU the conveniences, or rather (if there was such a word) aU the adaptments are assem bled here, that melancholy, meditation, selfish devotion, and despair would require. But yet 'tis pleasing. Soften the terms, and meUow the uncouth horror that reigns here, but a little, and 'tis a charming soHtude. It stands on a large space of ground, is old and irregular. The chapel is gloomy : behind it, through some dark passages, you pass into a large obscure hall, which looks like a combination- chamber for some hellish councU. The large cloister surrounds their burying-ground. The cloisters are very narrow and very long, and let into the ceUs, which are buUt Hke Httle huts detached from each other. We were carried into one, where Hved a middle-aged man not long initiated into the order. He was extiemely civU, and caUed himself Dom Victor. We have promised to visit him often. Their habit is aU white : but besides this he was infinitely clean in his person ; and his apartment and garden, which he keeps and cultivates -without any assistance, was neat to a degree. He has four Httle rooms, furnished in the prettiest manner, and hung -with good prints. One of them is a Hbrary, and another a gaUery. He has several canary-birds disposed in a pretty manner in breeding-cages. In his garden was a bed of good tuHps in bloom, flowers and fruit-tiees, and aU neatly kept. They are permitted at certain hours to talk to stiangers, but never to one another, or to go out of their convent. But what we chiefly went to see was the small cloister, -with the history of St. Bruno, their founder, painted by Le Soeur. It consists of twenty-two pictures, the figures a good deal less than life. But sure they are amazing ! I don't know what Raphael may be in Rome, but these pictures excel aU I have seen in Paris and England. The figure of the 20 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1739. dead man who spoke -at his burial, contains aU the strongest and horridest ideas, of ghastHness, hypocrisy discovered, and the height of damnation, pain and cursing. A Benedictine monk, who was there at the same time, said to me of this picture : C'est une fable, mais on la croyoit autrefois. Another, who showed me reHcs in one of their churches, expressed as much ridicule for them. The pic tures I have been speaking of are iU preserved, and some of the finest heads defaced, which was done at first by a rival of Le Soeur's. Adieu ! dear West, take care of your health ; and some time or other we -wUl talk over aU these things -with more pleasure than I have had in seeing them. Yours ever. 14. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. Dear West ; Rheims,^ June 18, 1739, N. S. How I am to fill up this letter is not easy to divine. I have consented that Gray shaU give you an account of our situation and proceedings ; " and have left myself at the mercy of my o-wn inven tion — a most terrible resource, and which I shaU avoid applying to if I can possibly help it. I had prepared the ingredients for a description of a baU, and was just ready to serve it up to you, but he has plucked it from me. However, I was resolved to give you an accoimt of a particular song and dance in it, and was determined to -write the words and sing the tune just as I folded up my letter ; but as it would, ten to one, be opened before it gets to you, I am forced to lay aside this thought, though an admirable one. WeU, but now I have put it into your head, I suppose you won't rest -without it. For that indi-vidual one, beHeve me, 'tis nothing with out the tune and the dance ; but to stay your stomach, I -wUl send you one of their vaudevUles or baUads,' which they sing at the comedy after their petites pieces. You must not wonder if aU my letters resemble dictionaries, -with French on one side and EngHsh on t'other ; I deal in nothing else ' From Paris, after a stay of about two months, we went with my cousin, Henry Conway, to Rheima, in Champagne, stayed there three months ; and passing by Geneva, where we left Mr. Conway, Mr. Gray and I went by Lyons to Turin over the Alps, and from thence to Genoa, Parma, Placentia, Modena, Bologna, and Florence. — Walpole {Short Notes of his Life). — Cunningham. ^ Gray's letter to West has not been preserved ; but one to his mother, on the 21st of June, containing an account of Rheims, is printed in his Works [by Mitford], vol. u. p. 60. — Wright. ' This ballad does not appear.— Bbrrt. 1789.] WEST TO WALPOLE. 21 at present, and talk a couple of words of each language alternately from morning tiU night. This has put my mouth a Httle out of tune at present ; but I am trying to recover the use of it by reading the newspapers aloud at breakfast, and by che-wing the title-pages of aU my EngHsh books. Besides this, I have paraphrased half the first act of your new ' Gustavus," which was sent us to Paris : a most dainty performance, and just what you say of it. Good night, I am sure you must be tired : if you are not, I am. Yours ever. 15. WEST TO HORACE WALPOLE. Dear Walpole : Temple, June 21, 1739. Your last letter puts me in mind of some good people, who, though they give you the best dinner in the world, are never satis fied -with themselves, but — -wish they had kno-wn sooner — quite ashamed — a Httle unprepared — hope you'U excuse, and so forth : for you teU me, you only send me this to stay my stomach against you are better furnished, and at the same time you treat me, ttt nunquam in vita melius. Nor is it now alone I have room to say so, but 'tis always : and I know I had rather gather the crumbs that faU from under your table, than be a prime guest -with most other people. Sincerely, sir, nobody in Great Britain, nor, I beHeve, in France, keeps a more elegant table than yourself : mistake me not, I mean a metaphorical one, for else I should He confoundedly ; for you know you did not use to keep a very extiaordinary one, at least when I had the honour to dine -with you : — boUed chickens and roast legs of mutton were your highest effort. But -with the metaphor, the case is quite altered : 'tis no longer chapon toujours bouilH : 'tis varium et mutabile semper enough, I am sure : 'tis Jtah perfusvs aceto : 'tis tota merum sal : you see too, it has a particu larity, which perhaps you did not know before, that it is of aU genders, and is mascuHne, feminine, or neuter, which you please. Your feasts are Hke Plato's : one ffeeds upon them for two or three days together, et e convivio sapientiores resurgimus qudm accubuimus. So it is -with me ; and I never receive any of your tables, or tabula, for you know 'tis the same thing, but I exclaim to myself, Dl magni ! saUcippium diaertum I ' Gustavus Vasa, a tragedy, by Henry Brooke, author of The Fool of Quality : the first play prohibited by Sir Robert Walpole's Act for Licensing Plays. Brooke was recompensed by a very liberal public subscription.— Cunningham. 22 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1739. If you don't understand this Hne, you must consult with Doctor Bentley's nephew, who thinks nobody can understand it without him ; when after aU it does not signify a brass farthing whether you understand it or no. But, sir, this is not aU : you not only tieat me -with a whole bushel of attic salt, and a gaUon of ItaHan vinegar, but you give me soro-C English-French music — a vaudevUle in both languages ! Docte sermones utriusque lingnse But now I talk of music at a feast ; I'U teU you of a feast and music too. About a fortnight ago, walking through Leicester-fields, I ran fuU-butt against somebody. Upon examination, who should it be but Mr. A ? I mean the nephew of the lord of . So we saluted very amicably, and I engaged to sup with him Thursday next. To his lodgings I went on Thursday, and there I found Plato, Puffendorf, and Prato (can't you guess who they be ?). A very good supper we had, and Plato gave your health. I beHeve he is in love. Did you ever hear of Nanny Blundel ? But I forget our music. We had, sir, for an hour or two, an Ethiopian, belonging to the Duchess of Athol, who played to us upon the French-horn. A made me laugh about him very much. I said, I suppose you give this Ethiopian something to drink ? Upon which he ordered him half- a- cro-wn. I said. So much ? Oh ! he's only a Black, answered he. Puffendorf (who you know says good things sometimes) said, not amiss. Oh, sir, if he had been a White, he'd have given him a cro-wn. I don't pretend to compare our supper -with your partie de cabaret at Rheims ; but at least, sir, our materials were more sterHng than yours. You had a goute forsooth, composed of des fraises, de la creme, du -vin, des gateaux, &c. We, sir, we supped a I'Angloise. Imprimis, we had buttock of beef, and Yorkshire ham; we had chickens too, and a gallon bowl of sallad, and a gooseberry pye as big as anything. Now, sir, not- -withstanding (do you know what this not-withstanding relates to ? I'll mark the cue for you — 'tis — ) not-withstanding, I say, I am neither solers citharm, neque musm deditus ulli, as you are ; yet, as I am very vain, and apt to have a high opinion of my own poetiy, I have a mind to treat you as elegantly as you have treated me — as you remember a certain doctor at King's CoUege did the Duke of Devonshire— and so have prepared you a Httle sort of musical accompagnamento for your entertainment. 'Tis true, I said to myself very often — 1739.] WEST TO WALPOLE. S3 An quodcnnque facit Maicenaa, Ta quoque verum est, Tanto dissimUem, et tanto cflrtaro ininorom ? Then I reflected — ut gratas inter mensaa symphonia discors, Et crassum unguentum, et Sardo cum melle papaver, Offendunt ; poterat duci quia ccena sine iUia ; Sic animis natum inventumque poema j uvaudia. Si paulum summo diaceaait, vergit ad imtun. Yet in spite of these two long quotations (which I made no other use of than what you see) I stiU determined to scrape a Httle, and accord ingly have sent you, in Heu of your vaudeviUe, a miserable elegy.' I dare say you -wish you could shake the pen out of my hand. But I don't know how it is ; I am at present in a vein to make up for the dryness of most of my former letters since you have been abroad ; and I can't teU but I may fill up this sheet, if not another, -svith more such trumpery. I forgot aU this whUe to thank for the packet which I have received, and which was more welcome to me than an Amiens-pye ; for I can't help running on upon the metaphor I set out -with ; and you know I always was a heluo librorum. The first thing I pitched upon was CrebUlon's love-letters, aUured by the garnishing, I fancy ; that is, the red leaves and the blue sUk kalendar. 'Tis an ingenious account of the progress of love in a very -virtuous lady's heart, and how a fine gentleman may first gain her approbation, then her esteem, then her heart, and then her you know what. But don't you think it ends a Httle too tragicaUy ? For my part, I protest, I was very sorry the last letter made me cry. But the passions are charmingly described aU through, and the language is fine. After this I would have read the Amusement PhUosophique ; but Asheton has run away with it — Callidus, quicquid placuit jocoso Condere furto. Very jocose indeed to rob a body ! So I ha'n't seen it since. Gustave is no bad thing, as far as I can judge. One may see the author was young when he wrote it, and it looks to me Hke a first play of an author. But the language is natural, and in many places poetical. The plot is very entertaining, only I don't Hke the con clusion. It ends abrupt, and Leonor comes in at last too much Hke an apparition. The rest of the pieces I have not read ; but from ' Thia elegy does not appear. — Berry. 24 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1739. what I can discover by a transient view, I fancy they are better seen than read. I am now at the eighth page : 'tis time to have done, and wish you adieu. I hear Sir Robert is very well. My Lord Conway is reckoned one of the prettiest persons about town. Yours ever, R. West. 16. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. Rheims, July 20, 1739. Gray says, Indeed you ought to write to West. — Lord, child, so I would, if I knew what to write about. If I were in London and he at Rheims, I would send him volumes about peace and war, Spaniards, camps, and conventions ; but d'ye think he cares sixpence to know who is gone to Compiegne, and when they come back, or who won and lost four Hvres at quadriUe last night at Mr. Cockbert's ? — No, but you may tell him what you have heard of Compiegne ; that they have baUs twice a week after the play, and that the Count d'Eu gave the king a most flaring entertainment in the camp, where the Polygene was represented in flowering shrubs. Dear West, these are the things I must teU you ; I don't know how to make 'em look significant, unless you -will be a Rhemois for a little moment.' I wonder you can stay out of the city so long, when we are going to have aU manner of diversions. The comedians return hither from Compiegne in eight days, for example ; and in a very Httle of time one attends the regiment of the king, three battaHons and an hundred of officers ; aU men of a certain fashion, very amiable, and who know their world. Our women grow more gay, more Hvely, from day to day, in expecting them ; MademoiseUe la Reine is brewing a wash of a finer dj^e, and brushing up her eyes for their arrival. La Baronne already counts upon fifteen of them : and Madame Lelu, finding her Hnen robe conceals too many beauties, has bespoke one of gauze. I won't plague you any longer -with people you don't know, I mean French ones ; for you must absolutely hear of an Englishman that lately appeared at Rheims. About two days ago, about four o'clock in the afternoon, and about an hour after dinner, — ^from aU which you may conclude we dine at two o'clock, — as we were ' The three following paragraphs are i literal translation of French expreBsioiw lo the same import. — Behry. 1<89.] TO MR. WEST. 25 picking our teeth round a littered table and in a crumby room. Gray in an undress, Mr. Conway in a morning grey coat, and I in a trim white night-go-wn and slippers, very much out of order, with a very Httle cold, a message discomposed us aU of a sudden, with a service to Mr. Walpole from Mr. More, and that, if he pleased, he would wait on him. We scuttle upstairs in great contusion, but with no other damage than the flinging do-wn two or three glasses and the dropping a sHpper by the way. Ha-ving ordered the room to be cleaned out, and sent a very civU response to Mr. More, we began to consider who Mr. More should be. Is it Mr. More of Paris? No. Oh, 'tis Mr. More, my Lady Teynham's husband? No, it can't be he. A Mr. More, then, that Hves in the Halifax famUy ? No. In short, after thinking of ten thousand more Mr. Mores, we concluded it could never be a one of 'em. By this time Mr. More arrives ; but such a Mr. More ! a young gentleman out of the -wUds of Ireland, who has never been in England, but has got aU the ordinary language of that kingdom ; has been two years at Paris, where he dined at an ordinary -with the refugee Irish, and learnt fortifications, which he does not understand at all, and which yet is the only thing he knows. In short, he is a young swain of very uncouth phrase, inarticulate speech, and no ideas. This hopeful chUd is riding post into Lorrain, or any where else, he is not certain ; for if there is a war he shaU go home again : for we must give the Spaniards another drubbing, you know ; and if the Dutch do but join us, we shall blow up all the ports in Europe ; for our ships are our bastions, and our ravelines, and om' homworks ; and there's a deviUsh -wide ditch for 'em to pass, which they can't fill up -with things Here Mr. Conway helped him to fascines. By this time I imagine you have laughed at him as much, and were as tired of him as we were : but he's gone. This is the day that Gray and I intended for the first of a southern circuit ; but as Mr. Sel-wyn ' and George Montagu design us a -visit here, we have put off our journey for some weeks. When we get a little farther, I hope our memoires -wUl brighten : at present they are but duU, dull as Your humble servant ever. P.S. I thank you ten thousand times for your last letter : when I have as much -wit and as much poetry in me, I'll send you as good an one. Good night, child ! ' George Augustus Selwyn, the wit (born 1719, died 1791), whose name and good sayings are of constant occurrence in Walpole's Correspondence. He was at Eton with Walpole, who was about two years his senior. — Cunningham. 26 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1739. 17. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. Fro^i a Hamlet among Ute Mcmnlains of Savoy, Sept. 28, 1789, N. S. Precipices, mountains, torrents, wolves, rumblings, Salvator Rosa the pomp of our park and the meekness of our palace ! Here we are, the lonely lords of glorious, desolate prospects. I have kept a sort of resolution which I made, of not -writing to you as long as I staid in France : I am now a quarter of an hour out of it, and write to you. Mind, 'tis three months since we heard from you. I begin this letter among the clouds ; where I shaU finish, my neighbour Heaven probably knows : 'tis an odd -wish in a mortal letter, to hope not to finish it on this side the atmosphere. You -wUl have a bUlet tumble to you from the stars when you least think of it ; and that I should -write it too ! Lord, how potent that sounds ! But I am to undergo many transmigrations before I come to "yours ever." Yesterday I was a shepherd of Dauphine ; to-day an Alpine savage ; to-morrow a Carthusian monk ; and Friday a S-wiss Cal-vinist. I have one quaHty which I find remains -with me in all worlds and in aU aethers ; I brought it -with me from your world, and am admired for it in this — 'tis my esteem for you : this is a common thought among you, and you -wiU laugh at it, but it is new here : as new to remember one's friends in the world one has left, as for you to remember those you have lost. Aix in Savoy, Sept. 30th. We are this minute come in here, and here's an awkward abb§ this minute come in to us. I asked him if he would sit do-wn. Oui, oui, oui. He has ordered us a radish soup for supper, and has brought a chess-board to play -with Mr. Conway. I have left 'em in the act, and am set do-wn to write to you. Did you ever see any thing Hke the prospect we saw yesterday ? I never did. We rode three leagues to see the Grande Chartieuse ; ' expected bad roads and the finest convent in the kingdom. We were disappointed pro and con. The buUding is large and plain, and has nothing remark able but its primitive simpHcity ; they entertained us in the neatest maimer, -with eggs, pickled salmon, dried fish, conserves, cheese, butter, grapes, and figs, and pressed us mightUy to He there. We tumbled into the hands of a lay-brother, who, unluckily ha-ving the charge of the meal and bran, showed us Httle besides. They desired ' Where Gray wrote the Alcaic Ode, printed in his Works. — Cunningham. 1739.] TO MR. WEST. 27 US to set do-wn our names in the Hst of strangers, where, among others, we found two mottos of our countiymen, for whose stupidity and brutaUty we blushed. The first was of Sir J * ¦* * D * * *, who had -wrote do-wn the first stanza of Justum et tenaeem, altering the last Hne to Mente quatit Carthusiana. The second was of one D * *, Ccelum ipsum petimus stultitid ; et hie ventri indico bellum. The Goth ! — ^But the road, West, the road ! -winding round a prodigious mountain, and surrounded with others, aU shagged with hanging woods, obscured -with pines, or lost in clouds ! Below, a torrent breaking through cHffs, and tumbHng through fragments of rocks ! Sheets of cascades forcing their sUver speed do"wn channeUed precipices, and hasting into the roughened river at the bottom ! Now and then an old foot-bridge, -with a broken raU, a leaning cross, a cottage, or the ruin of an hermitage ! This sounds too bombast and too romantic to one that has not seen it, too cold for one that has. If I could send you my letter post between two lovely tempests that echoed each other's -wrath, you might have some idea of this noble roaring scene, as you were reading it. Almost on the summit, upon a fine verdure, but -without any prospect, stands the Chartreuse. We staid there two hours, rode back through this charming picture, wished for a painter, -wished to be poets ! Need I teU you we -wished for you ? Good night ! Geneva, Oct. 2. By beginning a new date, I should begin a new letter ; but I have seen nothing yet, and the post is going out : 'tis a strange tumbled dab, and dirty too, I am sending you ; but what can I do ? There IS no possibUity of -writing such a long history over again. I find there are many EngHsh in the to-wn ; Lord Brook,' Lord Mansel,^ Lord Hervey's eldest son,' and a son of of Mars and Venus, or of Antony and Cleopatra, or, in short, of . This is the boy, in the bow of whose hat Mr. Hedges * pinned a pretty epigram. I don't know if you ever heard it : I'll suppose you never did, because it -wiU fill up my letter : Give but Cupid's dart to me. Another Cupid I ahall be ; No more distinguish'd from the other. Than Venus would be from my mother. ' Francis Greville, eighth Lord Brooke, afterwards Earl of Warwick. — Cunningham. ^ Thomas Lord Mansell, who died in 1744, without issue. — Wright. ^ George William Hervey, who succeeded his grandfather as Earl of Briatol in 1761, and died unmarried in 1775. — Wright. * Charles Hedges (son of Sir Charles Hedges, Secretary of State in the reign of Qneen Anne), Minister in Turin and Secretary to Frederick Prince of Wales. "He was," says 28 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1739. Scandal says. Hedges thought the two last very like ; and it says too, that she was not his enemy for thinking so. Adieu ! Gray and I return to Lyons in three days. Harry [Mr. Conway] stays here. Perhaps at our return we may find a letter from you : it ought to be very full of excuses, for you have been a lazy creature ; I hope you have, for I would not owe your sUence to any other reason. Yom-s ever. 18. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. Turin, Nov. 11, 1739, N. S. So, as the song says, we are in fair Italy ! I wonder we are ; for on the very highest precipice of Mount Cenis, the de-vU of discord, in the simUitude of sour -wine, had got amongst our Alpine savages, and set them a-fighting -with Gray and me in the chairs : they rushed him by me on a crag, where there was scarce room for a cloven foot. The least slip had tumbled us into such a fog, and such an eternity, as we should never have found our way out of again. We were eight days in coming hither from Lyons ; the four last in crossing the Alps. Such uncouth rocks, and such uncomely inhabitants ! My dear West, I hope I shall never see them again ! At the foot of Mount Cenis we were obHged to quit our chaise, which was taken aU to pieces and loaded on mules ; and we were carried in low arm-chafrs on poles, swathed in beaver bonnets, beaver gloves, beaver stockings, muffs, and bear-skins. When we came to the top, heboid the snows faUen ! and such quantities, and conducted by such heavy clouds that hung glouting, that I thought we could never have waded through them. The descent is two leagues, but steep and rough as 0 * * * * father's face, over which, you know, the de-vil walked -with hobnaUs in his shoes. But the dexterity and nimble- ness of the mountaineers are inconceivable : they run -with you do-wn steeps and frozen precipices, where no man, as men are now, could possibly walk. We had twelve men and nine mules to carry us, our servants, and baggage, and were above five hours in this agreeable jaunt ! The day before, I had a cruel accident, and so extraordinary an one, that it seems to touch upon the traveUer. I had brought -with me a little black spaniel of King Charles's breed ; but the prettiest, fattest, dearest creature ! I had let it out of the chaise for Walpole in his Memoires, " a man much in fashion, and a pretty Latin poet " Hia brother John was Treasurer to the Prince of Wales, and shared the favours of Mra. 01 Ifield. — Cunningham. 1739.] TO MR. WESI". 29 the air, and it was waddHng along close to the head of the horses, on the top of the highest Alps, by the side of a wood of firs. There darted out a young wolf, seized poor dear Tory ' by the throat, and, before we could possibly prevent it, sprung up the side of the rock and carried him off. The postUion jumped off and struck at him ¦with his whip, but in vain. I saw it and screamed, but in vain ; for the road was so narrow, that the servants that were behind could not get by the chaise to shoot him. What is the extiaordinary part is, that it was but two o'clock, and broad sunshine. It was shocking to see anything one loved run away with to so horrid a death. Just coining out of Chamberri, which is a Httle nasty old hole, I copied an inscription set up at the end of a great road, which was practised through an immense soHd rock by bursting it asunder -with gunpowder. The Latin is pretty enough, and so I send it you : " Carolus Emanuel II. Sab. dux, Pedem. princeps, Cypri rex, pubUc2, felicitate part&, singulomm commodis intentus, breviorem securioremque viam regiam, natur^ occlusam, Romania intentatam, cseteris desperatam, dejectis scopulorum repagulis, sequata montium iniquitate, quae cervicibus imminebant precipitia pedibus subster- nens, seternis populorum commercus patefecit. a.d. 1670." We passed the Pas de Suze, where is a strong fortiess on a rock, between two very neighbouring mountains ; and then, through a fine avenue of three leagues, we at last discovered Turin : — E I'un a I'altro mostra, ed in tanto obblia La noia, e'l mal della passata via. 'Tis reaUy by far one of the prettiest cities I have seen ; not one of your large stiaggHng ones that can afford to have twenty dirty suburbs, but clean and compact, very new and very regular. The king's palace is not of the proudest without, but of the richest within ; painted, gUt, looking-glassed, very costly, but very tawdry ; in short, a very popular palace. We were last night at the ItaHan comedy — the de-vil of a house and the de-vil of actors ! Besides this, there is a sort of an heroic tragedy, caUed La rappresentazione dell' Anima Bamnata.' A woman, a sinner, comes in and makes a solemn ' This incident ia described also by Gray in one of his letters to his mother. — Wright. " In apite of the excellence of the actors, the greatest part of the entertainment to me was the countenances of the people in the pit and boxes. When the devUs were like to carry off the Damned Soul, everybody was in the utmoat consternation ; and when St. John spoke so obligingly to her, they were ready to cry out for joy. When the Virgin appeared on the stage, everybody looked respectful ; and, on several words spoke by the actors, they pulled off their hats, and crossed themselves. What can you think of a people, where their very farces are religious, and where they are BO religiongly received t— Spence to his Mother, Turin, 2nd Dec, 1739. — Wright. 30 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1789. prayer to the Trinity : enter Jesus Christ and the Virgin : he scolds, and exit : she teUs the woman her son is very angry, but she don't know, she -wUl see what she can do. .After the play we were intio duced to the assembly, which they caU the conversazione ; there were many people playing at ombre, pharaoh, and a game caUed taroc, -with cards so high,^ to the number of seventy-eight. There are three or four English here ; Lord Lincoln,' -with Spence,' your Professor of Poetry ; a Mr. B * * *, and a IMti. C * * *, a man that never utters a syUable. We have tried aU stratagems to make him speak. Yesterday he did at last open his mouth, and said Bee. We aU laughed so at the novelty of the thing that he shut it again, and wiU never speak more. I think you can't complain now of my not -writing to you. What a volume of trifles ! I -wrote just the feUow to it from Geneva ; had it you ? FareweU ! Thine. 19. WEST TO HORACE WALPOLE. Dear Walpole : Temple, Dec. 13, 1739. Bee ! for I have not spoke to-day, and therefore I am resolved to speak to you first. Asheton is of opinion you have read Herodotus ; but I imagine no such thing, and verily beHeve the gentleman to be a Phoenician. I can't forgive Mont Cenis poor Tory's death ! I can assure her I'U never sing her panegyric, unless she serves aU her wolves as Edgar the Peaceable did. It did touch a Httle upon the traveUer. What do you think it put me in mind of ? Not a bit like, but it put me in mind of poor Mrs. Rider in Cleveland, where she's tore to pieces by the savages. I can't say I much Hke your Alps by the description you give ; but stUl I have a stiange ambition to be where Hannibal was : it must be a pretty thing to fetch a walk in the clouds, and to have the snow up to one's ears. But I am reaUy surprised at your going two leagues in five hours : a'n't it prodigious quick, to go do-wn such a terrible descent ? The inscrip- ' In the manuscript the writing of this word is extraordinarly tall. — Beery. ^ Henry Fiennes (Pelham) CUnton, ninth Earl of Lincoln, succeeded, in 1768, as Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyme, on the death of the minister Duke of Newcastle. Sir Charlea Hanbury Williams celebrated his prowess with the fair in an indecent Ode. Lady Mary Wortley was particularly fond of him. He married, in 1744, his cousin Catherine, daughter and heiress of the minister Mr. Pelham. Lady Lincoln died 27th July, 1760. Lord Lincoln was born in 1720, and died 22nd February, 1794. — Cunningham. ^ The Rev. Joseph Spence, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, died 1768 (see p. 64), best known by his volume of Anecdotes. " He was," says Walpole (to Cole, May 19, 1780) " more like a ailver penny than a genius." — Cunningham. 1739.] TO MR. WEST. 31 tion you mention is very pretty Latin. I see afready you Hke Italy better than France and aU its works. When shall you be at Rome ? Middleton, I think, says, you find there everything you find every where else. I expect volume upon volume there. Do you never ¦write foHos as weU as quartos ? You know I am a heluo of every thing of that kind, and I am never so happy as when — verbosa et grandis epistola venit We have strange news here in to-wn, if it be but ti'ue : we hear of a sea-fight between six of our men of war and ten Spanish ; and that we sunk one and took five. I should not forget that Mr. Pelham ' has lost two only chUdren at a stroke : 'tis a terrible loss : they died of a sort of sore-throat. To muster up all sort of news : Glover ' has put out on this occasion a new poem, caUed London, or The Progress of Commerce ; wherein he very much extols a certain Dutch poet, caUed Janus Douza, and compares him to Sophocles : I suppose he does it to make interest upon 'Change. Plays we have none, or damned ones. Handel has had a concerto this -winter. No opera, no nothing. AU for war and Admiral Haddock. Farewell and adieu ! Yours, R. West. 20. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. From Bologna, 1739. I don't know why I told Ashton I would send you an account of what I saw : don't beHeve it, I don't intend it. Only think what a ¦vUe employment 'tis, making catalogues I .And then one should have that odious Curl ' get at one's letters, and pubHsh them Hke Whitfield's Joumal, or for a supplement to the TraveUer's Pocket- companion. Dear West, I protest against ha-ving seen anything but what aU the world has seen ; nay, I have not seen half that, not some of the most common things ; not so much as a miracle. WeU, but you don't expect it, do you ? Except pictures and statues, we are not very fond of sights ; don't go a staring after crooked towers and conundrum staircases. Don't you hate, too, a jingUng epitaph ' ' The Right Honourable Henry Pelham, brother of the minister Duke of New castle, and Prime Minister himself at the time of his death in 1764. — Cunningham. * Richard Glover, author of Leonidas, died 1786. Weat's father was the maternal uncle of Glover, and in the Inner Temple Hall is a portrait of Lord Chan cellor West, presented by Glover. — Cunningham. ^ Edmund Curll, the notorious bookseller. He died in 1747, aged seventy-two.— Cunningham. ? Si procul S. Proculo ProcuU campana fuisset, Jam procul ^ Proculo Proculus ipse foret. a.d. 1392. Epitaph on the outside of the wall of the church of St. Proculo. — Berrt. 82 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [173». of one ProciU and one Proculus thdt is here? Now and then -we drop in at a procession, or a high-mass, hear the music, enjoy a strange attire, and hate the foul monkhood. Last week was the feast of the Immaculate Conception. On the eve we went to the Franciscans' church to hear the academical exercises. There were moult and moult clergy, about two dozen dames, that treated one another -with illustrissima and bro-wn kisses, the vice-legate, the gonfalonier, and some senate. The -vice-legate, whose conception was not quite so immaculate, is a young personable person, of about twenty, and had on a mighty pretty cardinal-kind of habit ; 'twou'd make a deHghtfiU masquerade dress. We asked his name : Spinola. What, a nephew of the cardinal-legate ? Signer, no : ma credo che gli sia qualche cosa. He sat on the right-hand -with the gonfalonier in two purple fauteuils. Opposite was a throne of crimson damask, with the de-vice of the Academy, the Gelati ; and tiimmings of gold. Here sat at a table, in black, the head of the academy, between the orator and the first poet. At two semicfrcular tables on either hand sat three poets and three ; sUent among many candles. The chief made a Httle introduction, the orator a long ItaHan vUe harangue. Then the chief, the poet, the poets, — ^who were a Franciscan, an OHvetan, an old abbe, and three lay, — read their compositions ; and to-day they are pasted up in aU parts of the town. As we came out of the church, we found aU the convent and neighbouring houses Hghted aU over -with lanthorns of red and yeUow paper, and two bon fires. But you are sick of this fooHsh ceremony ; I'U carry you to no more : I wiU only mention, that we found the Dominicans' church here in mourning for the inquisitor ; 'twas aU hung with black cloth, furbelowed and festooned -with yeUow gauze. We have seen a furniture here in a much prettier taste ; a gaUery of Count Caprara's : in the panels between the -windows are pendent trophies of various arms taken by one of his ancestors from the Turlcs. They are whimsical, romantic, and have a pretty effect. I looked about, but could not perceive the portrait of the lady at whose feet they were indisputably offered. In coming out of Genoa we were more lucky ; found the very spot where Horatio and Lothario were to have fought, "west of the town, a mile among the rocks." My dear West, in return for your epigrams of Prior, I wUl tran scribe some old verses too, but which I fancy I can show you in a sort of a new Hght. They are no newer than Virgil, and, what is more odd, are in the second Georgic. 'Tis, that I have observed that he not only excels when he is Hke himself, but even when he is 1740.] -WEST TO WALPOLE, 33 very like inferior poets : you will say that they rather excel by being like him : but mind, they are all near one another. Si non ingentem foribus domus alta superbis Mane salutantum totis vomit aedibus undam : And the four next lines ; are thev not just like Martial ? In the following he is as much Claudian ; Ilium non populi faaoea, non purpura regum Flexit, et infidos agitans discordia fratres ; Ant oonjurato desoendens Dacus ab Istro. Then who are these like ? nee ferrea jura, Insanumque forum, aut populi tabularia vidit. SoUicitant alii remis freta cceca, ruuntque In fermm, penetrant aulas et limina regum. Hie petit excidiis urbem miserosque Penates, Ut gemmi bibat, et Sarrano indormiat ostro. Don't they seem to be Juvenal's ? — There are some more, which to me resemble Horace ; but perhaps I think so from his ha-ving some on a paraUel subject. TeU me if I am mistaken ; these are they : Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati : Casta pudicitiam servat domus inclusively to the end of these : Hanc olim veteres vitam coln^re Sabini ; Hanc Remus et frater : sic fortis Etruria crevit, Scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma. If the imagination is whimsical ; why, at least 'tis Hke me to have imagined it. Adieu, chUd ! We leave Bologna to-morrow. You know 'tis the third city in Italy for pictures : kno-wing that, you know aU. We shaU be three days crossing the Apennine to Florence : would it were over ! My dear West, I am yours from St. Peter's to St. Paul's ! 21. WEST TO HORACE WALPOLE. Jan. 23, 1740. It thaws, it thaws, it thaws ! A'n't you glad of it ? I can assure you we are : we have been this four weeks a-freezing : our Thames has been in chains, our streets almost unpassable -with snow, and dirt, and ice, and all our vegetables and animals in distiess. ReaUy, VOL. I. D 34 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1740, such a frost as ours has been is a melancholy thing. I don't wonder now that whole nations have worshipped the sun ; I am almost incHned myself to be a Guebre : teU Orosmades [Gray]. I beHeve you think I'm mad ; but you would not if you knew what it was to want the sun as we do : 'tis a general frost deHvery. Heaven grant the thaw may last ! for 'tis a question. Your last letter, my dear Walpole, is welcome. I thank you for its longitude, and aU its parallel Hues. You have rather transcribed too many Hues out of VirgU : but your criticism I agree -with, with out any hesitation. Whimsical, quotha : 'tis just and new. You might have added 0-vid- - Quos rami fructus, quoa ipsa and statins : At secura quies and what foUows down to Non absunt — — But what do you think? Your observations have set me a-tianslating, and Ashton has told me it was worth sending.' Excuse it, 'tis a tramontane. I shaU certainly pubHsh your letters. But now I think on't, I won't : I should make Pope quite angry. Addio, mio caro, addio ! Dove sei ? Ritorna, ritorna, amato bene ! Yours from St. Paul's to St. Peter's ! R. West. I beHeve you must send my tianslation to the academy of the Gelati. My love to Gray, aud pray teU him from me — 22. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. Dear West : Florence, Jan. 24, 1740, N.S. I don't know what volumes I may send you from Rome ; from Florence I have Httle incHnation to send you any. I see several things that please me calmly, but d force d'en avoir vu I have left off ' This translation does not appear. — Berry. ^ " Cold is extremely inimical to thin habits of body." A fragment of Euripides quoted by Cicero. Vide let. 8, lib. 16, Epist. ad B'am.-- Berhy 1740.] TO MR. WEST. 85 screaming Lord ! thia ! and Lord ! that ! To speak sincerely, Calais surprised me more than any thing I have seen since. I recollect the joy I used to propose if I could but once see the Great Duke's gallery ; I walk into it now with as little emotion as I should into St. Paul's. The statues are a congregation of good sort of people, that I have a great deal of unruffled regard for. The farther I travel the less I wonder at any thing : a few days reconcile one to a new spot, or an unseen custom ; and men are so much the same every where, that one scarce perceives any change of situation. The same weaknesses, the same passions, that in England plunge men into elections, drinking, whoring, exist here, and show themselves in the shapes of Jesuits, Cicisbeos, and Corydon ardebat Alexins. The most remarkable thing I have observed since I came abroad, is, that there are no people so obviously mad as the EngHsh. The French, the ItaHans, have great foUies, great faults ; but then they are so national, that they cease to be striking. In England, tempers vary so excessively, that almost every one's faults are pecuHar to himself. I take this diversity to proceed partly from our cHmate, partly from our government : the first is changeable, and makes us queer ; the latter permits our queemesses to operate as they please. If one could avoid contracting this queemess, it must certainly be the most entertaining to Hve in England, where such a variety of incidents continually amuse. The incidents of a week in London would furnish aU Italy ¦with news for a twelvemonth. The only two circumstances of moment in the Hfe of an ItaHan, that ever give occasion to their being mentioned, are, being married, and in a year after taking a cicisbeo. Ask the name, the husband, the wife, or the cicisbeo of any person, et voild qui est fini. Thus, child, 'tis duU deaHng here ! Methinks your Spanish war is Httle more Hvely. By the gravity of the proceedings, one would think both nations were Spaniard. Adieu ! Do you remember my maxim, that you used to laugh at ? Every body does every thing, and nothing comes on't. I am more cou'vinced of it now than ever. I don't know whether g * * * *'s -was not stUl better. Well, 'gad, there is nothing in nothing. You see how I distil aU my speculations and improve ments, that they may He in a smaU compass. Do you remember the story of the prince, that, after traveUing three years, brought home nothing but a nut ? They cracked it : in it was -wrapped up a piece of silk, painted -with aU the kings, queens, kingdoms, and every thing in the world : after many unfoldings, out stepped a Httle dog, shook his ears, and fell to dancing a saraband. There is a fairy 36 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1740. tale for you If I had any thing as good as your old song, I would send it too ; but I can only thank you for it, and bid you good night. Yours ever. P.S. Upon reading my letter, I perceive still plainer the sameness that reigns here ; for I find I have said the same things ten times over. I don't care ; I have made out a letter, and that was all my affair. 23. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. Florence, February 27, 1740, N.S. Well, West, I have found a little unmasqued moment to write to you ; but for this week past I have been so muffled up in my domino, that I have not had the command of my elbows. But what have you been doing aU the mornings ? Could you not write then ? — No, then I was masqued too ; I have done nothing but sHp out of my domino into bed, and out of bed into my domino. The end of the Carnival is frantic, bacchanaHan; aU the morn one makes parties in masque to the shops and coffee-houses, and aU the evening to the operas and balls. Then J have danced, good gods! how have J danced!' The Italians are fond to a degree of our country dances : Cold and raw they only know by the tune ; Blowzy - bella is almost ItaHan, and Buttered peas is Pizelli al buro. There are but three days more ; but the two last are to have balls aU the morning at the fine unfinished palace of the Strozzi ; and the Tuesday night a masquerade after supper: they sup first, to eat gras, and not encroach upon Ash- Wednesday. WTiat makes masquerading more agi-eeable here than in England, is the great deference that is showed to the disguised. Here they do not catch at those little dirty opportunities of saying any ill-natured thing they know of you, do not abuse you because they may, or talk gross bawdy to a woman of quality. I found the other day, by a play of Etheridge's, that we have had a sort of Carnival even since the Reformation ; 'tis in ' She would if She could,' ' they talk of going a-mumming in Shrove-tide. After talking so much of diversions, I fear you ¦wiU attribute to them the fondness I o^wn I contract for Florence ; but it has so ' Parody on Nat Lee's description of Alexander the Great : " Then he will talk ! Good Gods ! how he will talk." — Cunningham. ' A comedy by Sir George Etherege.— Cunningham. 1740.] TO MR. WEST. 37 many other charms, that I shaU not want excuses for my taste. The fr'eedom of the Carnival has given me opportunities to make several acquaintances ; and if I have not found them refined, learned, poHshed, like some other cities, yet they are civil, good- natui-ed, and fond of the EngHsh. Their Httle partiaHty for them selves, opposed to the ¦violent vanity of the French, makes them very amiable in my eyes. I can give you a comical instance of their great prejudice about nobUity ; it happened yesterday. WhUe we were at dinner at IVIr. Mann's,' word was brought by his secretary, that a cavalier demanded audience of him upon an affair of honour. Gray and I flew behind the curtain of the door. An elderly gentle man, whose attire was not certainly correspondent to the greatness of his birth, entered, and informed the British minister, that one Martin, an EngHsh painter,' had left a chaUenge for him at his house, for having said Martin was no gentleman. He would by no means have spoke of the duel before the transaction of it, but that his honour, his blood, his &c. would never permit him to fight ¦with one who was no cavaHer ; which was what he came to inquire of his exceUency. We laughed loud laughs, but unheard : his fright or his nobiHty had closed his ears. But mark the sequel: the instant he was gone, my very EngHsh curiosity hurried me out of the gate St. GaUo ; 'twas the place and hour appointed. We had not been dri-ving about above ten minutes, but out popped a Httle figure, pale but cross, -with beard unshaved and hair uncombed, a slouched hat, and a considerable red cloak, in which was wrapped, under his arm, the fatal sword that was to revenge the highly injured Mr. Martin, painter and defendant. I darted my head out of the coach, just ready to say, " Your servant, Mr. Martin," and talk about the architecture of the triumphal arch that was building there ; but he would not know me, and walked off. We left him to ' Horace Mann, Esq., better known as Sir Horace Mann, Walpole's relation and correspondent from 1741 to 1786, a period of forty-five years, during which period they never met. He was the son of Robert Mann, Deputy Treasurer of Chelsea Hospital, — his brothers, Galfridus, James, and Edward were army clothiers. Mann was British Minister at H'lorence when Walpole visited Florence in 1741, and at his death he was still residing there as British Envoy at the Court of Tuscany. He was created a baronet in 1756. He died unmarried at Florence 16th November, 1786, and his remains were brought to England by his nephew and heir. Sir Horace Mann, and buried at Linton, in Kent, where Walpole erected a, monument to Sir Horace's twin brother Galfridus, who died iu 1766. Hia lettera to Walpole have been preserved, but they are mighty dull. — Cunningham. - I presume David Martin, a Scottish portrait-painter of some note, now best known by his portraits of Pulteney Lord Bath, the great Lord Mansfield, Roubiliac, and Benjamin Franklin.— Cunningham. 38 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1740. wait for an hour, to grow very cold and very vaHant the more it grew past the hour of appointment. We were figuring aU the poor creature's huddle of thoughts, and confused hopes of -victory or fame, of his unfinished pictures, or his situation upon bouncing into the next world. You -wiU think us strange creatures ; but 'twas a pleasant sight, as we knew the poor painter was safe. I have thought of it since, and am inclined to beHeve that nothing but two English could have been capable of such a jaunt. I remember, 'twas reported in London, that the plague was at a house in the city, and aU the town went to see it. I have this instant received your letter. Lord ! I am glad I thought of those paraUel passages, since it made you translate them. 'Tis excessively near the original ; and yet, I don't know, 'tis very easy too. — It snows here a Httle to-night, but it never Hes but on the moimtains. Adieu ! Yours ever. P. S. What is the history of the theatres this winter ? 24. TO THE HON. HENRY SEYMOUR CONWAY.' Florence, March 6, 1740, N.S. Harry, my dear, one would teU you what a monster you are, if one were not sure your conscience tells you so every time you think of me. At Genoa, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine, I received the last letter from you ; by your not -writing to me since, I imagine you propose to make this leap year. I should have sent many a scold after you in this long interval, had I Imown where to have scolded ; but you told me you should leave Geneva immediately. I have dispatched sundry inquiries into England after you, aU fruitless. At last drops in a chance letter to Lady Sophy Farmor,' from a girl at Paris, that teUs ' Walpole's maternal cousin, the Mr. Conway and General Conway of this cor respondence, second son of Francis Seymour Conway, first Lord Conway, by Chariotte Shorter, his third wife, aister of Lady Walpole. He waa secretary in Ireland during the vice-royalty of William, fourth Duke of Devonshire ; groom of the Bed Chamber to George II. and to George HI. ; Secretary of State in 1765; Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance in 1770; Commander-in-Chief in 1782 ; and a Field Marshal in 1793. He married Catherine Campbell, Dowager Countess of Aylesbury, daughter of John, Duke of Argyll, by his wife Mary Bellenden the beauty, and was the father by Lady Aylesbury of an only child, Mrs. Damer the sculptor, to whom Walpole left Strawberry HiU. Walpole was more attached to Conway than to any other of his friends. Some of Conway's letters to Walpole are printed in the Appendix to the first volume of the Rockingham Memoirs.— Cunningham. ^ Lady Sophia Fermor, daughter of the first Earl of Pomfret, married in 1744, THE HOU^^HENRTSEYMOITH (-ONWAY. ^740.] TO THE HON. MR. CONWAY. 39 her for news, Mr. Henry Conway is here. Is he, indeed ? and why was I to know it only by this scrambHng way ? WeU, I hate you for this neglect, but I find I love you weU enough to teU you so. But, dear now, don't let one faU into a train of excuses and re proaches ; if the god of indolence is a mightier deity with you than the god of caring for one, teU me, and I won't dun you ; but -wUl drop your correspondence as sUently as if I owed you money. If my private consistency was of no weight -with you, yet, is a man nothing who is -within three days' journey of a Conclave ? Nay, for what you knew, I might have been in Rome. Harry, art thou so indifferent, as to have a cousin at the election of a Pope ' without courting him for news ? I'U tell you, were I anywhere else, and even Dick Hammond ' were at Rome, I think verUy I should have wrote to him. Popes, cardinals, adorations, coronations, St. Peter's ! oh, what costly sounds ! and don't you -write to one yet ? I shaU set out in about a fortnight, and pray then think me of consequence . I have crept on upon time from day to day here ; fond of Florence to a degree : 'tis infinitely the most agreeable of aU the places I have seen since London : that you know one loves, right or wrong, as one does one's nurse. Our Httle Arno is not boated and swelHng Hke the Thames, but 'tis vastly pretty, and, I don't know how, being ItaHan, has something -visionary and poetical in its stream. Then one's un-wUHng to leave the gallery, and — but — in short, one's un-wUling to get into a post-chaise. I am as surfeited -with moun tains and inns, as if I had eat them. I have many to pass before I see England again, and no Tory to entertain me on the road I WeU, this thought makes me duU, and that makes me finish. Adieu ! Yours ever. P. S. Direct to me, (for to be sure you ¦wUl not be so outrageous as to leave me quite off,) recommande a Mens. Mann, Ministre de sa Majeste Britannique a Florence. to the celebrated Lord Carteret and first Earl of Granville. — Wright. She died in 1745. Her mother was the Countess of Pomlret, the correspondent of the Countess Duchesa of Hertford and Somerset. — Cunningham. ' As successor of Clement XII., who died iu the eighty-eighth year of his age, and the tenth of his pontificate, on the 6th Feb. 1740.— Wright. ^ A relative of Anthony Hammond, of Wotton, in the county of Norfolk, Esq., who married Susan, the youngest sister of Sir Robert Walpole. Anthony Hammond died in January, 1763. (See p. 247.)— Cunningham. 40 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1740. 26. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. Dear West : Siena, March 22, 1740, N.S. Probably now you ¦wUl hear something of the Conclave : we have left Florence, and are got hither on the way to a Pope. In three hours' time we have seen aU the good contents of this city : 'tis old, and very smug, ¦with very few inhabitants. You must not beHeve Mr. Addison about the wonderful Gothic nicety of the dome : the materials are richer, but the workmanship and taste not near so good as in several I have seen. We saw a coUege of the Jesuits, where there are taught to draw above fifty boys : they are disposed in long chambers in the manner of Eton, but cleaner. N. B. We were not bolstered ; ' so we ¦wished you ¦with us. Our Cicerone, who has less classic knowledge, and more superstition than a coUeger, upon sho-wing us the she-wolf, the arms of Siena, told us that Romulus and Remus were nursed by a wolf, per la volontd di Bio, si pud dire ; and that one might see by the arms, that the same founders built Rome and Siena. Another dab of Romish supersti tion, not unworthy of presbyterian di-vinity, we met -with in a book of dra-wings : 'twas the Virgin standing on a tripod composed of Adam, Eve, and the DevU, to express her immaculate conception. You can't imagine how pretty the country is between this and Florence ; millions of Httle hUls planted -with trees, and tipped with viUas or convents. We left unseen the Great Duke's ¦viUas and several palaces in Florence, till our return from Rome : the weather has been so cold, how could one go to them ? In Italy they seem to have found out how hot their cHmate is, but not how cold ; for there are scarce any chimneys, and most of the apartments painted in fresco ; so that one has the additional horror of freezing ¦with imaginary marble. The men hang Httle earthen pans of coals upon their wrists, and the women have portable stoves under their petti coats to warm their nakedness, and carry sUver shovels in their pockets, ¦with which their Cicisbeos stir them — Hush ! by them, I mean their stoves. I have nothing more to teU you ; I'll carry my letter to Rome and finish it there. R& di Cqffano, March 23, where lived one of the three kings. The King of Coffano carried presents of myrrh, gold, and frank incense : I don't know where the devil he found them ; for in all ' An Eton phrase. — Bekry. 1740.] TO MR. ¦WEST. 41 his dominions we have not seen the value of a shrub. We have the honour of lodging under his roof to-night. Lord ! such a place, such an extent of ugliness ! A lone inn upon a black mountain, by the side of an old fortress ! no curtains or ¦windows, only shutters ! no testers to the beds ! no earthly thing to eat but some eggs and a few Httle fishes ! This lovely spot is now known by the name of Radicofani. Coming do^wn a steep hiU ¦with two miserable hackneys, one feU under the chaise ; and whUe we were disengaging him, a chaise came by ¦with a person in a red cloak, a white handkerchief on its head, and a black hat : we thought it a fat old woman ; but it spoke in a shrUl little pipe, and proved itself to be Senesino.' I forgot to teU you an inscription I copied from the portal of the dome of Siena : Annus centenus Romse aemper eat jubilenus ; Crimiua laxantur si poenitet ista donantur ; Sic ordinavit Bonifacius et roboravit. Rome, March 26. We are this instant arrived, tired and hungry ! 0 ! the charming city — I beHeve it is — or I have not seen a syUable yet, only the Pons MUvius and an obeHsk. The Cassian and Flaminian ways were terrible disappointments ; not one Rome tomb left ; their very ruins ruined. The EngHsh are numberless. My dear West, I know at Rome you ¦will not have a grain of pity for one ; but indeed 'tis dreadful, deaHng ¦with school-boys just broke loose, or old fools that are come abroad at forty to see the world, Hke Sir WUful Witwou'd.' I don't know whether you -will receive this, or any other I ¦write : but though I shaU write often, you and Ashton must not wonder if none come to you ; for, though I am harmless in my nature, my name has some mystery in it.^ Good night ! I have no more time or paper. Ashton, child, I'U write to you next post. Write us no treasons, be sure ! ' Francesco Bernardi, better known by the name of Senesino, a celebrated singer, who, having been engaged for the opera company formed by Handel in 1720, remained here as principal singer until 1726, when the state of his health compelled him to return to Italy. In 1730 he revisited England, where he remained until about 1734. He was the contemporary, if not the rival of Farinelli. — Wright. - A character in Congreve's comedy, ' The Way of the World. '^Cunningham. ' He means the name of Walpole at Rome, where the Pretender and many of hia adherents then resided. — Berry. 42 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1740. 26. WEST TO HORACE WALPOLE. My dear Walpole: March 29 1740. Since I have finished the first act, I send you now the rest of it. Whether I shaU go on ¦with it is to me a doubt. I find you aU make the same objections to my style : but change my manner now I can't, for it would not be aU of a piece, and to begin afresh goes against my stomach ; so I beHeve I must even break it off and bequeath it to my grandchUdren to be finished -with other old pieces of famUy work. I have another objection to it, and that is, the unlucky affair of an impeachment in the play. For, supposing the thing pubHc, which it was never intended to be, every blockhead of the faction would swear Pansanias was Greek for Sir Robert, though it may as weU stand for BoHngbroke. But the truth is, the Greek word signifies neither one nor t'other, as you may find in Scapula, Suidas, and other lexicographers. R. W. 27. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. Rome, AprU 16, 1740, N.S. I'll teU you, West, because one is amongst new things, you think one can always -write new things. When I first came abroad, every thing struck me, and I wrote its history ; but now I am gro-wn so used to be surprised, that I don't perceive any flutter in myself when I meet -with any novelties ; curiosity and astonishment wear off, and the next thing is, to fancy that other people know as much of places as one's self ; or, at least, one does not remember that they do not. It appears to me as odd to -write to you of St. Peter's, as it would do to you to write of Westminster- abbey. Besides, as one looks at churches, &c. ¦with a book of tiavels in one's hand, and sees every thing particularised there, it would appear transcribing, to ¦write upon the same subjects. I know you ¦wUl hate me for this declaration ; I remember how Ul I used to take it when anybody served me so that was tiaveUing. — WeU, I ¦wUl teU you something, U' you -wiU love me : You have seen prints of the ruins of the temple of Minerva Medica ; you shaU only hear its situation, and then figure what a viUa might be laid out there. 'Tis in the middle of a garden : at a Httle distance are two subterraneous grottos, which were the burial-places of the Hberti of Augustus. There are aU the niches and covers of the urns ¦with the inscriptions remaining ; and in one, very considerable remains of an ancient stucco ceUing with paintings in grotesque. Some of the waUcs would terminate 1740.1 WEST TO WALPOLE. 48 upon the CasteUum Aquae Martise, St. John Lateran, and St. Maria Maggiore, besides other churches ; the waUs of the garden would be two aqueducts, and the entiance through one of the old gates of Rome. This glorious spot is neglected, and only serves for a smaU vineyard and kitchen-garden. I am very glad that I see Rome whUe it yet exists ; before a great number of years are elapsed, I question whether it wUl be worth seeing. Between the ignorance and poverty of the present Romans, every thing is neglected and faUing to decay ; the viUas are entirely out of repair, and the palaces so Ul kept, that half the pictures are spoUed by damp. At the -vUla Ludo-visi is a large oracular head of red marble, colossal, and -with vast foramina for the eyes and mouth : — the man that showed the palace said it was un ritratto della famiglia ? The Cardinal Corsini has so thoroughly pushed on the misery of Rome by impoverishing it, that there is no money but paper to be seen. He is reckoned to have amassed three mUHons of cro-wns. You may judge of the affluence the nobiHty Hve in, when I assure you, that what the chief princes aUow for their own eating is a testoon a day ; eighteenpence : there are some extend thefr expense to five pauls, or half a crown : Cardinal -Albani is caUed extiavagant for laying out ten pauls for his dinner and supper. You may imagine they never have any entertainments : so far from it, they never have any company. The princesses and duchesses particularly lead the dismaUest of Hves. Being the posterity of popes, though of worse famUies than the ancient nobiHty, they expect greater respect than my ladies the countesses and marquises -wiU pay them ; consequently they consort not, but mope in a vast palace -with two miserable tapers, and two or three monsignori, whom they are forced to court and humour, that they may not be entirely deserted. Sundays they do issue forth in a vast un-wieldy coach to the Corso. In short, chUd, after sunset one passes one's time here very Ul ; and if I did not -wish for you in the mornings, it would be no compHment to teU you that I do in the evening. Lord ! how many EngHsh I could change for you, and yet buy you wondrous cheap ! And then French and Germans I could fling into the bargain by dozens. Nations swarm here. You -wiU have a great fat French cardinal garnished -with thirty abbes roU into the area of St. Peter's, gape, turn short, and talk of the chapel of VersaiUes. I heard one of them say t'other day, he had been at the Capitale. One asked of course how he Hked it — Ah ! il y a asset de belles choses. 44 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [17*0. Tell Ashton I have received his letter, and will write next post ; but I am in a -violent hurry and have no more time; so Gray finishes this delicately Not so delicate ; nor indeed would his conscience suffer him to ¦write to you, till he received de vos nouvelles, if he had not the tail of another person's letter to use by way of evasion. 1 sha'n't describe, as being in the only place in the world that deserves it ; which may seem an odd reason — but they say as how it's fulsome, and every body does it (and I suppose every body says the same thing) ; else I should tell you a vast deal about the Coliseum, and the Conclave, and the Capitol, and these matters. A-propos du Colisde, if you don't know what it is, the Prince Borghese ¦wUl be very capable of gi-ving you some account of it, who told an EngHsh- man that asked what it was built for : " They say 'twas for Christians to fight -with tigers in." We are just come from adoring a great piece of the true cross, St. Longinus's spear, and St. Veronica's handkerchief ; all which have been this evening exposed to view in St. Peter's. In the same place, and on the same occasion last night, Walpole saw a poor creature naked to the waist discipline himself with a scourge fiUed with iron prickles, tiU he had made himself a raw doublet, that he took for red satin torn, and sho-wing the skin through. I should teU you, that he fainted away three times at the sight, and I t-wice and a half at the repetition of it. AU this is performed by the light of a vast fiery cross, composed of hundreds of Httle crystal lamps, which appears through the great altar under the grand tribuna, as if hanging by itself in the air. All the confraternities of the city resort thither in solemn procession, habited in Hnen frocks, girt -with a cord, and their heads covered -with a cowl aU over, that has only two holes before to see through. Some of these are all black, others parti-coloui-ed and white : and with these masqueraders that vast church is fiUed, who are seen thumping their breasts, and kissing the pavement -with extreme devotion. But methinks I am describing: — 'tis an Ul habit; but this, like every thing else, -wiU wear off. We have sent you our compHments by a friend of yours, and correspondent in a corner, who seems a very agreeable man ; one Mr. WUHams : I am sorry he staid so Httle a whUe in Rome. I forget Porto-BeUo ' aU this ' Porto-BeUo, taken from the Spaniards by Admiral Vernon, with six ships only, on the 21st Nov. 1740. — Wright. 1740.] TO THE HON. MR. CONWAY. 45 while ; pray let us know where it is, and whether you or Ashton had any hand in the taking of it. Duty to the Admiral. Adieu ! Ever yours, T. Gray. 28. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Rome, April 23, 1740, N.S. As I have wrote you two such long letters lately, my dear Hal, I did not hurry myself to answer your last ; but choose to write to poor Selwyn ^ upon his illness. I pity you excessively upon finding him in such a situation : what a shock it must have been to you ! He deserves so much love from all that know him, and you owe him so much friendship, that I can scarce conceive a greater shock. I am very glad you did not -write to me till he was out of danger ; for this great distance would have added to my pain, as I must have waited so long for another letter. I charge you, don't let him relapse into baUs : he does not love them, and, if you please, your example may keep him out of them. You are extremely pretty people to be dancing and trading with French poulterers and pastry cooks, when a hard frost is star^ving half the nation, and the Spanish war ought to be employing the other half. We are much more pubHc-spirited here ; we Hve upon the pubHc news, and triumph abundantly upon the taking Porto-BeUo. If you are not entirely debauched with your balls, you must be pleased ¦with an answer of Lord Hartington's ' to the governor of Rome. He asked him what they had determined about the vessel that the Spaniards took under the cannon of Ci-vita Vecchia, whether they had restored it to the EngHsh? The governor said, they had done justice. My lord repHed, " If you had not, we should have done it ourselves." Pray reverence our spirit, Lieutenant Hal. Sir, Musco-vita is not a pretty woman, and she does sing iU; that's aU.3 My dear Harry, I must now teU you a Httle about myself, and answer your questions. How I like the inanimate part of Rome you wUl soon perceive at my arrival in England ; I am far gone in ' John Selwyn, elder brother of George Augustus Selwyn the wit (p. 26). He waa M.P. for Whitchurch, and died at Danson, in Kent, of apolypusin the heart, 27th June, 1751. Their father. Col. John Selwyn, long M.P. for Gloucester, and treasurer of Queen Caroline's Pensions, died 6th Nov. 1761. — Cunningham. * William Cavendish, afterwards (1765) fourth Duke of Devonshire. He died 2nd Oct. 1764. He was in his twentieth year in 1740. — Cunningham. '¦ See p. 88 of this volume. — Cunningham. 46 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1740. medals, lamps, idols, prints, &c. and aU the smaU commodities to the purchase of which I can attain ; I would buy the Coliseum if I could: judge. My mornings are spent in the most agreeable manner ; my evenings Ul enough. Roman conversations are dread ful things ! such untoward mawMns as the princesses I and the princes are worse. Then the whole city is Uttered with French and German abbes, who make up a dismal contiast -with the in habitants. The conclave is far from enHvening us ; its secrets don't transpire. I could give you names of this cardinal and that, that are talked of, but each is contiadicted the next hour. I was there t'other day to \isit one of them, and one of the most agreeable, Alexander Albani. I had the opportunity of two cardinals making their entiy : upon that occasion the gate is unlocked, and then- eminences come to talk to their acquaintance over the threshold. I have received great ci-vilities from him I named to you, and I wish he were out, that I might receive greater : a friend of his does the honours of Rome for him ; but you know that it is unpleasant to visit by proxy. Cardinal Delci, the object of the Corsini faction, is dying ; the hot weather -will probably dispatch half a dozen more. Not that it is hot yet ; I am now -writing to you by my fireside. Harry, you saw Lord Deskfoord' at Geneva ; don't you Hke him ? He is a mighty sensible man. There are few young people have so good understandings. He is mighty grave, and so are you ; but you can both be pleasant when you have a mind. Indeed, one can make you pleasant, but his solemn Scotchery is a Httle formidable : before you I can play the fool from morning to night courageously. Good night. I have other letters to write, and must finish this. Yours ever. 29. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. Dear West : Rome, May, 1, 1740, N.S. 'Twou'd be quite rude and unpardonable in one not to -wish you joy upon the great conquests that you are aU committing aU over the world. We heard the news last night from Naples, that Admiral Haddock ^ had met the Spanish convoy going to Majorca, ' James Ogilvie, afterwards (1764) sixth Earl of Findlater and third Earl of Seafield. He died in 1770. — Cunningham. '^ This renort, which proved unfounded, was grounded on the fact, that on the 18th AprU his M.ajesty's ships Lennox, Kent, and Orford, commanded by Captains Mayne, Durell, and Lord Augustus Fitzroy, part of Admiral Balchen's squadron, being on a cruise about forty leagues to the westward of Cape Finisterre, fell in with 1740.] TO MR. WEST. 47 and taken it all, aU ; three thousand men, three colonels, and a Spanish grandee. We conclude it is trae, for the Neapolitan Majesty mentioned it at dinner. We are going thither in about a week, to wish him joy of it too. 'Tis -with some apprehensions we go too, of having a pope chosen in the interim : that would be cruel, you know. But, thank our stars, there is no great probability of it. Feuds and contentions run high among the eminences. A notable one happened this week. Cardinal Zinzendorff and two more had given their votes for the general of the Capucins : he is of the Barberini family, not a cardinal, but a worthy man. Not effecting any thing, Zinzendorfi" voted for Coscia, and declared it publicly. Cardinal Petra reproved him ; but the German repHed, he thought Coscia as fit to be pope as any of them. It seems, his pique to the whole body is, their ha-ving denied a daUy admission of a pig into the Conclave for his eminence's use ; who, being much troubled ¦with the gout, was ordered by his mother to bathe his leg in pig's blood every morning. Who should have a vote t'other day but the Cardinalino of Toledo ? Were he older, the Queen of Spain might possibly procure more than one for him, though scarcely enough. WeU, but we won't talk poHtics : shaU we talk antiquities ? Gray and I discovered a considerable curiosity lately. In an un- fi-equented quarter of the Colonna garden He two immense fragments of marble, formerly part of a frieze to some buUding ; 'tis not kno^wn of what. They are of Parian marble : which may give one some idea of the magnificence of the rest of the buUding ; for these pieces were at the very top. Upon inquiry, we were told they had been measured by an architect, who declared they were larger than any member of St. Peter's. The length of one of the pieces is above sixteen feet. They were formerly sold to a stone-cutter for five thousand cro^wns, but Clement XI. would not permit them to be sawed, annuUed the bargain, and laid a penalty of twelve thousand cro^wns upon the famUy if they parted ¦with them. I think it was a right judged thing. Is it not amazing that so vast a structure should not be kno-wn of, or that it should be so entirely destroyed ? But indeed at Rome this is a common surprise ; for, by the remains one sees of the Roman grandeur in their structures, 'tis evident that there must have been more pains taken to destroy those pUes than to raise them. They are more demoHshed than any time or chance the Princessa, esteemed the finest ship of war in the Spanish navy, and captured her after an engagement of five hours. — Wright. 48 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1740. could have effected. I am persuaded that in an hundred years Rome -will not be worth seeing ; 'tis less so now than one would believe. All the public pictures are decayed or decaying; the few ruins cannot last long ; and the statues and private collections must be sold, from the great poverty of the families. There are now selling no less than three of the principal collections, the Barberini, the Sacchetti, and Ottoboni : the latter belonged to the cardinal who died in the Conclave. I must give you an instance of his generosity, or rather ostentation. When Lord Carlisle ^ was here last year, who is a great virtuoso, he asked leave to see the cardinal's collection of cameos and intagHos. Ottoboni^ gave leave, and ordered the person who showed them to observe which my Lord admired most. My Lord admired many : they were all sent him the next morning. He sent the cardinal back a fine gold repeater ; who returned him an agate snuff-box, and more cameos of ten times the value. Voila qui est fini! Had my Lord produced more gold repeaters, it would have been begging more cameos. Adieu, my dear West ! You see I write often and much, as you desired it. Do answer one now and then, ¦with any Httle job that is done in England. Good night. Yours ever. 30. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. Dear West : Naples, June 14, 1740, N.S. One hates writing descriptions that are to be found in every book of travels ; but we have seen something to-day that I am sure you never read of, and perhaps never heard of. Have you ever heard of a subterraneous to^wn ? a whole Roman to^wn, with aU its edifices, re maining under ground ? Don't fancy the inhabitants buried it there to save it from the Goths : they were buried with it themselves ; which is a caution we are not told that they ever took. You remember in Titus's time there were several cities destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius, attended with an earthquake WeU, this was one of them, not very considerable, and then caUed Herculaneum. Above it has since been buUt Portici, about three mUes from Naples, where the King has a viUa. This under-ground city is perhaps one of the noblest curiosities that ever has been discovered. It was found out by ' Henry, fourth Earl of Carlisle, died 1758. Hia son and successor was the poet- Earl and correspondent of Selwyn. — Cunningham. • Cardinal Ottoboni, Dean of the Sacred College, who died in 1740 : he had been made a cardinal in 1689. — Wright. 1740.] TO MR. WEST. 49 chance, about a year and half ago. They began digging, they found statues ; they dug further, they found more. Since that they have made a very considerable progress, and find continuaUy. You may walk the compass of a mUe ; but by the misfortune of the modern to-wn being overhead, they are obHged to proceed -with great caution, lest they destioy both one and t'other. By this occasion the path is very narrow, just -wide enough and high enough for one man to walk upright. They have hoUowed, as they found it easiest to work, and have carried their stieets not exactly where were the ancient ones, but sometimes before houses, sometimes through them. You would imagine that aU the fabrics were crushed together ; on the contrary, except some columns, they have found aU the edifices standing upright in their proper situation. There is one inside of a temple quite perfect, -with the middle arch, two columns, and two pUasters. It is built of brick plastered over, and painted -with architecture : almost aU the insides of the houses are in the same manner; and, what is very particular, the general ground of all the painting is red. Besides this temple, they make out very plainly an amphitheatre : the stairs, of white marble, and the seats are very perfect ; the inside was painted in the same colour -with the private houses, and great part cased -with white marble. They have found among other things some fine statues, some human bones, some rice, medals, and a few paintings extremely fine. These latter are preferred to aU the ancient paintings that have ever been discovered. We have not seen them yet, as they are kept in the King's apartment, whither aU these curiosities are transplanted ; and 'tis difficult to see them — but we shaU. I forgot to teU you, that in several places the beams of the houses remain, but burnt to charcoal ; so Httle damaged that they retain -visibly the grain of the wood, but upon touching crumble to ashes. What is remarkable, there are no other marks or appearance of fire, but what are visible on these beams. There might certairUy be coUected great Hght from this reservoir of antiquities, if a man of learning had the inspection of it ; if he directed the working, and would make a joumal of the discoveries. But I beHeve there is no judicious choice made of directors. There is nothing of the kind kno-wn in the world ; I mean a Roman city entire of that age, and that has not been corrupted -with modem repairs.' Besides scrutinising this very carefully, I should be incHned to search for the remains of the other to^vms that were ' Pompeia waa not then discovered. — Berry. 60 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1740. partners ¦with this in the general ruin. 'Tis certainly an advantage to the learned world, that this has been laid up so long. Most of the discoveries in Rome were made in a barbarous age, where they only ransacked the ruins in quest of tieasure, and had no regard to the form and being of the buUding ; or to any circumstances that might give Hght into its use and history. I shaU finish this long account with a passage which Gray has observed in Statins, and which directly pictures out this latent city : — Hsec ego Chalcidicis ad te, Marcelle, sonabam Littoribus, fractas ubi Vestius egerit iras, Mmula. Trinacriis volvens incendia flammis. Mira fides ! credetne virftm ventura propago, Cum segetes iternm, cum jam hsec deserta virebunt, Infra urbes populosque premi ? Sylv. lib. iv. epist. 4. Adieu, my dear West ! and beHeve me yours ever. 31. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Re di Cofano, vulg. Radicofani, July 6, 1740, N.S. You ¦wiU wonder, my dear Hal, to find me on the road from Rome : why, intend I did to stay for a new popedom, but the old eminences are cross and obstinate, and wiU not choose one, the Holy Ghost does not know when. There is a horrid thing caUed the mal' aria, that comes to Rome every summer, and kUls one, and I did not care for being kiUed so far from Christian burial. We have been jolted to death ; my servants let us come ¦without springs to the chaise, and we are wore threadbare : to add to our disasters, I have sprained my ancle, and have brought it along, laid upon a little box of baubles that I have bought for presents in England. Perhaps I may pick you out some Httle trifle there, but don't depend upon it ; you are a disagreeable creature, and may be I shaU not care for you. Though I am so tired in this de-vU of a place, yet I have taken it into my head, that it is Hke Hamilton's Bawn,' and I must write to you. 'Tis the top of a black barren mountain, a vUe Httle to-wn at the foot of an old citadel : yet this, know you, was the residence of one of the three kings that went to Christ's birth-day ; his name was Alabaster, Abarasser, or some such thing ; ' A large old house, two miles from the seat in Ireland of Sir Arthur Acheson, and the subject of Swift's poem, 'The Grand Question debated, whether Hamilton's Bawn ahould be turned into a barrack or a malt-house.'— Wright. 1740.] TO HON. MR. CONWAY. 61 the other two were kings, one of the East, the other of Cologn. 'Tis this of Cofano, who was represented in an ancient painting, found in the Palatine Mount, now in the possession of Dr. Mead ; he was cro-wned by Augustus. WeU, but about -writing — what do you think I -write -with ? Nay, -with a pen ; there was never a one to be found in the whole circumference but one, and that was in the possession of the governor, and had been used time out of mind to ¦write the parole with : I was forced to send to borrow it. It was sent me under the conduct of a serjeant and two Swiss, ¦with desire to return it when I should have done ¦with it. 'Tis a curiosity, and worthy to be laid up ¦with the reUcs which we have just been seeing in a smaU hovel of Capucins on the side of the hill, and which were aU brought by his Majesty from Jerusalem. Among other things of great sanctity there is a set of gnashing of teeth, the grinders very entire ; a bit of the worm that never dies, preserved in spirits ; a crow of St. Peter's cock, very useful against Easter ; the crisping and curUng, frizzHng and fro'wncing of Mary Magdalen, which she cut off on gro-wing devout. The good man that showed us aU these commodities was got into such a train of caUing them the blessed this, and the blessed that, that at last he showed us a bit of the blessed fig-tiee that Christ cursed. My dear , Harry : Florence, July 9. We are come hither, and I have received another letter from you -with ' Hosier's Ghost.' ' Your last put me in pain for you, when you talked of going to Ireland ; but now I find your brother and sister go -with you, I am not much concerned. Should I be ? You have but to say, for my feeHngs are extremely at your service to dispose as you please. Let us see : you are to come back to stand for some place ; that wUl be about AprU. 'Tis a sort of thing I should do, too ; and then we should see one another, and that would be charming : but it is a sort of thing I have no mind to do ; and then we shaU not see one another, unless you would come hither — but that you cannot do : nay, I would not have you, for then I shall be gone. — So, there are many ifs that just signify nothing at aU. Return I must sooner than I shaU Hke. I am happy here to a degree. I'U teU you my situation. I am lodged ¦with Mr. Mann the best of creatmres. I have a terreno aU to myself, -with an open ' Glover's celebr.ated ballad, first published in 1740 in folio, by Webb.— Cus NINGHAM. s Afterwards Sir Horace Mann. See note, p. 37.— Cunningham. 52 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1740. gaUery on the Arao, where I am now -writing to you. Over against me is the famous GaUery ; and, on either hand, two fair bridges. Is not this charming and cool ? The air is so serene, and so secure, that one sleeps -with aU the windows and doors thrown open to the river, and only covered -with a sHght gauze to keep away the gnats. Lady Pomfret ' has a charming conversation once a week. She has taken a vast palace and a vast garden, which is vastly commode, especiaUy to the cicisbeo-part of mankind, who have free indulgence to wander in pairs about the arbours. You know her daughters : Lady Sophia is stiU, nay she must be, the beauty she was : Lady Charlotte ' is much unproved, and is the cleverest girl in the world ; speaks the purest Tuscan, like any Florentine. The Princess Craon ' has a constant pharaoh and supper every night, where one is quite at one's ease. I am going into the country -with her and the prince for a little while, to a -viUa of the Great Duke's. The people are good-humoured here and easy ; and what makes me pleased -with them, they are pleased ¦with me. One loves to find people care for one, when they can have no view in it. You see how glad I am to have reasons for not returning ; I ¦wish I had no better. As to ' Hosier's Ghost,' I think it very easy, and consequently pretty ; but, from the ease, should never have guessed it Glover's. I deHght in your, " the patriots cry it up, and the courtiers cry it down, and the hawkers cry it up and do-wn," and your laconic history of the King and Sir Robert, on going to Hanover, and turning out the Duke of Argyle. The epigram, too, you sent me on the same occasion is charming. ' Henrietta Louisa Jefferies, grand-daughter of Lord ChanceUor Jefferies, wife of Thomas Fermor, first Earl of Pomfret ; and the correspondent of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. She survived her husband, and died in Dec. 1761. Her Correspondence with the Countess Duchess of Hertford and Somerset between the years 1738 and 1741 was printed in 1806. (See p. 6.)— Cunningham. ^ Lady Charlotte Fermor married, in August 1746, William Finch, brother of Daniel, seventh Earl of Winchelsea, by whom she had issue a son, George, who, on the death of his uncle, in 1769, succeeded to the earldom. Her ladyship was governess to the children of George III., and highly esteemed by him and hia royal consort. — Wright. She died 11th July, 1813, at St. James's Palace, in her eighty- eighth year, and was buried at Rasenston, Bucks. (See vol. i. pp. 179, 187, 370.) The readers of the ' Rejected Addresses,' will remember her name : Who thought in flames St. James's Court to pinch. Who burnt the wardrobe of poor Lady Finch. — Cunningham. ^ The Princess Craon was the favourite mistress of Leopold, the last Duke oi Lorrain, who married her to M. de Beauveau, and prevailed on the Emperor to make him a prince of the empire. They at this time resided at Florence, where Prince Craon was at the head of the council of regency. — Walpole. 1740.] TO HON. MR. CONWAY. 53 Unless I sent you back news that you and others send me, I can send you none. I have left the Conclave, which is the only stirring thing in this part of the world, except the chUd that the Queen of Naples is to be deHvered of in August. There is no HkeHhood the Conclave -wUl end, unless the messages take effect which 'tis said the Imperial and French ministers have sent to their respective courts for leave to quit the Corsini for the Albani faction : otherwise there wiU never be a pope. Corsini has lost the only one he could have ventured to make pope, and him he designed ; 'twas Cenci, a relation of the Corsini's mistress. The last morning Corsini made him rise, stuffed a dish of chocolate down his throat, and would carry him to the scrutiny. The poor old creature went, came back, and died. I am sorry to have lost the sight of the Pope's coronation,' but I might have staid for seeing it till I had been old enough to be pope myself. Harry, what luck the ChanceUor ' has ! first, indeed, to be in himself so great a man ; but then in accidents : he is made Chief Justice and peer, when Talbot" is made ChanceUor and peer. Talbot dies in a twelvemonth, and leaves him the seals at an age when others are scarce made SoHcitors : — then marries his son into one of the first families of Britain,' obtains a patent for a Marquisate and eight thousand pounds a year after the Duke of Kent's death : the Duke dies in a fortnight, and leaves them aU ! People talk of Fortune's wheel, that is always roUing : troth, my Lord Hardwicke has overtaken her wheel, and roUed along with it. I perceive Miss Jenny " would not venture to Ireland, nor stray so far from London ; I am glad I shaU always know where to find her within three-score mUes. I must say a word to my Lord, [Conway], which, Harry, be sure you don't read. [" My dear Lord, I don't love troubHng you with letters, because I know you don't love the trouble of answenng them ; not that I should insist on that ceremony, but I hate to burthen any one's conscience. Your brother tells me he is to .stand member ot parliament : without teUing me so, I am sure he owes it to you. I am sure you -wUl not ' The coronation of Pope Benedict XIV. — Walpole. - Philip Yorke, first Earl of Hardwicke and Lord ChanceUor of England, son of an attorney at Dover, died 1764. — Cunningham. ' Lord Chancellor Talbot, fhe patron of the puci Thomson . — Charles Talbot, first Baron Talbot and Lord Chancellor of England, died 1737. — Cunningham. ¦* Henry de Grey, Duke of Kent, died 5 June, 1740. — Cunningham. ^ Jane, only daughter of Francis, the first Lord Conway, by his second wife. She died unmarried in 1749, aged twenty-seven. — Cunningham. 64 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1740. repent setting him up ; nor wiU he be ungrateful to a brother who deserves so much, and whose least merit is not the knowing how to employ so great a fortune."] 'There, Harry, I have done. Don't suspect me : I have said no iU of you behind your back. Make my best compliments to IVIiss Conway. I thought I had done, and lo, I had forgot to teU you, that who d'ye think is here ? — Even Mr. More ! our Rheims Mr. More ! the fortification, homwork, raveHn, bastion Mr. More ! which is very pleasant sure. At the end of the eighth side, I think I need make no excuse for lea-ving off ; but I am going to ¦write to Sel-wyn, and to the lady of the mountain ; from whom I have had a very kind letter. She has at last received the ChantUly brass. Good night : write to me from one end of the world to t'other. Yours ever. 32. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. Dear West ; Florence, July 31, 1740, N.S. I HAVE ad-vised -with the most notable antiquarians of this city on the meaning of Thur gut Luetis. I can get no satisfactory interpre tation. In my o-wn opinion 'tis Welsh. I don't love offering con jectures on a language in which I have hitherto made Httle proficiency, but I -wUl trust you -with my expHcation. You know the famous Aglaughlan, mother of CadwaUadhor, was reno-vmed for her conjugal virtues, and grief on the death of her royal spouse. I conclude this medal was struck in her regency, by her express order, to the memory of her lord, and that the inscription Thur gut Luetis means no more than her dear Lleurn or Lhwellin. In return for your coins I send you two or three of different kinds. The first is a money of one of the kings of Naples ; the device, a horse ; the motto, Equitas regni. This curious pun is on a coin in the Great Duke's coUection, and by great chance I have met -with a second. Another is, a satirical medal struck on Le-wis XIV. ; 'tis a bomb, covered with flower-de-luces, bursting ; the motto, Se ipsissimo. The last, and almost the only one I ever saw -with a text weU appHed, is a German medal with a rebeUious to-wn besieged and blocked up ; the inscription, This kind is not expelled but by fasting. ' Walpole's maternal cousin, Anne Conway, married March 10, 1755, to John Harris, of Hayne, in Devonshire, Esq., Master of the Household to King George II. After her husband's death she was appointed housekeeper of Somerset House, and died 25th March, 1774.— Cunningham. ^740.] TO MR. WEST. 55 Now I mention medals, have they yet struck the intended one on the taking of Porto-BeUo? Admiral Vemon -wUl shine in our medaUic history. We have just received the news of the bombard ing Carthagena, and the taking Chagre.' We are in great expecta tion of some important victory obtained by the squadron under Sir John Norris : we are told the Duke [of Cumberland '] is to be of the expedition : is it true ? AU the letters, too, talk of France's sud denly declaring war ; I hope they -wiU defer it for a season, or one shaU be obHged to return through Germany. The conclave stUl subsists, and the di-visions stiU increase ; it was very near separating last week, but by breaking into two popes ; they were on the da-wn of a schism. Aldovrandi had thirty-three voices for three days, but could not procure the requisite two more ; the CamerHngo ha-ving engaged his faction to sign a protestation against him, and each party were inclined to elect. I don't know whether one should wish for a schism or not ; it might probably rekindle the zeal for the church in the powers of Europe, which has been so far decaying. On Wednesday we expect a third she-meteor. Those learned luminaries the Ladies Pomfret and Walpole ' are to be joined by the Lady Mary Wortley Montague." You have not been ¦witness to the rhapsody of mystic nonsense which these two fair ones debate inces santly, and consequently cannot figure what must be the issue of this triple aUiance : we have some idea of it. Only figure the coaHtion of prudery, debauchery, sentiment, history, Greek, Latin, French, ItaHan, and metaphysics ; aU, except the second, understood by halves, by quarters, or not at aU. You shaU have the journals of this notable academy. Adieu, my dear West ! Yours ever, HoR. Walpole. Though far unworthy to enter into so learned and poHtical a cor respondence, I am employed pour barbouiller une page de 7 pounces et ' On the 24th March, 1740, the Spaniards hung out a white flag, and the place was surrendered by capitulation to Admiral Vernon. — Wright. * WiUiam Duke of Cumberland, younger son of King George II., and the hero of CuUoden. He died unmarried in 1765. — Cunningham. ¦* Margaret RoUe, Lady Walpole, wife (1724) of the second Earl of Oiford, and mother of the third. She waa separated from her huaband ; remarried at his death the Hon. SewaUis Shirley, and separated from him. She lived many years in Italy with little credit to her character, and gave her brother-in-law Horace an infinity of trouble and annoyance. Walpole's letters abound in allusions to her. In 1751 she became a baroness in her own right (Clinton), and died, 1781, at Pisa. (See p. 152.; — Cunningham. * Lady Mary left England in July 1739, and did not return until after an absence of twenty-two years. — Cunningham. 56 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1740. demie en hauteur, et 5 en largeur ; and to inform you that we are at Florence, a city of Italy, and the capital of Tuscany : the latitude I cannot justly teU, but it is governed by a prince caUed Great Duke ; an exceUent place to employ aU one's animal sensations in, but utterly contrary to one's rational powers. I have struck a medal upon myself : the de-vice is thus 0, and the motto Nihilissimo, which I take in the most concise manner to contain a fuU account of my person, sentiments, occupations, and late glorious successes. If you choose to be annihilated too, you cannot do better than undertake this journey. Here you shaU get up at twelve o'clock, breakfast tUl three, dine tiU five, sleep tiU six, drink cooHng Hquors tiU eight, go to the bridge tiU ten, sup till two, and so sleep tiU twelve again. Lahore fessi venimus ad larem nostrum, Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto : Hoc est, quod unum est, pro laboribus tantis. 0 quid solutia est beatius curis ? We shaU never come home again ; a universal war is just upon the point of breaking out ; aU outlets ¦wUl be shut up. I shall be secure in my nothingness, whUe you, that ¦wiU be so absurd as to exist, -will envy me. You don't teU me what proficiency you make in the noble science of defence. Don't you start stUl at the sound of a gun ? Have you learned to say Ha ! ha ! and is your neck clothed -with thunder ? Are your whiskers of a tolerable length ? And have you got drunk yet -with brandy and gunpowder? Adieu, noble captain ! T. Gray. 33. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. My Dear Hal : Florence, September 26, 1740, N.S. I BEGIN to answer your letter the moment I have read it, because you bid me ; but I grow so unfit for a correspondence -with any body in England, that I have almost left it off. 'Tis so long since I was there, and I am so utterly a stranger to every thing that passes there, that I must talk vastly in the dark to those I -write ; and ha-ving in a manner settled myself here, where there can be no news, I am void of aU matter for fiUing up a letter. As, by the absence of the Great Duke, Florence is become in a manner a country to-wn, you may imagine that we are not without demiles ; but for a country to-wn I beHeve there never were a set of people so peaceable, and such strangers to scandal. 'Tis the family of love, where every body is paired, and go as constantly together as 1740.] TO HON. ME. CONWAY. 57 paroquets. Here nobody hangs or di'owns themselves ; they are not ready to cut one another's throats about elections or parties ; don't think that -wit consists in saying bold truths, or humour in getting drunk. But I shall give you no more of their characters, because I am so unfortunate as to think that their encomium consists in being the reverse of the English, who in general are either mad, or enough to make other people so. After teUing you so fairly my sentiments, you may beHeve, my dear Harry, that I had rather see you here than in England. 'Tis an evU -wish for you, who should not be lost in so obscure a place as this. I wUl not make you compHments, or else here is a charming opportunity for saying what I think of you. As I am con-vinced you love me, and as I am conscious you have one strong reason for it, I -will o-wn to you, that for my o-wn peace you should -wish me to remain here. I am so well -within and without, that you would scarce know me : I am younger than ever, think of nothing but diverting myself, and Hve in a round of pleasures. We have operas, concerts, and baUs, mornings and evenings. I dare not teU you aU one's idlenesses : you would look so grave and senatorial, at hearing that one rises at eleven in the morning, goes to the opera at nine at night, to supper at one, and to bed at three I But HteraUy here the evenings and nights are so charming and so warm, one can't avoid 'em. Did I teU you Lady Mary Wortley is here ? She laughs at my Lady Walpole, scolds my Lady Pomfret, and is laughed at by the whole to-wn.' Her dress, her avarice, and her impudence must amaze any one that never heard her name. She wears a foul mob, that does not cover her greasy black locks, that hang loose, never combed or curled ; an old mazarine blue ¦wrapper, that gapes open and discovers a canvass petticoat. Her face sweUed -violently on one side -with the remains of a , partly covered -with a plaister, and partly with white paint, which for cheapness she has bought so coarse, that you would not use it to wash a chimney. — In three words I -wUl give you her picture as we drew it in the Sortes VirgiliancB — Insanam vatem aspicies. I give you my honour we did not choose it ; but Gray, Mr. Coke,' ' In a letter from Florence, written by Lady Mary to Mr. Wortley on the 11th of August, she says, " Lord and Lady Pomfret take pains to make the place agreeable to me, and I have been visited by the greatest part of the people of quality." See the edition of her works, edited by Lord WhamcUffe, vol. ii. p. 325. — Wright. ^ Edward Coke, of Holkham, only son of Lord Lovel, afterwards Earl of Leicester. " This young man [Mr. Coke] is one of the few that I have met witli, who ought tc 58 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1740. Sir Francis Dashwood,' and I, and several others, drew it fairly amongst a thousand for different people, most of which did not hit as you may imagine : those that did I wiU teU you. For our most reHgious and gracious — Dii, talem terris avertite pestem. For one that would be our most religious and gracious Purpureus veluti cum flos succisus aratro Languescit moriens, lassove papavera coUo Demisfire caput, pluviS, cum fortfe gravantur. For his Son. Regis Romani ; primus qui legibus urbem Fundabit, Curibus parvis et paupere terra. Missus in imperium magnum. For Sir Robert. Res dura et regni novitas me talia cogunt Moliri, et late fines custode tueri. I -wiU show you the rest when I see you. 34. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. Dear West : Florence, Oct. 2, 1740, N.S. T'other night as we (you know who we are) were walking on the charming bridge, just before going to a wedding assembly, we said, " Lord, I wish, just as we are got into the room, they would caU us out, and say, West is arrived ! We would make him dress instantly, and carry him back to the entertainment. How he would stare and have been sent abroad. For most of our travelling youth neither improve themselves nor credit their country. This, I believe, is often owing to the strange creatures that are made their governors, but as often to the strange creatures that are to be governed. Travelling is certainly carried a great deal too far amongst the English ; for although nothing can be more proper for a man of quality, capacity, and fortune, yet surely nothing can be more improper where those things are wanting ; and the fortune which should be increasing in business, is often decreasing in dress, equipage, and sometimes in worse things." — Lady Pomfret to Lady Hertford, Florence, June 29, 1740, N.S. Compare the noble description in ' The Dunciad' of the Duke of Kingston, his mistress, and laced-governor on the tour of Europe (book iv., v. 271).- — Cunningham. ' Sir Francis Dashwood, Bart., who, on the death [1762] of John, Earl of West moreland, succeeded to the barony of Le Despencer, as the only son of Mary, eldest slater of the Earl. — Wright. Lord Le Despencer was Chancellor of the Exchequer during Lord Bute's administration, but is now chiefly remembered for his share, with Wilkes and Paul Whitehead, in founding a dissolute and blasphemous association called The Hell-Fire Club, or The Monks of Medmenham Abbey. He died in 1781.^CUNNIN0HAM. 1740.] TO MR. WEST. 59 wonder at a thousand things, that no longer strike us as odd ! " Would not you ? One agreed that you should have come directly by sea from Dover, and be set do-wn at Leghorn, -without setting foot in any other foreign to^wn, and so land at Us, m aU your first fuU amaze ; for you are to know, that astonishment rubs off -violently ; we did not cry out Lord ! half so much at Rome as at Calais, which to this hour I look upon as one of the most surprising cities in the universe. My dear chUd, what if you were to take this Httle sea-jaunt ? One would recommend Sir John Norris's convoy to you, but one should be laughed at now for supposing that he is ever to saU beyond Torbay.' The ItaHans take Torbay for an EngHsh to-wn in the hands of the Spaniards, after the fashion of Gibraltar, and imagine 'tis a wonderful strong place, by our fleet's ha-ving retired from before it so often, and so often returned. We went to this wedding that I told you of ; 'twas a charming feast : a large palace finely Uluminated ; there were aU the beauties, all the jewels, and aU the sugar-plums of Florence. Servants loaded -with great chargers fuU of comfits heap the tables -with them, the women faU on -with both hands, and stuff their pockets and every creek and comer about them. You would be as much amazed at us as at any thing you saw : instead of being deep in the Hberal arts, and being in the GaUery every morning, as I thought of course to be sure I would be, we are in aU the idleness and amusements of the town. For me, I am gro-wn so lazy, and so tired of seeing sights, that, though I have been at Florence six months, I have not seen Leghorn, Pisa, Lucca, or Pistoia ; nay, not so much as one of the Great Duke's viUas. I have contracted so great an aversion to inns and postchaises, and have so absolutely lost aU curiosity, that, except the to-wns in the straight road to Great Britain, I shaU scarce see a jot more of a foreign land ; and tiust me, when I return, I -wiU not visit Welsh mountains, Hke Mr. WUHams. After Mount Cenis, the Boccheto, the Giogo, Radicofani, and the Appian Way, one has mighty Httle hunger after traveUing. I shaU be mighty apt to set up my staff at Hyde-park-comer : the alehouseman ' Though brave, skilful, and enterprising, Sir John Norris failed to acquire renown, in consequence of mere accidents. On the breaking out of the Spanish war, he was ordered to cruize in the Bay of Biscay ; but, ovring to tempestuous weather, waa compelled to put into port for the winter. The following lines were addressed to him upon this occasion : Homeward, oh ! bend thy course ; the seas are rough ; To the Land's End who sails, has sailed enough.— Wright. 80 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1740 there at Hercules's PiUars ' was certainly retiimed from his travels into foreign parts. Now I'U answer your questions. I have made no discoveries in ancient or modem arts. Mr. Addison traveUed through the poets, and not through Italy ; for aU his ideas are borrowed from the descriptions, and not from the reaHty. He saw places as they were, not as they are.' I am very weU acquainted -with Doctor Cocchi ;' he is a good sort of man, rather than a great man ; he is a plain honest creature, -with quiet knowledge, but I dare say aU the EngHsh have told you, he has a very particular understanding : I reaUy don't believe they meant to impose on you, for they thought so. As to Bondelmonti, he is much less ; he is a low mimic ; the brightest cast of his parts attains to the composition of a sonnet : he talks irreHgion with EngHsh boys, sentiment -with my sister [Lady Walpole], and bad French with any one that wUl hear him. I -wiU transcribe you a Httle song that he made t'other day ; 'tis pretty enough ; Gray turned it into Latin, and I into EngHsh ; you -wiU honom- him highly by putting it into French, and Ashton into Greek. Here 'tis. Spesso Amor sotto la forma D'amista ride, e s'aaconde ; Poi si mischia, e si confonde Con lo sdegno e col rancor. In pietade ei si trasforma, Par trastuUo e par dispetto ; Ma nel auo diverso aspetto, Sempre egli fe I'istesao Amor. Rieit amicitise interdtim velatus amictu, Et benfe compoaitS, veste fefellit Amor : Mox irae assumpsit cultus faciemque minantem, Inque odium versus, versus et in lacrymaa : Sudentem fuge, nee lacrymanti aut crede furenti ; Idem est dissimili semper in ore Deus. ' The sign of the Hercules' Pillars remained in Piccadilly till very lately. It was situated on part of the ground now [1798] occupied by the houses of Mr. Drummond Smith and hia brother. — Berry. That is, on the pavement between Hamilton Place and Apsley House. Here Squire Western put his horses up when in pureuit of Tom Jones, and here Field Marshal the Marquis of Granby (the hero of publicans) was often to be seen.- Cunningham. ' Compare Letter to Zouch, March 20th, 1762. Fielding says (Voyage to Lisbon) that Addison, in his " Travels," is to be looked upon rather as a commentator on the classics, than as a writer of travels. — Cunningham. ' Antonio Cocchi, a learned physician and author at Florence, a particular friend of Mr. Mann. — Walpole. He died in 1758. Some of his observations may be found in Spence's 'Anecdotes.' (See p. 104.) — Cunningham. 1740.] TO MR. WEST. 61 Love often in the comely mien Of friendship fancies to be seen ; Soon again he shifts his dress, And wears disdain and rancour's face. To gentle pity then he changes ; Thro' wantonness, thro' piques he ranges ; But in whatever shape he move, He's still himself, and still ia Love. See how we trifle ! but one can't pass one's youth too amusingly ; for one must grow old, and that in England ; two most serious circumstances, either of which makes people grey in the t-winkHng of a bedstaff ; for know you, there is not a countiy upon earth where there are so many old fools and so few young ones. Now I proceed in my answers. I made but smaU collections, and have only bought some bronzes and medals, a few busts, and two or three pictures ; one of my busts is to be mentioned ; 'tis the famous Vespasian in touchstone,' reckoned the best in Rome, except the CaracaUa of the Farnese : I gave but twenty-two pounds for it at Cardinal Ottoboni's sale. One of my medals is as great a curiosity : 'tis of iUexander Severus, -with the amphitheatie in brass ; this reverse is extant on medals of his, but mine is a medagliuncino, or small medaUion, and the only one -with this reverse kno^wn in the world : 'twas found by a peasant whUe I was in Rome, and sold by him for sixpence to an antiquarian, to whom I paid for it seven guineas and an half: but to virtuosi 'tis worth any sum.' As to Tartini's ' musical compositions, ask Gray; I know but Httle in music. But for the Academy, I am not of it, but frequently in company ¦with it : 'tis all disjointed. Madame * * *, who, though a learned lady, has not lost her modesty and character, is extremely scandalised with the other two dames, especiaUy ¦with MoU Worthless [Lady Mary Wortley], who knows no bounds. She is at rivafry -with Lady W[alpole] for a certain ]\Ir. * * *, whom perhaps you knew at Oxford. If you did not, I'U tell you : he is a grave young man by temper, and a rich one by constitution ; a shaUow creature by nature, but a -wit by the grace of our women here, whom he deals ' This fine bust stood in the gallery at Strawberry Hill, on the right hand of the chimney-piece, and at the Strawberry HUl sale sold for 220^ 10». — Cunningham. ^ Parted with by Walpole to the Marquis of Rockingham, with other Roman coina, in exchange for the Silver Bell said to be the work of Benvenuto CellinL — Ccn.')Ingham. ' Giuseppe Tartini, of Padua, whom Viotti pronounced the last great improver ai the practice of the violin. — Wright. 62 HORACE -WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1740. with as of old with the Oxford toasts. He ffeU into sentiments -with my Lady W[alpole] and was happy to catch her at Platonic love ; but as she seldom stops there, the poor man ¦wiU be frightened out of his senses when she shaU break the matter to him ; for he never dreamt that her purposes were so naught. Lady Mary is so far gone, that to get him from the mouth of her antagonist she HteraUy took him out to dance country dances last night at a formal ball, where there was no measure kept in laughing at her old, foul, tawdry, painted, plastered personage. She played at pharaoh two or three times at Princess Craon's, where she cheats horse and foot. She is reaUy entertaining : I have been reading her works, which she lends out in manuscript, but they are too womanish : I like few of her performances. I forgot to teU you a good answer of Lady Pomfret to Mr. * * *, who asked her if she did not approve Platonic love ? ' Lord, sir,' says she, ' I am sure any one that knows me never heard that I had any love but one, and there sit two proofs of it,' pointing to her two daughters. So I have given you a sketch of our employments, and answered your questions, and -wiU ¦with pleasure as many more as you have about you. Adieu ! Was ever such a long letter ? But 'tis nothing to what I shaU have to say to you. I shaU scold you for never teUing us any news, pubHc or private, no deaths, marriages, or mishaps ; no account of new books : Oh, you are abominable ! I could find it in my heart to hate you, if I did not love you so well ; but we wUl quarrel now, that we may be the better friends when we meet : there is no danger of that, is there ? Good night, whether friend or foe ! I am most sincerely Yours. 36. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. From Florence, Nov. 1740. Child, I am going to let you see your shocking proceedings ¦with us. On my conscience, I beHeve 'tis three months since you ¦wrote to either Gray or me. If you had been Ul, Ashton would have said so ; and if you had been dead, the gazettes would have said it. If you had been angry, — but that's impossible ; how can one quarrel ¦with folks three thousand miles off ? We are neither divines nor commentators, and consequently have not hated you on paper. 'Tis to show that my charity for you cannot be interrupted at this distance that I write to you, though I have nothing to say, for 'tis 1740.] TO MR. WEST. 63 a bad time for small news ; and when Emperors and Czarinas are dying aU up and down Europe, one can't pretend to teU you of any tlHng that happens -within our sphere. Not but that we have our accidents too. If you have had a great -wind in England, we have had a great water at Florence. We have been trying to set out every day, and pop upon you.' * * * * * It is fortunate that wo staid, for I don't know what had become of us ! Yesterday, with violent rains, there came flouncing do^wn from the mountains such a flood that it floated the whole city. The jeweUers on the Old Bridge removed their commodities, and in two hours after the bridge was cracked. The torrent broke do^wn the quays and dro-wned several coach-horses, which are kept here in stables under ground. We were moated into our house aU day, which is near the Arno, and had the miserable spectacles of the ruins that were washed along -with the hurricane. There was a cart with two oxen not quite dead, and four men in it drowned : but what was ridiculous, there came tiding along a fat hay-cock, -with a hen and her eggs, and a cat. The torrent is considerably abated ; but we expect terrible news from the country, especiaUy from Pisa, which stands so much lower, and nearer the sea. There is a stone here, which, when the water overflows, Pisa is entirely flooded. The water rose two eUs yesterday above that stone. Judge ! For this last month we have passed our time but duUy; aU diversions sUenced on the Emperor's death,' and every body out of to-wn. I have seen nothing but cards and duU pairs of cicisbeos. I have HteraUy seen so much love and pharaoh since being here, that I beHeve I shaU never love either again as long as I Hve. Then I am got into a horrid lazy way of a morning. I dou't beHeve I should know seven o'clock in the morning again if I was to see it. But I am returning to England, and shaU grow very solemn and wise ! -Are you wise ? Dear West, have pity on one who has done nothing of gra-vity for these two years, and do laugh sometimes. We do nothing else, and have contracted such formidable ideas of the good people of England that we are already nourishing great black eyebrows and great black beards, and teasing our countenances into wrinkles. Then for the common talk of the times we are quite at a loss, and for the dress. You would obHge us extremely by forwarding to us the votes of the houses, the King's Speech, and the Magazines ; or if you had any such thing as a Httle book caUed the ' A line of the manuscript is here torn away. — Berry. ^ Charles the Sixth, Emperor of Germany, — Wright. 64 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741. Foreigner's Guide through the city of London and the Hberties of Westminster ; or a Letter to a Freeholder ; or the PoHtical Com panion : then 'twould be an infinite obHgation if you would neatly band-box up a baby dressed after the newest Temple fashion now in use at both play-houses. Alack-a-day! We shaU just arrive in the tempest of elections ! As our departure depends entirely upon the weather, we cannot teU you to a day when we shall say Dear West, how glad I am to see you ! and aU the many questions and answers that we shaU give and take. Would the day were come ! Do but figure to yourself the journey we are to pass through first ! But you can't conceive Alps, Apennines, ItaHan inns and postchaises. I tremble at the thoughts. They were just sufferable while new and unknown, and as we met them by the way in coming to Florence, Rome, and Naples ; but they are passed, and the mountains remain ! WeU, write to one in the interim ; direct to me addressed to Monsieur Sel-wyn, chez Monsieur Alexandre, rue St. Apolline, d Paris. If Mr. Alexandre is not there, the street is, and I believe that -wiU be sufficient. Adieu, my dear child ! Yours ever. 36. TO THE REV. JOSEPH SPENCE.' Sir : Florence, Feb. 21, 1741, N.S. Not ha^ving time last post, I begged Mx. Mann to thank you for the obliging paragraph for me in your letter to him. But as I desire a nearer correspondence ¦with you than by third hands, I assure you in my own proper person that I shall have great pleasure, on our meeting in England, to renew an acquaintance that I began ¦with so much pleasure in Italy.' I ¦wiU not reckon you among my ' The friend of Pope, and author of the ' Anecdotes.' (See p. 30.) He waa at this time travelling tutor or governor to the Earl of Lincoln, whose great-grandson, the present (1856) Duke of Newcastle, has the two sketches of Lincoln and Spence done at Florence in 1741 for Walpole, and sold at the Strawberry Hill sale. — Cunningham. ^ This acquaintance proved of infinite service to Walpole, shortly after the date of thia letter, when he was laid up with a quinsy at Reggio. Spence thus describes the circumstance : " About three or four in the morning I was surprised with a mes sage, saying, that Mr. Walpole was very much worse, and desired to see me -. I went, and found him scarce able to speak. 1 soon learned from his servants that he had been all the while without a physician, and had doctored himself ; so I immediately sent for the best aid the place would afford, and despatched a messenger to the minister at Florence, desiring him to send my friend Dr. Cocchi. In about twenty- four hours I had the satisfaction to find Mr. Walpole better : we left him in a fair way of recovery, and we hope to see him next week at Venice. I had obtained leave of Lord Lincoln to stay behind some days if he had been worse. You aee what 1741.J TO HON. MR. CONWAY. 66 modern friends, but in the first article of virtii : you have given me so many new Hghts into a science that I love so much, that I shaU always be proud to own you as my master in the antique, and ¦wUl never let any thing break in upon my reverence for you, but a warmth and freedom that -wiU flow from my friendship, and which wUl not be contained ¦within the circle of a severe awe. As I shall always be attentive to give you any satisfaction that lies in my power, I take the first opportunity of sending you two Httle poems, both by a hand that I know you esteem the most : if you have not seen them, you ¦will thank me for Hues of ]VIr. Pope : if you have, why I did not know it. I don't know whether Lord Lincoln has received any orders to return home : I had a letter fr-om one of my brothers last post to teU me from Sfr Robert that he would have me leave Italy as soon as possible, lest I should be shut up unawares by the arrival of the Spanish troops ; and that I might pass some time in France if I had a mind. I o-wn I don't conceive how it is possible these troops should arrive without its being kno^wn some time before. And as to the Great Duke's dominions, one can always be out of them in ten hours or less. If Lord Lincoln has not received the same orders, I shaU beHeve what I now think, that I am wanted for some other reason. I beg my kind love to Lord Lincoln, and that Mi. Spence vrill believe me, his sincere humble servant, HoR. Walpole. 37. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Dear Hal : Florence, March 25, 1741, N.S. You must judge by what you feel yourself of what I feel for Selwyn's recovery, with the addition of what I have suffered from post to post. But as I find the whole to-wn have had the same sentiments about him, (though I am sure few so strong as myself,) I wiU not repeat what you have heard so much. I shaU -write to him to-night, though he knows without my teUing him how very much I love him. To you, my dear Harry, I am infinitely obHged for the three successive letters you -wrote me about him, which gave luck one haa aometimea in going out of one'a way. If Lord Lincoln had not wan dered to Reggio, Mr. Walpole (who is one of the best natured and most sensible young gentlemen England affords) would have, in all probability, fallen a sacrifice to his disorder." — Wright. ee HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741 me double pleasure, as they showed your attention for me at a time that you knew I must be so unhappy; and your friendslup for him. Your account of Sir Robert's -victory ' was so extremely weU told, that I made Gray translate it into French, and have showed it to aU that could taste it, or were inquisitive on the occasion. I have received a print by this post that diverts me extremely ; the Motion.' TeU me, dear, now, who made the design, and who took the Hke- nesses ; they are admirable : the lines are as good as one sees on such occasions. I wrote last post to Sir Robert, to wish him joy ; I hope he received my letter. I was to have set out last Tuesday, but on Sunday came the news of the Queen of Hungary being brought to bed of a son ; ' on which occasion here wiU be great triumphs, operas and masquerades, which detain me for a short time. I won't make you any excuse for sending you the foUo-wing Hues ; you have prejudice enough for me to read with patience any of my idlenesses." ' On the event of Mr. Sandys' motion iu the House of Commons to remove Sir Robert Walpole from the king's presence and councils for ever. — Berry. The motion was negatived by 290 against 106 ; an unusual majority, which proceeded from the schism between the Tories and the Whigs, and the secession of Shippen and his friends. The same motion waa made by Lord Carteret in the House of Lords, and negatived by 108 against 59. — Wright. ° The print alluded to exhibits an interesting view of Whitehall, the Treasury, and adjoining buildings, as they stood at the time. The Earl of Chesterfield, as postilion of a coach which is going full speed towards the Treasury, drives over all in his way. The Duke of Argyle is coachman, flourishing a sword instead of a whip; while Dodington is represented as a spaniel, silting between his legs. Lord Carteret, perceiving the coach about to be overturned, is calling to the coachman, " Let me get out ! " Lord Cobham, as the footman, is holding fast on by the straps ; while Lord Lyttelton is ambling by the aide on a Rosinante as thin as himself. Smallbrook, Bishop of Lichfield, is bowing obsequiously as they pass ; while Sandys, letting fall the place-bill, exclaims, " I thought what would come of putting him on the box." In the foreground is Pulteney leading several figures by strings from their noses, and wheeling a barrow filled with the Craftsman's Letters, Champion, State of the Nation, and Common Sense, and exclaiming, " Zounds, they are over ! " This caricature, and another, entitled " The Political Libertines, or Motion upon Motion," had been provoked by one put forth by Sir Robert Walpole's opponents, entitled " The Grounds for the Motion ; " and were followed up by another from the sup porters of Sandys' motion, entitled " The Motive or Reason for his Triumph," which the caricaturist attributes entirely to bribery. — Wright. The lines on Lyttelton beneath this highly curious print (the earliest good political caricature that we possess) are quoted by Boswell, (ed. Croker, p. 362, ed. 1847.) — Cunningham. ^ Afterwards Joseph the Second, Emperor of Germany . — Wright. * Here follows the Inscription for the neglected Column in the Place of St. Mark, at Florence, afterwards printed in the Fugitive Pieces. — Wright. 1741.] TO MR. WEST. 67 My dear Harry, you enrage me -with talldng of another journey to Ireland ; it ¦wiU shock me if I don't find you at my return : pray take care and be in England. I wait with some patience to see Dr. Iffiddleton's TuUy, as I read the greatest part of it in manuscript ; though indeed that is rather a reason for my being impatient to read the rest. If TuUy can receive any additional honour. Dr. IVIiddleton is most capable of conferring it.' I receive ¦with great pleasure any remembrances of my lord and your sisters ; I long to see aU of you. Patapan '" is so handsome that he has been named the sUver fleece ; and there is a new order of knighthood to be erected to his honour, in opposition to the golden. Precedents are searching, and plans dra-wing up for that purpose. I hear that the natives pretend to be companions, upon the authority of their dog-skin waistcoats ; but a councU that has been held on purpose has declared their pretensions impertinent. Patapan has lately taken -vrife unto him, as ugly as he is genteel, but of a very great family, being the direct heiress of Canis Scaliger, Lord of Verona : which principality we design to seize k la Prussienne ; that is, as soon as ever we shall have persuaded the repubUc of Venice that we are the best friends they have in the world. Adieu, dear chUd ! Yours ever. P. S. I left my subscriptions for IVliddleton's TuUy with Mr. Sel-svyn ; I won't trouble him, but I -wish you would take care and get the books, if Mr. S. has kept the Hst. 38. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. Dear West : Reggio,^ May 10, 1741, N.S. I HAVE received the end of your first act," and now will teU you ' Dr. Middleton'a History of the Life of Cicero was published by subscription in the early part of this year, and dedicated to Pope's enemy. Lord Hervey. This laboured encomium on his lordship obtained for the doctor a niche in the Dunciad : — " Narcissus, prais'd with all a Parson's pow'r, Look'd a white lily aunk beneath a show'r." — Wright. * The same summer [1743] I wrote Patapan, or the Little White Dog, a Tale, imitated from Fontaine ; it was never printed. — Walpole, Short Notes. — Cunningham. ^ It was at Reggio that Walpole and Gray quarrelled and parted. The alleged cause of this difference is explained in Walpole's letters to Mason. Walpole took the blame upon himself. He is said to have opened a letter addressed to Gray. — Cunningham. * The first act of a tragedy called ' Pansanias,' begun by Mr. West. — Berry. In 68 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741 sincerely what I think of it. If I was not so pleased with the beginning as I usuaUy am ¦with your compositions, believe me the part of Pansanias has charmed me. There is all imaginable art joined with aU requisite simpHcity ; and a simpHcity, I think, much jDreferable to that in the scenes of Cleodora and ArgUius. Forgive me, if I say they do not talk laconic but low EngHsh ; in her, who is Persian too, there would admit more heroic. But for the whole part of Pansanias, 'tis great and well worked up, and the art that is seen seems to proceed from his head, not from the author's. As I am very desirous you should continue, so I own I -wish you would improve or change the beginning : those who know you not so well as I do, would not wait -with so much patience for the entrance of Pansanias. You see I am frank; and if I tell you I do not approve of the first part, you may believe me as sincere when I teU you I admire the latter extremely. My letter has an odd date. You would not expect I should be ¦writing in such a dirty little place as Reggio ; but the fair is charm ing ; and here come aU the nobUity of Lombardy, and aU the broken dialects of Genoa, Milan, Venice, Bologna, &c. You never heard such a ridiculous confusion of tongues. All the morning one goes to the fair undressed, as to the walks of Tunbridge ; 'tis just in that manner, -with lotteries, raffles, &c. After dinner all the company return in their coaches, and make a kind of corso, -with the Ducal famUy, who go to shops, where you taUc to 'em, from thence to the Opera, in mask if you -wiU, and afterwards to the Ridotto. This five nights in the week. Fridays there are masquerades, and Tuesdays baUs at the Rivalta, a -vUla of the Duke's. In short, one diverts oneself. I pass most part of the Opera in the Duchess's box, who is extremely civil to me and extremely agreeable. A daughter of the Regent's,' that could please him, must be so. She is not young, though stUl handsome, but fat ; but has given up her gaUantries cheerfuUy, and in time, and Hves easUy -with a duU husband, two duU sisters of his, and a duU court. These two princesses are wofuUy ugly, old maids and rich. They might have been married often ; but the old Duke was whimsical and proud, and never would consent to any match for them, but left them much money, and pensions of three thousand pounds a-year a-piece. the preceding month West had forwarded to Gray the sketch of this tragedy, which he appears to have criticised with much freedom ; but Mr. Mason did not find among Gray's papers either the sketch itself, or the free critique upon it. — Wright. ' PhUip Duke of Orleans. — Berry, 1741.] WEST TO WALPOLE. 69 There was a design to have given the eldest to this King of Spain, and the Duke was to have had the Parmesan princess ; so that now he would have had Parma and Placentia, joined to Modena, Reggio, Mirandola, and Massa. But there being a Prince of Asturias, the old Duke Rinaldo broke off the match, and said his daughter's chUdren should not be younger brothers : and so they mope old virgins. I am going from hence to Venice, in a fright lest there be a war with France, and then I must drag myself through Germany. We have had an imperfect account of a sea-fight in America ; but we are so out of the way, that one can't be sure of it. Which way soever I return, I shaU be soon in England, and there you -wUl find me again. As much as ever yours. 39. WEST TO HORACE WALPOLE. Dear Walpole ; London, June 22, 1741. I HAVE received your letter from Reggio, of the 10th of May, and have heard since that you feU Ul there, and are now recovered and returning to England through France. I heard the bad and good news both together ; and so was affHcted and comforted both in a breath. My joy now has got the better, and I Hve in hopes of seeing you here again. The author of the first act of Pansanias desires his love to you ; and, in return for your criticism, which seems so severe to him in some parts, and so prodigious favourable in others, that if he were not acquainted -with your unprejudiced way of thinking, he should not know what to say to it, has ordered me to acquaint you with an accident that happened to him lately, on a Httle journey he made. It seems he had put aU his writings, whether in prose or rhyme, into a Httle box, and carried them with him. Now, somebody imagining there was more in the box than there reaUy was, has run away -with them ; and, though strict inquiry has been made, the said author has learnt nothing yet, either concerning the person suspected, or the box. Since I am _ engaged in talking of this author, and as I know you have some Httle value for him, I beg leave to acquaint you -with some particulars relating to him, which perhaps you -wUl not be so averse to hear. You must know then, that from his cradle upwards he was designed for the law, for two reasons : first, as it was the profession 70 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741. which his father foUowed, and succeeded in, and consequentiy there was a HkeHhood of his gaining many friends in it : and, secondly, upon account of his fortune, which was so inconsiderable, that it was impossible for him to support himself without foUo-wing some pro fession or other. Nevertheless, Hke a rattle as he is, ho has hitherto fixed on no profession : and for the law in particular, upon trial he has fomid in himself a natural aversion to it : in the mean- whUe, he has lost a great deal of time, to the great diminution of his narrow fortune, and to the no Httle scandal of his friends and relations. At length, upon serious consideration, he has resolved that something was to be done, for that poetry and Pansanias would never be sufficient to maintain him. And what do you thinlc he has resolved upon ? Why, apprehending that a general war in Europe was approaching, and, therefore, that there might be some opportunity given, either of distinguishing himself, or being knocked of the head ; being con-vinced, besides, that there was little in Hfe to make one over fond of it — he has chosen the army ; and being told that it was a much cheaper way to procure a commission by the means of a friend, than to buy one, to do which he must strip himself of what fortune he has left, he desired me to use what Httle interest I had ¦with my friends to procure him what he wanted. At first I objected to him the weakness of his constitution, which might render him incapable of mUitary service, and several other things ; but aU to no purpose. He told me, he was neither knave nor fool enough to run in debt, and that he must either abscond from mankind, or do something to enable him to Hve as he would upon a decent rank, and -with dignity ; and that what he chose was this. I perceived there was nothing to reply ; so I submitted ; and as I have some sort of regard for the man, I promised him I would use what interest I had, and frankly told him, I would venture to ask for him what I should hardly ask for myself. Excuse my freedom, dear Walpole ; and whether I succeed or not, assure yourself that I shaU always be, Yours most affectionately, R. West.' ' The answer to this letter does not appear ; but Mr. West's increasing bad health must probably have obliged him to drop all thoughts of going into the army,— Berry. 1741.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 71 40. TO SIR HORACE MANN.' Calais, and Friday, and here I have been these two days, 17 il. Is the wind laid ? Shall I never get aboard ? I came here on Wednesday night, but found a tempest that has never ceased since. At Boulogne I left Lord Shrewsbury ' and his mother, and brothers and sisters, waiting too : Bulstrode ' passes his winter at the court of Boulogne, and then is to travel with two young Shrcwsburys. I was overtaken by Amorevoli and Monticelli," who are here with me and the Viscoutina, and Barberina, and Abbate Vanneschi ' — what a coxcomb ! I would have taUicd to him about the opera, but he preferred poHtics. I have wearied Amorevoli with questions about you. If he was not just come from you, and could talk to me about you, I should hate him ; for, to flatter me, he told me that I talked Italian better than you. He did not know how Httle I think it a compHment to have anything preferred to you — ^besides, you know the consistence of my ItaHan ! They are all frightened out of their senses about going on the sea, and are not a Httle afraid of the EngHsh. They went aboard the WiUiam and Mary yacht yester day, which waits here for Lady Cardigan from Spa. The captain clapped the door, and swore in broad EngHsh that the Viscoutina should not stir tUl she gave him a song, he did not care whether it was a catch or a mo-ving ballad ; but she would not submit. I wonder he did ! When she came home and told me, I begged her not to judge of aU the EngHsh from this specimen ; but, by the way, she -wUl find many sea-captains that grow on dry land. Sittinburn, Sept. 13, O.S. [1741]. Saturday morning, or yesterday, we did set out, and after a ' This is the first letter to Sir Horace then, 1741, only Mr. Mann [see p. 37]. Walpole borrowed his letters from Mann (his nephew Sir Horace conveyed them to England), had them fairly transcribed, annotated them with his own hand, and wrote a brief Preface to them, reprinted in this volume. — Cunningham. 2 Chariea Talbot, Eari of Shrewsbury, died 1787.— Walpole. ' Tutor to the young Earl of Shrewsbury. — Walpole. ¦* Italian singers. — Walpole. Angelo Maria Monticelli, a celebrated singer of the same class as Veluti, was born at Milan in 1715, and first attained the celebrity which he enjoyed by singing with Mingotti at the Royal Opera at Naples iu 1746. He died in 1764.— Weight. ' An Italian abbe, who directed and wrote the operas under the protection of Lord Middlesex. — Walpole. Charles Sackville, Earl of Middlesex and second Duke of Dorset. He was a poet, and dissolute Uke others of his family. He died 1769.— Cokhingham. 72 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741, good passage of four hours and a half, landed at Dover. I begin to count my comforts, for I find their contraries thicken on my appre hension. I have, at least, done for awhUe with post-chaises. My tiunlis were a Httle opened at Calais, and they would have stopped my medals, but -with much ado and much three louis's they let them pass. At Dover I found the benefit of the motions' having mis carried last year, for they respected Sir Robert's son even in the person of his trunks. I came over in a yacht -with East India captains' -widows, a Catholic girl, coming from a convent to be mar ried, -with an Irish priest to guard her, who says he studied medicines for two years, and after that he studied learning for two years more. I have not brought over a word of French or ItaHan for common use ; I have so taken pains to avoid affectation in this point, that I have faUed only now and then in a chi i Id to the servants, who I can scarce persuade myself yet are EngHsh. The country-to-wn (and you -wUl beHeve me, who, you know, am not prejudicedj deHghts me : the populousness, the ease, the gaiety, and well-dressed every body amaze me. Canterbury, which on my setting out I thought deplorable, is a paradise to Modena, Reggio, Parma, &c. I had before discovered that there was nowhere but in England the dis tinction of middling f)eople ; I perceive now, that there is pecuHar to us middling houses : how snug they are ! I -vrrite to-night because I have time ; to-morrow I get to London just as the post goes. Sir Robert is at Houghton. Good night tiU another post. You are quite weU, I trust, but teU me so always. My loves to the Chutes' and aU the &ca.'s. Oh ! a story of Mr. Pope and the Prince [of Wales] : — " Mr. Pope, you don't love princes." " Sir, I beg your pardon." "WeU, you don't love kings then ! " " Sir, I o-wn I love the Hon best before his claws are gro-wn.'" Was it possible to make a better answer to such simple questions ? Adieu ! my dearest chUd ! Yom-s, ten thousand times over. P. S. Patapan does not seem to regret his own country. ' The motion [p. 66] in both houaea of parliament, 1740, for removing Sir Robert Walpole from the king's councils. — Walpole. ' John Chute [of the Vine, in Hampshire] and Francis Whithed, Esqrs., two great friends of Mr. W.'s, whom he had left at Florence, where he had been himaell' thirteen months, in the house of Mr. Mann, hia relation and particular friend. — Walpole. This note is the only proof we possess of the relationship between Horace Walpole and Sir Horace Mann. Lord Dover, who waa the first to print the note, entirely overlooked it when he wrote his preface to the first seriea of Walpole's letters to Mann. — Cunningham. ' This story was first told in print in Ruffhead'a lafe of Pope, Svo, 1769, p. 366. 1741 ] TO HON. MR. CONWAY. 73 41. TO SIR HORACE MANN. [The beginning of thia letter is lost.] * * * I HAD written and sealed my letter, but have since received another from you, dated Sept. 24. I read Sir Robert your account of Corsica ; he seems to Hke hearing any account sent this way — indeed, they seem to have more superficial relations in general than I could have beHeved ! You wiU obHge me, too, with any farther account of Bianca Colonna : ' it is romantic, her history ! I am infinitely obHged to Mx. Chute for his kindness to me, and stUl more for his friendship to you. You cannot think how happy I am to hear that you are to keep him longer. You do not mention his having received my letter from Paris : I directed it to him, recommended to you. I would not have him think me capable of neglecting to answer his letter, which obHged me so much. I wUl deHver AmorevoH his letter the first time I see him. Lord Islay' dined here ; I mentioned Stosch's' Maltese cats. Lord Islay begged I would write to Florence to have the largest male and female that can be got. If you -wiU speak to Stosch, you -wiU obHge me : they may come by sea. You cannot imagine my amazement at your not being iimted to Ricardi's baU ; do teU me, when you know what can be the meaning of it ; it could not be inadvertence — nay, that were as bad ! Adieu ! my dear chUd, once more ! 42. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. My Dearest Harry : London, liil. Before I thank you for myself, I must thank you for that exces sive good nature you showed in writing to poor Gray. I am less impatient to see you, as I find you are not the least altered, but have the same tender friendly temper you always had. I wanted much to see if you were stiU the same — but you are. ' A kind of Joan of Arc, who headed the Corsican rebels againat the Genoese. — Walpole. ' Archibald Campbell, Earl of Islay, and, on his brother's death, in 1743, Duke of Argyle. — Walpole. ^ Baron Stosch, a Prussian virtuoso, and spy for the court of England on the Pretender [died 1767]. He had been driven from Rome, though it was suspected that he was a spy on both sides : he was a man of a most infamous character in every respect. — Walpole. 74 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741 Don't thinli of coming before your brother ; he is too good to be left for any one Hving : besides, if it is possible, I ¦wiU see you in the country. Don't reproach me, and think nothing could draw me into the country : impatience to see a few friends has dra^wn me out of Italy ; aud Italy, Harry, is pleasanter than London. As I do not love li\ing enfamille so much as you (but then indeed my family is not like yours), I am hurried about getting myself a house ; for I have so long Hved single, that I do not much take to being confined ¦with my own famUy. You won't find me much altered, I beHeve ; at least, outwardly. I am not grown a bit shorter, or a bit fatter, but am just the same long lean creature as usual. Then I talk no French, but to my footman ; nor ItaHan, but to myself. What inward alterations may have happened to me, you wiU discover best ; for you know 'tis said, one never knows that one's self. I wiU answer, that that part of it that belongs to you, has not suffered the least change — I took care of that. For ¦virtii, I have a Httle to entertain you : it is my sole pleasure. — I am neither young enough nor old enough to be in love. My dear Harry, wiU you take care and make my compHments to that charming Lady Conway,' who I hear is so charming, and to Miss Jenny [Conway], who I know is so ? As for Miss Anne,' and her love as far as it is decent : tell her, decency is out of the question between us, that I love her ¦without any restriction. I settled it yesterday with Miss Conway, that you three are brothers and sister to me, and that if you had been so, I could not love you better. I have so many cousins, and uncles and aunts, and bloods that grow in Norfolk, that if I had portioned out my affections to them, as they say I should, what a modicum would have faUen to each ! — So, to avoid fractions, I love my famUy in you three, their representa tives. Adieu, my dear Harry ! Direct to me at Downing Street. Good-b'ye ! Yours ever. 43. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Downing Street, Oct. 8, 1741, O.S. I HAVE been very near seaHng this letter with black wax ; Sir ' IsabeUa Fitzroy, daughter of Charles second Duke of Grafton. She had been married in May, to [Walpole's maternal cousin] Francis Seymour Conway, afterwarda Earl of Hertford. — Berry. ^ Walpole's maternal cousin. Miss Anne Conway, youngest aister of the Earl of Hertford and General Conway. — Cunningham. 1741.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 76 Robert came from Richmond on Sunday night extremely iU, and on Monday was in great danger. It was an ague and looseness ; but they have stopped the latter, and converted the other into a fever, which they are curing -^vith the bark. He came out of his chamber to-day for the fu-st time, and is quite out of danger. One of the newspapers says. Sir R. W. is so bad that there are no hojyes of him. The Pomfrets ' are arrived ; I went this morning to visit my lord, but did not find him. Lady Sophia [Fermor] is ill, and my Earl ' still at Paris, not coming. There is no news, nor a soul in town. One talks of nothing but distempers, Hko Sfr Robert's. My Lady Townsend' was reckoning up the other day the several things that cured them ; such a doctor so many, such a medicine so many ; but of aU, the greatest number have found reHef from the sudden deaths of their husbands. The Opera begins the day after the King's birthday : the singers are not permitted to sing till on the stage, so no one has heard them, nor have I seen AmorevoH to give him the letter. The Opera is to be on the French system of dancers, scenes, and dresses. The directors have aHeady laid out great sums. They talk of a mob to sUence the operas, as they did the French players ; ' but it will be more difficult, for here half the young noblemen in to-wn are engaged, and they "wiU not be so easUy persuaded to humour the taste of the mobility : in short, they have abeady retained several eminent lawyers [boxers] from the Bear Garden to plead their defence. I have had a long -visit this morning from Bon Benjamin : ' he is one of the best kind of agreeable men I ever saw — quite fat and easy, -with universal knowledge : he is in the greatest esteem at my court. I am going to trouble you -with some commissions. Miss Rich,' ' Thomas Earl of Pomfret, and Henrietta Louisa, his consort, and their two eldest daughters, Sophia and Charlotte, had been iu Italy at the same time with Jlr. Walpole [p. 52]. The earl had been master of the horse to Queen Caroline, and the countess lady of the bedchamlier. — Walpole. ^ Henry Earl of Lincoln [p. 30] was at that time in love with Lady Sophia Fermor. — Walpole. ^ Ethelreda Harrison, wife of [Walpole's cousin] Charles Lord Viscount Townsend, but parted from him. — Walpole. She was a wit, and said many happy things recorded by Walpole in his Letters. Lady Townshend died 5 March, 1788. — Cunningham. ¦' At the Haymarket Theatre in October 1738, soon after the passing of the Act for licensing the stage. — Cunningham. ' Sir Benjamin Keene, ambassador at Madrid. — Walpole. ^ EUzabeth, eldest daughter of Sir Robert Rich, since married [1749] to Sir George Lyttelton [afterwarda Lord Lyttelton]. — Walpole. Miss Rich was hia second wife : — they aeparated, and ahe survived till 1795. — Cunningham. 76 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [174L who is the finest singer, except your sister,' in the world, has begged me to get her some music, particularly " the office of the Virgin of the Seven Sorrows," by Pergolesi,' the " Serva Padrona, U Pastor se torna Apiile," and " SempHcetta PastoreUa." If you can send these easily, you wiU much obHge me. Do, too, let me know by your brother, what you have already laid out for me, that I may pay him. I was mentioning to Sir Robert some pictures in Italy, which I wished him to buy ; two particularly, if they can be got, would make him deHght in you beyond measure. They are, a Madonna and ChUd, by Domenichino,' in the palace Zambeccari, at Bologna, or Caliambcc," as they caU it ; Mr. Chute knows the picture. The other is by Correggio, in a convent at Parma, and reckoned the second best of that hand in the world. There are the Madonna and ChUd, St. Catherine, St. Matthew, and other figm-es : it is a most known picture, and has been engraved by Augustin Carracci. If you can employ anybody privately to inquire about these pictures, be so good to let me know : Sir R. would not scruple almost any price, for he has of neither hand : the convent is poor : the Zambeccari coUection is to be sold, though, when I inquired after this picture, they would not set a price. Lord Euston is to be married to Lady Dorothy Boyle ' to-morrow, after so many delays. I have received your long letter, and Mr. Chute's too, which I wUl answer next post. I •wish I had the least poHtics to tell you ; but aU is sUcnt. The Opposition say not a syUable, because they don't know what the Court ¦wUl think of pubHc affairs ; and they ¦wiU not take thefr part tiU they are sure of contradicting. The Court 'wUl not be very ready to declare themselves, as their present situation is every way disagreeable. All they say, is to throw the blame entirely on the obstinacy of the Austrian Court, who would never stir or ' Mary, daughter of R[obert] Mann, Esq. since married to Mr. Foote [p. 140]. — Walpole.' Better known to all lovers of the works of this great composer as his " Stabat mater." — Wright. ' We shall read more, and somewhat wearisomely, about tliis Domenichino. Mann at length, see letter to Chute, 20th August, 1743, succeeded in obtaining it for Sir Robert Walpole. — Cunningham. ¦* A corrupted pronunciation of the Bologneae.— Walpole. ' George Earl of Euston, eldest son of Charles second Duke of Grafton, married 1741, Lady Dorothy Boyle, eldest daughter and co-heir of (the architect Earl) Richard, third and last Earl of Burlington. She died without issue the year after her marriage. Lord Euston, who died in 1747, treated her infamously. See (p. 252) her mother's affecting inscription on her portrait, and Hanbury Williams's verses ' To Lady Dorothy Boyle, enamoured of Lord Euston.' — Cunningham. 1741.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 77 soften for themselves, whUe they thought any one obliged to defend them. All I know of news is, that Poland is leaning towards the acquisition side, like her neighbours, and proposes to got a lock oi the Golden Fleece too. Is this any part of Gregory's ' negociation ? I delight in his Scappata — " Scappata, no ; eUgi solamente ha preso la posta." My service to Seriston ; he is charming. How excessively obUging to go to Madame Grifoni's ' festino ! but beHeve me, I shaU be angry, if, for my sake, you do things that are out of your character : don't you know that I am infinitely fonder of that than of her ? I read your story of the Sposa Panciatici at table, to the great entertainment of the company, and Prince Craon's epitaph, which Lord Cholmley ' says he has heard before, and does not think it is the Prince's O'wn ; no more do I, it is too good : but make my com pHments of thanlcs to him ; he shall have his buckles the first opportunity I find of sending them. Say a thousand things for me to dear Mr. Chute, till I can say them next post for myself ; till then, adieu. Yours ever. 44. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, Oct. 13, 1741. [The greatest part of this letter is wanting.] * * * The To-wn -will come to to-wn, and then one shaU know something. Sir Robert is quite recovered. Lady Pomfret I saw last night : Lady Sophia [her daughter] has been iU -with a cold ; her head is to be dressed French, and her body English, for which I am sorry ; her figure is so fine in a robe : she is fuU as sorry as I am. Then- trmiks are not arrived yet, so they have not made their appearance. My Lady told me, a Httle out of humour, that Uguccioni -wrote her word, that you said her things could not be sent away yet : I understood from you, that very -wisely, you would have nothing to do about them, so made no answer. The parHament meets the fifteenth of November. * * * ' Gregorio AgdoUo, an Asiatic, from being a prisoner at Leghorn, raised himself to be employed to the Great Duke by the King of Poland. — Walpole. ' Elizabetta Capponi, wife of Signer Grifoni, a great beauty. — Walpole. ^ George, third Earl of Cholmondeley, married [1723] Mary, only legitimate daughter of Sir Robert Walpole. — Dover. Through this marriage Houghton descended to its present possessor, the Marquis of Cholmondeley. — Cunningham. 78 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741, Amorevoli has been with me two hours this evening ; he is in panics about the first night, which is the next after the bfrthday. I have taken a master, not to forget my ItaHan — don't it look like returning to Florence ? — some time or other Good night. Yours ever and ever, my dear child. 46. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, Oct. 19, 1741, O.S. [Great part wanting.] I WRITE to you up to the head and ears in dirt, straw, and unpacking. I have been opening aU my cases from the Custom house the whole morning ; and— are not you glad ? — every indi^vi- dual safe and undamaged. I am fitting up an apartment in Do^wning Street * * * * ||g^ Robert Walpole]' was caUed in the morning, and was asleep as soon as his head touched the piUow, for I have frequently known him snore ere they had dra^wn his curtains, now never sleeps above an hour with out waiting ; and he, who at dinner always forgot he was ]yiinister, and was more gay and thoughtless than aU his company,' now sits 'without spealdng, and -with his eyes fixed for an hour together. Judge if this is the Sir Robert you knew. The poHtics of the age are entfrely suspended ; nothing is men tioned ; but this bottUng them up, wUl make them fly out -with the greater ¦violence the moment the parliament meets ; tUl * * * * * a word to you about this affair. I am sorry to hear the Venetian journey of the Snares family ; it does not look as if the Teresina was to marry Pandolfini ; do you know, I have set my heart upon that match. You are very good to the Pucci, to give her fjiat advice, though I don't suppose she AviU foUow it. The Bolognese scheme * * ' ** In return for AmorevoH's letter, he has given me two. I fancy it ¦vrill be troublesome to you ; so put his wife into some other method of correspondence -with him. Do you love puns ? A pretty man of the age came into the play house the other night, booted and spurred : says he, " I am come to see Orpheus" — "And Euridice— Fo« rid T see," repHed another gentieman. ******* ' The omiaaiona in these letters marked with stars occur in the original MS.— Dover. ' " Seen him I have, but in his happier hour Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power." — Pope. — Cunningham. mLl TO SIR HORACE MANN. 79 46. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, October 22, 1741, O.S. Your brother has been with me this morning, and we have talked over your whole affair. He thinks it -wiU be impossible to find any servant of the capacities you require, that -wiU Hve -with you under twenty, if not thirty pounds a-year, especially as he is not to have your clothes : then the expense of the journey to Florence, and of back again, in case you should not Hke him, -wUl be considerable. He is for your taking one from Leghorn ; but I, who know a little more of Leghorn than he does, should be apprehensive of any person from thence being in the interest of Goldsworthy,' or too attached to the merchants : in short, I mean, he would be liable to prove a spy upon you. We have agreed that I shaU endeavour to find out a proper man, if such a one -wUl go to you for twenty pounds a-year, and then you shaU hear from me. I am very sensible that Palonibo' is not fit for you, and shaU be extremely dUigent in equipping you with such a one as you want. You know how much I -wish to be of any service to you, even in trifles. I have been much diverted privately, for it is a secret that not a hundred persons know yet, and is not to be spoken of Do but thinlc on a duel between Winnington ' and Augustus To-wnshend : ' the ' Mr. Goldsworthy, Consul at Leghorn, had married Sir Charles Wager's niece, and was endeavouring to supplant Mr. Mann at Florence. — Walpole. I suppose you know that Mrs. Goldsworthy, being detected en flagrant delit, is sent back to Eng- .and with her children ; some of which, I hear, he disowns. I think her case not unlike Lady Abergavenny's [see p. 367], her loving spouse being very well content with her gallantries while he found his account in them, but raging against those that brought him no profit. — Lady Mary W. Montagu to Lady Pomfret. — Cunningham. '¦' An Italian, secretary to Mr. Mann. — Walpole. ^ Winnington had been bred a Tory, but had left them in the height of Sir Robert Walpole's power : when that minister sunk, he had injudiciously, and, to please my Lady Townshend, who had then the greatest influence over him, declined visiting him, in a manner to offend the steady old Whigs ; and his jolly way of laughing at his own want of principles had revolted all the graver sort, who thought deficiency of honesty too sacred and profitable a commodity to be prophaned and turned into ridicule. He had infinitely more wit than any man I ever knew, and it was as ready and quick as it waa constant and unmeditated. His style was a little brutal, his courage not at all ao ; his good-humour inexhaua*ible ; it was impossible to hate or to trust him. — Walpole, Memoirs of George II. i. 151. Winnington was first made lord of the Admiralty, then of the treasury, then cofferer, and lastly paymaster of the forces; to which ofiice, on his death in 1746, Mr. Pitt succeeded.- — Wright. '' The Hon. Augustus Townshend, was second son of the minister, Lord Townshend, by his second wife [Dorothy], the aister of Sir Robert Walpole. He was consequently half-brother to Charles, the third viscount, husband to Ethelreda [Harrison], Lady Townshend. — Dover. so HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743 latter a pert boy, captain of an Indiaman ; the former declared cicisbeo to [his sister-in-law] my Iiady To^wnshend. The quarrel was something that Augustus had said of them ; for since she was parted from her husband, she has broke with aU his famUy. Winnington challenged ; they walked into Hyde Park last Sunday morning, scratched one another's fingers, tumbled into two ditches — that is, Augustus did, — ^kissed, and walked home together. The other night, at IVIrs. Boothby's ' WeU, I did beHeve I should never find time to write to you again ; I was interrupted in my letter last post, and could not finish it ; to day I came home from the king's levee, where I kissed his hand, without going to the drawing-room, on purpose to finish my letter, and the moment I sat do'wn they let somebody in. That some body is gone, and I go on. — At Mrs. Boothby's, Lady Townshend was coquetting ¦with Lord Baltimore :' he told her, if she meant anything -with him, he was not for her purpose ; if only to make any one jealous, he would throw away an hour with her -with aU his heart. The whole to-wn is to be to-morrow night at Sfr Thomas Robinson's' baU, which he gives to a Httle girl of the Duke of Richmond's. There are already two hundred in-vited, from miss in bib and apron, to my Lord ChanceUor [Hardwicke] in bib and mace. You shaU hear about it next post. I wrote you word that Lord Euston is married : in a week more I believe I shaU write you word that he is divorced. He is brutal enough; and has forbid Lady BurHngton* his house, and that in very ungentle terms. The whole famUy is in confusion ; the Duke of Grafton half dead, and Lord BurHngton half mad. The latter has chaUenged Lord Euston, who accepted the chaUenge, but they were prevented. There 'are different stories : some say that the duel would have been no breach of consanguinity ; others, that ' The lady celebrated in Hanbury Williams's poem of ' IsabeUa, or the Morning' — " To ancient Boothby's ancient Churchill's flown." — Cunningham. • Charles Calvert, sixth Lord Baltimore, in Ireland, born 1699, died 1751. He was much in the confidence of Frederick Prince of AY ales. — Cunningham. ^ Sir Thomas Robinson, of Rokeby Park, in Yorkshire, Bart., commonly caUed " Long Sir Thomas," on account of his stature, and in order to distinguish him from the diplomatist. Sir Thomas Robinson, afterwards created Lord Grantham.— Dover. Chesterfield's extempore epigram upon him is well known. — Cunningham. ¦* Lady Dorothy Savile, eldest daughter and co-heireaa of William second Marquis of Halifax, mother of Lady Euston.— Dover. The Countess of Burlington [p. 76], tiO whom Pope addressed a copy of verses, and the countess who protected Mr» Garrick prior to her marriage.— Cunningham. 1741.1 TO SIR HORACE MANN. 81 there is a contract of marriage come out in another place, which has had more consanguinity than ceremony in it : in short, one cannot go into a room but you hear something of it. Do you not pity the poor girl ? of the softest temper, vast beauty, birth, and fortune, to be so sacrificed ! The letters from the West Indies are not the most agreeable. You have heard of the fine river and little town which Vernon took, and named, the former Augusta, the latter Cumberland. Since that, they have found out that it is impracticable to take St. Jago by sea : on which Admiral Vernon and Ogle insisted that Wentworth, -with the land forces should march to it by land, which he, by ad-vice of aU the land officers, has refused ; for thefr march would have been of eighty miles, through a mountainous, unkno-wn country, fuU of defUes, where not two men could march abreast ; and they have but four thousand five hundred men, and twenty-four horses. Quires of paper from both sides are come over to the councU, who are to determine from hence what is to be done. They have taken a Spanish man-of-war and a register ship, going to Spain, immensely valuable. The parHament does not meet tiU the first of December, which reHeves me into a little happiness, and gives me a Httle time to settle myself. I have unpacked aU my things, and have not had the least thing suffer. I am now only in a fright about my birthday clothes, which I bespoke at Paris : Friday is the day, and this is Monday, ¦without any news of them ! I have been two or three times at the play, very un-wiUingly ; for nothing was ever so bad as the actors, except the company. There is much in vogue a Mrs. Woffington,' a bad actress ; but she has life. Lord Harting-ton' dines here : it is said (and from his father's [Duke of Devonshire's] partiaHty to another person's father [Walpole's o-wn], I don't think it impossible) that he is to marry ' Margaret Woffington, born 1720, died 1760. She was a great beauty, andfamouB for playing Lady Townly, Sir Harry Wildair, &c. There is an admirable portrait of her by Hogarth at Bowood. She ia buried at Teddington, in Twickenhamshire, as Walpole loved to call hia claasic neighbourhood. " So you cannot bear Mra. Woffington; yet aU the town is in love with her. To say the truth, I am glad to find somebody to keep me in countenance, for I think she is an impudent Irish-faced ^x\."— Mr. Conway to Walpole, Oct. 26, 1740.— Cunningham. ^ WUliam, Marquis of Hartington, afterwards fourth Duke of Devonshire He married Lady Charlotte Boyle, second daughter of Richard, third Earl of Burlington — Dover. 82 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741. a certain miss : Lord FitzwilHam ' is supposed another candi date. Here is a new thing, which has been much about town, and Hkea ; your brother Gal.' gave me the copy of it : LES COURS DE L'EUROPE L'AUemagne craint tout ; L'Autriche risque tout ; La BaviSre eapfere tout ; La Prusse entreprend tout ; La Mayence vend tout ; Le Portugal regarde tout ; L'Angleterre vent faire tout L'Espagne embrouille tout ; La Savoye se dgfie de tout ; Le Mercure se m61e de tout ; La France achfete tout ; Les Jesuites se trouvent par tout ; Rome bgnit tout ; Si Dieu ne pourvoye il tout, Le Diable emportera tout. Good night, my dear chUd : you never say a word of your o-wn health ; are not you quite recovered ? a thousand services to Mr. Chute and Mr. Whithed, and to aU my friends : do they begin to forget me ? I don't them. Yours, ever. 47. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, Nov. 2, 1741. You shaU not hear a word but of baUs and pubHc places : this one week has seen Sfr T. Robinson's baU, my Lord Mayor's, the birth day, and the opera. There were an hundred and ninety-seven persons at Sfr Thomas's, and yet was it so weU conducted that nobody felt a crowd. He had taken off aU his doors, and so separated the old and the young, that neither were inconvenienced -with the other. The baU began at eight ; each man danced one minuet with his partner, and then began country dances. There were four-and-twenty couple, ' Miss Mary Walpole [Lady Mary ChurchUl], daughter of Sir Robert Walpole by his second wife, Maria Skerrett, but born before their marriage. When her father was made an earl, she had the rank of an earl's daughter given to her. — Dover. ° See Lord Dover's note on page 84. — Cunningham. ' Galfridus Mann. — Walpole. About autumn [1758], I erected at Linton, in Kent, a tomb for my friend Galfridus Mann; the design was by Mr. Bentley. — WalpoU Short Notes. — Cunningham. 1741.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 83 divided into twelve and twelve : each set danced two dances, and then retfred into another room, whUe the other set took thefr two ; and so alternately. Except Lady Ancram,' no married woman danced ; so, you see, in England, we do not foot it tUl five-and-fifty. The beauties were the Duke of Richmond's two daughters' and thefr mother, stUl handsomer than they : the Duke sat by his -wife' aU night, kissing her hand : how this must sound in the ears of Floren tine cicisbe's, cock or hen ! Then there was Lady Euston, Lady CaroHne Fitzroy," Lady Lucy Manners,' Lady CamiUa Bennet,' and Lady Sophia [Fermor], handsomer than aU, but a Httle out of humour at the scarcity of minuets ; however, as usual, she danced more than anybody, and, as usual too, took out what men she Hked or thought the best dancers. Mem. Lord Holdemess' is a Utile what Lord Lincoln' wUl be to-morrow ; for he is expected. There was [General] Churchill's' daughter,' who is prottyish, and dances well ; and the Parsons' famUy from Paris, who are admired too ; but indeed it is a force des muscles. Two other pretty women were IVLrs. Colebroke (did you know the he-Colebroke in Italy ?) and a Lady Schaub, a foreigner, who, as Sfr Luke says,' would have him. Sir ' Lady Caroline D'Arcy, daughter of Robert third Earl of Holdernesae, and wife of William Henry fourth Marquis of Lothian, at this time, during his father's lifetime, called Earl of Ancram. — Dover. ^ Lady Caroline and Lady Emily Lenox. — Walpole. The former was married, in 1744, to Henry Fox, the first Lord Holland ; the latter, in 1746-7, to James, twentieth Earl of Kildare, in 1766 created Duke of Leinster.— Weight. ^ Charles, second Duke of Richmond, and Lady Sarah Cadogan, his Duchess, eldest daughter of William Earl Cadogan. — Dover. Eldest daughter of Charles Duke of Grafton. — Walpole. The Lady Caroline Petersham, and Countess of Harrington of Walpole's Letters. We shall hear more about her, and pleasantly enough. — Cunningham. ' Sister to John Duke of Rutland ; married, in 1742, to the Duke of Montrose.— Walpole. ^ Only daughter of Charles second Earl of Tankerville. She married first, Gilbert Fane Fleming, Esq., and secondly, Mr. Wake, of Bath. — Dover. ' Robert D'Arcy, fourth and last Earl of Holdernesse. [See p. 17.]— Cunningham. * That is, in love with Lady Sophia Fermor. [See note ^ p. 76.]— Cunningham. ' Old General ChurchUl, a great favourite with Sir Robert Walpole, and immortal ised by Hanbury WUliams. His son, by Mrs. Oldfield the actress, married Sir Robert Walpole's natural daughter, by MoU Skerrett. We shall hear much of both, aa we read on. See p. 112. — Cunningham. ' Harriet, natural daughter of General Churchill; afterwards married to Sir Everard Fawkener [Secretary to the CuUoden Duke of Cumberiand].— Walpole. ^ The son and daughters of Alderman Parsons, a Jacobite brewer, who lived much in France, and had, somehow or other, been taken notice of by the King.— Walpole. ' Calvert's butt and Parsons' black champagne ' are immortalised by Goldsmith.— Cunningham. s Sir Luke Schaub, a kind of WUl Chiffinch to George I., and much m the favour of George II. He had several pensions from both Kings for confidential services 84 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741. R. [obert] was afraid of the heat, and did not go. The supper was served at twelve ; a large table of hot for the lady-dancers ; their partners and other tables stood round. We danced (for I country- danced) tiU four, then had tea and coffee, and came home. — Finis Balli. * * * Friday was the birthday ; it was vastly fuU, the baU immoderately so, for there came aU the second edition of my lord mayor's, but not much finery : Lord FitzwiUiam and myself were far the most superb. I did not get mine tUl nine that morning. The opera -will not teU so weU as the two other shows, for they were obHged to omit the part of AmorevoH, who has a fever. The audience was excessive, -without the least disturbance, and almost as Httle applause ; I cannot conceive why, for MonticeUi * * * * * be able to sing to-morrow. At court I met the Shadwells ; ' MademoiseUe Misse MolH, &c. I love them, for they asked vastly after you, and kindly. Do you know, I have had a mind to -visit Pucci, the Florentine minister, but he is so black, and looks so Hke a murderer in a play, that I have never brought it about yet ? I know none of the foreign ministers, but Ossorio ' a little ; he is stUl vastly in fashion, though extiemely altered. Scandal, who, I beHeve, is not mistaken, lays a Miss Macartney to his charge ; she is a companion to the Duchess of Richmond [Lady Sarah Cadogan], as Madame Goldsworthy was ; but Ossorio -wiU rather be Wachtendonck ' than Goldsworthy : what a lamentable story is that of the hundred sequins per month ! I have mentioned Mr. Jackson, as you desired, to Sir R. [obert], who says, he has a very good opinion of him. In case of any change at Leghorn, you will let me know. He wiU not lose his patron. Lord Hervey,' so soon as I imagined ; he begins to recover. abroad .and at home. He possessed a fair coUection of pictures, which at his death in 1758, brought good prices. The ' Sigismnnda,' by Correggio, now at the Duke of Newcastle's, at Clumber, (really by Furini), which provoked Hogarth, and occasioned his ' Sigismnnda,' was Sir Luke Schaub's. Lady Schaub is immortalised in ' The Long Story ' of Gray. She died very old in 1793. — Cunningham. ' William third Earl Fitzwilliam, in Ireland ; created an English peer in 1742 ; and in 1746 an English earl. — Dover. ^ Sir John Shadwell, a physician, his wife and daughters, the youngest of whom was pretty, and by the foreigners generally called Mademoiselle Misse Molli, had been in Italy, when Mr. W. was there. — Walpole. Sir John was the son of Thomas Shadwell the dramatist, and antagonist of Dryden. — Cunningham. ' The Chevalier Ossorio, minister from the King of Sardinia. — Walpole. ' General Wachtendonck, commander of the great Duke's troops at Leghorn, waa cicisbeo to the consul's wife there. — Walpole. * John Lord Hervey, lord privy seal [husband of Molly Lepel], and eldest son of 1741.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 85 I beHeve the Euston embroU is adjusted; I was -with Lady CaroHne Fitzroy [afterwards Lady CaroHne Petersham] on Friday evening; there were her brother and the bride, and qiute bridal together, quite honey-moonish. I forgot to teU you that the Prince [of Wales] was not at the Opera ; I beHeve it has been settled that he should go thither on Tuesdays, and Majesty on Saturdays, that they may not meet. The NeutiaHty ' begins to break out, and threatens to be an excise or convention. The Newspapers are fuU of it, and the press teems. It has afready produced three pieces : " The Groans of Germany," which I -wiU send you by the first opportunity : " Bedlam, a poem on His Majesty's happy escape from his German dominions, and all the -wisdom of his conduct there." The title of this is aU that is remarkable in it. The thfrd piece is a BaUad, which, not for the goodness, but for the excessive abuse of it, I shaU transcribe ; THE LATE GALLANT EXPLOITS OP A FAMOUS BALANCING CAPTAIN.^ A NEW SONG. To THE TUNE OF THE KING AND THE MILLER. Mene tekel. The handwriting on the wall. I'll tell you a story as strange as 'tis new. Which all, who're concern'd, will allow to be true. Of a Balancing Captain, well-known hereabouts, Return'd home, God save him ! a mere King of Clouts. This Captain he takes, in a jroM-ballast'd ship, Each summer to Terra damnosa a trip. For which he begs, borrows, scrapes all he can get, A nd runs his poor Owners most vilely in debt. The last time he set out for thia blessed place. He met them, and told them a most piteous ca.se. Of a sister of hia, who, though bred up at court. Was ready to perish for want of support. John first Earl of Bristol. He was a man of considerable celebrity in his day ; but is now principally known from hia unfortunate rivalry with Pope, for the good graces of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. He died August 5, 1743, at the age of forty-seven.— Dover. Since Lord Dover died, the publication of Lord Hervey's delightful Memoirs has materially added to his celebrity, and to the accuracy of Walpole's Reminiscences. — Cunningham.' The Neutrality for the electorate of Hanover. —Walpole. ' This song is a satire upon George II. " the balancing Captain," and upon that 86 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS niT41 This Hun-gry Sister, he then did pretend. Would be to his Owners a notable friend. If they would at that critical juncture supply her- They did — but alas ! all the fat's in the fire ! This our Captain no sooner had finger'd the cole. But he hies him abroad with his good Madam Vole — Where, like a true tinker, he managed this metal. And while he stopp'd one hole, made ten in the kettle. His Sister, whom he to his Owners had sworn. To see duly settled before his return, He gulls with bad messages sent to and fro. Whilst he underhand claps up a peace with her foe. He then turns this Sister adrift, and declares Her most mortal foes were her Father's right heirs — " G — d z — ds !" cries the world, "such a step was ne'er taken i ' " 0, ho ! " says Nol Bluff, " I have saved my own bacon. " Let France damn the Germans, and undamn the Dutch, And Spain on Old England pish ever so much. Let Russia bang Sweden, or Sweden bang that, I care not, by Robert ! one kick of my hat. " So I by myself can noun substantive stand. Impose on my Owners, and save my own land ; You call me masculine, feminine, neuter, or block. Be what will the genders, sirs, hie, haec, or hoc. " Or should my chous'd Owners begin to look sour, I '11 trust to Mate Bob to exert his old power. Regit animos dictis, or nummis, with ease. So, apite of your growling, I '11 act as I please." Yet worse in thia treacheroua contract, 'tis said. Such terms are agreed to, such promises made, That his Owners must soon feeble beggars become — " Hold ! " cries the Crown office, " 'twere scandal — so, mum ! " This secret, however, must out on the day When he meeta his poor Owners to ask for more pay ; And I fear when they come to adjust the account, A zero for balance, will prove their amount. vacillating and doubtful conduct, which his fears for the electorate of Hanover mado him pursue, whenever Germany was the seat of war. Hia Sister, whom he is accused of deserting, was Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary. — Dover. 1741.) TO SIR HORACE MANN. 87 One or two of the stanzas are tolerable ; some, especiaUy the ninth, most nonsensicaUy bad. However, this is a specimen of what we shaU have amply commented upon in parHament. I have already found out a person, who, I beHeve, ¦wUl please you in Palombo's place: I am to see your brother about it to morrow-morning, and next post you shaU hear more particularly. I am quite in concern for the poor princess,' and her conjugal and amorous distresses : I reaUy pity them ; were they in England, we should have aU the old prudes deaHng out judgments on her, and mumbUng toothless ditties, to the tune of Pride icill have a fall. I am buying some fans and trifles for her, si mignons ! Good night. Yours, ever. 48. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Downing Street, Nov. 5, 1741, O.S. I JUST mentioned to you in my letter on Monday, that I had found such a person as you wanted ; I have since seen your brother, who is so satisfied ¦with him, that he was for sending him dfrectly away to you, -without staying six weeks for an answer from you ; but I chose to have your consent. He is the son of a tradesman in the City, so not yet a fine gentleman. He is between fifteen and sixteen, but very taU of his age : he was disappointed in not going to a merchant at Genoa, as was intended ; but was so far provided for it, as to have learned Italian three months : he speaks French very weU, writes a good hand, and casts accounts ; so, you see, there wUl not be much trouble in forming him to your purpose. He ¦wUl go to you for twenty pounds a-year and his lodging. If you Hke this, ¦write me word by the first post, and he shaU set out dfrectly. We hear to-day that the Toulon squadron is arrived at Barcelona ; I don't Hke it of aU things, for it has a look towards Tuscany. If i^ is suffered to go thither quietly, it ¦wiU be no smaU addition to the present discontents. Here is another letter, which I am entreated to send you, from poor AmorevoH ; he has a continued fever, though not a high one. ' The Prince de Craon, and the princess hia wife, who had been favourite mistress to Leopold, the last Duke of Lorrain, resided at this time at Florence, where the prince was head of the council of regency ; but they were extremely ill-treated and mortified by the Count de Richcourt, a Low Lorrainer [p. 169], who, being a creature of the great duke's favourite minister, had the chief ascendant and power there. — Walpole. 88 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741 Yesterday, MonticelH was taken iU, so there -will be no opera on Saturday ; nor was on Tuesday. Monticelli is infinitely admfred ; next to FarineUi. The Viscoutina is admired more than liked. The music displeases everybody, and the dances. I am quite uneasy about the Opera, for Mr. Conway is one of the directors, and I fear they -wUl lose considerably, which he cannot afford. There are eight, Lord Middlesex,' Lord Holdemess, Mr. Frederick,' Lord Conway, Mr. Conway, Mr. Damer,' Lord Brook," and Mr. Brand.' The five last are directed by the three first ; they by the first, and he by the Abbe Vanneschi,' who 'wUl make a pretty sum. I wiU give you some instances ; not to mention the improbabUity of eight young thoughtless men of fashion understanding economy : it is usual to give the poet fifty guineas for composing the books — Vanneschi and RoUi are aUowed three hundred. Three hundred more Vanneschi had for his journey to Italy to pick up dancers and performers, which was always as well transacted by bankers there He has additionaUy brought over an ItaHan taUor — ^because there are none here ! They have afready given this Taylorini four hundred pounds, and he has afready taken a house of thfrty pounds a-year. MonticelH and the Visconti are to have a thousand guineas a-piece ; AmorevoH eight hundred and fifty : this at the rate of the great singers, is not so extravagant ; but to the Muscovita (though the second woman never had above four hundred) they give six ; that is for secret services.' By this you may judge of their frugaUty ! ' Charles Sackville, Earl of Middlesex, and subsequently second Duke of Dorset, eldest son of Lionel first Duke of Dorset. He was made a lord of the Treasury in 1743, and Master of the Horse to Frederick, Prince of Wales, in 1747. — Dover. See note, ante, p. 71. — Cunningham. ^ John Frederick, Esq., afterwards Sir John Frederick, Bart., by the death of his cousin. Sir Thomas. He was a commissioner of customs, and member of parliament for West Looe. — Dover. ^ Joseph Damer, Esq., created in 1763 Baron Milton, in Ireland, and by George III. an English peer, by the same title, and eventually Earl of Dorchester. — Dover. * Francis GreviUe, eighth Lord Brooke; created in 1746 Earl Brooke, and in 1769 Earl of Warwick. — Dover. ' Thomas Brand, Esq., of the Hoo, in Hertfordshire [p. 17], one of the original members of the society of Dilettanti. — Dover. ^ If thia anticipation of Walpole'a was ever realised, "the pretty sum" -was eventually lost on the spot where it had been gained. Vanneachi, having in 1753 undertaken the management of the Opera-House on his own account, continued it until 1756, when hia differencea with Mingotti, which excited almoat as much of the public attention as the rivalries of Handel and Bononcini or of Faustina and Cuzzoni, completely prejudiced the public against him, and eventually ended in making him a bankrupt, a prisoner in the Fleet, and at last a fugitive. — Wright. ' She was kept by Lord Middlesex. — Walpolk. She was not pretty, see p. 45.— Cunningham, 1741.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 89 I am quite uneasy for poor Harry [Mr. Conway], who wiU thus be to pay for Lord Middlesex's pleasures I Good night ! I have not time now to write more. Yom-s, ever. 49. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Downing Street, Nov. 12, 1741. Nothing is equal to my uneasiness about you. I hear or think of nothing but Spanish embarkations for Tuscany : before you receive this, perhaps, they wUl be at Leghorn. Then, your brother tells me you have received none of my letters. He knows I have never faUed writing once a week, if not twice. We have had no letters from you this post. I shaU not have the least respite from my anxiety, tUl I hear about you, and what you design to do. It is impossible but the Great Duke must lose Tuscany ; and I suppose it is as certain, (I speak on probabUities, for, upon honour, I know nothing of the matter,) that as soon as there is a peace, we shall acknowledge Don PhUip, and then you may return to Florence again. In the meanwhUe I -wUl ask Sfr R. [obert] if it is possible to get your appointments continued, whUe you stay in readiness at Bologna, Rome, Lucca, or where you choose. I talk at random ; but as I think so much of you, I am trying to find out something that may be of ser^vice to you. I write in infinite hurry, and am caUed away, so scarce know what I say. Lord Conway and his famUy are this instant come to town, and have sent for me. It is Admfral Vernon's bfrthday,' and the city-shops are full of favours, the streets of marrowbones and cleavers, and the night wiU be fuU of mobbing, bonffres, and Hghts. The opera does not succeed ; AmorevoH has not sung yet ; here is a letter to his ¦wife : mind, whUe he is Ul, he sends none to the Chiaretta ! The dances are infamous and ordinary. Lord Chester field [the ¦witty Earl] was told that the Viscoutina said she was but four-and-twenty : he answered, " I suppose she means four- and-twenty stone ! " There is a mad person goes about ; he caUed to a sentinel the ' Admiral Vernon was now in the height of his popularity, in consequence of his successful attack upon Porto-BeUo, in November, 1739, and the great gaUantry he had shown upon that occasion. His determined and violent opposition, aa a member of pariiament, to the measures of the government, assisted in rendering him the idol of the mob, which he continued for many years. — Dover. 90 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [174L other day in the Park ; " Did you ever see the Le^viathan ? "— '< No." — " WeU, he is as Hlte Sfr R. W. as ever two de^vUs were Hke one another." Never was such unwholesome weather ! I have a great cold, and have not been weU this fortnight : even immortal majesty has had a looseness. The Duke of Ancaster ' and Lord James Cavendish ' are dead. This is aU the news I know : I would I had time to ¦write more ; but I know you ¦wiU excuse me now. If I ¦wrote more, it would be still about the ItaHan expedition, I am so disturbed about it. Yours, ever. 50. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Downing Street, Nov. 23, 1741. Your letter has comforted me much, if it can be caUed comfort to have one's uncertainty fluctuate to the better side. You make me hope that the Spaniards design on Lombardy ; my passion for Tuscany, and anxiety for you, make me eager to beHeve it ; but alas ! while I am in the beHef of this, they may be in the act of conquest in Florence, and poor you retiring poHticaUy ! How deHghtful is Mr. Chute for clea^ving unto you Hke Ruth ! "Whither thou goest, I wiU go ; and where thou lodgest, I ¦wiU lodge ! " .As to the merchants at Leghorn and their concerns, Sfr R. [obert] thinks you are mistaken, and that if the Spaniards come thither, they wiU by no means be safe. I own I write to you under a great dUemma ; I flatter myself, all is weU with you ; but if not, how disagreeable to have one's letters faU into strange hands. — I write, however. A brother of mine,' Edward by name, has lately had a caU to matrimony : the virgin's name was Howe." He had agreed to take ' Peregrine Bertie, second Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven. The report of his death was premature. — Wright. " The second son of William, second Duke of Devonshire. He was colonel of a regiment of foot-guards, and member for Malton. — Wright. ^ Second son of Sir Robert Walpole. He was Clerk of the Pella, and afterwards Knight of the Bath. — Walpole. Sir Edward died unmarried, in 1784, leaving three natural daughters ; Laura, married to the Hon. aud Rev. Frederick Keppel, afterwards Bishop of Exeter ; Maria, married, first to the Earl of Waldegrave, and, secondly, to the Duke of Gloucester ; and Charlotte, married to the Earl of Dysart. — Wright. ^ [Caroline] eldest sister of the Lord Viscount Howe. She was soon after this married to a relation of her own name. — Walpole. Mrs. Howe (Widow of John Howe, Esq., of Hanslop, Bucks) died 1814. Walpole in his old age speaks indiffer ently of her friendship, but Miss Berry defends her. — Cunningham. 1741.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 91 her with no fortune, she him with his four chUdren. The father of him, to get rid of his importunities, at last acquiesced. The very moment he had obtained this consent, he repented ; and, mstead of flying on the wings of love to notffy it, he went to his fafr one, owned his father had moUificd, but hoped she would be so good as to excuse him. You cannot imagine what an entertaining fourth act of the opera we had the other night. Lord Vane,' in the middle of the pit, making love to my lady. The Dul^e of Newcastie' has lately given him threescore thousand pounds, to consent to cut off the entaU of the Newcastle estate. The fool immediately wrote to his wife, to beg she would return to him from Lord Berkeley ; ' that he had got so much money, and now they might Hve comfortably ; but she -wUl not Hve comfortably : she is at Lord Berkeley's house, whither go divers after her. Lady To-wnshend told me an admfrable history ; it is of our friend Lady Pomfret. Somebody that belonged to the Prince of Wales said, they were going to Court ; it was objected that they ought to say, going to Carlton House ; that the only Cotirt is where the King resides. Lady P. -with her paltry air of signi ficant learning and absm-dity, said, " Oh Lord ! is there no Court in England, but the king's ? sure, there are many more ! There is the Court of Chancery, the Court of Exchequer, the Court of King's Bench, &c." Don't you love her ? Lord Lincoln does her daughter [Lady Sophia Fermor] : he is come over, and met her the other night : he turned pale, spoke to her several times in the evening, but not long, and sighed to me at going away. He came over aU aHve ; and not only his Uncle-Duke [the Duke of New- ' WUliam, second Viscount Vane, in Ireland. His " lady " was the too-celebrated Lady Vane, first married to Lord William Hamilton, and secondly to Lord Vane ; who has given her own extraordinary and disreputable adventures to the world, in SmoUett'a novel of " Peregrine Pickle," under the title of " Memoira of a Lady of Quality." — Dover. She waa the daughter of Mr. Hawes, a South Sea director, and died in 1788. Lord Vane died in 1789. — Wright. Lady Vane is returned hither [London] in company with Lord Berkeley, and went with him in pubUc to Cranford [near Hounslow], where they remain as happy as love and youth can make them. I am told that though she does not pique herself upon fideUty to any one man (which is but a narrow way of thinking), she boasts th.at she has always been true to her nation, and, notwithstanding foreign attacks, has always reserved her charms for the use of her own countrymen. — Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to Lady Pomfret, 1738. — Cunningham. ' Uncle of Lord Vane, whose father. Lord Barnard, had married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Gilbert Holies, Earl of Clare, and aister and co-heir of John Duke of Newcastle [the minister]. — Walpole. ^ Augustus, fourth Earl of Berkeley, born 1716, died 1755. See p. 801.— Cunningham. 92 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741. castle], but even Majesty is faUen in love -with him. He talked to the King at his levee, -without being spoken to. That was always thought high treason ; but I don't know how the gruff gentleman Hked it ; and then he had been told that Lord Lincoln designed to have made the campaign, if we had gone to war ; in short, he says, Lord Lincoln is the handsomest man in England. I beHeve I told you that Vernon's bfrthday passed quietly, but it was not designed to be pacific ; for at twelve at night, eight gentle men, dressed Hke saUors, and masked, went round Covent Garden -with a drum, beating up for a volunteer mob ; but it did not take ; and they retfred to a great supper that was prepared for them at the Bedford Head,' and ordered by [Paul] Whitehead,' the author of " Manners." It has been -written into the country that Sfr R. [obert] has had two fits of an apoplexy, and cannot Hve tUl Christmas ; but I think he is recovered to be as weU as ever. To-morrow se'nnight is the Bay! ' It is critical. You shaU hear faithfuUy. The Opera takes : MonticeUi pleases almost equal to FarinelH : AmorevoH is much Hked ; but the poor, fine Viscoutina scarce at aU. I carry the two former to-night to my Lady To-wnshend's. Lord Coventry " has had his son thrown out by the party : he went to Carlton House ; the Prince asked him about the election : " Sir," said he, " the Tories have betrayed me, as they wiU you, the first time you have occasion for them." The merchants have petitioned the King for more guard-ships. My Lord President ' [WUmington] referred them to the Adnuralty ; but they bluntly refused to go, and said they woiUd have redress from the King himself. ' A celebrated tavern in Covent Garden so called. " Let me extol a cat on oysters fed ; I'll have a party at the Bedford Head." — Pope. " When sharp with hunger, scorn you to be fed Except on pea-chicks at the Bedford Head." — Pope. — Cunningham. ' Paul Whitehead [died 1774], an infamous, but not despicable poet. — Walpole, In politics, Whitehead was a follower of Bubb Dodington ; in private life he was the friend and companion of the profligate Sir Francis Dashwood, 'Wilkes, Churchill, &c., and, lik e them, was a member of the Hell-fire Club, which held its orgies at Medmenham Abbey, iu Bucks. The estimation in which he was held, even by his friends, may he judged of by the lines in which ChurchUl has " damned him to everlasting fame ;"— " May I (can worse disgrace on manhood fall 1) Be born a Whitehead, and baptised a Paul." — Dover, ' The day the parliament was to meet. — Walpole. " William, fifth Eari of Coventry. He died in 1751. — Dover. ¦* Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, u. man of moderate abUities, but who had filled many great offices. He died in 1743, when his titles extinguished.— Dover. 1741.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 98 I am caUed do^wn to dinner, and cannot write more now. I ¦wUl thank dear Mr. Chute and the Grifona next post. I hope she and you Hked your things. Good night, my dearest child ! Your brother and I sit upon your affafrs every morning. Yours, ever. 51. TO SIR HORACE MANN, Nov. 26, 1741. I don't ¦write you a very long letter, because you -will see the inclosed to Mx. Chute. I forgot to thank you last post for the songs, and your design on the Maltese cats. It is terrible to be in this uncertainty about you ! We have not had the least news about the Spaniards, more than what you told us, of a few vessels being seen off Leghorn. I send about the post, and ask Sfr R. [obert] a thousand times a- day. I beg to know if you have never heard anything from Parker about my statue : ' it was to have been finished last June. What is the meaning he does not mention it ? If it is done, I beg it may not stir from Rome tiU there is no more danger of Spaniards. If you get out of your hurry, I ¦wUl tiouble you ¦with a new commission : I find I cannot Hve ¦without Stosch's ' intagUo of the Gladiator, ¦with the vase, upon a granite. You know I offered him fifty pounds : I think, rather than not have it, I would give a hun dred. What ¦wiU he do if the Spaniards should come to Florence P Should he be driven to stiaits, perhaps he would part ¦with his Meleager too. You see I am as eager about baubles as if I were going to Louis at the Palazzo Vecchio ! You can't think what a closet I have fitted up ; such a mixture of French gaiety and Roman virtii ! you would be in love ¦with it : I have not rested tUl it was finished : I long to have you see it. Now I am angry that I did not buy the Hermaphrodite ; the man would have sold it for twenty- five sequins : do buy it for me ; it was a friend of Bianchi. Can you forgive me ? I ¦write aU this upon the hope and presumption that the Spaniards go to Lombardy. Good night. Yours, ever. ' A copy of the Livia Mattel, which Mr. W. designed for a tomb of his mother : it was erected in Henry VII.'s chapel, in Westminster Abbey, in 1764. — Walpole. ' He gave it afterwards to Lord Duncannon, for procuring him the arrears of hia pension. — Walpole. 9^ HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [174L 62. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Downing Street, Dec. 3, 1741, O.S. Here I have two letters from you to answer. You cannot con ceive my joy on the prospect of the Spaniards going to Lombardy : aU ad^vices seem to confirm it. There is no teUing you what I have felt, and shaU feel, tUl I am certain you are secure. You ask me about Admfral Haddock ; you must not wonder that I have told you nothing of him; they know nothing of him here. He had discretionary powers to act as he should judge proper from his notices. He has been keeping in the Spanish fleet at Cales [Cadiz]. Sir R. [obert] says, if he had let that go out, to prevent the em barkation, the Tories would have complained, and said he had favoured the Spanish trade, under pretence of hindering an expedi tion which was never designed. It was stiongly reported last week that Haddock had shot himself; a satfre on his ha^ving been neutial, as they caU it. The ParHament met the day before yesterday, and there were four hundred and eighty-seven members present. They did no business, only proceeded to choose a Speaker, which was, unani mously, Mx. Onslow, moved for by Mr. Pelham,' and seconded by Mr. Clutterbuck. But the Opposition, to flatter his pretence to popularity and impartiaHty, caU him thefr o^wn speaker. They intend to oppose Mr. Earle's'' being chafrman of the Committee, and to set up a Dr. Lee,' a ci-vUian. To-morrow the King makes his Speech. WeU, I won't keep you any longer in suspense. The ' The Right Hon. Henry Pelham, so long, in conjunction with his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, one of the principal rulers of this country. He was a man of some ability, and a tolerable speaker. The vacillations, the absurdity, the foolish jealousy of the Duke, greatly injured the stability and respectability of Mr. Pelham's administration. Mr. Pelham was born in 1696, and died in 1764. — Dover. ' Giles Eiirle, Esq., one of the lords of the Treasury, and who had been chairman of the committees of the House of Commons from 1727 to the date of this letter. He had been successively groom of the bed-chamber to the Prince of Wales in 1718, clerk comptroller of the king's household in 1720, commissioner of the Irish revenue in 1728, and a lord of the Treasury in 1738. Mr. Earle was a man of broad coarse wit, and a lively image of his style and aentimenta has been preserved by Sir C. H. Williams, in his " Dialogue between Giles Earle and Bubb Dodington." — Wright. ^ George Lee, brother to the lord chief-justice ; he was appointed one of the lords of the Admiralty on the following change, which post he resigned on the disgrace of hia patron. Lord GranviUe. He was afterwards designed by the Prince of Wales for his first minister, and, immediately on the Prince's death, was appointed treasurer tc the Princess Dowager, and soon after made Dean of the Arches, a knight, and privy counsellor. He died in 1758. — Walpolk. n41.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 95 Court \viU have a majority of forty — a vast number for the outset : a good majority, like a good sum of money, soon makes itself bigger. The first great point "wUl be the Westminster election ; another, Mr. Pulteney's ' election at Heydon ; Mx. Chute's brother is one of the petitioners. It -wUl be an ugly affafr for the Court, for Pulteney has asked votes of the courtiers, and said Sfr R. [obert] was indifferent about it ; but he is warmer than I almost ever saw him, and declared to ChurchUl,' of whom Pulteney claims a promise, that he must take Walpole or Pulteney. The Sack-vUle famUy were engaged too, by means of George Berkeley, brother to Lady Betty Germain,' whose infiuence -with the Dorset I suppose you know ; but the King was so hot -with his grace about his sons, that I believe they -will not venture to follow thefr inclinations * * * to vote " for Pulteney, though he has expressed great concern about it to Sir R. [obert]. So much for PoHtics ! for I suppose you know that Prague is taken by storm, in a night's time. I forgot to teU you that Com modore Lestock, -with twelve ships, has been waiting for a -wind this fortnight, to join Haddock.' I write to you in defiance of a ¦violent headache, which I got last night at another of Sfr T. Robinson's baUs. There were six hundred invited, and I beHeve above two hundred there. Lord Lincoln, out of prudence, danced ¦with Lady CaroHne Fitzroy [Petersham], and Mr. Conway "with Lady Sophia [Fermor] ; the two couple were just mismatched, as every body soon perceived, by the attentions of each man to the woman he did not dance ¦with, and the emulation of either lady : it was an admfrable scene. The baU broke up at ' William Pulteney, afterwards Earl of Bath, whose character and history are too well known to require to be here enlarged upon. — Dover. ' General Charles Churchill, groom of the bedchamber to the King. — Walpole. ' Lady Betty Berkeley, married to the notorious adventurer and gambler. Sir John Germain, who had previously married the divorced Duchess of Norfolk (Lady Mary Mordaunt), by whose bequest he became possessed of the estate of Drayton, in Northamptonshire, which he left on his own death to Lady Betty, his second wife. Lady Betty left it to Lord George Sackville, third son of Lionel first Duke of Dorset — Dover. Lady Betty was the friend and correspondent of Swift. In early life she made a mishap. (See Duchess of Marlborough to Lord Stair, at the end of W'alpole s " Reminiscences," in this volume.) She survived her husband fifty-one years, 1718- 1769. — Cunningham. ¦* Sic, in the manuscript. — Dover. * But for this circumstance, and the junction of the French squadron, Haddock would certainly have destroyed the Spanish fleet, and thereby escaped the imputation which was circulated with much industry, that his hands had been tied up by a neutrality entered into for Hanover; than which nothing could be more false. These reports, though ostensibly directed against Haddock, were, in reality, aimed at Sir Robert Walpole, a general election being at hand, and his opponents wishing to render him as unpopular with the people as possible. — Wright. 96 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS, [1741. three ; but Lincoln, Lord Holdemess, Lord Robert Sutton,' young ChurchUl,' and a dozen more, grew joUy, stayed tUl seven in the morning, and drank thfrty-two bottles. I wiU take great care to send the knee-buckles and pocket-book ; I have got them, and Madame Pucci's sUks, and only wait to hear that Tuscany is quiet, and then I -wUl convey them by the first ship. I would -write to them to-night, but have not time now ; old Gibber ' plays to-night, and all the world -vriU be there. Here is another letter from AmorevoH, who is out of his wits at not hearing from his -wife. Adieu ! my dearest chUd. How happy shaU I be when I know you are in peace. Yours, ever. 53. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Somerset House, {for I write to you wlierever I find myself) Dec. 10, 1741. I have got no letter from you yet, the post should have brought it yesterday. The Gazette says, that the Cardinal " has declared that they -win suffer no expedition against Tuscany. I -wish he had told me so ! if they preserve this guarantee, personaUy, I can forgive thefr breaking the rest. But I long for your letter ; every letter now from each of us is material. You wiU be almost as impatient to hear of the parHament, as I of Florence. The lords on Friday went upon the King's speech ; Lord Chesterfield made a very fine speech against the address, aU leveUed at the house of Hanover. Lord Cholmley, they say, answered him weU. Lord Halifax ' spoke very iU, and was answered by Httie Lord Raymond,' who always ' Second aon of John, third Duke of Rutland, He took the name of Sutton, on inheriting the estate of his maternal grandfather, Robert Sutton, Lord Lexington. — Dover. 2 Natural son of General Charlea ChurchiU, afterwards married to Mary, [natural] daughter of Sir Robert Walpole. [See pp. 82 and 83].— Dover. ' CoUey Gibber, the celebrated dramatic author and actor. He had left the stage in 1731 ; but atUl occaaionally acted, in apite of his age, for he was now seventy.— Dover. For these occasional performances he is said to have had fifty guineas per night. So late aa 1746, he appeared in the character of Pandulph, the Pope's legate, in his own tragedy, called " Papal Tyranny." He died in 1757. — Wright. ¦* Cardinal Fleury, first minister of France. — Walpole. ' George Montague Dunk, second Eari of Halifax [born 1739, died 1771]. Undei the reign of George III. he became secretary of state, and was so unfortunate in that capacity as to be the opponent of Wilkes, on the subject of General Warrants, by which he is now principally remembered. — Dover. ' Robert, second Lord Raymond, only son of the chief-justice of that name and title. — Dover. 1741 J TO SIR HORACE MANN. 97 wUl answer him. Your friend Lord Sandwich ' affronted his gi-ace of Grafton' extremely, who was iU, and sat out of his place, by caUing him to order ; it was indecent in such a boy to a man of his age and rank : the blood of Fitzroy vnR not easUy pardon it. Tho Court had a majority of forty-one, -with some converts. On Tuesday we had the Speech ; there were great differences among the party ; the Jacobites, -with Shippen ' and Lord Noel Somerset " at their head, were for a di-vision, Pulteney and the Patiiots against one ; ' the Ul-success in the House of Lords had frightened them : we had no di-vision, but a very warm battle between Sfr R. and Pulteney. The latter made a fine speech, very personal, on the state of affafrs. Sfr R. -with as much health, as much spfrits, as much force and command as ever, answered him for an hour ; said, " He had long been taxed -with aU our misfortunes ; but did he raise the war in Germany ? or ad-vise the war ¦with Spain ? did he kill the late Emperor or King of Prussia ? did he counsel this King ? or was he ffrst minister to the King of Poland ? did he kindle the war bef-wixt Musco-vy and Sweden ? " For our troubles at home, he said, " all the grievances of this nation were owing to the Patriots." They laughed much at this ; but does he want proofs of it? He said, "They talked much of an equUibrium in this parHament, and of what they designed against him ; if it was so, the sooner he knew it the better ; and therefore if any man would move for a day to examine the state of the nation, he would second it." Mr. Pulteney did move for it ; Sir R. did second it, and it is fixed for the twenty-first of January. Sfr R. repeated some words ' John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich [died 1792], passed through a long Ufe of office, and left behind him an indifferent character, both in public and private life.— — Dover.2 Charles Fitzroy, second Duke of Grafton [died 1757], and grandaon of Charles II., was >» person of considerable weight and influence at the court of George IL, where he long held the post of chamberlain of the household. — Walpole. ^ His [Shippen's] manner [as Walpole told Coxe] was highly energetic and spirited as to sentiment and expression ; but he generally spoke in a low tone of voice, with too great rapidity, and held his glove before his mouth. His speeches usually con tained some pointed period, which peculiarly applied to the subject in debate, and which he uttered with great animation. Coxe — Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole, i. 672. 3 vols. 4to, 1798. WiUiam Shippen, a celebrated Jacobite, born 1672, died 1743. See p. 134. " I love to pour out all myself, aa plain As downright Shippen, or as old Montaigne." — Pope. " Lord Charles Noel Somerset [died 1756], second son of Henry, second Duke of Beaufort. He succeeded to the family honours in 1746.— Dover. ' Mr. Pulteney declared against dividing ; observing, with a witticism, thai ¦' dividing was not the way to multiply. ' — Walpole. 98 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741, of Lord Chesterfield's, in the House of Lords, that this was a time for truth, for plain truth, for English truth, and hinted at the recep tion ' his lordship had met in France. After these speeches of such consequence, and from such men, Mr. Lyttelton got up to justify, or rather to flatter Lord Chesterfield, though everybody then had forgot that he had been mentioned. Danvers,' who is a rough, rude beast, but now and then mouths out some humour, said, " that Mr. P. and Sfr R. were like two old bawds, debauching young members." That day was a day of triumph, but yesterday (Wednesday) the streamers of -victory did not fly so gaUantly. It was the day of recei-ving petitions ; Mr. Pulteney presented an immense piece of parchment, which he said he could but just Hft ; it was the West minster petition, and is to be heard next Tuesday, when we shaU aU have our brains knocked out by the mob ; so if you don't hear from me next post, you -wUl conclude my head was a Httle out of order. After this we went upon a Cornish petition, presented by Sfr WUHam Yonge,' which drew on a debate and a di-vision, when lo ! we were ' Lord Chesterfield hadbeen sent by the party, in the preceding September, to France, to request the Duke of Ormond (at Avignon) to obtain the Pretender's order to the Jacobites, to vote against Sir R. W. upon any question whatever ; many of them having either voted for him, or retired, on the famous motion the last year for removing him from the King's councils. — Walpole. Dr. Maty statea, that the object of his lordship's visit to France was the restoration of his health. The reception he met with during his short stay at Paris, is thus noticed in a letter from Mr. Pitt, of the loth of September : — "I hope you liked the court of France aa well aa it liked you. The uncommon distinctions I hear the Cardinal (Fleury) showed you, are the best proof that, old aa he ia, his judgment ia aa good aa ever. As thia great minister has taken so much of his idea of the men in power here, from the person of a great negotiator who has left the stage (Lord Waldegrave), I am very glad he has had an opportunity, once before he dies, of forming an idea of those out of power from my Lord Chesterfield." See Chatham Correspondence, vol. i. p. 3. — Wright. See Walpole to Mann, 5 July, 1745. — Cunningham. ^ Joseph Danvers, Esq., of Swithland, in the county of Leicester, at thia time member for Totnesa. In 1746 he was created a baronet. He married Prances, the daughter of Thomaa Babington, Eaq., of Rothley Temple, Leicestershire. — Wright. ^ The Right Hon. Sir William Yonge, Bart., secretary at war, to which office he had succeeded in May 1735. Walpole tells us (Memoires, i. p. 20,) that "he was vain, extravagant, and trifling; simple out of the House, and too ready at assertions in it," and adds; " that his vivacity and parts, whatever the cause was, made him shine, and he was always content with the lustre that aocompanied fame, without thinking of -n-hat waa reflected from rewarded fame — a convenient ambition to miniaters, who had few such disinterested combatants. Sir Robert Walpole always said of him ' that nothing but Yonge's character could keep down his parts, and nothing but his parts support his character.'"- — Wright. He is mentioned by Pope — And then for mine obligingly mistakes. The first lampoon Sir Will or Bubo makes. • • * * The flowers of Bubo and the flow of Yonge. 1741.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 99 but 222 to 215 — how do you like a majority of seven ? The Opposition triumphs highly, and -with reason ; one or two such victories, as Pyrrhus, the member for Macedon, said, -wUl be the ruin of us. I look upon it now, that the question is, Do-wning Street or the Tower ; -wUl you come and see a body, if one should happen to lodge at the latter ? There are a thousand pretty things to amuse you ; the Hons, the armoury, the cro-wn, and the axe that beheaded Anna BuUen. I design to make interest for the room where the two princes were smothered; in long -winter evenings, when one wants company, (for I don't suppose that many people wiU frequent me then,) one may sit and scribble verses against Crouch- back'd Richard, and dirges on the sweet babes. If I die there, and have my body thro-wn into a wood, I am too old to be buried by robin redbreasts, am not I ? Beetle,' the Prince's chanceUor, made a most long and stupid speech ; afterwards Sfr Robert caUed to him, " Brother Bootle, take care you don't get my old name." " What's that ? " " Blunderer." You can't conceive how I was pleased •with the vast and deserved applause that Mr. Chute's ' brother, the lawyer, got : I never heard a clearer or a finer speech. When I went home, " Dear Sfr," said I to Sfr R., " I hope Mr. Chute -wiU carry his election for Heydon ; he would be a great loss to you." He repHed, " We -wiU not lose him." I, who meddle ¦with nothing, especiaUy elections, and go to no committees, interest myself extremely for Mr. Chute. Old Marlborough [Sarah, Dowager Duchess] is dying — ^but who can teU ! last year she had lain a great whUe iU, ¦without speaking ; her physicians said, " She must be bHstered, or she ¦wUl die." She caUed out, " I won't be bHstered, and I won't die." K she takes the same resolution now, I don't beHeve she -wUl.' Adieu ! my dear chUd : I have but room to say. Yours, ever. " Sir William Yonge has, by a fitness of tongue, singly raised himself successively to the best employments of the kingdom." Cliesterfi^ld to his Son (Mahon, ii. 369). He died 10th Aug. 1756. — Cunningham. ' Sir Thomas Bootle, chancellor to the Prince of Wales ; a dull, heavy man, and who is, therefore, ironicaUy called, by Sir C. H. Williams, " Bright Bootle."— Dover. "^ Francis Chute, an eminent lawyer, second brother of Anthony Chute, of the Vine, in Hampshire, had, in concert with Luke Robinson, another lawyer, disputed Mr. Pulteney's borough of Heydon with him at the general election, and been returned ; but on a petition, and the removal of Sir R. W., they were voted out of their seats, and Mr. Chute died soon after. — Wright. ^ Nordidshe. " Old Marlborough" survived the date of this letter nearly three years. She died on the 18th of October, 1744, being then eighty-four years of age.— Wright. 100 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741, 54. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Wednesday night, eleven o'clock, Dec. 16, 1741. Remember this day. Nous voUa de la Minorite ! entens-tu gela ? he ! My dear chUd, since you wUl have these ugly words explained, they just mean that we are metamorphosed into the minority. This was the night of choosing a chafrman of the committee of elections. Gyles Earle (as in the two last parHaments) was named by the Court ; Dr. Lee, a ci-vUian, by the Opposition, a man of fafr character. Earle was formerly a dependent on the [great] Duke of -Argyle [and Green- -wich], is of remarkable covetousness and wit, which he has dealt out largely against the Scotch and the Patriots. It was a day of much expectation, and both sides had raked together aU probabiHties: I expect near twenty, who are in to-wn, but stay to vote on a second question, when the majority may be decided to either party. Have you not read of such in story ? Men, who would not care to find themselves on the weaker side, contrary to thefr intent. In short, the determined sick were dragged out of thefr beds : zeal came in a great coat. There were two vast dinners at two taverns, for either party ; at sis we met in the House. Sfr WiUiam Yonge, seconded by my uncle Horace,' moved for Mr. Earle : Sfr Paul Methuen' and Sfr Watkyn WUHams Wynne' proposed Dr. Lee — and carried him, by a majority of four : 242 against 238 — the greatest number, I believe, that ever lost a question. You have no idea of thefr huzza ! unless you can conceive how people must tiiumph after defeats for twenty years together. We had one vote shut out, by coming a moment too late ; one that quitted us, for having been Ul used by the Duke of Newcastle but yesterday — for which, in aU probabUity, he -wUl use bim weU to-morrow — I mean, for quitting us. Sir Thomas Lowther," Lord Hartington's uncle, was fetched do-wn by ' Horace Walpole, younger brother of Sir Robert, created in hia old age [and after Sir Robert's death] Lord Walpole of Wolterton. He was commonly called " Old Horace, to distinguish him from his nephew, the writer of these letters. — Dover. Young Horace hated his uncle and godfather, Old Horace, and with sufficient reason. — Cunningham. ' The son of John Methuen, Esq., the diplomatist, and author of the celebrated Methuen treaty with Portugal. Sir Paul was a Knight of the Bath, and died in 1767. — Dover. ' Sir Watkin WiUiams Wynn, Bart., the third baronet of the family, was long one of the leaders of the Jacobite party in the House of Commons. — Dover. " Sir Thomas Lowther, Bart., of Holker, in Lancaahire. He had married Ladj Elizabeth Cavendish, second daughter of the second Dnke of Devonshire. — Dover. 1741.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 101 him, and voted against us. Young Ross,' son to a Commissioner of the Customs, and saved from the dishonour of not Hking to go to the West Indies when it was his turn, by Sfr R [obert] giving him a Heutenancy, voted against us ; and Tom Hervey,' who is always -with us, but is quite mad ; and being asked why he left us, repHed, " Jesus knows my thoughts ; one day I blaspheme, and pray the next." So, you see what accidents were against us, or we had carried our point. They cry, Sfr R [obert] miscalculated: how should he calculate, when there are men like Ross, and fifty others he could name I It was not very pleasant to be stared in the face, to see how one bore it — you can guess at my bearing it, who interest myself so Httle about anything. I have had a taste of what I am to meet from aU sorts of people. The moment we had lost the question, I went from the heat of the house into the Speaker's chamber, and there were some fifteen others of us — an under door-keeper thought a question was new put, when it was not, and, -without gi-ving us notice, clapped the door to. I asked him how he dared lock us out ¦without caUing us ; he replied insolently, " It was his duty, and he would do it again : " one of the party went to him, commended him, and told him he should be punished if he acted other-wise. Sir R[obert] is in great spfrits, and stiU sanguine. I have so Httle experience, that I shall not be amazed at whatever scenes foUow. My dear chUd, we have triumphed twenty years ; is it stiange that fortune should at last forsake us ; or ought we not always to expect it, especiaUy in this kingdom ? They talk loudly of the year forty- one, and promise themselves aU the confusions that began a hundred years ago from the same date. I hope they prognosticate -wrong ; but should it be so, I can be happy in other places. One reflection I shaU have very sweet, though very melancholy ; that if our famUy is to be the sacrifice that shaU first pamper discord, at least the one,' [his mother,] the part of it that interested aU my concerns, and must have suffered from our ruin, is safe, secure, and above the rage of confusion : nothing in this world can touch her peace now ! ' Charies Ross, kiUed in Flanders, at the battle of Fontenoy, 1745.— Walpole. Collins has a beautiful Ode on his death.— Cunningham. ' Honourable Thomas Hervey (died 1775), second son of John, first Eari of Bristol [and brother of Pope's Lord Hervey]. He waa at this time writing his famous Letter to Sir Thomas Hanmer.— Walpole. Tom Hervey eloped with Hanmer's second wife, Elizabeth, only child of Thomas Folkes, Esq., of Great Barton, in Suffolk. Dr. Johnson (to whom he had left a legacy of fifty pounds, but afterwards gave it him in his lifetime) characterises him as " very vicious."- Cunningham. ' His mother, Catherine Lady Walpole, who died August 20, 1737.— Walpole. 102 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741. To-morrow and Friday we go upon the Westminster election— you -wiH not wonder, shaU you, if you hear next post that we have lost that too ? Good night. Yours ever. 65. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Thursday, six o'clock. [Dec. 17, 1741.] You -wiU hardly divine where I am writing to you — ^in the Speaker's chamber. The House is examining -witnesses on the Westminster election, which -wUl not be determined to-day ; I am not in haste it should, for I beHeve we shaU lose it. A great fat feUow, a constable, on thefr side, has just deposed, that Lord Sundon' and the high constable took him by the coUar at the election, and threw him do-wn stafrs. Do you know the figure of Lord Sundon ? if you do, only think of that Httle old creature thro'wing any man do-wn stairs! As I was coming do-wn this morning, your brother brought me a long letter from you, in answer to mine of the 12th of November. You try to make me mistrust the designs of Spain against Tuscany, but I wUl hope yet : hopes are aU I have for anything now ! As to the young man, I -wUl see his mother the first minute I can; and by next post, hope to give you a definitive answer whether he -wUl submit to be a servant or not : in every other respect, I am sure he -wUl please you. Your friend, Mr. Fane,' would not come for us last night, nor wUl vote tUl after the Westminster election: he is brought into parHament by the Duke of Bedford,' and is unwUling to disobhge him in this. We flattered ourselves -with better success ; for last Friday, after sitting till two in the morning, we carried a Cornish election in four divisions — the first by a majority of sis, then of twelve, then of fourteen, and lastly by thirty-sis. You can't imagine the zeal of the young men on both sides : Lord Fitz-wiUiam, Lord Hartington, and my friend Coke " on ours, are warm as pos- ' William Clayton, of Fulwood, in Lancashire, originally a clerk in the Treasury, created, 1735, Lord Sundon, in Ireland, died 1766. His wife, Chariotte Dyves, wan Mistress of the Robes to Queen Caroline, and in the secret of the Queen's rupture.— Cunningham. ¦* Charles Fane, only aon of Lord Viacount Fane, whom he aucceeded, had been minister at Florence. — AValpole. 3 John Russell, fourth Duke of Bedford [died 1771].— Dover. * Edward, Lord Viscount Coke, only son of the Earl of Leicester. He died in 1763. — Walpolk. He married Lady Mary Campbell, daughter of the great Duke of Argyll and Greenwich and the Lady Mary Coke, whose name occurs so often in Walpole's Letters. She lived unhappily with her husband, and survived him. without remarrying, fifty-eight years. See p. 57. — Cunningham 1741.J TO SIR HORACE MANN. 10a sible ; Lord Quarendon ' and Sir Francis Dashwood are as -violent on thefrs : tho former speaks often and weU. But I am talking to you of nothing but parHament; why, reaUy, aU one's ideas are stuffed -with it, and you yourself -wUl not disHke to hear things so material. The Opposition, who invent every method of kUling Sfr R [obert], intend to make us sit on Saturdays; but how moan and dirty is it, how scandalous ! when they cannot ruin him by the least plausible means, to murder him by denying him air and exercise.' There was a strange affafr- happened on Saturday ; it was strange, vet very English. One Nourse, an old gamester, said, in the coffee house, that Mr. Shuttleworth, a member, only pretended to be Ul. This was told to Lord Windsor,' his fr-iend, who quarreUed -with Nourse, and the latter challenged him. My lord repHed, he woiUd not fight him, he was too old. The other repHed, he was not too old to fight -with pistols. Lord Windsor stiU refused : Nourse, in a rage, went home and cut his own throat. This was one of the odd ways in which men are made. I have scarce seen Lady Pomfret lately, but I am sure Lord Lincoln is not going to marry her daughter [Lady Sophia Fermor]. I am not surprised at her sister being shy at recei-ving civUities from you — ^that was EngHsh too ! Say a great deal for me to the Chutes. How I en-vy your snug suppers ! I never have such suppers ! Trust me, if we faU, aU the grandeur, aU the envied grandeur of our house, -wiU not cost me a sigh : it has given me no pleasure whUe we have it, and -wiU give me no pain when I part with it. My Hberty, my ease, and choice of my o^wn friends and company, ¦will sufficiently counterbalance the crowds of Downing-street. I am so sick of it aU, that if we are victorious or not, I propose lea^ving England in the spring. Adieu 1 Yours, ever and ever. 56. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Christmas Eve, 1741. My dearest child, if I had not heard regularly from you, what a shock it would have given me ! The other night, at the opera, Mr. ' George Henry Lee, Lord Viscount Quarendon, eldest son of the Earl of Litchfield, whom he aucceeded in that title, — Walpole. ' Sir Robert Walpole alwaya went every Saturday to Newpark, Richmond, to hunt.— Walpole. From hia eariy youth. Sir Robert was fond of the diversions of the field. He was accustomed to hunt in Richmond Park with a pack of beagles. On receiving a packet of letters, he usually opened that from his gamekeeper first. — Wright. * Herbert Windsor Hickman, second [and last] Viscount Windsor in Ireland, and Baron Montjoy of the Isle of Wight [died 1758].— Walpole. 104 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [lUh Worseley, -with his pee-vish face, half smiling through iU natm-e, told me (only mind !) by way of news, " that he heard Mr. Mann was dead at Florence ! " How kind ! To entertain one with the chit-chat of the to'wn, a man comes and teUs one that one's dearest friend is dead ! I am sure he would have lost his speech if he had had anything pleasurable to teU. If ever there is a metempsychosis, his soul ¦wiU pass into a vulture and prey upon carcases after a battle, and then go and bode at the vrindows of their relations. But I wUl say no more of him : I wiU punish him sufficiently, if sufficiently there be, by teUing him you are perfectly weU : you are, are you not ? Send me a certificate signed by Dr. Cocchi,' and I ¦wUl choke him ¦with it : another's health must be venomous to him. Sfr Francis Dashwood too — as you know aU Ul-natured people hear aU Ul news — told me he heard you was iU : I vowed you was grown as strong as the Farnese Hercules. Then he desires you ¦wUl send him four of the Volterra urns, of the chimney-piece size ; send them ¦with any of my things ; do, or he wUl think I neglected it because he is our enemy ; and I would not be peevish, not to be Hke them. He is one of the most inveterate ; they list under Sandys,' a parcel of them -with no more brains than thefr general ; but being maHcious, they pass for ingenious, as in these countries fogs are reckoned warm weather. Did you ever hear what Earle said of Sandys ? " that he never laughed but once, and that was when his best friend broke his thigh." Last Thursday I -wrote j^ou word of our losing the chafrman of the Committee. This ¦winter is to be aU ups and do-wns. The next day (Friday) we had a most complete -victory. Mr. Pulteney moved for aU papers and letters, &c., between the King and the Queen of Hungary and their ministers. Sfr Robert agreed to give them aU the papers relative to those transactions, only desiring to except ' James Worseley, M. P. for Newton in the Isle of Wight. He died in less than three weeks from this, viz, 16th Jan. 1741-2. — Cunningham. ^ Antonio Cocchi, a learned physician and author at Florence ; a particular friend of Mr. Mann, — Walpole, See p, 60. Mr, Mann is fortunate in the friendship, skill, and care of his physician, Dr, Cocchi. He is a man of most extensive learning ; understands, reads, and speaks all the European languages ; is studious, polite, modest, humane, and instructive. He is always to be admired and beloved by all who know him. Could I live with these two gentlemen only, and converse with few or none others, I should scarce desire to return to England for many years. — Earl of Cork to Mr. Duncombe. Florence, November 29, 1754. — Wright. ^ Samuel Sandys, a republican, raised on the fall of Sir R. W. to be chancellor of the exchequer, then degraded to a peer and cofferer, and soon afterwards laid aside. — Walpole. In 1743, he was raised to the peerage by the title of Lord Sandys, Baron of Omberley. in the county of Worcester, and died in 1770. — Wright. 1741.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 106 the letters written by the two sovereigns themselves. They divided, and we carried it, 237 against 227. They moved to have those relating to France, Prussia, and HoUand. Sfr Robert begged they would defer asking for those of Prussia tUl the end of January, at which time a negotiation would be at an end -with that King, which now he might break off, if he knew it was to be made pubHc. Mr. Pulteney persisted ; but his obstinacy, which might be so pre judicial to the pubHc, revolted even his o-wn partisans, and seven of them spoke against him. We carried that question by twenty-four; and another by twenty-one, against sitting on the next day (Satur day). Monday and Tuesday we went on the Westminster election. Murray ' [Lord Mansfield] spoke divinely ; he was thefr counsel. Lloyd ' answered him extremely well : but on sununing up the e-vidence on both sides, and in his reply, Murray was — in short, beyond what was ever heard at the bar. That day (Tuesday) we went on the merits of the cause, and at ten at night divided, and lost it. They had 220, we 216 ; so the election was declared void. You see four is a fortunate number to them. We had forty-one more members in to-wn, -who would not, or could not, come down. The time is a touchstone for wavering consciences. .All the arts, money, promises, threats, aU the arts of the former year, 41, are appHed ; and self-interest, in the shape of Scotch members — nay, and of EngHsh ones, operates to the aid of thefr party, and to the defeat of ours. Lord Doneraile,' a young Irishman, brought in by the Court, was petitioned against, though his competitor had had but one vote. This young man spoke as weU as ever any one spoke in his o^wn defence ; insisted on the petition being heard, and concluded ¦with declaring, that " his cause was his Defence, and ImpartiaHty must be his support." Do you know that, after this, he went and engaged, if they would ¦withdraw the petition, to vote ¦with them in the Westminster affair I His friends reproached him so strongly with his meanness, that he was shocked, and went to Mr. Pulteney ' William Murray, brother of Lord Stormont, and of Lord Dunbar, the Pretender's fiist minister. He is known by his eloquence and the friendship of Mr. Pope. He was soon afterwards promoted to be solicitor-general. — Walpole. ^ Sir Richard Lloyd, advanced in 1754 to be solicitor-general, in the room of Mr. Murray, appointed attorney-general. — Walpole. And in 1759, appointed one of the barons of the exchequer. — Wright. ' Arthur Mahon St. Leger, third Viscount Doneraile, in Ireland, of the first creation. He was at this time member for Winchelsea. In 1747 he waa made a lord of the bedchamber to Frederick Prince of Wales, and died of a consumption, at Lisbon, in 1760. — Walpole's Memoires of George II. vol. i. p. 64. 4to ed.- CuKNISOHAM. 106 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741. to get off ; Mr. P. told him, he had given him his honour, and he would not release him, though Lord DoneraUe declared it was against his conscience : but he voted ¦with them, and lost us the next question which they put (for censuring the High Bailiff) by his single vote ; for in that the numbers were 217 against 215 : the alteration of his vote would have made it even ; and then the Speaker, I suppose, would have chosen the merciful side, and decided for us. After this, Mr. Pulteney, ¦with an affected humanity, agreed to commit the High Bailiff only to the serjeant-at-arms. Then, by a majority of sis, they voted that the soldiers, who had been sent for, after the poll was closed, to save Lord Sundon's ' life, had come in a military and Ulegal manner, and influenced the election. In short, they determined, as Mr. Murray had dictated to them, that no civil magistrate, on any pretence whatsoever, though he may not be able to suppress even a riot by the assistance of the militia and constables, may call in the aid of the army. Is not this doing the work of the Jacobites ? have they any other ¦view than to render the riot act useless ? and then they may rise for the Pretender whenever they please. Then they moved to punish Justice Blakerby for calling in the soldiers ; and when it was desfred that he might be heard in his o^wn defence, they said he had already confessed his crime. Do but think on it I ¦without being accused, -without kno-wing, or being told it was a crime, a man gives e-vidence in another cause, not his o-ivn, and then they call it his o-wn accusation of himself, and would condemn him for it. You see what justice we may expect if they actuaUy get the majority. But this was too stiong a piU for one of their o-wn leaders to swaUow : Sir John Bamard ' did propose and persuade them to give him a day to be heard. In short, we sat tiU half an hour after four in the morning ; the longest day that ever was kno-wn. I say nothing of myself, for I could but just speak when I came away ; but Sfr Robert was as weU as ever, and spoke with as much spfrit as ever, at four o'clock. This way they wUl not kiU him ; I -wUl not answer for any other. As he came out, [Paul] ' Lord Sundon and Sir Charles Wager had been the Court candidates for West minster at the late election, against Admiral Vernon and Charles Edwin, Esq;. — Dover. * A great London merchant, and one of the members for the city. His reputation for integrity -md abiUty gave him much weight in the House of Commons. — Dovkb- Lord Chatham (when Mr. Pitt) frequently called him the Great Commoner. In 1749, he became father of the city ; when, much against his will, the merchants erected a statue of him in the Royal Exchange. He died in 1704 [and was buried at Mortlake]. — Wright. He is mentioned by Pope — - " Barnard, thou art a Cit with all thy worth." — Cunningham 1741.] TO SIR HORACE MANN 107 Whitehead, the author of Manners, and agent, with one Carey, a surgeon, for the Opposition, said, "D n hun, how weU he looks I " Immediately after thefr success, Lord Gage ' went forth, and begged there might be no mobbing ; but last night we had bonflres aU over the to-wn, and I suppose shaU have notable mobbing at the new election; though I do not beHeve there -wUl be any opposition to thefr Mr. Edwfri and Lord Perceval.' Thank God ! we are now adjourned for three weeks. I shaU go to SwaUowfield' for a few days : so for one week you -wUl miss hearing from me. We hape escaped the Prince's " affafr hitherto, but we shaU have it after the hoHdays. AU depends upon the practices of both sides in securing or getting new votes during this recess. Sfr Robert is very sanguine : I hope, for his sake and his honour, and for the nation's peace, that he -wiU get the better ; but the moment he has the majority secure, I shall be very earnest -with hfrn to resign. He has a constitution to last some years, and enjoy some repose ; and for my o-wn part (and both my brothers agree -with me in it), we -wish most heartUy to see an end of his ministry. If I can judge of them by myself, those who want to be in our situation, do not ¦wish to see it brought about more than we do. It is fatiguing to bear so much envy and Ul-^wiU undeservedly. — Otium Divos rogo ; but adieu, poHtics, for three weeks ! The Duchess of Buckingham, who is more mad -with pride than any mercer's -wife in Bedlam, came the other night to the Opera en princesse, HteraUy in robes, red velvet and ermine. I must teU you ' Thomas Lord Viscount Gage had been a Roman Catholic, and was master of the household to the Prince. — Walpole. Lord Gage, in 1721, was elected for the borough of Tewkesbury ; which he represented till within a few months of his death, in 1754. He was a zealous politician, and distinguished himself, iu 1732, by detecting the fraudulent sale of the Derwentwater estates. — Wright. ^ John Perceval, second Earl of Egmont, in Ireland, created, in 1762, Lord Lovell and Holland in the peerage of Great Britain. He became, in 1747, a lord of the bedchamber to Frederick Prince of Wales, and in the early part of the reign of George III. held successively the offices of postmaster-general and first lord of the Admiralty. He was a man of some abiUty and a frequent and fluent speaker, and was the author of a celebrated party pamphlet of the day, entitled " Faction Detected." His excessive love of ancestry led him, in conjunction with his father, and assisted by Anderson, the genealogist, to print two thick octavo volumes respecting his family, entitled " History of the House of Ivei-y ; " a most remarkable monument of human vanity. — Dover. " At thia period [1770] died the parent of the approaching war, the Earl of Egmont, a man always ambitious, almost always attached to a Court, yet, from a singularity in his fortune, scarce ever in place." — Walpole's Memoirs of George III., vol. iv. p. 210. — Cunningham. ^ SwaUowfield, in Berkshire, the seat of John Dodd, Esq. — Walpole. ¦* A scheme for obtaining a larger allowance for the Prince of Wales. — Walpole. ' Catherine, Duchess Dowager of Buckingham, natural daughter of King James II. — Walpole. See Walpole's " Reminiscences" prefixed to this volume. — Cu.nnikgham 108 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741 a story of her : last week she sent for Cori,' to pay him for her opera-ticket ; he was not at home, but went in an hour afterwards. She said, " Did he treat her Hke a tradeswoman ? She would teach him to respect women of her bfrth ; said he was in league with Mr. Sheffield ' to abuse her, and bade him come the next morning at nine." He came, and she made him wait tiU eight at night, only sending him an omlet and a bottle of -wine, " As it was Friday, and he a CathoHc, she supposed he did not eat meat." At last she received him in aU the form of a princess gi-ving audience to an ambassador. " Now," she said, " she had punished him." In this age we have some who pretend to impartiaHty : you wiU scarce guess how Lord Brook ' shows his : he gives one vote on one side, one on the other, and the third time does not vote at aU, and so on, regularly. My sister [Mary Walpole] is up to the elbows in joy and flowers that she has received from you this morning, and begs I -wUl thank you for her. You know, or have heard of, Mrs. Nugent " (Newsham's mother) ; she went the other morning to Lord Chesterfield to beg " he would encourage Mr. Nugent ' to speak in the house ; for that reaUy he was so bashful, she was afraid his abiHties would be lost to the world." I don't know who has encouraged him ; but so it is, that this modest Irish converted Catholic does talk a prodigious deal of nonsense in behalf of EngHsh Hberty. Lord Gage ' is another ; no man would trust him in a wager, unless he stakes, and yet he is trusted by a whole borough with their privUeges and Hberties ! He told Mr. Winnington the other day, that he would bring his son into parHament, that he would not influence him, but leave him entirely to himself. " D it," said Winnington, " so you have aU his lifetime." ' Angelo Maria Cori, prompter to the Opera. — Walpole. 2 Mr. Sheffield, natural son of the late Duke of Buckingham [the patron of Dryden], with whom she was at law. — Walpole. '' Francis, Baron, aud afterwards created Earl Brooke. — Walpole. * Daughter of Mr. Secretary Craggs, the friend of Addison and Pope. Walpole calls her "Nugent's plump wife."- — Cunningham. * Robert Nugent, [died 1788] a poet, a patriot, an author, a lord of the Treasury (and finally an Irish peer, by the titles of Lord Clare and Earl Nugent). He seems to have passed his long Ufe in seeking lucrative places and courting rich widows, in both of which pursuits he was eminently successful. — Dover. He is the Lord Clare, whose present of a haunch of venison Goldsmith repaid with an admirable poem.— Cunningham. ' Iiord Gage was one of those persons to whom the privileges of parliament were of extreme consequence, as their own liberties were inseparable from them. Walpole. 1741.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 109 Your brother says you accuse him of not -writing to you, and that his reasons are, he has not time, and next, that I teU you aU that can be said. So I do, I think : teU me when I begin to tire you, or if 1 am too cfrcumstantial ; but I don't beHeve you -wiU think so, for I remember how we used to want such a correspondence when I was with you. I have spoke about the young man, who is weU content to Hve -with you as a servant out of Hvery. I am to settle the affafr finaUy -with bis father on Monday, and then he shall set out as soon as possible. 1 -wiU send the things for Prince Craon, &c. by him. I -wiU -write to Madame Grifoni the moment I hear she is returned from the country. The Princess of Hesse ' is brought to bed of a son. We are going into mourning for the Queen of Sweden ; ' she had always been appre hensive of the smaU-pox, which has been very fatal in her famUy. You have heard, I suppose, of the new revolution ' in Musco-vy. The letters from HoUand to-day say, that they have put to death the young Czar and his mother, and his father too : which, if true," is going very far, for he was of a sovereign house in another country, no subject of Russia, and after the death of his -wife and son, could have no pretence or interest to raise more commotions there. We have got a new opera, not so good as the former ; and we have got the famous Bettina to dance, but she is a most indifferent performer. The house is excessively fuU every Saturday, never on Tuesday : here, you know, we make everything a fashion. I am happy that my fears for Tuscany vanish every letter. There ! there is a letter of twelve sides I I am forced to page it, it is so long, and I have not time to read it over and look for the mistakes. Yours, ever. 57. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, Dec. 29, 1741. I WRITE to you two days before the post goes out, because to morrow I am to go out of town ; but I would answer your letter by way of HoUand, to teU you how much you have obHged both Sfr ' Mary, fourth daughter of King George II. — Walpole. ' Ulrica, Queen of Sweden, sister of Charles XII.— Walpole. ' This relates to the revolution by which the young Czar John was deposed, and the Princess Elizabeth raised to the throne. — Walpole. ¦* This was not true. The Princess Anne of Mecklenburgh died in prison at Riga, a few years afterwards. Her son, the young Czar, and her husband. Prince Anioiiy of Brunswick Wolfenbuttle, were confined for many years.- Walpole. no HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741 Robert and me about the Dominichin ; ' and to beg you to thank Mr. Chute and Mr. Whithed — but I cannot leave it to you. " My dear Mr. Chute, was ever anything so Mnd ! I crossed the Giogo ' -with Mr. Coke [Lord Lovel], but it was in August, and I thought it then the greatest compliment that ever was paid to mortal ; and I went -with him too ! but you to go only for a picture, and m the month of December ! What can I say to you ? You do more to obHge your friend, than I can find terms to thank you for. If I was to teU it here, it would be beHeved as Httle as the rape of poor Tory ' by a wolf. I can only say that I know the Giogo, its snows and its inns, and consequently know the extent of the obHgation that I have to you and Mr. Whithed." Now I return to you, my dear child : I am reaUy so much obliged to you and to them, that I know not what to say. I read Pennee's letter to Sfr R., who was much pleased -with his discretion ; he -will be quite a favourite of mine. And now we are longing for the picture ; you know, of old, my impatience. Your young secretary-servant is looking out for a ship, and will set out in the ffrst that goes : I envy him. The Court has been trying, but can get nobody to stand for Westminster. You know Mr. Dodington has lost himseff ex tremely by his new turn, after so often changing sides : he is grown very fat and lethargic ; my brother Ned says, " he is grown of less consequence, but more weight." " One hears of nothing but foUies said by the Opposition, who grow mad on having the least prospect. Lady Carteret,' who, you kno-w, did not want any new fuel to her absurdity, says, " they talk every day of making her lord Ffrst Minister, but he is not so easUy per suaded as they think for." Good night. Yours, ever. ' A celebrated picture of a Madonna and Child, by Dominichino, in the palace Zambeccari, at Bologna, now in the coUection of the Eari of Orford, at Houghton, m Norfolk.— Walpole. Now (1856) with the bulk of the Houghton collection at St. Petersburg. — Cunningham. ~ The Giogo is the highest part of the Apennine between Florence and Bologna. — Walpole. ^ A black spaniel of Mr. Walpole's waa aeized by a wolf on the Alps, aa it was running at the head of the chaise-horses, at noon-day. — Walpole. * George Bubb Dodington [created Lord Melcombe in 1761— died 1762,] had lately resigned hia poat of one of the lords of the Treasury, and gone again into Opposition.— Walpole. Heisthe "Bubo" of Pope, and the "Dodington "of Thomsons Summer. He befriended Y'^oung, and left a Diary behind him, of which we shaU hear something from Walpole'a pen. — Cunningham. » Frances, daughter of Sir Robert Worseley, and first wife of John, Lord Carteret, afterwards [1744] Eari of GranviUe.— Walpole. See p. 222. She died 9 June, 1743, Walpole calls her "plump Carteret." — Cunningham. "41.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. IU 68. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, Jan. 7, 1741-2, O.S. I MUST answer for your brother a paragraph that he showed me in one of your letters : " Mr. W.'s letters are fuU of wit ; don't they adore him in England ? " Not at all — and I don't wonder at them ; for if I have any wit in my letters, which I do not at aU take for granted, it is ten to one that I have none out of my letters. A thousand people can -write, that cannot talk ; and besides, you know, (or I conclude so, from the Httle one hears stirring,) that numbers of the EngHsh have -wit, who don't care to produce it. Then, as to adoring ; you now see only my letters, and you may be sure I take care not to -write you word of any of my bad quaHties, which other people must see in the gross ; and that may be a great hindrance to thefr adoration. Oh ! there are a thousand other reasons I could give you, why I am not the least in fashion. I came over in an Ul season : it is a million to one that nobody thinks a declining old minister's son has wit. At any time, men in opposition have always most ; but now, it would be absurd for a courtier to have even common sense. There is not a Mr. Sturt, or a Mr. Stewart, whose names begin but -with the first letters of Stanhope,' that has not a better chance than I, for being liked. I can assure you, even those of the same party would be fools, not to pretend to think me one. Sfr Robert has showed no partiality for me ; and do you think they would commend where he does not ? even sup posing they had no en-vy, which, by the way, I am far from saying they have not. Then, my dear chUd, I am the coolest man of my party, and if I am ever warm, it is by contagion ; and where violence passes for parts, what -wiU indifference be caUed ? But how could you think of such a question ? I don't want money, con sequently no old women pay me or my -wit ; I have a veiy flimsy constitution, consequently the young women won't taste my wit, and it is a long whUe before -wit makes its o-wn way in the world ; especiaUy, as I never prove it, by assuring people that I have it by me. Indeed, if I were disposed to brag, I could quote two or three half-pay officers, and an old aunt or two, who laugh prodigiously at every thing I say ; but tiU they are aUowed judges, I -wUl not brag of such authorities. 1 The name of Lord Chesterfield.- Walpole. 112 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741. If you have a mind to know who is adored and has wit; there is old ChurchiU ' has as much God-d — n-ye -wit as ever — except thai he has lost two teeth. There are half a dozen Scotchmen who vote against the Com't, and are cried up by the Opposition for mt, to keep them steady. They are forced to cry up thefr parts, for it would be too barefaced to commend thefr honesty. Then Mr. Nugent has had a great deal of -wit tiU within this week ; but he is so busy and so -witty, that even his o-wn party grow tu-ed of him. His plump ¦wife, who talks of nothing else, says he entertamea her aU the way on the road ¦with repeating his speeches. I did not go into the country last week, as I intended, the weather was so bad ; but I shaU go on Sunday for three or four days, and perhaps shaU not be able to -write to you that week. You are in an agitation, I suppose, about poHtics : both sides are trafficking deeply for votes during the hoHdays. It is aUowed, I think, that we shaU have a majority of twenty-sis : Sfr R[obert] says more ; but now, upon a pinch, he brags Hke any bridegroom. The Westminster election passed -without any disturbance, in favour of Lord Perceive-aU ' and Mr. Perceive-nothing, as my uncle [old Horace] calls them. Lord Chesterfleld was vaunting to Lord ' General Charles Churchill. [See p. 83.] — Walpole. " The General, one of those brave old commanders. Who served through all our glorio'JS wars in Flanders. Frank and good-natured, of an honest heart. Loving to act the steady friendly part ; None led through youth a gayer life than he, Cheerful in converse, smart in repartee ; But with old age, its vices come along. And in narration he's extremely long ; Exact in circumstance, and nice in dates. He each minute particular relates. If you name one of Marlbro's ten campaigns. He gives you its whole history for your pains. And Blenheim's field becomes by his reciting. As long in telling as it was in fighting I His old desire to please is still express'd. His hat's well cock'd, hia perriwig'a well dress'd. He rolls hia stockings still, white gloves he wears, And in the boxes with the beaux appears. His eyes through wrinkled corners cast their rays. Still he looks cheerful, still soft things he says, A nd still remembering that he once was young. He strains his crippled knees, and struts along." — Sir C. H. WUliams.— J)o\Bi. ' Vide an account of the election of Lord Perceval and one Edwin, in that Lord's " History of the House of Ivery." — Walpole. '711.] TO .SIR HORACE MANN. 113 Li3vel,' that they should have carried it, if they had set up two broomsticks. " So I see," repHed Lovel. But it seems we have not done with it yet : if we get the majority, this wUl be declared a void election too, for my Lord ChanceUor [Hardwicke] has found out, that tho person who made the retum, had no right to make it : it was the High BaiHff's clerk, the High BaUiff himseff being in custody of the Serjeant-at-arms. It makes a great noise, and they talk of making subscriptions for a petition. Lord Stafford' is come over. He told me some good stories of the Primate.' Last night I had a good deal of company to hear MonticeUi and AmorevoH, particularly the three beauty-Fitzroys, Lady Euston, Lady Conway, and Lady CaroHne." Sfr R. Hked the singers extremely : he had not heard them before. I forgot to teU you aU our beauties : there was Miss Hervey,' my lord's daughter, a fine, black gfrl, but as mascuHne as her father should be;' and Jenny ' Thomas Coke, created, Jlay 1728, Baron Lord of Minster-Lovel, county of Oxford; and 9th May, I7l4, A''iscount Coke and Eari of Leicester. He died in 1759, and the peerages expired with him. He is mentioned by Pope in his poem to Lady Fanny Shirley : — " But, friend, take heed whom you attack ; 'Twill bring a house (1 mean of Peers) Red, blue, and green ; nay, white and black, Lovel and all about your ears." He figures also in Hanbury Williams' poem of 'Morning.' — Cunningham. " WUliam Matthias Howard, Eari of Stafford. He died in 1751.— Walpole. The Primate of Lorrain, eldest son of Prince Craon, was famous for Ids wit and vices of all kinds. — Walpole. " Lady Dorothy Boyle, eldest daughter of Lord Burlington [p. 76] ; Isabella, wife of Francis Lord Conway [p. 74], and Caroline, afterwards married to Lord Petersham, were the daughter-in-law and daughters of Charies Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton, lord chamberlain. — Walpole. ^ Lepel, eldest daughter of John Lord Hervey, afterwards married to Mr, Phipps, — Walpole. Constantino Phipps, in 1767 created Lord Mulgrave. — Wright. Com pare Lord Hervey to Lady Mary iu the Biographical Notice to Lord Hervey'a Memoirs, p. Ivii. — Cunningham. * The effeminacy of Lord Hervey formed a continual subject for the satire of his opponents. Pope's bitter lines on him are well remembered. The old Duchesa of Marlborough, too, in her ' Opinions,' describes him aa having " certainly parts and wit ; but he is the most wretched profligate man that ever was born, besides ridiculous ; a painted face, and not a tooth in his head." On which the editor of that curious little book (Lord HaUes) remarks, "Lord Hervey, having felt some attacks of the epilepsy, entered upon and persisted in a very strict regimen, and thus stopped the progress and prevented the effects of that dreadful disease. His daily food was a small quantity of asses' milk and a flour biscuit. Once a week he indulged himself with eating an apple ; he used emetics daily. Pope, knowing the abstemious regimen which Lord Hervey observed, was so ungenerous as to call him ' a mere cheese-curd of asses' milk ! ' Lord Hervey used paint to soften his ghastly appearance." — Wright. Compare Mr. Croker in Biographical Notice to Lord Hervey's Memoirs, p. xlvii. — Cunningham. 114 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741. Conway,' handsomer stiU, though changed -with illness, than even the Fitzroys. I made the music for my Lord Hervey, who is too ill to go to operas : yet, -with a cofGn-face, is as fuU of his Httle dirty politics as ever. He unll not be weU enough to go to the House tiU the majority is certain somewhere, but Hves shut up -with my Lord Chesterfield and Mr. Pulteney — a tiium-vfrate, who hate one another more than anybody they could proscribe, had they the power. I dropped in at my Lord Hervey's, tho other night, kno-wing my Lady [MoUy Lepel] had company : it was soon after our defeats. My Lord, who has always professed particularly to me, turned his back on me, and retired for an hour into a whisper -with young Hammond,' at the end of the room. Not being at aU amazed at one whose heart I knew so weU, I stayed on, to see more of this beha-viour ; indeed, to use myself to it. At last he came up to me, and begged this music, which I gave him, and would often again, to see how many times I shaU be iU and well ¦vrith him ¦within this month. Yesterday came news that his brother, Captain WUHam Hervey, has taken a Caracca slHp, worth fuU two hundred thousand pounds. He was afterwards separated from it by a storm, for two or three days, and was afraid of losing it, ha-ving but five-and-twenty men to thfrty-six Spaniards ; but he has brought it home safe. I forgot to teU you, that upon losing the first question. Lord Hervey kept away for a week ; on our carrying the next great one, he -wrote to Sfr Robert, how much he desired to see him, " not upon any business, but Lord Hervey longs to see Sir Robert Walpole." Lady Sundon ' is dead, and Lady M disappointed : she, who is full as poHtic as my Lord Hervey, had made herself an absolute servant to Lady Sundon, but I don't hear that she has left her even her old clothes. Lord Sundon is in great grief : I am surprised, for she has had fits of madness, ever since her ambition met such a check by the death of the Queen [1737]. She had great power -with her, though the Queen pretended to despise her ; but had unluckUy told her, or faUen into her power by some secret." I was saying to Lady Pomfi-et, " To be sure she is dead very rich ! " She repHed, with ' Jane, only daughter of Francis, the first Lord Conway, by hia second wife Mrs. Bodens [p. 53]. — Walpole. ^ Author of some Love Elegies, and a favourite of Lord Chesterfield. He died thia year [1742]. — Walpole. •^ [Chariotte Dyves,] wife of WUliam Clayton, Lord Sundon [p. 102], woman of the bedchamber and mistress of the robes to Queen Caroline. — Walpole. ¦* This is now known to have been a rupture, which the Qncen had the weakness to wish, and the courage to conceal. — Wright. 174 I.J TO SIR HORACE MANN. 115 some warmth, " She never took money." When I came home, I mentioned this to Sfr R[obert]. "No," said he, "but she took jewels ; Lord Pomfret's place of Master of the Horse to the Queen was bought of her for a pair of diamond ear-rings, of fom-teen hundred pounds value." One day that she wore them at a -visit af old Marlbro's, as soon as she was gone, the Duchess said to Lady Mary Wortley, "How can that woman have the impudence to go about in that bribe ? " — " Madam," said Lady Mary, " how would you have people know where -wine is to be sold, unless there is a sign hung out ? " Sfr R[obert] told me, that in the enthusiasm of her vanity. Lady Sundon had proposed to him to unite -vrith her, and govern the kingdom together :' he bowed, begged her patronage, but said he thought nobody fit to govern the kingdom, but the King and Queen. — Another day. Friday morning. I was forced to leave off last night, as I found it would be impos sible to send away this letter finished in any time. It -wUl be enormously long, but I have prepared you for it. When I consider the beginning of my letter, it looks as if I were entfrely of your opinion about the agreeableness of them. I beHeve you -wiU never commend them again, when you see how they increase upon your hands. I have seen letters of two or three sheets, -written from merchants at Bengal and Canton to thefr -wives : but then they contain the history of a twelvemonth : I grow voluminous from week to week. I can plead in excuse nothing but the tiue reason ; you desfred it ; and I remember how I used to -wish for such letters, when I was in Italy. My Lady Pomfret carries this humanity stUl farther, and because people were ci-vU to her in Italy, she makes it a rule to -visit aU strangers in general. She has been to visit a Spanish Count' and his wife, though she cannot open her Hps in thefr language. They fled from Spain, he and his brother having offended the Queen,' by thefr attachments to the Prince of Asturias ; his brother ventured back, to bring off this woman, who was engaged to him. Lord Harrington" has procured them a pension of six hundred a year. They Hve chiefly -with Lord Carteret and his daughter,' ' So the good Lord (I had almost said King) Sundon told me. — Lord Herve-fs Memoirs, ii. 404. — Cunningham. ^ Marquis de Sabernego : he returned to Spain after the death of PhUip V. — Walpolb. ^ The Princess of Parma, second wife of PhUip V., king of Spain, and consequently step-mother to the Prince of Asturias, son of that king, by his first wife, a princess of Savoy. — Dover. ¦¦ WUliam Stanhope, first Earl of Harrington, and Secretary of State, died 1766. — Cunningham. ' Frances, youngest daughter of Lord Carteret, afterwards married to the Marquis 116 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741 who speak Spanish. But to proceed from where I left off last night, Hke the Princess Dinarzade in the Arabian Nights, for you ¦wiU want to Imow what happened one day. Sfr Robert was at dinner ¦with Lady Sundon, who hated the Bishop of London [Gibson] as much as she loved the Church. " WeU," said she to Sfr R., " how does your pope do ?" — " Madam," repHed he, " he is my pope, and shaU be my pope ; everybody has some pope or other ; don't you know that you are one ? They call you Pope Joan." She flew into a passion, and desired he would not fix any names on her ; that they were not so easUy got rid of. We had a Httle baU the other night at Mrs. Boothby's [p. 80], and by dancing did not perceive an earthquake, which frightened aU the undancing part of the to-wn. We had a ci-viHty from his Royal Highness [Frederick, Prince of Wales], who sent for MonticeUi the night he was engaged here, but, on hearing it, said he would send for him some other night. If I did not Hve so near St. James's, I would find out some poHtics in this — should not one ? Sfr WUHam Stanhope ' has had a hint from the same Highness, that his company is not quite agreeable : whenever he met anybody at Carlton House whom he did not know, he said, " Your humble servant, Mr. or Mrs. HamUton." I have this morning sent aboard the St. Quintin a box for you, with your secretary — ^not in it. Old Weston of Exeter is dead. Dr. Clarke, the Dean, Dr. WiUes, the decipherer, and Dr. GUbert of Llandaff, are candidates to succeed him.' Sfr R[obert] is for WUles, who, he says, knows so many secrets, that he might insist upon being archbishop. My dear Mr. Chute I how concerned I am that he took aU that trouble to no purpose. I -wUl not write to him this post, for as you show him my letters, this here -wiU sufficiently employ any one's patience — ^but I have done. I long to hear that the Dominichin ijs safe. Good night ! Yours, ever. of Tweedale. — Walpole. In 1748. The marquis was an extraordinary lord o( session, and the last person who held a similar appointment. — Wright. ' Brother to Lord Chesterfield. [The Sir WiUiam Stanhope who destroyed Pope's villa at Twickenham.] This bon mot was occasioned by the numbera of HamUtons which Lady Archibald Hamilton, the Prince's mistress, had placed at that court.— Walpole. See a somewhat similar story of Lord Chesterfield and Master Louis, in chapter vii. of Walpole's ' Reminiscences.' — Cunningham. '' Nicholas Clagget, Bishop of St. David's, succeeded, on AYeston's death, to the see of Exeter. — Dover. Clagget was, however, succeeded in the see of St. David's by Dr. Edward WiUes, Dean of Lincoln and decipherer to the King. — Wright. 1742.) TO SIR HORACE MANN. 117 59. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Friday, Jan. 22, 1742. Don't wonder that I missed -writing to you yesterday, my constant day : you -wiU pity me when you hear that I was shut up in the House of Commons tUl one in the morning. I came away more dead than alive, and was forced to leave Sfr R. at supper -with my brothers : he was aU aHve and in spfrits.' He says he is younger than me, and indeed I think so, in spite of his forty years more. My head aches to-night, but we rose early ; and if I don't -write to-night, when shaU I find a moment to spare ? Now you want to know what we did last night ; stay, I wUl teU you presently in its place : it was weU, and of infinite consequence — so far I teU you now. Our recess finished last Monday, and never at school did I enjoy hoHdays so much — but, les voild finis jusqu'au printems ! Tuesday (for you see I -write you an absolute joumal) we sat on a Scotch election, a double retum ; thefr man was Hume CampbeU,' Lord Marchmont's brother, lately made soHcitor to the Prince, for being as tioublesome, as -violent, and almost as able as his brother. They made a great point of it, and gained so many of our votes, that at ten at night we were forced to give it up -without di-viding. Sandys, who loves persecution, even unto the death, moved to punish the sheriff ; and as we dared not di-vide, they ordered him into custody, where by this time, I suppose, Sandys has eaten him. On Wednesday Sfr Robert GodschaU, the Lord Mayor, presented the Merchant's petition, signed by three hundred of them, and dra-wn up by Leonidas Glover.' This is to be heard next Wednesday. This ' Sir Robert Wilmot also, in a letter to the Duke of Devonshire, written on the 12th, says, " Sir Robert was to-day observed to be more naturally gay and full of spirits than he has been for some time past." — Wright. ^ Hume Campbell, twin brother of Hugh, third Eari of Marchmont [the friend and an executor of Pope]. They were sons of Alexander, the second eari, who had quarrelled with Sir Robert Walpole at the time of the excise scheme in 1733. Sir Robert, iu consequence, prevented him from being re-elected one of the sixteen representative Scotch peers in 1734; in requital for which, the old earl's two sons became the bitterest opponents of the minister. They were both men of considerable talents ; extremely similar in their characters and dispositions, and so much so in their outward appearance, that it was very difficult to know them apart. — Dover. ^ Glover, a merchant, author of ' Leonidas,' a poem, ' Boadicea,' a tragedy, &e. [See p. 31.]— Walpole. lis HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. gold-chaia came into parHament, cried up for his parts, but proves so duU, one would think he chewed opium. Earle says, " I have heard an oyster speak as weU twenty times." WeU, now I come to yesterday : we met, not expecting much business. Five of our members were gone to the York election, and the three Lord Beauclercs ' to thefr mother's funeral at Windsor ; for that old beauty St. Alban's' is dead at last. On this they depended for getting the majority, and towards three o'clock, when we thought of breaking up, poured in thefr most violent questions : one was a motion for leave to bring in the Place BUl, to limit the number of placemen in the House. This was not opposed, because, out of decency, it is generaUy suffered to pass the Commons, and is thro^wn out by the Lords ; only Colonel Cholmondeley ' desfred to know if they designed to Hmit the number of those that have pro mises of places, as weU as of those that have places now. I must teU you that we are a very conclave ; they buy votes ¦with reversions of places on the change of the Ministry. Lord Gage was giving an account in Tom's Coffee-house of the intended alterations; that Mr. Pulteney is to be ChanceUor of the Exchequer, and Chesterfield and Carteret Secretaries of State. Somebody asked who was to be Paymaster ? Numps Ed^win," who stood by, repHed, " We have not thought so low as that 3''et." Lord Gage harangues every day at Tom's, and has read there a very false account of the Kiag's message to the Prince.' The Court, to show thefr contempt of Gage, have given their copy to be read by S-winny.' This is the authentic copy, ' Lord Vere, Lord Henry, and Lord Sidney Beauclerc, sons of the Ducheaa Dowager of St. Alban's who ia painted among the beauties at Hampton Court.— Walpole. See note at p. 187. — Cunningham. ^ Lady Diana Vere, daughter, and at length sole heir, of Aubrey de Vere, twentieth and last Eari of Oxford. She married in 1694, Charles, first Duke of St. Alban's, natural son of Charles II. by Nell Gwyn. She died Jan. 15th, 1742.- DoVER. ^ Colonel James Cholmondeley, only brother of the Eari. He afterwards dis tinguished himself at the battles of Fontenoy and Falkirk, and died in 1775.— Wright. ¦¦ Charlea Edwin, Admiral Vernon'a unsuccessful coUeague at Westminster.— Wright. ' During the holidays. Sir R. W. had prevailed on the King to send to the Prince of Wales, to offer to pay his debts and double his allowance. This negotiation waa intrusted to Lord Cholmondeley on the King's, and to Seeker, Bishop of Oxford, on tbe Prince's side; but came to nothing. — Walpole. ° Owen Mac Swinny, a buffoon ; formerly director of the playhouse.— Walpolb. He had been manager of Drury Lane Theatre, and waa the author of several dra^ matic pieces. He afterwards resided in Italy for several years, and, on his return, was appointed keeper of the King's Mews. He died in 1754, leaving his fortune tc the celebrated Mrs. Woffington.— Wright. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 119 which they have made the bishop -write from the message which he carried, and as he and Lord Cholmondeley agree it was given. On this Thursday, of which I was teUing you, at three o'clock, Mr. Pulteney rose up, and moved for a secret committee of twenty- one. This inquisition, this councU of ten, was to sit and examine whatever persons and papers they should please, and to meet when and where they pleased. He protested much on its not being in tended against any person, but merely to give the King ad-vice, aud on this foot they fought it tUl ten at night, when Lord Perceval blundered out what they had been cloaking -with so much art, and declared that he should vote for it as a committee of accusation. Sfr Robert immediately rose, and protested that he should not have spoken, but for what he had heard last ; but that now, he must take it to himself. He pourtiayed the maUce of the Opposition, who, for twenty years, had not been able to touch him, and were now reduced to this infamous shift. He defied them to accuse him, and only desfred that if they should, it might be in an open and fafr manner ; desfred no favour, but to be acquainted -with his accusation. He spoke of Mr. Dodington, who had caUed his administration infamous, as of a person of great self-mortification, who, for sixteen years, had conde scended to bear part of the odium. For Mr. Pulteney, who had just spoken a second time, Sfr R. said, he had begun the debate -with great calmness, but give him his due, he had made amends for it in the end. In short, never was innocence so tiiumphant ! There were several glorious speeches on both sides ; Mr. Pulteney's two, W. Pitt's [Chatham's] and George Gren^viUe's,' Sir Robert's, Sfr W. Yonge's, Harry Fox's [Lord HoUand's], Mr. Chute's, and the Attorney-General's [Sfr Dudley Ryder]. My friend Coke [Lovel], for the first time, spoke vastly weU, and mentioned how great Sfr Robert's character is abroad. Sfr Francis Dashwood repHed that he had found quite the reverse from Mr. Coke, and that foreigners always spoke ¦with contempt of the ChevaHer de Walpole. This was going too far, and he was caUed to order, but got off weU enough, by saying, that he knew it was contrary to rule to name any member, but that he only mentioned it as spoken by an impertinent Frenchman. But of aU speeches, none ever was so fuU of wit as Mr. Pulteney's last. He said, " I have heard this committee represented as a most ' George Grenville, First Miuiater in the eariy part of the reign of George III.- DOVER. 120 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. dreadful spectre ; it has been Hkened to aU terrible things ; it has been Hkened to the King ; to the inquisition ; it ¦wiU be a committee of safety ; it is a committee of danger ; I don't know what it is to be ! One gentleman, I think, caUed it a cloud ! (this was the Attorney) a cloud ! I remember Hamlet takes Lord Polonius by the hand and shows him a cloud, and then asks him if he does not think it is Hke a whale." WeU, in short, at eleven at night we divided, and threw out this famous committee by 253 to 250, the greatest number that ever was in the house, and the greatest number that ever lost a question. It was a most shocking sight to see the sick and dead brought in on both sides ! Men on crutches, and Sir WUHam Gordon ' from his bed, -with a bUster on his head, and flannel hanging out from under his -wig. I could scarce pity him for his ingratitude. The day before the Westminster petition, Sfr Charles Wager ' gave his sou a ship, and the next day the father came do-wn and voted against him. The son has since been cast away ; but they concealed it from the father, that he might not absent himself. However, as we have our good-natured men too on our side, one of his o-wn countrymen went and told him of it in the House. The old man, who looked Hke Lazarus at his resuscitation, bore it -with great resolution, and said, he knew why he was told of it, but when he thought his country in danger, he would not go away. As he is so near death, that it is indifferent to him whether he died two thousand years ago or to-morrow, it is unlucky for him not to have Hved when such insen- sibUity would have been a Roman -virtue.' There are no arts, no menaces, which the Opposition do not practise. They have threatened one gentleman to have a reversion cut off from his son, uiUess he -vriU vote -with them. To Totness there came a letter to the mayor from the Prince, and signed by two of his lords, to recommend a candidate in opposition to the SoHcitor- ' Sir Robert WUmot, in a letter to the Duke of Devonshire, says : — " Sir AVUliam Gordon waa brought in like a corpse. Some thought it had been an old woman in disguise, having a white cloth round his head ; others, who found him out, expected him to expire every moment. Other incurables were introduced on their side. Mr. Hopton, for Hereford, was carried in with crutches. Sir Robert Walpole exceeded himself. Mr. Pelham, with the greatest decency, cut Pulteney into a thousand pieces. Sir Robert actuaUy dissected him, and laid his heart open to the view of the House." — Weight. ^ Admiral Sir Charles Wager. He had been knighted by Queen Anne, for his gaUantry in taking and destroying some rich Spanish galleons. He was at this time first lord of the Admiralty. He died in 1743. — Dover. ' Sir WiUiam Gordon died in the May foUowing. — Walpolb. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 121 General [Strange]. The mayor sent the letter to Sfr Robert. They iave turned the Scotch to the best account. There is a young Oswald,' who had engaged to Sfr R. but has voted against us. Sir R. sent a friend to reproach him ; the moment the gentleman who had engaged for him came into the room, Oswald said, " You had Hke to have led me into a fine error ! did you not teU me that Sir R. would have the majority ? " When the debate was over, Mr. Pulteney owned that he had never heard so fine a debate on our side ; and said to Sfr Robert, " WeU, nobody can do what you can!" " Yes," repHed Sfr R. "Yonge did better." Mr. Pulteney answered, " It was fine, but not of that weight -with what you said." They aU aUow it ; and now thefr plan is to persuade Sfr Robert to retfre -with honour. AU that evening there was a report about the to-wn, that he and my uncle [old Horace] were to be sent to the Tower, and people hired -windows in the City to see them pass ttj — but for this time I beHeve we shaU not exhibit so historical a parade. The night of the committee, my brother Walpole ' had got two or three invaUds at his house, designing to carry them into the House through his door, as they were too Ul to go round by Westminster HaU ; the patriots, who have rather more contrivances than thefr pre decessors of Grecian and Roman memory, had taken the precaution of stopping the keyhole -with sand. How Li-vy's eloquence would have been hampered, if there had been back-doors and keyholes to the Temple of Concord ! A few days ago there were Hsts of the officers at Port Mahon laid before the House of Lords : unfortunately, it appeared that two- thfrds of the regiment had been absent. The Duke of Ai-gyU said, " Such a Hst was a Hbel on the government ; " and of aU men, the Duke of Newcastle was the man who rose up and agreed -with him : remember what I told you once before of his union -with Carteret. We have carried the York election by a majority of 956. The other night the Bishop of Canterbury " [Potter] was -vrith Sfr Robert, and on going away, said, " Sfr, I have been lately reading Thuanus ; he mentions a minister, who ha-ving long been persecuted ' James Oswald, afterwards one of the commissioners of trade and plantations. — Walpole. * Robert, Lord Walpole, afterwards Eari of Orford, He was auditor of the Exche quer, and his house adjoined to the Plouse of Commons, to which he had a door ; but it was soon afterwards locked up, by order of the House, — Walpole. ^ John Potter, Archbishop of Canterbury, died 1747. — Dover. 122 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [174a by his enemies, at length vanquished them : the reason he gives, quia se non deseruit." Sfr Thomas Robinson [Long] is at last named to the government of Barbadoes ; he has long prevented its being asked for, by declaring that he had the promise of it. LuckUy for him, Lord Lincoln liked his house, and procured him this government on condition of hi'ing it. I have mentioned Lord Perceval's speeches ; he has a set who have a rostrum at his house, and harangue there. A gentleman who came thither one evening was refused, but insisting that he was engaged to come, " Oh, Sfr," said the porter, "what are you one of those who play at members of parHament ? " I must teU you something, though Mr. Chute wUl see my letter. Sfr Robert brought home yesterday to dinner, a fat comely gentle man, who came up to me, and said, he beHeved I knew his brother abroad. I asked his name ; he repHed, " He is -with Mr. Whithed." I thought he said, " It is Whithed." After I had talked to him of Mr. Whithed, I said, " There is a very sensible man with Mr. Whithed, one Mr. Chute." " Sfr," said he, " my name is Chute." " My dear Mr. Chute, now I know both your brothers. You -wiU forgive my mistake." With what Httle conscience I begin a thfrd sheet ! but it shaU be but half a one. I have received your vast packet of music by the messenger, for which I thank you a thousand times ; and the poH tical sonnet, which is far from bad. Who translated it ? I Hke the translation. I am obHged to you about the Gladiator, [Stoch's IntagHo] &c. : the temptation of ha^ving them at aU is great, but too enormous. If 1 could have the Gladiator for about a hundred pounds, I would give it. I enclose one of the biUs of lading of the things that I sent you by your secretary : he sets out to-morrow. By Oswald's' foUy, to whom I entrusted the putting them on board, they are consigned to Goldsworthy, but pray take care that he does not open them. The captain mortifies me by proposing to stay three weeks at Genoa. I have sent away to-night a smaU additional box of steel wares, which I received but to-day from Woodstock. As they are better than the first, you -wiU choose out some of them for Prince Craon, and give away the rest as you please. We have a new opera by Pescetti, but a very bad one ; however, ' George Oswald, steward to Sir R. W. — Walpolb. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 123 all the to-wn runs after it, for it ends with a charming dance. They have flung open the stage to a great length, and made a perfect view of Venice, with the Rialto, and numbers of gondolas that row about fuU of masks, who land and dance. You would Hke it. WeU, I have done. Excuse me if I don't take the trouble to read it aU over again, for it is immense, as you -wiU find. Good night ! 60. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, Feb. 4, 1741-2. I AM miserable that I have not more time to -write to you, especiaUy as you -wUl want to know so much of what I have to tell you ; but for a week or fortnight I shaU be so hurried, that I shaU scarce know what I say. I sit here writing to you, and recei-ving aU the to-wn, who flock to this house ; Sfr Robert has afready had three levies this morning, and the rooms stUl over flo-wing — they overflow up to me. You -wiU think this the prelude to some -victory ! On the contiary, when you receive this, there ¦viiU be no longer a Sfr Robert Walpole : you must know him for the future by the title of Earl of Orford. That other en-vied name expfres next week -with his Ministry ! Preparatory to this change, I should teU you, that last week we heard in the House of Commons the Chippenham election, when Jack Frederick and his brother-in-law, Mr. Hume, on our side, petitioned against Sfr Edmund Thomas and Mr. Baynton Rolt. Both sides made it the decisive question — but our people were not aU equaUy true ; and upon the pre-vious question we had but 235 against 236, so lost it by one. From that time my brothers, my uncle, I, and some of his particular friends, persuaded Sfr R. to resign. He was undetermined tUl Sunday night. Tuesday we were to finish the election, when we lost it by 16 ; upon which, Sir Robert declared to some particular persons in the House his resolution to retfre, and had that morning sent the Prince of Wales notice of it. It is understood from the heads of the party, that nothing more is to be pursued against him. Yesterday (Wednesday) the King adjourned both Houses for a fortnight, for time to settle things. Next week Sfr Robert resigns and goes into the House of Lords. The only change yet fixed, is, that Lord Wilmington' is to be at ' Sir Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, knight of the garter, and at thia time lord president of the council [see p. 92]. — Walpole. 124 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS [1742. the head of the Treasury — but numberless other alterations and con fusions must foUow. The Prince -wUl be reconcUed, and the Whig- patriots -wiU come in. There were a few bonfires last night, but they are very unfashionable, for never was faUen minister so foUowed. When he kissed the King's hand to take his first leave, the King feU on his neck, wept and kissed him, and begged to see him fre quently. He -wUl continue in town, and assist the Ministry in the Lords. Mr. Pelham has declared that he -wiU accept nothing that was Sir Robert's ; and this moment the Duke of Richmond has been here from Court to teU Sfr R. that he had resigned the Mastership of the Horse, ha-ving received it from him, unasked, and that he would not keep it beyond his Ministry. This is the greater honour, as it was so unexpected, and as he had no personal friendship -with the Duke. For myself, I am quite happy to be free from aU the fatigue, en-vy, and uncertainty of our late situation. I go everywhere ; indeed, to have the stare over, and to use myself to neglect, but I meet nothing but ci^viHties. Here have been Lord Hartington, Coke, and poor FitzwilHam,' and others crying; here has been Lord Deskford and numbers to wish me joy ; in short, it is a most extraordinary and various scene. There are three people whom I pity much ; the King, Lord Wilmington, and my o-wn sister ;' the first, for the affront, to be forced to part -with his minister, and to be forced to forgive his son ; the second, as he is too old, and (even when he was young) unfit for the burthen ; and the poor gfr-1, who must be created an earl's daughter, as her bfrth would deprive her of the rank. She must kiss hands and bear the fifrts of impertinent real quaHty. I am invited to dinner to-day by Lord Strafford,' ArgyU's son-in law. You see we shaU grow the fashion. My dear chUd, these are the most material points : I am sensible how much you must want particulars ; but you must be sensible, too, that just yet, I have not time. Don't be uneasy ; your brother Ned has been here to -wish me ' WUliam, Baron, and afterwards Earl Fitzwilliam ; a young lord, much attached to Sir R. W. [see p. 167.]— Walpole. - Maria, natural daughter of Sir R. W. by Maria Skerret, his mistress, whom he afterwards married. She had a patent to take place as an eari's daughter [see p. 82].— Walpole. ^ William Wentworth, second Earl of Strafford, of the second creation. Walpole's correspondent and neighbour at Twickenham. He married Lady Anne Campbell second daughter of John, Duke of Argyle, and died 1791.— Cunningham. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 126 joy : your brother Gal. has been here and cried ; your tender nature -wUl at first make you Hke the latter ; but afterwards you -will rejoice with your elder and me. Adieu ! Yours, ever, and the same. 61. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Feb. 9, 1741-2. You -wiU have had my letter that told you of the great change. The scene is not quite so pleasant as it was, nor the tranquiUity arrived that we expected. AU is in confusion ; no overtures from the Prince, who, it must seem, proposes to be King. His party have persuaded him not to make up, but on much greater conditions than he first demanded : in short, not-withstanding his professions to the Bishop,' he is to insist on the impeachment of Sir R[obert], saying now, that his terms not being accepted at ffrst, he is not bound to stick to them. He is pushed on to this -violence by ArgyU, Chesterfield, Cobham,' Sfr John Hinde Cotton,' and Lord Marchmont. The first says, " What impudence it is in Sir R. to be dri-ving about the sti'eets ! " and aU cry out, that he is stiU minister behind the curtain. They -wiU none of them come into the mimstry, tUl several are displaced ; but have summoned a great meeting of the faction for Friday, at the Fountain Tavern," to consult measures against Sir R., and to-morrow the Common CouncU meet, to draw up instructions for thefr members. They have sent into Scotland and into the counties for the same purpose. Carteret and Pulteney' pretend to ¦ Seeker, Bishop of Oxford. — Walpole. '' Richard Temple, Viscount Cobham, so created in 1718, with remainder to the issue male of his sister, Hester Grenville. He had served in Flanders under the Duke of Marlborough, and was, upon the overthrow of Sir Robert Walpole's administra tion, promoted to the rank of field-marshal. He is now best remembered as the friend of Pope and the creator of the gardens of Stowe. — Dover. ' Sir John Hinde Cotton, Bart., of Landwade, in Cambridgeshire; long a member of parliament. He died in 1752, and Walpole, in his Memoires, in noticing thia event, aaya, " Died Sir John Cotton, the laat Jacobite of any sensible activity." — Dover. The last English Jacobite, (Ritson the antiquary) was the first English Jacobin. — Cunningham. * In the Strand, at the corner of Fountain Court. " Then enlarge on his cunning and wit : Say how he harangued at the Fountain ; Say how the old patriots were bit, And a mouse was produced by a mountain." Sir H. Williams, on Pulteney. — Cunningham. « Lord Carteret and Mr. Pulteney had really betrayed their party, and so injudi ciously, that they lost their old friends and gained no new ones.- Walpole. 128 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. be against this ¦violence, but o-wn that if their party insist upon it, they cannot desert them. The cry against Sir R. has been greater this week than ever ; first, against a grant of four thousand pounds a-year, which the King gave him on his resignation, but which, to quiet them, he has given up.' Then, upon making his daughter a lady ; their -wives and daughters declare against giving her place. He and she both kissed hands yesterday, and on Friday go to Richmond for a week. He seems quite secure in his innocence — ^but what protection is that, against the power and maHce of party ! Indeed, his friends seem as firm as ever, and frequent him as much ; but they are not now the strongest. As to an impeach ment, I think they wiU not be so mad as to proceed to it : it is too solemn and too pubHc to be attempted, -without proof of crimes, of which he certainly is not guUty. For a biU of pains and penalties, they may if they ¦wUl, I beHeve, pass it through the Commons, but wiU scarce get the assent of the King and Lords. In a week more I shaU be able to write ¦with less uncertainty. I hate sending you false news, as that was, of the Duke of Rich mond's resignation. It arose from his being two hours below -with Sir R[obert], and from some very warm discourse of his in the House of Lords, against the present -violences ; but went no farther. Zeal magnified this, as she came up stafrs to me, and I -wrote to you before I had seen Sfr Robert. At a time when we ought to be most united, we are in the greatest confusion ; such is the vfrtue of the patriots, though they have obtained what they professed alone to seek. They -wUl not stir one step in foreign affafrs, though Sfr R[obert] has offered to unite -with them, -with aU his friends, for the common cause. It -wUl now be seen, whether he or they are most patriot. You see I caU him Sir Robert stUl ! after one has kno-wn him by that name for these three score years, it is difficult to accustom one's mouth to another title. ¦ Sir Robert, at the persuasion of his brother [old Horace], Mr. Selwyn, and other-?, desisted from pursuing this grant. Three years afterwarda, when the clamour waa at an end, and his affairs extremely involved, he sued for it : which Mr. Pelham, hia friend and glfeve, was brought with the worst grace in the world to ask, and his old obliged master the King prevailed upon, with as ill grace, to grant. — Walpole. February 8. Sir R. Walpole was presented at Court as Earl cf Orford. He was per suaded to refuse a grant of four thousand a-year during the King's life and his own, but could not be dissuaded from accepting a letter of honour from the King, to grant his natural daughter, Maria, precedence as an earl's daughter; who was also pre sented this day. The same thing had been done for Scrope, Earl of Sunderland, who left no lawful issue, and from one of whom Lord Howe is descended. — Seeker MS.—VfRiaivc. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 127 In the midst of aU this, we are diverting ourselves as cordially as if Righteousness and Peace had just been kissing one another. BaUs, operas, and masquerades ! 'The Duchess of Norfolk' makes a grand masqueing next week ; and to-morrow there is one at the Opera-house. Here is a Saxe-Gothic prince, brother to her Royal Highness [the Princess of Wales] : he sent her word from Dover that he was driven in there, in his way to Italy. The man of the inn, whom he consulted about lodgings in to-wn, recommended him to one of very Ul-fame in Suffolk-street. He has got a neutraHty for himself, and goes to both courts. ChurchUl' asked Pulteney the other day, " Well, Mr. Pulteney, wiU you break me too ? " — " No, Charles," replied he, " you break fast enough of yourself ! " Don't you think it hurt him more than the other brealdng would ? Good night ! Yours, ever. Tliursday, Feb. 11, 1741-2. P.S. I had finished my letter, and un-wUHngly resolved to send you aU that bad news, rather than leave you ignorant of our doings ; but I have the pleasure of mending your prospect a Httle. Yesterday the Common CouncU met, and resolved upon instructions to their members, which, except one not very descriptive paragraph, contains nothing personal against our new earl ; and ends -with resolutions " to stand by our present constitution." IVIind what foUowed ! One of them proposed to insert "the King and Royal FamUy" before the words, "our present constitution;" but, on a di-vision, it was rejected by three to one. But to-day, for good news ! Sir Robert has resigned ; Lord WUmington is Ffrst Lord of the Treasury, and Sandys has accepted the seals as ChanceUor of the Exchequer, -with Gibbons" and Sir John Rushout," joined to him as other lords of the Treasury. ' Mary, daughter of Edward Blount, Esq., and wife of Edward, ninth Duke of Norfolk. — Dover. ^ General Charles ChurchUl. — Dover. See ante, pp. 95, 112. At his death, in 1745, the General was Colonel of a regiment of Dragoons, Governor of Plymouth, Groom of the Bedchamber, Deputy Ranger of St. James's Park, and M.P. for Castle rising, for which he was returned by the Walpole interest. — Cunningham. ' PhUip Gibbons, or Gybbon, a Lord of the Treasury; and called by Walpole "one of Pulteney's creatures.'' — Cunningham. ¦* Sir John Rushout, the fourth baronet of the family, had particularly distinguished himself as an opponent of Sir R. Walpole's excise scheme, lie was made Treasurer of the Navy in 1743, and died in 1775, at the advanced age of ninety-one. His aon was created Lord Northwick in 1797.— Dover. 138 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742 WaUer' was to have been the other, but has formaUy refused. So, Lord Sundon, Earle, Treby,' and Clutterbuck' are the first discarded, unless the latter saves himself by WaUer's refusal. Lord Har rington, who is created an Earl, is made President of the CouncU, and Lord Carteret has consented to be Secretary of State in his room — ^but mind ; not one of them has promised to be against the prosecution of Sfr Robert, though I don't beHeve now that it ¦wUl go on. You see Pulteney is not come in, except in his friend Sfr John Rushout," but is to hold the balance between Hberty and prerogative ; at least, in this, he acts -with honour. They say Sfr John Hinde Cotton and the Jacobites -wUl be left out, unless they bring in Dr. Lee and Sfr John Bamard to the Admiralty, as they propose ; for I do not think it is decided what are thefr principles. Sfr Charles Wager has resigned this morning :' he says, " We shall not die, but be aU changed ! " though he says, a parson lately reading this text in an old Bible, where the c was rubbed out, read it, not die, but be all hanged! To-morrow our Earl goes to Richmond Park, en retire ; comes on Thursday to take his seat in the Lords, and returns thither again. Sandys is very angry at his taking the title of Orford, which belonged to his wife's' great uncle. You know a step of that nature cost the great Lord Strafford' his head, at the prosecution of a less bloody-minded man than Sandys. I remain in town, and have not taken at all to -withdra-wing, which I hear has given offence, as weU as my gay face in pubHc ; but as I had so Httle joy in the grandeur, I am determined to take as Httle part in the disgi'ace. I am looking about for a new house. I have received two vast packets from you to-day, I beHeve from the bottom of the sea, for they have been so washed that I could scarce read them. I could read the terrible history of the earth- ' Edmund Waller, a near descendant of the poet. — Cunningham. ' George Treby, Esq. — Dover. ' Thomas Clutterbuck, Esq., left the Treasury in February 1742, and was made, in May 1742, Treasurer of the Navy. He died in November 1742. See p. 153. — Cunningham. ' Rushout was Pulteney's second in his duel with Lord Hervey.— Cunningham. ' February 11. Lord Orford and Sir Charlea Wager reaigned. Mr. Sandya kissed hands as Chancellor of the Exchequer : Lord WUmington declared first commiasioner of the Treasury : offera made to the Duke of Argyle, but refuaed : none to Lord Chesterfield.- &cfar MS.— Wright. ' Lady Sandys was daughter of Lady Tipping, niece of Russel, Earl of Orford.— Walpole. ' Sir Thomas Wentworth, the great Earl of Strafford, took the title of Raby from a castle of that name, which belonged to Sir Henry Vane, who, from that time, became hia mortal foe. — Walpolb. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 129 quakes at Leghorn : how infinitely good you was to poor Mrs. Goldsworthy I how could you think I should not approve such vast humanity ? but you are aU humanity and forgiveness. I am only concerned that they -wiU be present when you receive aU these disagreeable accounts of your friends. Their support' is removed as well as yours, I only fear the interest of the Richmonds' -with the Duke of Newcastle ; but I -wiU fry to put you weU -with Lord Lincoln. We must -write cfrcumspectly, for our letters now are no longer safe. I shaU see AmorevoH to-night to give him the letter. Ah I MonticeUi and the Visconti are to sing to-night at a great assembly at Lady Conway's. I have not time to -write more : so, good night, my dearest chUd ! be in good spfrits. P.S. We have at last got CrebUlon's ' Sofa : ' Lord Chesterfield received three hundred, and gave them to be sold at White's.' It is admirable ! except the beginning of the first volume, and the lasi story, it is equal to anything he has -written. How he has painted the most refined nature in Mazulhim ! the most retfred nature in Modes ! the man of fashion, that sets himself above natural sensa tions, and the man of sense and devotion, that would skirmish himself from thefr influence, are equally justly reduced to the standard of thefr o^wn weaknof:?." 62. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Feb. 18, 1741-2. I WRITE to you more tired, and "with more headache, than any one but you could conceive ! I came home at five this morning from the Duchess of Norfolk's masquerade, and was forced to rise before eleven, for my father, who came from Richmond to take his seat in the Lords, for the Houses met to-day. He is gone back to ' Sir Charles Wager. — Walpole. Mra. Goldaworthy was the niece of Sir Charles Wager; see ante, p. 79. — Cunningham. ^ Mra. Goldsworthy had been ii companion of the Duchess of Richmond. — Walpole. ' The celebrated club in St. James's Street, of which Walpole was elected a member on the 22nd AprU, 1744 ; Mr Selwyn was elected the same day.— Cunningham. " Crebillon has made a convention with me, which, if he is not too lazy, wUl be no bad persiflage. As soon aa I get to Toulouse, he has agreed to write me an expostu- latory letter upon the indecencies of T. Shandy — which is to be answered by recrimina tions upon the liberties in his own works. These are to be printed together— Crgbillon against Sterne— Sterne against Crgbillon— the copy to be sold, and the money equaUy divided. This is good Swiss policy. — Sterne, Letters. — Cunningham. vol. I. ^ 130 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. his retirement. Things wear a better aspect ; at the great meeting on Friday, at the Fountain, Lord Carteret and Lord Winchelsea ' refused to go, only saying that they never dined at a tavern. Pulteney and the new ChanceUor of the Exchequer [Sandys] went, and were abused by his Grace of ArgyU. The former said he was content -with what was afready done, and would not be active in any further proceedings, though he would not desert the party. Sandys said the King had done him the honour to offer him that place ; why should he not accept it ? if he had not, another would : ff nobody would, the King would be obHged to employ his old minister again, which he imagined the gentlemen present would not wish to see ; and protested against screening, -with the same conclusion as Pulteney. The Duke of Bedford was very warm against Sir WUHam Yonge ; Lord Talbot ' was so in general." During the recess, they have employed Fazakerley' to draw up four impeachments ; against Sfr Robert, my uncle [old Horace], Mr. Keene, and Colonel Bladen, who was only commissioner for the tariff at Antwerp. One of the articles against Sfr Robert is, his having at this conjuncture trusted Lord Waldegrave as ambassador, who is so near a relation' of the Pretender : but these impeachments are likely to grow absolute manuscripts. The minds of the people grow much more candid : at ffrst, they made one of the actors at Drury Lane repeat some appHcable Hnes at the end of Harry the Fourth ; but last Monday, when his Royal Highness had purposely bespoken ' See an account of this meeting in Lord Egmont's 'Faction Detected.'— Walpole. 2 Daniel Finch, seventh Earl of Winchilsea, and third Eari of Nottingham. He was made first lord of the Admiralty upon the breaking up of Sir R. Walpole's government. — Dover. ^ WiUiam, second Lord Talbot, eldest son of the lord chanceUor of that name and title. — Dover. " Feb. 12. Meeting at the Fountain Tavern of above two hundred commoners and thirty-five lords. Duke of Argyle spoke warmly for prosecuting Lord Orford, with hints of reflection on those who had accepted. Mr. Pulteney replied warmly. Lord Talbot drank to cleansing the Augean stable of the dung and grooms. Mr. Sandya and Mr Gibbon there. Lord Carteret and Lord Winchilsea not. Lord Chancellor, in the evening, in private discourse to me, strong against taking in any Tories ; owning no more than that some of them, perhaps, were not for the Pretender, or, at least, did not know they were for him ; though, when I gave him the account first oi my discourse with the Prince, he said, the main body of them were of the same prin ciples with the Tories. — Seeker MS. — Wright. ' Nicholas Fazakeriey, Esq. [died 1767.] Walpole caUs him "a tiresome Jacobite lawyer." He, however, appears to have been a speaker of some weight in the House of Commons, and distinguished himself by his opposition to Lord Hardwicke a mischievous marriage bill in the year 1753. — Dover. " His mother was natural daughter of King James II.— Walpole. James, firsl Earl Waldegrave, appointed ambassador to the Court of France in 1730 : died in 1741. — Dover. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 131 ' The Unhappy Favourite,' ' for Mrs. Porter's benefit, they never once appHed the most glaring passages ; as where they read the mdictment against Robert, Earl of Essex, &c. The Tories declare against any farther prosecution — if Tories there are, for now one nears of nothing but the Broad Bottom : it is the reigning cant word, and means, the taking aU parties and people, indifferently, mto the ministiy. The Whigs are the dupes of this ; and those in the Opposition af&rm that Tories no longer exist. Notwithstanding this, they -wiU not come into the new ministry, unless what were always reckoned Tories are admitted. The Treasury has gone a-begging ; I mean one of the lordships, which is at last fiUed up -with a Major Compton, a relation of Lord Wilmington ; but now we shaU see a new scene. On Tuesday night Mr. Pulteney went to the Prince, and, -without the knowledge of ArgyU, &c. prevailed on him to write to the King : he was so long determining, that it was eleven at night before the King received his letter. Yesterday morning the Prince, attended by two of his lords, two grooms of the bedchamber, and Lord Scarborough,' his treasurer, went to the King's levee.' The King said, " How does the Princess do ? I hope she is weU." The Prince kissed his hand, and this was aU ! He returned to Carlton House, whither crowds went to him. He spoke to the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pelham ; but would not to the three dukes, Richmond, Grafton, and Marlborough." At night the Royal FamUy were aU at the Duchess of Norfolk's, and the streets were Uluminated and bonfired. To-day, the Duke of Bedford, Lord HaHfax, and some others, were at St. James's : the King spoke to aU the lords. In a day or two, I shaU go -with my uncle and brothers to the Prince's levee. Yesterday there was a meeting of aU the Scotch of our side, who, to a man, determined to defend Sir Robert. Lyttelton ' is going to marry Miss Fortescue, Lord CHnton's sister. ' Banks's tragedy of ' The Unhappy Favourite ; or. The Earl of Essex,' was first acted in 1682.— Wright. * Thomaa Lumley, third Earl of Scarborough, died 1762 ; brother of the Lord Scarborough praiaed by Pope and Cheaterfield. — Cunningham. ^ February 17. Prince of Wales went to St. James'a. The agreement made at eleven the night before, and principally by Mr Pulteney ; as Lord Wilmington told me. The King received him in the drawing-room ; the Prince kissed his hand : he asked him how the Princess did : showed no other mark of regard. AU the courtiers went the same day to Carlton House. The Bishop of Gloucester (Dr Benson) and 1 went thither. The Prince and Princess civil to us both. — Seeker Af.?.- Wright. " Charles Spencer, third Duke of Marlborough, succeeded to that title on the death of hia aunt, Henrietta, Duchesa of Marlborough, iu 1733. — Dover. * Sir George Lyttelton, afterwarda created Lord Lyttelton Miss Fortescue waa 132 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. When our Eari [Orford] went to the House of Lords to-day, he apprehended some mciviHties from his Grace of ArgyU, but he was not there. The Bedford, HaHfax, Berkshfre,' and some more, were close by him, but would not bow to him. Lord Chesterfield wished him joy. This is aU I know for certain ; for I wUl not send you the thousand Hes of every new day. I must tell you how fine the Masquerade of last night was. There were five hundred persons, in the greatest variety of hand some and rich dresses I ever saw, and aU the jewels of London — and London has some ! There were dozens of ugly Queens of Scots, of which I wiU only name to you the eldest Miss Shadwell ! ' The Princess of Wales was one, covered ¦with diamonds, but did not take off her mask : none of the Royalties did, but everybody else. Lady Conway ' was a charming Mary Stuart : Lord and Lady Euston, man and woman huzzars. But the two finest and most charming masks were thefr Graces of Richmond," Hke Harry the Eighth and Jane Seymour : excessively rich, and both so handsome ! Here is a nephew of the King of Denmark, who was in armour, and his governor, a most admirable Quixote. There were quantities of pretty Vandykes, and aU kinds of old pictures walked out of their fi-ames. It was an assemblage of aU ages and nations, and would have looked Hke the day of judgment, if tradition did not persuade us that we are aU to meet naked, and if something else did not teU us that we shaU not meet then -with quite so much indifference, nor thinking quite so much of the becoming. My dress was an Aureng- zebe : but of aU extravagant figures, commend me to our friend the Countess ! ' She and my lord trudged in Hke pilgrims, with vast staffs in their hands ; and she was so heated, that you would have his first wife, and mother of Thomas, called the wicked Lord Lyttelton. She died in childbed in 1747, and Lord Lyttelton honoured her memory with the well-known Monody, which was so unfeelingly parodied by Smollett. — Dover. ' Henry Bowes Howard, fourth Earl of Berkshire. He succeeded, iu 1745, as eleventh Earl of Suffolk, on the death, without issue, of Henry, tenth eari. He died in 1757. — Dover. 2 See ante, p. 84. Once when he [Bernard Lens] was drawing a lady's picture in the dress of the Queen of Scots, she said to him, " But, Mr Lens, you have not made me like the Queen of Scots ! " " No, madam, if God Almighty had made your lady.ship like her, I would." — Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting.— Cunningham. ^ Lady Isabella Fitzroy, youngest daughter of the [second] Duke of Grafton, and wife of Francis Seymour, Lord Conway, afterwards Earl of Hertford. — Walpole. ¦* Charles Lenox, Duke of Richmond, master of the Horse, and Sarah Cadogan, bis duchess. He died in 1760, and she in the year following. — Walpole. ' The Countess of Pomfret. — Walpole. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 133 thought her pilgrimage had been Hke Pantagruel's voyage, to the Oracle of the Bottle ! Lady Sophia [Fermor] was in a Spanish dress — so was Lord Lincoln ; not, to be sure, by design, but so it happened. When the King came in, the Faussans ' were there, and danced an entree. At the masquerade the King sat by Mrs. Sel-wyn, and -with tears told her, that " the Whigs should find he loved them, as he had done the poor man that was gone ! " He had sworn that he would not speak to the Prince at thefr meeting, but was pre vaUed on. I received your letter by HoUand, and the paper about the Spaniards. By this time you ¦will conceive that I can now speak of nothing to any purpose, for Sfr R. does not meddle in the least with business. As to the Sibyl, 1 have not mentioned it to him ; I stiU am for the other. Except that, he wUl not care, I beHeve, to buy more pictures, having now so many more than he has room for at Houghton ; and he ¦wUl have but a smaU house in to^wn when we leave this. But you must thank the dear Chutes for their new offers ; the obHgations are too great, but I am most sensible to thefr goodness, and, were I not so excessively tired now, would write to them. I cannot add a word more, but to think of the Princess : ' " Comment I vous avez done des enfans ! " You see how nature sometimes breaks out, in spite of reHgion and prudery, grandeur and pride, deHcacy and epuisements ! Good night ! Yours, ever. 63. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, Feb. 26, 1742. I AM impatient to hear that you have received my ffrst accoimt of the change ; as to be sure you are now for every post. This last week has not produced many new events. The Prince of Wales has got the measles,' so there has been but Httle incense offered up to him: his brother of Saxe-Gotha has got them too. When the Princess went to St. James's, she feU at the King's feet and strug gled to Mss his hand, and burst into tears. At the Norfolk mas querade she was vastiy bejeweUed ; Frankz had lent her forty thousand pounds' worth, and refused to be paid for the hire, only desiring that she would teU whose they were. All this is nothing, but ' Two celebrated comic dancers. — Walpole. ^ Princess Craon, so often mentioned in these letters.— Dover. ' February 21. Prince taken ill of the measles. The King sent no message to him in his 'i\h\e:m.^Secker MS. — Wright. 134 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [IW2. to introduce one of Madame de Pomfret's ingenuities, who, being dressed Hke a pUgrim, told the Princess, that she had taken her for the Lady of Loreto. But you wiU -wish for poHtics now, more than for histories oi masquerades, though this last has taken up people's thoughls fall as much. The House met last Thursday, and voted the army -witliout a di-vision : Shippen ' alone, unchanged, opposed it. They have since been busied on elections, turning out our friends and voting in their own, almost -without opposition. The chief affafr has been the Denbighshfre election, on the petition of Sfr Watkyn Williams, They have voted hfrn into parHament and the high-sheriff into Newgate. Murray '' was most eloquent : Lloyd,' the counsel on the other side, and no bad one, said, (for I go constantly, though I do not stay long, but " leave the dead to bury their dead,") that it was objected to the sheriff, that he was related to the sitting member; but, indeed, fri that countiy (Wales) it would be difficult not to be related. Yesterday we had another hearing of the petition of the Merchants, when Sfr Robert GodschaU shone brighter than even his usual. There was a copy of a letter produced, the origmal being lost : he asked whether the copy had been taken before the original was lost, or after ! Next week they commence thefr prosecutions, which they will introduce by voting a committee to inqufre into aU the offices : ok WUHam Yonge is to be added to the impeachments, but the chief whom they wish to punish is my uncle [old Horace.] He is the more to be pitied, because nobody -wUl pity hun. They are not fond of a formal message which the States General have sent to Sfr Robert, " to compliment him on his new honour, and to condole -with him on being out of the ministry, which ¦wUl be so detrimental to Europe . The thfrd augmentation in HoUand is confirmed, and that the Prince of Hesse is chosen generaHssimo, which makes it beheved that his Grace of ArgyU wiU not go over, but that we shaU certainly have a war -with France in the spring. -ArgyU has got the Ordnance restored to him, and they wanted to give hfrn back his regiment ; to which end Lord Hertford " was desired to resign it, -with the offer of ' William Shippen, a celebrated Jacobite. Sir R. Walpole said that he waa the only man whose price he did not know. [See p. 97.] — Walpole. * William Murray, Mr. Pope's friend, afterwards SoUcitor, and then Attorney- general. — Walpolk. ^ Sir Richard Lloyd, who succeeded Mr. Murray, in 1754, as Solicitor-general.- Walpole. * Algernon Seymour, Eari of Hertford, eldest son of Charies, caUed the proud 1742.J TO SIR HORACE MANN. 135 Ids old troop again. He said he had received the regiment from the King ; if his Majesty pleased to take it back, he might, but he did not know why he should resign it. Since that, he wrote a letter to the King, and sent it by his son. Lord Beauchamp, resigning his regiment, his government, and his wife's pension, as Lady of the Bedchamber to the late Queen. No more changes are made yet. They have offered the Admiralty to Sfr Charles Wager again, but he refused it : he said, ho heard that he was an old woman, and that he did not know what good old women could do anywhere. A comet has appeared here for two nights, which, you know, is lucky enough at this time, and a pretty ingredient for making prophecies. These are aU the news. I receive your letters regularly, and hope you receive mine so : I never miss one week. Adieu ! my dearest child ! I am perfectly weU ; tell me always that you are. .Are the good Chutes stiU at Florence ? My best love to them, and services to aU. Here are some new Lines much in vogue : ' — 174L Unhappy England, still in forty -one '•= By Scotland art thou doom'd to be undone ! But Scotland now, to strike alone afraid. Calls in her worthy sister Cornwall's'' aid ; And these two common Strumpets, hand in hand. Walk forth, and preach up virtue through the land ; Start at corruption, at a bribe turn pale. Shudder at pensions, and at placemen rail. Peace, peace ! ye wretched hypocrites ; or rather With Job, say to Corruption, " Thou 'rt our Father." But how wUl Walpole justify his fate? He trusted Islay,'' till it was too late. Where were those parts ! where was that piercing mind ! That judgment, and that knowledge of mankind ! Duke of Somerset, whom he succeeded in that title, and was the last Duke of Somerset of that branch ; his son. Lord Beauchamp, having died before him.— Dover. ' These Lines were written by Sir Charles Hanbury WUliams.— Walpole. WUliams's Works, vol i. p. 28.— Cunningham. '' AUuding to the Grand Rebellion against Charles the First. — Walpole. ' The Parliament which overthrew Sir Robert Walpole was carried against him by his losing the majority of the Scotch and Cornish boroughs ; the latter managed by Lord Falmouth and Thomas Pitt.— Walpole. " Archibald Campbell, Earl of Islay, brother of John Duke of ArgyU, in conjunc tion with whom (though then openly at variance) he was supposed to have betrayed Sir R. W. and to have let the Opposition succeed in the Scotch elections, which were trusted to his management. It must be observed, that Sir Robert Walpole would never allow that he believed himself betrayed by Lord Islay. [See p. 73.]— Walpolb I'^j HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. To trust a Traitor that he knew so weU ! (Strange truth ! betray'd, but not deceived, he feU ! ) He knew his heart was, like his aspect, vUe ; Knew him the tool, and Brother of ArgyU I Yet to his hands his power and hopea gave up ; And though he saw 'twas poison, drank the cup ! Trusted to One he never could think true, And periah'd by a viUain that he knew. 64. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, March 3, 1742. I AM obHged to write to you to-day, for I am sure I shaU not have a moment to-morrow ; they are to make thefr motion for a secret committee to examine into the late administiation. We are to oppose it stiongly, but to no purpose ; for since the change, they have beat us on no di-vision under a majority of forty. This last week has produced no new novelties ; his Royal Highness has been shut up -with the measles, of which he was near dying, by eating China oranges. We are to send sixteen thousand men into Flanders in the spring, under his Grace of ArgyU ; they talk of the Duke of Marlborough and Lord -Albemarle to command under him. Lord Cadogan ' is just dead, so there is another regiment vacant : they design Lord Delawar's for Westmoreland ; ' so now Sfr Francis Dashwood ' -will grow as fond of the King again as he used to be — or as he has hated bim since. We have at last finished the Merchants' petition, under the conduct of the Lord Mayor and Mr. Leonidas;' the greatest coxcomb and the greatest oaf that ever met in blank verse or prose. I told you the former's question about the copy of a letter taken after the original was lost. They have got a new story of him ; that hearing of a gentleman who had had the smaU-pox twice and died of it, he asked, if he died the first time or the second— if ' Charies, Lord Cadogan, of Oakley, to which title he succeeded on the death of hia elder brother, 'WiUiam, Earl Cadogan, who waa one of the most distinguished " of Marlborough's captains." Charles, Lord Cadogan, did not die at the period when this letter was written. On the contrary, he Uved till the year 1776. — Dover. 2 John, seventh Eari of Westmoreland. He built the Palladian Villa of Mereworth, in Kent, which is a nearly exact copy of the celebrated VUla Capra, near Vicenza. He died in 1762. Sir Francis Dashwood [p. 68] succeeded, on hia decease, to the barony in fee of Le Despencer. — Dover. ^ Sir Francis Dashwood [p. 68], nephew to the Earl of Westmoreland, had gone violently into Opposition, on that lord's losing his regiment. — Dover. ¦* Mr. Glover. — Walpole. Walpole always depreciates Glover [pp. 31 and 117]; but his conduct, upon the occasion referred to in the text, displayed considerable abUity. — Dover. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 137 this is made for him, it is at least quite in his style. .After summing up the evidence (in doing which, Mr. Glover HteraUy drank several times to the Lord Mayor in a glass of water that stood by him), Sfr John Barnard moved to vote, that there had been great neglect in the protection of the trade, to the great advantage of the enemy, and the dishonour of the nation. He said he did not mean to charge the Adnuralty particularly, for then particular persons must have had particular days assigned to be heard in their own defence, which would take up too much time, as we are now going to make inquiries of a much higher nature. Mr. Pelham was for leaving out the last words. Mr. Dodington rose, and in a set speech declared that the motion was leveUed at a particular person, who had so usurped aU authority, that aU inferior offices were obHged to submit to his -wiU, and so either bend and bow, or be bro/cen : but that he hoped the steps we were now going to take, would make the office of first minister so dangerous a post, that nobody would care to accept it for the future. Do but think of this feUow, who has so lost aU character, and made himself so odious to both King and Prince, by his alter nate flatteries, changes, oppositions, and changes of flatteries and oppositions, that he can never expect what he has so much courted by aU methods, — think of his talking of making it dangerous for any one else to accept the flrst ministership ! ShoiUd such a period ever arrive, he would accept it with joy — the only chance he can ever have for it I But sure, never was impudence more put to shame ! The whole debate turned upon him. Lord DoneraUe (who, by the way, has produced blossoms of Dodington - — Hke fruit, and consequently is the fitter scourge for him) stood up and said, he did not know what that gentle man meant ; that he himself was as wUHng to bring aU offenders to justice as any man ; but that he did not intend to confine punishment to those who had been employed only at the end of the last ministry, but proposed to extend it to aU who had been engaged in it, and wished that that gentleman would speak -with more lenity of an adminis tration, in which he himself had been concerned for so many years. Winnington said, he did not know what Mr. Dodington had meant, by either bending or being broken; that he knew some who had been broken, though they had both botved and bended. WaUer defended Dodington, and said, if he was guUty, at least Mr. Winnington was so too ; on which Fox rose up, and, laying his hand on his breast, said he never -wished to have such a friend, as could only excuse him by bringing in another for equal share of his guUt. Sfr ' See note, p. 105. 138 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. John Cotton repHed ; he did not wonder that Mr. Fox (who had spoken with great warmth) was angry at hearing his friend in place, compared to one out of place. Do but figure how Dodington must have looked and felt during such dialogues ! In short, it ended in Mr. Pulteney's rising, and saying, he could not be against the latter words, as he thought the former part of the motion had been proved ; and wished both parties would join in carrying on the war ¦vigorously, or in procuring a good peace, rather than in ripping open old sores, and continuing the heats and -violences of parties. We came to no division — for we should have lost it by too many. Tliursday evening. I had written aU the former part of my letter, only reserving room to teU you, that they had carried the secret committee — ^but it is put off tUl next Tuesday. To-day we had nothing but the gi-ving up the Heydon election, when Mr. Pulteney had an opportunity (as Mr. Chute and Mr. Robinson would not take the trouble to defend a cause which they could not carry) to declaim upon cor ruption : had it come to a trial, there were eighteen witnesses ready to swear positive bribery against Mr. Pulteney. I would ¦write to Mr. Chute, and thank him for his letter which you sent me, but I am so out of humour at his brother's losing his seat, that I cannot speak civUly even to him to-day. It is said, that my Lord's Grace of ArgyU has carried his great point of the Broad Bottom — as I suppose you "wiU hear by rejoicings from Rome. The new Admiralty is named ; at the head is to be Lord Winchilsea, ¦with Lord Granard,' Mr. Cockbum, his Grace's friend. Dr. Lee, the chairman. Lord Vere Beauclerc ; ' one of the old set, by the interest of the Duke of Dorset, and the connection ofTiady Betty Germain, whose niece Lord Vere married ; and two Tories, Sir John Hind Cotton and WiU. Chet^wynd,' an agent of BoHngbroke's — aU this is not declared yet, but is beHeved. ' George Forbes, third Earl of Granard in Ireland ; an admiral, and a member of the House of Commons. — Dover. ' Third son of the first Duke of St. Albans, created in 1760 Lord Vere of Hanworth in Middlesex. He was the direct ancestor of the present line of the St. Albans family. His wife was Mary, daughter and heiress of Thomas Chambers, Esq., of Hanworth, by Lady Mary Berkeley, the sister of Lady Betty Germain.— Dover. ' WiUiam Richard Chetwynd, second brother of the first Viscount of that name, member of Parliament successively for Stafford and Plymouth. He had been envoy at Genoa, and a lord of the Admiralty ; and he finally succeeded his two elder brothers as third Viscount Chetwynd, in 1767. — Dover. He was famUiarly caUed " Black Will," and sometimes " Oroonoko Chetwi-nd," from his dark complexion. He died in 1770.— Wright. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN 139 This great Duke has named his four aid-de-camps— Lord Charles Hay ; George Stanhope, brother of Eari Stanhope ; Dick Lyttelton, who was page ; and a CampbeU. Lord Cadogan is not dead, but has been given over. We are rejoicing over the great success of the Queen of Hungary's arms, and the number of blows and thwarts which the French have received. It is a prosperous season for our new popular generals to grow glorious ! But, to have done ¦with poHtics. Old Marlborough has at last pubHshed her Memofrs ; they are digested by one Hooke,' who wrote a Roman history ; but from her materials, which are so womanish, that I am sure the man might sooner have made a go^wn and petticoat ¦with them. There are some choice letters from Queen Anne, Httle inferior in the fulsome to those from King James to the Duke of Buckingham. Lord Oxford's ' famous sale begins next Monday, where there is as much mbbish of another kind as in her Grace's History. Feather bonnets presented by the Americans to Queen EUzabeth ; elks'-horns converted into caudle-cups ; true copies of original pictures that never existed ; presents to himself from the Royal Society, &c., particularly forty volumes of prints of Ulustrious EngHsh personages ; which coUection is coUected from frontispieces to godly books, bibles and poems ; ^ head-pieces and taU-pieces to WaUer's works ; ¦views of King Charles's sufferings ; tops of baUads, particularly earthly crowns for heavenly ones, and streams of glory. There are few good pictures, for the miniatures are not to be sold, nor the manuscripts ; the books not tUl next year. There are a few fine bronzes, and a very fine coUection of EngHsh coins. We have got another opera," which is Hked. There was to have ' Nathaniel Hooke, a laborious compiler, but a very bad writer. It is said that the Duchess of Marlborough gave him £5000 for the services he rendered her in the com position and publication of her apology. She, however, afterwards quarrelled with him, because she said he tried to convert her to Popery. Hooke himself was of that religion, and waa alao a Quieteat, and an enthusiastic follower of Fenelon. It was Hooke who brought a Catholic priest to attend the death-bed of Pope ; a proceeding which excited such bitter indignation in the infidel Bolingbroke. Hooke died July 19th, 1763.— Walpole. " Edward Harley, second Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimei, only son of the minister. He was a great and liberal patron of literature and learned men, and completed the valuable collection of manuscripts commenced by his father, which is now in the British Museum. He married the great Cavendi.«h heiress. Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holies, daughter of Holies, Duke of Newcastle, and died June 16th, 1741. — Dover. ^ Fenton's quarto edition of WaUer was dedicated by Fenton in verse to the Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley. — Cunningham. " By Buranello, and called 'Scipione in Cartaginc' — Wright. 1*^> HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. been a vast elephant, but the just dfrectors, designing to give the audience the fuU weight of one for their money, made it so heavy, that at the prova it broke through the stage. It was to have carried twenty soldiers, with MonticeUi on a throne in the middle. There is a new subscription begun for next year, thfrty subscribers at two hundred pounds each. Would you beHeve that I am one ? You need not beHeve it quite, for I am but haff an one ; Mr. Conway and I take a share between us. We keep MonticeUi and Amorevoh, and to please Lord Middlesex, that odious Musco-vita ; but shaU discard Mr. Vaneschi. We are to have the Barberina and the two Faussans ; so, at least, the singers and dancers -wUl be equal to anything in Europe. Our Earl [Orford] is stUl at Richmond : I have not been there yet ; I shaU go once or twice ; for however Httle incHnation I have to it, I would not be thought to grow cool just now. You know I am above such dfrtiness, and you are sensible that my coolness is of much longer standing. Your sister ' is -vrith mine at the Park ; they came to to-wn last Tuesday for the opera, and returned next day. -After supper, I prevaUed on your sister to sing, and though I had heard her before, I thought I never heard anything beyond it ; there is a sweetness in her voice equal to Cuzzoni's, ¦with a better manner. I was last week at the masquerade, dressed like an old woman, and passed for a good mask. I took the EngHsh Hberty of teasing whomever I pleased, particularly old [General] ChurchUl. I told him I was quite ashamed of being there tiU I met him, but was quite comforted -with finding one person in the room older than myseff. The Duke,' who had been told who I was, came up and said, " Je connois cette poitrine." I took him for some Templar, and repHed, " Vous ! vous ne connoissez que des poitrines qui sent bien plus usees." It was unluckUy pat. The next night, at the Drawing- room, he asked me, very good-humouredly, if I knew who was the old woman that had teased everybody at the Masquerade. We were laughing so much at this, that the King crossed the room to Lady Hervey, who was -with us, and said, " What are those boys laughmg at so ? " She told hfrn, and that I had said I was so awkward at undressing myself, that I had stood for an hour in my stays and under-petticoat before my footman. My thanks to Madame Grifoni. I cannot -write more now, as I must not make my letter too big, when it appeai-s at the secretary's office now. As to my sister [Mary ' Mary Mann, afterwards married to Mr Foote. [See p. 76.] — Walpole. ' Of Cumberland. — Walpole. The hero of CuUoden. — Cunningham. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 141 Skerrett], I am sure Sfr Robert would never have accepted Prince Craon's offer, who now, I suppose, would not be eager to repeat it. 66. TO SIR HORACE MANN. March 10, 1742. I WILL not work you up into a fright only to have the pleasure of putting you out of it, but -wiU teU you at once that we have gained the greatest victory ! I don't mean in the person of Admiral Vernon, nor of Admiral Haddock ; no, nor in that of his Grace of ArgyU. By we, I don't mean wc-Enghind, but wc, literally u-c ; not you and I, but we, the house of Orford. Tho certainty that the Opposition (or rather the CoaHtion, for that is the new name they have taken) had of carrying every point they -wished, made them, in the pride of thefr hearts, declare that they would move for the Secret Committee yesterday (Tuesday), and next Friday would name the Hst, by which day they should have Mr. Sandys from lus re-election. It was, however, expected to be put off, as Mr. Pulteney could not attend the House ; his only daughter was dying — they say she is dead.' But an affair of consequence to them, and indeed to the nation in general, roused aU their rage, and drove them to determine on the last violences. I told you in my last, that the new Admiralty was named, -with a mixture of Tories ; that is, it was named by my Lord of ArgyU ; but the King flatly put his negative on Sir John Cotton. They said he was no Tory now, (and, in truth, he yesterday in the House professed himself a Whig,) and that there were no Tories left in the nation. The King repHed, " that might be ; but he was determined to stand by those who had set him and his family upon the throne." This refusal em-aged them so much, that they declared they would force him, not only to turn out aU the old ministiy, but the new too, if he ¦wished to save Sir R[obert] and others of his friends ; and that, as they supposed he designed to get the great bUls passed, and then prorogue the parliament, they were determined to keep back some of the chief biUs, and sit aU the summer, examining into the late administration. Accordingly, yesterday, in a most fuU house, Lord Limerick' (who last year, ' 1742, March 9. The only daughter of WUliam Pulteney, Esq , a young lady of fourteen, worthy of the tears of such a father. — Gentleman's Magazine for 1742, p. 163. — Cunningham. * WUliam Hamilton, Lord Viscount Limerick. — Walpole. According to the peerages, Lord Limerick's Christian name was James, and not William. — Dover. 142 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742, seconded the famous motion') moved for a committee to examine into the conduct of the last twenty years, and was seconded by Sfr John St. Aubin.' In short, (for I have not time to teU you the debate at length,) we di-vided, between eight and nine, when there was not a man of our party that did not expect to lose it by at least fifteen or twenty, but, to our great amazement, and thefr as great confusion, we threw out the motion, by a majority of 244 against 242.' Was there ever a more surprising event ? a disgraced min ister, by his personal interest, to have a majority to defend him even from inqufry ! What was ridiculous, the very man who seconded the motion happened to be shut out at the division ; but there was one on our side shut out too. I don't know what -violent step they wiU take next ; it must be by surprise, for when they could not carry this, it -wiU be impossible for them to carry anything more personal. We trust that the danger is now past, though they had a great meeting to-day at Dodington's, and threaten stUl. He was to have made the motion, but was deterred by the treatment he met last week. Sfr John Norris was not pre sent ; he has resigned aU his employments, in a pique for not being named of the new Admfralty. His old Grace of Somerset " is recon cUed to his son. Lord Hertford, on his late affair of ha-ving the regi ment taken from him : he sent for him, and told him he had behaved Hke his son. My dearest child, I have this moment received a most unexpected and most melancholy letter from you, -with an account of your fever and new operation. I did not in the least dream of your having any more trouble from that disorder ! are you never to be delivered from it ? Your letter has shocked me extremely ; and then I am terrified at the Spaniards passing so near Florence. If they should, ' For removing Sir Robert Walpole. — Walpole. ^ Sir John St, Aubyn, of Clowance, in Cornwall [died 1744], third baronet of that family. — Dover. ^ March 9. Motion in the House of Commons for a secret committee to inquire into our affairs for twenty or twenty-one years. The Speaker said Ayes had it : one that waa for trying it divided the House. The Noes carried it by 244 against 242. Mr. Sandys at Worcester, Mr. Pulteney at home — his daughter dying. The Prince at Kew. Several of his servants, and several Scotch members, not at the House ; nor Lord Winchilsea's brothers. Gibbon, Rushout, Barnard voted for the committee, but did not speak. It is said that the Prince had before this written to Lord Carteret, to desire that Lord Archibald HamUton and Lord Baltimore might be lords of the Ad miralty, and that this had been promised, — Seeker MS. — Wright. ¦' Charles, commonly called " the proud Duke of Somerset." An absurd, vain, pompous man, who appears to have been also most harsh and unfeeling to those who depended on him. — Dover. See note 4, p. 134. — Cunningham. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 143 as I fear they -will, stay here, how inconvenient and terrible it would be for you, now you are ill ! You teU me, and my good Mr. Chute teUs me, that you are out of aU danger, and much better ; but to what can I trust, when you have these continual relapses ! The vast time that passes between your ^VI•iting and my receiving your letters, makes me flatter myself, that by now you are out of aU pain : but I am miserable, -with findfrig that you may be still subject to new torture ! not aU your courage, -which is amazing, can give me any about you. But how can you ¦write to me ? I "wiU not suffer it— and now, good Mr. Chute, ¦wiU write for you. I am so angry at your ¦writing immediately after that dreadful operation, though I see your goodness in it, that I wiU not say a word more to you. All the rest is to Mr. Chute. What shaU I say to you, my dearest Sfr, for aU your tenderness to poor Mx. Mann and me ? as you have so much friendship for him, you may conceive how much I am obHged to you. How much do 1 regret not ha^ving had more opportunities of sho^wing you my esteem and love, before this new attention to Mr. Mann. You do flatter me, and teU me he is recovering — may I trust you ? and don't you say it, only to comfort me ? — Say a great deal for me to Mr. WlHthed ; he is excessively good to me ; I don't know how to thank him. I am happy that you are so weU yourself, and so constant to your fasting. To reward your -virtues, I vnH teU you all the news I know ; not much, but very extraordinary. What would be the most extiaordinary event that you think could happen ? Would not — next to his becoming a real patriot— the Duke of ArgyU's resigning be the most unexpected ? would anything be more sur prising than his immediately resigning power and profit, after having felt the want of them ? Be that as it -wiU, he HteraUy, actuaUy resigned aU his new commissions yesterday, because the King refused to employ the Tories.' What part he -wUl act next, is yet to come. Mrs. Boothby said, upon the occasion, " that in one month's time he had contrived to please the whole nation — the Tories, by going to court ; the Whigs, by leaving it." They talk much of impeaching my father, since they could not committee bim ; but as they could not, I think they wUl scarce be able to carry a more -violent step. However, to show how Httle Tory resentments are feared, the King has named a new Admiralty ; ' March 10. Duke of Argyle resigned his places to the King. He gave for a reason, that a proposal had been made to him for going ambassador to HoUand, which ne understood to be sending him out of the way. — Seeker J/.S. — Wright. 144 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. Lord Winchilsea, Admiral Cavendish, Mr. Cockbum, Dr. Lee, Lord Baltimore, young Trevor,' (which is much disHked, for he is of no consequence for estate, and less for parts, but is a relation of the Pelhams,) and Lord Archibald HamUton ' — to please his Royal Highness. Some of his people {not the Lytteltons and Pitts) stayed away the other night upon the Secret Committee, and they think he -wiU at last rather take his father's part than ArgyU's. Poor Mr. Pulteney has lost his girl : she was an only daughter and sensible and handsome. He has only a son left,' and, they say, is affHcted to the greatest degree. I -wUl say nothing about old Sarah's [the Duchess of Marl borough's] Memofrs ; for with some spirit, they are nothing but remnants of old women's frippery. Good night ! I recommend my poor Mr. Mann to you, and am yours, most faithfuUy. P.S. My dearest child, how unhappy I shaU be, tiU I hear you are quite recovered ! 66. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Monday, March 22, 1742. [Great part of this letter is lost.] * * * I have at last received a letter from you in answer to the first I -wrote to you upon the change in the ministry. I hope you have received mine regularly since, that you may know aU the con sequent steps. I Hke the Pasquinades you sent me, and think the Emperor's " letter as mean as you do. I hope his state wiU grow more abject every day. It is amazing, the progress and success of the Queen of Hungary's arms ! It is said to-day, that she has defeated a great body of Prussians in Moravia. We are going to extend a helping hand to her at last. Lord Stair' has accepted ' The Hon. John Trevor, second son of Thomaa, firat Lord Trevor. He succeeded his elder brother Thomaa. aa third Lord Trevor, in 1744. — Dover. ^ Lord Archibald Hamilton, aeventh and youngest son of Anne, Duchess of Hamilton in her own right, and of William, Earl of Selkirk, her husband, created by Charles II. Duke of HamUton for life. Lord Archibald married Lady Jane Hamilton, daughter of James, Earl of Abercorn, and by her had three sons ; of whom the youngest was Sir WilUam Hamilton, long the British envoy at the court of Naples. — Dover. Lady Archibald had a lengthened intrigue with Frederick, Prince of Wales ; and Sir WilUam, her son, was (finally) the husband of Lord Nelson's Lady Hamilton. — Cunningham. ' Who died before his father. — Cunningham. * Charlea VIL, the Emperor of the Bavarian family. — Dover. ' John Dalrymple, aecond Earl of Stair, a man much diatingnished both as a general and a diplomatiat. — Walpolb. The Earl of Stair was dismissed by Sir Robert 1742.; TO SIR HORACE MANN. 146 what my Lord ArgyU resigned, and sets out ambassador to HoUand in two days ; and afterwards -wUl have the command of the troops that are to be sent into Flanders. I am sorry I must send away this to-night, -without being able to teU you the event of to-morrow ; but I wUl let you know it on Thursday, if I write but two Hnes. You have no notion how I laughed at Mrs. Goldsworthy's " talking from hand to mouth." ' How happy I am that you have Mr. Chute stiU -with you ; you would have been distracted else -with that simple woman ; for fools prey upon one, when one has no companion to laugh them off. I shaU say everything that is proper for you to the Earl [Orford], and shaU take care about e?:pressing you to him, as I know you have yom- gratitude far more at heart, than what I am thinking of for you, I mean your stay at Florence. I have spoken very warmly to Lord Lincoln about you, who, I am sure, -v\ill serve you to his power. Indeed, as all changes are at a stop, I am con-vinced there \viU bo no thought of removing you. However, tUl I see the situ ation of next winter, I cannot be easy on your account. I have made a few purchases at liOrd Oxford's sale ; a smaU Vandyke, in imitation of Teniers ; ' an old picture of the Duchess of Suffolk, mother of Lady Jane Grey, and her young husband ; ' a sweet bronze vase by Flamingo, and two or three other trifles. Tho things sold dear ; the antiquities and pictures for about five thousand pounds, which yet, no doubt, cost him much more, for he gave the most extiavagant prices. His coins and medals are now seUing, and go stUl dearer. Good night ! How I wish for every letter, to hear how you mend ! Walpole, not only from the office of V'ice-Admiral of Scotland, but from his regiment of Dragoons. After Walpole's fall [1742], he was restored, and served with credit at Dettingen ; but after that battle he resigned his military rank, indignant, as he said, at the King's unjust partiality to the Hanoverians. On the rebellion of 1745, he however nobly buried these differences in oblivion, and w.as made Commander-in-chief. He died in 1747. — Croker, Suffolk Corresp. ii. 60. He is mentioned by Pope : Far other stars than George and Frederick wear. And may descend to .Mordington from Stair. — Dialogue ii, Cunningham. ' An expression of Mr Chute. — Wai.pole. See ante, p. 79 and p. 129, and letter to Mann, May 6, 1742. She was handsome, but iUiterate. — Cunningham. ^ Soldiers at Cards, for which he paid 38?. 17s. Sold at the Strawberry HiU sale for 231 2s. — Cunningham. ' Adrian Stoke, a carious picture, for which he paid 15'. 4.s. 6(/. Sold at the Straw berry Hill sale to the Honourable and F.everend Heneage Pinch for 92?. 8s.— Cusningiiam. 146 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742 67. TO SIR HORACE MANN. March 24, 1742. I PROMISED you in my last letter to send you the event of yester day.' It was not such as you would -wish, for on the di-vision, at nine o'clock at night, we lost it by 242 against 245. We had three people shut out, so that a majority of three ' is so smaU that it is scarce doubted, but that, on Friday, when we baUot for the twenty- one to form the committee, we shaU carry a Hst composed of our people, so that then it -will be better that we lost it yesterday, as they never can trouble my Lord Orford more, when the Secret Committee consists of his own friends. The motion was made and seconded by the same people as before : Mr. Pulteney had been desfred, but refused, yet spoke very warmly for it. He declared, "that if they found any proofs against the Earl, he would not engage in the prosecution ; " and especially protested against resumptions of grants to his family, of which, he said, " there had Deen much talk, but they were what he would never come into, as being very iUegal and unjust." The motion was quite personal against Lord Orford, singly and by name, for his last ten years — ^the former question had been for twenty years, but as the rules of ParHament do not aUow of repeating any individual motion in the same session of its rejection, and as every evasion is aUowed in this country, half the term was voted by the same House of Commons ' March 23, 1742. Motion by Lord Limerick, and seconded by Sir J. St. Aubiu, on the 9th instant, for a Secret Committee of twenty-one, to examine into the Earl of Orford's conduct for the last ten years of his being ChanceUor of the Exchequer and Lord of the Treasury. Mr. Pulteney said, ministers should always remember the account they must make ; that he was againat rancour in the inquiry, desired not to be named for the Committee, particularly because of a rash word he had used, that he would pursue Sir Robert Walpole to his destruction ; that now the minister was destroyed, he had no ill-will to the man ; that from his own knowledge and experience of many of the Tories, he believed them to be as sincerely for the King and his family as himself ; that he was sensible of the disagreeable situation he was in, and would get out of it as soon as he could. Mr. Sandys spoke for the motion, and said, he desired his own conduct might always be strictly inquired into. Lord Orford's son, Horace Walpole, and Mr. Ellis spoke well against the motion. It was carried by 262 against 245. Three or four were shut out, who would have been against it. Mr. William Finch against it. The Prince's servants for it. Then Mr. Pulteney moved for an address of duty to the King, &c., which he begged might pass without opposition; and accordingly it did so. But Sir W. W. Wynne, and several others, went out of the House ; which was by some understood to be disapprobation, by others accident or weariness. — Seeker MS. — Wright. ' The motion was carried by a majority of seven, the numbers being 252 against 245.— Wright. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 147 that had refused an inquiry into the whole ; a sort of proof that every omne majus does not continere in se minus — but Houses of Commons can find out evasions to logical axioms, as weU as to thefr o-wn orders. If they carry their Hst, my lord ^viU be obHged to return from Houghton. After the division, Mr. Pulteney ' moved for an address to the King, to declare their resolution of standing by him, especiaUy in assisting the Queen of Hungary — but I believe, after the loss of the question, he wUl not be in very good humour -with this address. I am now going to tell you what you wiU not have expected— that a particular friend of yours opposed the motion, and it was the ffrst time he ever spoke. To keep you not in suspense, though you must have guessed, it was 220.' As the speech was very favourably heard, and has done him ser-vice, I prevaUed with him to give me a copy — here it is : — " Mr Speaker,^ — I have always thought. Sir, that incapacity and inexperience must prejudice the cause they undertake to defend ; and it has been diffidence ot myself, not distrust of the cause, that has hitherto made me so silent upon a point on which I ought to have appeared so zealous. " WhUe the attempts for this inquiry were made in general terms, 1 should have thought it presumption in me to stand up and defend measures in which so many abler men have been engaged, and which, consequently, they could so much better support ; but when the attack grows more personal, it grows my duty to oppose it more particularly, lest I be suspected of an ingratitude which my heart disdains. But I think. Sir, I cannot be suspected of that, unless my not having abilities to defend my father can be construed into a desire not to defend him. " My experience. Sir, is very small ; I have never been conversant in business and poUtics, and have sat a very short time iu this House — with so slight a fund. I must much mistrust my power to serve him — especially as in the short time I have sat here, I have seen that not his own knowledge, innocence, and eloquence, have been able to protect him against a powerful and determined party. I have seen, since his retirement, that he haa many great and noble frienda, who have been able to protect him from farther violence. But, Sir, when no repulsea can calm the clamour against him, no motives should sway his friends from openly undertaking his defence. When the King has conferred rewards on his services ; when the Parliament has refused its assent to any inquiries of complaint against him ; it is but maintaining the King's and our own honour, to reject this motion — for the repeating which, however, I ' This was much mentioned in the pamphlets written against the war, which was said to have been determined " by a gentleman's fumbling in his pocket for a piece of paper at ten o'clock at night," and the House's agreeing to the motion without any consideration. — Walpole. "^ The author of these letters. — Walpole. ^ There is a fictitious speech printed for this in several magazines of that time, but which does not contain one sentence of the true one.— Walpole. Compare Walpole's ' Short Notes ' of his life, under March 23, 1742. — Cunningham. 148 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742 cannot think the authora to blame, aa I suppose now they have turned him out, they are willing to inquire whether they had any reason to do so. " I shall say no more. Sir, but leave the material part of this defence to the impar tiality, candour, and credit of men who are no ways dependent on him. He has already found that defence. Sir, and I hope he always will ! It ia to their authority I trust — and to me, it is the strongest proof of innocence, that for twenty years together, no crime could be aolemnly alleged againat him ; and since his dismission, he has seen a majority rise up to defend his character in that very House of Commons in which a majority had overturned his power. As therefore. Sir, I must think him innocent, I stand up to protect him from injustice — had he been accused, I should not have given the House thia trouble ; but I think. Sir, that the precedent of what waa done upon this question a few days ago, is a sufficient reason, if I had no other, for me to give my negative now." WiUiam Pitt [Chatham], some time after, in the debate, said, how very commendable it was in him to have made the above speech, which must have made an impression upon the House ; but if it was becoming in him to remember that he was the child of the accused, that the House ought to remember too that they are the chUdren of their country.— It was a great compliment from him, and very artful too. I forgot to tell you in my last, that one of our men-of-war, com manded by Lord Banffe,' a Scotchman, has taken another register ship, of immense value. You -will laugh at a comical thing that happened the other day to Lord Lincoln. He sent the Duke of Richmond word that he would dine ¦vrith him in the country, and if he would give him leave, would bring Lord Bury ^ with him. It happens that Lord Bury is nothing less than the Duke of Richmond's nephew. The Duke, very properly, sent him word back, that Lord Bury might bring him, if he pleased. 1 have been plagued aU this morning ¦with that oaf of unHcked antiquity, Prideaux,' and his great boy. He talked through all ' Alexander Ogilvy, sixth Lord Banff, commanded the Hastings man-of-war in 1742 and 1743, and captured, during that time, u valuable outward-bound Spanish register-ship, a Spanish privateer of twenty guns, a French polacca with a rich cargo, and other vessels. He died at Lisbon in November 1746, at the early age of twenty- eight. — Dover. ^ George Lord Bury, afterwards [1754] third Earl of Albemarle. His mother waa Lady Anne Lennox, sister of the Duke of Richmond. — Dover. Lord Bury served as aid-de-camp to the Duke of Cumberland at the battle of Fontenoy and at CuUoden, and commanded in chief at the reduction of the Havannah. He died in 1772. — Wright. ¦* Grandson of Dean Prideaux ; he was just returned out of Italy, with his son.— Walpole. 1742.J TO SIR HORACE MANN. 149 Italy, and everything in aU Italy. Upon mentioning Stosch, I asked him if he had seen his collection. He repHed, very few of his things, for he did not like his company ; that he never heard so much heathenish talk in his days. I inquired what it was, and found that Stosch had one day said before him, " that tho soul was only a Httie glue." I laughed so much, that he walked off; I suppose, thinldng that I beHeved so too. By the way, tell Stosch that a gold Alectus sold at Lord Oxford's sale for above threescore pounds. Good night, my dear chUd ! I am just going to the ridotto ; one hates those places, comes away out of humour, and yet one goes again ! How are you ? I long for your next letter to answer me. 68. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Downing Street, April 1, 1742. I RECEIVED your letter of March 18th, and would be as particular in the other dates which you have sent me in the end of your letter, but our affafrs ha^ving boon in such confusion, I have removed all my papers in general from hence, and cannot now examine them. I have, I think, received aU yours : but lately I received them two days at least after their arrival, and e'vidently opened ; so we must be cautious now what we ¦write. Remember this, for of your last the seal had been quite taken off and set on again. Last Friday we baUoted for the Secret Committee. Except the vacancies, there were but tliirty-one members absent ; five hundred and eighteen gave in lists. At six that evening they named a com mittee, of which Lord Hartington was chairman (as ha^ving moved for it), to exa'mine the Hsts. This lasted from that time, all that night, tiU four in the afternoon of the next day ; twenty-two hours ¦without remission. There were sixteen people, of which were Lord Hartington and Coke, who sat up the whole time, and one of them, Velters ComwaU,' fainted ¦with the fatigue and heat, for people of all sorts were admitted into the room, to see the lists dra-wn ; it was in the Speaker's chambers. On the conclusion, they found the majority was for a mixed Hst, but of which the Opposition had the greater number. Here are the two Hsts, which were given out by each side, but of which people altered several in thefr private Hsts. ' Velters Cornwall, Esq., of Moccas Court, in Herefordshire, and member for that county. — Dover. 160 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. the court list. WiUiam Bowles. ¦*Lord Cornbury.' - WiUiam Finch.^ Lord Fitzwilliam. Sir Charles Gilmour. *Charles Gore. H. Arthur Herbert.^ Sir Henry Liddel." John Plumptree.'^ Sir John Ramsden. John Strange (Solicitor-General). Cholmley Turner. John Talbot.' General Wade.' James West." the opposition list. Sir John Barnard. Alexander Hume Campbell.^ Sir John Cotton. George Bubb Dodington.'" Nicholas Fazakerley. Henry Furnese. Earl of Granard. Mr Hooper" Lord Limerick. '^ George Lyttelton.'^ John PhUlips.'-' WUliam Pitt.'' Mr. Prowse. Edmund WaUer "^ Sir Watkyn WUliams Wynn. Besides the foUo-wing six, which were in both Hsts : — *George Compton . * WiUiam Noel'' *Lord Quarendon'* *Sir John Rushout " *Samuel Sandys ^^ *Sir John St. Aubin 515 These six, on casting up the 512 numbers, had those marked 512 against their names, and were 516 consequently chosen. — Those 516 with this mark (¦*) were reck- 518 oned of the Opposition. ' Son of the Earl of Clarendon. — Walpole. ^ Afterwards vice-chamberlain. — Walpole. ' Afterwards Earl of Powis. — Walpolb. ¦* Afterwards Lord Ravensworth. — Walpole. ' He had a place in the Ordnance. — Walpole. '' Son of the late Lord Chancellor, and afterwards a judge. — Walpole. " Afterwards Field-Marshal. — Walpole. " Afterwards Secretary of the Treasury.^WALPOLE. ' Afterwards solicitor to the Prince [of Wales]. — Walpole. '" Had been a lord of the Treasury. — Walpole. " Had a place on the change of the ministry. — Walpole. He waa a Hampshire gentleman, and member for Christchurch. — Dovkr. '^ Afterwards King's remembrancer. — Walpole. '¦* Afterwards cofferer. — Walpole. '" Afterwards a lord of trade and baronet. — Walpole. '¦' Afterwards paymaster. — Walpole. "' Afterwards cofferer. — Walpolb. " Afterwards a judge. — Walpole. " Afterwards Earl of Lichfield. — Walpole. " Afterwards Treasurer of the Navy. — Walpole. "" Afterwards Chancellor of the Exchequer, then cofferer, and then a baron.— Walpolb. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 161 On casting up the numbers, the Hsts proved thus : — "Sir John Barnard 268 *Mr Prowse . 259 •Nichohas Fazakerley 262 ?Edmund Waller . 259 *Henry Furnese 262 William Bowles 259 *Eari of Granard . 259 *Loi-d Cornbury 262 *Mr Hooper 265 SolicitorGener.il [Strange] 259 'WUliam Pitt 259 Cholmley Turnor 259 This made eighteen : Mr. Finch, Sir Harry Liddel, and Mr. Talbot, had 258 each, and Hume Campbell 257, besides one in which his name was mis- written, but allowed ; out of these four, two were to be chosen : it was agi-eed that the Speaker was to choose them. He, -with a resolution not supposed to be in hfrn, as ho has been the most notorious affector of popularity, named Sir Harry Liddel and Mr. Talbot ; so that, on the whole, we have just five that we can call our o^wn.' These ^vi]l not be sufficient to stop thefr proceedings, but by being pri-vy, may stop any iiuquitous proceedings. They have chosen Lord Limerick chairman. Lord Orford returns to-morrow from Houghton to Chelsea, from whence my uncle went in a great fright to fetch him. 1 was yesterday presented to the Prince and Princess [of Wales] ; but had not the honour of a word from either : he did vouchsafe to talk to Lord Walpole the day before. Yesterday the Lord Mayor [Sir Robert GodschaU] brought in thefr favourite bUl for repeaHng the Septennial Act, but we rejected it by 284 to 204.' You shaU have particular accounts of the Secret Committee and thefr proceedings ; but it -wUl be at least a month before they can ' March 26, 27. The House of Commons ballotted for their committee, being called over, and each opening his list at the table, and putting it into a vessel which stood there. This was ended by five. Then a committee began to examine the lists, and sat from tliat time till four the next afternoon: for, though two lists were given out, many delivered in consisted partly of one, and partly of the other ; and many were put in different order. Sir Thomas Drury, a friend of Lord Orford's, put down four of the opposite side in his list. Lord Orford's friends hoped it would bring moderate persons over to them, if they put some on their list who were not partial to him. — March 29. The decision between Sir H. Lyddel, Mr. J. Talbot, and Mr. W. Finch, was left to the Speaker, who chose the two former. — Seeker MS. — Wright. ^ This is not correct. It appears, by the Journals, that the motion passed in the negative by 204 against 184. " March 31. Sir Robert GodschaU, Lord Mayor, moved for the repeal of the Septennial Bill. Mr. Pulteney said, he thought annual parliaments would be best, but preferred septennial to triennial, and voted againat the motion. In all, 204 against it, and 184 for it." — Seeker MS. — Wright. 152 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. make any progress. You did not say anything about yourself in your last ; never omit it, my dear child. 69. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, April 8, 1742. You have no notion how astonished I was, at reading your account of Sfr Francis Dashwood ! — that it should be possible for private and personal pique so to sour any man's temper and honour, and so utterly to change thefr principles ; I own I am for your naming him in your next despatch : they may at least intercept his letters, and prevent his dfrty intelligence. As to Lady Walpole,' her schemes are so ¦wild and so Ul-founded, that I don't think it worth whUe to take notice of them. I possibly may mention this new one of changing her name, to her husband, and of her coming-over design, but I am sure he -wUl oiUy laugh at it. The iU-situation of the King, which you say is so much taUced of at the Petraia,' is not true ; indeed he and the Prince are not at aU more reconcUed for being reconcUed ; but I think his resolution has borne hfrn out. AU the public questions are easUy carried, even with the concurrence of the Tories. Mr. Pulteney proposed to grant a large sum for assisting the Queen of Hungary, and got Sfr John Barnard to move it. They have given the King five hundred thousand pounds for that purpose.' The land-tax of four shillings in the pound is continued. Lord Stair is gone to HoUand, and orders are given to the regiments and guards to have thefr camp ' Margaret RoUe, a great Devonshire heiress, the wife [1724] of Robert, Lord Wal pole, afterwards aecond Earl of Orford, the eldest son of the minister. She was a woman of bad character, as well as half mad ; which last quality she communicated to her unfortunate son George, third Earl of Orford. She succeeded, in her own right, to the baronies of Clinton and Say, upon the death, in 1751, of Hugh, Earl and Baron Clinton [and died at Pisa in 1'781]. — Dover. I have so good an opinion of your taste, to believe harlequin in person will never make you laugh so much as the Earl of Stair'a furious passion for Lady Walpole, 3.gti fourteen and some months. Mrs. Murray undertook to bring the business to bear, and provided the opportunity, a great ingredient, you'U say ; but the young lady proved skittish. She did not only turn this heroic flame into present ridicule, but exposed all his generous sentiments, to divert her husband and father-in-law. — Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Works, vol. ii. p. 188. — Weight. See p. 56. — Cunningham. ^ A villa belonging to the Great Duke, where Prince Craon resided in summer. — Walpole. ^ April 2. In the Commons, 500,000?. voted for the Queen of Hungary ; I believe nem. con. Sir John Barnard moved it ; which, Mr. Sandys told me, was that day making himself the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He told me also, the King was unwilling to grant the Prince 50,000?. a-year; and I am told from other hands, that he saith he never promised it. The Bishop of Sarum (Sherlock) says. Sir Robert 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 163 equipages ready. As to the Spanish war and Vernon, there is no more talk of them ; one would think they had both been taken by a privateer. We talk of adjourning soon for a month or six weeks, to give the Secret Committee time to proceed, which yet they have not done. Their object is returned from Houghton in great health and greater spirits. They are extremely angry with him for laughing at their power. The concourse to him is as great as ever ; so is the rage against him. All this week the mob has been carrying about his effigies in procession, and to the Tower. The chiefs of the Opposition have been so mean as to give these mobs money for bonfires, particularly the Earls of Lichfield, Westmorland, Denbigh,' and Stanhope : ' the servants of these last got one of these figures, chalked out a place for the heart, and shot at it. You wUl laugh at me, who, the other day, meeting one of these mobs, drove up to it to see what was the matter : the first thing 1 beheld was a mawkin, in a chair, -with three footmen, and a label on the breast, inscribed " Lady Mary." ' The Speaker, who has been much abused for naming two of our friends to the Secret Committee, to show his disinterestedness, has resigned his place of Treasurer to the Navy. Mr. Clutterbuck," one of the late Treasury, is to have it ; so there seems a stop put to any new persons from the Opposition. His Royal Highness is gone to Kew ; his di-a-wing-rooms -wiU not Walpole told him, that the King would give 30,000?. but no more. Mr. Sandys appeared determined against admitting Torie.-s, and said it waa wonderful their union had held so long, and it could not be expected to hold longer; that he could not imagine why everybody spoke against Lord Carteret, but that he had better abilities than anybody ; that as soon as foreign affairs could be settled, they would endeavour to reduce the expenaes of the crown and interest of the debts. — Seeker MS. — Wright. ' William Fielding, fifth Eari of Denbigh, died 1755.— Dover. " Philip, second Earl Stanhope, eldest son of the general and statesman, who founded this branch of the Stanhope family. Earl Philip was a man of retired habits, and much devoted to scientific pursuits. He died in 1786. — Dover. ^ Lady Mary Walpole, daughter of Sir R. W. — Walpole. ' This Mr. Clutterbuck had been raised by Lord Carteret, when Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, whom he betrayed to Sir R. Walpole ; the latter employed him, but never would trust him. He then ingratiated himself with Mr. Pelham, under a pretence of candour and integrity, and was continually infusing scruples into him on political questions, to distress Sir R. On the latter's quitting the ministry, he appointed a board of Treasury at his own house, in order to sign some grants ; Mr. Clutterbuck made a pretence to slip away, and never returned. He was a friend, too, of the Speaker's : when Sir R. W. was told that Mr. Onslow had resigned his place, and that Mr. Clutterbuck was to succeed him, he said, " I remember that the Duke of Roxburgh, who was a great pretender to conscience, persuaded the Duke of Jlontrose to resign the seals of Secretary of State, on some scruple, and begged them himself the next day." — Walpole. See note 3, vol. i. p. 128. — Cunningham. 184 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. be so crowded at his return, as he has disobUged so many considerable people, particularly the Dulies of Montagu' and Richmond, Lord Albemarle,' &c. The Richmond went twice, and yet was not spoken to ; nor the others ; nay, he has vented his princely resent ment even upon the women, for to Lady Hervey not a word. This is aU the news, except that Httle Brook ' is on the point of matrimony -with Miss HamUton, Lady Archibald's daughter. She is excessively pretty and sensible, but as diminutive as he. I forgot to teU you, that the Place BUl has met with the same fate fi'om the Lords as the Pension BUl ' and the Triennial Act ; so that, after all thefr clamour and changing of measures, they have not been able to get one of their popular bUls passed, though the news papers, for these three months, have swarmed with instructions for these purposes, from the constituents of all parts of Great Britain to thefr representatives. We go into mourning on Sunday for the old Empress Amelia' Lord Chedworth,^ one of three new peers, is dead. We hear the King of Sardinia is at Piacenza, to open the campaign. I shaU be in continual fears lest they disturb you at Florence. My love to the Chutes, and my compHments to aU my old acquaintance. I don't think I have forgot one of them. Patapan is entirely yours, and entirely handsome. Good night ! ' John, second and last Duke of Montagu, of the first creation [died 1749]. He was a man of some talent, and great eccentricity. Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, his mother in-law, used to say of him, " My son-in-law Montagu is fifty, and he is still as mere a boy as if he was only fifteen." [See p. 389.] — Dover. ''¦ William-Anne Keppel, second Earl of Albemarle [died 1754]. An amiable pro digal, who filled various great offices, through the favour of Lady Yarmouth, and died insolvent. — Dover. ^ Francis Greville, Lord Brooke, created Earl Brooke in 1746, and Earl of Warwick in 1749. He died in 1773. His little wife, to whom he was married 16 May, 1742, married, secondly. General Clarke, and died in 1800. See p. IOS.^Cunningham. ¦* March 26. The Pension Bill read a second time in the Lords. Duke of Devon shire said a few words against it. Lord Sandwich pleaded for it, that some persons now in the ministry had patronised it, and for their sakes it should be committed : Lord Romney, that some objections against it had been obviated by alterations. These three speeches lasted scarce half a quarter of an hour. The question being put for committing, not-content, 76 ; content, 46. I was one of five bishops for it ; Lord Carteret and Lord Berkeley against it. — Seeker MS. — Wright. * Widow of the Emperor Joseph. She was of the house of Wolfenbuttle. — Walpole. ^ John Howe, Esq., created Baron of Chedwortli, co. Gloucester, 12 May, 1741 ; died 1742. — Cunningham. 1742.1 TO SIR HORACE MANN. 155 70. TO SIR HORACE MANN. April 15, 1742. The great pleasm-e I receive from your letters is a Httie abated by my continuaUy finding that they have been opened. It is a mortifi cation, as it must restiain the freedom of our correspondence, and at a time when more than ever I must want to talk to you. Your brother showed me a letter, which I approve extremely, yet do not think this a proper time for it ; for there is not only no present prospect of any further alterations, but, if there were, none that wUl give that person any uiterest. He reaUy has lost himself so much, that it -wiU be long before he can recover credit enough to do anybody any ser-vice. His chUdish and troublesome behaviour, particularly lately (but I wUl not mention instances, because I would not have it kno-wn whom I mean), has set him in the lowest Hght imaginable. I have desfred your brother to keep your letter, and when we see a necessary or convenient opportuinty, which I hope -sviU not arrive, it shaU be deHvered. However, if you are stUl of that opinion, say so, and your brother shall carry it. At present, my dear chUd, I am much more at repose about you, as 1 trust no more wiU happen to endanger your situation. I shaU not only give you the first notice, but employ aU the means in my power to pre vent your removal. The Secret Committee, it seems, are almost aground, and, it is thought, -wUl soon finish. They arc now reduced, as I hear, to inqufre into the last month, not ha^ving met ¦with any foundation for proceeding in the rest of the time. However, they have this week given a stiong instance of their arbitrariness and private resent ments. They sent for Paxton,' the Solicitor of the Treasury, and examined him about five hundred pounds which he had given seven years ago at Lord Limerick's election. The man, as it dfrectly tended to accuse himself, refused to answer. They complained to the House, and after a long debate he was committed to the serjeant- at-arms; and to-day, I hear, for stUl refusing, -wiU be sent to Newgate.' We adjourn to-day for ten days, but the committee has ' Nicholas Paxton, Solicitor to the Treasury, commemorated by Pope — 'Tis all a libel, Paxton, Sir, will say. He died 13 AprU, 1744. — Cunningham. " On a division of 180 against 128, Paxton was this day committed to Newgate - where he remained till the end of the session, July 15. — Wright. 166 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. leave to continue sitting. But, my dear chUd, you may be quite at ease, for they themselves seem to despair of being able to effect anything. The Duke ' [of Cumberland] is of age to-day, and, I hear by the guns, is just gone ¦with the King to take his seat in the Lords. I have this morning received the jar of cedrati safe, for which I give you a miUion of thanks. I am impatient to hear of the arrival of your secretary and the things at Florence ; it is time for you to have received them. Here ! Amorevoli has sent me another letter. Would you believe that our wise directors for next year -wiU not keep the Visconti, and have sent for the FumagaUi ? She -wiU not be heard to the first row of the pit. I am growing miserable, for it is growing fine weather — that is, everybody is going out of to-wn. I have but just begun to Hke London, and to be settled in an agreeable set of people, and now they are going to wander all over the kingdom. Because they have some chance of ha^ving a month of good weather, they wUl bury themselves three more in bad. The Duchess of Cleveland' died last night of what they call a miHary fever, which is much about : she had not been iU two days. So the poor creature, her Duke, is again to be let : she paid dear for the hopes of being Duchess dowager. Lady Catherine Pelham' has miscarried of twins ; but they are so miserable ¦with the loss of their former two boys, that they seem glad now of not ha'ving any more to tremble for. There is a man who has by degrees bred himself up to walk upon stUts so high, that he now stalks about and peeps into the one pair of stairs ¦windows. If this practice should spread, dining-rooms ¦wiU be as innocent as chapels. Good night ! I never forget my best loves to the Chutes. P. S. I this moment hear that Edgcumbe" and Lord Fitz^wUliam ' William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, third son of George IL, born 1721, died 1765, unmarried. — Cunningham. ' Lady Henrietta Finch, sister of the Earl of Winchilsea, and wife of William, Duke of Cleveland. — Walpole. ^ Catherine, sister of John Manners, Duke of Rutland, and wife of Henry Pelham [the minister]. They lost their two sons by an epidemic aore-throat, after which ahe would never go to E,sher, or any house where she had aeen them. ^Walpole. '' Richard Edgcumbe, a great friend of Sir R. Walpole, was created a baron to pre vent his being examined by the Secret Committee concerning the management of the Cornish boroughs. — Walpole. He was created Baron Edgecumbe, of Mount 1742.] TO SIB HORACE MANN. 167 are created EngHsh peers : I am sure the first is, and I beHeve the second.' 71. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, April 22, 1742, You perceive, by the size of my paper, how Httie I have to say. The whole town is out of town for Easter, and nothing left but dust, old women, and the Secret Committee. They go on warmly, and have turned their whole thoughts to tho sccret-scr-vice money, after which they are inquiring by all methods. Sir John Rawdon' (you remember that genius in Italy) voluntarUy s-wore before them that, at the late election at WaUingford, he spent two thousand pounds, and that one Morley promised him fifteen hundred more, if he would lay it out. "Whence was Morley to have it?" — "J don't k)iow ; I beHeve from the First Minister." This makes an evidence. It is thought that they vnR ask leave to examine members, which was the reason of Edgcumbe's going into the peerage, as they supposed he had been the principal agent for the Cornish boroughs. Sir John Cotton said upon the occasion, " Between Newgate' and the House of Lords, the committee wiU not get any information." The troops for Flanders go on board Saturday se'nnight, the first embarcation of five thousand men : the whole number is to be sixteen thousand. It is not yet kno-mi what success Earl Stair has had at the Hague. We are in great joy upon the ne-ws of the King of Prussia's running away from the Austrians : ' though his cowardice is weU estabHshed, it is yet believed that tho flight iu question was determined by his head, not his heart ; in short, that it was treachery to his aUies. Edgecumbe, co. Devon, 20th of April, 1742, and in December appointed Chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. He died 22nd Nov. 1758. His son, the second baron, died 1761, was one of Horace Walpole's constant Christmas guests at Strawberry Hill. — Cunningham. ' Lord Fitzwilliam was created, 19 AprU, 1742, four days after the date of this letter. Lord Fitzwilliam, Baron of Milton, co. Northampton. See p. 124. — Cunningham. ' He was afterwarda made an Irish lord. — Walpole. Lord Rawdon in 1750, and Earl of Moira in 1761. — Dover. ^ Alluding to Paxton [p. 155], who waa aent thither for refusing to give evidence. — Walpole. ¦* This must allude to the King of Prussia's abandonment of his design to penetrate through Austria to Vienna, which he gave up iu consequence of the lukewarmne.sa of his Saxon and the absence of his French allies. It is curious now, when the mist of contemporary prejudices has passed away, to hear Frederick the Great accused of cowardice. — Dover. 168 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. I forgot to teU you, that of the Secret Committee Sir John Rush out and Cholmley Turnor never go to it, nor, which is more extra ordinary. Sir John Barnard. He says he thought thefr ¦views were more general, but finding them so particular against one man, he ¦wUl not engage -with them. I have been breakfasting this morning at Ranelagh-Garden : ' they have built an immense amphitheatre, -with balconies fuU of Httle alehouses ; it is in rivafry to VauxhaU, and costs above twelve thou sand pounds. The buUding is not finished, but they get great sums by people going to see it and breakfasting in the house : there were yesterday no less than three hundred and eighty persons, at eighteen pence a-piece. You see how poor we are, when, with a tax of four shilHngs in the pound, we are laying out such sums for cakes and ale. We have a new opera, -with your favourite song, Se cerca, se dice : ' MonticelH sings it beyond what you can conceive. Your last was of Apiil 8th. I Hke the medal of the Ca3sars and NihUs' extremely ; but don't at all Hke the cracking of your house," except that it drives away your Pettegola." What I Hke much worse, is your recovering your strength so slowly ; but I trust to the warm weather. Miss Gran^vUle, daughter of the late Lord Lansdo^wn,' is named maid of honour, in the room of Miss Hamilton, who I told you is to be Lady Brook : they are both so small ! what Httle eggs they wUl lay! How does my Princess ! ' does not she deign to ¦visit you too ? Is Sade ' there stiU ? Is Madame Snares quite gone into devotion yet ? TeU me anything — I love anything that you ¦write to me. Good night ! ' This once celebrated place of amusement was ao called from its site being that of a villa of Viscount Ranelagh, near Chelsea. The last entertainment given in it was the installation ball of the Knights of the Bath, in 1802. It haa since been razed to the ground.— Wright. The principal room, the Rotunda, was first opened 5th April, 1742. —Cunningham. ^ In the Olimpiade. — Walpole. •* A satirical medal : on one side waa the head of Francis, Duke of Lorrain (after wards Emperor), with this motto, aut Ccesar aut nihil : on the reverse, that of the Emperor Charles VII., Elector of Bavaria, who had been driven out of his dominions, et Ccesar et nihil. — Walpole. " Sir H. Mann had mentioned, in one of his letters, the appearance of several cracks in the walls of his house at Florence. Mrs. Goldsworthy, the wife of the English consul, had taken refuge in it when driven from Leghorn by an earthquake. — Dover. •' Mrs. Goldsworthy. — Walpole. ' George Granville, Lord Lansdown, Pope's " Granville the polite," one of Queen Anne's twelve peers, and oneof the minor poets of that time. He died in 1734.— Dover. '' Princess Craon. — Walpole. ^ The Chevalier de Sade. — Walpole. 1742.1 TO SIR HORACE MANN. 569 72. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, April 29, 1742. By yours of AprU 17, N.S., and some of your last letters, I find my Lady Walpole is more mad than ever — why, there never was so -wUd a scheme as this of setting up an interest through Lord Chester field I one who has no power ; and, if he had, would think of, or serve her, one of the last persons upon earth. What connexion has he -with, what interest could he have in obHging her ? and, but from ¦views, what has he ever done, or -niU he ever do ? But is Richcourt' so shaUow, and so ambitious, as to put any trust in these projects ? My dear chUd, beHeve me, if I was to mention them here, they would sound so chimerical, so womanish, that I should be laughed at for repeating them. For yourself, be quite at rest, and laugh, as I do, at feeble, -visionary malice, and assure yourself, whoever mentions such politics to you, that my Lady Walpole must have very frippery inteUigence from hence, if she can raise no better -views and on no better foundations. For the poem you mention, I never read it : upon inquiry, I find there was such a thing, though now quite obsolete : undoubtedly not Pope's, and only proves what I said before, how low, how paltry, how uninformed her ladyship's cor respondents must be. AVe are now aU mUitary ! aU preparations for Flanders ! no parties but re-views ; no officers but " hope " they are to go abroad — at least, it is the fashion to say so. I am studying Hsts of regiments and names of colonels — not that " I hope I am to go abroad," but to talk of those who do. Three thousand men embarked yesterday and the day before, and the thfrteen thousand others sail as soon as the transports can return. Messieurs d'AUemagne' roll their red eyes, stroke up their great beavers, and look fierce — you know one loves a review and a tattoo. We had a debate yesterday in the House on a proposal for replacing four thousand men of some that are to be sent abroad, that, in short, we might have fifteen thousand men to guard the kingdom. This was strongly opposed by the Tories, but we carried it in the committee, 214 against 123, and to-day, in the House, 280 against 169. Sir John Barnard, Pulteney, the new ministry, all the ' Count Richcourt was a Lorrainer, and chief minister of Florence; there was great connexion between him and Lady Walpole. [See p. 87.] — Walpole. ' The royal famUy. — Walpole. 160 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. flT42. Prince's people, except the Cobham cousins,' the Lord Mayor, several of the Opposition, voted -with us ; so you must interpret Tories in the strongest sense of the word. The Secret Committee has desired leave to-day to examine three members, Burrel, Bristow, and Hanbury WiUiams : ' the two first are directors of the Bank ; and it is upon an agreement mado with them, and at which Williams was present, about remitting some money to Jamaica, and in which they pretend Sir Robert made a bad bargain, to obHge them as members of ParHament. They all three stood up, and voluntarily offered to be examined ; so no vote passed upon it. These are all the political news : there is little of any other sort ; so little gallantry is stirring, that I do not hear of so much as one Maid of Honour who has declared herself with child by any officer, to engage him not to go abroad. I told you once or t-«ice that Miss Hamilton is going to be married to Lord Brook : somebody wished Lord Archibald joy. lie replied, " Providence has been very good to my family." We had a great scuffle the other night at the Opera, which interrupted it. Lord Lincoln was abused in the most shocking manner by a drunken officer, upon which ho kicked him, and was drawing his sword, but was prevented. They were put under arrest, and the next morning the man bogged his pardon before the Duke of Marlborough, Lord Albemarle, and other officers, in the most submissive terms. I saw the quarrel from the other side of the house, and rushing to get to Lord Lincoln, could not for the crowd. I climbed into the front-boxes, and stepping over the shoulders of three ladies, before I knew where I was, found I had Hghted into Lord Rockingham's ' lap. It was ridiculous ! Good night ! 73. TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. Dear West : London, May 4, 1742. Your letter made me quite melancholy, till I came to the post- ' Pitts, GrenviUes, Lytteltons, all related by marriage, or female descent, to Lord Cobham. — Dover. The boy patriots, or Cobham cousins, as Sir Robert Walpole used to call them. — Cunningham. ^ Sir Charies Hanbury AVilliams, the poet and wit, born 1709, died 2 Nov. 1759, it is said, by his own hand. His political squibs are some of the most lively and vigorous in our language. — Cunningham. ' Lewis Watson, aecond Earl of Rockingham. He married Catharine, second 1742.] TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ. 161 script of fine weather. Your so suddenly finding the benefit of it, makes me trust you -wiU entfrely recover your health and spirits with the warm season : nobody -wishes it more than I : nobody has more reason, as few have known you so long. Don't be afraid of your letters being duU. I don't deserve to be caUed your fr-iend, if I were impatient at hearing your complaints. I do not desfre you to suppress them tiU thefr causes cease ; nor should I expect you to -write cheerfuUy while you are Ul. I never design to -write any man's Hfe as a stoic, and consequentiy should not desfre him to furnish me with opportunities of assuring posterity what pains he took not to show any pain. If you did amuse yourself ¦with ¦writing anything in poetry, you know how pleased I should be to see it ; but for encouraging you to it, d'ye see, 'tis an age most unpoetical ! 'Tis even a test of -wit to dislike poetry ; and though Pope has half a dozen old friends that he has preserved from the taste of last century, yet, I assure you, the generaHty of readers are more diverted with any paltiy prose answer to old Marlborough's secret history of Queen Mary's robes. I do not think an author would be universaUy commended for any production in verse, unless it were an Ode to the Secret Committee, with rhymes of Hberty and property, nation and administration. Wit itself is monopoHsed by poHtics ; no laugh but would be ridiculous if it were not on one side or t'other. Thus Sandys thinks he has spoken an epigram, when he crincles up his nose and lays a smart accent on ways and means. We may, indeed, hope a Httle better now to the decHning arts. The reconcUiation between the royalties is finished, and fifty thou sand pounds a-year more added to the heir apparent's revenue. He -wUl have money now to tune up Glover, and Thomson, and Dodsley again : Et spes et ratio studiorum in Csesare tantum. Asheton is much yours. He has preached twice at Somerset Chapel -with the greatest applause. I do not mind his pleasing the generaHty, for you know they ran as much after Whitfield as they could after TUlotson ; and I do not doubt but St. Jude converted as many honourable women as St. Paul. But I am sure you would approve his compositions, and admfre them stUl more when you daughter aud co-heir of Sir George Sondea, Earl of Feversham, and died in 1745.^ Wright. VOL. I. M 162 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. heard him deHver them. He -wUl write to you himself next post, but is not mad enough -with his fame to write you a sermon. Adieu, dear chUd ! Write me the progress of your recovery,' and beHeve it -wiU give me a sincere pleasure ; for I am, yours ever. 74. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Downing Street, May 6, 1742. I HAVE received a long letter from you of the 22nd of AprU. It amazes me ! that our friends of Florence should not prove our friends ! ' Is it possible ? I have always talked of their cordiaHty, because I was con-vinced they could have no shadow of interest in their professions : — of that, indeed, I am con-vinced stUl — but how could they fancy they had ? There is the wonder ! If they wanted common honesty, they seem to have wanted common sense more. What hope of connection could there ever be between the EngHsh ministry and the Florentine nobUity ? The latter have no -views of being, or knowledge for being envoys, &c. They are too poor and proud to think of trading -with us ; too abject to hope for the restora tion of thefr Hberty from us — and, indeed, however we may affection our o-wn, we have showed no regard for thefr Hberty— they have had no reason ever to expect that from us ! In short, to me it is mystery ! But how could you not teU me some particulars ? Have I so Httle interested myself with Florence, that you should think I can be satisfied "without knowing the least particulars ? I must know names. Who are these ¦wretches that I am to scratch out of my list ? I shaU give them a black blot the moment I know who have behaved Ul to you. Is Casa Ferroni of the number ? I suspect it : — ^that was of your first attachments. Are the prince and princess dirty ? — the Snares ? — ^teU me, teU me ! Indeed, my dear Mr. Chute, I am not of your opinion, that he should shut himseff up and despise them ; let hfrn go abroad and despise them. Must he mope because the Florentines are Hke the rest of the world ? But that is not true, for the world in England have not declared themselves so suddenly. It has not been the fashion to desert the ' Mr. West died in lesa than a month from the date of this letter, in the twenty- sixth year of hia age. — Beery. See Ashton's beautiful verses on West's death, post, p. 183. — Cunningham. ^ This alludes to an account given by Sir Horace Mann, in one of his letters, of the change he had obsei-ved in the manner of many of the Florentines towards him self since Sir Robert Walpole's retirement from office, upon tbe supposition enter tained by them that he was intimately connected with the fallen minister. — Dover. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 163 earl and his friends : he has had more concourse, more professions, and has stUl, than in the height of his power. So your neighbours have been too hasty ; they are new style, at least, eleven days before us. TeU them, teU Richcourt, teU his Cleopatra,' that aU thefr hopes are vanished, aU thefr faith in Secret Committees — the reconciHation is made, and whatever reports thefr secretships may produce, there -wiU be at least above a hundred votes added to our party. Thefr triumph has been but in hope, and thefr hope has faUed in two months. As to your embroU with Richcourt, I condemn you excessively : not that you was originaUy in fault, but by seeming to o-wn yourself so. He is an impertinent feUow, and -wUl be so, if you'U let him. My dear chUd, act ¦with the spirit of your friends here ; show we have lost no credit by losing power, and that a Httle ItaHan minister must not dare to insult you. PubHsh the accounts I send you ; which I give you my honour are authentic. If they are not, let Cytheris, your Antony's tiaveUing concubine, contiadict them. You teU me the St. Quintin is arrived at Genoa ; I see by the prints of to-day that it is got to Leghorn : I am extremely glad, for I feared for it, for the poor boy, and for the things. TeU me how you Hke your secretary. I shaU be quite happy, if I have placed one -with you that you Hke. I laughed much at the famUy of cats I am to receive. I beHeve they -wiU be extremely welcome to Lord Islay ' now ; for he appears little, Hves more darkly and more like a -wizard than ever. These huge cats -wiU figure prodigiously in his ceU : he is of the mysterious, dingy nature of Stosch. As words is what J have not rhetoric to find out to thank you for sending me this paragraph of Madame Goldsworthy, I can only teU you that I laughed for an hour at it. This was one of my Lady Pomfret's correspondents. There seems to be a Httle stop in our embarkations ; since the first, they have discovered that the horse must not go tUl aU the hay is pro-vided. Three thousand men will make a fine figure towards supporting the balance of power ! Our whole number was to be ' Lady Walpole. — Walpole. ^ Archibald Campbell, Earl of Islay, third Duke of Argyll. He was created Earl of Islay for his services in forwarding the Scottish union. In 1743, he succeeded his brother as Duke of Argyll, and died 15th April, 1761. He was Sir Robert Walpole'a manager for Scotland, and enjoyed the entire confidence of that minister. See notes, p. 73 and p. 135. — Cunningham. 164 HOR.\CE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742, but sixteen ; and if aU these cannot be assembled before the end of July, what -wiU be said of it ? The Secret Committee go on very pitifuUy : they are now in- qufring about some custom-house officers that were turned out at Weymouth for voting -wrong at elections. Don't you think these articles wUl prove to the world what they have been saying of Sir Robert for these twenty years ? The House stUl sits in observance to them ; which is pleasant to me, for it keeps people in town. We have operas too ; but they are almost over, and if it were not for a daUy east -wind, they would give way to VauxhaU and Chelsea. The new dfrectors have agreed ¦with the FumagalH for next year, but she is to be second woman : they keep the Visconti. Did I never mention the Bettina, the first dancer. It seems she was kept by a NeapoHtan prince, who is extremely jealous of her coming hither. About a fortnight ago she feU ill, upon which her NeapoHtan footman made off immediately. She dances again, but is very weak, and thinks herself poisoned. Adieu ! my dear child ; tell me you are well, easy, and in spirits ; kiss the Chutes for me, and believe me, &c. 75. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, May 13, 1742. As I am obHged to put my letter into the secretary's office by nine o'clock, and it now don't want a quarter of it, I can say but three words, and must defer tUl next post answering your long letter by the courier. I am this moment come from the House, where we have had the first part of the Report from the Secret Committee. It is pretty long ; but, unfortunately for them, there is not once to be found in it the name of the Earl of Orford : there is a good deal about Mr. Paxton and the borough of Wendover ; and it appears that in eleven years Mr. Paxton has received ninety-four thousand pounds unac counted for : now, if Lady Richcourt can make anything of aU this, you have freely my leave to communicate it to her. Pursuant to this Report, and Mr. Paxton's contumacy, they moved for leave to bring in a biU to indemnify aU persons who should accuse themselves of any crime, provided they do but accuse Lord Orford, and they have carried it by 251 to 228 ! but it is so absurd a bUl, that there is not the least HkeHhood of its passing the Lords. By this biU, whoever are guUty of murder, treason, forgery, &c. have nothing to do but to add perjury, and swear Lord Orford knew of it, and they 1742.] TO SIR HOKACE MANN. 166 may plead thefr pardon. Tell Lad}- Richcourt this. Lord Orford knew of her gallantries : she may plead her pardon. Good night ! I have not a moment to lose. 76. TO SIR HORACE MANN. 3Iay 20, 1742. I SENT you a sketch last post of the di-vision on the Indemnity BUl. As they carried the question for its being brought in, they brought it in on Saturday ; but were prevaUed on to defer the second reading tiU Tuesday. Then we had a long debate tUl eight at night, when they carried it, 228 against 217, only eleven majority ; before, they had had twenty-three. They immediately went into the com mittee on it, and reported it that night. Yesterday it came to the last reading ; but the House, ha-ving sat so late the night before, was not so fuU, and they carried it, 216 to 184. But to-day it comes into the Lords, where they do not in the least expect to succeed ; yet, to show thefr spirit, they have appointed a great dinner at the Fountain to-morrow, to consider on methods for supporting the honour of the Commons, as they caU it, against tho Lords. So now aU prospect of quiet seems to vanish ! The noise this bUl makes is incredible ; it is so unprecedented, so -violent a step ! Everything is inflamed by Pulteney, who governs both parties, only, I think, to exasperate both more. Three of our o-wn people of the committee, the SoHcitor,' [Strange] Talbot, and Bowles, vote against us in the Indemnity BUl and the two latter have even spoke against us. Sfr Robert said, at the beginning, when he was congratulated on ha-ving some of his o-wn friends in the Committee, " The monient they are appointed, they -wUl grow so jealous of the honour of the Committee, that they -wiU prefer that to every other consideration." ' Our foreign news are as bad as om' domestic : there seem Httle hopes of tho Dutch coming into our measures ; there are even letters, that mention strongly thefr resolution of not stfriing — so we have Quixoted away sixteen thousand men ! On Saturday we had accounts of the Austrians having cut off two thousand Prussians, in a retieat ; but on Sunday came news of the great victory ' which the ' John Strange, Esq., made Solicitor-General in 1736, and Master of the Rolls in 1760. He died in 1754. — Wright. ^ Voltaire has since made the same kind of observation in his " Life of Louis XIV." Art. of Calvinism : — " Les homraes sc piquent toujours de remplir un devoir qui les rtistingne." — Walpole. ^ The battle of Chotusitz, or Czaslau, gained by the King of Prussia over the very 166 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS, [1742. latter have gained, kUHng six, and taking two thousand Austrians prisoners, and that Prince Charles is retfred to Vienna wounded. This -wUl but too much confirm the Dutch in thefr apprehensions of Prussia. As to the long letter you -wrote me, in answer to a very particular one of mine, I cannot explain myself, tiU I find a safer conveyance than the post, by which, I perceive, aU our letters are opened. I can only teU you, that in most things you guessed right ; and that as to myself' aU is quiet. I am in great concern, for you seem not satisfied -with the boy we sent you. Your brother entfrely agreed -with me, that he was what you seemed to describe ; and as to his being on the foot of a servant, I give you my honour I repeated it over and over to his mother. I suppose her foUy was afraid of shocking him. .As to ItaHan, she assured me he had been learning it some time. If he does not answer your purpose, let me know if you can dispose of him any other way, and I -wiU try to accommodate you better. Your brother has this moment been here, but there was no letter for me ; at least, none that they -wiU deHver yet. I know not in the least how to ad-vise Mr. Jackson.' I do not think Mr. Pelham the proper person to apply to ; for the Duke of Newcastle is as jealous of him as of anybody. Don't say this to him. For Lord Hervey, though Mr. Jackson has interest there, I would not ad-vise him to try it, for both hate him. The appHca- tion to the Duke of Newcastle, by the most dfrect means, I should think the best, or by any one that can be ser-viceable to the govern ment. You -wiU laugh at an odd accident that happened the other day to my uncle : ' they put him into the papers for Earl of Sheffield. There have been Httle disputes between the two Houses about coming into each other's house ; when a lord comes into the Commons, they caU superior forces of the Austrians. This victory occasioned peace between the contend ing powers, and the cession of Silesia to the Prussian monarch. — Dover. ' This relates to some differences between Mr. Walpole and his father, to which the former had alluded in one of his letters. They never suited one another either in habits, tastes, or opinions ; in addition to which. Sir Robert appears to have been rather a harsh father to his youngest son. If such was the case, the latter nobly revenged himself, by his earnest solicitude through life for the honour of hia parent's memory. — Dover. Compare the Preface to this volume by the writer of this note. — Cunningham. ' He had been consul at Genoa. — Walpole. ' Old Horace Walpole, afterwards, 1756, Baron Walpole of Woolterton.— Cunningham 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN, 167 out withdraw : that day, the moment my uncle came in, they aU roared out, withdraio ! withdraw ! The great Mr. Nugent' has been unfortunate, too, in parHament ; besides being very iU heard, from being a very indifferent speaker ; the other day on the Place BUl, (which, by the way, we have new modeUed and softened, and to which the Lords have submitted to agree to humour Pulteney,) he rose, and said, " He would not vote, as ho was not determined in his opinion ; but he woiUd offer his sentiments ; which were, particularly, that the bishops had been the cause of this biU being thro-wn out before." Winnington caUed him to order, desiring he would be tender of the Chui-ch of England. You know he was a papist. In answer to the beginning of his speech, Velters ComwaU, who is of the same side, said, " He wondered that when that gentleman could not convince himself by his eloquence, he should expect to convince the majority." Did I teU you that Lord Rochford' has at last married Miss Young ? ' I say, at last, for they don't pretend to have been married this twelvemonth ; but were pubHcly married last week. — Adieu ! 77. TO SIR HORACE MANN, Downing Street, May 26, 1742. To-day calls itscff May the 26th, as you perceive by the date ; but 1 am wrriting to you by the fire-side, instead of going to VauxhaU. If we have one warm day in seven, " we bless our stars, and think it luxury." And yet we have as much waterworks and fresco diver sions, as if we lay ten degrees nearer warmth. Two nights ago Ranelagh-gardens were opened at Chelsea ; the Prince, Princess, Duke, much nobiHty, and much mob besides, were there. There is a vast amphitheatre, finely gUt, painted, and iUuminated, into which everybody that loves eating, drinking, staring, or crowding, is admitted for twelvepence. The buUding and disposition of the gardens cost sixteen thousand pounds. T-wice a-week there are to ' Robert Nugent, afterwards Baron Nugent, Viscount Clare, and Earl Nugent, in the peerage of Ireland. He was an occasional poet, and the solitary benefactor of Goldsmith, who has made him immortal by his letter of thanks for a Haunch of Venison. He died 13th Oct., 1788. [See p, 108], — Cunningham. ^ William Henry Zulestein Nassau, fourth Earl of Rochford. He filled many diplomatic situations, and was at different times groom of the stole and secretary o( state. He died in 1781. — Dover. ^ Lucy, daughter of Edward Young, Esq [of Dumford, Wilts]. She had been maid of honour to the Princess of Wales. — Wali'OLE. 168 HORACE WALPOLES LETTERS. [1742, be Ridottos, at guinea-tickets, for which you are to have a suppei and music. I was there last night, but did not find the joy of it. VauxhaU is a little better ; for the garden is pleasanter, and one goes by water. Our operas are almost over ; there were but three-and- forty people last night in the pit and boxes. There is a little simple farce at Drury Lane, caUed " Miss Lucy in To-wn," ' in which Mrs. CHve' mimics the Muscovita admfrably, and Beard,' Amorevoli tolerably. But aU the run is now after Garrick, a -wine-merchant, who is turned player, at Goodman's-fields. He plays aU parts, and is a very good mimic. His acting I have seen, and may say to you, who -vidU not teU it again here, I see nothing wonderful in it ; ' but it is heresy to say so : the Duke of ArgyU says, he is superior to Betterton. Now I talk of players, teU Mr. Chute, that his friend Bracegfrdle ' breakfasted -with me this morning. As she went out, and wanted her clogs, she turned to me, and said, " I remember at the playhouse, they used to caU Mrs. Oldfield's" chafr ! Mrs. Barry's' clogs ! and Mrs. Bracegirdle's pattens ! " I did, indeed, design the letter of this post for Mr. Chute ; but I have received two such charming long ones fr-om you of the 15th and 20th of May (N.S.), that I must answer them, and beg him to excuse me tUl another post; so must the Prince [Craon], Princess, the Grifona, and Countess GaUi. For the Princess's letter, I am not sure I shaU answer it so soon, for hitherto I have not been able to read above every third word ; however, you may thank her as ' Miss Lucy in Town, a BaUad Farce, by Henry Fielding, produced at Drury Lane, 5th May, 1742. It was prohibited after the eighth night by order of the Lord Cham berlain, the Duke of Grafton ; but afterwards allowed to be acted. Beard played Signer Cantileno. — Cunningham. ^ Catherine Raftor, better known as Catherine Clive, and better still as Kitty Clive, born 1711, died Dec. 7, 1785. Walpole was fond of her society, and gave her a house on his Strawberry estate, called Little Strawberry Hill. In some of his letters he calls it Cliveden. Mr. Raftor, a, brother of Mrs. Olive's, lived with Kitty at Little Strawberi-y Hill. Mrs. Clive is buried in Twickenham churchyard, where a monu ment to her memory ia atill to be seen. [See p. 18]. — Cunningham. ' John Beard, singer, actor, and manager, died Feb. 4, 1791. We shall hear, aa we read on, of his runaway marriage with Lady Henrietta Herbert. — Cunningham. " Garrick made his first appearance in London at Goodman's Fields Theatre, Oct. 19, 1741, in the character of Richard III. Walpole does not appear to have been singular in the opinion here given. Gray, in a letter to Chute, says, " Did I tell you about Mr. Garrick, that the town are horn-mad after : there are a dozen dukes of a night at Goodman-fields sometimes; and yet I am stiff in the opposition." — Wright. ' Anne Bracegirdle, died Sept. 12, 1748, aged eighty-five, and was buried in the east walk of Westminster Abbey Cloisters. — Cunningham. " Anne Oldfield, died Oct. 23, 1730, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Her son, by General ChurchUl, married the daughter of Sir Robert Walpole by his second wife. — Cunningham. ' EUzabeth Barry, died Nov. 7, 1713, and was buried at Acton, in Middleaex.- Cunningham. 1742.] "I'O SIR HORACE MANN. 169 much -as if I understood it aU. I am very happy that nies bagatelles (for I stUl insist they were so) pleased. You, my dear chUd, are very good to be pleased -with the snuff-box. I am much obHged to the superior lumieres of old Sarasin ' about the Indian ink : if she meant the black, I am sorry to say I had it into the bargain -with the rest of the Japan : for the coloured, it is only a curiosity, because it has seldom been brought over. I remember Sfr Hans Sloane' was the first who ever had any of it, and would on no account give my mother the least morsel of it. She afterwards got a good deal of it from China ; and since that, more has come over ; but it is even less valuable than the other, for we never could teU how to use it ; however, let it make its figure. I am sure you hate me aU this time, for chatting about so many trifles, and telling you no poHtics. I o-wn to you, I am so wearied, so worn -with them, that I scarce know how to turn my hand to them ; but you shaU know aU I know. I told j^ou of the meeting at the Fountain tavern : Pulteney had promised to be there, but was not; nor Carteret. As the Lords had put off the debate on the Indemnity BiU, nothing material passed ; but the meeting was very Jacobite. Yesterday the bUl came on, and Lord Carteret took the lead against it, and about seven in the evening it was flung out by almost two to one, 92 to 47, and 17 proxies to 10. To-day we had a motion by the new Lord HUlsborough' (for the father is just dead), and seconded by Lord Barrington," to examine the Lords' votes, to see what was become of the bUl : this is the form. The chanceUor of the Exchequer, and aU the new ministiy, were -with us against it ; but they carried it, 164 to 159. It is to be reported to-morrow, and as we have notice, we may possibly throw it out ; else they -wUl hurry on to a breach with the Lords. Pulteney was not in the House : he was riding the other day, and met the King's coach ; endeavouring to tum out of the way, his horse started, flung hfrn, and feU upon bim : he is much bruised ; but not at aU dangerously. ' Madame Saraain, a Lorrain lady, companion to Princesa Craon. — Walpole. " Sir Hana Sloane, Bart., ivhose collections of every description founded the British Museum. Sir Hans nominated Horace Walpole a trustee of his coUection. — Cunningham. ' WiUs Hill, the aecond Lord Hillsborough, afterwards created an Irish earl and made cofferer of the houaehold. — Walpole. In the reign of George III. he waa created Earl of Hillsborough, in England, and finally Marquis of Downshire, in Ireland ; and held the office of secretary of state for the colonies. — Dover. '' WiUiam Wildman, Viscount Barrington, made a lord of the Admiralty on the coalition, and master of the great wardrobe, in 1754. — Walpole. He afterwards held the offices of chancellor of the exchequer, secretary at war, and treasurer of the navy, and died February 1st, 1793.— Dover. 170 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. On this occasion, there was an epigram fixed to a list, which i wiU explain to you afterwards : it is not known who -wrote it, but it was addressed to him : Thy horse does things by halves, Uke thee . Thou, with irresolution, Hurt'st fi lend and foe, thyself and me. The King and Constitution. The Hst I meant: you must know, some time ago, before the change, they had moved for a committee to examine, and state the pubHc accounts : it was passed. Finding how Httle success they had -with thefr Secret Committee, they have set this on foot, and we were to baUot for seven commissioners, who are to have a thousand a-year. We baUotted yesterday : on our Hst were Sfr Richard Corbet,' Charles Hamilton,' (Lady Archibald's brother,) Sfr WUHam Middleton,' Mr. West, Mr. Fonnereau, Mr. Thompson, and Mr. EUis." On theirs, Mr. Banco, George Gren-viUe, Mr. Hooper, Sir Charles Mordaunt,' Mr. PhiUips, Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Stuart. On casting up the numbers, the four first on ours, and the three ffrst on thefr' Hst, appeared to have the majority : so no great harm wiU come from this, shoiUd it pass the Lords ; which it is not Hliely to do. I have now told you, I think, aU tho poHtical news, except that the troops continue going to Flanders, though we hear no good news yet from Holland. If we can prevent any dispute between the two Houses, it is believed and much hoped by the Court, that the Secret Committee wiU desire to be dissolved : if it does, there is an end of all this tempest I ' Sir Richard Corbet, of Leighton, in Montgomeryshire, the fourth baronet of the famUy. He was member for Shrewsbury, and died in 1774. — Dover. '' The Hon. Charles Hamilton, sixth son of James, sixth Earl of Abercorn, member for Truro, comptroller of tho green cloth to the Prince of Wales, and subsequently receiver-general of tho Island of Minorca. He died in 1787. — Dover. Better still, Mr. Hamilton was one of the restorers of landscape gardening. Pain's Hill, in Surrey, was one of the gardening glories of the eighteenth century. — Cunningham. ^ Sir William Middleton, Bart., of Belsay Castle, Northumberland, the third baronet of the family. He was member for Northumberland, and died in 1767.— Dover. ^ Welbore Ellis, member of parliament for above half a century; during which period he held the different offices of a lord of the Admiralty, secretary at war, trea surer of the navy, vice-treasurer of Ireland, and secretary of state. He was created Lord Mendip in 1794, with remainder to his nephew, Viscount Clifden, and died February 2, 1802, at the age of eighty-eight. — Dover. Lord Dover was the son of Welbore Ellis, Viscount CUfdcn. — Cunningham. * Sir Charles Mordaunt, of Massingham in Norfolk, the sixth baronet of the famUy, He was member for the county of 'Warwick, and died in 1778. — Dover. 1742.1 TO SIR HORACE MANN. 171 I must teU you an ingenuity of Lord Raymond," an epitaijh on the Indemnifying BUl — I beHeve you would guess the author : — Interr'd beneath this marble stone doth lie The Bill of Indemnity ; To show the good for which il was design'd. It died itself to save mankind. My Lady Townshend [Harrison] made me laugh the other night about your old acquaintance, Miss Ed^win; who, by the way, is grown almost a Methodist. My lady says she was forced to have an issue made on one side of her head, for her eyes, and that Kent ' advised her to have another on the other side for symmetry. There has lately been published one of the most impudent things that ever was printed ; it is caUed " The Irish Register,'" and is a Hst of all the unmarried women of any fashion in England, ranked in order, duchesses-dowager, ladies, widows, misses, &c. ¦with their names at length, for the benefit of Irish fortune-hunters, or as it is said, for the incorporating and manufacturing of British com modi - ties. Miss Edwards " is the only one printed ¦with a dash, because they have placed her among the -widows. I -wiU send you this, " Miss Lucy in To^wn," and the magazines, by the first opportunity, as I should the other things, but your brother tells me you have had them by another hand. I received the cedrati, for which I have afready thanked you : but I have been so much thanked by several people to whom I gave some, that I can very weU afford to thank you again. As to Stosch expecting any present from me, he was so extremely weU paid for aU I had of him, that I do not think myself at all in his debt : however, you was very good to offer to pay him. As to my Lady Walpole, I shall say nothing now, as I have not seen either of the two persons since I received your letter to whom I design to mention her ; only that I am extremely sorry to find you stUl disturbed at any of the little nonsense of that cabal. I hoped that the accounts which I have sent you, and which, except in my last letter, must have been very satisfactory, would have served ' Robert, the second Lord Raymond [died 1753], son of the lord chief justice, — Walpole. ^ William Kent, the architect ; he lived with Mrs. Butler, the actress, and died 1748. — Cunningham. ' "The Irish Register," was published in June, 1742, by Webb, price Is., and was followed the same month, also price Is., by " The English Register, or the Irish Register Match'd." — Cunningham. ¦• Miss Edwards, an unmarried lady of great fortune, who openly kept Lord Anne Hamilton. — IValpole. 172 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS, [1742. you as an antidote to thefr legends ; and I think the great victory in the House of Lords, and which, I assure you, is here reckoned prodigious, -wiU raise your spfrits against them. I am happy you have taken that step about Sfr Francis Dashwood; the credit it must have given you -with the King -vriU more than counterbalance any Httle hurt you might apprehend from the cabal. I am in no hurry for any of my things ; as we shaU be mo-ving from hence [Downing Street] as soon as Sfr Robert has taken another house, I shaU not want them tUl I am more settled. Adieu ! I hope to teU you soon that we are aU at peace, and then I trust you wiU be so. A thousand loves to the Chutes. How I long to see you aU ! P.S. I unseal my letter to teU you what a vast and, probably, final -victory we have gained to-day. They moved, that the Lords flinging out the BUl of Indemnity was an obstruction of justice, and might prove fatal to the Hberties of this country. We have sat tiU this moment, seven o'clock, and have rejected this motion by 245 to 193. The caU of the House, which they have kept off from fortmght to fortnight, to keep people in to-wn, was appointed for to-day. The moment the division was over, Sfr John Cotton rose and said, " As I think the inquiry is at an end, you may do what you wUl -with the caU." We have put it off for two months. There's a noble postscript ! 78. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, June 3, 1742. I HAVE sent Mr. Chute aU the news ; I shaU only say to you that I have read your last letter about Lady W. to Sir R. He was not at aU surprised at her thoughts of England, but told me that last week my Lord Carteret had sent him a letter which she had -written to him, to demand his protection. This you may teU pubHcly ; it ¦wiU show her ladyship's credit. Here is an epigram, which I beHeve -wiU divert you : it is on Lord Islay's garden' upon Hounslow Heath. Old Islay, to show his fine delicate taate^ In improving Ms gardens purloin'd from the waste, ' The gardens of Lord Islay (afterwards Duke of Argyll) at Whitton near Hounslow were very celebrated. The graver of WooUett has perpetuated some of their beauties.^ Cunningham. ' These lines were written by Bramston, author of " The Art of Politics,'' and 1742.J TO SIR HORACE MANN. 173 Bade his gard'ner one day to open his views. By cutting a couple of grand avenues : Xo particular prospect his lordship intended, llut left it to chance how his walks should be ended. With transport and joy he beheld his first view end In a favourite prospect — a church that was ruin'd — But alas ! what a sight did the next cut exhibit 1 At the end of the walk hung a rogue on a gibbet ! He beheld it and wept, for it caused him to muse on Full many a CampbeU that died with his shoes on. All amazed and aghast at the ominous scene. He order'd it quick to be closed up again With a clump of Scotch firs, that aerved for a Screen. Sir Robert asked me yesterday about the Dominichin, but I did not know what to answer : I said I would -write to you about it. Have you bought it? or did you quite put it off? I had forgot to mention it again to you. If you have it not, I am stUl of opinion that you should buy it for him. Adieu ! 79. TO SIR HORACE MANN. June 10, (lie Pretender's birthday, which, by the way, I believe lie did not expect to keep at Rome this year, 1742. Since I -wi'ote you my last letter, I have received two from you of the 27th of May and 3rd of June, N.S. I hope you wiU get my two packets ; that is, one of them was addressed to Mr. Chute, and in them was aU my faggot of compHments. Is not poor ScuUy' vastly disappointed that we are not arrived? But reaUy, -wiU that mad woman [Lady Walpole] never have done ? does she stiU find credit for her extravagant histories ? I carried her son' -with me to VauxhaU last night: he is a most charming boy, but grows excessively Hke her in the face. I don't at aU foresee how I shall make out this letter : everybody " The Man of Taste." — Walpolb. The Reverend James Bramston, vicar of South Harting, Suaaex. Pope took the line in the Dunciad, " Shine in the dignity of P.R.S.' fi-om his Man of Taste ; — " a satire," says Warton, " in which the author has been guilty of the absurdity of making his hero laugh at himself and his own follies." He died in 1744. — Wright. ' An Irish tailor at Florence, who let out ready-furnished apartments to travelling English. Lady W[alpole] had reported that [Lord Orford], her father-in-law, was flying from England and would come thither — Walpole. 2 George Walpole, afterwards, 1751, the third Earl of Orford. Mr Pitt, in a letter, written in 1759, says, " Nothing could make a better appearance than the two Norfolk battalions ; Lord Orford, with the port of Mars himself, and really the genteelest figure under arms I ever saw, was the theme of every tongue." — Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 4. — Wright. 174 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. i^l74a is gone out of to^wn during the Whitsuntide, and many ¦wiU not retum, at least not these six weeks ; for so long they say it -wiU be before the Secret Committee make thefr Report, -with which they intend to finish. We are, however, entertained -with pageants every day — re"views to gladden the heart of Da-vid,' and triumphs of Absolom ! He' and his -wife went in great parade yesterday through the city and the dust to dine at Green-wich ; they took water at the Tower, and trumpeting away to Grace Tosier's, Like Cimon, triumph'd both on land and wave.' I don't know whether it was my Lord of Bristol " or some one of the Saddlers" Company who had told him that this was the way " to steal the hearts of the people." He is in a quarrel -with Lord Falmouth.'' There is just dead one Hammond,' a disciple of Lord Chesterfield, and equerry to his royal highness : he had parts, and was just come into parHament, strong of the Cobham faction, or nepotism, as Sir Robert caUs it. The White Prince desired Lord Falmouth to choose Dr. Lee, who, you know, has disobHged the party by accepting a lordship of the admfralty. Lord Falmouth has absolutely refused, and insists upon choosing one of his own brothers : his highness talks loudly of opposing him. The borough is a Cornish one. There is arrived a courier from Lord Stafr, with news of Prince Lobko-witz ha-ving cut cut off five thousand French. We are hurry ing away the rest of our troops to Flanders, and say that we are in great spirits, and intend to be in greater when we have defeated the French too. ' George the Second. — Walpole. '^ Frederic, Prince of Wales. — Walpole. ' Pope's Dunciad. — Cunningham. * Dr. Seeker, afterwards Bishop of Oxford. — Walpole. And eventually Archbishop of Canterbury. According to Walpole, he was bred a man-midwife. — Dover. Seeker had committed in Walpole's eyes the unpardonable offence of having " procured a marriage between the heiress of the Duke of Kent and the chancellor's (Hardwicke's) son ; " he, therefore, readily propagated the charges of his being " a presbyterian, a man-midwife, and president of a very free-thinking club," (Memoirs, i. p. 56) when the fact is, the parents of Seeker were dissenters, and he for a time pursued the study, though not the practice, of medicine and surgery. The third charge is a mere false hood. See also Quarterly Review, xxvii. p. 187. — Wright. ° The Prince was a member of the Saddlers' company. — Walpole. ° Hugh Boscawen, aecond Viscount Falmouth, a great dealer in boroughs. It is of him that Dodington tells the story, that he went to the minister to ask a favour, which the latter seemed unwilling to grant ; upon which Lord Falmouth said, ' Remember, Sir, we are seven ! " — Dover. ' Author of Love Elegies. — Walpole. See vol. i. p. 114. — Cunningham. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 17£ For my o-wn particular I cannot say I am weU ; I am afraid I have a Httle fever upon my spirits, or at least have nerves, which, you know, everybody has in England. I begin the cold bath to-morrow, and talk of going to Tunbridge, if the parliament rises soon. Sfr Robert, who begins to talk seriously of Houghton, has desfred me to go -svith him thither ; but that is not at aU settled. Now I mention Houghton, you was in the right to miss a gaUery there ; but there is one actuaUy fitting up, where the green-house was, and to be furnished -with the spoUs of Do-wning-street. I am quite sorry you have had so much tiouble -with those odious cats of Malta: dear chUd, fling them into the Arno, if there is water enough at this season to dro-wn them ; or, I'U teU you, give them to Stosch, to pay the postage he talked of. I have no ambition to make my court -with them to the old -wizard. I think I have not said anything lately to you from Patapan ; he is handsomer than ever, and grows fat : his eyes are charming ; they have that agreeable lustre which the -vulgar moderns caU sore eyes, but the judicious ancients golden eyes, ocellos Patapanicos. The process is begun against her Grace of Beaufort,' and articles exhibited in Doctors' Commons. Lady Townshend [Harrison] has had them copied, and lent them to me. There is everything proved to yom- heart's content, to the bfrth of the chUd, and much delectable reading. Adieu ! my dear chUd ; you see I have eked out a letter : I hate missing a post, and yet at this dead time I have almost been tempted to invent a murder or a robbery. But you are good, and wUl be persuaded that I have used my eyes and ears for your ser-vice ; when, if it were not for you, I should let them lie by in a drawer from week's end to week's end. Good night ! 80. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Downing Street, June 14, 1742. We were surprised last Tuesday -with the great good news of the peace between the Queen and the King of Prussia. It was so unexpected and so welcome, that I beHeve he might get an act of parHament to forbid any one thinking that he ever made a slip in integrity. Then, the repeated accounts of the successes of Prince ' Frances, daughter and heiress of the last Lord Scudamore, wife of Henry Somerset, Duke of Beaufort ; from whom she was divorced, March, 1743-4, for adultery with Lord Talbot. She was afterwards married to Colonel Fitzroy, natural son of the Duke of Grafton. — Walpolk. 176 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742- Charles and Lobkowitz over the French have put us into the greatest spirits. Prince Charles is extiemely commended for courage and conduct, and makes up a Httle for other flaws in the famUy. It is at last settled that Lords Gower,' Cobham, and Bathurst ' are to come in. The first is to be Pri-vy-Seal, and was to have kissed hands last Friday, but Lord Hervey had carried the seal -with bim to Ickworth ; but he must bring it back. Lord Cobham is to be Field- Marshal, and to command aU the forces in England. Bathurst was to have the Gentlemen-pensioners, but Lord Essex,' who is now the Captain, and was to have had the Beef- eaters, -wiU not change. Bathurst is to have the Beef-eaters ; the Duke of Bolton," who has them, is to have the Isle of Wight, and Lord Lymington,' who has that, is to have — ^nothing ! The Secret Committee are in great perplexities about Scrope : " he would not take the oath, but threatened the Middlesex justices who tendered it to him : " Gentlemen," said he, " have you any complaint against me ? if you have not, don't you fear that I wUl prosecute you for enforcing oaths ? " However, one of them began to read the oath—" I, John Scrope ! "— " I, John Scrope ! " said he ; "I did not say any such thing : but come, however, let's hear the oath; " — " do promise that I -wiU faithfully and truly answer aU such questions as shaU be asked me by the Committee of Secrecy, and — " they were going on, but Scrope cried out, " Hold, hold! there is more than I can digest afready." He then went before the committee, and desired time to consider. Pitt asked him abruptly, if he wanted a ' John, aecond Lord Gower, after a long opposition to the Whig Ministry (which was looked upon as equivalent to Jacobitism), accepted in 1742 the office of Privy Seal, and was consequently abused both by Whigs and Tories. He died in 1754, He ia the Earl Gower whose name Johnson had introduced so offensively into his Dictionary under the word " Renegade." — Cunningham. - Allen, first Lord Bathurst, one of the twelve Tory peers created by Queen Anne, in 1711. He was the friend of Pope, Congreve, Swift, Prior, and other men of letters. He lived to see his eldest son chancellor of England, and died at the age of ninety- one, in 1775 ; having been created an earl in 1772. — Dover. He lived to be the friend of David Hume and Laurence Sterne. — Cunningham. •' William Capel, third Earl of Essex ; ambassador at the court of Turin. He died in January 1743. The Beef-eaters are otherwise called the Yeomen of the Guard. — Dover. ¦• Charles Powlett, third Duke of Bolton. His second wife was Miss Lavinia Fenton, othe-rwise Mrs. Beswick, the actress ; who became celebrated in the character of Polly Peachem, in the Beggar's Opera. By her the Duke had three sons, born before marriage. With his first wife, the daughter and sole heiress of John Vaughan, Earl of Carberry in Ireland, he never cohabited. He died in 1754. — Dover. " John Wallop, first Viscount Lymington ; in the following April created Earl of Portsmouth. He died in 1762. — Wright. * John Scrope, secretary of the Treasury. He had been m Monmouth's rebellion, when very young, and carried inteUigence to Holland in woman's clothes.- — Walpole. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 177 quarter of an hour ; he repHed, " he did not want to infonn either his head or his heart, for both were satisfied what to do ; but that he would ask the King's leave." He wants to fight Pitt. He is a most testy Httle old gentleman, and about eight years ago would have fought -Alderman Perry. It was in the House, at the time of the excise : he said we should carry it ; Perry said he hoped to see him hanged first. " You see me hanged, you dog, you ! " said Scrope, and puUed him by the nose. The Committee have tried aU ways to soften him, and have offered to let hfrn swear to only what part he pleased, or only -with regard to money given to members of parHa ment. Pulteney himself has tried to work on him ; but the old gentleman is inflexible, and answered, " that he was fourscore years old, and cHd not care whether he spent the few months he had to Hve ' in the Tower or not ; that the last thing he would do should be to betiay the King, and next to him the Earl of Orford." It remains in suspense. The troops continue going to Flanders, but slowly enough. Lady Vane has taken a trip thither after a cousin ' of Lord Berkeley, who is as simple about her as her o-wn husband is, and has -written to Mr. Knight at Paris to furnish her -with what money she wants. He says she is vastly to blame ; for he was trying to get her a divorce from Lord Vane, and then would have married her himself. Her adventures ' are worthy to be bound up -with those of my good sister- in-law, [Lady Walpole] the German Princess," and MoU Flanders. Whom should I meet in the Park last night but Ceretesi ! He told me he was at a Bagne. I -wUl find out his bagnio ; for though I was not much acquainted -with him, yet the obHgations I had to Florence make me eager to show any Florentine aU the civiHties in my power ; though I do not love them near so weU, since what you have told me of their late beha-viour ; notwithstanding your letter of June 20th, which I have just received. I perceive that simple- hearted, good, unmeaning RuceUai is of the number of the false, though you do not dfrectly say so. ' Scrope survived this answer eleven years, dying in 1753. We shaU see that the affair of Scrope was ' sunk ' very soon. — Cunningham. 2 Henry Berkeley ; killed the next year at the battle of Dettingen. [See p. 91].— Walpole. ¦' Lady Vane's Memoirs, dictated by herself, were actually published afterwards in a book, called The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle ; and she makes mention of Lady Orford.— Walpole. [See ante, p. 91]. Sir Walter Scott says, that " she not only firnished Smollett with the materials for recording her own infamy, but rewarded him handsomely for the insertion of her story." — Wright. ¦* The impostor who appeared in the reign of Charles 1 1., and found full employ ment for the curiosity of Pepys. She was hanged at Tyburn.— Cunningham. ^78 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742, I was excessively diverted -with your pompous account of the siege of Lucca by a single EngHshman. I do beHeve that you and the Chutes rjoight put a certain city into as great a panic. Adieu I 81. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Midsummer Day, 1742. One begins every letter now ¦with an lo Pcean ! indeed our hymns are not so tumultuous as they were some time ago, to the tune of Admfral Vemon. They say there came an express last night, of the taking of Prague and the destruction of some thousand French. It is reaUy amazing, the fortune of the Queen ! We expect every day the news of the King of Poland ha^ving made his peace ; for it is affirmed that the Prussian left him but sixteen days to think of it. There is nothing could stop the King of Prussia, if he should march to Dresden : how long his being at peace -with that king -wiU stop him I look upon as very uncertain. They say we expect the Report from the Secret Committee next Tuesday, and then finish. I preface aU my news -with tlxey say ; for I am not at aU in the secret, and I had rather that they say should tell you a He than myself. They have sunk the affair of Scrope : the ChanceUor of the Exchequer [Sandys] and Sir John Rushout spoke in the Committee against persecuting him, for he is Secretary to the Treasury. I don't think there is so easy a language as the ministerial in the world — one learns it in a week ! There are few members in toAvn, and most of them no friends to the Committee ; so that there is not the least apprehension of any -violence foUo-wing the Report. I dare say there is not ; for my uncle, who is my poHtical weather-glass, and whose quicksUver rises and faUs with the least variation of parHamentary weather, is in great spfrits, and has spoken three times in the House -within this week ; he had not opened his Hps before since the change. Mr. Pulteney has got his warrant in his pocket for Earl of Bath, and kisses hands as soon as the ParHament rises. The promotions I mentioned to you are not yet come to pass ; but a fortnight -wiU settle things wonderfuUy. The ItaHan [Ceretesi], who I told you is here, has let me into a piece of secret history, which you never mentioned : perhaps it is not true; but he says the mighty mystery of the Count's [Richcourt' s] elope ment from Florence, was occasioned by a letter from Wachtendonck,' ' General Wachtendonck, commander of the Queen of Hungary's troops at Leghorn. — Walpole. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 179 which was so impertinent as to talk of satisfaction for some affront. The great Count very wisely never answered it—his life, to be sure, is of too great consequence to be trusted at the end of a rash German's sword ! however, the General -wrote again, and hinted at coming himself for an answer. So it happened, that when he arrived, the Count was gone to the baths of Lucca — those waters were reckoned better for his health, than steel in the abstract — How oddly it happened ! He just returned to Florence as the General was dead ! Now was not this heroic lover worth running after ? I wonder, as the Count must have known my lady's courage and genius for adventures, that he never thought of putting her into men's clothes, and sending her to answer the chaUenge. How pretty it would have been to have fought for one's lover ! aud how great the obHgation, when he durst not fight for himself ! I heard the other day, that the Primate of Lorrain was dead of the smaU-pox. WUl you make my compHments of condolence ? though I dare say, they are Httle afflicted : he was a most worthless creature, and aU his -wit and parts, I beHeve, Httle comforted them for his brutaUty and other -vices. The fine Mx. Pitt' is arrived: I dine ¦with him to-day at Lord Lincoln's, •with the Pomfrets. So now the old p)artie quarree is complete again. The Earl [Lincoln] is not quite cured,' and a partner in sentiments may help to open the wound again. My Lady Townshend dines ¦with us too. She flung the broadest Wortley-eye' on Mr. Pitt, the other night, in tho park ! Adieu ! my dear child ; are you quite weU ? I trust the summer -wiU perfectly re-estabHsh you. 82. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Downing Street, June 30, 1742. It is about sis o'clock, and am 1 come from the House, where, at ' George Pitt, of Strathfieldsea : he had been in love with Lady Charlotte Fermor [p. 52], second daughter of Lord Pomfret, who was aftei-wards married to William Finch, vice-chamberlain. — Walpole. Mr. Pitt was created Lord Rivers in 1776. In 1761 he was British envoy at Turin ; in 1770, ambassador extraordinary to Spain. He died in 1803.— Dover. '^ Of his love for Lady Sophia Fermor — Dover. ^ Mr. Pitt [Lord Rivers] was very handsome, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had liked him extremely, when he was in Italy. — Walpole. And other beauties envy Wortley's eyes. — Pope. And only dwells where Wortley casts her eyes.— Pope. — Cunningham. 180 HORACE WALPOLE'S LBTTIRS. 1742. last, we have had another Report from the Secret Committee. They have been disputing this week among themselves, whether this should be final or not. The new mfrustry, thank them 1 were for finishing; but thefr arguments were not so persuasive as dutiful, and we are to have yet another. This lasted two hours and a half in readfrig, though confined to the affafr of Burrel and Bristow, the Weymouth election, and Secret-service money. They moved to print it ; but though they had fetched most of thefr members from Ale and the country, they were not stiong enough to divide. Velters ComwaU, whom I have mentioned to you, I beHeve, for odd humour, said, " he beHeved the somethingness of this Report would make amends for the nothingness of the last, and that he was for printing it, if it was only from beHe-viag that the King would not see it, unless it is printed." Perhaps it may be printed at the conclusion ; at least it -wUl -without authority — so you -wiU see it. I received yours of June 24, N. S. -with one from Mr. Chute, this morning, and I -wUl now go answer it and your last. You seem stiU to be uneasy about my letters, and thefr being retarded. I have not observed, lately, the same signs of yours befrig opened; and for my o-wn, I think it may very often depend upon the packet- boat and -winds. You ask me if Pulteney has lately received any new disgusts.— How can one answer for a temper so hasty, so unsettled ? — ^not that I know, unless that he finds, what he has been twenty years undoing, is not yet undone. I must interrupt the thread of my answer, to teU you that I hear news came last night that the States of HoUand have voted forty- seven thousand men for the assistance of the Queen,' and that it was not doubted but the States-General would imitate this resolution. This seems to be the consequence of the King of Prussia's proceedings — but how can they trust him so easUy ? I am amazed that your Leghorn ministiy are so wavering ; they are very old style, above eleven days out of fashion, if they any longer fear the French : my only apprehension is, lest thefr successes should make Richcourt more impertinent. You have no notion how I laughed at the man that "talks nothing but Madefra.'" I told it to my Lady Pomfret, concluding ' The Queen of Hungary, Maria Theresa. — Dover. ' The only daughter and heiress of the Marquis Accianoli at Florence, was married to one of the same name, who was born at Madeira. — Walpole. ¦-1742. TO SIR HORACiS MANN. 181 it would cHvert her too ; and forgetting that she repines when she should laugh, aud reasons when she should be diverted. She asked gravely what language that was ! " That Madefra being subject to an European prince, to be sure they talk some European dialect ! " Tho grave personage I It was of a piece -with her saying, " that S-wift would have -written better, if he had never -written ludicrously." I met a friend of yours the other day at an auction, and though I knew him not the least, yet being your friend, and so Hke you (for do you know, he is excessively), I had a great need to speak to hfrn — and did. He says, " he has left off -writing to you, for he never could get an answer." I said, you had never received but one from him in aU the time I was -with you, and that I was -witness to yom- ha-ving answered it. He was -with his mother. Lady Abercorn,' a most frightful gentlewoman : Mr. Winnington says, he one day overheard her and the Duchess of Devonshfre' talking of " hideous ugly women ! " By the way, I find I have never told you that it was Lord Paisley ;' but that you -wiU have perceived. AmorevoH is gone to Dresden for the summer ; om- dfr-ectors are in great fear that he -wiU serve them Hke FarineUi, and not return for the -winter. I am -writing to you in one of the charming rooms towards the park : it is a deHghtful evening, and I am -wiUing to enjoy this sweet comer whUe I may, for we are soon to quit it. Mrs. Sandys came yesterday to give us warning ; Lord Wilmington has lent it to them. Sfr Robert might have had it for his o-wn at first, but would only take it as ffrst lord of the Treasury." He goes into a small house of his own in .ArHngton Street, opposite to where we formerly Hved. Whither I shaU travel is yet uncertain : he is for my H-ving ¦with him ; but then I shaU be cooped — and besides, I never found that people loved one another the less for H^ving asunder. The drowsy Lord Mayor [Sfr Robert GodschaU] is dead — so the ' Anne Plumer, Countess of Abercorn, wife of James, the seventh earl. She died in 1756. — Wright. ^ Catherine, daughter of John Hoskins, Esq. She was married to the third Duke of Devonshire in 1718, and died in 1777. — Wright. ^ James Hamilton succeeded as eighth earl of Abercorn, on the death of his father in 1743. He was created Viscount HamUton in England in 1786, and died unmarried in 1789.— Dover. '' This is the house in Downing Street, which is still [1833] the residence of the firat lord of the treasury, George the First gave it to Baron Bothmar, the Hanoverian miniater, for life. On hia death, George the Second offered to give it to Sir Robert Walpole ; who, however, refused it, and begged of the King that it might be attached to the office of firat lord of the treasury. — Dover. 182 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. newspapers say. I think he is not dead, but sleepeth. Lord Gower is laid up -with the gout : this, they say, is the reason of his not having the Privy Seal yet. The town has talked of nothing lately but a plot : I wUl tell you the cfrcumstances. Last week the Scotch hero' sent his brother' two papers, which he said had been left at his house by an unknown hand; that he beHeved it was by Colonel CecU, agent for the Pretender — though how could that be, for he had had no conversa tion -with Colonel CecU for these two years ? He desfred Lord Islay to lay them before the Ministry. One of the papers seemed a letter, though -with no address or subscription, written in true genuine Stuart characters. It was to thank Mr. Burnus (D. of A.) for his ser-vices, and that he hoped he would answer the assurances given of him. The other was to command the Jacobites, and to exhort the patriots to continue what they had mutuaUy so well begun, and to say how pleased he was with thefr ha-ving removed Mr. Tench. Lord Islay showed these letters to Lord Orford, and then to the King, and told hfrn he had showed them to my father. " You did weU." — Lord Islay, "Lord Orford says one is of the Pretender's hand." — King, "He" knows it: whenever anything of this sort comes to your hand, carry it to Walpole." This private conversa tion you must not repeat. A few days afterwards, the Duke -wrote to his brother, " That upon recoUection he thought it right to say, that he had received those letters from Lord Barrimore " " — who is as weU kno-wn for General to the ChevaHer, as Montemar is to the Queen of Spain — or as the Duke of A. [rgyU] would be to either of them. Lord Islay asked Sfr R. [obert] if he was against pubHshing this story, which he thought was a justification both of his brother and Sfr R. [obert]. The latter replied, he could certainly have no objection to its being pubHc— but pray, -wiU his grace's sending these letters to the secretaries of state justify him from the assurances ' that ' The [great] Duke of Argyll. — Walpole. ^ Earl of Islay. — -Walpole. ^ Besides intercepted letters. Sir R. Walpole had more than once received letters from the Pretender, making him tbe greatest offers, which Sir R. always carried to the King, and got him to endorse, when ho returned them to Sir R. Walpole. — Walpole. ¦• James Barry, fourth Earl of Barrymore, succeeded his half-brother Lawrence in the family titles in 1699, and died in 1747, at the age of eighty. James, Lord Barry more, was an adherent of the Pretender, whereas Lawrence had been so great a supporter of the revolution, that he was attainted, and his estates sequestered by James the Second's Irish parliament, in 1689. — Dover. * The [great] Duke of ArgyU, in the latter part of his life, was often melancholy and disordered in his understanding. After this transaction, and it is supposed he had 1742.] TO SIR HORACB MANN, 188 had been given cf hirn ? However, the Pretender's being of opinion that the dismission of Mr. Tench was for his service, -wiU scarce be an argument to the new ministry for making more noise about these papers. I am sorry the boy is so uneasy at befrig on the foot of a servant. I wUl send for his mother, .and ask her why she did not teU him the conditions to which we had agreed ; at the same time, I -wUl teU her that she may send any lettera for him to me. Adieu ! my dear chUd : I am going to -^vrite to Mr. Chute, that is, to-morrow. I never was more diverted than -with his letter. 83. TO SIR HORACE MANN. ON THE DEATH OF RICHARD WEST, E.SQ. While surfeited with life, each hoary knave Grows, here, immortal, and eludes the grave, Thy virtues immaturely met their fate, Crampd in the limit' of too short a date I Thy mind, not exercised so oft in vain. In health was gentle, and composed in pain : Suc(--e.%sive trials still refined thy soul. And plastic patience perfected the whole. A friendly aspect, not suborn'd by art ; An eye, which looked the meaning of thy heart ; A tongue, with simple truth and freedom fraught. The faithful index of thy honest thought. Thy pen disdain'd to seek the servile ways Of partial censure, and more partial praise : Through every tongue it flow'd in nervous ease. With sense to polish, and with wit to please. No lurking venom from thy pencil fell; Thine was the kindest satire, living well : The vain, the loose, the base, might blush to see In what thou wert, what they themselves should be. Let me not charge on Providence a crime. Who snatch'd thee, blooming, to a better clime. To raise those virtues to a higher sphere ; Virtues ! which only could have starved thee here. gone StUl farther, he could with difficulty be brought even to write his name. The marriage of his eldest daughter with the Earl of Dalkeith was deferred for some time, because the Duke could not be prevailed upon to sign the writings.— Walpole. 184 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. 1742 A RECEIPT TO MAKE A LORD. OOOASIONED BT A LATB REPORT OP A PROMOTIOH.' Take a man, who by nature's a true son of earth, By rapine enrich'd, though a beggar by birth • In genius the lowest, ill-bred and obscene-; ^ In morals most wicked, most nasty in mien; By none ever trusted, yet ever employ'd ; In blunders quite fertile, of merit quite void ; A scold in the Senate, abroad a buffoon, The scorn and the jest of all courts but his own : A slave to that wealth that ne'er made him a friend. And proud of that cunning that ne'er gaiji'd an end ; A dupe in each treaty, a Swiss in each vote ; In manners and form a complete Hottentot. Such an one could you find, of all men you'd commend him But be sure let the curse of each Briton attend him. Thus fully prepared, add the grace of the throne. The folly of monarchs, and screen of a crown — Take a prince for his purpose, without ears or eyes. And a long parchment roll stuff'd brim-full of Ues : These mingled together, a fiat shall pass. And the thing be a Peer, that before was an ass. The former copy I think you -wiU Hke : it was -written by one Mr. Ashton ^ on Mr. West, two friends of mine, whom you have heard me often mention. The other copy was printed in the " Common Sense," I don't know by whom composed : the end of it is very bad, and there are great falsities in it, but some strokes are terribly like ! I have not a moment to thanli the Grifona, nor to answer yours of June 17, N.S. which I have this instant read. Yours, in great haste. 84. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, July 7, 1742. Well ! you may bid the Secret Committee good night. The House adjourns to-day tiU Tuesday, and on Thursday is to be pro rogued. Yesterday we had a bUl of Pulteney's, about returning officers and regulating elections : the House was thin, and he carried it by 93 to 92. Mr. PeUiam was not there, and Winnington did not ' The report, mentioned in a preceding letter, that Horace Walpole, brother to Sir Robert, was created a peer. — -Walpole. These verses are, I suspect, by young Horace. — Cunningham. ^ Compare Swift's character of Sir Robert Walpole as printed in the Suffolk Corre spondence, vol. ii. p. 32. This remarkable character is not in Sir Walter Scott'a edition of Swift. — Cunningham. ^ Thomas Ashton, afterwards fellow of Eton College. — Walpolb. See note p. 2. — Cunningham. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 185 vote, for the gentleman is testy stUl ; when he saw how near he had been to losing it, he said loud enough to be heard, " I -wiU make the gentlemen of that side feel me ! " and, rising up, he said, " He was astonished, that a bUl so calculated for the freedom of elections was so near befrig thro-wn out ; that there was a report on the table, which showed how necessary such a bUl was, and that though we had not time this yeai- to consider what was proper to be done in consequence of it, he hoped we should next," — with much to the same purpose ; b-at aU the effect this notable speech had, was to frighten my uncle, and make him give two or three shrugs extra ordinary to his breeches. They now say,' that Pulteney -wUl not take out the patent for his earldom, but remain in the House of Commons in tcrrorem ; however, aU his friends are to have places immediately, or, as the fashion of expressing it is, " they are to go to Court in the Bath coach ! " ' Your relation Guise ' is arrived from Carthagena, madder than ever. As he was marching up to one of the forts, aU his men deserted him ; his Heutenant ad-vised him to retfre ; he repHed, " He never had turned his back yet, and would not now," and stood aU the ffre. When the peHcans were flying over his head, he cried out, " What would Chloe ' give for some of these to make a peHcan pie I " When he is brave enough to perform such actions as are reaUy almost incredible, what pity it is that he should for ever persist in saying things that are totaUy so ! Lord Annandale ° is at last mad in aU the forms : he has long been an out-pensioner of Bedlam CoUege. Lord and Lady Talbot are parted ; he gives her three thousand pounds a-year. Is it not ' Sir R. W. to defeat Pulteney's ambition, persuaded the King to insist on his going into the House of Lords : the day he carried his patent thither, he flung it upon the floor in a passion, and could scarce be prevailed on to have it passed. — Walpole. Compare Walpole's ' Reminiscences,' Chapter IX,, with the note there from Lord Hervey's Memoirs. — Cunningham. ' His title was to be Earl of Bath. — Walpole. ^ General Guise, a very brave officer, but apt to romance ; and a great connoisseur in pictures. — Walpole. He bequeathed his collection of pictures, which is a very indifferent one, to Christ Church CoUege, Oxford. — Dover. " The Duke of Newcastle's French cook. — Walpole. " Chloe," the Duke of New castle's cook figures in the printed letter to the Duke of Grafton about Fielding's farce of "Miss Lucy in Town," and is mentioned by Walpole in "The World." — Cunningham. ' George Johnstone, third Marquis of Annandale, in Scotland. He was not declared a lunatic till the year 1748. Upon his death, in 1792, his titles either became extinct or dormant. — Dovbr. * Mary, daughter of Adam de Cardonel, secretary to John the great Duke of Marlborough, married to WilUam, second Lord Talbot, eldest son of Lord Chancellor Talbot.— DovBB. 186 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742 amaziag, that fri England people wiU not find out that they can Hve separate ¦without parting ? The Duke of Beaufort says, " Ee pities Lord Talbot to have met with two such tempers as thefr two wives ! " Sfr Robert Rich ' is going to Flanders, to try to make up an affafr for his son ; who, ha'ving quarreUed with a Captain Vane, as the commanding officer was trying to make it up at the head of the regiment, Rich came behind Vane, " .And to .show you," said he, " that I ¦wiU not make it up, take that," and gave him a box on the ear. They were immediately put in arrest ; but the learned in the laws of honour say, they must fight, for no German officer ¦wUl serve with Vane, tUl he has had satisfaction. Mr. Harris, '' who married Lady Walpole's mother, is to be one of the peace-offerings on the new altar. Bootle is to be chief-justice ; but the Lord ChanceUor [Hard-wicke] would not consent to it, unless Lord Glenorchy,' whose daughter is married to Mr. Yorke, had a place in Heu of the Admfralty, which he has lost — he is to have Harris's. Lord Edgcumbe's, in Ireland, they say, is destined to Harry Vane," Pulteney's toad-eater.* MonticelH Hves in a manner at our house. I teU my sister that she is in love -with him, and that I am glad it was not Amorevoh. MonticeUi dines fi-equently -with Sfr- Robert, which diverts me extremely : you know how low his ideas are of music and the ¦vfrtuosi ; he caUs them all fiddlers. I have not time now to write more, for I am going to a masquerade at the Ranelagh amphitheatre : the King is fond of it, and has pressed people to go ; but I don't find that it ¦wUl be fuU. Good tught ! My love to the Pope for his good thing. ' Sir Robert Rich, Bart., of Rose HaU, Suffolk. At his death, in 1768, he was colonel of the fourth regiment of dragoons, governor of Chelsea Hospital, and field- marshal of the forces. — Wright. ^ This article did not prove true. Mr. Harris was not removed, nor Bootle made chief-justice. — Walpole. ^ John CampbeU, Lord Glenorchy, and, on his father's death, in 1752, third Earl of Breadalbane. His first wife was Lady Amabel Grey, eldest daughter and co-heir of the Duke of Kent. By her he had an only daughter, Jemima, who, upon the death of her grandfather, became Baroness Lucaa of Crudwell, and Marchioness de Grey. She married Philip Yorke, eldest son of the Chancellor Hardwicke, and eventually himself the second earl of that title. — Dover. ¦* Henry Vane, eldest son of Gilbert, second Lord Barnard, and one of the tribe who came into office upon the breaking up of Sir Robert Walpole' s administration. He was created Earl of Darlington in 1753, and died in 1758. — Dover. ' This ia an early use of what is now a common expression. It is explained as a novelty by Sarah Fielding in her story of " David Simple " pubUshed in 1744. — Cunningham. 1742.1 TO SIR HORACE MANN. W 85. TO SIR HORACE MANN Downing Slrtct, July l-i, 1742. Sir Robert Brown ' is displaced from being paymaster of some thing, I forget what, for Sfr Charles GUmour, a friend of Lord Tweedale.' Ned Finch' is made groom of the bedchamber, which was vacant ; and WiU Finch ¦" -vice chamberlain, which was not vacant ; but they have emptied it of Lord Sidney Beauclerc' Boone is made commissary-general, in Huxley's room, and Jeffries ' in WUl Stuart's. AU these have been kissing hands to day, headed by the Earl of Bath. He went in to the King the other day -with this long Hst, but was told shortly, that unless he would take up his patent and quit the House of Commons, nothing should be done — he has consented. I made some of them very angry ; for when they told me who had kissed hands, I asked, if the Pretender had kissed hands too, for being King ? I forgot to teU you, that Murray ' is to ' Sir Robert Brown had been a merchant at Venice , and British resident there, for which he was created a baronet in 1732. He held the place at this time of " paymaster of his Majesty's works, concerning the repairs, new buildings, and well-keeping of any of his Majesty's houses of access, and others iu time of progress." — Dover. ' John Hay, fourth Marquis of Tweeddale. In 1748, he married Prances, daughter of John [Carteret], Earl Granville, and died in 1762. — Wright. ^ The Hon. Edward Finch, fifth son of Daniel, sixth earl of Winchelsea and second Earl of Nottingham, and the direct ancestor of the present Lord Winchelsea. He assumed the name of Hatton, in 1764, in consequence of inheriting the fortune of William Viscount Hatton, his mother's brother. He was employed in diplomacy, and was made master of the robes iu 1757. He died in 1771. — Dover. ¦* The Hon. William Finch, second son of Daniel, sixth Earl of Winchelsea, had been envoy in Sweden and in Holland. He continued to hold the office of vice- chamberlain of the household till his death in 1766. These two brothers, and their elder brother Daniel, seventh Earl of Winchelsea, are the persons whom Sir Charles Hanbury Williams calls, on account of the blackness of their complexions, " the dark, funereal Finches." — Walpole. He married Lady Charlotte Fermor. See p. 179. — Cunningham. * Lord Sidney Beaucloj'k, fifth aon of the first Duke of St. Albans ; a man of bad character. Sir Charles Hanbury WiUiams calls him " Worthless Sidney." He was notorious for hunting after the fortunes of the old and childless. Being very hand some, he had almost persuaded Lady Betty Germaine, in her old age, to marry him ; but she was dissuaded from it by the Duke of Dorset and her relations. He failed also in obtaining the fortune of Sir Thomas Reeve, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, whom he used to attend on the circuit, with a view of ingratiating himself with him. At length he induced Mr. Topham, of Windsor, to leave his estate to him. He died in 1744, leaving one son, Topham Beauclerk, Esq., known to every reader of BosweU. — Dover. Lord Sidney was the grandson of Nell Gwyn, and is the hero of a poem by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. See note, p. 117. — Cunningham. ' John Jeffries, Secretary of the Treasury. — Dover. 1 Afterwards the great Lord Mansfield. — Cunninghajl 188 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. be SoHcitor- General, in Sfr John Strange's place, who is made chief justice, or some such thing.' I don't know who it was that said it, but it was a very good answer to one who asked why Lord Gower had not kissed hands sooner — " the Dispensation was not come from Rome." ' I am ¦writing to you up to the ears in packing : Lord WUmington has lent this house to Sandys, and he has given us instant wai-ning ; we are mo'ving as fast as possible to Siberia, — Sfr Robert has a house there, ¦within a few miles of the Duke of Courland ; in short, chUd, we are aU going to Norfolk, tiU we can get a house ready in town ; aU the furniture is taken do^wn, and lying about in confusion. I look like St. John, in the Isle of Patmos, writing revelations, and prophesying " Woe ! woe ! woe ! the kingdom of desolation is at hand ! " indeed, I have prettier animals about me, than he ever dreamt of : here is the dear Patapan, and a Httle Vandyke cat, ¦with black whiskers and boots ; you would swear it was of a very ancient famUy, in the West of England, famous for thefr' loyalty. I told you I was going to the masquerade at Ranelagh gardens, last week : it was miserable ; there were but an hundred men, sis women, and two shepherdesses. The King Hked it, — and that he might not be known, they had dressed bim a box -with red damask 1 Lady Pomfret and her daughters were there, aU dressed aHke, that they might not be known. My Lady said to Lady Bel Finch," who was dressed Hke a nun, and for coolness had cut off the nose of her mask, " Madam, you are the ffrst nun that ever I saw -without a nose As I came home last night, they told me there was a fire m Downing Street ; when I came to WhitehaU, I could not get to the end of the street in my chariot, for the crowd : when I got out, the first thing I heard was a man enjoying himself : " WeU ! if it lasts two hours longer, Sfr Robert Walpole's house -wUl be burned to the ground ! " it was a very comfortable hearing ! but I found the fire ' Sir John Strange was made Master of the RoUa, but not tiU some years after wards : he died in 1754. — Walpole. ^ From the Pretender. Lord Gower had been, untU he was made Privy-Seal, one of the leading Jacobites ; and was even supposed to lean to that party after he had accepted the appointment. — Walpole. See p. 176, and compare Dr. King's Anecdotes, p. 45.— Cunningham. ' Lady IsabeUa Finch, died 1771, third daughter of the sixth Eari of Winchelsea, first lady of the bedchamber to the Princess Amelia. It was for her that Kent built the pretty and singular house on the western side of Berkeley Square, with a fine room in it, of which the ceiling is painted in arabesque compartments, by Zucchi ; now [1833] the residence of C. Baring WaU, Esq. — Dover. 1742 ] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 189 was on the opposite side of the way, and at a good distance. I stood in the crowd an hour to hear thefr discourse : one man was relating at how many ffres he had happened to be present, and did not think himself at aU unlucky in passing by, just at this. What diverted me most, was a servant-maid, who was working, and carrying paUs of water, with the stiength of half-a-dozen troopers, and swearing the mob out of her way — the soft creature's name was Pbillis ! When I arrived at our door, I found the house fuU of goods, beds, women, and chUcfren, and three Scotch members of parHament, who lodge in the row, and who had sent in a saddle, a fHtch of bacon, and a bottle of ink. There was no -wind, and the house was saved, -with the loss of only its garret, and the furniture. I forgot to mention the Dominichin last post, as I suppose I had before, for I always was for your buying it ; it is one of the most engagiug pictures I ever saw. I have no quahns about its origin- aUty ; and even if Sfr Robert should not Hke it when it comes, which is impossible, I think I would Hve upon a flitch of bacon and a bottle of ink, rather than not spare the money to buy it myself : so, my dear Sfr-, buy it. Your brother has this moment brought me a letter : I flnd by it, that you are very old style -with relation to the Prussian peace. Why, we have sent Robinson ' and Lord Hyndford ' a green ribbon for it, above a fortnight ago. Muley, (as Lord Lovel caUs him,) Duke of Bedford,' is, they say, to have a blue one, for making his o-wn peace : you know we always mind home-peaces more than foreign ones. I am quite sorry for aU the trouble you have had about the Maltese cats ; but you know they were for Lord Islay, not for myself. Adieu ! I have no more time. 86. TO SIR HORACE MANN. You scolded me so much about my Httle paper, that I dare not venture upon it even now, when I have very Httle to say to you. The long session is over, and the Secret Committee afready forgotten. ' Sir Thomas Robinson, minister at Vienna ; he was made secretary of state in 1754. —Walpole. And a peer, by the title of Lord Grantham, in 1761. [See p. 80.] — Dover. ' John Carmichael, third Earl of Hyndford. He had been sent aa envoy to the King of Prussia, during the first war of Silesia. He was afterwards sent ambassador to Petersburgh and Vienna, and died in 1767. — Dover. ¦' The Duke of Bedford [died 1771] had not the Garter tUl some years after this.— Walpole. 190 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. Nobody remembers it but poor Paxton, who has lost his place ' by it. I saw him the day after he came out of Newgate ; he came to Chelsea : ' Lord FitzwUHam was there, and in the height of zeal took him about the neck and kissed him. Lord Orford had been at Court that morning, and -with his usual spirits, said to the new ministers, " So I the ParHament is up, and Paxton, BeU, and I have got our Hberty I " The King spoke in the kindest manner to him at his levee, but did not caU him into the closet, as the new Ministry feared he would, and as, perhaps, the old IMinistry expected he would. The day before, when the King went to put an end to the session. Lord Quarendon asked Winnington " whether BeU would be let out time enough to hfre a mob to huzza him as he went to the House of Lords." The few people that are left iu town have been much diverted with an adventure that has befaUen the new Ministers. Last Sunday the Duke of Newcastle gave them a dinner at Claremont, where thefr servants got so drunk, that when they came to the inn over against the gate of Ne^wpark,' the coachman, who was the only remaining fragment of thefr suite, tumbled off the box, and there they were planted. There were Lord Bath, Lord Carteret, Lord Limerick, and Harry Furnese " in the coach : they asked the inn keeper if he could contrive no way to convey them to to^wn. " No," he said, " not he, unless it was to get Lord Orford's coachman to drive them." They demurred ; but Lord Carteret said, " Oh, I dare say, Lord Orford ¦wUl ¦willingly let us have him." So they sent, and he drove them home.* Ceretesi had a mind to see this wonderful Lord Orford, of whom he has heard so much ; I carried him to dine at Chelsea. You know the Earl don't speak a word of any language but EngHsh and ' Solicitor to the treasury. See ante, p. 155. — Cunningham. ^ Where, near to Chelsea Hospital, Sir Robert Walpole had a house. I have a printed catalogue of the pictures, &c., sold there after Sir Robert's death. — Cunningham. " Lord Walpole was ranger of Newpark. — Walpole. Now called Richmond Park. — Dover. ^ One of the band of incapables who obtained power and place on the fall of Walpole. Horace Walpole, in his Memoires, calls him " that old rag of Lord Bath's quota to an administration, the mute Harry Furnese." — Dover. " This occuiTence was celebrated in a ballad, which is inserted in Sir C. Hanbury Williams's works, and begins thus : " As Caleb and Carteret, two birds of a feather. Went down to a feast at Newcastle's together." Lord Bath is called "Caleb," in consequence of the name of Caleb d'Anvers having been used iu The Craftsman, of which he was the principal author— Dover. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 191 Latfri,' and Ceretesi not a word of either ; yet he assured me that he was very happy to have made cosi bella conoscenza ! He whips out his pocket-book every moment, and -writes descriptions in issimo of everything he sees : the grotto alone took up three pages. What volumes he 'wUl pubHsh at his return, in usum Serenissimi Pan- noni .'' There has lately been the most shocking scene of murder imag inable ; a parcel of drmiken constables took it into their heads to put the laws in execution against disorderly persons, and so took up every woman they met, tiU they had coUected five or six-and-twenty, aU of whom they thrust into St. Martin's round-house, where they kept them all night, -with doors and -windows closed. The poor creatures, who could not stfr or breathe, screamed as long as they had any breath left, begging at least for water : one poor -wretch said she was worth eighteen-pence, and would gladly give it for a draught of water, but in vain I So weU cHd they keep them there, that in the morning four were found stifled to death, two died soon after, and a dozen more are in a shocking way. In short, it is horrid to think what the poor creatures suffered : several of them were beggars, who, from ha-ving no lodging, were necessarily found in the stieet, and others honest labouring women. One of the dead was a poor washerwoman, big -with chUd, who was returning home late from washing. One of the constables is taken, and others absconded ; but I question ' if any of them -wUl suffer death, though the greatest criminals in this to-wn are the officers of justice ; there is no tyranny they do not exercise, no -viUany of which they do not partake. These same men, the same night, broke into a bagnio in Covent- Garden, and took up Jack Spencer," Mr. Stewart, and Lord George Graham,' and would have thrust them into the round-house with ' It was very remarkable, that Lord Orford could get and keep such an aacendant with King George I., when they had no way of conversing but very imperfectly in Latin. — Walpole. - The coffee-house at Florence where the nobility meet. — Walpole. ¦' The keeper of the round-house [William Bird] was tried, but acquitted of wilful murder. — Walpole. ¦* The Honourable John Spencer, second sou of Charles, third Earl of Sunderland, by Anne his wife, second daughter of the great Duke of Marlborough. He was the favourite grandson of old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who left him a vast fortune, having disinherited, to the utmost of her power, his eldest brother, Charles, Duke of Marlborough. The condition upon which she made this bequest was, that neither he nor his heirs should take any place or pension from any government, except the rangership of Windsor Park. He was the ancestor of the present [1 833] Earl Spencer, and died in 1746. — Dover. ' Lord George Graham, youngest sou of the Duke of Montrose, and a captain in the navy. He died in 1747. — Dover. 192 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. the poor women, if they had not been worth more than eighteen pence ! I have just now received yours of the 15th of July, -with a married letter from both Prince and Princess [Craon] : but sure nothing ever equaUed the setting out of it ! She says, " The generosity of your friendship for me, Sfr, leaves me nothing to desfre of aU that is precious in England, China, and the Indies ! " Do you know, after such a testimony under the hand of a princess, that I am determined, after the laudable example of the house of Medici, to take the title of Horace the magnificent ! I am only afraid it should be a dangerous example for my posterity, who may ruin themselves in emulating the magnificence of thefr ancestor. It happens comicaUy, for the other day, in remo-ving from Do-wning-stieet, Sfr Robert found an old account-book of his father, wherein he set do-wn aU his expenses. In three months and ten days that he was in London one -winter as member of parHament, he spent — what do you think ? — sixty-four pounds seven shilHngs and five-pence ! There are many articles for Nottingham ale, eighteen-penees for dinners, five shillings to Bob (now Earl of Orford), and one memorandum of six shillings given in exchange to Mr. Wilkins for his -wig — and yet this old man, my grandfather, had two thousand pounds a-year, Norfolk sterHng ! He Httle thought that what maintained him for a whole session would scarce serve one of his younger grandsons to buy japan and fans for princesses at Florence ! Lord Orford has been at court again to-day : Lord Carteret came up to thank him for his coachman ; the Duke of Newcastle standing by. My father said, " My lord, whenever the duke is near over turning you, you have nothing to do but to send to me, and I -wUl save you." The Duke said to Lord Carteret, " Do you know, my lord, that the venison you eat that day came out of Ne-wpark [Richmond] ? " Lord Orford laughed, and said, " So, you see I am made to kiU the fatted calf for the return of the prodigals ! " The King passed by aU the new Ministiy to speak to him, and after wards only spoke to my Lord Carteret. Should I answer the letters from the court of Petraia again? there ¦wiU be no end of our magnificent correspondence ! — ^but would it not be too haughty to let a princess -write last ? Oh, the cats ! I can never keep them, and yet it is barbarous to send them aU to Lord Islay : he -wUl shut them up and starve them, and then bury them under the stafrs -with his -wife.' Adieu! ' .Daughter of Mr. Whitfield, Paymaster of Marines, died 1723. — Cunningham. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN, 193 87. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Cliehea, J-dy 29, 1742. I AM quite out of humour ; the whole to-wn is melted away ; you never saw such a desert. You know what Florence is in the vintage- season, at least I remember what it was : London is just as empty, nothing but half-a-dozen private gentlewomen left, who Hve upon the scandal that they laid up in the 'winter. I am going too ! this day se'nnight we set out for Houghton, for three months ; but I scarce think that I shaU aUow thirty days a-piece to them. Next post 1 shall not be able to write to you ; and when I am there, shaU scarce find materials to furnish a letter above e^^ery other post. I beg, how ever, that you ¦wiU ¦write constantly to me , it wiU be my only enter tainment, for I neither hunt, brew, drink, nor reap. When I retum in the ¦winter, I ¦wUl make amends for this barren season of oui correspondence. I carried Sfr Robert the other night to Ranelagh for the ffrst time : my uncle's prudence, or fear, would never let him go before. It was pretty fuU, and aU its fuUness flocked round us : we walked ¦with a train at our heels, Hke two chairmen going to fight ; but they were extremely ci-vU, and did not crowd him, or say the least impertinence — I think he grows popular already ! The other day he got it asked, whether he should be received if he went to Carleton House ? — no, truly ! — but yesterday morning Lord Baltimore ' came to soften it a Httle ; that his Royal Highness did not refuse to see him, but that now the Court was out of to^wn, and he had no dra^wing-room, he did not see anybody. They have given Mrs. Pulteney an admfrable name, and one that is Hkely to stick by her — instead of Lady Bath, they call her the -wife of Bath.' Don't you figure her squabbHng at the gate -with St. Peter for a halfpenny. Cibber has pubHshed a Httle pamphlet against Pope, which has a great deal of spfrit, and, from some circumstances, -wiU notably vex him.' I wiU send it to you by the first opportunity, -vrith a new Lord of the bedchamber to the Prince. — Walpole. ' In allusion to the old ballad. — Walpolb. Rather to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.- Cunningham. ' This pamphlet, which was entitled " A Letter from Mr. Cibber to Mr. Pope ; inquiring into the motives that might induce him, in his satirical works, to he so frequently fond of Mr. Cibber's name," so " notably vexed " the great poet, that, in a new edition of the Dunciad, he dethroned Theobald from his eminence as King of the Dunces, and enthroned Cibber in his stead. — Wright. VOL. I. 0 194 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. pamphlet, said to be Dodington's, caUed "A Comparison of the Old and New lilinistry : " it is much Hked. I have not forgot your magazines, but will send them and these pamphlets together. Adieu ! I am at the end of my teU. P.S. Lord Edgcumbe is just made Lord-Heutenant of ComwaU, at which the Lord of Bath looks sour. He said, yesterday, that the King would give orders for several other considerable alterations ; but he gave no orders, except for this, which was not asked by that Eari. 88. TO SIR HORACE MANN. [Houyhton.] Here are three new baUads,' and you must take them as a plump part of a long letter. Consider, I am in the barren land of Norfolk, where news grow as slow as anything green ; and besides, I am in the house of a faUen minister ! The first song [" Labour in Vain "] I fancy is Lord Edgcumbe's ; at least he had reason to -write it. The second ["The Old Coachman"] I do not think so good as the real story that occasioned it. The last ["The Country Gfrl"] is reckoned vastly the best, and is much admfred : I cannot say 1 see aU those beauties in it, nor am charmed -with the poetry, which is cried up. I don't find that any body knows whose it is.' Pulteney is very angry, especiaUy, as he pretends, about his -wife, and says, " it is too much to abuse ladies ! " You see, their twenty years' satires come home thick ! He is gone to the Bath in great dudgeon : the day before he went, he went in to the King to ask him to tum out Mr. HUl of the Customs, for ha-ving opposed bim at Heydon. " Sfr," said the King, " was it not when you was opposing me ? I won't tum him out : I -wiU part -with no more of my friends." Lord WUmington was waiting to receive orders accordingly, but the King gave him none. We came hither last Saturday ; as we passed through Grosvenor- square, we met Sfr Roger Newdigate ' -with a vast body of Tories, ' As these ballads are to be found in the edition of Sir Charles Hanbury WiUiams's works, published in 1822, it has been deemed better to omit them here. They are called, " Labour in Vain," " The Old Coachman," and " The Country Girl."— Dover. = It was written by Hanbury Williams.— Walpole. 2 Sir Roger Newdigate, the fifth baronet of the family. He waa elected member for Middleaex, upon the vacancy occaaioned by Pulteney's being created Earl of Bath. He belonged to the Tory or Jacobite party. — Dover. Sir Roger afterwards repre- 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 196 proceeding to his election at Brentford : we nught have expected some insult, but only one single fellow hissed, and was not foUowed. Lord Edgcumbe, Mr. EUis, and Mr. Hervey, in their way to Coke's,' and Lord Chief Justice WUles (on the cfrcuit) are the only com pany here yet. My Lord in-vited nobody, but left it to their charity. The other night, as soon as he had gone through showing Mr. EUis the house, " WeU," said he, " here I am to enjoy it, and my Lord of Bath may ." I forgot to teU you, in confirmation of what you see in the song of the -wffe of Bath ha-ving shares of places, Sfr Robert told me, that when formerly he got a place for her o-wn father,' she took the salary and left him only the perquisites ! It is much thought that the King -wUl go abroad, if he can avoid leaving the Prince in his place . Imagine aU this ! I received to-day yours of July 29, and two from Mr. Chute and Madame Pucci,' which I -wUl answer very soon : where is she now ? I deHght in Mr. VUHers's " modesty — ^in one place you had -written it VUlettes' ; I fancy on purpose, for it would do for him. Good night, my dear chUd ! I have -written myself threadbare. I know you -wiU hate my campaign, but what can one do ! 89. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Houghton, Aug. 20, 1742. By the tediousness of the post, and distance of place, I am stUl recei-ving letters from you about the Secret Committee, which seems stiange, for it is as much forgotten now, as if it had happened in the last reign. Thus much I must answer you about it, that it is sented the University of Oxford in five parliaments, and died in 1806, in his eighty- seventh year. Among other benefactions to his Alma Mater, he gave the noble candelabra in the Radcliffe library, and founded an annual prize for English verses on ancient painting, sculpture, and architecture. — Wright. ' Holkham. Coke was the son of Lord Lovel, afterwards Viscount Coke, when his father was created Earl of Leicester. — Dover. ' Gumley of Isleworth. — Cunningham. ^ She was daughter of the Conte di Valvasone, of Friuli, sister of Madame Snares, and of the bedchamber to the Duchesa of Modena. — Walpole. ¦• Thomas VilUers, a younger son of WUliam, second Earl of Jersey, at this time British minister at the court of Dresden, and eventually created Lord Hyde, and Earl of Clarendon. Sir H. Mann had alluded in one of his letters to a speech attributed to Mr. Villiers, in which he took great credit to himself for having induced the King of Poland to become a party to the peace of Breslau, recently concluded between the Queen of Hungary and the King of Prussia ; a course of proceeding, which, in fact, his Polish Majesty had no alternative but to adopt. VUlettes was an inferior diplomatic agent from England to some of the ItaUan courts, and waa at this moment resident at the court of Turin. — Dover. 196 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. possible to resume the inquiry upon the Report next session ; but you may judge whether they -wUl, after aU the late promotions. We are -wUling to beHeve that there are no news in town, for we hear none at aU : Lord Lovel sent us word to-day, that he heard, by a messenger from the Post-Office, that Montemar ' is put under arrest. I don't teU you this for news, for you must know it long ago ; but I expect the confirmation of it from you next post. Since we came hither I have heard no more of the King's journey to Flanders : our troops are as peaceable there as on Hounslow Heath, except some bickerings and blows about beef -with butchers, and about sacraments -with friars. You know the EngHsh can eat no meat, nor be ci-vU to any God but thefr o-wn. As much as I am obHged to you for the description of your Cocchiata,' I don't Hke to hear of it. It is very unpleasant, instead of being at it, to be prisoner in a melancholy, barren pro-vince, which would put one in mind of the deluge, only that we have no water. Do remember exactly how your last was ; for I intend that you shaU give me just such another Cocchiata next summer, if it pleases the kings and queens of this world to let us be at peace ! " For it rests that -without fig-leaves," as my Lord Bacon says in one of his letters, " I do ingenuously confess and acknowledge " that I Hke nothing so weU as Italy. I agree with you extremely about Tuscany for Prince Charles,' but I can only agree -with you on paper ; for as to kno-wing anything of it, I am sure Sir Robert himself knows nothing of it : the Duke of Newcastle and my Lord Carteret keep him in as great ignorance as possible, especiaUy the latter ; and even in other times, you know how Httle he ever thought on those things. BeHeve me, he -wUl every day know less. Your last, which I have been answering, was of the 5th of August ; I this nunute receive another of the 12th. How I am charmed -with your spirit and usage of Richcourt ! Mais ce rH est pas d! aujourdhui que je commence d les mipriser ! I am so glad that you have quitted your cafrn, to treat them as they deserve. You don't teU me if his opposition in the councU hindered your intercession ' Montemar was the General of the King of Spain, who commanded the troops ot that sovereign againat the Imperialists in Italy. — Dover. - A sort of serenade. Sir H. Mann had mentioned, that he was about to give an entertainment of this kind in his garden to the society of Florence. — Dover. ' Prince Charles of Lorraine, younger brother of Francis, who was now Grand Duke of Tuscany. He was a general of some abilities ; but it was his misfortune to be so iften opposed to the superior talents of the King of Prussia. — Dover. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 197 from taking place for the valet de chambre. I hope not ! I could not bear his thwarting you ! I am now going to write to your brother, to get you the overtures ; and to desfre he -wUl send them with some pamphlets and the magazines, which I left him in commission for you, at my leaving London. I am going to send him, too, des pleins pouvoirs, for nominating a person to represent me at his new babe's christening. I am sorry Mrs. Goldsworthy is coming to England, though I think it can be of no effect. Sfr Charles [Wager] has no sort of interest -with the new powers, and I don't think the Richmonds have enough to remove foreign ministers. However, I -wiU consult with Sir Robert about it, and see if he thinks there is any danger for you, which I do not in the least ; and whatever can be done by me, I think you know, -wiU. Adieu ! P.S. I inclose an answer to Madame Pucci's letter. Where is she in aU this Modenese desolation ? 90. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Houghton, August 28, 1742. I DID receive your letter of the 12th, as I think I mentioned in my last ; and to-day another of the 19th. Had I been you, instead of saying that I would have taken my lady's ' woman for my spy, I should have said, that I would hire Richcourt himself : I dare to say that one might buy the Count's o-wn secrets of himseff. I am sorr}'' to hear that the Impresarii have sent for the Chiaretta ; I am not one of the managers ; I should have remonstrated against her, for she -will not do on the same stage -with the Barbarina. I don't know who -wiU be glad of her coming, but Mr. BHghe and AmorevoH. 'Tis amazing, but we hear not a syUable of Prague — taken,' it must be I Indeed, Carthagena, too, was certain of being taken ; but it seems, MaUlebois is to stop at Bavaria. I hope Belleisle' -wiU be ' Lady Walpole. Richcourt, the Florentine minister [see 179], was her lover, and both, as has been seen in the former part of these letters, were enemies of Sir H. Mann. — Dover. - This means retaken by the Imperialists from the French, who had obtained pos session of it on the 25th of November, 1741. The Austrian troops drove the French out of Prague in December, 1742. — Dover. •' This wish was gratified, though not in this year. Marshal Belleisle was taken 198 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742, made prisoner ? I am indifferent about the fate of the great BrogHo — ^but BeUeisle is able, and is our most determined enemy : — ^we need not have more, for to-day it is confirmed that Cardinal Tencin' and M. d'Argenson are declared of the prime ministiy. The first moment they can, Tencin -wiU be for tiansporting the Pretenders into England. Your advice about Naples was quite judicious : the appearance of a bomb -wiU have great weight in the councUs of the Httle king. We don't talk now of any of the Royals passing into Flanders ; though "The Champion"' this morning had an admirable quotation, on the supposition that the King would go himseff : it was this line from the Rehearsal : — " Give us our fiddle ; we ourselves will play." The " Lesson for the Day '" that I sent you, I gave to Mx. Coke, who came in as I was -writing it, and by his dispersing it, it has got into print, -with an additional one, which I cannot say I am proud should go under my name. Since that, nothing but lessons are the fashion : first and second lessons, morning and evening lessons, epistles, &c. One of the Tory papers pubHshed so abusive an one last week on the new ministry, that three gentlemen caUed on the printer, to know how he dared to pubHsh it. Don't you Hke these men, who for twenty years together led the way, and pubHshed everything that was scandalous, that they should wonder at any body's daring to pubHsh against them ! Oh ! it wUl come home to them ! Indeed, everybody's name now is pubHshed at length : last week " The Champion " mentioned the Earl of Orford and his natural daughter. Lady Mary, at length (for which he had a great mind to prosecute the printer). To-day, the "London Evening Post" prisoner in 1745 by the Hanoverian dragoons, was confined for some months in Windsor Castle, and exchanged after the battle of Fontenoy. — Dover. ' A profligate ecclesiastic, who waa deeply engaged in the corrupt political in trigues of the day. In these he was assisted by his sister, Madame Tencin, an unprin cipled woman of much abiUty, who had been the mistress of the stUl more infanaoua Cardinal Dubois. Voltaire boasts in his Memoirs, of having kUIed the Cardinal Tencin from vexation, at a sort of political hoax, which he played off upon him. Dover. The cardinal was afterwards made Arc-nbishop of Lyons. In 1752, he entirely quitted the court, and retired to his diocese, where he died in 1758.— Wright. * The Champion was an opposition journal, written by Fielding. — Walpole. Assisted by Ralph, the historian. — Wright. ^ Entitled " The Lessons for the Day, 1742." PubUshed in Sir Charies Hanbury WUliams's works, but written by Walpole.— Dover. See Walpole's "Short Notes" of his Life prefixed to this volume. — Cunningham. 1742.1 TO SIR HORACE MANN. 199 says. Mr. Fane, nephew of Mr. Scrope, is made first clerk of the Treasury, as a reward for his uncle's taciturnity before the Secret Committee. He is in the room of old Tilson,' who was so tormented by that Committee, that it turned his brain, and he is dead. I am excessively shocked at Mr. Fane's' beha-viour to you ; but Mr. Fane is an honourable man ! he lets poor you pay him his salary for eighteen months, -without thinking of returning it ! But ff he had lost that sum to Jansen,' or to any of the honourable men at White's, he would think his honour engaged to pay it. There is nothing, sure, so whimsical as modem honour 1 You may debauch a woman upon a promise of marriage, and not marry her ; you may ruin your taUor's or your baker's famUy by not paying them ; you may make Mr. Mann maintain you for eighteen months, as a pubHc miiuster, out of his o-wn pocket, and stiU be a man of honour ! But not to pay a common sharper, or not to murder a man that has trod upon your toe, is such a blot in your scutcheon, that you could never recover your honour, though you had in your veins " aU the blood of aU the Howards!"" My love to Mr. Chute : teU him, as he looks on the east front of Houghton, to tap under the two -windows in the left-hand -wing, up stafrs, close to the colonnade — there are Patapan and I, at this instant, writing to you ; there we are almost every morning, or in the Hbrary ; the evenings, we walk till dark ; then Lady Mary, Miss Leneve, and I play at comet ; the Earl, Mrs. Leneve,' and whoever is here, discourse ; car telle est notre vie ! AcHeu ! 91. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Houghton, Sept. 11, 1742. I COULD not -write to you last week, for I was at Woolterton," and ' 1742, 26 Aug. Christopher Tilson, Esq., one of the four chief clerks of the Treasury worth above 1000?. per ann., which place he had enjoyed fifty-eight years. Obituary of the Gentleman's Magazine for 1742. — Cunningham. ^ Charles Fane, afterwards Lord Fane, had been minister at Florence before Mr. Mann. — Walpolb. '' A notorious gambler. He ia mentioned by Pope, in the character of the young man of faahion, in the fourth canto of the Dunciad . Aa much estate, and principle, and wit. As Jansen, Fleetwood, Cibber, shall think fit. — Dover. See note, post, p. 219. — Cunningham. " A line from Pope. — Cunningham. ' After Sir Robert Walpole's death, Mrs. Leneve became an inmate of Horace Walpole's house. Portraits of the Leneves of Norwich decorated Strawberry Hill. — CUNNINGHASI. ' The seat of Horatio Walpole, brother of Sir R. Walpole, near Norwich. — Walpole. 200 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742. in a course of -visits, that took up my every moment. I received one from you there, of August 26th, but have had none at aU this week. You know I am not prejudiced in favour of the country, nor hke a place because it bears turnips' weU, or because you may gaUop over it -without meeting a tree : but I really was charmed -with Woolterton ; it is aU wood and water ! My uncle and aunt may, -without any expense, do what they have aU thefr Hves avoided, wash themselves and make fires.' Their house is more than a good one ; if they had not saved eighteen-pence in every room, it would have been a fine one. I saw several of my acquaintance,' Volterra vases, Grisoni landscapes, the four Httle bronzes, the raffie-picture, &c. We have printed about the expedition to Naples : the affafr at Elba, too, is in the papers, but we affect not to believe it. We are in great apprehensions of not taking Prague — the only thing that has been taken on our side lately, I think, is my Lord Stair's journey hither and back again — ^we don't know for what, he is such an Orlando ! The papers are fuU of the most defending King's journey to Flanders ; our private letters say not a word of it — I say our, for at present I think the Earl's intelHgences and mine are pretty equal as to authority. Here is a little thing, which I think has humour in it. A CATALOGUE OF NEW FRENCH BOOKS. 1. Jean-sans-terre, ou I'Empereur en pet-en-lair; imprimfi 5, Frankfort. 2. La France mourante d'une auppreaaion d'hommes et d'argent : dediS au public. 3. L'art de faire les Neutralitgs, invents en AUegmagne, et gcrit en cette langue, par Un des Electeurs, et nouvellement traduit en Napolitain ; par le Chef d'Eacadre Martin. 4. Voyage d'AUemagne, par Monsieur de Maupertuia : avec un tgleacope, invente pendant aon voyage ; a I'usage dea Hgroa, pour regarder leur victoires de loin, 6. MSthode court et facile pour faire entrer les troupes Pran9oiaes en AUemagne :— mais comment faire, pour les en faire sortir 1 ' For which Norfolk is famous, as Pope informs us : All Townshend's turnips. — Cunningham. * This thought was afterwards put into verse, thus : What woods, what streams around the seat ! Was ever mansion so complete 1 Here happy Pug* and Horace may, ( A nd yet not have a groat to pay,) Two things they most have shunn'd, perform ; — I mean, they may be clean and warm. — Walpole. ^ Presents from Mr Mann to Mr Walpole.— Walpolb. The art-treasures of Woolterton were sold by auction in London in the year 1856. — Cunningham. Mr Walpole's [Lord Walpole's] name of fondness for his wife.— Walpolk. i742,] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 201 6, Traits trfes salutaire et trfes utile sur la Reconnoissance envers les bienfaicteurs, par le Roy de Pologne. Folio, imprim§ a Dresde, 7. Obligation sacrge des TraitSs, Promesses, et Renonciations, par le Grand Turc ; avec des Remarques retractoires, par un Jesuite. 8. Problfeme ; combien il faut d'argent Franjois pour payer le .sang Suedois ; calcul§ par le Comte de Gyllembourg. 9. Nouvelle mSthode de friser lea cheveux & la Fran9oi3e; par le Colonel Mentz et sa Confrairie. 10. Recueil de Dissertations sur la meilleure manifere de faire la partition des suc cessions, par le Cardinal de Fleury ; avec des notes, historiques et politiques, par la Reine d'Espagne. 11. Nouveau Voyage de Madrid a Antibes, par I'Infant Dom Philippe. 12, L'Art de chercher les ennemis sans les trouver; par le MarSchal de MaUlebois, 13. La fidelite couronnee, par le Gfingral Munich et le Comte d'Osterman, 14. Le bal de Lintz et les amusements de Donawert ; pifece pastorale et galante, en un acte, par le Grand Due. 15. L'.irt de maitriser les Femme.s, par sa Majeste Catholique. 16. Avantures Boh6miennes, tragi-comiques, trfes curieuses, tr6s intSrressantes, ef chargges d'incidents. Tom. i. ii. iii. N.B. Le dernier tome, qui fera le denouement, est sous presse. Adieu ! my dear chUd ; ff it was not for this secret of transcribing, what should one do in the country to make out a letter ? 92. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Houghton, Sept. 25th, 1742. At last, my dear child, I have got two letters from you ! I have been in stiange pain, between fear of your being Ul, and apprehen sions of your letters being stopped ; but I have received that by Crew, and another since. But you have been Ul ! I am angry with Mr. Chute for not writing to let me know it. I fancied you worse than you say, or at least than you o'wn. But I don't wonder you have fevers ! such a busy poHtician as VUlettes,' and such a blustering negociator as il Furibondo,' axe enough to put aU your Httle economy of health and spirits in confusion. I agree ¦with you, that " they don't pique themselves upon understanding sense, any more than neutra lities ! " The grand journey to Flanders " is a Httle at a stand : the expense has been computed at two thousand pounds a day ! Many dozen of embroidered portmanteaus full of laurels and bays have been ' Mr. VUlettes waa minister at Turin. — Walpole. ' Admiral Matthews; his ships having committed some outrages on the coast of Italy, the Italians called him il Furibondo. — Walpole. ' Of George the Second. — Dover. 202 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. 11742 prepared this fortnight. The Regency has been settled and unsettled twenty times : it is now said, that the weight of it is not to be laid on the Prince. The King is to retum by his bfrthday ; but whether he is to bring back part of French Flanders -with him, or wUl only have time to fetch Dunkfrk, is uncertain. In the mean time, Lord Carteret is gone to the Hague ; by which jaunt it seems that Lord Stair's last journey was not conclusive. The converting of the siege of Prague into a blockade, makes no great figure in the journals on this side the water and question — ^but it is the fashion not to take to-wns that one was sure of taking ! I cannot pardon the Princess for ha-ving thought of putting off her epuisements and lassitudes, to take a trip to Leghorn, "pendant qu'on ne donnoit k manger k Monsieur le Prince son fUs, que de la chafr de chevaux ! " Poor Prince Beauvau ! ' I shaU be glad to hear he is safe from this siege. Some of the French princes of the blood have been stealing away a volunteering, but took care to be missed in time. Our Duke goes ¦with his lord and father — they say, to marry a princess of Prussia, whereof great preparations have been making in his equipage and in his breeches. Poor Prince Craon ! where did De Sade get fifty sequins ? When I was at Florence, you know aU his clothes were in pa-wn to his landlord ; but he redeemed them, by pa-wning his Modenese Kll of credit to his landlady ! I deHght in the style of the neutrahty- maker [Admfral Matthews] — ^his neutraHties and his EngHsh are perfectly of a piece. You have diverted me excessively with the history of the Princess Eleonora' s' posthumous issue — but how could the woman have spirit enough to have five ohUcfren by her footman, and yet not have enough to o-wn them. ReaUy, a woman so much in the great world should have kno-wn better ! Why, no yeoman's dowager could have acted more prudishly ! It always amazes me, when I reflect on the women, who are the first to propagate scandal of one another. If they would but agree not to censure what they aU agree to do, there would be no more loss of characters among them than amongst men. A woman cannot have an affafr, but instantly aU her sex travel about to pubHsh ' Afterwards a marshal of Prance. He was a man of some ability, and the friend and patron of St. Lambert, and of other men of letters of the time of Louis XV.— Dover. He was made a marshal iu 1783 by the unfortunate Louis XVL and in 1789 a minister of state. He died in 1793, a few weeks after the murder of his royal master. — Wright. ^ Eleonora of Guastalla, widow of the last Cardinal of Medici, died at Venice. - Walpole.— The father of the children was a French running footman.— Dover. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 208 it and leave her off : now, if a man cheats another of his estate at play, forges a wUl, or marries his ward to his o-wn son, nobody thinks of lea-ving him off for such trifles ! The EngHsh parson at Stosch's, the archbishop on the chapter of music, the FanciuUa's persisting in her mistake, and old Count GaUi's distiess, are all admfrable stories.' But what is the meaning of Montemar's -writing to the Antinora ? — ^I thought he had left the GaUa for my lUustrissima, [Madame Grifoni,] her sister. Lord ! I am horridly tfred of that romantic love and correspondence ! Must I answer her last letter ? there were but six Hnes — ^what can I say ? I perceive, by what you mention of the cause of his disorder, that RuceUai does not turn out that simple, honest man you thought him — come, o-wn it ? I just recoUect a story, which perhaps -wUl serve your -Archbishop on his Don PUogio' — ^the Tartuffe was meant for the then Arch bishop of Paris, who, after the first night, forbad its being acted. MoHere came forth and told the audience, " Messieurs, on devoit vous donner le Tartuffe, mais Monseigneur I'Archeveque ne vent pas qu'on lejoue." My Lord is very impatient for his Dominichin ; so you -wUl send it by the ffrst safe conveyance. He is making a gaUery, for the ceUing of which I have given the design of that in the Httle Hbrary of St. Mark at Venice : Mr. Chute -wiU remember how charming it was ; and for the frieze, I have prevaUed to have that of the temple at TivoH. Naylor' came here the other day -with two coaches fuU of relations : as his mother-in-law, who was one of the company, is -widow of Dr. Hare, Sfr Robert's old tutor at Cambridge, he made them stay to dine : when they were gone, he said, " Ha, chUd ! what is that Mr. Naylor, Horace ? he is the absurdest man I ever saw ! " I subscribed to his opinion ; won't you ? I must teU you a story of him. When his father married this second -wffe, Naylor said, " Father, they say you are to be married to-day, are you ?" "WeU," repHed the bishop, " and what is that to you ? " " Nay, nothing ; only if you had told me I would have powdered my hair." ' These are stories in a letter of Sir H. Mann's, which are neither very decent nor very amuaing. — Dover. ^ The Archbishop of Florence had forbid the acting of a burletta called Don PUogio, a Bort of imitation of Tartuffe. When the Impresario of the Theatre remonstrated upon the expense he had been put to in preparing the music for it, the archbishop told him he might use it for some other opera. — Dover. ^ He was son of Dr. Hare, Bishop of Chichester, and changed his name for an estate. — Walpole. 204 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS, 93. TO SIR HORACE MANN. [1742 Houghton, Oct. ith, 1742. I HAVE not heard from you this fortnight ; if I don't receive a letter to-morrow, I shaU be quite out of humour. It is true, of late I have written to you but every other post ; but then I have been in the country, in Norfolk, in Siberia ! You were stiU at Florence, m the midst of Kings of Sardinia, Montemars, and NeapoHtan neutraH ties ; your letters are my only diversion. As to German news, it is all so simple that I am pee-vish : the raising of the siege of Prague,' and Prince Charles and Marechal MaiUebois playing at hunt the squirrel, have disgusted me from inquiring about the war. The Earl laughs in his great chair, and sings a bit of an old baUad, " They both did fight, they both did beat, they both did run away. They both strive again to meet the quite contrary way," Apropos ! I see in the papers that a Marquis de Beauvau escaped out of Prague -with the Prince de Deuxpons and the Due de Brissac; was it our Prince Beauvau ? At last the mighty monarch does not go to Flanders, after making the greatest preparations that ever were made but by Harry the Eighth, and the authors of the Grand Cyrus and the iUustrious Bassa : you may judge by the quantity of napkins, which were to the amount of nine hundred dozen — ^indeed, I don't recoUect that ancient heroes were ever so pro-vident of necessaries, or thought how they were to wash thefr hands and face after a -victory. Sis hundred norses, under the care of the Duke of Richmond, were even shipped; and the clothes and furniture of his court magnificent enough for a buU-fight at the conquest of Granada. Felton Hervey's ' war-horse, besides ha-ving richer caparisons than any of the expedition, had a gold net to keep off the flies — in -winter ! Judge of the clamours this expense to no purpose -wiU produce ! My Lord Carteret is set out from the Hague, but was not landed when the last letters came ' The Marshal de MaUlebois and the Count de Saxe had been sent with reinforce ments from France, to deliver the Marshal de Broglio and the Marshal de BeUe-Iale, who, with their army, were shut up in Prague, and surrounded by the superior forces 01 the Queen of Hungary, commanded by Prince Charles of Lorraine. They succeeded in facilitating the escape of the Marshal dc Broglio, and of a portion of the French troops ; but the Marshal de Belle-Isle continued to be blockaded in Prague with twenty-two thousand men, till December 1742, when he made his escape to Egra. — Dover. 2 Felton Hervey (tenth son of Joan, firat Eari of Bristol) died 1775.— Wright. 1742.1 TO SIR HORACE MANN. 206 from London : there are no great expectations from this trip ; no more than followed from my Lord Stafr's. I send you two more Odes on Pulteney," I believe by the same hand as the former, though none are equal to the Nova Progenies, which has been more Hked than almost ever anything was. It is not at aU kno-wn -whose they are ; I believe Hanbury WUHams's. The note to the first was printed -with it : the ad-vice to him to be Pri-vy Seal has its foundation ; for when the consultation was held who were to have places, and my Lord Gower was named to succeed Lord Hervey, Pulteney said -^rith some warmth, " I designed to be Pri-vy Seal myself ! " We expect some company next week from Ne-wmarket : here is at present only Mr. Keene and Pigwiggin,^ — you never saw so agreeable a creature ! — oh yes ! you have seen his parents ! I must teU you a new story of them : Sfr Robert had given them a little horse for Pigwiggin, and somebody had given them another : both which, to save the charge of keeping, they sent to grass in Ne-wpark [Rich mond]. After three years that they had not used them, my Lord Walpole let his o-wn son ride them, while he was at the Park, in the hoHdays. Do you know, that the woman Horace sent to Sir Robert, and made him give her five guineas for the two horses, because George had ridden them ? I give you my word this is fact. There has been a great fracas at Kensington : one of the Mesdames [George II.'s daughters] pulled the chair from under Countess Deloraine ' at cards, who, being provoked that her Monarch was diverted -with her disgrace, with the maHce of a hobby-horse, gave him just such another faU. But alas ! the Monarch, Hke Louis XIV., is mortal in the part that touched the ground, and was so hurt and so angry, that the Countess is disgraced, and her German rival [Lady Yarmouth] remains in the sole and quiet possession of her royal master's favour. ' These are " The Capuchin," and the ode beginning " Great Earl of Bath, your reign is o'er : " aa they have been frequently publiahed, they are omitted. The " Nova Progeniea " ia the well-known ode beginning, " See, a new progeny descends." — Dover. ^ Eldest son of old Horace Walpole. — Walpole. Afterwards the second Lord Walpole of Woolterton, and in 1806, at the age of eighty -three, created Earl of Orford. He died in 1809.— Wright. ^ Mary Howard, of the Berkshire family. Maid of Honour to the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline, married Henry Scott, first Earl of Deloraine, son of the Duke of Monmouth, and, after his death (1730), WiUiam Wyndham, Esq., of Carsham. Lord Hervey describes her as very handsome, and the only woman who played with the King in his daughter's apartments. She was at this time governess 206 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742 Oct. 9th. WeU ! I have waited tUl this morning, but have no letter from you ; what can be the meaning of it ? Sure, if you was Ul, Mr. Chute would -write to me ! Your brother protests he never lets youi letters He at the office. Sa Majeste Patapanique [Walpole's dog] has had a dreadful mis fortune ! — not lost his first minister, nor his purse — ^nor had part of his camp equipage burned in the river, nor waited for his secretary of state, who is perhaps blo'wn to Flanders — nay, nor had his chafr puUed from under him — ^worse ! worse I quarreUing ¦with a great pointer last night about thefr Countesses, he received a terrible shake by the back and a bruise on the left eye — ^poor dear Pat ! you never saw such universal consternation I it was at supper. Sfr Robert, who makes as much rout with him as I do, says, he never saw ten people show so much real concern ! Adieu ! Yours, ever and ever — but ¦write to me. 94. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Houghton, Oct. 16, 1742. I HAVE received two letters from you since last post ; I suppose the -wind stopped the packet-boat. WeU ! was not I in the right to persist in buying the Dominichin P don't you laugh at those -wise connoisseurs, who pronounced it a copy ? If it is one, where is the original ? or who was that so great master that could equal Dominichin ? Your brother has received the money for it, and Lord Orford is in great impatience for it ; yet he begs, if you can find any opportunity, that it may be sent in a man- of-war. I must desfre that the statue may be sent to Leghorn, to be shipped -with it, and that you -wUl get Campagni and Libri to transact the payment as they did for the picture, and I -wUl pay your brother. VUlettes' important dispatches to you are as ridiculous as good Mr. Matthews's devotion. I fancy Mr. Matthews's o-wn god ' would make as foolish a figure about a monkey's neck, as a Roman CathoHc one. You know, Sfr Francis Dashwood used to say that Lord Shrewsbury's Pro-vidence was an old angry man in a blue cloak ; another person that I knew, beHeved Pro-vidence was Hke a mouse, to the younger Princesses. — Hervey's Memoirs, ii. 36 and 360. She died 12th November, 1744. — Cunningham. ' Admiral Matthews's crew having disturbed some Roman Catholic ceremonies iu a little island on the coast of Italy, hung a crucifix about a monkey's neck. — Walpole 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 207 because he is in^visible. I dare to say Matthews beneves, that Providence Hves upon beef and pudding, loves prize-fighting and buU-baiting, and drinks fog to the health of Old England. I go to London in a week, and then -wUl send you des cartloads of news : I know none now, but that we hear to-day of the arrival of Due d'Aremberg — I suppose to retm-n my Lord Carteret's -visit. The latter was near being lost ; he told the King, that being in a storm, he had thought it safest to 2mt into Yarmouth Roads, at which we laughed, hob ! boh ! hoh ! For want of news, I Hve upon baUads to you ; here is one that has made a vast noise, and by Lord Hervey's taking great pains to disperse it, has been thought his o-wn, — if it is,' he has taken tiue care to disguise the niceness of his style. 0 England, attend, while thy fate I deplore. Rehearsing the schemes and the conduct of power ; And since only of those who have power I sing, I am sure none can think that I hint at the King. From the time his son made him old Robin depose, All the power of a King he was well-known to losa; But of all but the name and the badges bereft. Like old women, his paraphernalia are left. To tell how he shook in St. James'a for fear. When first these new ministers bullied him there. Makes my blood boil with rage, to think what a thing They have made of a man we obey as a King. Whom they pleased they put in, whom they pleased they put out. And just like a top they all lash'd him about, WhUat he like a top with a murmuring noiae, Seem'd to grumble, but tum'd to theae rude lashing boys. At last Carteret arriving, spoke thus to his grief, " If you'll make me your Doctor, I'll bring you relief; You see to your closet familiar I come. And seem like my wife in the circle — at home.'' 1 Harwich was the King's embarking and disembarking port to and from his Hanoverian dominions. Yarmouth Roads were always dangerous. The Countess of Yarmouth was the King's German mistress. — Cunningham. ' It was certainly written by Lord Hervey. — Walpole. Compare Walpole in hie ' Ecminisoences,' chapter viii. — Cunningham. 208 HORACE WALPOLES LETTERS. [1742 Quoth tue King, "My good Lord, perhap.s, you 've been told That I used to abuse you a little of old ; But now bring whom you will, and eke turn away. Let but me and my money, and Walmoden ' stay." " For you and Walmoden, I freely consent. Bnt as for your money, I must have it spent; I have promised your aon (nay, no frowns,) ahall have some. Nor think 'tis for nothing we patriota are come. " But, however, little King, since I find you so good. Thus atooping below your high courage and blood. Put yourself in my hands, and I'll do what I can To make you look yet like a King and a man. " At your Admiralty and your Treasury-board, To save one single man you shan't say a word. For, by God ! all your rubbish from both you shall shoot, Walpole's ciphers and Gasherry's- vassals to boot. " And to guard Prince's ears, as all Statesmen taice care So, long as yours are — not one man shall come near ; For of all your Court-crew we'll leave only those Who we know never dare to say boh ! to a goose. " So your friend booby Grafton I '11 e'en let you keep, Awake he can't hurt, and is still half-asleep ; Nor ever was dangerous, but to womankind. And his body's as impotent now as his mind. " There 's another Court-booby, at once hot and dull, Y'our pious pimp, Schutz, a mean, Hanover tool ; For your card-play at night he too ahall remain . With virtuous and sober, and wise Deloraine.' " And for all your Court-nobles who can't write or read. As of such titled ciphers all courts stand in need. Who, like parliament-Swiss, vote and fight for their pay, They're as good as a new set to cry yea and nay. ¦' Lady Yarmouth. — Walpole. ' Sir Charles Wager's nephew, and Secretary to the Admiralty.— Walpole. ' Countess Dowager of Deloraine, governess to the young Princesses [see p. 184]. -Walpole. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. ^09 " Though Ncwcaatle's as false, aa he's siUy, I know. By betraying old Robin to me long ago, .\.s well as all those who employ'd him before. Vet I leave him in place, but I leave him no power. " For granting his heart is as black as his hat. With no more truth in this, than there 's sense beneath that ; Yet as he's a coward, he'll shake when I frown -. You call'd him a rascal, I'll use him like one. " And since his estate at elections he'll spend. And beggar himself, without making a friend ; So whilst the extravagant fool has a sous, A s his brains I can't fear, so his fortune I'll a»e " And as miser Hardwicke, with all courts will draw, He too may remain, but shall stick to his law ; For of foreign affairs, when he talks like a fool, I'll laugh in his face, and will cry, ' Go to school I' "The Counteaa of Wilmington, excellent nurse, I'll trust with the Treasury, not with its purse ; For nothing by her I've resolv'd shall be done. She .shall sit at that board, as you sit on the throne. " Perhaps now, you expect that I should begin To tell you the men I design to bring in ; But we're not yet determined on all their demands ; — And you'll know soon enough, when they come to kiss bands. " All that weathercock Pulteney shall ask, we must grant, For to make him a great noble nothing, I want ; And to cheat auch a man, demands all my arts. For though he's a fool, he 'a a fool with great parta.' " And as popular Clodius, the Pulteney of Rome, From a noble, foi power did plebeian become. So this Clodius to be a Patrician shall choose, TUl what one got by changing, the other shall lose " Thus flatter'd, and courted, and gaz'd at by all. Like Phaeton, rais'd for a day, he shall fall, This ia the best line in the Ballad. — Cunningham. 210 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742, Put the world in a flame, and ehow he did strive To get reins in his hand, though 'tis plain he catt't lirive. " For your foreign affairs, howe'er they turn out. At least I '11 take care you shall make a great rout ; Then cock your great hat, strut, bounce, and look bluff. For though kick'd and cuff 'd here, you ahall there kick and cnlf. " That Walpole did nothing they all ua'd to say. So I'll do enough, but I'll make the dogs pay ; Great fleets I'll provide, and great armies engage, Whate'er debts we make, or whate'er wars we wage.'' xxv. With cordials like these the Monarch's new guest Reviv'd his sunk spirits and gladden'd his breast ; Till in raptures he cried, " My dear Lord, you shall do Whatever you will, give me troops to review. " But oh I my dear England, since this is thy state, Who is there that loves thee but weeps at thy fate ? Since in changing thy masters, thou art just like old Rome, Whilst Faction, Oppression, and Slavery's thy doom ! " For though you have made that rogue Walpole retire. You are out of the frying-pan into the fire ! But since to the Protestant line I'm a friend, I tremble to think where these changes may end ! " This has not been printed.' You see the burthen of aU the songs is the rogue Walpole, which he has observed himseff, but I beHeve is content, as long as they pay off his arrears to those that began the tune. Adieu I 95. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Houghton, October 23, 1742. At last I see an end of my pUgrimage : the day after to-morrow I do go to London. I am affifrming it to you as earnestly as ff you had been doubting of it Hke myseff ; but both my brothers are here, and Sfr Robert -wiU let me go. He must foUow himseff soon: the ParHament meets the 16th of November, that the King may go abroad the first of March ; but if aU threats prove true prophecies, ' I have a printed folio copy (vory corrupt) dated 1743. — CoNNlHaBAM. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 211 he -wiU scarce enter upon heroism so soon, for we are promised a winter just Hke the last : new Secret Committees to be tried for, and impeachments actuaUy put into execution. It is horrid to have a prospect of a session Hke the last ! In the meantime, my Lord of Bath and Lord Hervey, who seem deserted by everybody else, are gro-wn the greatest friends in the world at Bath ; and to make a complete trium-vfrate, my Lord Gower is always of thefr party : how they must love one another, the late, the present, and the would-be Pri-vy Seal ! Lord Hyndford has had great honours in Prussia : that King bespoke for him a service of plate to the value of three thousand pounds. He asked leave for his Majesty's arms to be put upon it : the King repHed, " they should, with the arms of SUesia added to his paternal coat for ever." I -wUl tell you Sfr Robert's remark on this : " He is rewarded thus for ha-ving obtained SUesia for the King of Prussia, which he was sent to preserve to the Queen of Hungary! " Her affairs begin to take a Httle better tum again ; BrogHo is prevented from joining MaiUebois, who, they affirm, can never bring his army off, as the King of Poland is guarding all the avenues of Saxony, to prevent his passing through that country. I -wrote to you in my last to desfre that the Dominichin and my statue might come by a man-of-war. Now, Sfr Robert, who is impatient for his picture, would have it sent in a Dutch ship, as he says he can easUy get it from HoUand. If you think this convey ance quite safe, I beg my statue may bear it company. TeU me ff you are tfred of baUads on my Lord Bath ; ff you are not, here is another admirable one," I beHeve by the same hand as the others ; but by the conclusion certainly ought not to be WiUiams's. I only send you the good odes, for the newspapers are every day fuU of bad ones on this famous Earl. My compHments to the Princess [Craon] ; I dreamed last night that she was come to Houghton, and not at all ipuisee -with her journey. Adieu I P. S. I must add a postscript, to mention a thing I have often designed to ask you to do for me. Since I came to England, I have been buying dra-wings, (the time is weU chosen, when I had neglected it in Italy !) I saw at Florence two books that I should now be ' Sir Charles Hanbury WiUiams's ode, beginning " What Statesman, what Hero, what King—." It is to be found in all editions of his poema. — Dover. 212 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742, very glad to have, ff you could get them tolerably reasonable ; one was at an EngHsh painter's ; I think his name was Huckford, over against your house in -via Bardi ; they were of Holbein : the other was of Guercino, and brought to me to see by the Abbe Bonducci ; my dear chUd, you wiU obHge me much if you can get them. 6. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Nov. 1, 1742. I HAVE not felt SO pleasantly these three months as I do at present, though I have a great cold -with coming into an unaired house, and have been forced to carry that cold to the King's levee and the draw ing-room. There were so many new faces that I scarce knew where I was; I should have taken it for Carlton House,' or my Lady Mayoress's -visiting-day, only the people did not seem enough at home, but rather as admitted to see the King dine in pubHc. 'Tis quite ridiculous to see the numbers of old ladies, who, from having been wives of patriots, have not been dressed these twenty years ; out they come in aU the accoutrements that were in use ia Queen Anne's days. Then the joy and awkward joUity of them is inex pressible ! They titter, and wherever you meet them, are always going to court, and looking at thefr watches an hour befort the time. I met several on the bfrth-day, (for I did not arrive time enough to make clothes,) and they were dressed in aU the colours of the rain bow : they seem to have said to themselves twenty-years ago, "Well, ff ever I do go to court again, I -wUl have a pink and sUver, or a blue and sUver," and they keep their resolutions. But here's a letter from you, sent to me back from Houghton ; I must stop to read it. WeU, I have read it, and am diverted -with Madame Grifoni's being with chUd ; I hope she was too. I hope she was too. I don't wonder that she hates the country ; I dare to say her chUd does not owe its existence to the VUleggiatura. When you -wrote, it seems you had not heard what a speedy determination was put to Don PhiHp's reign in Savoy. I suppose he -wUl retain the titie : you know great princes are fond of titles, which prove that they are not half so great as they once were. I find a very different face of things from what we had conceived in the country. There are, indeed, thoughts of rene-wing attacks on Lord Orford, and of stopping the SuppHes ; but the new ministry " Then (1742) the reaidence of Frederick Prince of Walea.— Cunninoham. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 213 laugh at these threats, having secured a vast majority in the House : the Opposition themselves o-wn that the Court -wUl have upwards of a hundred majority : I don't, indeed, conceive how ; but they are con fident of carrying every thing. They taUc of Lord Gower's not keeping the Privy Seal ; that he -wUl either resign it, or have it taken away : Lord Bath, who is entering into aU the court measures, is most Hkely to succeed him. The late Lord Privy Seal [Lord Hervey] has had a most ridiculous accident at Bath : he used to play in a Httle inner room ; but one night some ladies had got it, and he was reduced to the pubHc room ; but being extremely absent and deep in poHtics, he walked through the Httle room to a convenience behind the curtain, from whence (stiU absent) he produced himseff in a situation extremely diverting to the women : imagine his deHcacy, and the passion he was in at their laughing ! I laughed at myseff prodigiously the other day for a piece of absence ; I was -writing on the King's bfrth-day, and being disturbed -with the mob in the street, I rang for the porter, and, -with an air of grandeur, as ff I was stUl at Downing Stieet, cried, " Pray send away those marrowbones and cleavers ! " The poor feUow, ¦with the most mortified afr in the world, repHed, " Sir, they are not at our door, but over the way at my Lord Carteret's." "Oh," said I, "then let them alone ; may be, he does not dislike the noise ! " I pity the poor porter, who sees aU his old customers going over the way too. Our operas begin to-morrow ¦with a pasticcio, fuU of most of my favourite songs : the FumagaUi has disappointed us ; she had received an hundred ducats, and then wrote word that she had spent them, and was afraid of coining through the Spanish quarters ; but ff they would send her a hundred more, she would come next year. ViUettes has been written to in the strongest manner to have her forced hither, (for she is at Turin). I teU you this by way of key, in case you should receive a mysterious letter in cipher from him about this important business. I have not seen Due d'.Aremberg ; but I hear that aU the enter tainments for him are suppers, for he wiU dine at his o-wn hour, eleven in the morning. He proposed it to the Duchess of Richmond when she in-vited him, but she said she did not know where to find company to dine -with him at that hour. I must ad-vise you to be cautious how you refuse humouring our captains' in any of thefr fooHsh schemes, for they are popular, and I ' The captains of ahips in the English fleet at Leghorn. — Walpolb. 214 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1749. should be very sorry to have them out of humour -with you when they come home, lest it should give any handle to your enemies. Think of it, my dear chUd ! The officers in Flanders, that are members of parHament, have had intimations, that ff they ask leave to come on thefr private affairs, and drop in, not aU together, they wUl be very weU received ; this is decorum. Little Brook's little wffe is a Httle -with chUd. Adieu ! 97. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, Nov. 15, 1742. I HAVE not -wiitten to you lately, expecting letters from you ; at last I have received two. I stiU send mine through France, as I am afraid they would get to you -with stUl more difficulty through HoUand. Our army is just now ordered to march to Mayence, at the repeated instances of the Queen of Hungary ; Lord Stair goes -with them, but almost aU the officers that are in ParHament are come over, for the troops are only to be in garrison tUl March, when, it is said, the king -wUl take the field -with them. This step makes a great noise, for the old remains of the Opposition are determined to persist, and have termed this a Hanoverian measure. They begin to-morrow, with opposing the address on the King's Speech : Pitt is to be the leading man ; there are none but he and Lyttelton of the Prince's Court, who do not join -with the Ministry : the Prince has told them, that he wiU foUow the advice they long ago gave him, " of turning out aU his people who do not vote as he would have them." Lord Orford is come to to-wn, and was at the King's levee to-day; the joy the latter showed to see him was very visible : aU the new Ministry came and spoke to him ; and he had a long, laughing conversation -with my Lord Chesterfield, who is stiU in Oppo sition. You have heard, I suppose, of the revolution in the French Court ; Madame de MaiUy is disgraced, and her handsome sister De la TourneUe ' succeeds : the latter insisted on three conditions ; first, ' Afterwards created Duchess of Chateauroux. — Walpole. Mary Anne de MaUly, widow of the Marquis de la TourneUe. She succeeded her sister Madame de MaUly, as mistress of Louis XV., as the latter had succeeded the other sister, Madame de VintimiUe, in the same situation. Madame de Chateauroux was sent away from the court during the illness of Louis at Metz ; but on his recovery he recalled her. Shortly after which she died, December 10, l'744,,and on her death-bed accused M. de 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 215 that the MaiUy should quit the palace before she entered it ; next, that she should be declared mistress, to which post, they pretend, there is a large salary annexed, (but that is not probable,) and lastly, that she may always have her o-wn parties at supper : the last article would very weU explain what she proposes to do -with her salary. There are admfrable instructions come up from Worcester to Sandys and Winnington ; ' they teU the latter how Httle hopes they always had of him. " But for you, Mr. Sandys, who have always, &c. you to snatch at the first place you could get, &c." In short, they charge him, who is in the Treasury and Exchequer, not to vote for any suppHes.' I -write to you in a vast hurry, for I am going to the meeting at the Cockpit, to hear the King's Speech read to the members : Mr. Pelham presides there. They talk of a majority of fourscore : -we shaU see to-morrow. The Pomfrets stay in the country most part of the -winter : Lord Lincoln and Mr. [George] Pitt have declared off in form.' So much for the schemes of my lady ! The Duke of Grafton used to say that they put him in mind of a troop of Italian comedians ; Lord Lincoln was Valere, Lady Sophia, Columbine, and my lady the old mother behind the scenes. Our operas go on au plus miserable : aU our hopes He in a new dancer, Sodi, who has performed but once, but seems to please as much as the Fausan. Did I teU you how weU they had chosen the plot of the first opera ? " There was a prince who rebels againsf his father, who had before rebeUed against his." " The Duke of Montagu says, there is to be an opera of dancing, ¦with singing between the acts. My Lord Tyrawley* is come from Portugal, and has brought three Maurcpas, the miniater, of having poiaoned her. The intrigue, by meana of which ahe aupplanted her sister, was conducted principally by the Marshal de Richelieu.— Dover. ' Members for Worcester. — Cunningham. " " We earnestly entreat, insist, and require, that you will postpone the suppUes until you have renewed the secret committee of enquiry." — Wright. ^ Lord Lincoln and Mr. George Pitt were admirers of Lady Sophia Fermor and Lady Charlotte Fermor, the beautiful daughters of Lady Pomfi-et. Ante pp. 38 and 179. — Cunningham. ¦• Thia waa a pasticcio, called " Mandane," another name for Metastasio s drama of " Artaserse." — 'Wright. ' Lord Tyrawley was many years ambaasador at Liabon. Pope has mentioned his and another ambassador's seraglios in one of his imitations of Horace, " Kinnoul'a lewd cargo, or Tyrawley's crew."- Walpole. Jamea O'Hara, aecond and last Lord Sl6 HORACE WALtOLE'S LETTERS. [1742, wives and fourteen chUdren ; one of the former is a Portuguese, with long black hafr plaited do'wn to the bottom of her back. He was asked the other night at supper what he thought of England; whether he found much alteration from fifteen years ago ? " No," he said, " not at aU : why, there is my Lord Bath, I don't see the least alteration in him ; he is just what he was : and then I found my Lord Grantham' walking on tiptoe, as ff he was stiU afraid of waking the Queen." Hanbury WUHams is very Ul at Bath, and his ¦wffe ' in the same way in private lodgings in the city. Mr. Dodington has at last owned his match -with his old mistiess.' I suppose he wants a new one. I commend your prudence about Leghorn ; but, my dear child, what pain I am in about you ! Is it possible to be easy while the Spaniards are at your gates ! -write me word every minute as your apprehensions vanish or increase. I ask every moment what people think ; but how can they teU here ? You say nothing of Mr. Chute : sure he is -with you still ! When I am in such uneasiness about you, I want you every post to mention your friends being -with you : I am sure you have none so good or sensible as he is. 1 am vastly obHged to you for the thought of the book of sheUs, and shaU Hke it much ; and thank you too about my ScagHola table ; but I am distressed about your expenses. Is there any way one could get your aUowance increased ? You know how low my interest is now ; but you know too what a push I would make to be of any service to you — teU me, and adieu ! 98. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Dec. 2, 1742. You -wiU wonder that it is above a fortnight since I wrote to you ; but I have had an inflammation in one of my eyes, and durst not meddle with a pen. I have had two letters from you of November Tyrawley of that famUy. He died in 1773, and was buried at his own request among the soldiers of Chelsea Hospital. — Cunningham. ' Henry Nassau d' Auverquerque, second Earl of Grantham. He had been cham- beriain to Queen Caroline, He died in 1754, when his titles became extinct,— Walpole. ' Frances, youngest daughter and coheir of Thomas. Eari Coningsby. — Conningham, ' Mrs, Beghan. — Walpole. Dodington was married to Mrs. Behan whom he was supposed to keep. Though secretly married he could not own her, as he then did, till the death of Mrs. Strawbridge, to whom he had given a promise of marriage under the penalty of ten thousand pounds. — Walpole's MS. Note in Dodington'i Diary. — Cunningham. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN, 217 6th and 13th, but I am in the utmost impatience for another, to hear you are quite recovered of your Trinculos and Furibondos. You teU me you was in a fever ; I cannot be easy tUl I hear from you again. I hope this -wUl come much too late for a medicine, but it -wiU always serve for sal volatile to give you spirits. Yesterday was appointed for considering the .Army ; but Mr. Lyttelton stood up and moved for another Secret Committee, in the very words of last year ; but the whole debate ran, not upon Robert Earl of Orford, but Robert Earl of Sandys : ' he is the constant butt of the party ; indeed he bears it notably. After five hours' haranguing, we came to a di-vision, and threw out the motion by a majority of sixty-seven, 253 against 186. The Prince had declared so openly for union and agreement in aU measures, that, except the Nepotism,' aU his servants but one were -with us. I don't know whether they -wiU attempt anything else, but with these majorities we must have an easy -winter. The union of the Whigs has saved this parHament. It is expected that Pitt and Lyttelton -wiU be dismissed by the Prince. That faction and Waller are the only Whigs of any note that do not join -with the Court. I do not count Dodington, who must now be always with the minority, for no majority -wiU accept him. It is beHeved that Lord Gower wiU retfre, or be desired to do so. I suppose you have heard from Rome,' that Murray [Lord Mansfield] is made SoHcitor-general, in the room of Sir John Strange, who has resigned for his health. This is the sum of poHtics ; we can't expect any winter (I hope no ¦winter ¦wiU be) Hke the last. By the crowds that come hither, one should not know that Sir Robert is out of place, only that now Le is scarce abused. Be reste, the town is wondrous duU ; operas unfrequented, plays not in fashion, amours as old as marriages — ^in short, nothing but whist ! I have not yet learned to play, but I find that I wait in vain for its being left off. I agree -with you about not sending home the Dominichin in an EngHsh vessel ; but what I mentioned to you of its coining in a Dutch vessel, ff you find an opportunity, I think -wiU be very safe, ff you approve it ; but manage that as you like. I shaU hope for my statiie at the same time ; but tiU the conveyance is absolutely ' Samuel Sandys, chanceUor of the exchequer, in the room of Sir R. Walpole. — Walpole. ' The Cobham Cousins. — Cunningham. ' This alludes to the supposed Jacobite principles of Murray, afterwarda Lord Mansfield. — Dover. 218 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [174E. safe, I know you wUl not venture them. Now I mention my statue I must beg you -wUl send me a fuU bUl of aU my debts to you, which I am sure by this time must be infinite ; I beg to know the particulars, that I may pay your brother. Adieu, my dear Sfr ; take care of yourseff, and submit to popery and slavery rather than get colds -with sea-heroes.' 99. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Dec. 9, 1742. I SHALL have quite a partiaHty for the post of HoUand; it brought me two letters last week, and two more yesterday, of November 20th and 27th ; but I find you have your perpetual head aches — ^how can you say that you shaU tfre me with talking of them ? you may make me suffer by your pains, but I -wiU hear and insist upon your always telling me of your health. Do you think I only correspond -with you to know the posture of the Spaniards or the epuisements of the Princess ! I am anxious, too, to know how poor Mr. Whithed does, and Mr. Chute's gout. I shaU look upon our sea-captains -with as much horror as the King of Naples can, if they bring gouts, fits, and headaches. You -wiU have had a letter from me by this time, to give up send ing the Dominichin by a man-of-war, and to propose its coming in a Dutch ship. I beHeve that -wiU be safe. We have had another great day in the House on the army in Flanders, which the Opposition were for disbanding ; but we carried it by an hundred and twenty.' Murray spoke for the first time, ¦with the greatest applause ; Pitt answered him -with aU his force and art of language, but on an Ul-founded argument. In aU appearances, they ¦wiU be great rivals. Shippen was in great rage at Murray s apostacy ; ' ff anything can reaUy change his principles, possibly this competition may. To-morrow we shaU have a tougher battle on the sixteen thousand Hanoverians. Hanover is the word given out for this ¦winter : there is a most bold pamphlet come out, said to ' Sir H, Mann had complained, in one of his letters, of the labours he had gone through in doing the honours of Florence to some of Admiral Matthews's (II Furibondo) officers. The English fleet waa now at Leghorn, upon the plea of defend ing the Tuacan territoriea, in caae of their being attacked by the Spaniarda, — Dover, - Upon a motion, made by Sir William Yonge, that 534,763Z, be granted for defraying the charge of 16,359 men, to be employed in Flanders. The numbera on the division were 280 against 160.— Walpole, ^ From Torjiam. — Dover. 1742.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 219 be Lord Marchmont's,' which affirms that in every tieatj' made since the accession of this famUy, England has been sacrificed to the interests of Hanover, and consequently insinuates the incompatibiHty of the two. Lord Chesterfield says, "that ff we have a mind effectuaUy to prevent the Pretender from ever obtaining this cro^wn, we should make bim Elector of Hanover, for the people of England ¦wiU never fetch another king from thence." Adieu ! my dear chUd. I am sensible that I ¦write you short letters, but I write you aU I know. I don't know how it is, but the wonderful seems worn out. In this our day, we have no rabbit- women — ^no elopements — ^no epic poems,' finer than MUton's — ^no contest about Harlequins and PoUy Peachems. Jansen ' has won no more estates, and the Duchess of Queensberry ' is gro^wn as tame as her neighbours. Whist has spread an universal opium over the whole nation ; it makes courtiers and patriots sit do^svn to the same pack of cards. The only thing extiaordinary, and which yet did not seem to surprise anybody, was the Barberina's ' being attacked by four men masqued, the other night, as she came out of the Opera House, who would have forced her away ; but she screamed, and the guard came. Nobody knows who set them on, and I beHeve nobody inqufred. The Austrians in Flanders have separated from our troops a Httle out of humour, because it was impracticable for them to march ¦with out any preparatory provision for thefr reception. They wUl probably march in two months, ff no peace prevents it. AcHeu ! 100. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Dec. 23, 1742. I HAVE had no letter from you this fortnight, and I have heard nothing this month : judge how fit I am to write. I hope it ' Hugh Hume, third Earl of Marchmont — the friend (and one of the executors) of Pope. — Cunningham. ^ This alludes to the extravagant encomiums bestowed on Glover's Leonidas by the young patriota. — Walpole. ^ H. Jansen, a celebrated gamester, who cheated the late Duke of Bedford [died 1732] of an immense sum : Pope hints at that affair in this line, "Or when a duke to Jansen punts at White's." — Walpole. See note p. 199. — Cunningham. ¦' Catherine Hyde, great granddaughter of Lord ChanceUor Clarendon : — Prior'a Kitty, and the friend of Gay. She was eccentric both in speech and dress. - Cunningham. ' A famous dancer. — Walpolb. 220 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1742 is not another mark of growing old ; but, I do assure you, my writing begins to leave me. Don't be frightened ! I don't mean this as an intioduction towards ha'ving done ¦with you~-I wiU ¦write to you to the very stump of my pen, and, as Pope says, " Squeeze out the last dull droppings of my sense."' But I declare, it is hard to sit spinning out one's brains by the fire side -without having heard the least thing to set one's hand a-going. I am so put to it for something to say, that I would make a memorandum of the most improbable He that could be invented by a -viscountess-dowager ; as the old Duchess of Rutland ' does when she is told of some strange casualty, " Lucy, chUd, step into the next room and set that do-wn." — "Lord, Madam!" says Lady Lucy,' " it can't be true ! " " Oh, no matter, chUd ; it wiU do for news into the country next post." But do you conceive that the kingdom of the DuU is come upon earth — not with the forerunners and prognostics of other to-come kingdoms ? No, no ; the sun and the moon go on just as they used to do, -without gi-ving us any hints : we see no knights come prancing upon pale horses, or red horses ; no stars, caUed wormwood, faU into the Thames, and tum a third part into wormwood ; no locusts, lilce horses, -with their hair as the hafr of women — in short, no thousand things, each of which desfa'oys a third part of mankind : the only token of this new kingdom is a woman riding on a beast, which is the mother of abominations, and the name in the forehead is whist : and the four-and-twenty elders, and the women, and the whole to-wn, do nothing but play with this beast. Scandal itseff is dead, or confined to a pack of cards ; for the only malicious whisper I have heard this fortiiight, is of an intrigue between the Queen of hearts and the Knave of clubs. Your friend Lady Sand-wich ' has got a son ; ff one may believe the beUy she wore, it is a brave one. Lord Holdemess has lately given a magnificent repas to fifteen persons ; there were three courses of ten, fifteen, and fifteen, and a sumptuous dessert : a great saloon iUuminated, odours, and -violins — and who do you think were the invited? — the Visconti, GuUetta, the GaUi, AmorevoH, MonticeUi, Vanneschi and his wffe, Weedemans the hautboy, the prompter, &c. The bouquet was given to the GuUetta, who is ' Lady Lucinda Sherard. widow of John Manners, aecond Duke of Rutland. She died in 1751.— "Wright. ^ Lady Lucy Mannera, married, in 1742, to William, second Duke of Montrose. She died in 1788. — Wright. ^ Judith, slater of Viscount Fane, wife of Montagu, fifth Eari of Sandwich.— Wright. 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 221 barely handsome. How can one love magnificence and low company at the same instant ! We are making great parties for the Barberina and the Auretti, a charming French gfrl ; and our schemes succeed so weU that the Opera begins to fiU surprisingly ; for aU those who don't love music, love noise and party, and -vrill any night give haff-a-guinea for the Hberty of hissing — such is EngHsh harmony ! I have been in a round of dinners -with Lord Stafford, and Bussy the French minister, who teUs one stories of Capuchins, confessions, Henri Quatre, Louis XIV., Gascons, and the string which all Frenchmen go through, without any connection or relation to the discourse. These very stories, which I have already heard four times, are oiUy interrupted by EngHsh puns, which old ChurchiU tianslates out of jest books into the mouth of my Lord Chesterfield, and into most execrable French. Adieu ! I have scribbled, and blotted, and made nothing out, and, in short, have nothing to say, so good night ! 101. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Jan. 6, 1743. You -wUl wonder that you have not heard from me, but I have been too Ul to write. I have been confined these ten days ¦with a most ¦violent cough, and they suspected an inflammation on my lungs ; but I am come off -with the loss of my eyes and my voice, both of which I am recovering, and would -write to you to-day. I have received your long letter of December 11th, and retum you a thousand thanks for giving me up so much of your time ; I wish I could make as long a letter for you, but we are in a neutiaHty of news. The Elector Palatine ' is dead ; but I have not heard what alterations that -niU make. Lord Wilmington's death, which is reckoned hard upon, is Hkely to make more conversation here. He is going to the Bath, but that is oiUy to pass away the time tUl he dies.' ' Charles Philip of Neubourg, Elector Palatine: — died December 31. 1742. He (vaa succeeded by Charles Theodore, Prince of Sulzbach, descended from a younger branch of the house of Neubourg, and who, in his old age, became Elector of Bavaria.— Dover. - I neither rejoice at my Lord Wilmington's death, nor lament it ; for he was neither my friend, nor, I believe, my enemy. I am as indifferent about the succession to hia immense wealth. But the auccession to his post is of more importance, and admits of lesa indifference. — Bolingbroke to Marchmont, July 26, 1743. — Cunningham. 222 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [174S The great Vemon is landed, but we have not been alarmed -with any bonfires or Uluminations ; he has outHved aU his popularity. There is nothing new but the separation of a Mr. and Mrs. French whom it is impossible you should know. She has been fashionable these two winters ; her husband has commenced a suit in Doctors' Commons against her cat, and -wiU, they say, recover considerable damages : but the la-wyers are of opinion that the kittens must inherit Mr. French's estate, as they were bom in la-wful wedlock. The ParHament meets again on Monday, but I don't hear of any fatigue that we are Hkely to have ; in a Httle time, I suppose, we shall hear what campaigning we are to make. I must teU you of an admfrable reply of your acquaintance the Duchess of Queensberry: old Lady Gran-viUe," Lord Carteret's mother, whom they caU the Queen-Mother, from taking upon her to do the honours of her son's power, was pressing the Duchess to ask her for some place for herseff or friends, and assured her that she would procure it, be it what it would. Could she have picked out a fitter person to be gracious to ? The Duchess made her a most grave curtsey, and said, " Indeed, there was one thing she had set her heart on." — " Dear chUd, how you obHge me by asking anything ! What is it ? teU me." — " Only that you would speak to my Lord Carteret to get me made Lady of the Bedchamber to the Queen of Hungary." I come now to your letter, and am not at aU pleased to find that the Princess absolutely intends to murder you with her cold rooms. I -wish you could come on those cold nights and sit by my fireside ; 1 have the prettiest warm Httle apartment, -with aU my baubles, and Patapans and cats ! Patapan and I go to-morrow to New Park, [Richmond] to my Lord, for the afr, and come back -with him on Monday. What an infamous story that affafr of Nomis is ! and how different the ideas of honour among officers in your world and ours ! Your history of cicisbeism is more entertaining : I figure the distiess of a parcel of lovers who have so many things to dread — ^the govern ment in this world ! purgatory in the next ! inquisitions, viUeggia- turas, convents, &c. Lord Essex' is exti-emely bad, and has not strength enough to go ' Of this old lady and her daughter-in-law (see p. 110), there is an admirable description by the lady herself in a letter by Mrs. Montagu, of Shakespeareahire (I use Walpole'a own deaignation). — Mrs. Montagu's Letters, Vol. ii. p. 254. See note at p. 299 of thia volume. — Cunningham. ' WUliam Capel. third Earl of Essex, died 1743. — Cunningham, 1748.] TO SIR HORACE MANN, HS8 through the remedies that are necessary to his recovery. He now fancies that he does not exist, and 'wUl not be persuaded to walk or talk, because, as he sometimes says, "How should he do anything? he is not." You say, " How came I not to see Due d'Aremberg ? " I did once at the Opera ; but he went away soon after ; and here it is not the way to -visit foreigners, unless you are of the Court, or are par ticularly in a way of ha-ving them at your house : consequently Sfr Robert never saw him neither — we are not of the Court ! Next, as to Arlington-street: Sir Robert is in a middling kind of house, which has long been his, and was let ; he has taken a small one next to it for me, and they are laid together. I come now to speak to you of the affafr of the Duke of New castle ; but absolutely, on considering it much myseff, and on talking of it -with your brother, we both are against your attempting any such thing. In the first place, I never heard a suspicion of the Duke's taking presents, and should think he would rather be affronted : in the next place, my dear chUd, though you are fond of that coffee-pot, it woiUd be thought nothing among such wardrobes as he has, of the finest--wrought plate : why, he has a set of gold plates that would make a figure on any sideboard in the Arabian Tales; and as to Benvenuto Cellini, ff the Duke could take it for his, people in England understand aU work too weU to be deceived. Lastly, as there has been no talk of alterations in the foreign ministers, and as aU changes seem at an end, why should you be apprehensive ? As to Stone,' ff anything was done, to be sure it should be to him ; though I reaUy can't ad-vise even that. These are my sentiments sincerely: by no means think of the Duke. Adieu! 102. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Jan. 13, 1743. Your brother brought me two letters together this moriung, and at the same time showed me yours to your father. How should I be ashamed, were I he, to receive such a letter ! so dutiful, so humble, and yet so expressive of the straits to which he has let you be ' Andrew Stone, Esq. secretary to the Duke of Newcastle.— Walpole. He subse quently fiUed the offices of under-Becretary of state, sub-governor to Prince George, keeper of the State-paper Office, and, on the maixiage of George the Third, treasurer to the Queen. He died in 1773.— Wright. 224 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. 1743, reduced ! My dear child, it looks too much like the son of a minister, when I am no longer so ; but I can't help repeating to you offers of any kind of ser-vice that you think I can do for you In any way. I am quite happy at your thinking Tuscany so secure from Spain, unless the -wise head of Richcourt works against the season ; but how can I ever be easy whUe a provincial Frenchman, something haff French, haff German, instigated by a mad EngHsh woman, is to govern an Italian dominion ! I laughed much at the magnificent presents made by one of the first faniUies in Florence to the young accouchee. Do but think ff a Duke or Duchess of Somerset were to give a Lady Hertford fifty pounds and twenty yards of velvet for bringing an hefr to the blood of Seymour ! It grieves me that my letters drop in so slowly to you : I have never missed writing, but when I have been absolutely too much out of order, or once or twice when I had no earthly thing to teU you, This -winter is so quiet, that one must inquire much to know any thing. The parHament is met again, but we do not hear of any intended opposition to anything. The Tories have dropped the affair of the Hanoverians in the House of Lords, in compliment to my Lord Gower. There is a second pamphlet pubHshed on that subject, which makes a great noise.' The ministiy are much distressed on the ways and means for raising the money for this year : there is to be a lottery, but that -will not supply a quarter of what they want. They have talked of a new duty on tea, to be paid by every house keeper for aU the persons in their famUies ; but it -wUl scarce be pro posed. Tea is so universal, that it would make a greater clamour than a duty on -wine. Nothing is determined ; the new folks do not shine at expedients. Sfr Robert's health is now drank at aU the clubs in the city ; they are for having him made a duke, and placed again at the head of the Treasury; but I beHeve nothing could prevail on him to retum thither. He says he -wiU keep the 12th of February, — the day he resigned, — -with his famUy as long as he lives. They talk of Sandys being raised to the peerage, by way of getting rid of him ; he is so dull they can scarce drag him on.' ' Entitled "The Case of the Hanover Forces in the Pay of Great Britain examined." It was written by Lord Chesterfield, and excited mnch attention.— Wright. ° In December he waa created a peer, by the title of Lord Sandys, Baron ot Ombers:cy, and made cofferer of the household. — Wright. 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 226 The English troops in Flanders march to-day, whither we don't know, but probably to Liege : from whence they imagine the Hanoverians are going into JuHers and Bergue.' The ministry have been greatly alarmed with the King of Sardinia's retieat, and sus pected that it was a total one from the Queen's interest ; but it seems he sent for VUlettes and the Hungarian minister, and had thefr pre-vious approbations of his deserting Chamberry, &c. Vemon is not yet got to town ; we are impatient for what wUl foUow the arrival of this mad hero. Wentworth -wUl certainly chal lenge him, but Vernon does not profess personal valour : he was once knocked do-wn by a merchant, who then offered him satisfaction — but he was satisfied. Lord Essex is dead : Lord Lincoln -wUl have the bedchamber ; Lord Berkeley of Stratton' (a disciple of Carteret's) the Pensioners ; and Lord Carteret himseff probably the riband [of the Garter]. As to my Lady Walpole's dormant title,' it was in her famUy ; but being in the King's power to give to which sister in equal claim he pleased, it was bestowed on Lord CHnton, who descended from the younger sister of Lady W.'s grandmother or great grand-some thing. My Lady CHfford" (Coke's mother), got her barony so, in preference to Lady Salisbury and Lady Sondes, her elder sisters, who had afready titles for thefr chUdren. It is caUed a title in abeyance. Sfr Robert has just bid me teU you to send the Dominichin by the ffrst safe conveyance to Matthews, who has had orders from Lord Winchelsea ' to send it by the ffrst man-of-war to England ; or, ff ' The British troops began their march from Flanders at the end of February, under the command of the Earl of Stair, but were ao tardy in their movements, that it was the middle of May before they crossed the Rhine, and fixed their station at Hochst, between Mayence and Frankfort.— Wright. ^ John, fifth and last Lord Berkeley of Stratton. He died in 1773.— Dover. ^ The 'barony of CUnton in fee descended to the daughters of Theophilus, Earl of Huntingdon, who died without male issue. One of those ladies died without children, by which means the title lay between the famUies of RoUe and Fortescue. King George I. gave it to Hugh Fortescue, afterwards created an Earl ; on whose death [1751] it descended to his only sister, a maiden lady, after whom, without issue, it devolved on Lady Orford [See pp. 55 and 152].— Walpolb. ¦* Lady Margaret Tufton, third daughter of Thomas, sixth Earl of Thanet. The barony of De Clifford had descended to Lord Thanet from his mother. Lady Margaret Sackville daughter of Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, Dorset, and Montgomery. Upon Lord Thanet's death, the barony of De Clifford fell into abeyance between his five daughters. Theae were Lady Catherine, married to Edward Watson, Viscount Sondes ¦ Lady Anne, married to James CecU, Eari of Salisbury ; Lady Margaret, before mentioned ; Lady Mary, married first to Anthony Gray, Eari of Harold, and secondly to John Eari Gower ; and Lady Isabella, married to Lord Nassau Powlett. — Dover. * First lord of the Admiralty.— Dover. VOL. I. Q 226 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743_ you meet -with a ship going to Portmahon, then you must send it thither to Anstmther, and write to him that Lord Orford desires he -wUl take care of it, and send it by the first ship that comes dfrectly home. He is so impatient for it that he -wUl have it thus ; but I own I should not Hke ha-ving my things jumbled out of one ship into another, and rather beg mine may stay tUl they can come at once. Adieu ! 103. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Jan. 27, 11 iZ. I COULD not write to you last Thursday, I was so much out of order -with a cold; your brother came and found me in bed. To-night, that I can -write, I have nothing to teU you ; except that yesterday the welcome news (to the Ministry) came of the accession of the Dutch to the King's measures. They are in great triumph ; but till it is clear what part his Prussian Uprightness is acting, other people take the Hberty to be stUl in suspense. So they are about aU our domestic matters too. It is a general stare ! the alteration that must soon happen in the Treasury -wiU put some end to the uncer tainties of this -winter. Mr. Pelham is universaUy named to the head of it ; but Messrs. Prince [of Wales], Carteret, Pulteney, and Companies must be a Httle considered how they -wUl Hke it : the latter the least. You -wUl wonder, perhaps be peevish, when I protest I have not another paragraph by me in the world. I want even common con versation ; for I cannot persist, Hke the Royal Family, in asking people the same questions, "Do you love walking?" "Do you love music ? " " Was you at the opera ? " " When do you go into the country ? " I have nothing else to say : nothing happens ; scarce the common episodes of a newspaper, of a man falling off a ladder and breaking his leg ; or of a countryman cheated out of his leather pouch, -with fifty shillings in it. We are in such a state of sameness, that I shaU begin to wonder at the change of seasons, and talk of the spring as a stiange incident. Lord Tyrawley, who has been fifteen years in Portugal, is of my opinion ; he says he finds nothing but a fog, whist, and the House of Commons. In this lamentable state, when I know not what to -write even to you, what can I do about my serene Princess Grifoni ? Alas ! I owe her two letters, and where to find a beau sentiment, I cannot 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 227 teU ! I beHeve I may have some by me in an old chest of drawers, with some exploded red-heel shoes and fuU-bottom -wigs ; but they would come out so yeUow and moth-eaten ! Do vow to her, in every superlative degree in the language, that my eyes have been so bad, that as I -wrote you word, over and over, I have not been able to -write a Hne. That ¦wUl move her, when she hears what melancholy descriptions I ¦write, of my not being able to -write — nay, indeed it ¦wiU not be so ridiculous as you think ; for it is ten times worse for the eyes to -write in a language one don't much practise ! I remember a tutor at Cambridge, who had been examining some lads in Latin, but in a Httle while excused himseff, and said he must speak EngHsh, for his mouth was very sore. I had a letter from you yesterday of January 7th, N.S. which has wonderfuUy excited my compassion for the necessities of the princely family [Prince and Princess Craon], and the shffts of the old Lady [Madame Sarasin] is put to for quadrUle. I triumph much on my penetration about the honest RuceUai' — M'e Httle people, who have no honesty, -virtue, nor shame, do so exult when a good neighbour, who was a pattern, turns out as bad as oneseff ! We are Hke the good woman in the Gospel, who chuckled so much on finding her lost bit ; we have more joy on a saint's faU, than in ninety-nine devils, who were always de nous autres ! I am a Httle pleased too, that Marquis Bagnesi,' whom you know I always liked much, has behaved so weU ; and am more pleased to hear what a Beffana' the Electress" is Pho ! here am I, sending you back your o-wn paragraphs, cut and turned ! it is so sUly to think that you won't know them again ! I -wiU not spin myseff any longer ; it is better to make a short letter. I am going to the masquerade, and -wUl fancy myseff in via della Pergola.' Adieu ! " Do you know me ?" — " That man there -with you, in the black domino, is Mr. Chute." Good night ! ' Sir H. Maun says, in his letter of January 7, 1743, " I must be so just as to tell you, my friend, the Senator RuceUai is, as you always thought, a sad fellow. He has quite abandoned me for fear of offending." — Dover. ' " Apropos of duels, two of our young nobles. Marquis Bagnesi and Strozzi, have fought about a debt of fifteen shUlings ; the latter, the creditor and occasion of the fight, behavediU."— iett€r/rom Sir H. Mann, dated Jan. 7, 1743.— Dover. ^ A Beffana was a puppet, which was carried about the town on the evening of the Epiphany. The word is derived from Epifania. It also means an ugly woman. The Electress happened to go out for the first time after an iUness on the Epiphany, and said in joke to Prince Craon, that " the Beffane all went abroad ou that day."— Dover. ¦* The Electress Palatine Dowager, the last of the House of Medici.— -Walpolb, ' A street at Florence, in which the Opera-house stands.— Walpole. 228 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743. 104. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Feb. 2, 1743. Last night at the Duchess of Richmond's, I saw Madame Golds- worthy : what a pert, Httle, unbred thing it is ! The duchess presented us to one another ; but I cannot say that either of us stepped a foot beyond the first ci-viHties. The good duchess was for harbouring her and aU her brood : how it happened to her I don't conceive, but the thing had decency enough to refuse it. She is going to Hve -with her father at Plymouth — tant mieux ! The day before yesterday the Lords had a great day: Earl Stanhope ' moved for an address to his Britannic Majesty, in con sideration of the heavy wars, taxes, &c. far exceeding aU that ever were kno-wn, to exonerate his people of foreign tioops, (Hanoverians,) which are so expensive, and can in no Hght answer the ends for which they were hfred. Lord Sand-wich seconded ; extiemely well, I hear, for I was not there. Lord Carteret answered, but was under great concem. Lord Bath spoke too, and would fain have persuaded that this measure was not solely of one minister, but that himself and aU the counoU were equaUy concerned in it. The late Pnvy Seal [Hervey] spoke for an hour and a haff, -with the greatest applause, against the Hanoverians; and my Lord ChanceUor [Hardwicke] extremely well for them. The division was, 90 for tht Court, 35 against it. The present Privy Seal [Gower] voted with the Opposition : so there -wUl soon be another. Lord HaHfax, the Prince's new Lord, was with the minority too ; the other, Lord Darnlev,' -with the Court. After the division, Lord Scarborough, his Royal Highness's Treasurer, moved an address of approbation of the measure, which was carried by 78 to the former 35. Lord Orford was Ul, and could not be there, but sent his proxy : he has got a great cold and slow fever, but does not keep his room. If Lord Gower loses the Pri-vy Seal, (as it is taken for granted he does ' PhUip, second Earl Stanhope. He succeeded his father when he was only seven years old, and died in 1786. Bishop Seeker says, that Lord Stanhope "spoke a precomposed speech, which he held in his hand, with great tremblings and agitations, and hesitated frequently in the midst of great vehemence." [Seep. IjS.j— Wright. ' Edward Bligh, second Earl of Darnley, in Ireland, and lord of the bedchamber to Frederick Prince of Wales [died 1747].— Dover. 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 229 not design to keep it,) and Lord Bath refuses it. Lord Cholmondeley stands the fafrest for it. I -wUl conclude abruptly, for you wUl be tfr-ed of my teUing you that I have nothing to tell you — ^but so it is HteraUy — oh ! yes, you will want to know what the Duke of Argyle did — he was not there ; he is every thing but superannuated. Adieu ! 105. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Feb. 13, 1743. Ceretesi teUs me that Madame GalH is dead : I have had two letters from you this week ; but the last mentions only the death of old Strozzi. I am quite sorry for Madame GaUi, because I proposed seeing her again, on my retum to Florence, which I have firmly in my intention : I hope it -wUl be a Httle before Ceretesi' s, for he seems to be planted here. I don't conceive who waters him ! Here are two noble Venetians that have carried him about lately to Oxford and Blenheim : I am HteraUy waiting for him now, to intro duce him to Lady Bro-wn's ' Sunday night ; it is the great mart for aU travelling and traveUed calves — ^pho ! here he is. Monday morning. — Here is your brother : he teUs me you never hear from me ; how can that be ? I receive yours, and you gene raUy mention having got one of mine, though long after the time you should. I never miss above one post, and that but very seldom. I am longer receiving yours, though you have never missed ; but then I frequently receive two at once. I am deHghted -with Golds- worthy's mystery about King Theodore ! ' If you wiU promise me not to teU him, I -wUl teU you a secret, which is, that if that person is not King Theodore, I assure you it is not Sir Robert Walpole. I have nothing to teU you but that Lord Effingham Howard ' is dead, and Lord Litchfield " at the point of death ; he was struck -with a palsy last Thursday. Adieu ! ' Margaret Cecil, grand-daughter of the third Earl of Salisbury, and wife of Sir Robert Brown, Bart., a merchant at Venice. — Cunningham. ^ Theodore, King of Corsica, to whom Walpole erected a monument in St. Ann's, Soho, in London. " The Baron de Neuhoff, a German gentleman and adventurer, was elected King of Corsica, was driven out by the Genoese, became a prisoner for debt in England, and recovered hia liberty by giving up his effects to his creditors according to the Act of Insolvency ; and all the effects he had to give up were his right to the kingdom of Corsica, which was registered accordingly for the benefit of his creditors." — - Walpole. Strange Occurrences. Works, iv. 365. — Cunningham. ' Francis, first Earl of Effingham, and seventh Lord Howard of Effingham. He died February 12, 1743.— Dover. ¦• George Henry Lee, second Earl of Lichfield. Died Feb. 15, 1743. — Dover. 280 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. ^'m^ 106. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Feb. 24, 1743. I WRITE to you in the greatest hurry in the world, but write I -wUl. Besides, I must -wish you joy : you are warriors ; nay, conquerors ; ' two things quite novel in this war, for hitherto it has been armies ¦without fighting, and deaths ¦without killing. We talk of this battle as of a comet ; " Have you heard of the battle ? " it is so stiange a thing, that numbers imagine you may go and see it at Charing Cross. Indeed, our officers, who are going to Flanders, don't quite Hke it ; they are afraid it should grow the fashion to fight, and that a pair of colours should no longer be a sinecm-e. I am quite unhappy about poor Mr. Chute : besides, it is cruel to find that abstinence is not a drug. If mortification ever ceases to be a medicine, or ¦virtue to be a passport to carnivals in the other world, who ¦wiU be a seff-tormentor any longer — ^not, my chUd, that I am one ; but, teU me, is he quite recovered ? I thank you for King Theodore's declaration,' and wish him success with aU my soul. I hate the Genoese ; they make a com monwealth the most de^vUish of aU tjrrannies ! We have every now and then motions for disbanding Hessians and Hanoverians, aUas mercenaries ; but they come to nothing. To day the party have declared that they have done for this session ; so you ¦wUl hear Httle more but of fine equipages for Flanders : our troops are actuaUy marched, and the officers begin to foUow them — I hope they know whither ! You know in the last war in Spain, Lord Peterborough' rode gaUoping about to inqufre for his army. But to come to more real contests ; Handel has set up an Oratorio against the Operas, and succeeds. He has hfred aU the goddesses from farces and the singers of Roast Beef* from between the acts at both theatres, -with a man -with one note in his voice, and a girl -without ever an one ; and so they sing, and make brave haUelujahs; ' This alludes to an engagement, which took place on the 8th of February, near Bologna, between the Spaniards under M. de Gages, and the Austrians under General Traun, in which the latter were successful. — Dover. ' With regard to Corsica, of which he had declared himself king. By this declara tion, which was dated January 30, Theodore recalled, under pain of confiscation of their estates, all the Corsicans in foreign service, except that of the Queen of Hungary, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany. — Wright. ^ The great Lord Peterborough. Died 1735. — Cunningham. " It was customary at this time for the galleries to call for a ballad called " The Roast Beef of Old England " between the acts, or before or after the play.— Walpolk. 1743.) TO SIR HORACE MANN. 231 and the good company encore the recitative, ff it happens to have any cadence Hke what they caU a tune. I was much diverted the other night at the opera ; two gentlewomen sat before my sister, and not kno-wing her, discoursed at their ease. Says one, " Lord ! how fine Mr. W. is ! " " Yes," repHed the other, with a tone of saying sentences, "some men love to be particularly so, your petit-maitres — but they are not always the brightest of thefr sex." — Do thank me for this period ! I am sure you -wUl enjoy it as much as we did. I shaU be very glad of my things, and approve entirely of your precautions ; Sfr R. -wiU be quite happy, for there is no telHng you how impatient he is for his Dominichin. Adieu ! 107. TO SIR HORACE MANN. March 3, 1743. So, she is dead at last, the old Electress ! ' — weU, I have nothing more to say about her and the Medici ; they had outlived aU their acquaintance : indeed, her death makes the battle very considerable — makes us call a victory what before we did not look upon as very decided laurels. Lord Hervey has entertained the tovm -with another piece of -wisdom : on Sunday it was declared that he had married his eldest daughter the night before to a Mr. Phipps,' grandson of the Duchess of Buckingham. They sent for the boy but the day before from Oxford, and bedded them at a day's notice. But after aU this mystery, it does not tum out that there is any thing great in this match, but the greatness of the secret. Poor Hervey,' the brother, is in fear and trembUng, for he apprehends being ravished to bed to some fortune or other -with as Httle ceremony. The Oratorios thrive abundantly — for my part, they give me an idea of heaven, where everybody is to sing whether they have voices or not. The Board (the Jacobite Club) have chosen his Majesty's Lord Privy Seal [Gower] for thefr President, in the room of Lord ' Anna M.aria of Medicis, daughter of Cosmo HI., widow of John William, Elector Palatine. After her husband's death she returned to Florence, where she died Feb. 7, 1743, aged seventy-five, being the last of that family. — Walpolb. '^ Constantine Phipps, in 1767, created Lord Mulgrave, in Ireland. He married, on the 26th of February, Lepel, eldest daughter of Lord Hervey, and died in 1775. Her ladyship was found dead in her bed, 9th March, 1780, at her son's house in the Admiralty. — Wright. ^ George William Hervey, afterwarda aecond Earl of Briatol. He died unmarried, in 1775,— Wright. 232 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS [1743, Litchfield. Don't you like the harmony of parties ? We expect the parHament -wiU rise this month : I shall be sorry, for ff I am not hurried out of to-wn, at least everybody else wiU — and who can look forward from AprU to November ? Adieu ! though I write in defiance of having nothing to say, yet you see I can't go a great way in this obstinacy ; but you -wiU bear a short letter rather than none. 108. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, March 14, 1743. I don't at aU know how to ad-vise you about mourning ; I always think that the custom of the countiy, and what other foreign ministers do, should be your rule. But I had a private scrapie rose with me : that was, whether you should show so much respect to the late woman' as other ministers do, since she left that legacy to Quelh a Roma.'' I mentioned this to my lord, but he thinks that the tender manner of her wording it, takes off that exception; however, he thinks it better that you should -write for advice to your commanding officer. That wiU be very late, and you -wiU probably have determined before. You see what a casuist I am in ceremony ; I leave the question more perplexed than I found it. Pray, Sfr, congratulate me upon the new acquisition of glory to my famUy ! We have long been eminent statesmen ; now that we are out of employment we have betaken ourselves to war — and we have made great proficiency in a short season. We don't run, hke my Lord Stafr, into Berg and JuHers, to seek battles where we are sure of not finding them — we make shorter marches ; a step across the Court of Requests brings us to engagement. But not to detain you any longer -with flourishes, which -wiU probably be inserted in my uncle Horace's patent when he is made a fleld-marshal ; you must know that he has fought a duel, and has scratched a scratch three inches long on the side of his enemy — Lo Pcean ! The cfrcumstances of this memorable engagement were, in short, that on some witness being to be examined the other day in the House upon remittances to the army, my uncle said, " He hoped they would indemnify him, ff he told anything that affected himself." Soon after he was ' The Electress Palatine Dowager. — Walpolk. ' She left a legacy to the Pretender, describing him only by these words, To him ai Rome. — Walpole. 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 233 standing belHnd the Speaker's chair, and WiU. Chetwynd,' an intimate of Bolingbroke, came up to him, and said, " What, Mr. Walpole, are you for rubbing up old sores ? " He repHed, " I think I said very Httle, considering that you and your friends would last year have hanged up me and my brother at the lobby door without a trial." Chetwynd answered, " I would still have you both have your deserts." The other said, "If you and I had, probably I should be here and you would be somewhere else." This drew more words, and Chetwynd took him by the arm and led him out. In the lobby, Horace said, " We shaU be observed, we had better put it off tiU to-morrow." " No, no, now ! now ! " When they came to the bottom of the stairs, Horace said, " I am out of breath, let us draw here." They drew ; Chetwynd hit him on the breast, but was not near enough to pierce his coat. Horace made a pass, which the other put by -with his hand, but it glanced along his side — a clerk, who had observed them go out together so arm-in-amUy, could not beHeve it amicable, but foUowed them, and came up just time enough to beat do-wn their swords, as Horace had driven him against a post, and would probably have run him through at the next thrust. Chet-wynd went away to a surgeon's, and kept his bed the next day ; he has not reappeared yet, but is in no danger. My uncle returned to the House, and was so little moved as to speak immediately upon the Cambrick Bill, which made Swinny ' say, " That it was a sign he was not ruffled." ' Don't you deHght in this duel ? I expect to see it daubed up by some cfrcuit-painter on the ceiHng of the saloon at Woolterton. I have no news to teU you, but that we hear King Theodore has sent over proposals of his person and cro-wn to Lady Lucy Stanhope," -with whom he fell in love the last time he was in England. ' William Chetwynd, brother of the Lord Viscount Chetwynd. On the coalition he was made Master of the Mint. — Walpole. He was one of Bolingbroke's executors see p. 170. — Cunningham. ' Owen M'Swinny, the manager of Drury Lane Theatre. See p. 118. — Cfnningham. ' Coxe, in his Memoirs of Lord Walpole, vol. ii., p. 68, gives the following account of this duel : — " A motion being made iu the House of Commons, which Mr. Walpole supported, he said to Mr. Chetwynd, ' I hope we shall carry this question.' Mr. Chet-wynd replied, ' I hope to see you hanged first!' 'You see me hanged first ! ' rejoined Mr. Walpole, and instantly seized him by the noae. They went out and fought. The account being conveyed t-o Lord Orford, he aent hia aon to make inquiriea ; who, on coming into the Honae of Commons, found hia uncle speaking with the same composure as if nothing had happened to ruffle his temper or endanger his life. Mr. Chetwynd was wounded." — Wright. * Sister of PhUip, second Earl of Stanhope. — Walpole. 234 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. il743. Princess Buckingham ' is dead or dying : she has sent for Mr. Anstis ' and settled the ceremonial of her burial. On Saturday she was so 01 that she feared dying before aU the pomp was come home : she said " Why won't they send the canopy for me to see ? let them send it, though aU the tassels are not finished." But yesterday was the greatest stroke of aU ! She made her ladies vow to her, that ff she should He senseless, they would not sit down in the room before she was dead. She has a great mind to be buried by her father [Eing James IL] at Paris. Mrs. Selwyn says, " She need not be carried out of England, and yet be buried by her father." You know that Lady Dorchester always told her, that old Graham' was her father. I am much obHged to you for the trouble you have taken about the statue ; do draw upon me for it immediately, and for aU my other debts to you : I am sure they must be numerous ; pray don't faU. A thousand loves to the Chutes : a thousand compliments to the Princess ; and a thousand — ^what ? to the Grifon-a. Alas I what can one do ? I have forgot aU my ItaHan. Adieu ! ' Catherine, Duchess of Buckingham, natural daughter of King James II. by the Countess of Dorchester [Catherine Sedley]. She was so proud of her birth, that ahe would never go to Versailles, because they would not give her the rank of Princess ot the Blood. At Rome, whither she went two or three times to see her brother, and to carry on negotiations with him for his interest, she had a box at the Opera distin guished like those of crowned heads. She not only regulated the ceremony of her own burial, and dreaaed up the waxen figure of herself for Westminster Abbey, but had shown the same insensible pride on the death of her only aon, dressing his figure, and sending messages to her friends, that if they had a mind to see him lie in state, she would carry them in conveniently by a back-door. She sent to the old Duchess of Marlborough to borrow the triumphal car that had carried the duke's body. Old Sarah, as mad and proud as herself, sent her word, " that it had carried my Lord Marlborough, and should never be profaned by any other corpse." The Buckingham returned, that " ahe had spoken to the undertaker, and he had engaged to make a finer for twenty pounds." — Walpolb. Compare chapter ix. of ' Walpole'a Reuiinia- cences,' prefixed to this volume. — Cunningham. ^ John Anstis, Garter King at Arms, died 1764. — Cunningham. ' Colonel Graham. When the Duchesa waa young, and as insolent aa afterwarda, her mother used to say, " You need not be so proud, for you are not the King's but only Graham's daughter." It is certain that his legitimate daughter, the Counteas of Berkshire and Suffolk, was extremely like the Duchess, and that he often said with a sneer, " Well, well, kings are great men, they make free with whom they please I AU I can say ia, that I am sure the same man begot those two women." The Duchesa often went to weep over her father's body at Paris : one of the monks seeing her tenderness, thought it a proper opportunity to make her observe how ragged the pall is that Ues over the body, (which is kept unburied, to be some time or other interred in England,) — but she would not buy a new one ! — Walpole. 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 238 109. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Atimgion Street, March 25, 1743. Well ! my dear Sfr, the Genu, or whoever are to look after the seasons, seem to me to change turns, and to wait instead of one another, Hke lords of the bedchamber. We have had loads of sun shine aU the ¦vrinter ; and ¦within these ten days nothing but snows, north-east -winds, and blue plagues. The last ships have brought over aU your epidemic distempers: not a famUy in London has escaped under five or six iU : many people have been forced to hire new labourers. Guemier, the apothecary, took two new apothecaries, and yet could not drug all his patients. It is a cold and fever. I had one of the worst, and was blooded on Saturday and Sunday, but it is quite gone : my father was blooded last night : his is but sHght. The physicians say that there has been nothing Hke it since the year Thfrty-three, and then not so bad : in short, our army abroad would shudder to see what stieams of blood have been let out ! Nobody has died of it, but old Mr. Eyres, of Chelsea, through obstinacy of not bleeding ; and his ancient Grace of York: ' WUcox of Rochester" succeeds him, who is fit for nothing in the world, but to die of this cold too. They now talk of the Bang's not going abroad : I Hke to talk on that side ; because though it may not be true, one may at least be able to give some sort of reason why he should not. We go into mourning for your Electiess on Sunday ; I suppose they -will tack the Elector of Mentz to her, for he is just dead. I deHght in Rich- court's calculation : I don't doubt but it is the method he often uses in accounting -with the Great Duke. I have had two letters from you of the 5th and 12th, ¦with a note of things coming by sea ; but my dear chUd, you are either run Roman CathoHcly devout, or take me to be so ; for nothing but a reHgious fit of zeal could make you think of sending me so many presents. Why, there are Madonnas enough in one case to funush a more than common cathedral — I absolutely wUl drive to Demetrius, the sUversmith's, and bespeak myseff a pompous shrine! But, • Dr Lancelot Blackburne. — Walpole. Walpole, in his Memoires, vol. i., p. 74, caUs him " the jolly old .\rchbishop of York, who had all the manners of a man of quality, though he had been a buccaneer, and was a clergyman."— Wright. ' He was not aucceeded by Dr. WUcox, but by Dr Herring, since [1747] promoted to the Archbishopric of Canterbury. — Walpole. 236 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743. indeed, seriously, how can I, who have a conscience, and am no saint, take aU these things ? You must either let me pay for them or I wUl demand my unlbrtunate coffee-pot again, which has put you upon ruining yourseff. By the way, do let me have it agam, for I cannot trust it any longer in your hands at this rate ; and since I have found out its vfrtue, I 'vriU present it to somebody, whom I shaU have no scruple of letting send me bales and cargoes, and ship-loads of Madonnas, perfumes, prints, frankincense, &c. You have not even dra'wn upon me for my statue, my hermaphrodite, my gaUery, and twenty other things, for which I am la^wfuUy your debtor. I must teU you one thing, that I ¦wUl not say a word to my lord of this Argosie, as Shakspeare caUs his costly ships, tiU it is arrived, for he -wiU tiemble for his Dominichin, and think it -wUl not come safe in aU this company — ^by the way, -wiU a captain of a man-of-war care to take aU ? We were talking over Italy last night : my lord protests, that ff he thought he had strength, he would see Florence, Bologna, and Rome, by way of MarseUles, to Leghorn. You may imagine how I gave in to such a jaunt. I don't set my heart upon it, because I think he cannot do it ; but ff he does, I promise you, you shaU be his Cicerone. I deHght in the gaUantiy of my Princess's brother.' I -wiU teU you what, ff the ItaHans don't take care, they -wUl grow as brave and as -wrong-headed as thefr neighbours. Oh ! how shaU I do about -writing to her ? WeU, ff I can, I wiU be bold, and -write to her to-night. I have no idea what the two minerals are that you mention, but I wiU inqufre, and ff there are such, you shaU have them ; and gold and sUver, ff they grow in this land ; for I am sure I am deep enough in your debt. Adieu ! P.S. It won't do ! I have tried to -write, but you would bless your seff to see what stuff I have been forging for haff an hour, and have not waded through three Hnes of paper. I have totaUy forgot my ItaHan, and ff she -wUl but have prudence enough to support the loss of a correspondence, which was long since worn threadbare, we will come to as decent a silence as may be. ' Signer Capponi, brother of Madame Grifoni.— Walpole. 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 287 110. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Monday, April 4, 1743. I HAD my pen in my hand aU last Thursday morm'ng, to -write to you, but my pen had nothing to say. I would make it do something to-day, though what -wUl come of it, I don't conceive. They say, the King does not go abroad : we know nothing about our army. I suppose it is gone to blockade Egra, and to not take Prague, as it has been the fashion for everybody to send thefr army to do these three years. The officers in parHament are not gone yet. We have nothing to do, but I beHeve the ministry have something for us to do, for we are continuaUy adjourned, but not prorogued. They talk of marr)ing Princess CaroHne and Louisa to the future Kings of Sweden and Denmark ; but ff the latter' is King of both, I don't apprehend that he is to marry both the Princesses in his double capacity. Herring, of Bangor, the youngest bishop, is named to the see of York. It looks as ff the bench thought the church going out of fashion ; for two or three' of them have refused this mitie. Next Thursday we are to be entertained -with a pompous parade fbr the burial of old Princess Buckingham. They have invited ten peeresses to walk ; aU somehow or other dashed -with blood-royal, and rather than not have King James's daughter attended by princesses, they have fished out two or three countesses descended from his competitor Monmouth. There, I am at the end of my teU ! H I -write on, it must be to ask questions. I would ask why Mr. Chute has left me off ? but when he sees what a frippery correspondent I am, he wiU scarce be in haste to renew -with me again. I reaUy don't know why I am so dry ; mine used to be the pen of a ready -writer, but whist seems to have stietched its leaden wand over me, too, who have nothing to do -with it. I am tiying to set up the noble game of bUboquet against it, and composing a grammar in opposition to Mr. Hoyle's. You -wiU some day or other see an advertisement in the papers, to teU you where it may be bought, and that ladies may be waited upon by the author at thefr houses, to receive any further dfrections. I am ' There was a party at thia time iu Sweden, who tried to choose the Prince Royal of Denmark for successor to King Frederick of Sweden, — Walpole, ' Dr. Wilcox, Bishop of Rochester, and . Dr. Sherlock, Bishop of Salisbury : the latter afterwarda accepted the See of London. — Walpolk. 238 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743. reaUy ashamed to send this scantHng of paper by the post, over so many seas and mountains : it seems as impertinent as the commission which Prior gave to the winds, Lybs must fly south, and Eurus east, For jewels for her neck and breast. Indeed, one would take you for my Chloe, when one looks on this modicum of gUt paper, which resembles a billet-doux more than a letter to a minister. But you must take it as the -widow's mite, and since the death of my spouse, poor Mr. News, I cannot afford such large doles as formerly. Adieu ! my dear chUd, I am yours ever, from a qufre of the largest foolscap to a vessel of the smallest gilt. 111. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, April 14, 1743. This has been a noble week ; I have received three letters at once from you. I am ashamed when I reflect on the poverty of my own! but what can one do ? I don't sell you my news, and therefore should not be excusable to invent. I -wish we don't grow to have more news ! Our poHtics, which have not always been the most in earnest, now begin to take a very serious tum. Our army is wading over the Rhine, up to thefr middles in snow. I hope they -wUl be thawed before thefr retum : but they have gone through excessive hardships. The King sends sis thousand more of his Hanoverians at his o-wn expense : this -wUl be popular — and the six thousand Hessians march too. AU this -wUl compose an army considerable enough to be a great loss ff they miscarry. The King certainly goes abroad in less than a fortnight. He takes the Duke [of Cumberland] -with him to Hanover, who from thence goes dfrectly to the army. The Court -wUl not be great: the King takes only Lord Carteret, the Duke of Richmond, Master of the Horse, and Lord Holdemess and Lord Harcourt,' for the bedchamber. The Duchesses of Richmond and Marlborough,' and plump Carteret,' go to the Hague. His Royal Highness is not Regent: there are to be fourteen. The ' Simon, second Viacount Harcourt, created an earl in 1749 ; in 1768 appointed ambaasador at Paris, and in 1769 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He was accidentally drowned in a weU in his park at Nuneham in 1777. — Wright. ' Elizabeth Trevor, daughter of Thomas Lord Trevor, wife of Charles Spencer, Duke of Marlborough. She died in 1761,— Wright. ^ Frances, only daughter of Sir Robert Worseley, first wife of Lord Carteret [aee p. 110].— Walpolb. 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 239 Earl of Bath and Mr. Pelham, neither of them in regency-posts, are to be of the number. I have read your letters about Mystery to Sir Robert. He denies absolutely ha-ving ever had transactions -with King Theodore, and is amazed Lord Carteret can ; which he can't help thinking but he must, by the inteUigence about Lady Walpole. Now I can conceive aU that affected friendship for Richcourt ! She must have meant to return to England by Richcourt's interest with Touissant' — and then where was her friendship ? You are quite in the right not to have engaged -with King Theodore : your character is not Furibondo. Sir R. entfrely disapproves aU Mysterious dealings ; he thinks Furibondo most bad and most improper, and always did. You mistook me about Lady Walpole's Lord — I meant Quarendon, who is now Earl of Litchfield, by his father's death, which I mentioned. I think her lucky in Sturge's death, and him lucky in dying. He had outHved resentment ; I think had almost Hved to be pitied. I forgot to thank you about the model, which I should have been sorry to have missed. I long for aU the things, and my Lord more. Am I not to have a bUl of lading, or how ? I never say anything of the Pomfrets, because in the great city of London the Countess's foUies do not make the same figure as they did in Httle Florence. Besides, there are such numbers here who have such equal pretensions to be absurd, that one is scarce aware of particular ridicules. I reaUy don't know whether Vanneschi be dead ; he married some low EngHsh woman, who is kept by AmorevoH; so the Abbate turned the opera every way to his profit. As to Bonducci,' I don't think I could serve him ; for I have no interest with the Lords Middlesex and Holdemess, the two sole managers. Nor ff I had, would I employ it, to bring over more ruin to the Operas. Gentlemen dfrectors, -with favourite abb^s and favourite mistiesses, have almost overturned the thing in England. You -wUl plead my want of interest to Mr. Smith ' too : besides, we had Bufos here once, and from not understanding the language, people thought it a duU kind of dumb show. We are next Tuesday to have the Miserere of Rome. ' First minister of the Great Duke. — Walpolb. "^ Bonducci was a Florentine Abbg, who translated some of Pope's works into Italian, — Walpole. ^ The English Consul at Venice. — Walpole, Joseph Smith, Esq., when Consul at Venice, collected and imported many specimens of Canaletti's pencil into England. The Library of Consul Smith was the foundation of King George Ill's Library now in the British Muaeum. See p. 307. — Cunningham 240 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745. It must be curious ! the finest piece of vocal music in the world, to be performed by three good voices, and forty bad ones, from Oxford, Canterbury, and the farces ! There is a new subscription formed for an Opera next year, to be carried on by the Bilettanti, a club,' for which the nominal quaHfication is ha-ving been in Italy, and the real one, being drunk : the two chiefs are Lord Middlesex and Sfr Francis Dashwood, who were seldom sober the whole time they were in Italy. The ParHament rises next week : everybody is going out of to-wn. My Lord goes the ffrst week in May; but I shaU reprieve myseff tiU towards August. DuU as London is in summer, there is always more company in it than in any one place in the country. I hate the country : I am past the shepherdly age of groves and streams, and am not arrived at that of hating everything but what I do myseff, as buUding and planting. Adieu ! 112. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, April 25, 1743. Nay, but it is serious ! the King is gone, and the Duke -with him. The latter actuaUy to the army. They must sow laurels, ff they design to reap any ; for there are no conquests forward enough for them to come just in time and finish. The French have reheved Egra and cut to pieces two of the best Austrian regiments, the cufrassiers. This is ugly ! We are sure, you know, of beating the French always in France and Flanders ; but I don't hear that the heralds have produced any precedents for our conquering them on the other side the Rhine.' We at home may be excused for trembling at the arrival of every post : I am sure I shaU. If I were a woman, I should support my fears -with more dignity ; for ff one did lose a husband or a lover, there are those becoming comforts, weeds and cypresses, jointures and weeping cupids ; but I have only a friend or two to lose, and there are no ornamental substitutes settled, to be one's proxy for that sort of grief. One has not the satisfaction of fixing a day for receiving -visits of consolation from a thousand people ' The Dilettanti Club stiU exists under the name of the DUettanti Society : but the qualifications for election are no longer what Walpole describes them to have been. The great room of the society at the Thatched House Tavern, in St. James's Street, contains two fine conversation portrait pieces by Sir Joshua Reynolds, painted in the manner of Paul Veronese. — Cunningham. ' Walpole seems to have forgotten the battle of Blenheim. — Dover. 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 241 whom one don't love, because one has lost the only person one did love. This is a new situation, and I don't Hke it. You -wiU see the Regency in the newspapers. I think the Prince might have been of it when my Lord Gower is. I don't think the latter more Jacobite than his Royal Highness. The Prince is to come to to-wn every Sunday fortnight to hold dra-wing- rooms ; the Princesses stay aU the summer at St. James's — would I did ! but I go in three weeks to Norfolk ; the oiUy place that could make me -wish to Hve at St. James's. My Lord has pressed me so much, that I could not -with decency refuse : he is going to furnish and hang his picture-gallery, and wants me. I can't help •wishing that I had never kno-wn a Guide from a Teniers : but who could ever suspect any connexion between painting and the -wilds of NorfoUc? Princess Louisa's contract -with the Prince of Denmark was signed the morning before the King went ; but I don't hear when she goes. Poor Caroline misses her man of Lubeck,' by his missing the cro-wn of Sweden. I must teU you an odd thing that happened yesterday at Leicester- House. The Prince's children were in the cfrcle : Lady Augusta ' heard somebody caU Sfr Robert Rich by his name. She concluded there was but one Sfr Robert in the world, and taking him for Lord Orford, the chUd went staring up to hfrn, and said, " Pray, where is your blue string ? and pray what has become of your fat beUy ? " ' Did one ever hear of a more royal education, than to have rung this mob cant in the child's ears tUl it had made this impression on her ! Lord Stafford" is come over to marry Miss CantiUon, a vast fortune, of his o-wn reHgion. She is daughter of the CantUlon who was robbed and murdered, and had his house burned by his cook * a few ' Adolphus Frederick of Holstein, Bishop of Lubeck, was elected successor, and did succeed to the crown of Sweden. He married the Princeaa Louisa Ulrica of Prussia. — Walpole. ' Afterwards Duchesa of Brunawick. — Dover. ' The palace alluaions to the corpulency of Sir Robert were numerous enough — and here Lord Hervey's Memoirs (i. 476, and elsewhere) curiously confirm the accuracy of Walpole. Sir Robert was a Knight of the Garter, and in the Ballads and Pasquin ades of the time is commonly called Sir Blue String. — Cunningham. ¦* WUliam Matthias Stafford Howard, third Earl of Stafford, died 1761.— Cunningham. ' Cantillon waa a Paris wine-merchant and banker, who had been engaged w;th Law in the Missiaaippi scheme. He afterwards brought his richea to England and aettled in thia country. In May, 1734, some of his servants, headed by his cook, con- apired to murder him, knowing that he kept large sums of money in his house. They vou r. a 242 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743. years ago [1734]. She is as ugly as he ; but when she comes to Paris, and wears a good deal of rouge, and a separate apartment, who knows but she may be a beauty ! There is no teUing what a woman is, whUe she is as she is. There is a great fracas in Ireland in a noble famUy or two, height ened by a pretty strong cfrcumstance of Iricism. A Lord Belfield' married a very handsome daughter of a Lord Molesworth.' A certain Arthur Rochfort, who happened to be acquainted in the famUy, by being Lord Belfield's own brother, looked on this woman, and saw she was fair. These ingenious people, that thefr history might not be discovered, corresponded under feigned names — And what names do you think they chose ? — SUvia and PhUander ! Only the very same that Lord Grey' and his sister-in-law took upon a paraUel occasion, and which are printed in thefr letters ! Patapan sits to Wootton" to-morrow for his picture. He is to have a triumphal arch at a distance, to signify his Roman birth, and his ha-ving barked at thousands of Frenchmen in the very heart of Paris. If you can think of a good ItaHan motto appHcable to any part of his history send it me. If not, he shaU have this antique one — ^for I reckon him a senator of Rome, while Rome survived, — " 0, et Praesidium et dulce decus meum ! " He is -writing an Ode on the future campaign of this summer ; it is dated from his viUa, where he never was, and begins truly in the classic style, " WTiUe you, great Sir,'" &c. Adieu ! killed him, aud then set fire to the house ; but the fire was extinguished, and the body, with the wounds upon it, found. The cook fled beyond sea ; but, in December, three of his associates were tried at the Old Bailey for the murder, and acquitted. — Wright. ' Robert Rochfort, created Lord Belfield, in Ireland, 1737, Viscount Belfield in 1761, and Earl of Belvedere in 1756. His second wife, whom he married in 1736, waa the Hon. Mary Molesworth. — Dover. ' Richard, third Viscount Molesworth, in Ireland. He had been aide-de-camp to the Great Duke of Marlborough, and in that capacity distinguished himself greatly at the battle of Ramilies. He became afterwards master-general of the ordnance in Ireland, and commander of the forcea in that kingdom, and a field-marshal. He died in 1758. — Dover. ^ Forde, the infamous Lord Grey of Werke, and his sister-in-law. Lady Henrietta Berkeley, whose " Love Letters," under these romantic names, were published in three small volumes. They are supposed to have been compiled by Mra. Behn. — Dover. " John Wootton, the Sir Edward Landseerof England between 1740 and 1760. II9 died in 1766. Wootton'a picture of Patapan sold at the Strawberry HiU sale for it. — Cunningham. * " While you great patron of mankind, sustain." — Pope to Augustus, Cunningham. 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 24J 113. TO SIR HORACE MANN. May 4, 1713. The King was detained four or five days at Sheerness ; but yesterday we heard that he was got to Helvoetsluys. They talk of an inter-view between bim and his nephew of Prussia — I never knew any advantage result from such conferences. We expect to hear of the French attacking our army, though there are accounts of thefr retiring, which would necessarUy produce a peace — I hope so ! I don't Hke to be at the eve, even of an Agincourt ; that, you know, every EngHshman is bound in faith to expect ; besides, they say my Lord Stair has in his pocket, from the records of the Tower, the original patent, empowering us always to conquer. I am told that Marshal NoaUles is as mad as Marshal Stafr. Heavens ! twice fifty thousand men trusted to two mad captains, -without one Dr. Monro' over them ! I am sorry I could give you so Httle information about King Theodore ; but my lord knew nothing of him, and as Httle of any connexion between Lord Carteret and him. I am sorry you have bim on your hands. He quite mistakes his province : an adventurer should come hither ; ^ this is the soU for mobs and patriots ; it is the country of the world to make one's fortune : 'with parts never so scanty, one's dulness is not discovered, nor one's dishonesty, tiU one obtains the post one wanted — and then, ff they do come to Hght — why, one slinks into one's green velvet bag,' and Hes so snug ! I don't approve of your hinting at the falsehoods" of Stosch's inteUigence ; nobody regards it but the King ; it pleases him — e basta. ' Dr. James Monro, Senior Physician to Bridewell and Bethlehem Hospitals. He died Nov. 3, 1762— " Those walls where Folly holds her throne. And laugha to think Monroe would take her down." — Pope. Cunningham. * He afterwards came to England, where he suffered much from poverty and desti tution, and was finally arrested by his creditors and confined in the King's Bench prison. He was released from thence under the Insolvent Act, having registered the kingdom of Corsica for the use of his creditors. Shortly after this event he died, December 11, 1756, and waa buried in the churchyard of St. Anne'e, Soho, where Horace Walpole erected a marble slab to his memory. He was an adventurer, whose name waa Theodore Anthony, Baron Newhoff, and was born at Metz in 1690. Walpole, who had aeen him, describes him aa " a comely, middle-sized man, very reserved, and affecting much dignity." — Dover. ' The Secretaries of State and Lord Treasurer carry their papers in a green velvet bag. — Walpole. * Stosch [see p. 73] used to pretend to send over an exact journal of the life of tbe 244 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743. I was not in the House at Vernon's frantic speech ; ' but I know he made it, and have heard him pronounce several such : but he has worn out even laughter, and did not make impression enough on me to remember tUl the next post that he had spoken. I gave your brother the tianslated paper ; he wiU take care of it. Ceretesi is gone to Flanders -with Lord Holdemess. Poor creature ! he was reduced, before he went, to borrow five guineas of Sir Francis Dashwood. How -wiU he ever scramble back to Florence? We are Hkely at last to have no Opera next year : Handel has had a palsy, and can't compose ; and the Duke of Dorset has set himseff strenuously to oppose it, as Lord Middlesex is the impresario, and must ruin the house of Sack-viUe by a course of these foUies. Besides what he -wiU lose this year, he has not paid his share to the losses of the last ; and yet is singly undertaking another for next season, -with the almost certainty of losing between four or five thousand pounds, to which the deficiencies of the Opera generaUy amount now. The Duke of Dorset has desfred the King not to subscribe ; but Lord Middlesex is so obstinate, that this -wUl probably only make him lose a thousand pounds more. The Freemasons are in so low repute now in England, that one has scarce heard the proceedings at Vienna against them mentioned. I beHeve nothing but a persecution could bring them into vogue again here. You know, as great as our foUies are, we even grow tired of them, and are always changing. 114. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, May 12, 1743. It is a fortnight since I got any of your letters, but I -wiU expect two at once. I don't teU you by way of news, because you -wiU have had expresses, but I must talk of the great Austrian -victory ! ' We have not heard the exact particulars yet, nor whether it was Keven- huUer or Lobkowitz who beat the Bavarians; but their general, Pretender and hia aons, though he had been sent out of Rome at the Pretender's request, and must have had very bad, or no intelligence, of what passed in that family. — Walpole. ' Admiral Vernon had recently said, in the House of Commons, that " there was not, on thia side hell, a nation so burthened with taxes as England." — Wright. ' There was no great victory this year tUl the battle of Dettingen, which took place in June ; but the Austrians obtained many advantages during the spring over the Bavarians and the French, and obliged the latter to re-croaa the Rhine.— Dover. 1748.J TO SIR HORACE MANN. 246 Minucci, is prisoner. At first, they said Seckendorffe was too ; I am glad he is not : poor man, he has suffered enough by the house of Austria ! But my joy is beyond the common, for I flatter myself this -victory -wUl save us one : we talk of nothing but its producing a peace, and then one's friends -wiU retum. The Duchess of Kendal ' is dead — eighty-five years old ; she was a year older than her late King. Her riches were immense ; but I beHeve my Lord Chesterfield -wUl get nothing by her death — ^but his -wffe : ' she Hved in the house -with the duchess, where he had played away aU his credit. Hough,' the good old Bishop of Worcester, is dead too. I have been looking at the " Fathers in God " that have been fiocking over the way this morning to Mr. PeUiam, who is just come to his new house. This is absolutely the ministerial street: Carteret has a house here too ; and Lord Bath seems to have lost his chance by quitting this street. Old Marlborough has made a good story of the latter ; she says, that when he found he could not get the Privy Seal, he begged that at least they would offer it to him, and upon his honour he would not accept it, but would plead his vow of never taking a place ; in which she says they humoured him. The truth is, Lord Carteret did hint an offer to him, upon which he went with a nolo episcopari to the King — he bounced, and said, " Why I never offered it to you : " upon which he recommended my Lord OarHsle, -with equal success. Just before the King went, he asked my Lord Carteret, " WeU, when am I to get rid of those feUows in the Treasury ? " They are on so low a foot, that somebody said Sandys had hired a stand of hackney-coaches, to look Hke a levee. Lord Conway has begged me to send you a commission, which you -wiU obHge me much by executing. It is to send him three Pistoia barrels for guns : two of them, of two feet and a haff in the barrel in length ; the smaUest of the inclosed buttons to be the size of the bore, hole, or caHbre, of the two guns. The thfrd ban-el to be three ' Erengard de Schulemberg, the German miatress of George I. — Cunningham. ^ Meluaina de Schulemberg, Countess of Walsingham [died 1778], niece of the Duchess of Kendal, and her heiress. — Walpolb. She was the daughter, it ia aua- pected, of George I. — Cunningham. ^ Hough distinguished himself early in his life by his resistance to the arbitrary proceedings of James II. against Magdalen College, Oxford, of which he was the pre sident. Pope, with much justice, speaks of "Hough's unsullied mitre." — Dovbr. There is a fine monument to his memory, by Roubiliac, in Worcester Cathedral. — Cunningham. 246 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743. feet and an inch in length ; the largest of these buttons to be the bore of it : these feet are EngHsh measure. You -wUl be so good to let me know the price of them. There has happened a comical cfrcumstance at Leicester House ; one of the Prince's coachmen, who used to drive the Maids of Honour, was so sick of them, that he has left his son three hundred pounds, upon condition that he never marries a Maid of Honour ! Our journey to Houghton is fixed to Saturday se'nnight; 'tis unpleasant, but I flatter myseff that I shaU get away in the begin ning of August. Adieu ! 115. TO SIR HORACE MANN. May 19, 1743. I AM just come tfred from a famUy dinner at the Master of tie Rolls ; ' but I have received two letters from you since my last, and -wUl -write to vou, though my head aches with maiden sisters' healths, forms, and Devonshfre and NorfoUc. With yours I received one from Mr. Chute, for which I thank him a thousand times, and wUl answer as soon as I get to Houghton. Monday is fixed peremp torily, tiiough we have had no rain this month ; but we travel by the day of the week, not by the day of the sky. We are fri more confusion than we care to own. There lately came up a Highland regiment from Scotiand, to be sent abroad. One heard of notiUng but thefr good discipHne and quiet disposifaon^ When the day came for thefr gomg to the water-side, an hundred and nfrie of them mutinied, and marched away m a body, ^ey did not care to go where it would not be equivocal for what Kmg they fought. Three companies of dragoons are sent after them, it you happen to hear of any risHig, don't be surprised— I shaU not, I assure you. Sfr Robert Monroe, thefr Heutenant-colonel, betore thefr leavfrig Scotiand, asked some of the IVIinistry, "But suppose there should be any rebeUion fri Scotland, what should we do tor these eight hundred men ? " It was answered, " Why, there would be eight hundred fewer rebels there." " Utor permisso, caudseque piloa ut equinse Paulatim vello ; demo unum, demo etiam unum, Dum — " ' WUliam Fortescue, a relation of Margaret Lady Walpole.— Walpolb. Bettei known aa the friend of Pope, the " counsel learned in the law," of Pope's Imiiaiw of Horace." He died in 1749.— Cunningham. 1743.J TO SIR HORACE MANN. 247 My dear chUd, I am surprised to find you enter so seriously into earnest ideas of my Lord's passing into Italy ! Could you think (however he, you, or I might -wish it) that there could be any pro babUity of it ? Can you think his age could endure it, or him so indifferent, so totally disministered, as to leave aU thoughts of what he has been, and ramble, Hke a boy, after pictures and statues ? Don't expect it. We had heard of the Duke of Modena's command before I had your letter. I am glad, for the sake of the Duchess, as she is to retum to France. I never saw anybody -wish anything more ! and indeed, how can one figure any particle of pleasure happening to a daughter of the Regent,' and a favourite daughter too, fuU of -wit and joy, buried in a dirty, dull ItaHan duchy, -with an ugly, formal object for a husband, and two uncouth sister-princesses for eternal companions ? I am so near the eve of going into Norfolk, that I imagine myseff something in her situation, and married to some Hammond or Hoste,' who is Duke of Wootton or Darsingham. I remember in the fafry tales where a yeUow dwarf steals a princess, and shows her his duchy, of which he is very proud : among the blessings of grandeur, of which he makes her mistress, there is a most beautiful ass for her paffrey, a blooming meadow of nettles and thistles to walk in, and a fine troubled ditch to slake her thirst, after either of the above-mentioned exercises. Adieu ! My next wiU be dated from some of the doleful castles in the principaHty of your forlorn friend, the duchy of Reepham. 116. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Houghton, June 4, 1743. I WROTE this week to Mr. Chute, addressed to you ; I could not afford two letters in one post from the country, and in the dead of summer. I have received one from you of May 21st, since I came do-wn. I must teU you a smart dialogue between your father and me the morning we left London : he came to -wish my Lord a good ' Mademoiselle de Valois, who had made herself notorious during the regency of her father, by her intrigue with the Duke of RicheUeu. She consented to marry the Duke of Modena, in order to obtiiin the Uberty of her lover, who was confined in the BastUIe for conspiring against the Regent. The Duke of Richelieu, iu return, fol lowed her afterwards secretly to Modena. — Dover. 2 The Hammonds and Hostes are two Norfolk famiUes, nearly alUed to the Walpoles.— Walpole. 248 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. py^j jo oTiieT : I found Mm in the parlour. " Sfr," said he, " I may ask you Lo-w my son does ; I think you hear from him frequently : I never do." I repHed, " Sfr, I -write him kind answers ; pray do you do so ? " He coloured, and said -with a haff mutter, "Perhaps I have Hved too long for hfrn ! " I answered shortly, " Perhaps yon have." My dear ehUd, I beg your pardon, but I could not help this. When one loves anybody, one can't help being warm for them at a fafr opportunity. Dr. Bland and Mr. Legge were presenl^- your father could have stabbed me. I told your brother Gal, who was glad. We are as private here as ff we were in devotion : there is nobody with us now bnt Lord Edgecumbe and his son. The Duke of Grafton and Mr. Pelham come next week, and I hope Lord lincok -with them. Poor Lady Sophia [Fermor] is at the gasp of her hopes; aU is concluded for his match -with Miss Pelham. It is not to be till the -winter. He is to have aU Mr. Pelham and the Duke of Newcastie can give or settle ; unless Lady Catherine [Pelham] should produce a son, or the Duchess should die, and the Duke marry again. Earl Poulett' is dead, and makes vacant another riband. I imagine Lord Carteret -wiU have one : Lord Bath -wUl ask it. I tMnk they should give Prince Charles ' one of the two, for aU the trouble he saves us. The papers talk of nothing but a suspension of arms : it seems toward, for at least we hear of no battie, though there are so many armies looking at one another. Old Sfr Charles Wager 'is dead at last, and has left the fairest character. I can't help having a Httle private comfort, to think that Goldsworthy — ^but there is no danger. Madox of St. Asaph has -wriggled himseff into the see of Worcester. He makes haste ; I remember bim only domestic chaplain to the late Bishop of Chichester [Waddington]. Durham is not dead, as I beHeve I told you from a false report. You teU me of dining with Madame de Modene," but you don|t teU me of being charmed with her. I Hke her excessively— I don t mean her person, for she is as plump as the late Queen [OarohneJ ; ' John, first Eari Poulett, knight of the garter He died, aged upwards of eiglitj, on the 28th May, 1743.— Dover. ^ Prince Charles of Lorraine, the Queen of Hungary's general againat the French. — Dover. ' Admiral Sir Charles Wager, died 24th May, 1743. There is a monument to him in Westminster Abbey by Scheemakers.- Cunningham. " It was not the Duchess of Modena, but the Duke's second sister, who went to Florence. — Walpole. 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 249 but sure her face is fine ; her eyes vastiy fine ! and then she is as agreeable as one should expect the Regent's daughter to be. The Princess and she must have been an admfrable contrast : one has aU the good breeding of a French court, and the latter aU the ease of it. I have almost a mind to go to Paris to see her. She was so excessively civU to me. You don't teU me ff the Pucci goes into France -with her. I Hke the Genoese seUing Corsica ! I think we should foUow their example and seU France ; we have about as good a title, and very near as much possession. At how much may they value Corsica ? at the rate of islands, it can't go for much. Charles the Second sold Great Britain and Ireland to Louis XIV. for 300,000^. a-year, and that was reckoned extravagantly dear. Lord BoHngbroke took a single hundred thousand for them, when they were in much better repair. We hear to-day that the King goes to the army on the 15th, N.S. that is, to-day ; but I don't teU it you for certain. There has been much said against his commanding it, as it is only an army of succour, and not acting as principal in the cause. In my opinion, his com manding -wiU depend upon the more or less probabUity of its acting at all. Adieu ! 117. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Houghton, June 10, 1743. You must not expect me to write you a very composed, careless letter ; my spirits are aU in agitation ! I am at the eve of a post that may bring me the most dreadful news ! we expect to-morrow the news of a decisive battle. Oh ; ff you have any friend there, think what apprehensions I ' must have of such a post ! By yester day's letters our army was -within eight miles of the French, who have had repeated orders to attack them. Lord Stafr and Marshal NoaUles both think themselves superior, and have pressed for leave to fight. The latter caU themselves fourscore thousand ; ours sixty. Mr. Pelham and Lord Lincoln come to Houghton to-day, so we are sure of hearing as soon as possible, ff anything has happened. By this time the King must be with them. My fears for one or two ' Mr Conway, the most intimate friend of Horace Walpole, was now serving in Lord Stair's army. — Dover. 250 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [174a friends have spoUed me for any English hopes — I cannot dwindle away the French army — every man in it appears to my imagination as big as the sons of Anak ! I am conjuring up the ghosts of aU who have perished by French ambition, and am deaHng out com missions to these specties, " To sit heavy on their souls to-morrow I " Alas ! perhaps that glorious to-morrow was a dismal yesterday I at least, perhaps it was to me ! The genius of England might be a mere mercenary man of this world, and employed aU his attention to tum aside cannon-baUs from my Lord Stafr, to give new edge to his new Marlborough's sword : was plotting glory for my Lord Carteret, or was thinking of furnishing his o-wn apartment in Westminster HaU -with a new set of tiophies — who would then take care of Iilr. Conway ? You, who are a minister, -wiU see aU this in stUl another Hght, wiU fear our defeat, and -wiU foresee the train of consequences. — Why, they may be wondrous ugly ; but till I know what I have to think about my o-wn friends, I cannot be -wise in my generation. I shaU now only answer your letter ; for tUl I have read to-morrow's post, I have no thoughts but of a battle. I am angry at your thinking that I can disHke to receive two or three of your letters at once. Do you take me for a chUd, and imagine, that though I Hke one plum-tart, two may make me sick ? I now get them regularly ; so I do but receive them, I am easy. You are mistaken about the gaUery; so far from unfumishing any part of the house, there are several pictures undisposed of, besides numbers at Lord Walpole's, at the Exchequer, at Chelsea, and at New Park [Richmond]. Lord Walpole has taken a dozen to Stanno, a smaU house, about four mUes fi'om hence, where he Hves -with my Lady Walpole's vicegerent.' You may imagine that her deputies are no fitter than she is to come where there is a modest, unmarried gfrl.' I -wUl -write to London for the Lffe of Theodore, though you may depend upon its being a Grub Street piece, -without one true fact. Don't let it prevent your undertaking his Memofrs. Yet I should ' Miss Norsa ; she was a Jewess, and had been a singer. — Walpole. There is a print of her " from a acarce etching in the collection of Sir WiUiam Musgrave." Lord Walpole took her off the stage, with the concurrence of her parents, to whom he gave a bond, by which he engaged to marry her on the demise of his wife. His wife outlived him. — Cunningham. ' Lady Maria Walpole.— Walpole. Afterwards LadyMary ChurchUl.— Cunningham. 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 261 imagine Mrs. Heywood' or Mrs. Behn' were fitter to write his history. How sHghtly you talk of Prince Charles's ¦victory at Brunau ! We thought it of vast consequence ; so it was. He took three posts afterwards, and has since beaten the Prince of Conti, and kiUed two thousand men. Prince Charles civUly returned him his baggage. The French in Bavaria are quite dispfrited — poor wretches ; how one hates to -wish so iU as one does to fourscore thousand men ! There is yet no news of the Pembroke. The Dominichin has a post of honour reserved in the gaUery. My Lord says, as to that Dalton's Raphael, he can say nothing -without some particular description of the picture and the size, and some hint at the price, which you have promised to get. I leave the residue of my paper for to-morrow : I tiemble, lest I be forced to finish it abruptly ! I forgot to teU you that I left a particular commission -with my brother Ned, who is at Chelsea, to get some tea-seed from the Physic Garden ; and he promised me too to go to Lord Islay, to know what cobolt and zingho' are, and where they are to be got. Saturday morning. The post is come : no battle ! Just as they were marching against the French, they received orders from Hanover not to engage, for the Queen's generals thought they were inferior, and were positive against fighting. Lord Stafr, -with only the EngHsh, proceeded, and drew out in order ; but though the French were then so vastly superior, they did not attack him. The King is now at the army, and, they say, -wUl endeavour to make the Austrians fight. It -wUl make great confusion here ff they do not. The French are evacuating Bavaria as fast as possible, and seem to intend to join aU thefr force together. I shaU stUl dread aU the events of this campaign. Adieu ! ' Eliza Haywood, a voluminous writer of indifferent novels; of which the beat known is one called " Betsy Thoughtless." She was also authoress of a work entitled "The Female Spectator" Mrs. Heywood was born in 1693, and died in 1766. — Dover. She figures indecently enough in the "Dunciad," B. ii. — Cunningham. '^ Mrs. Afra Behn [died 1689], a woman whose character and writings were equally incorrect. Of her plays, which were seventeen in number. Pope says, " The stage how loosely does Astrea tread. Who fairly puts all characters to bed." Her novels and other productions were also marked with similar characteristics. — Dover. ' Cobalt and zinc, two metallic aubatances ; the former compoaed of silver, copper, »nd arsenic, the latter of tin and iron. — Dover. 252 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743. 118. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Houghton, June 20, 1743. I HAVE painted the Raphael to my lord almost as fine as Raphael himseff could ; but he -wUl not think of it : he wiU not give a thousand guineas for what he never saw.' I -wish I could persuade him. For the other hands, he has afready fine ones of every one of them. There are yet no news of the " Pembroke : " we grow impatient. I have made a short tour to Euston [in Suffolk] this week with the Duke of Grafton, who came over from thence -with Lord lancoln and Mr. Pelham. Lord Lovel and Mr. Coke carried me and Drought me back. It is one of the most admired seats in England — in my opinion, because Kent has a most absolute disposition of it. Kent is now so fashionable, that, Hke Addison's Liberty, he " Can make bleak rocks and barren mountains smile." I beHeve the Duke -wishes he could make them green too. The house is large and bad ; it was buUt by Lord Arlington,' and stands, as aU old houses do for convenience of water and shelter, in a hole ; so it neither sees, nor is seen : he has no money to build another. The park is fine, the old woods excessively so : they are much grander than Mr. Kent's passion, clumps — that is, sticking a dozen trees here and there, tiU a la-wn looks Hke the ten of spades. Clumps have their beauty ; but in a great extent of country, how trifling to scatter arbours, where you should spread forests ! He is so unhappy in his heir apparent,' that he checks his hand in almost every thing ' The highest price Sir Robert Walpole gave for one picture was 630Z. for the Guide — the Doctors of the Church. — Cukntngham. " Henry Bonnet, Earl of Arlington, a famous minister in the reign of Charles IL — Cunningham. ' George, Earl of Euston, who died in the lifetime of his father. He has been already mentioned [p. 76] in the course of these lettera, upon the occaaion of hia marriage with Lady Dorothy Boyle, who died from hia ill-treatment of her. Upon a picture of Lady Dorothy at the Duke of Devonahire'a at Chiawick, ia the following touching inscription, written by her mother : — " Lady Dorothy Boyle, " Born May the 14th, 1724. She was the comfort and joy of her parents, the delight of all who knew her angelick temper, and the admiration of all who saw her beauty. " She was marry 'd October the 10th, 1741, and deUvered (by death) from misery, " May the 2nd, 1742. 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 268 he undertakes. Last week he heard a new exploit of his barbarity. A tenant of Lord Euston, in Northamptonshfre, brought him his rent ; the Lord said it wanted three and sixpence : the tenant begged he would examine the account, that it would prove exact — however, to content him, he would -wiUingly pay him the three and sixpence. Lord E. flew into a rage, and vowed he would -write to the Duke to have him turned out of a Httie place he has in the post-office of thirty pounds a-year. The poor man, who has six chUdren, and knew nothing of my Lord's being upon no terms of power -with his father, went home and shot himseff ! I know no syUable of news, but that my Lady Carteret is dead at Hanover, and Lord WUmington dying. So there wiU be to let a first minister's ladyship and a ffrst lordship of the Treasury. We have nothing from the army, though the King has now been there some time. .As new a thing as it is, we don't talk much of it. Adieu ! the famUy are gone a-fishing : I thought I stayed at home to -write to you, but I have so little to say that I don't beHeve you -wiU think so. 119. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Friday noon, June 29, 1743. I don't know what I -write — I am all a hurry of thoughts — a battle — a -victory ! [Battle of Dettingen] I dare not yet be glad — I know no particulars of my friends. This instant my Lord has had a messenger from the Duke of Newcastle, who has sent him a copy of Lord Carteret's letter from the field of battle. The King was in aU the heat of the ffre, and safe — the Duke [of Cumberland] is wounded in the caff of the leg, but sHghtly ; Due d'Aremberg in the breast ; General Clayton and Colonel Piers are the only officers of note said to be kiUed — ^here is aU my tiust ! The French passed the Mayne that morning ¦with twenty-five thousand men, and are driven back. We have lost two thousand, and they four — several of thefr general officers, and of the Maison du Roi, are taken prisoners : the battle lasted from ten in the morning tUl four. The Hanoverians behaved admirably. The ImperiaHsts' were the aggressors ; in " This picture was drawn seven weeks after her death (from memory) by her most affectionate mother, " Dorothy Burlington." — Dover. Compare Walpole to Mann, July 22, 1744, p. 316.— Cunninoham. ' The Bavarians. — Walpole. 264 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743. short, in all pubHc -views, it is aU that could be -vrished — the King in the action, and his son wounded — the Hanoverians beha^ving weU — the French beaten : what obloquy ¦wUl not aU this ¦wipe off? Triumph, and ¦write it to Rome ! I don't know what our numbers were ; I beHeve about thirty thousand, for there were twelve thousand Hes sians and Hanoverians who had not joined them. 0 ! in my hurry, I had forgot the place— you must talk of the battle of Dettingen ! After dinner. My chUd, I am caUing together aU my thoughts, and rejoice in this -victory as much as I dare ; for in the raptures of conquest, how dare I think that my Lord Carteret, or the rest of those who have written, thought just of whom I thought ? The post comes in to-morrow morning, but it is not sure that we shaU leam any particular certainties so soon as that. WeU ! how happy it is that the King has had such an opportunity of distinguishing himself ! ' what a figure he -wiU make ! They talked of its being below his dignity to command an auxiHary army : my Lord says it wiU not be thought below his dignity to have sought danger. These were the flower of the French troops : I flatter myseff they wUl tempt no more battles. Another such, and we might march from one end of France to the other. So we are in a French war, at least weU begun ! My Lord has been drinking the healths of Lord Stafr and Lord Carteret : he says, " since it is weU done, he does not care by whom it was done." He thinks differently from tho rest of the world : he thought from the first, that France never missed such an opportuiuty as when they undertook the German war, instead of joining -with Spain against us. If I hear any more to-morrow before the post goes out, I wiU let you know. TeU me ff this is the ffrst you hear of the -victory : I would fain be the first to give you so much pleasure. Saturday morning. WeU, my dear chUd, aU is safe ! I have not so much as an acquaintance hurt. The more we hear, the greater it turns out. Lord Cholmondeley writes my Lord from London, that we gained ' Frederick the Great, in his " Histoire de mon Temps," gives the following account of George II. at the battle of Dettingen. " The King waa on horseback, and rode forward- to reconnoitre the enemy : hia horse, frightened at the cannonading, ran away with hia Majesty, and nearly carried him into the midst of the French lines : fortunately, one of his attendants succeeded in stopping him. George then aban doned his horse, and fought on foot, at the head of his Hanoverian battalions. With his sword drawn, and his body placed in the attitude of a fencing-master who is about to make a lounge in carte, he continued to expose himself, without flinching, to the enemy's fire." — Dover. 1743.] TO MR. CHUTE. 266 the -victory -with only fifteen regiments, not eleven thousand men, and so not haff in number to the French. I fancy thefr soldiery behaved Ul, by the gaUantry of thefr officers ; for Ranby,' the King's private surgeon, -writes, that he alone has 150 officers of distinction desperately wounded under his care. Marquis Fenelon's son is among the prisoners, and says Marshal NoaUles is dangerously wounded : so is Due d'Aremberg. Honeywood's regiment sustained the attack, and are almost aU kiUed : his natural son has five wounds, and caimot Hve. The horse were pursuing when the letters came away, so there is no certain account of the slaughter. Lord Albemarle had his horse shot under him. In short, the victory is complete. There is no describing what one hears of the spirits and bravery of our men. One of them dressed himseff up in the belts of three officers, and swore he would wear them as long as he lived. Another ran up to Lord Carteret, who was in a coach near the action the whole time, and said, " Here, my Lord, do hold this watch for me ; I have just kiUed a French officer and taken it, and I -will go take another." Adieu ! my dear Sir : may the rest of the war be as glorious as the beginning ! to MR. chute. My dear Sir, I -wish you joy, and you -wish me joy, and Mr. Whithed, and Mr. Mann, and Mrs. Bos-ville, &c. Don't get drunk and get the gout. I expect to be drunk -with hogsheads of the Mayne-water, and -with odes to his Majesty and the Duke, and Te Deums. Patapan begs you -wiU get him a dispensation from Rome to go and hear the thanksgi-ving at St. Paul's. We are aU mad — drums, trumpets, bumpers, bonfires ! The mob are -wild, and cry, " Long Hve King George and the Duke of Cumberland, and Lord Stair and Lord Carteret, and General Clayton that's dead ! " My Lord Lovel says, " Thanks to the Gods that John^ has done his duty ! " Adieu ! my dear Dukes of Marlborough ! I am ever your John Duke of Marlborough. ' John Ranby, principal Serjeant aurgeon to the King. He attended Sir Robert Walpole in hia laat illneaa, and publiahed an account of hia case. He died in 1773 and was buried in Chelsea Hospital. — Cunningham. * John Bull. — Dover. 2.'-,6 HORACE WALPOLE'S I-ETTERS. [1748. 120. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Houghton, July 4, 1743. I HEAR no particular news here, and I don't pretend to send you the common news ; for as I must have it ffrst from London, you -wiU have it from thence sooner in the papers than in my letters. There have been great rejoicings for the -victory ; which I am con- -vinced is very considerable by the pains the Jacobites take to persuade it is not. My Lord Carteret's Hanoverian articles have much offended ; his express has been burlesqued a thousand ways. By aU the letters that arrive, the loss of the French turns out more considerable than by the first accounts : they have dressed up the battle into a -victory for themselves — I hope they -wiU always have such ! By thefr not having declared war -with us, one should think they intended a peace. It is aUowed that our fine horse did us no honour : the -victory was gained by the foot. Two of thefr princes of the blood, the Prince de Dombes, and the Count d'Eu ' his brother, were wounded, and several of their first nobUity. Our prisoners turn out but seventy-two officers, besides the private men ; and by the printed catalogue, I don't think many of great famUy. Marshal NoaUles' mortal wound is quite vanished, and Due d'Aremberg's shrunk to a very slight one. The King's glory remains in its ffrst bloom. Lord WUmington is dead. I beHeve the civU battle for his post' wiU be tough. Now we shaU see what service Lord Carteret's Hanoverians -wUl do him. You don't think the crisis unlucky for him, do you ? If you wanted a Treasury, should you choose to have been in Arlington Street,' or driving by the battle of Dettingen ? You may imagine our Court -wishes for Mr. PeUiam. I don't know any one who -wishes for Lord Bath but himseff — I beHeve that is a pretty substantial -wish. I have got the Lffe of King Theodore, but I don't know how to convey it — I -wUl inquire for some way. We are quite alone. You never saw anything so unlike as being here five months out of place, to the congresses of a fortnight in ' The two sons of the Duke du Maine, a natural aon, but legitimated, of Louis XIV. by Madame de Monteapan. — Wright. ' Wilmington waa First Lord of the Treasury. Pelham succeeded to the post. — Cunningham. ' Where Mr Pelham lived. — Walpole. 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 267 place ; but you know the " Justum et tenaeem propositi virum" can amuse himseff -without the " Civium ardor ! " As I have not so much dignity of character to fiU up my time, I could Hke a Httle more company. With aU this leisure, you may imagine that I might as weU be -writing an ode or so upon the -victory ; but as I caimot buUd upon the Laureat's place tiU I know whether Lord Carteret or Mr. Pelham -will carry the Treasury, I have bounded my compHments to a slender coUection of quotations against I should have any occasion for them. Here are some fine Hnes from Lord HaHfax's ' poem on the battle of the Boyne — " The King leads on, the King does all inflame. The King ; — and carries millions in the name." Then foUows a simUe about a deluge, which you may imagine ; but the next lines are very good : " So on the foe the firm battalions preat, And he, like the tenth wave, drove on the rest. Fierce, gallant, young, he shot through ev'ry place, Urging their flight, and hurrying on the chase, He hung upon their rear, or lighten'd in their face." The next are a magnificent compHment, and, as far as verse goes, to be sure very appHcable. " Stop, stop I brave Prince, allay that generous flame ; Enough is given to England and to Fame. Remember, Sir, you in the centre stand ; Europe's divided interests you command. All their designs uniting in your hand. Down from your throne descends the golden chain Which does the fabric of our world sustain. That once dissolved by any fatal stroke. The scheme of all our happiness is broke." Adieu ! my dear Sfr : pray for peace ! 121. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Houghton, July 11, 1713. The Pembroke is arrived ! Youi' brother sHpped a sHce of paper into a letter which he sent me from you the other day, -with those pleasant words, " The Pembroke is arrived." I am going to receive it. I shaU be in town tho end of this week, only stay there about ten days, and wait ou the Dommichin hither. Now I tremble ! If it ' Charlea Montagu, Earl of Halifa-x, the " Bnfo" of pope.— Wmght. 268 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743, should not stand the trial among the number of capital pictures here ! But it must : it -wUl. 0, sweet lady ! ' What shall I do about her letter ? I must answer it — and where to find a penful of ItaHan in the world, I know not. WeU, she must take what she can get : gold and sUver I have not, but what I have I give unto her. Do you say a vast deal of my concem for her Ulness, and that I could not find decom pounds and superlatives enough to express myseff. You never teU me a syUable from my sovereign lady the Princess : has she forgot me ? What is become of Prince Beauvau?' is he warring against us ? ShaU I -write to Mx. Conway to be very ci-vU to him for my sake, ff he is taken prisoner ? We expect another battle every day. BrogHo has joined NoaUles, and Prince Charles is on the Neckar. NoaUles says, " Qu'U a fait une foHe, mais qu'U est pret a la r^parer." There is great blame thro-wn on Baron Hton, the Hanoverian General, for ha-ving hindered the Guards from engaging. If they had, and the horse, who behaved -wretchedly, had done thefr duty, it is agreed that there would be no second engagement. The poor Duke of Cumberland is in a much worse way than was at first apprehended : his wound proves a bad one ; he is gross, and has had a shivering fit, which is often the forerunner of a mortification. There has been much thought of making knights-banneret, but I beHeve the scheme is laid aside ; for, in the ffrst place, they are never made but on the field of battle, and now it was not thought on tUl some days after ; and, besides, the King intended to make some who were not actuaUy in the battle. Adieu ! Possibly I may hear something m to-wn worth teUing you. 122. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, July 19, [1743.] Here am I come a-Dominichining ! and the first thing I hear is, that the Pembroke must perform quarantine fourteen days for coming from the Mediterranean, and a week airing. It is forty days, ff they bring the plague from SicUy. I -wUl bear this misfortune as heroicaUy as I can ; and considering I have London to bear it m, may possibly support it weU enough. The private letters from the army all talk of the King's going to ' Madame Grifoni. — Walpolk. - Son of Prince Craon.- AValpole. 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 269 Hanover, 2nd of August, N. S. If he should not, one shaU be no longer in pain for him ; for the French have repassed the Rhine, and think only of preparing against Prince Charles, who is marching sixty-two thousand men, fuU of conquest and revenge, to regain his o-wn country. I most cordiaUy wish him success, and that his bravery may recover what his abject brother gave up so tamely, and which he takes as Httle personal pains to regain. It is not at aU determined whether we are to carry the war into France. It is ridiculous enough ! we have the name of war with Spain, -without the thing ; and war with France -without the name ! The maiden heroes of the Guards are in great -wrath -with General Hton, who kept them out of harm's way. They caU him " the Confectioner," because he says he preserved them. The week before I left Houghton my father had a most dreadful accident : it had near been fatal ; but he escaped miraculously. He dined abroad, and went up to sleep. As he was coming do-wn again, not quite awakened, he was surprised at seeing the company through a glass-door which he had not observed : his foot sHpped, and he, who is now entfrely un-wieldy and helpless, feU at once do-wn the stafrs against the door, which, had it not been there, he had dashed himseff to pieces, into a stone haU. He cut his forehead two inches long to the pericranium, and another gash upon his temple ; but, most luckily, did himseff no other hm-t, and was quite weU again before I came away. I find Lord Stafford married to Miss CantUlon ; they are to live haff the year in London, haff in Paris. Lord Lincoln is soon to marry his cousin Miss Pelham : it ¦wiU be great joy to the whole house of Newcastle. There is no determination yet come about the Treasury. Most people -wish for Mr. PeUiam ; few for Lord Carteret ; none for Lord Bath. My Lady To-wnshend [Harrison] said an admirable thing the other day to this last : he was complaining much of a pain in his side — " Oh !" said she, " that can't be ; you have no side." I have a new Cabinet ' for my enamels and miiuatures just come home, which I am sure you would Hke : it is of rose-wood ; the doors inlaid -with carvings in ivory. I -wish you could see it ! Are you to be for ever ministerial sans relache ? Are you never to have ' A cabinet of rosewood, designed by Walpole himself. It is seen in the view ol "The Cabinet" in "The Tribune," and sold at the Strawberry HiU sale for 127/.— Cunningham 260 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743, leave to come and " settle your private affafrs," as the newspapers caU it ? A thousand loves to the Chutes. Does my sovereign lady yet remember me, or has she lost -with her eyes aU thought of me ? Adieu ! P.S. Princess Louisa goes soon to her young Denmark ; and Princess EmUy, it is now said, -wUl have the man of Lubeck. If he had missed the cro-wn of Sweden, he was to have taken Princess Caroline ; because, in his private capacity, he was not a competent match for the now-first daughter of England. He is extiemely handsome ; it is fifteen years since Princess EmUy was so. 123. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, July 31, 1743. If I went by my last week's reason for not writing to you, 1 should miss this post too, for I have no more to teU you than I had then ; but at that rate, there would be great vacuums in our cor respondence. I am stiU here, waiting for the Dominichin and the rest of the things. I have incredible trouble about them, for they arrived just as the quarantime was estabHshed. Then they found out that " the Pembroke " had left the fleet so long before the iiffec- tion in SicUy began, and had not touched at any port there, that the Admiralty absolved it. Then the things were brought up ; then they were sent back to be afred ; and stUl I am not to have them in a week. I tremble for the pictures ; for they are to be afred at the rough discretion of a master of a hoy, for nobody I could send would be suffered to go aboard. The city is outrageous ; for you know, to merchants there is no plague so dreadful as a stoppage of their trade. The Regency are so temporising and timid, especiaUy in this inter-ministerium, that I am in great apprehensions of our having the plague : an island, so many ports, no power absolute or active enough to estabUsh the necessary precautions, and aU are necessary ! it is terrible ! And now it is on the continent too ! While confined to Sicily, there were hopes : but I scarce conceive that it -wUl stop in two or three -vUlages in Calabria. My dear chUd, Heaven preserve you from it ! I am in the utmost pain on its being so near you. '^Vhat -wiU you do ! whither wUl you go, ff it reaches Tuscany ? Never think of staying in Florence : shall I get 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 261 you permission to retfre out of that State, in case of danger ? but sure you would not hesitate on such a crisis ! We have no news from the army : the minister there communi cates nothing to those here. No answer comes about the Treasury. All is suspense : and clouds of breaches ready to burst. How stiange is aU this jumble ! France with an unsettled Ministry ; England with an unsettled one ; a -victory just gained over them, yet no war ensuing, or declared from either side ; our minister still at Paris, as ff to settle an amicable inteUigence of the losses on both sides ! I think there was only wanting for Mr. Thompson to notffy to them in form our -victory over them, and for Bussy "' to have ci-vU letters of congratulation — 'tis so weU-bred an age ! I must tell you a bon-mot of Winnington. I was at dinner -with him and Lord Lincoln and Lord Stafford last week, and it happened to be a maigre- day, of which Stafford was talking, though, you may beHeve, -without any scruples : " Why," said Winnington, " what a reHgion is yours ! they let you eat nothing, and yet make you swaUow everything ! " My dear chUd, you -wUl think, when I am going to give you a new commission, that I ought to remember those you give me. Indeed I have not forgot one, though I know not how to execute them. The Life of King Theodore is too big to send but by a messenger ; by the first that goes you shaU have it. For cobolt and zingho, your brother and I have made aU inqufries, but almost in vain, except that one person has told him that there is some such thing in Lancashire : I have written thither to inqufre. For the tea-trees, it is my brother's [Edward's] fault, whom I desired, as he is at Chelsea, to get some from the Physic- Garden : he forgot it ; but now I am in town myseff, ff possible, you shaU have some seed. After this, I stiU know not how to give you a commission, for you over-execute ; but upon conditions uninfringeable, I -wUl give you one. I have begun to collect drawings : now, ff you -wiU at any time buy me any that you meet -with at reasonable rates, for I -wUl not give great prices, I shaU be much obliged to you. I would not have above one, to be sure, of any of the Florentine school, nor above one of any master after the immediate scholars of Carlo Maratti. For the Bolognese school, I care not how many ; though I fear they -wiU be too dear. But Mr. Chute understands them. One condition is, that ' Mr. Thompson and the Abbe de Bussy were the EngUsb and French residents. —¦Walpole. 262 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743. ff he coUects dra-wings as weU as prints, there is an end of the com mission ; for you shaU not buy me any, when he perhaps would Hke to purchase them. The other condition is, that you regularly set do-wn the prices you pay ; otherwise, ff you send me any without the price, I instantly retum them unopened to your brother : this, upon my honour, I -wUl most strictly perform. Adieu ! -write me minutely the history of the plague. If it makes any progress towards you, I shall be a most unhappy man : I am far from easv on our own account here. 124. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Aug. 14, 1743. I SHOULD -write to 'Six. Chute to-day, but I won't tUl next post : I ^\iU teU you why presentiy. Last week I did not ¦write at aU; because I -was overs- day waiting for the Dominichin, ^c. which I at last got last night — But oh ! that 4'c. .' It makes me -write to you, but I must leave it 8^c. for I can't undertake to develope it. I can find no words to thank you from my o-wn fund ; but must apply an expression of the Princess Craon's to myseff, which the number of charming things you have sent me absolutely melts do-wn from the bombast, of which it consisted when she sent it me. " Monsieur, votie generosite," (I am not sure it was not "votie magnificence,") "ne me laisse rien a desfrer de tout ce qui se tiouve de precieux en Angleterre, dans la Chine, et aux Indes." But stiff this don't express 8^c. The charming Madame S^-vigne, who was stiff handsomer than Madame de Craon, and had infinite -wit, conde scended to pun on sending her daughter an excessively fine pearl necklace : " VoUa, ma fiUe, un present passant tons les presents passes et presents I " Do you know that these words reduced to serious meaning, are not sufficient for what you have sent me ? If I were not afraid of gi-ving you aU the tiouble of airing and quaran tine which I have had -with them, I would send them te you back again I It is weU our virtue is out of the ^Ministrv ! What reproach it would undergo ! Why, my dear chUd, here would be bribery in foHo ! How woiUd mortals stare at such a present as this to the son of a faUen minister ! I beHeve haff of it would reinstate us again ; though the vast box of essences would not haff sweeten the Treasury after the dfrty wretches that have fouled it since. The Dominichin is safb ; so is everything. I cannot think it of 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 263 the same hand with the Sasso Ferrati you sent me. This last is not so maniere as the Dominichin ; for the more I look at it, the more I am con-vinced it is of him. It goes do-wn -with me to-morrow to Houghton. The Andrea del Sarto is particularly fine ! the Sasso Ferrati particularly graceful — oh ! I should have kept that word for the Magdalen's head, which is beautfful beyond measure.' Indeed, my dear Sfr, I am glad, after my confusion is a Httle abated, that your part of the things is so deHghtful ; for I am very Httle satisfied -with my o-wn purchases. Donate Creti's ' copy is a -wretched, raw daub ; the beautfful Vfrgin of the original he has made horrible. Then for the statue, the face is not so broad as my naU, and has not the tum of the antique. Indeed, La Vallee has done the drapery weU, but I can't pardon him the head. My table I Hke ; though he has stuck in among the ornaments two vUe china jars, that look Hke the modem japanning by ladies. The Hermaphrodite, on my seeing it again, is too sharp and hard — ^in short, your present has put me out of humour -with everything of my o-wn. You shaU hear next week how my Lord is satisfied with his Dominichin. I have received the letter and dra-wings by Crewe. By the way, my dra-wings of the gaUery are as bad as anything of my owoi ordering. They gave Crewe the letter for you at the office, I beHeve ; for I knew nothing of his going, or had sent you the Lffe of King Theodore. I was interrupted in my letter this morning by the Duke of Devonshfre, who caUed to see the Dominichin. Nobody knows pictures better : he was charmed -with it, and did not doubt its DominichinaHty. I find another letter from you to-night of August 6th, and thank you a thousand times for your goodness about Mr. Conway ; but I beHeve I told you, that as he is in the Guards, he was not engaged. We hear nothing but that we are going to cross the Rhine. AU we know is from private letters : the Ministry hear nothing. When the Hussars went to KevenhiUler for orders, he said, " Messieurs, I'-Alsace est a vous ; je n'ai point d' autres ordres a vous donner." They have accordingly taken up their residence in a fine chateau belonging to the Cardinal de Rohan, as Bishop of Strasbourg. We expect nothing but war ; and that war expects nothing but conquest. ' These pictures are now at St. Petersburg. — Cunningham. ' A copy of a celebrated picture by Guido at Bologna, of the Patron Saints of that city. --AValpole. 264 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743, Your account of our officers was very false ; for, instead of the soldiers going on without commanders, some of them were ready to go without their soldiers. I am sorry you have such plague with your Neptune ' and the Sardinian — ^we know not of them scarce. I reaUy forget anything of an ItaHan greyhound for the Tesi. I promised her, I remember, a black spaniel — but how to send it! I did promise one of the former to Marquis Mari at Genoa, which 1 absolutely have not been able to get yet, though I have often tried ; but since the last Lord HaHfax died, there is no meeting -with any of the breed. If I can, I -wUl get her one. I am sorry you are engaged in the Opera. I have found it a most dear undertaking ! I was not in the management: Lord Middlesex was chief We were thirty subscribers, at two hundred pounds each, which was to last four years, and no other demands ever to be made. Instead of that, we have been made to pay fifty-six pounds over and above the subscription in one -winter. I told the secretary in a passion, that it was the last money I would ever pay for the foUies of dfrectors. I tremble at hearing that the plague is not over, as we thought, but stiU spreading. You -wiU see in the papers that Lord Hervey is dead — ^luckily, I think, for himseff; for he had outHved his last inch of character. Adieu! 125. TO JOHN CHUTE, ESQ.^ Hougldon, August 20, 1743. Indeed, my dear Sir, you certainly did not use to be stupid, and tiU you give me more substantial proof that you are so, I shaU not believe it. As for your temperate diet and mUk bringing about such a metamorphosis, I hold it impossible. I have such lamentable proofs every day before my eyes of the stupifying quaHties of beef, ale, and -wine, that I have contracted a most reHgious veneration for your spiritual nouriture. Only imagine that I here every day see men, who are mountains of roast beef, and only seem just roughly he-wn out into the outHnes of human form, Hke the giant-rock at ' Admiral Matthews. — Dover. - This very lively letter is the first of the series, hitherto unpublished, addressed by Mr. Walpole to John Chute, Esq., of the Vine, in the county of Hants [see p. 72]. Mr. Chute was the grandson of Chaloner Chute, Esq., Speaker of the House of Commons to Richard Cromwell's pariiament. On the death of his brother Anthony, in 1754, he succeeded to the family estates, and died in 1776.— Wright. Walpole's letters to Chute were returned to him by Chute's executors.— Cunningham. o 1743.] TO MR. CHUTE. 265 PratoHno ! I shudder when I see them brandish their knives in act to carve, and look on them as savages that devour one another. I should not stare at aU more than I do, ff yonder Alderman at the lower end of the table was to stick his fork into his neighbour's jolly cheek, and cut a brave slice of bro-wn and fat. Why, I'll swear I see no difference between a country gentleman and a sfrloin ; whenever the first laughs, or the latter is cut, there run out just the same streams of gra-vy ! Indeed, the sirloin does not ask quite so many questions. I have an Aunt here,' a family piece of goods, an old remnant of inquisitive hospitaUty and economy, who, to all intents and purposes, is as beefy as her neighbours. She wore me so down yesterday -with interrogatories, that I dreamt all night she was at my ear with ' who's ' and ' why's,' and ' when's ' and ' where's,' till at last in my very sleep I cried out, " For God in heaven's sake. Madam, ask me no more questions ! " Oh ! my dear Sir, don't you find that nine parts in ten of the world are of no use but to make you -wish yourseff -with that tenth part ? I am so far from growing used to mankind by H-ving amongst them, that my natural ferocity and wUdness does but every day grow worse. They tire me, they fatigue me ; I don't laiow what to do -with them ; I don't know what to say to them ; I fiing open the -windows, and fancy I want air ; and when I get by myseff, I undress myself, and seem to have had people in my pockets, in my plaits, and on my shoiUders ! I indeed find this fatigue worse in the countiy than in town, because one can avoid it there and has more resources ; but it is there too. I fear 'tis gro-wing old ; but I HteraUy seem to have murdered a man whose name was Ennui, for his ghost is ever before me. They say there is no EngHsh word for ennui ; '' I think you may translate it most HteraUy by what is called " entertaining people," and " doing the honours : " that is, you sit an hour with somebody you don't know and don't care for, talk about the -wind and the weather, and ask a thousand fooHsh questions, which all begin with, " I think you Hve a good deal in the country," or, " I think you don't love this thing or that." Oh ! 'tis dreadful ! I'U tell you what is delighful — the Dominichin ! ' My dear Sir, ' Either Lady Turner or Mrs. Hammond. — Cunningham. ' " — Ennui is a growth of English root. Though nameless in our language : we retort The fact for words, and let the French tran.slate That awful yawn, which sleep cannot abate." — Byron. — Wright. ' Thus de.=;cribcd by Walpole in his description of the pictures at Houghton :— 266 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743. ff ever there was a Dominichin, ff there was ever an original picture, this is one. I am quite happy ; for my father is as much tians- ported -with it as I am. It is hung in the gaUery, where are aU his most capital pictures, and he himseff thinks it beats aU but the two Guide's. That of the Doctors and the Octagon — I don't know ff you ever saw them ? What a chain of thought this leads me into ! but why should I not indulge it ? I -wiU fiatter myseff -with yom-, some time or other, passing a few days here -with me. Why must I never expect to see anything but Beefs in a gaUery which would not yield even to the Colonna ! H I do not most unlimitedly -wish to see you and Mr. Whithed in it this very moment, it is only because I would not take you from our dear Miny. Adieu ! you charming people aU. Is not Madam Bos-vUle a Beef? Yours, most sincerely. 126. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Houghton, August 29, 1743. You frighten me about the Spaniards entering Tuscany : it is so probable, that I have no hopes against it but in thefr weakness. If aU the accounts of thefr weakness and desertion are true, it must be easy to repel them. If thefr march to Florence is to keep pace -with Prince Charles's entering Lorrain, it is not yet near : hitherto, he has not found the passage of the Rhine practicable. The French have assembled greater armies to oppose it than was expected. We are marching to assist him : the King goes on -with the army. I am extremely sorry for the ChevaHer de Beauvau's' accident ; as sorry, perhaps, as the Prince or Princess ; for you know he was no favourite. The release of the French prisoners prevents the ci-viHties which I would have taken care to have had sho-wn him. You may teU the Princess, that though it wiU be so much honour to us to have any of her famUy in our power, yet I shaU always be extiemely concerned to have such an opportunity of sho-wing my attention to them. There's a period in her o-wn style — " Comment! Monsieur, des attentions ! qu'U est poH ! qu'U scait toumer une civUite ! " " Ha ! ' la brave Angloise ! e viva ! " What would I have given "The Virgin and Child, a most beautiful, bright, and capital picture, by Domini chino : bought out of the Zambeccari Palace at Bologna by Horace Walpole, junior." — Wright. ' Third son of Prince Craon, and Knight of Malta — Walpole. This relates to an intrigue which was observed iu a church between an English 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 267 to have overheard you breaking it to the gallant ! But of aU, com mend me to the good man Nykin ! Why, Mamie ' himseff could not have cuddled up an affafr for his sovereign lady better. I have a commission from my Lord to send you ten thousand thanlis for his bronze : he admfres it beyond measure. It came down last Friday, on his bfrthday [August 26], and was placed at the upper end of the gaUery, which was iUuminated on the occasion : indeed, it is incredible what a magnificent appearance it made. There were sixty-four candles, which showed aU the pictures to great advantage. The Dominichin did itseff and us honom-. There is not the least question of its being original : one might as weU doubt the originaHty of King Patapan ! His patapanic majesty is not one of the least cmiosities of Houghton. The crowds that come to see the house stare at Ifrm, and ask what creature it is. As he does not speak one word of Norfolk, there are strange conjectures made about him. Some think that he is a foreign prince come to marry Lady Mary. The disaffected say he is a Hanoverian : but the common people, who observe my Lord's vast fondness for him, take him for his good geruus, which they caU his famiUar. You ¦wiU have seen in the papers that Mr. PeUiam is at last first Lord of the Treasury. Lord Bath had sent over Sir John Rush- out's valet de chambre to Hanau to ask it. It is a great question now what side he -wiU take ; or rather, ff any side wUl take him. It is not yet kno-wn what the good folks in the Treasury -wiU do — I beHeve, what they can. Nothing farther -wiU be determined tUl the King's return. 127. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Houghton, Sept. 7, 1743. My letters are now at thefr ne plus ultra of nothingness ; so you may hope they wiU grow better again. I shaU certainly go to to-wn gentleman and a lady who was at Florence with her husband. Mr. Mann was desired to speak to the lover to choose more proper places. — Walpole. ' Prince Craon's name for the Princeas. She was mistress of Leopold, the last Duke of Lorrain, who married her to M. de Beauvau, and prevailed on the Emperor to make him a prince of the empire. Leopold had twenty chUdren by her, who all resembled hiin ; and he got his death by a cold which he contracted in standing to see a new house, which he had built for her, furnished. The Duchess was extremely jealous, and once retired to Paris, to complain to her brother the Regent ; but he was not a man to quarrel with his brother-in-law for things of that nature, and sent his sister back, Madame de Craon gave into devotion after the Duke's death — Walpole. 2«8 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743. soon, for my patience is worn out. Yesterday, the weather grew cold ; I put on a new waistcoat for its being -winter's birthday — the season I am forced to love ; for summer has no charms for me when I pass it in the country. We are expecting another battle, and a congress at the same time. Ministers seem to be flocking to Aix la ChapeUe : and, what wiU much surprise you, unless you have Hved long enough not to be surprised, is, that' Lord BoHngbroke has hobbled the same way too- yon wiU suppose, as a minister for France ; I teU you, no. My uncle [old Horace], who is here, was yesterday stumping along the gaUery -with a very poHtical march : my Lord asked him whither he was going. Oh, said I, to -Aix la ChapeUe. You ask me about the marrying Princesses. I know not a tittle. Princess Louisa ' seems to be going, her clothes are bought ; but marrying our daughters makes no conversation. For either of the other two, aU thoughts seem to be dropped of it. The senate of Sweden design themselves to choose a -wffe for thefr man of Lubeck. The City, and our supreme governors, the mob, are very angry that there is a troop of French players at CHefden.' One of them was lately impertinent to a countryman, who thrashed him. His Royal Highness sent angrily to know the cause. The fellow repHed, " he thought to have pleased his Highness in beating one of them, who had tried to kUl his father and had wounded his brother." This was not easy to answer. I delight in Prince Craon's exact inteUigence ! For his satisfac tion, I can teU him that numbers, even here, would beHeve any story full as absurd as that of the King and my Lord Stafr ; or that very one, if anybody -wUl write it over. Our faith in poHtics -wUl match any NeapoHtan's in reHgion. A poHtical missionary wUl make more converts in a county progress than a Jesuit in the whole empire of China, and -wUl produce more preposterous miracles. Sir Watkin WiUiams, at the last Welsh races, con-vinced the whole principaHty (by reading a letter that affirmed it), that the King was not within two mUes of the battle of Dettingen. We are not good at hitting off anti-mfracles, the only way of defending one's own religion. I have read an admfrable story of the Duke of Buckingham, who, ' Youngest daughter of George II. She was married in the following October, and died in 1751, at the age of twenty-seven. — Wright. ' Cliefden, in Buckinghamahire, the residence of the Prince of Wales. Thia noble building waa burnt to the ground in 1795, and nothing of its furniture preserved but the tapestry that represented the Duke of Marlborough's victories. — Wright ^^' L, ?e. XL fj-ulp' 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 269 when James II. sent a priest to him to persuade him to turn Papist, and was plied by him with miracles, told the doctor, that if miracles were proofs of a religion, the Protestant cause was as well supplied as theirs. We have lately had a very extraordinary one near my estate in the country. A very holy man, as you might be. Doctor, was travelling on foot, and was benighted. He came to the cottage of a poor dowager, who had nothing in the house for herself and daughter but a couple of eggs and a slice of bacon. However, as she was a pious widow, she made the good man welcome. In the morning, at taking leave, the saint made her over to God for payment, and prayed that whatever she should do as soon as he was gone she might continue to do all day. This was a very unlimited request, and, unless the saint was a prophet too, might not have been very pleasant retribution. The good woman, who minded her affairs, and was not to be put out of her way, went about her business. She had a piece of coarse cloth to make a couple of shifts for herself and child. She no sooner began to measure it but the yard fell a measuring, and there was no stopping it. It was sunset before the good woman had time to take breath. She was almost stifled, for she was up to her ears in ten thousand yards of cloth, She could have afforded to have sold Lady Mary Wortley a clean shift,'^ of the usual coarseness she wears, for a groat halfpenny. I wish you would tell the Princess this story. Madame Riccardi, or the little Countess d'Elbenino, will doat on it. I don't think it will be out of Pandolfini's way, if you tell it to the little Albizzi. You see I have not forgot the tone of my Florentine acquaintance. I know I should have translated it to them : you remember what admirable work I used to make of such stories in broken Italian. I have heard old Churchill tell Bussy English puns out of jest-books : particularly a reply about eating hare, which he translated, "j'ai mon ventre plein de poil." Adieu ! 128. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Houghton, Sept. 17, 1743. As much as we laughed at Prince Craon's history of the King and Lord Stair, you see it was not absolutely without foundation. I ' Lady Mary Wortley's linen — "linen worthy Lady Mary" and her "dirty smock'' — are commemorated in verse by Pope. — Cunningham. 270 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743. don't just beHeve that he threatened his master with the ParHament. They say he gives for reason of his quitting, thefr not having accepted one plan of operation that he has offered. There is a long memorial that he presented to the King, -with which I don't doubt but his Lordship -wiU obHge the pubHc' He has ordered aU his equipages to be sold by pubHc auction in the camp. This is aU I can teU you of this event, and this is more than has been written to the Ministiy here. They talk of great uneasiness among the EngHsh officers, aU of which I don't beHeve. The army is put into com mission. Prince Charles has not passed the Rhine, nor we anything but our time. The papers of to-day teU us of a definitive tieaty signed by us and the Queen of Hungary with the King of Sardinia, which I -wiU flatter myseff -wiU tend to your defence. I am not in much less trepidation about Tuscany than Richcourt is, though I scarce think my fears reasonable ; but whUe you are concerned, T fear everything. My Lord does not admire the account of the Lanfranc ; thanks you, and -wiU let it alone. I am gomg to to-wn in ten days, not a Httle tfred of the country, and in the utmost impatience for the -winter ; which I am sure, from aU political prospects, -must be entertaining to one who only intends to see them at the length of a telescope. I was lately diverted -with an article in the Abecedario Pittorico, in the article of WUliam Dobson : it says, " Nacque nel quartiere d'Holbrons in InghUterra."' Did the author take Holborn for a city, or InghUterra for the capital of the island of London ? Adieu ! 129. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Newmarket, Oct. 3, 1743. I AM writing to you in an inn on the road to London. What a paradise should I have thought this when I was in the ItaHan inns ! in a -wide bam -with four ample -windows, which had nothing more like glass than shutters and iron bars ! no tester to the bed, and the saddles and portmanteaus heaped on me to keep off the cold. What ' In thia memorial Lord Stair complained that his advice had been slighted, hinted at Hanoverian partialities, and asked permission to retire, as he expressed it, to his plough. His resignation was accepted, with marks of the King's displeasure at the language in which it was tendered. — Wright. ^ William Dobson, whom King Charles caUed the English Tintoret, waa born in 1616, in S't. Andrew's parish, in Holborn. — Walpole's Anecdotes. — Cunningham, 1743,] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 271 a paradise did I think the inn at Dover when I came back ! and what magnificence were twopenny prints, salt-sellers, and boxes to hold the knives ; but the sv,mmum bonum was small-beer and the newspaper. "I bless'd my stars, and caU'd it luxury I " Who was the Neapolitan ambassadress ^ that could not live at Paris, because there was no maccaroni ? Now am I relapsed into all the dissatisfied repinement of a true English grumbling volup tuary. I could find in my heart to write a Craftsman against the Government, because I am not quite so much at my ease as on my own sofa. I could persuade myself that it is my Lord Carteret's fault that I am only sitting in a common arm-chair, when I would be lolling in a pdcM-mm-tel. How dismal, how solitary, how scrub does this town look ; and yet it has actually a street of houses better than Parma or Modena. Nay, the houses of the people of fashion, who come hither for the races, are palaces to what houses in London itself were fifteen years ago. People do begin to live again now, and I suppose in a term we shall revert to York Houses, Clarendon Houses, &c. But from that grandeur all the nobility had contracted themselves to live in coops of a dining-room, a dark back-room, with one eye in a corner, and a closet. Think what London would be, if the chief houses were in it, as in the cities in other countries, and not dispersed like great rarity-plums in a vast pudding of country. Well, it is a tolerable place as it is ! Were I a physician, I would prescribe nothing but recipe, ccglxv drachm. Londin. Would you know why I like London so much ? Why, if the world must consist of so many fools as it does, I choose to take them in the gross, and not made into separate pills, as they are prepared in the country. Besides, there is no being alone but in a metropolis : the worst place in the world to find solitude is the country : questions grow there, and that unpleasant Christian commodity, neighbours. Oh I they are all good Samaritans, and do so pour balms and nostrums upon one, if one has but the toothache, or a journey to take, that they break one's head. A journey to take — ay ! they talk over the miles to you, and tell you, you will be late in. My Lord Lovel says, John always goes two hours in the dark in the morning, to avoid being one hour in the dark in the evening. I was pressed to set out to-day before seven ; I did before nine ; and here am I arrived at a quarter past five, for the rest of the night. ' The Princess of Campoflorido, 872 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743, I am more convinced every day, that there is not only no know ledge of the world out of a great city, but no decency, no practicable society — I had almost said, not a -virtue. I wiU only instance in modesty, which aU old Englishmen are persuaded cannot exist within the atmosphere of Middlesex. Lady Mary has a remarkable taste and knowledge of music, and can sing ; I don't say, Hke your sister, but I am sure she would be ready to die ff obHged to sing before three people, or before one -with whom she is not intimate. The other day there came to see her a Norfolk heiress ; the young gentle woman had not been three hours in the house, and that for the first time of her life, before she notified her talent for singing, and in-vited herseff up-stafrs, to Lady Mary's harpsichord ; where, -with a voice Hke thunder, and -with as Httle harmony, she sang to nine or ten people for an hour. " Was ever nymph Hke Rossymonde?" — no, d'/ionneur. We told her she had a very strong- voice. "Lord, Sir ! my master says it is nothing to what it was." My dear chUd, she brags abominably ; ff it had been a thousandth degree louder, you must have heard it at Florence. I did not -write to you last post, being overwhelmed -with this' sort of people : I wiU be more punctual in London. Patapan is in my lap ; I had him wormed lately, w^hich he took heinously ; I made it up with him by tying a coUar of rainbow riband about his neck, for a token that he is never to be wormed any more. I had your long letter of two sheets of Sept. 17th, and wonder at your perseverance in teUing me so much as you always do, when I, duU creature, find so Httle for you. I can only teU you that the more you write, the happier you make me ; and I assure you, the more detaUs the better : I so often lay schemes for returning to you, that I am persuaded I sliaU, and would keep up my stock of Florentine ideas. 1 honour Matthews's punctiHous observance of his Holiness's digiuty. How incomprehensible EngHshmen are ! I should have sworn that he would have piqued himseff on calHng the Pope Che w of Babylon, and have begun his remonstrance, ¦with " you old d — d ." What extremes of absurdities ! to flounder from Pope Joan to his Holiness ! I Hke your reflection, " that every body can buUy the Pope." There was a humourist caUed Sir James of the Peak, who had been beat by a feUow, who afterwards under went the same operation from a third hand. " Zounds," said Sfr James, "that I did not know this feUow would take a beating I " Nay, my dear child, I don't know that Matthews would ! I713.I TO SIR HORACE MaNN. 373 You knfiw I always thought the Testi comique, pendant que ga devroit etre tragique. I am happy that my sovereign Lady expressed my opinion so weU — ^by the way, is De Sade stiU -with you ? Is he stUl in pa-wn by the proxy of his clothes ? Has the Princess as constant retfr-ements to her bedchamber -with the colique and Antenori ! Oh ! I was stiuck the other day -with a resemblance of mine hostess at Brandon to old Sarazin. You must know, the ladies of Norfolk universaUy wear peri-wigs, and afiirm that it is the fashion at London. "Lord, Mrs. White, have you been Ul, that you have shaved your head ? " Mrs. White, in all the days of my acquaintance with her, had a professed head of red hair : to-day, she had no hair at aU before, and at a distance above her ears, I descried a smart bro-wn bob, from beneath which had escaped some long strings of original scarlet — so like old Sarazin at two in the morning, when she has been losing at Pharaoh, and clawed her -wig aside, and her old trunk is shaded -with the venerable white i-vy of her o-wn locks. I agree "with you, that it would be too troublesome to send me the things now the quarantine exists, except the gun-barrels for Lord Conway, the length of which I know nothing about, being, as you conceive, no sportsman. I must send you, ¦vrith the Lffe of Theodore, a vast pamphlet ["Faction Detected "] in defence of the new admi nistiation, which makes the greatest noise. It is written, as supposed, by Dr. Pearse,' of St. Martin's, whom Lord Bath lately made a dean ; the matter furnished by him. There is a good deal of useful knowledge of the famous change to be found in it, and much more impudence. Some parts are extremely fine ; in particular, the answer to the Hanoverian pamphlets, where he has coUected the flower of all that was said in defence of that measure. Had you those pamphlets ? I -wUl make up a parcel : teU me what other books you would have : I -wiU send you nothing else, for ff I give you the least bauble, it puts you to infinite expense, which I can't forgive, and indeed "wiU never bear again : you would ruin yourseff, and there is nothing I -wish so much as the contrary. Here is a good Ode, -written on the supposition of that new book being Lord Bath's ; I beHeve by the same hand as those charming ones which I sent you last year : the author is not yet kno-vm.' '• Zachariah Pearse, afterwards Bishop of Bangor [afterwards of Rochester]. He waa not the author, but Lord Perceval, afterwards Earl of Egmont. — Walpole. ^ The Ode by Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, beginning, " Your sheets I've per used." — Dover. 274 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743 The Duke of Argyle ' is dead— a death of how Httle moment, and of how much it would have been a year or two ago ! It is provokmg, ff one must die, that one can't even die apropos ! How does your friend Dr. Cocchi ? You never mention him : do only knaves and fools deserve to be spoken of? Adieu ! 130. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Oct. 12, 1743. They had sent your letter of Sept. 24th to Houghton the very night I came to town. I did not receive it back tiU yesterday, and soon after another -with Mr. Chute's inclosed, for which I -wUl thank him presently. But, my dear child, I can, Hke you, think of nothing but your bitter father's letter. ! and that I should have contributed to it ! how I detest myseff ! ' My dearest Sfr, you know all I ever said to bim : indeed, I never do see him, and I assure you that now I would worship him as the Indians do the devil, for fear — ^he should hurt you : tempt you I find he wiU not. He is so avaricious, that I beHeve, ff you asked him for a fish, he would think it even extravagance to give you a stone : fri these bad times, stones may come to be dear, and ff he loses his place and his lawsuit, who knows but he may be reduced to turn pavior ? Oh ! the brute ! and how shocking, that, for your sake, one can't HteraUy wish to see him want bread ! But how can you feel the least tender ness, when the -wretch talks of his bad health, and of not denying himseff comforts ! It is weakness in you : whose health is worse, yours or his ? or when did he ever deny himseff a comfort to please any mortal ? My dear chUd, what is it possible to do for you ? is there anything in my power ? What would I not do for you ? and, indeed, what ought I not, ff I have done you any dissei-vice ? I don't think there is any danger of your father's losing his place,' for who- ' John, Duke of ArgyU and Greenwich, commonly called the Great Duke, died 4th Oct. 1743. — Cunningham. ^ Sir Horace Mann, in a letter to Walpole, dated Sept. 24th, 1743, gives an account of his father's refusal to give him any money ; and then quotes the following passage from his father's letter :— " He tells me he has been baited by you and your uncle on my account, which was very disagreeable, and believes he may charge it to me. — Dover. ^ Mr. Robert Mann, father of Sir Horace Mann, had a place in Chelsea College, under the Paymaster of the Forces.— Walpole. He v,'a.i Deputy Treasurer of Chelsea Hospital. — CoNNINGHAii 1743.) TO SIR HORACE MANN. 27B ever succeeds Mr. Pelham is likely to be a friend to this house, and would not tm-n out one so coimected -with it. I should be very glad to show my Lord an account of those statues you mention: they are much wanted in his hall, where, except the Laocoon, he has nothing but busts. For Gabm-ri's drawings, I am extremely pleased with what you propose to me. I should be well content -with two of each master. I can't weU fix on any price ; but would not the rate of a sequin a-piece be sufficient ? to be sure he never gave anything Hke that : when one buys the quantity you mention to me, I can't but think that fuU enough for one -with another. At least, ff I bought so many as two hundred, I would not venture to go beyond that. I am not at aU easy from what you teU me of the Spaniards. I have now no hopes but in the -winter, and what it may produce. I fear ours -will be most ugly : the disgusts about Hanover swarm and increase every day. The King and Duke [of Cumberland] have left the army, which is marching to winter-quarters in Flanders. He wiU not be here by his bfr-th-day, but it -wiU be kept when he comes. The ParHament meets the 22nd of November. .AU is distraction ! no union in the Court : no certainty about the House of Commons : Lord Carteret making no friends, the King making enemies : Mr. Pelham in vain courting Pitt, &c. Pulteney unresolved. How wiU it end ? No joy but in the Jacobites. I know nothing more, so tum to Mr. Chute. My dear Sir, how I am obHged to you for your poem ! Patapan is so vain -with it, that he -will read nothing else ; I only offered him a Martial to compare it -with the original, and the Httle coxcomb threw it into the fire, and told me, " He never heard of a lapdog's reading Latin ; that it was very weU for house-dogs and pointers that Hve in the country, and have several hours upon their hands : for my part," said he, " I am so nice, who ever saw A Latin book on my sofa ? You'll find as soon a primer there Or recipes for pastry ware. Why do ye think I ever read But Crebillon or Calprenfede ? This vei7 thing of Mr. Chute's Scarce with my taste and fancy suits. Oh ! had it but in French been writ, 'Twere the genteelest, sweetest bit ! One hatea a vulgar English poet : I vow t'ye, I ahould blush to show it. 276 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743. To women de ma connoissance, Did not th at agr cable stance, Cher double entendre .' furnish means Of making sweet Patapanins ! " ' My dear Sfr, your translation shaU stand foremost in the Pata- paniana : I hope in time to have poems upon him, and sayings of his o-wn, enough to make a notable book. En attendant, I have sent you some pamphlets to amuse your soHtude ; for, do you see, as tramontane as I am, and as much as I love Florence, and hate the country, whUe we make such a figure in the world, or at least such a noise in it, one must consider you other Florentines as counfry gentlemen. TeU om- dear Miny, that when he unfolds the enchanted carpet, which his brother the -wise Galfridus sends him, he -wiU find aU the kingdoms of the earth portiayed in it. In short, as much history as was described on the ever-memorable and wonderful piece ' Mr Chute had aent Mr. Walpole the following imitation of an epigram oi Martial :— " Issa est passere nequior Catulli, Issa est purior osculo columbae." — Martial, Lib. I. Ep. 110. " Pata ia frolicsome and smart. As Geofiry once was — (Oh my heart !) He's purer than a turtle's kiss. And gentler than a little miss ; A jewel for a lady's ear. And Mr. Walpole'a pretty dear. He laugha and criea with mirth or apleen ; He doea not apeak, but thinka, 'tia plain. One knowa hia little Guais as well As if he'd little words to tell. Coil'd in a heap, a plumy wreathe. He sleeps, you hardly hear him breathe. Then he 's so nice, who ever saw A drop that sullied his sofa ? Hia bended leg ! — what 'a thia but sense ? — Points out his little exigence. He looks and points, and whisks about. And says, pray dear Sir, let me out. Where shall we find a little wife. To be the comfort of his life. To frisk and skip, and furnish means Of making sweet Patapanins ? England, alas ! can boast no she. Fit only for hia cicisbee. Must greedy Fate then have him all 1 — No ; -Wootton to our aid we'll call — The immortality's the same. Built on a shadow, or a name. He shall have one by Wootton's meana. The other Wootton for his pains." — Walpole. 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 277 of sUk, which the puissant White Cat' inclosed in a nut-sheU, and presented to her paramour Prince. In short, in this carpet, which (fUberts being out of season) I was reduced to pack up in a walnut, he -wiU find the foUo-wing immense Hbrary of poHtical lore : Maga zines for October, November, December ; -with an Appendix for the year 1741 ; aU the Magazines for 1742, bound in one volume ; and nine Magazines for 1743. The Lffe of Kmg Theodore, a certain fairy monarch; -with the Adventures of this Prince and the fair RepubHc of Genoa. The " l^sceUaneous Thoughts " of the fafry Hervey. The Question Stated. Case of the Hanover Troops ; and the Vindication of the Case. " Faction Detected." Congratulatory Letter to Lord Bath. The Mysterious Congress ; and four Old England Journals. TeU Mr. Mann, or Mr. Mann teU himseff, that I would send him nothing but this enchanted carpet, which he can't pretend to retum. I wUl accept nothing under enchantment. Adieu all ! Continue to love the two Patapans. 131. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, Nov. 17, 1743. I WOULD not -write on Monday tiU I could teU you the King was come. He arrived at St. James's between five and sis on Tuesday. We were in great fears of his coming through the city, after the treason that has been pubHshing for these two months ; but it is incredible how weU his reception was beyond what it had ever been before : in short, you would have thought that it had not been a week after the -victory at Dettingen. They almost carried him into the palace on thefr shoulders ; and at night the whole to-wn was iUuminated and bonfired. He looks much better than he has for these five years, and is in great spirits. The Duke Hmps a Httle. The King's reception of the Prince, who was come to St. James's to wait for him, and who met him on the stairs with his two sisters and the pri-vy councillors, was not so gracious — joas un mot — though the Princess was brought to bed the day before,' and Prince George [George III.] is iU of the smaU pox. It is very unpopular ! You wiU possibly, by next week, hear great things : hitherto, aU is sUence, expectation, struggle, and ignorance. The birth-day is kept on ' See the story of the White Cat in the fairy tales. — Walpole. ' Of a son, afterwards Duke of Gloucester, and married to Walpole's niece, the Dowager Lady Waldegrave. — Cunningham. 278 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [5743, Tuesday, when the ParHament was to have met; but that can't De yet. Lord Holdemess has brought home a Dutch bride : ' I have not seen her. The Duke of Richmond had a letter yesterday from Lady Albemarle,' at Altona. She says the Prince of Denmark is not so taU as his bride, but far from a bad figure : he is thin, and not ugly, except ha'ving too ¦wide a mouth. When she returns, as I know her particularly, I -wiU teU you more ; for the present, I think I have very handsomely despatched the chapter of royalties. My Lord comes to to-wn the day after to-morrow. The Opera is begun, but is not so weU as last year. The Rosa Mancini, who is second woman, and whom I suppose you have heard, is now old. In the room of AmorevoH, they have got a dreadful bass, who, the Duke of Montagu says he beUeves, was organist at Aschaffenburgh.' Do you remember a taU Mr. Vernon," who traveUed with Mr. Cotton ? He is going to be married to a sister of Lord Strafford. I have exhausted my news, and you shaU excuse my being short to-day. For the future, I shaU overflow -with preferments, alterations, and parliaments. Yom- brother brought me yesterday two of yours together, of Oct. 22 and 27, and I find you stUl overwhelmed with Richcourt's foUy and the Admiral's explanatory ignorance. It is unpleasant to have old Pucci' added to your embarras. Chevalier Ossorio" was with me the other morning, and we were ' Her name was Mademoiselle Doublette, and she is caUed in the Peerages " the niece of M. Van Haaren, of the province of Holland." — Dover, ^ Lady Anne Lenox, sister of the Duke of Richmond, and wife of WiUiam Anne van Keppel, Earl of Albemarle : she had been lady of the bedchamber to the Queen; and this year conducted Princess Louisa to Altona, to be married to the Prince Royal of Denmark. — Walpole. " " Tho' rough Selingenstadt The harmony defeat, Tho' Kleen Ostein The verse confound ; Yet in the joyful strain Aschaffenburg or Dettingen ShaU charm the ear they seem to wound." CoUey Cibber's Ode for tite King's Birthday, 1743.— Cunnihghaii. ' Henry Vernon, Esq., a nephew of Admiral Vernon, married to Lady Henrietta Wentworth, daughter of Thomas, first Earl of Strafford, of the second creation.— Dover. '^ Signer Pucci was resident from Tuscany at the Court of England.— Walpole. ' Chevalier Ossorio was several years minister in England from the King of Sardinia, to whom he afterwards became first minister. — Walpole. 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 279 talking over the Hanoverians, as everybody does. I complimented him very sincerely on his master's great bravery and success : he answered very modestly and sensibly, that he was glad, amidst aU the clamours, that there had been no ca-vU to be found with the subsidy paid to his King. Prince Lobkowitz makes a great figure, and has all my -wishes and blessings for having put Tuscany out of the question. There is no end of my gi"ving you trouble with packing me up cases : I shaU pay the money to your brother. Adieu ! Embrace the Chutes, who are heavexUy good to you, and must have been of great use in aU your iUness and disputes. 132. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Nov. 30, 1743. I HAVE had two letters from you since I wrote myseff. This 1 begin against to-morrow, for I should have Httle time to ¦write. The ParHament opens, and we are threatened ¦with a tight Opposition, though it must be vain, ff the numbers tum out as they are cal culated ; three hundred for the Court, two hundred and five opponents ; that is, in to-wn ; for, you know, the whole amounts to five hundred and fifty-eight. The di-vision in the Ministry has been more -violent than between parties ; though now, they teU you, it is aU adjusted. The Secretary [Lord Carteret], since his return, has carried aU -with a high hand, and treated the rest as ciphers ; but he has been so beaten m the cabinet council, that in appearance he submits, though the favour is most e-vidently with him. AU the old ministers have fiown hither as zealously as in former days ; and of the three levees' in this street, the greatest is in this house, as my Lord Carteret told them the other day ; " I know you aU go to Lord Orford : he has more company than any of us — do you think I can't go to him too ?" He is never sober ; his rants are amazing ; so are his parts and spirits. He has now made up with the Pelhams, though after naming to two vacancies in the Admiralty -without thefr knowledge ; Sfr Charles Hardy and Mr. PhUipson. The other alterations are at last fixed. Winnington is to be Paymaster; Sandys, cofferer, on resigning the Exchequer to Mr. Pelham ; Sir John Rushout, Treasurer of the Na-vy ; and Harry Fox, Lord of the ' Lord Carteret's, Mr Pelham's, and Lord Orford's. — Walpole. 280 HORACE AYALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743. Treasury. Mr. Compton' and Gybbons remain at that board. W^at. Pliunber, a kno-wn man, said, the other day, " Zounds, Mr. Pulteney took those old dishclouts to -wipe out the Treasury, and now they are going to lace them and lay them up ! " It is a most just idea : to be sure, Sandys and Rushout, and thefr fellows, are dish- clouts, ff dishclouts there are in the world : and now to lace them ! The Duke of Marlborough has resigned everything, to reinstate himseff in the old Duchess's -wiU. She said the other day, " It is very natural : he Hsted as soldiers do when they are drunk, and repented when he was sober." So much for news : now for your letters. -All joy to Mr. Whithed on the increase of his family ! and joy to you ; for now he is estabHshed in so comfortable a way, I trust you ¦wUl not lose him soon — and la Bame s'appelle ? If my Lady Walpole has a mind once in her Hfe to speak truth, or to foreteU, — the latter of which has as seldom anything to do Arith truth as her ladyship has, — why she may now about the Tesi's dog, for I shaU certainly forget what it would be in vain to remember. My dear Sfr, how should one convey a dog to Florence ! There are no travelling Princes of Saxe Gotha or Modena here at present, who would carry a Httle dog in a nutsheU. The poor Maltese cats, to the tune of how many ! never arrived here ; and how should one httle dog ever find its way to Florence ! But teU me, and, ff it is possible, I -wUl send it. Was it to be a greyhound, or of King Charles's breed ? It was to have been the latter ; but I think you told me that she rather had a mind to the other sort, which, by the way, I don't think I could get for her. Thursday, eight o'clock at night. I am just come from the House, and dined. Mr. Coke' moved the address, seconded by Mr. Yorke, the lord chanceUor's son.' The Opposition divided 149 agamst 278 ; which gives a better prospect of carrying on the -winter easUy. In the Lords' house there was no division. Mr. Pitt caUed Lord Carteret the execrable author of our measures, and sole minister." Mr. Winnington repHed, that he did ' The Hon, George Compton, second aon of George, fourth Eari of Northampton He succeeded hia elder brother James, the fifth earl, in the family titles and eatatea in 1754, and died in 1768. — Dover. ' Edward Coke, only son of Lord Lovel. [See p. 57.]— Cunningham. ' PhUip Yorke, eldest son of Lord Hardwicke ; and afterwards the second earl ot that title. — Dover. ' In Mr. Yorke's US. Parliamentary Journal, the words are " an execrable, a sole 1743.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 281 not know of any sole minister ; but ff my Lord Carteret was so, the gentiemen of the other side had contributed more to make him so than he had. I am much pleased -with the prospect you show me of the Correggio. My Lord is so satisfied -with the Dominichin, that he -wUl go as far as a thousand pounds for the Correggio. Do you reaUy think we shall get it, and for that price ? You talk of the new couple, and of giving the sposa a mantUla : what noAV couple ? you don't say. I suppose, some Snares, by the raffie. Adieu ! 133. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Dec. 15, 1743. I WRITE in a great fright, lest this letter should come too late. My Lord has been told by a Dr. Bragge, a -vfrtuoso, that, some years ago, the monks asked ten thousand pounds for our Correggio,' and that there were two copies then made of it : that afterwards, he is persuaded, the King of Portugal bought the original ; he does not know at what price. Now, I think it very possible that this doctor, hearing the picture was to be come at, may have invented this Portuguese history ; but as there is a possibiHty, too, that it may be true, you must take aU imaginable precautions to be sure it is the very original — a copy would do neither you nor me great honour. We have entered upon the Hanoverian campaign. Last Wed nesday, WaUer moved in our House an address to the King, to continue them no longer in our pay than to Christmas-day, the term for which they were granted. The debate lasted tiiW. haff an hour after eight at night. Two young officers ' told some very trifling stories against the Hanoverians, which did not at aU add any weight to the arguments of the Opposition ; but we di-vided 231 to 181. On Friday, Lord Sand-wich and Lord HaHfax, in good speeches, brought the same motion into the Lords. I was there, and heard Lord Chesterfield make the finest oration I ever did hear.' My father minister, who had renounced the British nation, and seemed to have drunk of the potion described in poetic fictions." — Wright. ' One of the most celebrated pictures of Correggio, with the Madonna and Child, aaints, and angels, in a convent at Parma. — Walpole. ^ Captain Ross aud Lord Charles Hay. — Wright. ^ " Lord Chesterfield's performance was much cried up ; but few of his admirers could distinguish the faults of his eloquence from its beauties." — Yorke, MS. Pari. Journal. — AVkioht. 282 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743, did not speak, nor Lord Bath. They threw out the motion by 71 to 36. These motions avUI determine the bringing on the demand foi the Hanoverians for another year in form ; which was a doubtful point, the old part of the ministry being agaiust it, though very contrary to my lord's advice. Lord Gower, finding no more Tories were to be admitted, resigned on Thursday ; and Lord Cobham in the afternoon. The Privy-Seal was the next day given to Lord Chohnondeley. Lord Gower's resignation is one of the few points in which I am content the prophecy in the old Jacobite baUad should be fulfiUed — "The King shaU have his o^wn again." ' The changes are begun, but wiU not be completed tUl the recess, as the preferments ¦wUl occasion more re-elections than they can spare just now in the House of Commons. Sandys has resigned the Exchequer to Mr. PeUiam ; Sfr John Rushout is to be Treasiu:er of the Navy; Winnington, Paymaster; Harry Fox, Lord of the Treasury ; Lord Edgcumbe, I beHeve, Lord of the Treasury,' and Sandys, Cofferer and a peer. I am so scandaHsed at this, that I Trill fill up my letter (having told you aU the news) with the first fruits of my indignation. VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE HOUSE OF LORDS ON ITS RECEIVING A NEW PEER.' Thou senseless Hall, whose injudicious space, Like Death, confounds a various miamatch'd race. Where kings and clowns, th' ambitious and the mean. Compose th' inactive soporific scene. Unfold thy doors ! — and a promotion see, That must amaze ev'n prostituted thee ! Shall not thy sons, incurious as they are, Raise their dull lids, and meditate a stare ? Thy sons, who sleep in monumental state. To show the spot where their great fathers sate. Ambition first, and specious warlike worth, Call'd our old peers and brave patricians forth ; And subject provinces produced to fame Their lords with scarce a less than regal name. ' In one of his baUads he [the Duke of Wharton] has bantered his own want of heroism ; it was in a song he made on being seized by the guard in St. James'a Park, for singing the Jacobite air " The King shaU have his own again." — Walpole, Roy- and N. Authors. Gower had been a Jacobite, ante, p. 176. — Cunningham. - This did not happen. — Walpole. ' Samuel Sandys, created Lord Sandys, Baron of Omberaley, co. Worcester, Dec. 20, 1743; died AprU 21, 1770.— Cunningham. 1743.1 TO SIB HORACE MANN. 288 Then blinded monarchs, flattery's fondled race. Their fav'rite minions stamp'd with titled grace. And bade the tools of power succeed to Virtue's place Hence Spencers, Gavestons, by crimes grown great. Vaulted into degraded Honour's seat : Hence dainty Villiers sits in high debate AVhere manly Beauchamps, Talbots, Cecils sate ; Hence Wentworth,' perjured patriot, burst each tie. Profaned each oath, and gave his life the lie ; Renounced whate'er he sacred held aud dear. Renounced his country's cause, and sank into a Peer. Some have bought ermine, venal Honour's veil, AVhen set by bankrupt Majesty to sale ; Or drew NobiUty's coarse ductile thread Prom some distinguish'd harlot's titled bed. Not thus ennobled Samuel ! — no worth Call'd from his mud the sluggish reptile forth ; No parts to flatter, and no grace to please, AVith scarce an insect's impotence to tease. He struts a Peer — though proved too dull to stay, Whence^ ev'n poor Gybbons is not brush'd away. Adieu ! I am just going to Leicester House, where the Princess sees company to-day and to-morrow, from seven to nine, on her lying-in. I mention this per amor del Signer Marchese Cosimo Riccardi.' 134. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Dec. 26, 1743. I SHALL complain of inflammations in my eyes, tUl you think it is an excuse for not writing ; but your brother is my ¦witness that I have been shut up in a dark room for this week. I get frequent colds, which faU upon my eyes ; and then I have bottles of sovereign eye- waters from aU my acquaintance ; but as they are only acciden tal colds, I never use anything but sage, which braces my eye-fibres again in a few days. I have had two letters since my last to you ; one complaining of my sUence, and the other acknowledging one from me after a month's intermission : indeed, I never have been so long ¦without -writing to you : I do sometimes nuss two weeks on any great dearth of news, which is aU I have to fiU a letter ; for Hving as I do among people, whom, from your long absence, you cannot ' Earl of Strafford ; but it alludes to Lord Bath. — Walpole. ^ The Treasury.— AValpole. ' A gossiping old Florentine nobleman, whose whole employment was to inform himself of the state of marriages, pregnancies, lyings-in, and such like histories. — Walpole. 284 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743. know, I should taUc Hebrew to mention them to you. Those, that from eminent bfrth, foUy, or parts, are to be found in the chronicles of the times, I teU you of, whenever necessity or the King puts them into new Hghts. The latter, for I cannot think the former had any hand in it, has made Sandys, as I told you, a lord and Cofi'erer ! Lord Middlesex is one of the new Treasury, not ambassador as you heard. So the Opera-house and White's have contributed a Com missioner and a Secretary to the Treasury,' as thefr quota to the government. It is a period to make a figure in history. There is a recess of both Houses for a fortnight ; and we are to meet again, -with aU the quotations and flowers that the young orators can coUect and forcibly apply to the Hanoverians ; -with aU the maHce which the disappointed Old have hoarded against Carteret, and with aU the impudence his defenders can seU him : and when aU that is vented — what then ? — why then, things wUl be just where they were. General Wade ' is made Field-Marshal, and is to have the com mand of the army, as it is supposed, on the King's not going abroad ; but that is not declared. The French preparations go on ¦with much more -vigour than ours ; they not having a House of Commons to combat aU the -winter ; a campaign that necessarily engages aU the attention of ministers, who have no great variety of apartments in thefr understandings. I have paid your brother the bUl I received from you, and give you a thousand thanks for aU the trouble you have had ; most particularly from the plague of hams,' from which you have saved me. Heavens! how blank I should have looked at unpacking a great case of bacon and -wine ! My dear chUd, be my friend, and preserve me from heroic presents. I cannot possibly at this distance begin a new courtship of regaU ; for I suppose all those hams were to be converted into watches atid toys. Now it would suit Sfr Paul Methuen" very weU, who is a knight-errant at seventy-three, to carry on an amour between Mrs. Chenevix's ° shop and a noble ceUar in ' John Jeffries. — Walpole. ^ General George Wade, afterwards commander of the forces in Scotland. He died in 1748. A fine monument, by Roubiliac, was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey. — Wright. ^ Madame Grifoni was going to send Mr. W. a present of hams and Florence wine. — AValpole. " Sir Paul Methuen, of Corsham, in the co. of Wilts, died 1767. See p. 100.— Cunningham. * The noted toy-woman, formerly an inhabitant of Strawberry HUl.— CuKNiNaHiM. 1744.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 286 Florence ; but alas ! I am neither old enough nor young enough to be gallant, and should Ul become the -writing of heroic epistles to a fair mistress in Italy — No, no : " ne sono uscito con onore, mi pare, e non voglio riprendere quel impegno piu." You see how rustic I am gro-wn again ! I knew your new brother-in-law [Mr. Foote] at school, but have not seen him since. But your sister was in love, and must conse quently be happy to have him. Yet I own, I cannot much felicitate anybody that marries for love. It is bad enough to marry ; but to marry where one loves, ten times worse. It is so charming at first, that the decay of incHnation renders it infinitely more disagreeable afterwards. Your sister has a thousand merits ; but they don't count : but then she has good sense enough to make her happy, ff her merit cannot make him so. Adieu ! I rejoice for your sake that Madame Royale ' is recovered, as I saw in the papers. 135. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Dear Sir : I HAVE been much desfred by a very particular friend, to recom mend to you Sfr WUHam Maynard,' who is going to Florence. You -wiU obHge me extiemely by any civiHties you show him whUe he stays there ; in particular, by introducing him to the Prince and Princess de Craon, Madame Snares, and the rest of my acquaintance there, who, I dare say, -wiU continue their goodness to me, by recei-ving him -with the same politeness that they received me. I am, &c. 136. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Jan. 24, 1744. Don't think me guUty of forgetting you a moment, though I have missed two or three posts. H you knew the incessant hurry and fatigue in which I Hve, and how few moments I have to myseff, ' The Duchesa of Lorrain, mother of the Great Duke : her death would have occa sioned a long mourning at Florence. — Walpole. Elizabeth of Orleans, only daughter of PhiUp, Duke of Orleana (Monaieur), by his second wife, the Princess Palatine. — Dover. * Sir William Maynard, the fourth baronet of the family, and a younger branch of the Lords Maynard. — Dover. aA6 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1744 you would not suspect me. You know, I am natiirally indolent, and without appHcation to any kind of business ; yet it is impossible, m this country, to live in the world, and be in parHament, and not find oneseff every day more hooked into poHtics and company, especiaUy inhabiting a house that is again become the centre of affafrs. My Lord becomes the last resource, to which they are aU forced to apply One part of the Ministry, you may be sure, do ; and for the other, they affect to give themselves the honour of it too. Last Thursday I would certainly have written to give you a fuU answer to your letter of grief,' but I was shut up in the House till past ten at night ; and the night before tUl twelve. But I must speak to you in private first. I don't in the least doubt but my Lady Walpole and Richcourt would -willingly be as mischievous as they are maHcious, if they could : but, my dear chUd, it is impos sible. Don't fear from Lord Carteret's silence to you; he never writes : if that were a symptom of disgrace, the Duke of ISfewcastle would have been out long ere this : and when the Regency were not thought worthy of his notice, you could not expect it. As to your being attached to Lord Orford, that is your safety. Carteret told him the other day, " My Lord, I appeal to the Duke of Newcastle, ff I did not teU the King, that it was you who had carried the Hanover troops." That, too, disproves the accusation of Sir Robert's being no friend to the Queen of Hungary. That is now too stale and old. However, I wiU speak to my Lord and Mr. Pelham — ^would I had no more cause to tremble for you, than from Httle cabals ! But, my dear chUd, when we hear every day of the Toulon fleet saiUng, can I be easy for you ? or can I not foresee where that must break, unless Matthews and the wonderful fortune of England can interpose effectuaUy ? We are not -without oui- o-wn fears ; the Brest fleet of twenty-two saU is out at sea ; they talk, for Barbadoes. I beHeve we -wish it may be thither destined f Judge what I think ; I cannot, nor may -write : but I am in the utmost anxiety for your situation. The whole world, nay the Prince himseff aUows, that ff Lord Orford had not come to to-wn, the Hanover tioops had been lost.' ' Sir Horace Mann had written in great uneasiness, in consequence of hia having heard that Count Richcourt, the Great Duke's minister, was using aU his influence with the English government, in conjunction with Lady Walpole, to have Sir Horace removed from his situation at Florence. — Dover. " " Lord Orford's personal credit with his friends was the main reason that the question was so weU disposed of : he never laboured any point during his own admi- 1744.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 237 They were in effect given up by all but Carteret. AVe carried our o-wn army in Flanders by a majority of 112.' Last Wednesday was the great day of expectation : we sat in the committee on the Hanover troops tUl tiwelve at night : the numbers were 271 to 226 The next day on the report we sat again tUl past ten, the Oppo sition having moved to adjourn tUl Monday, on which we divided, 265 to 177. Then the Tories all went away in a body, and the troops were voted. We have stiU tough work to do : there are the estimates on the extraordinaries of the campaign, and the treaty of Worms ' to come — I know who ' thinks this last more difficult to fight than the Hanover troops. It is Hkely to tum out as laborious a session as ever was. AU the comfort is, aU the abuse don't lie at your door nor mine ; Lord Carteret has the fuU perquisites of the ministry. The other day, after Pitt had caUed him "the Hanover troop- minister, a flagitious task-master," and said, " that the sixteen thousand Hanoverians were aU the party he had, and were his placemen ; " in short, after he had exhausted invectives, he added, " But I have done ; ff he were present, I would say ten times more." " Murray shines as bright as ever he did at the bar ; which he seems to decHne, to push his fortune in the House of Commons under Mr. Pelham. This is the present state of our poHtics, which is our present state ; for nothing else is thought of. We fear the King wUl again go abroad. nistration with more zeal, and at a dinner at Hanbury WiUiams's had a meeting with such of the old court party as were thought most averse to concurring in this measure; where he took great pains to convince them of the necessity there was for repeating it." — Mr. P. Yorke's MS. Journal. — Wright. ' It appears from Mr. Philip Yorke's Parliamentary Journal, that the letter-writer took a part in the debate — " Young Mr. Walpole's speech," he says, " met with deserved applause from every body : it was judicious and elegant ; he applied the verse which Lucan puts in Curio's mouth to Caesar, to the King : — ' Livor edax tibi cuncta negat, Gallasque subactos, Vix impune feres.' — Wright. ' Between the King of England, the Queen of Hungary, and the King of Sardinia, to whom were afterwards added Holland and Saxony. It is sometimes called " the triple alliance." — Dover. 2 Lord Orford. — Walpole. " " Pitt as usual," says Mr Yoxke, in his MS. Parliamentary Journal, " feU foul of Lord Carteret, caUed him a Hanover troop-minister ; that they were his party, "nis placemen ; that he had conquered the cabinet by their means, and after being very lavish of his abuse, wished he was in the House, that he might give him more of it." To the uncommon accuracy of Mr. Walpoles reports of the proceedings in Parliament, the above-quoted journal bears atrong evidence. — Wright. 2S8 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1741, Lord Hartington has desfred me to write to you for some melon- seeds, which you wiU be so good to get the best, and send to me for him. I can't conclude without mentioning again the Toulon squadron: we vapour and say, by this time Matthews has beaten them, whUe 1 see them in the port of Leghorn ! My dear Mr. Chute, I trust to your friendship to comfort oui poor Miny : for my part I am aU apprehension ! My dearest chUd, ff it turns out so, trust to my friendship for working every engine to restore you to as good a situation as you -wiU lose, ff my fears prove prophetic ! The first peace would reinstate you in your favourite P'lorence, whoever were sovereign of it. I wish you may be able to snule at the vaiuty of my fears, as I did at yours about Richcourt. Adieu ! adieu ! 137. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Feb. 9, 1744. I HAVE scarce time to -write, or to know what I write. I Hve in the House of Commons. We sat on Tuesday tiU ten at night, on a Welsh election ; and shaU probably stay as long to-day on the same. I have received aU your letters by the couriers and the post : 1 am persuaded the Duke of Newcastle is much pleased with your despatch ; but I dare not enqufre, for fear he should disHke your ha'ving written the same to me. I beHeve we should have heard more of the Brest squadron, it thefr appearance off the Land's End on Friday was se'n-night, steering towards Ireland, had occasioned greater consternation. It is incredible how Httle impression it made : the stocks hardly fell : though it was then generaUy beHeved that the Pretender's son was on board. We expected some invasion ; but as they were probably disappointed on finding no rising in thefr favour, it is now beHeved that they are gone to the Mediterranean. They narrowly missed taking the Jamaica fleet, which was gone out convoyed by two men- of-war. The French pursued them, outsaUed them, and missed them by their o-wn inexpertness. Sfr" John Norris is at Portsmouth, ready to saU -with nineteen men-of-war, and is to be joined by two more from Plymouth. We hope to hear that Matthews has beat the Toulon squadron before they can be joined by the Brest. This is the state of our situation. They have stopped the embarkation of the six thousand men for Flanders ; and I hope the King's journey l''**-^ TO SIR HORACE MANN. 269 thither. The Opposition fight every measure of supply, but very unsuccessfiUly. When tHs Welsh election is over, they wUl probably go out of to-wn, and leave the rest of the session at ease. I think you have nothing to apprehend from the new mfrie that is preparing agaUist you. My Lord is convinced it is an idle attempt ; and it wiU always be in his power to prevent any such thing from taking effect. ^ I am very unhappy for Mr. Chute's gout, or for any- thmg that disturbs the peace of people I love so much, and that 1 have such vast reason to love. You know my fears for you : pray Heaven they end weU ! It is universaUy beHeved that the Pretender's son, who is at Paris wUl make the campaign in one of their armies. I suppose this -wiU soon produce a declaration of war ; and then France, perhaps, -wUl not find her account in having brought him as near to England as ever he is Hke to be. Adieu ! My Lord is hurrying me do-wn to the House. I must go ! 138. TO SIR HORACE MANN. House of Commons, Feb. 16, 1744. We are come nearer to a crisis than indeed I expected ! After the various reports about the Brest squadron, it has proved that they are sixteen ships of the Hne off Torbay ; in aU probabUity to draw our fleet from Dunkirk, where they have two men-of-war and sixteen large India-men to tiansport eight thousand foot and two thousand horse which are there in the to-wn. There has been some difficulty to persuade people of the imminence of our danger ; but yesterday the King sent a message to both Houses to acquaint us that he has certain information of the young Pretender being in France, and of the designed invasion from thence, in concert -with the disaffected here.' Immediately the Duke of Marlborough, who most handsomely and seasonably was come to to-wn on purpose, moved for an Address ' " 1744, February 13. Talking upon this subject with Horace Walpole, he told me confidentially that Admiral Matthews intercepted, laat summer, a felucca in her passage from Toulon to Genoa, on board of which were found several papers of great consequence relating to a French invasion in concert with the Jacobitea ; one of them particularly waa in the style of an invitation from several of the nobility and gentry of England to the Pretender. These papers, he thought, had not been sufficiently looked into, and were not laid before the cabinet council until the night before the message was sent to both Houses." — Mr. P. Yorke's Parliamentai'y Journal, — Wright. 290 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1714 to assure the King of standing by him -with Hves and fortunes. Lord Hartington, seconded by Sfr Charles Windham,' the convert son of Sfr WiUiam, moved the same in our House. To our amazement, and Httle sure to thefr own honour, WaUer and Dodington, supported in the most indecent manner by Pitt, moved to add, that we would immediately inqufre into the state of the Navy, the causes of our danger by negHgence, and the sailing of the Brest fleet. They insisted on this amendment, and debated it tiU seven at m'ght, not one (professed) Jacobite speaking. The division was 287 against 123. In the Lords, Chesterfield moved the same amendment, seconded by old duU Westmoreland ; but they did not divide. -AH the troops have been sent for in the greatest haste to London ; but we shaU not have above eight thousand men together at most. An express is gone to HoUand, and General Wentworth foUowed it last night, to demand six thousand men, who 'wiU probably be here by the end of next week. Lord Stafr ' has offered the Kiug his service, and is to-day named Commander-in-Chief This is very generous, and wiU be of great use. He is extiemely beloved in the army, and most firm to this family. I cannot say our situation is the most agreeable ; we know not whether Norris is gone after the Brest fleet or not. We have three ships in the Downs, but they cannot prevent a landing, which AviU probably be in Essex or Suffolk. Don't be surprised ff you hear that this cro-wn is fought for on land. As yet there is no rising ; but we must expect it on the first descent. Don't be uneasy for me, when the whole is at stake. I don't feel as ff my friends would have any reason to be concerned for me ; my warmth avUI carry me as far as any man ; and I think I can bear as I should the worst that can happen : though the delays of the French, I don't know from what cause, have not made that hkely to happen. The King keeps his bed -with the rheumatism. He is not less obHged to Lord Orford for the defence of his cro-wn, now he is out of place, than when he was in the administiation. His zeal, his courage, his attention, are indefatigable and inconceivable. He regards his o-wn Hfe no more than when it was most his duty to expose it, and fears for everything but that. ' Afterwards Earl of Egremont. —Walpole : and Secretary of State, died Aug. 21, 1763. ^Cunningham. ' The Duke of Marlborough and Lord Stair had quitted the army in disgust, after 1744.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 591 I flatt<3r myseff that next post I shaU write you a more comfort able letter. I would not have -mitten this, ff it were a time to admit deceit. Hope the best, and fear as Httle as you would do ff you were here in the danger. My best love to the Chutes ; teU them I never knew hoAV Utile I was a Jacobite till it was almost my interest to be one. Adieu ! 139. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Tliursday, Feb. 23, 1744. I WRITE to you in the greatest hurry, at eight o'clock at night, whUe they are aU at dinner round me. I am this moment come from the House, where we have carried a great Welsh election against Sfr Watkyn WUHams by 26. I fear you have not had my last, for the packet-boat has been stopped on the French stopping our messenger at Calais. There is no doubt of the invasion : the young Pretender is at Calais, and the Count de Saxe is to command the embarkation. Hitherto the spirit of the nation is with us. Sir John Norris was to saU yesterday to Dunkfrk, to try to bum thefr transports ; we are in the utmost expectation of the news. The Brest squadron was yesterday on the coast of Sussex. We have got two thousand men from Ireland, and have sent for two more. The Dutch are coming : Lord Stafr is general. Nobody is yet taken up — God knows why not ! We have repeated news of Matthews ha-ving beaten and sunk eight of the Toulon ships ; but the French have so stopped aU communication that we don't yet know it certainly ; I hope you do. Three hundred arms have been seized in a French merchant's house at Plymouth. Attempts have been made to raise the clans in Scotland, but unsuccessfuUy. My dear chUd, I -write short, but it is much ; and I could not say more in ten thousand words. AU is at stake ; we have great hopes, but they are but hopes ! I have no more time : I wait -with patience for the event, though to me it must and shaU be decisive. 140. TO SIR HORACE MANN. March 1st, liii. I -WISH I could put you out of the pain my last letters must have last campaign, on the King's showing such unmeasurable preference to the Hano verians. — Walpole. 292 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1744. given you. I don't know whether your situation, to be at such a distance on so great a crisis, is not more disagreeable than ours, who arc especting every moment to hear the French are landed. We had great iU-luck last week : Sfr John Norris, -with four-and-twenty sail, came -within a league of the Brest squadron, which had but fourteen. The coasts were covered -with people to see the engagement ; but at seven in the evening the wind changed, and they escaped. There have been terrible -winds these four or five days : our fleet has not suffered materiaUy, but thefrs less. Ours Hes in the Do-wns ; five of thefrs at Torbay — the rest at La Hogue. We hope to hear that these storms, which blew dfr-ectly on Dunkirk, have done great damage to thefr transports. By the fortune of the -winds, which have detained them in port, we have had time to make preparations ; if they had been ready three weeks ago, when the Brest squadron saUed, it had aU been decided. We expect the Dutch in four or five days. Ten battaHons, which make seven thousand men, are sent for from our army in Flanders, and four thousand from Ireland, two of which are arrived. H they stiU attempt the invasion, it must be a bloody war ! The spirit of the nation has appeared extiaordinarily in our favour. I -wish I could say as much for that of the Ministry. Addresses are come from aU parts, but you know how Httle they are to be depended on — King James had them. The merchants of London are most zealous : the French name -wiU do more harm to thefr cause than the Pretender's service. One remarkable cfrcumstance happened to Colonel Chofrnondeley's regiment on their march to London : the pubHc-houses on aU the road would not let them pay anything, but tieated them, and said, " You are going to defend us against the French." There are no signs of any rising. Lord Barrimore,' the Pretender's general, and Colonel CecU, his secretary of state, are at last taken up ; the latter, who having removed his papers, had sent for them back, thinking the danger over, is com mitted to the Tower, on discoveries from them ; but, alas ! these discoveries go on but lamely.' One may perceive who is rwt minister, rather than who is. The Opposition tried to put off the ' James Barry, fourth Earl of Barrymore. He died in 1747. See ante, p. 187.— Wright. '^ " Some treasonable papers of consequence were found in CecU'a pockets, which gave occasion to the apprehending of Lord Barrymore. They were both concerned in the affair of transmitting the Pretender's letter to the late Duke of Argyle ; which it was now lamented had not then undergone a stricter examination. I observed the Tories much struck with the news of his being secured." — Jfe,, .f ., YoJ'h^.S ¦?*'''• Journal. — Wright. 1744.J .TO SIR HORACE MANN 2fc3 suspension of the Habeas Corpus — feebly. Vemon [the Admfral] and the Gren-vUles are the warmest : Pitt and Lyttelton went away without voting.' My father has exerted himseff most amazingly : the other day, on the King's laying some information before the House, when the Miiustry had determined to make no address on it, he rose up in the greatest agitation, and made a long and fine speech on the present situation.' The Prince was so pleased -with it, that he has given him leave to go to his court, which he never would before. He went yesterday, and was most graciously received. Lord Stafr is at last appointed general. General Oglethorpe ' is to have a commission for raising a regiment of Hussars, to defend the coasts. The Swiss servants in London have offered to form them selves into a regiment ; six hundred are already clothed and armed, but no colonel or officers appointed. We flatter ourselves that the divisions in the French ministry -wiU repair what the di-visions in our own undo. The answer from the Court of France to Mx. Thomson on the subject of the boy" is most arrogant : " that when we have given them satisfaction for the many complaints which they have made on our infraction of treaties, then they -wiU think of gi-ving us des iclair- cissements." We have no authentic news yet from Matthews : the most credited is a letter froiU MarseiUes to a Jew, which says it was the most bloody battle ever fought ; that it lasted three days ; that the two first we had the worst, and the thfrd, by a lucky gale, totaUy defeated ' "Lord Barrington's motion for deferring the suspension was thrown out by 181 against 83. Pitt and Lyttelton walked down the House whilst Lord Barrington was speaking, and went away ; so did Mr. Browne, though a Tory ; but most of that party voted with the Ayes. Lord Chesterfield told the Chancellor there was no opposition to this bill intended amongst the Lords ; not even a disposition to it in anybody ; and greatly approved the limiting it to so short a time." — Mr. P. Yorke's Pari. Journal. — Wright. ¦- " Lord Orford, though he had never spoken in the House of Lords, having remarked to his brother Horatio that he had left his tongue in the House of Commons, yet on this occasion his eloquent voice was once more raised, beseeching their lord- ahipa to forget their cavils and divisions, and unite in affection round the throne. It was solely owing to him that the torrent of public opposition was braved and over come." — Lord Mahon, Hist. vol. iii. p. 273. — Wright. ^ General James Oglethorpe, born 1698, died 1786. He ia immortalised by Pope : — " One, driven by strong benevolence of soul, Shall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole." He was the friend of Dr. Johnson, and in his old age visited Walpole, who has given in his letters a brief account of him. — Cunningham. " Charles Edward, the young Pretender — Cunningham. 294 HOK.ACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1744, them. Sfr Charles Wager always said, " that ff a sea-fight lasted three days, he was sure the English suffered the most for the two first, for no other nation would stand beating for two days to gether." Adieu! my dear chUd. I have told you every cfrcumstance I know : I hope you receive my letters ; I hope thefr accounts -wiU grow more favourable. I never found my spirits so high, for they never were so provoked. Hope the best, and beHeve that, as long as I am, I shaU always be yours sincerely. P. S. My dear Chutes, I hope you wiU stUl retum to your OAvn England. 141. TO SIR HORACE MANN. March 5th, liii, eight o'clock at night. I HAVE but time to -write you a minute-Hne, but it -wUl be a com fortable one. There is just come advice, that the great storm on the 25th of last month, the very day the embarkation was to have sailed from Dunkfrk, destioyed twelve of thefr transports, and obHged the whole number of troops, which were fifteen thousand, to debark. You may look upon the invasion as at an end, at least for the present; though, as everything is to come to a crisis, one shaU not be surprised to hear of the attempt renewed. We know nothing yet certaui from Matthews ; his ¦victory grows a great doubt. As this must go away this instant, I cannot -write more — ^but what could be more ? Adieu ! I -wish you aU joy. 142. TO SIR HORACE MANN. March 15th, 1744. I HAVE nothing new to teU you : that great storm certainly saved us from the invasion — then.' Whether it has put an end to the design is uncertain. They say the embargo at Dunkfrk and Calais is taken off, but not a vessel of ours is come in from thence. They ' " The pious motto," says Mr. P. Yorke, " upon the medal struck by Queen Elizabeth after the defeat of the Armada, may, with aa much propriety, be appUed to thia event—' Flavit vento, et disaipati sunt ;' for, as Biahop Burnet aomewhere ob- servea, ' our preaervation at this juncture was one of those providential eventa, for which we have much to answer' " — MS. Pari. Joumal. — Wright. ^74i.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 296 Lnve, indeed, opened again the communication with Vpres and Nieuport, &c., but we don't yet hear whether they have renewed thefr embarkation. However, we take it for granted it is aU over — from which, I suppose, it -wiU not be over. We expect the Dutch troops every hour. That reinforcement, and four thousand men from Ireland, -wUl be aU the advantage we shaU have made of gaining time. At last we have got some Hght into our Mediterranean affafr, for there is no caUing it a victory. VUlettes has sent a courier, by which it seems we sunk one great Spanish ship ; the rest escaped, and the French fied shamefuUy ; that was, I suppose, designedly and artfuUy. We can't account for Lestock's not coming up -with his seventeen ships, and we have no mind to Hke it, which -wUl not amaze you. We flatter ourselves that, as this was only the first day, we shaU get some more creditable history of some succeeding day. The French are going to besiege Mons : I -wish aU the war may take that turn ; I don't desfre to see England the theatie of it. We talk no more of its becoming so, nor of the plot, than of the gun powder tieason. Party is very sUent ; I beHeve, because the Jacobites have better hopes than from parHamentary di-visions, — those in the ministry run very high, and, I think, near some crisis. I have enclosed a proposal from my bookseUer to the undertaker of the " Museum Florentinum," or the concemers of it, as the paper caUed them; but it was expressed in such wonderfuUy-battered EngHsh, that it was impossible for Dodsley ' or me to be sure of the meaning of it. He is a fashionable author, and though that is no sig-n of perspicuity, I hope more inteUigible. Adieu ! 143. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, March 22, 1744. I AM sorry this letter must date the era of a new correspondence, the topic of which must be blood ! Yesterday, came advice from Mr. Thompson,' that Monsieur Amelot had sent for bim and given bim notice to be gone, for a declaration of war -with England was to be pubHshed in two days. PoHticaUy, I don't think it so bad ; ' Robert Dodsley, the celebrated bookseller, originally a footman; died 1764. — Cunningham. ' Chaplain to the late Lord Waldegrave ; after whose death he acted as minister at Paris, tiU the war, when he returned, and was made a dean in Ireland. — Walpole 296 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS [1744. for the very name of war, though in effect, on foot before, must make our governors take more precautions ; and the French declaring it wiU range the people more on our side than on the Jacobite : besides, the latter -wiU have thefr communication -with France cut off. But, my dear chUd, what Hves, what misfortunes, must and may follow aU this ! As a man, I feel my humanity more touched than my spirit — I feel myseff more an universal man than an EngHshman! We have afready lost seven millions of money and thfrty thousand men in the Spanish war — and aU the fruit of aU this blood and treasure is the glory of ha-ving Admiral Vernon's head on alehouse signs ! ' for my part, I would not purchase another Duke of Marl borough at the expense of one lffe. How I should be shocked, wert I a hero, when I looked on my o-wn laureUed head on a medal, the reverse of which would be -widows and orphans.' How many such wiU our patriots have made ! The embarkation at Dunkirk does not seem to go on, though, to be sure, not laid aside. We received yesterday the particulars of the Mediterranean engagement from Matthews. We conclude the French squadron retfred designedly, to come up to Brest, where we every day expect to hear of them. If Matthews does not foUow them, adieu our triumphs in the Channel — and then ! Sfr John Norris has desfred leave to come back, as Httle satisfied -with the world as the world is with him. He is certainly very unfortunate ; ' but I can't say I think he has tried to correct his fortune. If Eng land is ever more to be England, this sure is the crisis to exert all her -vigour. We have all the disadvantage of Queen EHzabeth's prospect, -without one of her ministers. Four thousand Dutch are landed, and we hope to get eight or twelve ships from them. Can we now say, " Quatuor maria -vindico ? " " I -wiU not talk any more poHticaUy, but tum to hymeneals, Anth as much indifference as ff I were a first minister. Who do you think is going to marry Lady Sophia Fermor? — only my Ijord Carteret ! — this very week ! — a draAving-room conquest. Do but imagine how many passions avUI be gratified in that famUy ! her OAvn ambition, vanity, and resentment — love she never had any; the poHtics, management, and pedantry of the mother, who -wUl think to govem her son-in-law out of Froissart.' Figure the instractions she ' Admiral Vernon is stiU (1856) a public-house sign in London. — Cunningham. ' Copied from Swift. — Cunningham. He was called by the seamen "Foul-weather Jack." — Walpole. * Motto of a medal of Charies IL— Walpole. ^ Lady Pomfret had translated Froissart.— Walpolk. 1744.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 297 AvUl give her daughter ! Lincoln is quite indifferent and laughs. My Lord Chesterfield says, " it is only another of Carteret's vigorous measures." I am really glad of it ; for her beauty antt clevemess did deserve a better fate than she was on the point of having deter mined for her for ever. How graceful, how charming, and how haughtily condescending she wUl be ! how, ff Lincoln .should ever hint past history, she -wUl " Stare upon the strange man s face. As one she ne'er had known ! " ' I wonder I forgot ' to teU you that Dodington had owned a match of seventeen years' standing -with Mrs. Behan, to whom the one you mention is sister. I have this moment received yours of March 10th, and thank you much for the sUver medal, which has afready taken its place in my museum. I feel almost out of pain for your situation, as by the motion of the fleets this way, I should think the expedition to Italy abandoned. We and you have had great escapes, but we have stUl occasion for aU pro-vidence ! I am very sorry for the young Sposa Panciatici, and -wish aU the other parents joy of the increase of thefr families. Mr. Whithed is en bon train ; but the recruits he is raising avUI scarce thrive fast enough to be of service this war. My best loves to him and Mr. Chute. I except you three out of my want of pubHc spirit. The other day, when the Jacobites and patriots were carrying everything to ruin, and had made me warmer than I love to be, one of them said to me, "Why don't you love your country ? " I repHed, "I should love my country exceedingly, ff it were not for my coimtry- men." Adieu ! 144. TO SIR HORACE MANN. April 2, 1744. I AM afraid our correspondence -wiU be extremely disjointed, and the length of time before you get my letters AviU make you very impatient, when aU the world wiU be fuU of events ; but I flatter myself that you -wiU hear everything sooner than by my letters ; I ' Veixts in Congreve's " Doris.'' — Walpole. ^ He bad not forgotten, ante, p. 216. — Cunningham. 298 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1744. mean, that whatever happens wiU be on the Contment; for the danger from Dunkfrk seems blown over. We declared war on Saturday : that is aU I know, for everybody has been out of toAvnfor the Easter hoHdays. To-morrow the Houses meet again : the King goes, and is to make a speech. The Dutch seem extremely in earnest, and I think we seem to put aU our stiength in their preparations. The to-wn is persuaded that Lord CHnton ' is gone to Paris to make peace : he is certainly gone thither, nobody knows why. He has gone thither every year aU his Hfe, when he was in the Opposition ; but, to be sure, this is a very strange time to take that journey. Lord Stafford, who came hither just before the intended invasion, (no doubt for the defence of the Protestant reHgion, especiaUy as his father-in-law, Bulkeley,' was colonel of one of the embarked regiments), is going to carry his sister to be married to a Count de Rohan,' and then returns, having a sign manual for leaving his Avffe there. We shaU not be surprised to hear that the Electorate [of Hanover] has got a new master ; shaU you ? Our dear nephew of Prassia aviU probably take it, to keep it safe for us. I had -written thus far on Monday, and then my Lord came from New Park [Richmond] : and I had not time the rest of the day to finish it. We have made very loyal addresses to the King on his speech, which I suppose they send you. There is not the least news, but that my Lord Carteret's wedding has been deferred on Lady Sophia's [Fermor's] falling dangerously iU of a scarlet fever ; but they say it is to be next Saturday. She is to have sixteen hundred pounds a-year jointure, four hundred pounds pin-money, and two thousand of jewels. Carteret says, he does not intend to marry the mother [Lady Pomfret] and the whole famUy. What do you think my lady intends ? Adieu ! my dear Sfr ! Pray for peace. ' Hugh Fortescue, afterwards Earl of Clinton and Knight of the Bath. Not long after he received that order he went into Opposition, and left off his ribbon and star for one day, but thought better of it, and put them on the next. — Walpole. He was created Lord Fortescue and Earl of Clinton in 1746, and died in 1761.— Wright. ¦' Mr Bulkeley, an Irish Roman CathoUc, married the widow CantiUon, mother of the Countess of Stafford. He rose high in the French army, and had the cordonUeu: his sister was second wife of the first Duke of Berwick. — Walpole. ' Afterwards Duke of Rohan Chabot. — Dover. 17i<.l TO SIR HORACE MANN. 289 146. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, April 15, 1744. I COULD teU you a great deal of news, but it would not be what you would expect. It is not of battles, sieges, and declarations of war ; nor of invasions, insurrections, and addresses. It is the god of love, not he of war, who reigns in the newspapers. The to^wn has made up a list of sis-and-thfrty weddings, which I shaU not catalogue to you ; for you would know them no more than you do Antilochum, fortemque Gyan, fortemque Cloanthum. But the chief entertainment has been the nuptials of our great Quixote [Carteret] and the fafr Sophia. On the point of matrimony, she feU iU of a scarlet fever, and was given over, whUe he had the gout, but heroicaUy sent her word, that ff she was weU, he would be so. They corresponded every day, and he used to plague the Cabinet CouncU -with reading her letters to them. Last night they were married ; and as aU he does must have a particular afr in it, they supped at Lord Pomfret's : at twelve. Lady Gran-vUle,' (his mother), and aU his famUy went to bed, but the porter : then my Lord went home, and waited for her in the lodge : she came alone in a hackney-chafr, met bim in the haU, and was led up the back-stafrs to bed. What is ridiculously lucky is, that Lord Lincoln goes into waiting to-day, and -wiU be to present her ! On Tuesday she stands godmother with the King to Lady Dysart's' chUd, her new grand daughter. I am impatient to see the whole menage ; it AviU be admfrable. There is a AvUd young Venetian ambassadress ' come, who is reckoned very pretty. I don't think so ; she is foolish and chUdish to a degree. She said, " Lord ! the old Secretary is going to be married ! " They told her he was but fifty-four. " But fifty- four! why," said she, "my husband is but two-and-forty, and I think bim the oldest man in the world." Did I teU you that Lord ' Grace Granville, aunt and co-heir of William Henry GranvUle, third Earl of Bath, and daughter of John GranvUle, firat Earl of Bath, married George, first Baron Carteret. She was created January 1, 1714, Visconnteaa Carteret and Counteaa GranvUle, ami died in 1744, ahortly after her son's marriage to Lady Sophia Fermor [See p. 222.]— Cunningham. ' Lady Grace Carteret (eldest daughter of Lord Carteret), married in 1729 to Lionel ToUemache, fourth Earl of Dyaart.— Weight. ' Wife of Signer CapeUo- -Walpole. 800 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1744. Holdemess ' goes to Venice -with the compHments of accommodation, and leaves Sfr James Grey resident there ? The invasion from Dunkirk seems laid aside. We talk Httle of our fieets : Sfr John Norris has resigned : Lestock is coming home, and has sent before hfrn great complaints of Matthews ; so that affafr must be cleared up. The King talks much of going abroad, which AviU not be very prudent. The campaign is not opened yet, but I suppose wiU disclose at once with great ^clat in several quarters. I this instant receive your letter of March 31st, Avith the simple Demetrius, for which, however, I thank you. I hope by this time you have received aU my letters, and are at peace about the invasion ; which we think so much over, that the Opposition are now breaking out about the Dutch tioops, and caU it the worst measure ever taken. Those terms so generaUy dealt to every measure successively, -wiU at least soften the Hanoverian history. Adieu ! I have nothing more to teU you : I flatter myseff you content yourseff -vrith news ; I cannot Avrite sentences nor sentiments. My best love to the Chutes, and now and then let my friends the Prince and Princess and the Florentines know that I shaU never forget thefr goodness to me. What is become of Prince Beauvau ? 146. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, May 8, 1744. I BEGIN to breathe a Httle at ease ; we have done -with the ParHa ment for this year : it rises on Saturday. We have had but one material day lately, last Thursday. The Opposition had brought in a bUl to make it treason to correspond vrith the young Pretenders :' the Lords added a clause, after a long debate, to make it forfeiture of estates, as it is for dealing -with the father. We sat tiU one in the morning, and then carried it by 285 to 106. It was the best debate I ever heard.' The King goes to Kensington to-morrow, and not ' Robert Darcy, Earl of Holdemess, ambassador at Venice and the Hague, and afterwards Secretary of State. [See p. 17.]— Walpole. " Charles Edward, and Henry, his brother, afterwards the Cardinal of York.— Dover. ^ "It was a warm and long debate, in which I think as much violence and dislike to the proposition was shown by the opposers, as in any which had arisen during the whole winter I thought neither Mr Pelham's nor Pitt's performances equal on thia occ.ision to what they are on most others. Many of the Prince's friends were absent; for what reason I cannot learn. This was the parting blow of the session ; for the 1744.] TO SIR HORACE MaNN. 801 abroad. We hear of great quarrels between Marshal Wade and Due d'Aremberg. The French Kmg is at Valenciennes with Mon sieur de NoaUles, who is now looked upon as first minister. He is the least dangerous for us of aU. It is affirmed that Cardinal Tencin is disgraced, who was the very worst for us. H he is, we shaU at least have no invasion this summer. Successors of ministers seldom take up the schemes of thefr predecessors; especiaUy such as by faUing caused thefr ruin, which, I beHeve, was Tencin's case at Dunkfrk. For a week we heard of the affafr at VUlafranca in a worse Hght than was true : it certainly turns out Ul for both sides. Though the French have had such bloody loss, I cannot but think they wUl carry thefr point, and force thefr passage into Italy. We have no domestic news, but Lord Level's being created Earl of Leicester, on an old promise which my father had obtained for him. Earl Berkeley' is married to Miss Drax, a very pretty maid of honour to the Princess; and the Viscount FitzwUHam'' to Sfr Matthew Decker's eldest daughter ; but these are people I am sure you don't know. There is to be a great baU to-morrow at the Duchess of Rich mond's for my Lady Carteret : the Prince [of Wales] is to be there. Carteret's court pay her the highest honours, which she receives with the highest state. I have seen her but once, and found her just what I expected, tres grande dame ; fuU of herseff, and yet not vrith an afr of happiness. She looks Ul and is grown lean, but is stUl the finest figure in the world. The mother [Lady Pomfret] is not so exalted as I expected ; I fancy Carteret has kept his resolution, and does not marry her too. My Lord does not talk of going out of toAvn yet ; I don't propose to be at Houghton tiU August. Adieu ! King came and dismissed us on the 12th, and the Parliament broke up with a good deal of ill-humour and discontent on the part of the Opposition, and little expectation in those who knew the interior of the court, and the unconnected state of the alliance abroad, that much would be done in the ensuing campaign to allay it, or infuse a better temper into the nation." — Mr. Yorke's MS. Parliamentary Journal. — Weight. ' Augustus, fourth Earl Berkeley, K.T. [See p. 91.] He man-led Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Drax, Esq. of Charborough, in Dorsetshire ; and died in 1756. — Dover. ' Richard, sixth Viscount Fitzwilliam, in Ireland, married Catherine, daughter and heireas of Sir Matthew Decker, Bart., and died in 1776.— Wright 302 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1744. 147. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, May 29, 1744. Since I Avrote I have received two from you of May 6th and 19 th. I am extremely sorry you get mine so late. I have desfred your brother to complain to Mr. Preverau : I get yours pretty regularly. I have this morning had a letter from Mr. Conway at the army ; he says he hears just then that the French have declared war against the Dutch : they had in effect before by besieging Menin, which siege our army is in fuU march to raise. They have laid bridges over the Scheldt, and intend to force the French to a battle. The latter are almost double our number, but thefr desertion is prodigious, and thefr troops extiemely bad. Fourteen thousand more Dutch are ordered, and thefr sis thousand are going from hence vrith four more of ours; so we seem to have no more apprehensions of an invasion. All thoughts of it are over ! no inquiry made into it ! The presen-t ministry fear the detection of conspfracies more than the thing itseff : that is, they fear everything that they are to do themselves. My father has been extremely Ul, from a cold he caught last week at New-park [Richmond]. Princess EmUy came thither to fish, and he, who is gro-wn quite indolent, and has not been out of a hot room this twelvemonth, sat an hour and a haff by the water side. He was in great danger one day, and more low-spirited than ever I knew him, though I think that grows upon bim -with his infirmities. My sister was at his bed-side ; I came into the room, — he burst into tears and could not speak to me : but he is quite weU now ; though I cannot say I think he vriU preserve his Hfe long, as he has laid aside aU exercise, which has been of such vast service to him. He talked the other day of shutting himseff up in the farthest Aving at Houghton ; I said, " Dear, my Lord, you avUI be at a distance from aU the famUy there ! " He repHed, " So much the better ! " Pope is given over -with a dropsy,' which is mounted into his head: in an evening he is not in his senses ; the other day at ChisAnck, he said to my Lady BurHngton, " Look at our Saviour there ! how iU they have crucified him ! " There is a Prince of Ost-Frize " dead, which is Hkely to occasion - Pope died at Twickenham, May 30, 1744.— Cunningham. - The Prince of East Friesland. — Walpole. 1744.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 303 most unlucky broils : Holland, Prussia, and Denmark have all pre tensions to his succession ; but Prussia is determined to make his good. If the Dutch don't dispute it, he wiU be too near a neighbour ; if they do, we lose his neutrality, which is now so material. The town has been in a great bustle about a private match ; but which, by the ingenuity of the Ministry, has been made politics. Mr. Fox [Lord HoUand] fell in love with Lady Caroline Lenox ; ^ asked her, was refused, and stole her. His father [Sfr Stephen Fox] was a footman ; her great grandfather [Charles IL] a king : liinc illm lachrymce ! aU the blood royal have been up in arms. The Duke of Marlborough, who was a friend of the Richmonds, gave her away. If his Majesty's Princess CaroHne had been stolen, there could not have been more noise made. The Pelhams, who are much attached to the Richmonds, but who have tried to make Fox and aU that set thefrs, Avisely entered into the quarrel, and now don't know how to get out of it. They were for hindering [Hanbury] WUHams, who is Fox's great friend, and at whose house they were married, from having the red ribbon ; but he has got it -with four others, the Viscount FitzwUHam, Calthorpe, Whitmore, and Harbord. Dash wood (Lady Carteret's quondam lover), has stolen a great fortune, a Miss Bateman ; the marriage had been proposed, but the fathers could not agree on the terms. I am much obHged to you for aU your Sardinian and NeapoHtan journals. 1 am impatient for the conquest of Naples, and have no notion of neglecting sure things, which may serve by way of dedommagement. I am very sorry I recommended such a tioublesome booby to you. Indeed, dear Mr. Chute, I never saw him, but was pressed by Mr. SelAvyn, whose brother's friend he is, to give him that letter to you. I now hear that he is a warm Jacobite ; 1 suppose you somehow disobHged bim poHticaUy. We are now mad about tar-water, on the pubHcation of a book that I wiU send you, written by Dr. Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne.' The book contains every subject from tar- water to the Trinity ; how ever, aU the women read, and understand it no more than they would if it were inteUigible. A man came into an apothecary's shop the other day, " Do you seU tar- water ? " " Tar- water ! " repHed the apothecary, " why, I seU nothing else ! " Adieu ! ' Eldest daughter of Charles Duke of Richmond, grandaon of King Charles II.— Walpole. * " I then happened to recollect, upon a hint given me by the. inimitable author oS 304 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1744. 148. TO SIR HORACE MANN. June 11, 1744. Perhaps you expect to hear of great triumphs and -victories ; of General Wade grown into a Duke of Marlborough ; or of the King being in Flanders, with the second part of the Battle of Dettingen — why, ay ; you are bound in conscience, as a good EngHshman, to expect aU this — but what ff aU these Lo Pceans should be played to the Dunkirk tune ? I must prepare you for some such thing ; for unless the French are as much thefr OAvn foes as we are our o-wn, I don't see what should hinder the festival of to-day ' being kept next year a day sooner. But I -wiU draw no consequences : oiUy sketch you out our present situation : and ff Cardinal Tencin can miss making his use of it, we may bum our books and Hve hereafter upon good fortune. The French King's army is at least ninety thousand stiong ; has taken Menin afready, and Ypres almost. Remains then only Ostend ; which you avUI look in the map and see does not He in the high road to the conquest of the Austrian Netherlands. Ostend may be laid under water, and the taking it an affafr of time. But there Hes aU our train of artUlery, which cost two hundred thousand pounds ; and what becomes of our communication Avith our army ? Why, they may go round by WUHamstadt, and be in England just time enough to be some other body's army ! It turns out that the whole combined army, EngHsh, Dutch, Austrians, and Hanoverians, does not amount to above thfrty-six thousand fighting men! and yet forty thousand more French, under the Due d'Harcourt are coming into Flanders. When their army is afready so superior to ours, for what can that reinforcement be intended, but to let them spare a triumph to Dunkfrk ? Now you AviU naturaUy ask me three questions : where is Prince Charles ? where are the Dutch ? what force have you to defend England? Prince Charles is hovering about the Rhine to take Lorrain, which they seem not to care whether he does or not, and leaves you to defend the Netherlands. The Dutch seem indifferent whether thefr barrier is in the hands of the ' Female Quixote ' [Mra. Lennox] that I had many years before, from curiosity only, taken a cursory view of Bishop Berkeley's treatise on the virtues of tar-water Fielding, Voyage to Lisbon. — Cunningham. ' The lOth of June was the Pretender's birthday, and the 11th the accession of George II. — Walpole. 1744.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 805 the Queen or the Emperor ; and whUe you are so mad, think it pmdent not to be so themselves. For om- o'wn force, it is too melancholy to mention : six regiments go away to-morrow to Ostend, Avith the six thousand Dutch. Carteret and Botzlaer, (the Dutch envoy extra ordinary,) would have hurried them away Avithout orders; but General Smitsart, thefr commander, said, he was too old to be hanged. This reply was told to my father yesterday : " Ay," said he, " so I thought I was ; but I may Hve to be mistaken ! " When these tioops are gone, we shaU not have in the whole island above six thousand men, even when the regiments are complete ; and haff of those pressed and new-Hsted men. For our sea-force, I ¦wish it may be greater in proportion ! Sir Charles Hardy, whose name ' at least is Ul-favoured, is removed, and old Balchen,' a firm Whig, put at the head of the fieet. Fifteen ships are sent for from Matthews ; but they may come as opportunely as the army from WUHamstadt — in short — but I won't enter into reasonings — the King is not gone. The Dutch have sent word, that they can let us have but six of the twenty ships we expected. My father is going into Norfolk, quite shocked at Hving to see how terribly his o-wn conduct is justified. In the city the word is, " Old Sunderland's " game is acting over again." TeU me ff you receive this letter : I beHeve you avUI scarce give it about in memorials. Here are arrived two Florentines, not recommended to me, but I have been very civil to them. Marquis Salviati and Conte Delci ; the latter remembers to have seen me at Madame Grifoni's. The Venetian ambassador met my father yesterday at my Lady Brown's : you would have laughed to have seen how he stared and eccellenza'd him. At last they feU into a broken Latin chat, and there was no getting the ambassador away from him. If you have the least interest in any one Madonna in Florence, pay her weU for aU the service she can do us. H she can work mfracles, now is her time. H she can't, I beHeve we shaU aU be forced to adore her. Adieu ! TeU Mr. Chute I fear we shall not be quite so weU received at the conversazioni, at Madame de Craon's, and the Casino," when we are but refugee heretics. WeU, we must hope ! Yours I am, and we -wiU bear our wayward fate together. ' He was of a Jacobite family. — Walpole. ^ Sir John Balchen, afterwards Governor of Greenwich Hospital. — Cunningham. ' Lord Sunderland, who betrayed Jamea II. — Walpole ' The Florentine coffee-house. — Walpole. ^^^ HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1744, 149. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, June 18, 1744. I HAVE not any immediate bad news to teUyou in consequence of my last. The siege of Ypres does not advance so expeditiously as was expected ; a Httle time gained in sieges goes a great way ia a campaign. The Brest squadron is making just as great a figui'e in our channel as Matthews does before Toulon and Marseilles. I should be glad to be told by some nice computors of national glory, how much the balance is on our side. -Anson ' is returned with vast fortune, substantial and lucky. He has brought the Acapulca ship into Portsmouth, and its tieasure is at least computed at five hundred thousand pounds. He escaped the Brest squadron by a mist. You avUI have aU the particulars in a gazette. I AviU not faU to make your compliments to the Pomfrets and Carterets. I see them seldom, but I am in favour ; so I conclude, for my Lady Pomfret told me the other night, that I said better things than anybody. I was Avith them aU at a subscription-ball at Ranelagh last week, which my Lady Carteret thought proper to look upon as given to her, and thanked the gentlemen, who were not quite so weU pleased at her condescending to take it to herseff. My Lord stayed with her there tiU four in the morning. They are all fondness — walk together, and stop every five steps to kiss. Madame de Craon is a cipher to her for grandeur. The baU was on an excessively hot night ; yet she was dressed in a magnificent brocade, because it was new that morning for the inauguration-day. I did the honours of aU her dress : " How charming your ladyship's cross is! I am sure the design was your OAvn."— "No, indeed; my lord sent it me just as it is." — " How fine your ear-rings are ! "—"Oh! but they are very heavy." Then as much to the mother [Lady Pomfret]. Do you wonder I say better things than anybody? I send you by a ship going to Leghom the only new books at all worth readmg. The Abuse' of ParHaments is by Dodington and WaUer, cfrcumstantiaUy scurrilous. The dedication of the Essay, ' The celebrated circumnavigator, afterwards a peer, and firat lord of the Admiralty. — Dover. " " Detection of the Uae and Abuae of Parliaments," by Ralph, under the direction of Dodington and Waller — Walpole. ' Essay on Wit, Humour, and Ridicule, by Corbyn Morris. — Walpole. 1744.] TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. 307 to my father is fine ; pray mind the quotation from IMUton. There is Dr. Berkeley's mad book on tar- water, which has made everybody as mad as himseff. I have lately made a great antique purchase of aU Dr. Middleton's coUection which he brought from Italy, and which he is now pubHshing. I -vriU send you the book as soon as it comes out. I would not buy the things tiU the book was haff printed, for fear of an k Museo Walpoliano. Those honours are mighty weU for such kno-wn and learned men as Mr. Snuth,' the merchant of Venice. My dear Mr. Chute, how we used to enjoy the title-page ^ of his understanding ! Do you remember how angry he was when sho-wing us a Guido, after pompous rooms fuU of Sebastian Ricci's, which he had a mind to establish for capital pictures, you told him he had now made amends for aU the rubbish he had showed us before ? My father has asked, and with some difficulty got, his pension of four thousand pounds a-year, which the King gave him on his resignation, and which he dropped, by the wise fears of my uncle and the Selwyns. He has no reason to be satisfied with the manner of obtaining it now, or -with the manner of the man [Mr. Pelham] whom he employed to ask it : yet it was not a point that requfred capacity — merely gratitude. Adieu ! 150. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Mt Dearest Harry : Arlington Street, June 29, 1744. I don't know what made my last letter so long on the road : yours got hither as soon as it could. I don't attribute it to any examination at the post-office. God forbid I should suspect any branch of the present administiation of attempting to know any one kind of thing ! I remember when I was at Eton, and Mr. Bland' had set me an extiaordinary task, I used sometimes to pique myseff upon not getting it, because it was not immediately my school business. What ! leam more than I was absolutely forced to leam ! I felt the weight of learning that ; for I was a blockhead, and pushed up above my parts. ' Mr. Smith, consul at Venice, had a fine Ubrary, of which he knew nothing at aU but the title-pages. [See p. 239.]— Walpolb. ' Expression of Mr. Chute. — Walpole. • Dr. Henry Bland. See Walpole'a "Short Notes of hia Life," prefixed to thia volume. — Cunningham. 308 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1744, Lest you maHciously think I mean any appHcation of this last sentence anywhere in the world, I shaU go and tianscribe some Hnes out of a new poem, that pretends to great impartiaHty, but is evidently wrote by some secret friend of the ministry. It is caUed Pope's, but has no good Hnes but the foUo-wing. The plan supposes him complaining of being put to death by the blundering discord of his two physicians. Burton and Thompson; ' and from thence makes a tiansition, to show that aU the present misfortunes of the world flow from a paraUel disagreement ; for instance, in poHtics : " .4sk you what cause this conduct can create ? The doctors differ that direct the state. Craterus, wild as Thompson, rules and raves, A slave himself, yet proud of making slaves ; Fondly believing that his mighty parts Can guide all councils and command all hearts ; Give shape and colour to discordant things. Hide fraud in ministers and fear in kings. Presuming on his power, such schemes he draws For bribing Iron,^ and giving Europe laws, That camps, and fleets, aud treaties fill the news. And succors unobtain'd and unaccomplish'd views. " Like solemn Burton grave Plumbosua acts , He thinka in method, argues all from facts ; Warm in his temper, yet affecting ice. Protests his candour ere he gives advice ; Hints he dislikes the schemes he recommends. And courts his foes — and hardly courts his friends Is fond of power, and yet concern'd for fame — From different parties would dependents claim ; Declares for war, but in an awkward way. Loves peace at heart, which he's afraid to say ; His head perplex'd, altho' his hands are pure — An honest man, — but not a hero sure ! " I beg you wUl never teU me any news till it has past every impression of the Dutch gazette ; for one is apt to mention what is AVTote to one : that gets about, comes at last to the ears of the ministry, puts them in a fright, and perhaps they send to beg to see your letter. Now, you know one should hate to have one's private correspondence made grounds for a measure, — especiaUy for an absurd one, which is just possible. ' Dr. Thompson, a man who had, by large promises, and free censures of the com mon practice of physic, forced himself up into a sudden reputation. — Johnson's Life of Pope. He was one of the physicians who attended Frederick Prince of AV ales in his last illness, and differed from the other physicians that were with him. Paul Whitehead addressed an epistle in verse to this Dr. Thompson. — Cunningham. * Thia is nonsense. — H, W. — Walpole, 1744.1 TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. 309 If I was Avriting to anybody but you, who know me so weU, 1 should be afraid this would be taken for pique and pride, and be constiued into my thinking aU ministers inferior to my father ; but, my dear Harry, you know it was never my foible to think over- abundantly weU of him. Why I think as I do of the present great geniuses, answer for me, Admfral Matthews, great British Neptune, bouncing in the Mediterranean, whUe the Brest squadron is riding in the English Channel, and an invasion from Dunkfrk every moment threatening your coasts ; against which you send for six thousand Dutch troops, whUe you have twenty thousand of your own in Flanders, which not befrig of any use, you send these very six thousand Dutch to them, with above half of the few of your own remaining in England ; a thfrd part of which haff of which few you countermand, because you are again alarmed with the invasion, and yet let the six Dutch go, who came for no other end but to protect you. And that our naval discretion may go hand-in-hand -with our mUitary, we find we have no force at home ; we send for fffteen ships from the Mediterranean to guard our coasts, and demand twenty from the Dutch. The first fifteen wUl be here, perhaps, in three months. Of the twenty Dutch, they excuse aU but six, of which six they send aU but four ; and your OAvn smaU domestic fleet, five are going to the West Indies and twenty a hunting for some Spanish ships that are coming from the Indies. Don't it put you in mind of a trick that is done by calculation? Think of a number: halve it — double it — add ten — subtract twenty — add haff the first number — take away aU you added : now, what remains ? That you may not think I employ my time as idly as the great men I have been talking of, you must be informed, that every night constantly I go to Ranelagh; which has totaUy beat VauxhaU. Nobody goes anywhere else — everybody goes there. My Lord Chesterfield is so fond of it, that he says he has ordered all his letters to be dfrected thither. If you had never seen it, I would make you a most pompous description of it, and teU you how the floor is aU of beaten princes — that you can't set your foot without treadins on a Prince of Wales or Duke of Cumberland. The company is universal : there is from his Grace of Grafton do-wn to chUdren out of the Foundling Hospital — from my Lady ToAvnshend to the kitten — ^from my Lord Sandys to your humble cousin and sincere friend. 310 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1744 161. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, June 29, 1744, Well, at last this is not to be the year of our captivity ! There is a cluster of good packets come at once. The Dutch have marched twelve thousand men to join our army ; the King of Sardinia (but this is only a report) has beaten the Spaniards back over the Varo, and I this moment hear from the Secretary's office, that Prince Charles has undoubtedly passed the Rhine at the head of four-score thousand men — where, and -with what cfrcumstances, I don't know a word ; ma basta cosi. It is said, too, that the Marquis de la Ch^tardie " is sent away from Russia ; but this one has no occasion to beHeve. False good news are always produced by tiue good, like the watergall by the rainbow. But why do I take upon me to teU you aU this ? — ^you, who are the centie of ministers and business ! the actuating genius in the conquest of Naples ! You cannot imagine how formidable you appear to me. My poor Httle, quiet Miny, ynth. his headache and epuisemens, and Cocchio, and coverHd of cygnet's doAvn, that had no dealings but with a little spy-abb^ at Rome, a civU whisper Avith Count Lorenzi,' or an explanation on some of Goldsworthy's absurdities, or -with Richcourt about some sbirri,' that had insolently passed through the street in which the King of Great Britain's arms condescended to hang ! Bless me ! how he is changed ! become a trafficking plenipotentiary Avith Prince LobkoAvitz, Cardinal -Albaiu," and Admiral Matthews ! Why, my dear chUd, I should not know you again ; I should not dare to roU you up between a finger and thumb Hke wet bro-wn-paper. WeU, heaven prosper your arms ! But I hate you, for I now look upon you as ten times fatter than I am. I don't think it would be quite unadvisable for Bistino ' to take a ' French ambassador at the court of St. Petersburg, and for some time a favourite of the Empreaa EUzabeth. The report of his disgrace was correct. He died in 1768. — Wright. ^ A Florentine, but employed as minister by France. — Walpole. ' The officers of justice, who are reckoned so infamous in Italy, that the foreign miniaters have alwaya pretended to hinder them from paaaing through the street* where they reside. — Walpole. " Cardinal Alexander Albani, nephew of Clement XL, was minister of the Queen of Hungary at Rome. — Walpole. * Giovanni Battista Uguccioni, a Florentine nobleman, and great friend of the Pomfrets. — Walpole. 1744.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 311 journey hither. My Lady Carteret would take violently to any thing that came so far to adore her grandeur. I beHeve even my Lady Pomfret would be persundcd. he had seen the star of their glory travelling westward to dfrect hfrn. For my part, I expect soon to make a figure too in the poHtical magazine, for aU our Florence set is coining to grandeur ; but you and my Lady Carteret have out stripped me. I remain Avith the Duke of Courland in Siberia — ^my father has actuaUy gone thither for a long season. I met my Lady Carteret the other day at Knapton's,' and desfred leave to stay whUe she sat for her picture. She is drawn croAvned -vrith com, Hke the Goddess of Plenty, and a mUd dove in her arms, Hke Mrs. Venus. We had much of my lord and my lord. The countess-mother [Lady Pomfret] was glad my lord was not there — he was never satisfied with the eyes ; she was afraid he would have had them drawn bigger than the cheeks. I made your compliments abundantly, and cried down the charms of the picture as poHticaUy as ff you yourseff had been there in ministerial person. To fiU up this sheet, I shall transcribe some very good Hnes pubHshed to-day in one of the papers, by I don't know whom, on Pope's death. " Here lies, who died, as most folks die, in hope. The mould'ring, more ignoble part of Pope ; The bard, whoae sprightly genius dared to wage Poetic war with an immoral age ; Made every vice and private foUy known In friend and foe — a stranger to his own ; Set virtue in its loveliest form to view. And still profess'd to be the sketch he drew. As humour or as interest served, his verse Could praise or flatter, libel or aaperse : Unharming innocence with guilt could load. Or lift the rebel patriot to a god : Give the censorious critic standing laws — The first to violate them with applause ; The just translator and the solid wit, Like whom the passions few so truly hit ; The scourge of duncea whom his malice made — The impioua plague of the defenceleas dead : To real knavea and real fools a sore — Beloved by many, but abhorr'd by more. If here his merits are not full exprest. His never-dying strains shall tell the rest^" Sure the greatest part was his true character. Here is another ' George Knapton was a scholar of Richardson, but chiefly painted in crayona. H« died at Kensington in 1778, and was there buried. — Cunningham. 312 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1744, epitaph by RoUi ; ' which for the profound faU in some of the verses. especiaUy in the last, -wiU divert you. " Spento fe il Pope : de' poeti Britann' Uno de' lumi che sorge in mille anni ; Pur si vuol che la macchia d'Ingrato N'abbia reso il fulgor men sereno : State fora e pill giusto e piil grato. Men lodando e biasmando ancor meno. Ma chi fe reo per native prurito ? Lode 0 biaamo, qui tutto fe partite. Nasce, scorre, ai legge, ai sente ; Dope un Di, tutto h per niente." Adieu! 162. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Mt Dearest Harrt : Arlington Street, July 20, 1744. I FEEL that I have so much to say to you, that I foresee there AvUl be but Httle method in my letter ; but ff, upon the whole, you see my meaning, and the depth of my friendship for you, I am content. It was most agreeable to me to receive a letter of confidence from you, at the time I expected a very different one from you ; though, by the date of your last, I perceive you had not then received some letters, which, though I did not see, I must caU simple, as they could only tend to make you uneasy for some months. I should not have thought of communicating a quarrel to you at this distance, and I don't conceive the sort of friendship of those that thought it necessary. When I heard it had been -wrote to you, I thought it right to myseff to give you my account of it, but, by your brother's desfre, suppressed my letter, and left it to be explained by him, who Avrote to you so sensibly on it, that I shall say no more but that I think myself so Ul-used that it -wUl prevent my giAang you thoroughly the ad-rice you ask of me ; for how can I be sure that my resent ment might not make me see in a stronger Hght the reasons for your breaking off an affair'' which you know before I never approved ? ' Paolo Antonio RoUi, composer of the operas, translated and published several things. Thus hitched into the llunciad — " RoUi the feather to his ear conveys ; Then his nice taste directs our operas." Warburton says, " he taught Italian to some fine gentlemen, who affected to direct the operas." — Wright. ' Thia was an eariy attachment of Mr. Conway's. By his having complied with 1744.] TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. 313 You know my temper is so open to anybody I love that I must be happy at seeing you lay aside a reserve -with me, which is the only point that ever made me dissatisfied -with you. That sUence of yours has, perhaps, been one of the chief reasons that has always prevented my saying much to you on a topic which I saw was so near your heart. Indeed, its being so near was another reason ; for how could I expect you would take my advice, even ff you bore it ? But, my dearest Harry, how can I adAise you now ? Is it not gone too far for me to expect you should keep any resolution about it, especiaUy in absence, which must be destroyed the moment you meet again? And ff ever you should marry and be happy, won't you reproach me Avith having tried to hinder it ? I think you as just and honest as I think any man Hving ; but any man Hving in that cfrcumstance would think I had been prompted by private reasons. I see as strongly as you can aU the arguments for your breaking off; but, indeed, the alteration of your fortune adds very Httle strength to what they had before. You never had fortune enough to make such a step at all prudent: she loved you enough to be content with that ; I can't beHeve this change wUl alter her sentiments, for I must do her the justice to say that it is plain she preferred you vrith nothing to aU the world. I could talk upon this head, but I wiU only leave you to consider, Avithout advising you on either side, these two things — whether you think it honester to break off vrith her after such engagements as yours (how stiong I don't know), after her refusing very good matches for you, and show her that she must think of making her fortune ; or whether you wUl wait vrith her tUl some amendment in your fortune can put it in your power to marry her. My dearest Harry, you must see why I don't care to say more on this head. My -wishing it could be right for you to break off vrith her (for, vrithout it is right, I would not have you on any account take such a step) makes it impossible for me to advise it; and, therefore, I am sure you -wUl forgive my decHning an act of friend ship which your having put in my power gives me the preatest the wishes and advice of his friend on this subject, and got the better of his passion, he probably felt that he, in some measure, owed to Mr. Walpole the subsequent happiness of his life, in his marriage with another person. — AValpole. The lady alluded to was Lady Caroline Fitzroy, afterwards [1746] Countess of Harrington, whose sister. Lady Isabella, had, three years before, married Mr Conway's elder brother, afterwards Earl and Marquis of Hertford — Wright. Have not tou felt a little twinge in a remote corner of your heart on Ladj Harrington's death. Walpole to Conway. June 30, 1784.— Cunningham. 314 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1744 satisfaction. But it does put something else in my power, which I am sure nothing can make me decHne, and for which I have long wanted an opportunity. Nothing could prevent my being unhappy at the smaUness of your fortune, but its throwing it into my way to offer you to share mine. -As mine is so precarious, by depending on so bad a constitution, I can only offer you the immediate use of it. I do that most sincerely. My places stUl (though my Lord Walpole has cut off three hundred pounds a-year to save himseff the trouble of signing his name ten times for once) brings me in near two thousand pounds a-year. I have no debts, no connections indeed; no way to dispose of it particularly. By Hving vrith my father, I have Httle real use for a quarter of it. I have always flung it away aU in the most idle manner ; but, my dear Harry, idle as I am, and thoughtless, I have sense enough to have real pleasure in denying myseff baubles, and in saving a very good income to make a man happy, for whom I have a just esteem and most sincere friendship. I know the difficulties any gentleman and man of spirit must struggle vrith, even in having such an offer made him, much more in accepting it. I hope you AviU aUow there are some in making it. But hear me : ff there is any such thing as friendship in the world, these are the opportunities of exerting it, and it can't be exerted Arithout it is accepted. I must talk of myseff to prove to you that it AvUl be right for you to accept it. I am sensible of having more foUies and weaknesses, and fewer real good quaHties, than most men. I sometimes reflect on this, though I own too seldom. I always want to begin acting Uke a man, and a sensible one, which I think I might be ff I would. Can I begin better, than by taking care of my fortune for one I love ? You have seen (I have seen you have) that I am fickle, and fooHshly fond of twenty new people ; but I don't reaUy love them — I have always loved you constantly : I am wiUing to convince you and the world, what I have always told you, that I loved you better than anybody. H I ever felt much for any thing, (which I know may be questioned,) it was certainly for my mother. I look on you as my nearest relation ' by her, and 1 think I can never do enough to show my gratitude and affection to her. For these reasons, don't deny me what I have set my heart on — the making your fortune easy to you. * * * [The rest of this letter is wanting.] ' Walpole and Conway were maternal consins. — Cukhinghaii. 1744.J TO SIR HORACE MANN. SKI 153. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, July 22, 1744. I HAVE not written to you, my dear chUd, a good whUe, I know ; but, indeed, it was from having nothing to teU you. You know I love you too weU for it to be necessary to be punctuaUy proving it to you ; so, when I have nothing worth your kno-wing, I repose myseff upon the persuasion that you must have of my friendship. But I wiU never let that grow into any negHgence, I should say, idleness, which is always mighty ready to argue me out of everything I ought to do ; and letter- writing is one of the first duties that the very best people let perish out of thefr rubric. Indeed, I pride myseff extiemely in having been so good a correspondent ; for, besides that every day grows to make one hate writing more, it is difficult, you must own, to keep up a correspondence of this sort -with any spirit, when long absence makes one entfrely out of aU the Httle cfrcumstances of each other's society, and which are the soul of letters. We are forced to deal only in great events, Hke historians ; and, instead of being Horace Mann and Horace Walpole, seem to correspond as Guicciardin and Clarendon would : Discedo Alcseus puncto Illius ; ille meo quis ! Quis nisi CaUimachus? Apropos to writing histories and Guicciardin ; I -wish to God, BoccaHni was Hving ! never was such an opportunity for ApoUo's playing off a set of fools, as there is now ! The good City of London, who, from long dictating to the government, are now come to preside over taste and letters, having giving one Carte,' a Jacobite parson, fifty pounds a-year for seven years, to write the history of England ; and four aldermen and six common-counciHnen are to inspect his materials and the progress of the work. Surveyors of common sewers turned supervisors of Hterature ! To be sure, they think a history of England is no more than Stowe's Survey of the Parishes ! Instead of having books pubHshed vrith the imprimatur of an university, they ¦wUl be printed, as churches are whitewashed, John Smith and Thomas Johnson, Churchwardens. But, brother historian, you avUI wonder, I should have nothing to ' Thomas Carte, a laborious writer of history. His principal works are, his Life of the Duke of Ormonde, in three volumes, foUo, and his History of England, in four He died in 1754. — Dover. 316 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. (1744 communicate, when aU Europe is bursting -Arith events, and every day " big vrith the fate of Cato and of Rome." But so it is ; I know nothing; Prince Charles's great passage of the Rhine has hitherto produced nothing more : indeed, the French armies are moving towards him from Flanders ; and they teU us, ours is crossing the Scheldt to attack the Count de Saxe, now that we are equal to him, from our reinforcement and his diminutions. In the meantime, as I am at least one of the principal heroes of my OAvn poHtics, being secure of any invasion, I am going to leave aU my lares, that is, aU my antiquities, household gods and pagods, and take a journey into Siberia for six weeks, where my father's grace of Courland has been for some time. Lord Middlesex is going to be married to Miss Boyle,' Lady Shannon's daughter ; she has thirty thousand pounds, and may have as much more, ff her mother, who is a plump vridow, don't happen to Nugentize.' The gfrl is low and ugly, but a vast scholar. Young ChurchUl' has got a daughter by the Frasi;' Mr. Winnington caUs it the opera-comique ; the mother is an opera gfrl ; the grandmother was Mrs. Oldfield. I must teU you of a very extraordinary print, which my Lady BurHngton gives away, of her daughter Euston, Arith this inscription:' Lady Dorothy Boyle, Once the pride, the joy, the comfort of her parents. The admiration of all that saw her, The delight of all that knew her. Bom May 14, 1724, married, alas ! Oct. 10, 1741, and deUvered from extremeat miaery May 2, 1742. This print was taken from a picture drawn by memory seven weeks after her death, by her most aflBicted mother ; Dorotht Burlington. I am forced to begin a new sheet, lest you should think my letter came from my Lady BurHngton, as it ends so partly Arith her name. ' Grace Boyle, daughter and sole heiress of Richard, Viscount Shannon. She became afterwards a favourite of Frederick, Prince of AVales, and died in Arlington Street, 10 May, 1763. — Dover. Lady Middlesex was very short, very plain and very yellow, a vain girl, full of Greek and Latin, and music and painting, but neither mischievous nor political. — Walpole, Memoires of George II. See also p. 367.— Cunningham. ^ That is pick up an Irish adventurer like Hussey or Nugent, — aa the Ducheaa of Montague did, in Mr. Hussey, — and Mrs. Newsham, Craggs' daughter, did in Mr. Nugent (Goldsmith's Lord Clare). — Cunningham. ^ General Churchill's son by Mrs. Oldfield, afterwards married to the natural daughter of Sir Robert Walpole. — Cunningham. ¦• Prima Donna at the Opera. — Walpole. * See a more correct copy of the inscription, ante, p. 252. — Cunningham. 1744] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 817 But is it not a most melancholy way of venting oneseff ? She has draAvn numbers of these pictures : I don't approve her having them engraved; but sure the inscription' is pretty. I was accosted the other night by a Httle, pert petit-maitre figure, that claimed me for acquaintance. Do you remember to have seen at Florence an Abbe Durazzo, of Genoa ? weU, this was he : it is mighty dapper and French : however, I wUl be civil to it : I never lose opportunities of paring myseff an agreeable passage back to Florence. My dear Chutes, stay for me : I think the first gale of peace wiU carry me to you. Are you as fond of Florence as ever ? of me you are not, I am sure, for you never write me a Hne. You would be diverted -with the grandeur of our old Florence beauty. Lady Carteret. She dresses more extravagantly, and grows more short-sighted every day : she can't walk a step vrithout leaning on one of her ancient daughters-in-law. Lord Tweedale and Lord Bathurst are her constant gentlemen-ushers. She has not quite digested her resentment to Lincoln yet. He was walking vrith her at Ranelagh the other night, and a Spanish refugee marquis,' who is of the Carteret court, but who, not being quite perfect in the carte du pais, told my lady, that Lord Lincoln had promised him to make a very good husband to Miss PeUiam. Lady Carteret, vrith an accent of energy, repHed, "J'espere qu'U tiendra sa promesse!" Here is a good epigram that has been made on her : " Her beauty, like the Scripture feast, To which the invited never came. Deprived of its intended guest, ¦Was given to the old aud lame." Adieu ! here is company ; I think I may be excused learing off at the sixth side. 154. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Aug. 6, 1744 I don't teU you any thing about Prince Charles, for you must hear aU his history as soon as we do ; at least much sooner than it can come to the very north, and be despatched back to Italy. There is nothing from Flanders : we advance and they retfre — just as two ' It ia aaid to be Pope's. — AA^alpole. " The Marquis Tabernego. — Walpole. Carteret was an accomplished Spanish scholar. — Cunningha,ai. 318 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1744 months ago we retfred and they advanced: but it is good to be leading up this part of the tune. Lord Stafr is going into Scotland : the King is grown wonderfuUy fond of him, since he has taken the resolution of that journey. He said the other day, " I wish my Lord Stafr was in Flanders ! General Wade is a very able officer, but he is not alert." I, in my private Htany, am beseeching the Lord, that he may contract none of my Lord Stafr's alertness. When I first wrote you word of La Ch^tardie's disgrace, I did not beHeve it; but you see it is now pubHc. What I Hke is, her Russian Majesty's making her amour keep exact pace vrith her pubHc indignation. She sent to demand her picture and other presents. " Other presents," to be sure, were billet-doux, bracelets woven of her own bristles — for I look upon the hafr of a Muscorite Majesty in the Hght of the chafrs which GulHver made out of the combings of the Empress of Brobdingnag's tresses ; the stumps he made into very good large tooth-combs. You know the present is a very -Amazon ; she has grappled vrith aU her own grenadiers. I should Hke to see thefr loves woven into a French opera : La Ch^tardie's character is quite adapted to the civU discord of thefr stage : and then a northern heroine to reproach him in thefr outrageous quavers, would make a most deHghtful crash of sentiment, impertinence, gal lantry, contempt, and screaming. The first opera that I saw at Paris, I could not beHeve was in earnest, but thought they had carried me to the opera-comique. The three acts of the piece ' were three several interludes, of the Loves of Antony and Cleopatia, of Alcibiades and the Queen of Sparta, and of TibuUus vrith a niece of Maecenas ; besides something of Cfrce, who was screamed by a MademoiseUe Hermans, seven feet high. She was in black, Arith a nosegay of black flowers (for on the French stage they pique them selves on propriety), and vrithout powder : whenever you are aAridow, are in distress, or are a vritch, you are to leave off powder. I have no news for you, and am going to have less, for I am going into Norfolk. I have stayed tUl I have not one acquaintance left: the next bUlow washes me last off the plank. I have not cared to stfr, for fear of news from Flanders ; but I have convinced myseff that there wUl be none. Our army is much superior to the Count de Saxe; besides, they have ten large to-wns to garrison, which wUl reduce thefr army to nothing ; or they must leave us the towns to walk into cooUy. ' I think it was the ballet de la paix. — Walpoli. 1744.1 TO SIR HORACE MANN. 819 I have received yours of July 21. Did neither I nor your brother teU you, that we had received the NeapoHtan snuff-box?' it is above a month ago : how could I be so forgetful ; but I have never heard one word of the cases, nor of Lord Conway's guns, nor Lord Hartington's melon-seeds, aU which you mention to have sent. Lestock has long been arrived, so to be sure the cases never came vrith him : I hope Matthews wUl discover them. Pray thank: Dr. Cocchi very particularly for his book. I am very sorry too for your father's removal [from Chelsea Hospital] ; it was not done in the most obHging manner by Mr. Winnington ; there was something exactly Hke a breach of promise in it to my father, which was tried to be softened by a civU alternative, that was no alternative at aU. He was forced to it by my Lady ToAvnshend [Harrison], who has an implacable aversion to aU my father's people ; and not having less to Mx. Pelham's, she has been as brusque vrith Winnington about them. He has no principles himseff, and those no principles of his are govemed absolutely by hers, which are no-issimes. I don't know any of your EngHsh. I should deHght in your Vaux-haU-ets : what a figure my Grifona must make in such a romantic scene ! I have lately been reading the poems of the Earl of Surrey, in Henry the Eighth's time ; he was in love vrith the fafr Geraldine of Florence ; I have a mind to write under the Grifona's picture these two Hnes from one of his sonnets : " From Tuscane came my lady's worthy race, Fair Florence was some time her auncient seat." And then these : " Her beauty of kinde, her vertue from above ; Happy is he that can obtaine her love ! " I don't know what of kinde means, but to be sure it was some thing prodigiously expressive and gaUant in those days, by its being uninteUigible now. Adieu ! Do the Chutes cicisbe it ? 165. TO SIR HORACE MANN. London, Aug. 16, 1744. I AM writing to you two or three days before-hand, by way of ^ It was for a present to Mr. Stone [p. 223], the Duke of Newcastle's secretary.— Walpole. 320 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS [1744. a(.'ttHng my affafrs ; not that I am going to be married or to die ; but something as bad as either if it Avere to last as long. Ycu wiU guess that it can only be going Ut Houghton ; but I make as much an affafr of that, as other people would of going to Jamaica. Indeed I don't lay in store of cake and band-boxes, and cifron- water, and cards, and cold meat, as country-gentlewomen do after the session. My packing-up and traveUing concerns He in very smaU compass; nothing but myseff and Patapan, my footman, a cloak-bag, and a couple of books. My old Tom is even reduced upon the article of my journey ; he is at the Bath, patching together some very bad remains of a worn-out constitution. I always tiavel Arithout company; for then I take my own hours and my own humours, which I don't think the most tractable to be shut up in a coach vrith any body else. You know, St. Evremont's rule for conquering the passions, was to indulge them ; mine for keeping my temper in order. Is never to leave it too long vrith another person. I have found out that it wiU have its way, but I make it take its way by itseff. It is such sort of reflection as this, that makes me hate the country : it is impossible In one house vrith one set of company, to be always enough upon one's guard to make one's seff agreeable, which one ought to do, as one always expects it from others. If I had a house of my own in the country, and could Hve there now and then alone, or frequently changing my company, I am persuaded I should like it; at least, I fancy 1 should; for when one begins to reflect why one don't Hke the country, I beHeve one grows near liking to reflect in it. I feel very often that I grow to correct twenty things in myseff, as thinking them ridiculous at my age ; and then vrith my spirit of whim and foUy, I make myseff beHeve that this is aU prudence, and that I wish I were young enough to be as thoughtless and extravagant as I used to be. But ff I know any thing of the matter, this Is aU flattering myseff: I grow older, and love my foUies less — ff I did not, alas ! poor prudence and reflection ! I think I have pretty weU exhausted the chapter of myseff. 1 wUl now go talk to you of another feUow, who makes me look upon myseff as a very perfect character; for as I have Httle merit naturaUy, and only pound a stray vfrtue now and then by chance, the other gentleman seems to have no rice, rather no vUlainy, but what he nurses in himseff and methodises vrith as much pains as a stoic would patience. Indeed his pains are not thrown away. This pains-taking person's name is Frederic, king of Prassia. Pray 1744.1 TO SIR HORACE MANN. ?21 remember for the future never to speak of IHm and .H. W. Arithout giving the latter the preference. Last week we were all alarm ! He was before Prague vrith fifty thousand men, and not a man in Bohemia to ask him, "What dost thou?" This week we have raised a hundred thousand Hungarians, besides vast mlHtias and loyal nobUities. The King of Poland is to attack him on his march, and the Russians to faU on Prussia.' In the mean time, his letter or address to the people of England ' has been pubHshed here : it is a poor performance ! His Voltafres and his Htterati should correct his works before they are printed. A careless song, vrith a Httle nonsense in it now and then, does not misbecome a monarch ; but to pen manffestos worse than the lowest commis that is kept jointly by two or three margraves, is insufferable ! We are very strong in Flanders, but stUl expect to do nothing this campaign. The French are so intrenched, that it is impossible to attack them. There is talk of besieging Maubeuge ; I don't know how certainly. Lord Middlesex's match is determined, and the writings signed. She proves an immense fortune ; they pretend a hundred and thirty thousand pounds — what a fund for making operas ! My Lady Carteret is going to Tunbridge — there is a hurry for a son : his only one is gone mad : about a fortnight ago he was at che Duke of Bedford's, and as much in his few senses as ever. At five o'clock in the morning he waked the duke and duchess aU bloody, and vrith the lappet of his coat held up fuU of ears : he had been in the stable and cropped aU the horses ! He is shut up.' My lady is in the honey-moon of her grandeur : she Hves in public places, whither she is escorted by the old beaux of her husband's court ; fafr white-vrigged old gaUants, the Duke of Bolton, [PoUy Peachem's Duke] Lord Tweedale, Lord Bathurst [Pope's friend] and Charles Fielding ; "¦ and she aU over knots, and smaU hoods, and ribbons. Her brother told me the other night, " Indeed I think my ' This alludes to the King of Prussia's retreat from Prague, on the approach of the Austrian army commanded by Prince Charles of Lorraine. — Dover. - In speaking of thia address of the King of Prussia, Lady Hervey, in a letter of the 17th, says, " I think it very well and very artfully drawn for his purpose, and very impertinently embarrassing to our King. He ia certainly a very artful prince, and I cannot but think his projects and his ambition still more extensive, than people at present imagine them." — Weight. ' On the death of his father [1763], this son succeeded to the earldom. He died in 1776, when the title became extinct. — Wright. " "The Hon. Charles Fielding, third son of WiUiam, third earl of Denbigh; a Ueu- tenant-colonel in the guards, and gentleman-usher to Queen Caroline. He died in 1766. — Wright. 322 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. ri744 thister doesth countenanth Ranelagh too mutch." They caU my Lord Pomfret, King Stanislaus, the queen's father. I heard an admirable dialogue, which has been written at the army on the battle of Dettingen, but one can't get a copy ; I must teU you 'cwo or three strokes in it that I have heard. Pierot asks Harlequin, " Que donne-t'on aux generaux qui ne se sont pas trouves a la bataUie ? " Harl. " On leur donne le cordon rouge." Pier. "Et que donne-t'on au g^n^ral en chef,' qui a gagne la rictoire!" Harl. "Son cong^." Pier. " Qui a soln des blessfe ? " Harl. "L'enneml." Adieu! 166. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Houghton, Sept. 1, 1744, I WISH you joy of your rictory at VeUetri ! ' I caU it yom-s, for you are the great spring of aU that war. I Intend to pubHsh your lffe, vrith an Appendix, that shaU contain aU the letters to you from princes, cardinals, and great men of the time. In spealdng of Prince Lobkovritz's attempt to seize the King of Naples at Velletri, I shaU say, " for the share our hero had in this great action, ride the Appendix, Card. Albanl's letter, p. 14." You shaU no longer be the dear Miny, but Manone, the Oreat Man ; you shaU figure vrith the Great Pan, and the Great Patapan. I vrish you and your laurels and your operations were on the Rhine, in Piedmont, or in Bohemia ; and then Prince Charles would not have repassed the ffrst, nor the Prince of Conti advanced vrithin three days of Turin, and the King of Prussia would afready have been terrified fr-om entering the last— aU this lumping bad news came to counterbalance your Neapolitan triumphs. Here is aU the war to begin again ! and perhaps next Arinter a second edition of Dunkirk. We could not even have the King of France [Louis XV.] die, though he was so near it. He was in a woful fright, and promised the Bishop of Soissons, that ff he Hved, he would have done Arith his women.' A man vrith aU those crowns on his head, and attack- ' Lord Stair. — Dover, The Auatriana had formed a scheme to aurpriae the Neapolitan King and general at Velletri, and their first column penetrated into the place, but reinforcements coming up, they were repulsed with considerable slaughter. — Wright. '' On the 8th of August, Louis XV. was seized at Metz, on his march to Alsace, with a malignant putrid fever, which increased so rapidly, that, in a few days, his Ufe was despaired of. In his iUness, he dismissed his reigning mistress, Madame de Chateauroux, — Wright. 1744.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 32S Ing and disturbing all those on the heads of other princes, who is the soul of aU the havoc and ruin that has been and Is to be spread through Em'ope in this war, haggling thus for his bloody lffe, and cheapening it at the price of a mistress or two ! and this was the feUow that they fetched to the army, to drive the brave Prince Charles beyond the Rhine again ! It is just such another paltry mortal ' that has fetched hfrn back into Bohemia — I forget which of his battles' it was, that when his army had got the victory, they could not find the King : he had run away for a whole day vrithout looking behind him. I thank you for the particulars of the action, and the list of the prisoners : among them is one Don Theodore Diamato Amor, a cavalier of so romantic a name, that my sister and Miss Leneve quite interest themselves in his captirity ; and make thefr addresses to you, who, they hear, have such power vrith Prince LobkoAritz, to obtain his Hberty. K he has Spanish gallantry in any proportion to his name, he vvUl immediately come to England, and vow himseff their knight. Those verses I sent you on Mr. Pope, I assure you, were not mine ; I transcribed them from the newspapers ; from whence I must send you a very good epigram on Bishop Berkeley's tar- water : " Who dare deride what pious Cloyne has done! The Church shall rise and vindicate her son ; She tells us, all her Bishops shepherds are — And shepherds heal their rotten sheep with tar." I am not at aU surprised at my Lady Walpole's Ul-humour to you about the messenger. If the resentments of women did not draw them into Httle dfrty spite, their hatred would be very dangerous ; but they vent the leisure they have to do mischief in a thousand meannesses, which only serve to expose themselves. Adieu ! I know nothing here but pubHc poHtics, of which I have already talked to you, and which you hear as soon as I do. Thank dear Mr. Chute for his letter ; I avUI answer it very soon ; but in the country I am forced to let my pen He faUow between letter and letter. ' The King of Prussia. — Walpolk. ' The battle of Molwitz.— Walpole. 324 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1744, 157. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. M-if Dearest Harrt, Houghton, Oct. 6, 1744, My lord bids me tell you how much he is obHged to you for youi letter, and hopes you wiU accept my answer for his. I'U tell you what, we shaU both be obHged to you ff you wUl inclose a magnify ing glass in your next letters ; for your two last were in so diminutive a character, that we were forced to employ aU Mrs. Leneve's spec tacles, besides an ancient famUy reading-glass, vrith which my grandfather used to begin the psafrn, to discover what you said to us. Besides this, I have a piece of news for you: Sfr Robert Walpole, when he was made Earl of Orford, left the ministry, and vrith it the palace in Downing-street ; as numbers of people found out three years ago, who, not having your integrity, were quick in perceiAring the change of his situation. Your letter was fuU as honest as you ; for, though dfrected to Downing-street, it would not, as other letters would have done, address itseff to the present pos sessor. Do but think ff it had ! The smaUness of the hand would have immediately struck my Lord Sandys ' vrith the idea of a plot for what he could not read at first sight, he would certainly have concluded must be cypher. I march next week towards London, and have afready begun to send my heavy artUlery before me, consisting of haff-a-dozen books and part of my Hnen : my light-horse, commanded by Patapan, foUows this day se'nnight. A detachment of hussars surprised an old bitch fox yesterday morning, who had lost a leg in a former engagement; and then, having received adrice of another fitter being advanced as far as Darsingham, Lord Walpole commanded Captain RUey's horse, vrith a strong party of fox-hounds, to overtake them ; but on the approach of our troops the enemy stole off, and are now encamped at Sechford common, whither we every hour expect orders to pursue them. My dear Harry, this is aU I have to teU you, and, to my great joy, which you must forgive me, is fuU as memorable as any part ot the Flanders campaign. I do not desfre to have you engaged in the least more glory than you have been. I should not love the remainder of you the least better for your baring lost an arm or a ' Lord Orford's successor as Chancellor of the Exchequer, of whom we have alreadj heard ao much. Horace Walpole hated him.— Cunningham, 1744.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 326 leg, and have as fuU persuasion of your courage as ff you had con tributed to the sHcuig off twenty pair from French officers. Thank God, you have sense enough to content yourseff vrithout being a hero ! though I don't quite forget your expedition a huzzar-hunting the beginning of this campaign. Pray, no more of those jaunts. I don't know anybody you would obHge vrith a present of such game : for my part, a fragment of the oldest hussar on earth should never have a place in my museum — they are not antique enough ; and for a Hve one, I must teU you, I Hke my racoon infinitely better. Adieu! my dear Harry. I long to see you. You wiU easUy beHeve the thought I have of being particularly weU with you is a vast addition to my impatience, though you know it is nothing new to me to be overjoyed at your return. Yours ever. 158. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Houghton, Oct. 6, 1744. Does Decency insist upon one's writing vrithin certain periods, when one has nothing to say ? because, if she does, she is the most formal, ceremonious personage I know. I shaU not enter into a dispute Arith her, as my Lady Hervey did Arith the goddess of Indolence, or vrith the goddess of letter- writing, I forget which, in a long letter that she sent to the Duke of Bom-bon ; because I had rather write than have a dispute about it. Besides, I am not at aU used to converse vrith hieroglyphic ladies. But, I do assure you, it is merely to avoid scolding that I set about this letter : 1 don't mean your scolding, for you are all goodness to me ; but my own scolding of myseff — a correction I stand in great awe of, and which I am sure never to escape as often as I am to blame. One can scold other people again, or smUe and jog one's foot, and affect not to mind it; but those airs won't do Arith oneseff; one always comes by the worst in a dispute vrith one's own conriotion. Admfral Matthews sent me down hither your great packet : I am charmed vrith your prudence, and vrith the good sense of your orders for the Neapolitan expedition ; I wont say your good-nature, which is excessive ; for I think your tendemess of the Httle Queen' a Httle ' The Queen of Naples — Maria of Saxony, wife of Charles III. King of Naples, and subsequently, on the death of his elder brother. King of Spain. This aUudes to the Austrian campaign in the Neapolitan territories ; the attack on the town of VeUetri, &c. — AA'right 326 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1744 outree, especiaUy as thefr apprehensions nught have added great weight to your menaces. I would threaten Hke a corsafr, though I would conquer vrith aU the good-breeding of a Sclpio. 1 most devoutly vrish you success ; you are sure of having me most happy vrith any honour you acqufre. You have quite soared above all fear of Goldsworthy, and, I think, must appear of consequence tc any ministry. I am much obHged to you for the medal, and like the design : I shaU preserve it as part of your works. I can't forgive what you say to me about the coffee-pot; one Avould reaUy think that you looked upon me as an old woman that had left a legacy to be kept for her sake, and a curse to attend the parting vrith it. My dear child, is it treating me justly to enter into the detaU of your reasons ? was it even necessary to say, " I have changed your coffee-pot for some other plate ? " I have nothing to teU you, but that I go to town next week, and wiU then Avrite you aU I hear. Adieu ! 159. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Oct. 19, 1744. I HAVE received two or three letters from you since I Avi'ote to you last, and all contribute to give me fears for your situation at Florence. How absurdly aU the Queen's haughtinesses are dictated to her by her ministers, or by her own Austriacity ! She lost all SUesia because she would not lose a smaU piece of it, and she is going to lose Tuscany for want of a neutiaHty, because she would not accept one for Naples, even after aU prospect of conqueiing It was vanished. Every thing goes Ul ! the King of Sardinia beaten ; and to-day we hear of Coni lost ! You vrill see in the papers too, that the Victory, our finest ship, is lost, -vrith Sfr John Balchen and nine hundred men.' The expense alone of the ship is computed at above two hundred thousand pounds. We have nothing good but a flying report of a victory of Prince Charies over the Prussian, who, it is said, has lost ten thousand men, and both his legs by a cannon- baU. I have no notion of his losing them, but by breaking them m over-hurry to run away. However, it comes from a Jew, who had the first news of the passage of the Rhine.' But, my dear child, ' The Victory, of a hundred and ten brass guns, was lost, between the 4th and 6th of October, near Aldemey. — Wright. ^ This report proved to be without foundation.— Walpole. 1744.1 TO SIR HORACE MANN. 327 hoAv wUl tins comfort me, if you are not to remain in peace at Florence ! I tremble as I write ! Yesterday morning carried off those two old beldams. Sarah of Marlborough and the Countess GranviUe ; ' so now Uguccloni's ^ epithalamium must be new-tricked out in titles, for my Lady Carteret is Countess! Poor Bistino! I wish my Lady Pomfret may leave off her translation of Froissart to EngHsh the eight hundred and forty heroics ! When I knoAv the particulars of old Marlborough's A\iU, you shaU. My Lord Walpole has promised me a letter for young Gardiner; who, by the way, has pushed his fortune en vrai batard, -without being so, for it never was pretended that he was my brother's : he protests he is not ; but the youth has profited of his mother's gaUantries. I have not seen Admiral Matthews yet, but I take him to be very mad. He walks in the Park vrith a cockade of three colours : the Duke [of Cumberland] desired a gentleman to ask him the meaiung, and aU the answer he would give was, " The Treaty of Worms ! the Treaty of Worms ! " I design to see him, thank him for my packet, and inquire after the cases. It Is a most terrible loss for his parents, Lord Beauchamp's ' death : ff they were out of the question, one could not be sorry for such a mortification to the pride of old Somerset. He has written the most shocking letter imaginable to poor Lord Hertford, teUing him that it is a j-adgment upon him for aU his undutifulness, and that he must always look upon himseff as the cause of his son's death. Lord Hertford is as good a man as lives, and has always been most unreasonably Ul-used by that old tyrant. The title of Somerset vrill revert to Sir Edward Seymour, whose Hne has been most unjustly deprived of it from the ffrst creation. The Protector, when only Earl of Hertford, married a great heiress, and had a Lord Beauchamp, who was about twenty when his mother died. His father then married an Ajin Stanhope, vrith whom he was in love, ' Mother of John, Lord Carteret, who succeeded her in the title. — Walpole. " A Florentine [p. 310], who had employed au abbe of his acquaintance to write an epithalamium on Lord Carteret's marriage, consisting of eight hundred and forty Latin lines. Sir H. Mann had given an account of the composition of this piece of literary flattery in one of his letters to Walpole. — Dover. ¦' Only son of Algernon Seymour, Earl of Hertford, (afterwards the last Duke of Somerset of that branch,) and the grandson of the proud Duke of Somerset. — Wal pole. Lord Beauchamp was seized with the small-pox at Bologna, and, after an iUness of four day,s, died on the 11th of September; on which day he had completed his nineteenth year. — Wright. 328 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS, [1744 and not only procured an act of parHament to deprive Lord Beau champ of his honours, and to settle the title of Somerset, which he was going to have, on the chUdren of this second match, but took from him even his mother's fortune. From him descended Sir Edward Seymour, the Speaker,' who, on King WiUiam's landing, when he said to him, " Sfr Edward, I think you are of the Duke of Somerset's family ? " repHed, " No, Sfr : he is of mine." Lord Lincoln was married last Tuesday, and Lord Middlesex avUI be very soon. Have you heard the gentle manner of the French King's dismissing Madame de Chateauroux ? In the very cfrcle, the Bishop of Soissons ' told her, that, as the scandal the King had given Arith her was public, his Majesty thought his repentance ought to be so too, and that he therefore forbad her the court ; and then turning to the monarch, asked him ff that was not his pleasm-e, who rephed, Yes. They have taken away her pension too, and turned out even laundresses that she had recommended for the future Dauphiness. Apropos to the Chateauroux : there is a Hanoverian come over, who was so ingenuous as to teU Master Louis ' how Hke he is to M. Wal moden. You conceive that " nous autres souvereins nous n'aimons pas qu'on se m^prenne aux gens : " we don't love that om- Fitzroys should be scandaHsed vrith any mortal resemblance. I must tell you a good piece of discretion of a Scotch soldier, whom Mr. SelwyTi met on Bexley Heath walking back to the army. He had met vrith a single glove at Hingham, which had been left there last year in an inn by an officer now in Flanders : this the feUow was carrying in hopes of a Httle money; but, for fear he should lose the glove, wore it aU the way. Thank you for General Braitvritz's deux potences." I hope that one of them at least wUl rid us of the Prussian. Adieu ! my dear chUd ; aU my vrishes are employed about Florence. ' Sir Edward Seymour, the Speaker, was the grandfather of Walpole's cousins. Lord Conway and Mr Conway. — Cunningham. " Son of Pitzjames, Duke of Berwick. This Bishop of Soissons, on the King being given over at Metz, prevailed on him to part with his mistress, the Duchesse de Cha teauroux ; but the King soon recalled her, and confined the bishop to his diocese.— Walpole. ' Son of King George II. by Madame Walmoden, created Countess of Yarmouth.— Walpole. See a good story of Lord Chesterfield and Master Louis iu Walpole'a " Reminiscences," chapter vii., and compare vol. i. p. 116. — Cunningham. " General Braitwitz, commander of the Queen of Hungary's troops in Tuscany, .^peaking of the two powers, his mistress and the King of Sardinia, instead of saying "ees deux pouvoirs," said, "ces deux potences." — AValpole. 1744 1 TO SIR HORACE MANN. 329 160. TO SIR HORACE MANN, Arlington Street, Nov. 9, 1744. I FIND I must not wait any longer for news, ff I intend to keep up our correspondence. Nothing happens ; nothing has since I \ATote last, but Lord Middlesex's wedding ; which was over above a week before it was known. 1 believe the bride told It then ; for he and aU his family are so sUent, that they would never have mentioned it : she might have popped out a chUd, before a single SackviUe would have been at the expense of a syUable to justify her. Our old acquaintance, the Pomfrets, are not so reserved about their great matrimony : the new Lady GranriUe was at home the other lught for the first time of her being mistress of the house. I Avas invited, for I am in much favom- vrith them aU, but found myseff extremely deplace : there was nothing but the WInchelseas and Baths, and the gleanings of a party stuffed out into a faction, some foreign ministers, and the whole blood of Fermor. My Lady Pomfret asked me ff I corresponded stUl vrith the Grffona : " No," I said, " since I had been threatened vrith a regale of hams and Florence vrine, I had dropped It." My Lady GranviUe said, "You was afraid of being thought interested." — " Yes," said the Queen- mother [Lady Pomfret], Arith aU the importance Arith which she Is used to blunder out pieces of heathen mythology, " I think it was very ministerial." Don't you think that Avord came in as awkwardly as I did into thefr room ? The Minister [Carteret] Is most gracious to me ; he has retiimed my risit, which, you know, is never practised by that rank : I put it aU doAvn to my father's account, Avho is not Hkely to keep up the cIviHty. You vriU see the particulars of old Marlborough's vriU in the Evening Posts of this week : it is as extravagant as one should have expected ; but I delight in her begging that no part of the Duke of Marlborough's Hfe may be written in verse by Glover and MaUet, to Avhom she gives five hundred pounds a-piece for writing it in prose.' There is a great deal of humour in the thought : to be sure the spfrit of the dowager Leoiudas' inspfred her vrith it. ' Glover in his Memoirs (p. 67) regrets that the "capricious restrictions of the wUI compelled him to reject the undertaking." He alludes to the power vested in Lord Chesterfield of revising his labours. Mallet accepted his own and Glover's legacies, but left not, when he died in 1765, any historical labours behind him. — Conningha.-m ^ Glover wrote a dull heroic poem on the action of Leonidas at Thermopylae.— Walpole. 330 HORACE AVALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1744 All pubHc affairs in agitation at present go well for us : Piince Charles in Bohemia, the raising of the siege of Coni, and probably of that of Fribourg, are very good cfrcumstances. I shaU be very tranquil this vrinter, ff Tuscany does not come into play, or another scene of an invasion. In a fortnight meets the Parliament ; nobody guesses what the turn of the Opposition wiU be. Adieu ! My love to the Chutes. I hope you now and then make my other compH ments : I never forget the Princess, nor (ware hams !) the Grifona. 161. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Nov. 26, 1744. I HAVE not prepared you for a great event, because it was really so unHkely to happen, that I was afraid of being the author of a mere political report ; but, to keep you no longer in suspense, Lord Gran vUle has resigned : that is the term, " I'honnete fa9on de parler ; " but, in a few words, the truth of the history is, that the Duke of Newcastle (by the way, mind that the words I am going to use are not mine, but his Majesty's) " being grown as jealous of Lord GranviUe ' as he had been of Lord Orford, and wanting to be first minister himseff, which, a puppy ! how should he be ? " {autre phrase royale,'') and his brother [Mr. Pelham] being as susceptible of the noble passion of jealousy as he is, have long been conspfring to overturn the great lord. Resolution and capacity were aU they wanted to bring it about ; for the imperiousness and universal con tempt which thefr rival had for them, and for the rest of the mirustry, and for the rest of the nation, had made almost aU men his enemies ; and. Indeed, he took no pains to make friends : his maxun was, " Give any man the crown on his side, and he can defy every thing." Winnington asked him, ff that were true, how he came to be minister ? About a fortnight ago, the whole cabmet- councU, except Lord Bath, Lord Winchelsea, Lord Tweedale, the Duke of Bolton, and my good brother-in-law,' (the two last severally bribed vrith tho promise of Ireland,) did venture to let the Kmg know, that he must part vrith them or vrith Lord GranviUe. The monarch does not love to be forced, and his son is fuU as angry. ' By the death of hia mother [18 Nov. 1744], Baron Carteret had become Eari Gran ville. — Wright. ' Sec in Lord Hervey's Memoirs, i. 197, a curious confirmation of the royal names which the King would frequently employ towards some of his subjects - Cunningham. ' George, Earl of Cholmondeley.— Walpolb. 1744.J TO SIR HORACE MANN. 331 Both tried to avoid the rupture. My father was sent for, but excused himseff from coming tUl last Thursday, and even then would not go to the King ; and at last gave his opinion very unwUHngly. But on Saturday it was finaUy determined: Lord GranvUle resigned the seals, which are given back to my Lord President Harrington. Lord Winchelsea quits too ; but for aU the rest of that connection, they have agreed not to quit, but to be forced out : so Mr. Pelham must have a noAV struggle to remove every one. He can't let them stay in ; because, to secure his power, he must bring in Lord Chesterfield, Pitt, the chief patriots, and perhaps some Tories. The King has declared that my Lord GranviUe has his opinion and affection — the Prince warmly and openly espouses him. Judge how agreeably the two brothers vriU enjoy thefr ministry ! To-morrow the ParHament meets : aU in suspense ! everybody wUl be staring at each other ! I beHeve the war wUl stUl go on, but a Httle more .AngHcIzed. For my part, I behold all vrith great tranquiUity ; I cannot be sorry for Lord GranviUe, for he certainly sacrificed everything to please the King ; I caimot be glad for the Pelhams, for they sacrifice everything to their own jealousy and ambition. Who are mortified are the fafr Sophia and Queen Stanislaus ' However, the daughter carries it off heroicaUy ; the very night of her faU she went to the Oratorio. I talked to her much, and recol lected aU that had been said to me upon the like occasion three years ago ; I succeeded, and am inrited to her assembly next Tues day. TeU Uguccioni that she stIU keeps conversazioni, or he vviU hang himseff. She had no court, but an ugly sister and the fafr old- fashioned Duke of Bolton. It put me in mind of a scene in Harry VIIL, where Queen Catherine appears after her divorce, vrith Patience her waiting-maid, and Griffith her gentleman-usher. My dear chUd, voila le monde ! are you as great a phUosopher about i.t as I am ? You cannot imagine how I entertain myseff, especiaUy as aU the ignorant flock hither, and conclude that my lord must be minister again. Yesterday, three bishops came to do him homage ; and who should be one of them but Dr. Thomas,' the only man mitied by Lord GranviUe ! As I was not at aU mortified Arith our faU, I am only diverted vrith this imaginary restoration. They Httle think how incapable my lord is of business again. He has this ' Lady GranviUe and her mother, the Countess of Pomfret. — Cunningham. ' Bishop of Lincoln. — Walpole. Successively translated to Salisbury and Win chester He died in 1781.— Wright. 332 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1744, whole summer been troubled vrith bloody water upon the least motion ; and to-day Ranby assured me, that he has a stone in his bladder, which he himseff beHeved before ; so now he must never use the least exercise, never go into a chariot again ; and ff ever to Houghton, in a Utter. Though this account vrill grieve you, I tell It you, that you may know what to expect ; yet it is common for people to Hve many years in his situation. If you are not as detached from everything as I am, you vrill wonder at my tranquiUity, to be able to write such variety in the midst of hurricanes. It costs me nothing ! so I shaU Avrite on, and teU you an adventure of my ovm. The town has been trying aU this Avinter to beat Pantomimes off the stage, very boisterously ; for it is the way here to make even an affair of taste and sense a matter of riot and arms. Fleetwood,' the master of Drury-Lane, has omitted nothing to support them, as they supported his house. About ten days ago, he let into the pit great numbers of Bear-garden bruisers (that is the term), to knock down everybody that hissed. The pit ralHed thefr forces, and drove them out : I was sitting very quietiy In the side-boxes, contemplating aU this. On a sudden the curtain flew up, and discovered the whole stage fiUed Arith blackguards, armed vrith bludgeons and clubs, to menace the audience. This raised the greatest uproar ; and among the rest, who flew into a passion, but your friend the phUosopher? In short, one of the actors, advancing to the fi-ont of the stage to make an apology for the manager, he had scarce begun to say, " Mr. Fleetwood — " when your friend, vrith a most audible voice and dignity of anger, caUed out, " He is an impudent rascal ! " The whole pit huzzaed, and repeated the words. Only think of my being a popular orator ! But what was stiU better, whUe my shadow of a person was dUating to the consistence of a hero, one of the chief ringleaders of the riot, coming under the box where I sat, and pulHng off his hat, said, " Mr. Walpole, what would you please to have us do next?" It Is impossible to describe to you the confusion into which this apostrophe threw me. I sank down into the box, and have never since ventured to set my foot into the playhouse. The next night, the uproar was repeated vrith greater violence, and nothing was heard but voices caUfrig out, " Where's Mr. W. ? where's Mr. W. ? " In short, the Avhole town has been entertained vrith my prowess, and Mr. Conway has given me the name of Wat Tyler ; which, I beHeve, would have ' Charles Fleetwood, the worst manager that old Drury, so often ill-managed, evei had.— Cunningham. 1744.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 333 stuck by me, if this new episode of Lord GranvUle had not luckily interfered. We every nunute expect news of the Mediterranean engagement ; for, besides your account, Bfrtles has Avritten the same from Genoa We expect good news, too, from Prince Charles, who Is drlring thc' King of Prussia before him. In the mean time, his Avffe thc Archduchess is dead, which may be a signal loss to him. I forgot to teU you that, on Friday, Lord Charles Hay,' who has more of the parts of an Irishman than of a Scot, told my Lady GranviUe at the drawing-room, on her seeing so fuU a court, " that people were come out of curiosity." The Speaker [Onslow] Is the happiest of any man in these bustles : he says, " this ParHament has torn two favourite ministers from the throne." His conclusion Is, that the power of the ParHament wiU in the end be so great, that nobody can be minister but their own Speaker. Winnington says my Lord Chesterfield and Pitt vriU have places before old Marlborough's legacy to them for being patriots is paid. My compliments to the family of Snares on the Vlttorina's marriage. Adieu! 162. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Dec. 24, 1744 You wUl wonder what has become of me : nothing has. I know it is above three weeks since I wrote to you ; but I wiU tell you the reason. I have kept a parHamentary sUence, which I must explain to you. Ever since Lord GranviUe went out, aU has been in suspense. The leaders of the Opposition immediately imposed sUence upon their party : every thing passed vrithout the least debate — ^in short, all were making their bargains. One has heard of the corruption of courtiers; but beHeve me, the impudent prostitution of patriots, going to market Arith thefr honesty, beats it to nothing. Do but think of two hundred men of the most consummate virtue, setting themselves to sale for three weeks ! I have been reprimanded by the Arise for saying that they aU stood Hke servants at a country statute fair to be hfred. AJl this whUe nothing was certain : one day the coaHtion was settled ; the next, the treaty broke off: I hated to write to you what I might contradict next post. Besides, in my last letter I remember telHng you that the Archduchess was dead ; she did not die tiU a fortnight afterwards. ' Brother of Lord Tweeddale. — Walpole. 384 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1744 The result of the whole is this : the King, instigated by Lord GranviUe, has used all his ministry as Ul as possible, and has Arith the greatest difficulty been brought to consent to the necessary changes. Mr. Pelham has had as much difficulty to regulate the disposition of places. Numbers of Hsts of the hungry have been given in by thefr centurions ; of those, several Tories have refused to accept the proffered posts: some, from an impossibUity of being re-chosen for thefr Jacobite counties. But upon the whole. It appears that thefr leaders have had very Httle Influence with them ; for not above four or flve are come into place. The rest wiU stick to Opposition. Here is a Hst of the changes, as made last Saturday ; Duke of Devonahire, Lord Steward, in the room of the Duke of Dorset. Duke of Dorset, Lord President, in Lord Harrington's room. Lord Chesterfield, t Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in the Duke of Devonshire's. Duke of Bedford,t Lord Sandwich, + George Grenville,+ Lord Vere Beauclerc,' and Admiral Anson, Lords of the Admiralty, in the room of Lord Winchelseii,* Dr. Lee,* Cockburn,* Sir Charles Hardy,* and PhUipson.* Jlr Arundel and George Lyttelton,t Lords of the Treasury, in the room of Compton" and Gybbon.* Lord Gowert again Privy Seal in Lord Cholmondeley's* room, who ia made A^ice- Treasurer of Ireland in Harry Vane's.* Mr. Dodington,t Treasurer of the Navy, in Sir John Rushout's.* Mr. Waller.t Cofferer, in Lord Sandys'.* Lord Hobart, Captain of the Pensioners, in Lord Bathurst's.* Sir John Cotton, f^ Treasurer of the Chambers, in Lord Hobart'a.^ Mr. Keene, Paymaster of the Pensions, in Mr. Hooper's.* Sir John PhiUppst and John Pitt,t Commissioners of Trade, in Mr Keene'a and Sir Charles Gilmour's.* William Chetwynd,t Master of the Mint, in Mr. Arundel's. Lord Halifax, + Master of the Buck-hounds, in Mr. Jennison's, who has a pension, AU those vrith a cross are from the Opposition ; those vrith a star, the turned out, and are all of the GranviUe and Bath squadron, except Lord Cholmondeley, (who, too, had cormected vrith the former,) and Mr. PhUipson. The King parted vrith great regret with Lord Cholmondeley, and complains loudly of the force put upon him. ' Lord Vere Beauclerk, third son of the first Duke of St, Albans, afterwards created Lord Vere of Hanworth. He entered early into a maritime life, and distinguiahed uimself in several commands. He died in 1781. — Wright. - The King was much displeased that an adherent of the exUed family should be forced into the service of his own. In consequence of this appointment a caricature was circulated, representing ministers thrusting Sir John, who waa extremely corpulent, down the King'a throat. — Wright. ^ John, firat Lord Hobart, ao created in 1728, by the intereat of hia sister. Lady Suffolk, the mistress of George II. In 1746 he was created Earl of Buckinghamahire, and died in 1756. — Dover. 1745.] TO SIR HORACE MANN 335 The Prfrice, who is fuU as warm as his father for Lord GranviUe, has afready turned out Lyttelton, who was his secretary, and Lord Halifax ; and has named Mr. Drax and Lord Inchiquin ' in their places. You perceive the great Mr. WiUiam Pitt is not in the Hst, though he comes thoroughly into the measures. To preserve his character and authority in the ParHament, he was unwiUIng to accept any thing yet : the ministry very rightly insisted that he should ; he asked for Secretary at War, knovring It would be refused — and it was.' By this short sketch, and it is impossible to be more explanatory, you vrill perceive that all is confusion : aU parties broken to pieces, and the whole Opposition by tens and by twenties selling themselves for profit — power they get none ! It is not easy to say where power resides at present : It is plain that it resides not In the King ; and yet he has enough to hinder any body else from having it. His new governors have no interest Arith him — scarce any converse vrith him. The Pretender's son is owned in France as Prince of Wales ; the princes of the blood have been to risit him In form. The Duchess of Chateauroux is poisoned there ; so their monarch is as iU-used as our most gracious King ! ' How go your Tuscan affafrs ? I am always tiembling for you, though I am laughing at every thing else. My father is pretty weU : he is taking a preparation of Mrs. Stephens's " medicine ; but I think all his physicians begin to agree that he has no large stone. Adieu ! my dear chUd : I think the present comedy cannot be of long duration. The ParHament is adjourned for the hoHdays : I am Impatient to see the first dirision. 163. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Jan. 4, 1745. When I receive your long letters, I am ashamed : mine are notes ' WUliam O'Brien, fourth Earl of Inchiquin, in Ireland. He died in 1777.— Wright. ^ I ordered Mr Stone to acquaint you that we had prevaUed with the King to make Mr Pitt Paymaater. His Majesty was determined not to give him the War Office. — ¦ D. of Newcastle to D. of Bedford, April 28, 1746. — Cunningham. ^ The Duchess died on the 8th of December. The Biog. Univ. says, that the rumour of her having been poiaoned waa altogether without foundation. — Wright. ¦• It waa Dr. Jurin'a preparation. — Walpole. A nostrum for the stone, prepared oy Mrs. Joanna Stephens, for which the government gave her 5000^. Her method of preparation was published in the London Gazette of June 19, 1739. She died in 1774. — Cunningham. 336 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745 in comparison. How do you contrive to roU out your patience into two sheets ? You certainly don't love me better than I do you ; and yet ff our loves were to be sold by the qufre, you would have by far the more magnificent stock to dispose of. I can only say, that age has afready an effect on the vigour of my pen ; none on yours : it is not, I assure you, for you alone, but my ink is at low water mark for aU my acquaintance. My present shame arises from a letter of eight sides, of December 8th, which I received from you last post ; but before I say a word to that, I must teU you that I have at last received the cases ; three vrith gesse figures, and one with Lord Conway's gun- barrels : I thought there were to be four, besides the guns ; but I quite forget, and did not even remember what they were to contain. Am not I in your debt again ? TeU me, for you know how careless I am. Look over your list, and see whether I have received aU. There were four barrels, the Ganymede, the Sleeping Cupid, the model of my statue, the MusEeum Florentinum, and some seeds for your brother. But alas ! though I received them in gross, I did not at aU in detaU ; the model was broken into ten thousand bits, and the Ganymede short in two ; besides some of the fingers quite reduced to powder. Rysbrach' has undertaken to mend him. The little Morpheus arrived quite whole, and is charmingly pretty ; I like it better In plaster than in the original black marble. It is not being an upright senator to promise one's vote before hand, especiaUy in a money-matter ; but I believe so many excel lent patiiots have just done the same thing, that I shaU venture readUy to engage my promise to you, to get you any sum for the defence of Tuscany — ^why, it is to defend you and my own countiy ! my own palace in via di santo spirito,^ my own Princess epuisee, and aU my famUy ! I shaU quite make interest for you : nay, I would speak to our new aUy, and your old acquaintance. Lord SandAWch, to assist in it ; but I could have no hope of getting at his ear, for he has put on such a first-rate tie-vrig, on his admission to the admiralty-board, that nothing Arithout the lungs of a boatswain can ever think to penetrate the thickness of the curls. I think, however. It does honour to the dignity of ministers : when he was but a patriot, his Arig was not of haff its present grarity. There are no more changes made: aU is quiet yet; but next Thursday the ParHament meets to decide the complexion of the session. My ' John Michael Rysbrach, the sculptor; died 1770. — Cunninoha.m ' The street in Florence where Mr Mann lived. — Walpole. 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 337 Lord Chesterfield goes next week to HoUand, and then returns for Ireland. The great present tHsturbance in politics is my Lady GranvUle's a.'ssem.bJy ; which I do assure you distresses the PeUiams infinitely more than a mysterious meeting of the States would, and far more than the abrapt breaking up of the Diet at Grodno. She had begun to keep Tuesdays before her lord resigned, which now she continues Arith great zeal. Her house Is very fine, she very handsome, her lord very agreeable and extraordinary ; and yet the Duke of New castle wonders that people wiU go thither. He mentioned to my father my going there, who laughed at hfrn ; Cato's a proper person to trust vrith such a chUdish jealousy ! Harry Pox says, " Let the Duke of Newcastle open his oavu house, and see ff aU that come thither are his friends." The fashion now is to send cards to the women, and to declare that aU men are welcome vrithout being asked. This is a piece of ease that shocks the prudes of the last age. You can't imagine how my Lady GranviUe shines in doing honours ; you know she is made for it. My lord has new furnished his mother's apartment for her, and has given her a magnificent set of dressing-plate : he is very fond of her, and she as fond of his being so. You wiU have heard of Marshal BeUelsle's being made a prisoner at Hanover : the world wiU believe it was not by accident. He Is sent for over hither : the ffrst thought was to confine him to the Tower, but that is contrary to the politesse of modern war : they talk of sending him to Nottingham, where TaUard was. I am sure, ff he is prisoner at large any where, we could not have a worse inmate ! so ambitious and intriguing a man, who was author of this whole war, vriU be no bad general to be ready to head the Jacobites on any insurrection.' I can say nothing more about young Gardiner, but that I don't think my father at all incHned now to have any letter written for him. Adieu ! 164. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Jan. 14, 1745. I HAVE given my uncle the letter from M. de Magnan ; he had ]ust received another from him at Venice, to desire his recommenda- ' Belleisle and his brother, who had been sent by the King of France on a mission to the King of Prussia, were detained, while changing horses, at Elbengerode, and 836 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745, tion to you. His history is, first, — the Regent picked him up, (I don't know from whence, but he is of the Greek church,) to teach the present Duke of Orleans the Russ tongue, when they had a scheme for marning lifrn into Muscovy. At Paris Lord Walde grave ' met vrith him, and sent him over hither, where they pensioned him, and he was to be a spy, but made nothing out ; tUl the Kmg was wearv' of giving him money, and then they dispatched him to Vienna, vrith a recommendation to Count d'Uhlefeldt, who, I sup pose, has tacked him upon the Great Duke. My uncle says, he knows no Ul of him ; that you may be civU to hiin, but not enter into correspondence Arith him : you need not ; he is of no use. Apropos to you ; I have been in a fright about you ; we were told that Prince Lobkovritz was landed at Harvrich ; I did not like the name ; and as he has been troublesome to you, I did not know but he might fancy he had some complaints against you. I wondered you had never mentioned his befrig set out ; but it is his son, a traveUing boy of twenty ; he is sent under the care of an apothecary and surgeon. The ParHament is met : one hears of the Tory opposition con tinuing, but nothing has appeared yet ; aU is quiet. Lord Chester field is set out for the Hague : I don't know what ear the States Arill lend to his embassy, when they hear Arith what difficulty the King was brought to give him a parting audience ; and which, by a watch, did not last five-and-forty seconds. The GranviUe faction are still the constant and only countenanced people at Court. Lord Win chelsea, one of the disgraced, played at Court on Tweffth-night, and won : the King asked bim next morning, how much he had for his own share ? ' He repHed, " Sfr, about a quarter's salary." I Uked the spirit, and was talking to bim of it the next night at Lord GranvUle's : " Why, yes," said he, " I think it showed famUiarity at least : teU it your father ; I don't think he wiU disHke it." My Lady GranviUe gives a baU this week, but in a manner a private one, to the two famUies of Carteret and Fermor and thefr intimacies ; there is a fourth sister. Lady JuHana,' who is very handsome, but 1 think not so weU as Sophia : the latter thinks herseff breeding. from thence conveyed to England ; where, refusing to give their parole in the mode it was required, they were confined in Windsor Castle. — Walpole. ' James, first Earl of Waldegrave, .ambassador at Paris, K.G. He died in 1741.— Dover. ' Those who play at court on Twelfth-night, make a bank with several people.— Walpole. ^ Lady Juliana Fermor, married in 1751 to Thomas Penn, Esq., (son of William Penn, the great legislator of the Quakers) one of the proprietors of Pennsylvania. He died in 1775, and Lady Juliana in 1781.— Wright. 1745-] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 339 T vriU teU you a very good thing : Lord Baltimore wiU not come into the Admfralty, because in the new commission they give Ijord Vere Beauclerc the precedence to him, and he has dispersed printed papers vrith precedents in his favour. A gentleman, 1 don't know who, the other night at Tom's coffee-house,' said, " It put him in mind of Penkethman's' petition in ' The Spectator,' where he com plains, that formerly he used to act second chafr In Dioclesian, but now was reduced to dance fifth flower-pot." The Duke of Montagu' has found out an old penny-history-book, called the Old Woman's WUl of RatcHffe-HIghway, which he has bound up -with his mother-in-law's, Old Marlborough," only tearing away the title-page of the latter. My father has been extremely Ul this week vrith his disorder ; I think the physicians are more and more persuaded that It is the stone in his bladder. He is taking a preparation of Mrs. Stephens's medicine, a receipt of one Dr. Jurin, which we began to fear was too riolent for bim : I made his doctor angry vrith me by arguing on this medicine, which I never could comprehend. It is of so great violence, that it is to spHt a stone when it arrives at it, and yet it is to do no damage to aU the tender intestines through which it must first pass. I told him I thought it was Hke an admiral going on a secret expedition of war, vrith instructions, which are not to be opened tiU he arrives in such a latitude. George Townshend,' my lord's eldest son, who is at the Hague on his travels, has had an ofi'er to raise a regiment for their serrice, of which he is to be colonel, with power of naming aU his own officers. It was proposed that it shoiUd consist of Irish Roman CathoHcs, but the regency of Ireland have represented against that, ' I suppose Tom's Coffee House in Great Russell Street, Covent Garden.— Cunningham. - William Penkethman (familiarly known as Pinkey) : died 20th September, 1725. — Cunningham.2 John, Duke of Montagu (1709-1749), eccentric in his humour, as well as in his benevolence, w.as the contriver (16 January, 1748-9) of the notable hoax at the Hay market Theatre, of a man squeezing himself into a quart bottle. " All his [the Duke of Montagu's] talents Ue in things only natural in boys of fifteen yeara old, and he is about two and fifty ; to get people into hia garden and wet them with aquirLs, and to invite people to hia country houaes, and put things into their beds to make them itch, and twenty such pretty fanciea like these." — Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough {his mothcr-in-lato), to Lord Stair. {Dalrymple' s Opinions, -p. 58.) See another inatance of thia practised on Dr. Misaubin, in the " Richardsoniana," p. 160. — Cunningham. ¦* The Duchess of Marlborough's will was pubUshed in a thin octavo volume, — Dover. ' Afterwards first Marquis Townshend, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Master General of the Ordnance, &c.— Walpole. 840 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS, :1745, because they think they avUI aU desert to the French. He is now to try it of ScotcK, which will scarce succeed, unless he wiU let all the officers be of the same nation- An affafr of this kind first raised the late Duke of Argyll [and Greenvrich] ; and was the cause of his first quarrel vrith the Duke of Marlborough, who was against his coining into our army in the same rank. Sir Thomas Hanmer has at last pubHshed his Shakspeare : he has made several alterations, but they AviU be the less talked of, as he has not marked in the text, margin, or notes, where or why he has made any change ; but every body must be obHged to coUate it Arith other editions. One most curiously absurd alteration I have been told. In OtheUo, it is said of Cassio, " a Florentine, one almost damned in a fafr wife." It happens that there is no other mention in the play of Cassio's wffe. Sir Thomas has altered It — how do you think ? — no, I should be sorry ff you could think how— " almost damned in a fair phiz ! " — what a tragic word ! and what sense Adieu ! I see advertised a translation of Dr. Cocchi's book on tiring ou vegetables : ' does he know any thing of it ? My serrice to him and every body. 165. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Feb. 1, 1745. 1 AM glad my letters, obscure as they of course must be, give yon any Hght into England ; but don't mind them too much ; they may be partial ; must be imperfect ; don't negotiate upon this authority, but have CapeUo's' example before your eyes ! How I laugh when I see him important, and see my Lady Pomfret's letters at the bottom of his instructions ! how it would make a phUosopher sniUe at the vaiuty of poHtics ! How it diverts me, who can entertain myseH at the expense of phUosophy, poHtics, or any thing else ! Mr. Conway says I laugh at aU serious characters — so I do — and at myseU too, who am far from being of the number. Who would not laugh at a world, where so ridiculous a creature as the Duke of Newcastle can overturn ministries ! Don't take me for a partisan of Lord GranriUe's because I despise his rivals ; I am not for adopting his ' The Doctor's treatise " Di Vitto Pythagorico," appeared this ye.ar in England under thc title of " The Pythagorean Diet ; or. Vegetables only conducive to tho Preservation of Health and the Cure of Diseases."— Wright. ' The Venetian ambassador. — Walpole. 1745.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 341 measures ; they were vrild and dangerous : in his single capacity, I think him a great genius ; ' and vrithout baring recourse to the Countess's [Pomfret's] translatable periods, am pleased vrith his company. His frankness charms one when it is not necessary to depend upon it ; and his contempt of fools is very flattering to any one who happens to know the present ministry. Thefr coaHtion goes on as one should expect ; they have the name of having effected it ; and the Opposition is no longer mentioned : yet there is not a half-witted prater in the House but can diride Arith every new minister on his side, except Lyttelton, whenever he pleases. They actuaUy do every day bring in popular bUls, and on the first tinkUng of the brass, aU the new bees swarm back to the Tory side of the House. The other day, on the Flanders army, Mr. Pitt came down to prevent this : he Avas very Ul, but made a very strong and much admfred speech for coaHtion,' which fbr that day succeeded, and the army was voted Arith but one negative. But now the Emperor ' is dead, and every thing must wear a new face. If It produces a peace, Mr. Pelham is a fortunate man ! He wiU do extremely weU at the beginning of peace, lUce the man in Madame de la Fayette's Me mofrs, " Qui exercolt extiemement bien sa charge, quand U n'avoit rien a ftoe." However, do you keep well vrith them, and be sure don't write me back any treason, in answer to all I Avrite to you : you are to please them ; I think of them as they are. The new Elector " seems to set out weU for us, though there are accounts of his having taken the style of Archduke, as claiming the Austrian succession : if he has, it vriU be Hke the chUdren's game of beat knaves out of doors, where you play the pack twenty times over ; one gets pam, the other gets pam, but there Is no conclusion of the game, tUl one side has never a card left. After my iU success vrith the baronet,' to whom I gave a letter for ' Swift, in speaking of Lord GranviUe, says, that " he carried away from college more Greek, Latin, and philosophy than properly became a person of his rank ;" and Walpole, in hia Memoires, describes him as "an extensive scholar, master of all classic criticism, and of all modern politics." — Wright. " " Mr. Pitt, who had been laid up with the gout, came down with the mien and apparatus of an invalid, on purpose to make a full declaration of his sentiments on our present circumstances. What he said was enforced with much grace both of action and elocution. He commended the ministry for pursuing moderate and healing measures, and such as tended to set the King at the head of all his people," — See Mr. P. Yorhe's MS. Parliamentary Journal. — W right. ^ Charles VII. Elector of Bavaria. — Walpole. ¦* Maximilian Joseph. He died in 1777.— Wright. * Sir WiUiam Maynard. — Walpole. He married the daughter of Sir Cecil Bisshopp, and died in 1772. — Wright. 342 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746, you, I shall always be very cautious how I recommend barbarians to your protection. I have this morning been soHcited for some cre dentials for a Mr. Oxenden.' I could not help laughing : he is son of Sfr George, my Lady W[alpole]'s famous lover ! ' Can he want recommendations to Florence ? However, I must give him a letter ; but beg you wUl not give yourseff any particular trouble about him, for I do not know him enough to bow to. His person is good : that and his name, I suppose, vrill bespeak my lady's attentions, and save you the fatigue of doing him many honours. Thank Mr. Chute for his letter ; I wiU answer it very soon. I deHght in the article of the Mantua Gazette. Adieu ! 166. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Feb. 28, 1745. You have heard from your brother the reason of my not having written to you so long. I have been out but twice since my father feU into this Ulness, which is now near a month ; and aU that time either continuaUy in his room, or obHged to see multitudes of people ; for it is most wonderful how everybody of aU kinds has affected to express thefr concern for him ! He has been out of danger above this week ; but I can't say he mended at aU perceptibly, tiU these last three days. His spirits are amazing, and his constitution more ; for Dr. Hulse ' said honestly from the first, that ff he recovered, it would be from his own stiength, not from their art. After the four or five first days, in which they gave him the bark, they resigned him to the struggles of his own good temperament — and It has sur mounted ! surmounted an explosion and discharge of thirty-two pieces of stone, a constant and vast effusion of blood for five days, a fever of three weeks, a perpetual fiux of water, and sixty-rune years, afready (one should think) worn down vrith his vast fatigues ! How much more he wUl ever recover, one scarce dare hope about : for us, he is greatly recovered ; for himseff — ' Afterwards Sir Henry Oxenden, the sixth baronet of the family, and eldeat aon of Sir George Oxenden, for many years a lord of the Treasury during the reign of George II. He died in 1803. — Wright. = Sir George Oxenden (died 1775) was thought to be the father of Lady Walpole'a son, afterwards third Earl of Orford. (See Lord Hervey's Memoira, vol. ii,, p- 347.) Lord Hervey has drawn an odious picture of Sir George Oxenden, " my Lady AT. a famous lover." — Cunningham. ' Dr Hulse, father of Sir Edward Hulse, Bart. He was called in to Mr. Winning- ton when too late. — Cunningham, 1745] TO SIR HORACE MANN 343 March ith. I had written thus far last week, vrithout being able to find a moment to fimsh. In the midst of aU my attendance on my lord and receiring visits, 1 am forced to go out and thank those that have come and sent ; for his recovery is now at such a pause, that I fear it IS m vain to expect much farther amendment. How dismal a pro spect for him, vrith the possession of the greatest understanding in the world, not the least impafred, to He vrithout any use of it ! for to keep him from pains and restlessness, he takes so much opiate, that he is scarce awake fom- hours of the four-and-twenty ; but I AviU say no more of this. Our coaHtion goes on thi-Iringly ; but at the expense of the old Coui-t, who are aU discontented, and are likely soon to show thefr resentment. The brothers have seen the best days of thefr ministry. The Hanover troops dismissed to please the Opposition, and taken again vrith their consent, under the cloak of an additional subsidy to the Queen of Hungary, who is to pay them. This has set the patriots in so viUainous a Hght, that they wUl be IU able to support a minister who has throAvn such an odium on the Whigs, after they had so stoutly supported that measure last year, and which, after aU the clamour. Is now universaUy adopted, as you see. If my Lord GrauAoUe had any resentment, as he seems to have nothing but thirst, sure there is no vengeance he might not take ! So far from contracting any prudence from his faU, he laughs it off every night over two or three bottles. The countess Is vrith chUd. I beHeve she and the countess-mother [Pomfret] have got It ; for there is nothing ridiculous which they have not done and said about it. There was a private masquerade lately at the Venetian ambassadress's for the Prince of Wales, who named the company, and expressly excepted my Lady Lincoln [Miss Pelham] and others of the PeUiam faction. My Lady GranviUe came late, dressed Hke Imoinda, and handsomer than one of the houris : the Prince asked her why she would not dance ? " Indeed, Sfr, I was afraid I could not have come at aU, for I had a fainting fit after dinner." The other night my Lady ToAvnshend made a great ball on her son's coming of age : I went for a Httle whUe, Httle thinking of dancing. I asked my Lord GranviUe, why my lady did not dance ? " Oh, Lord ! I Arish you would ask her ; she wUl vrith you." I was caught, and did walk down one country dance vrith her ; but the prudent Signora- madre would not let her expose the young Carteret any farther. S*4 HORACE WALPOLES LETTERS. [174B. You say, you expect much information about BeUeisle, but there has not (in the style of the newspapers) the least particular transpfred. He was at first kept magnificently close at Windsor ; but the ex pense proring aboA-e one hundred pounds per day, they have taken his parole, and sent him to Nottingham, a la Tallarde. Pray, is De Sede Arith you stUl ? his brother has been taken too by the Austrians. My Lord Coke is going to be married to a Miss Shawe,' of forty- thousand pounds. Lord Hartington ' is contracted to Lady Charlotte Boyle, the heiress of BurHngton, and sister of the unhappy Lady Euston ; but she is not yet old enough. Earl Stanhope,' too, has at last Hfted up his eyes from EucHd, and dfrected them to matrimony. He has chosen the eldest sister of your acquaintance Lord Had dington. I rerive about you and Tuscany. I avUI teU you what Is thought to have reprieved you : it is much suspected that the King of Spain'' is dead. I hope those superstitious people AriU pinch the Queen, as they do vritches, to make her loosen the charm that has kept the Prince of Asturias from HaAing chUdren. At least this must tum out better than the death of the Emperor has. The Duke [of Cumberland], you hear, is named generalissimo, vrith Count Koningseg, Lord Dunmore,' and LIgoiner " under bim. Poor boy ! he is most BrunsArickly happy Arith his drums and trumpets. Do but think that this sugar-plum was to tempt him to swaUow that bolus the Princess of Denmark ! ' What avUI they do ff they have chUcfren ? The late Queen never forgave the Duke of Richmond, for telHng her that his children would take place before the Duke's grandchUdren. ' This marriage did not take place. Lord Coke afterwards married Lady Mary Campbell [of whom we shall read so much] ; and Miss Shawe, WiUiam, fifth Lord Byron, the immediate predecessor of the great poet. — Wright. ^ His marriage with Lady Charlotte Boyle took place in March, 1748. In 1765, he succeeded hia father as fourth Duke of Devonshire. — Wright. ^ Philip, second Earl Stanhope. He married, in July following. Lady Grizel Hamilton, daughter of Charles, Lord Binning. — AVright. ^ The imbecile and insane Philip V. He did not die till 1746. The Prince of Asturias was Ferdinand VI., who succeeded him, and died childless in 1769.— Dover. ' John Murray, second Earl of Dunmore : colonel of the third regiment of Scotch Foot Guards. He died in 1752. — Wright. ' Sir John Ligonier, created Lord Ligonier, in Ireland, in 1757, an English peer by the same title in 1763, and Earl Ligonier in 1766. He died at the age cf ninety- one, in 1770. — Dover. ' Compare AValpole's " Reminiscences,'' chap. viii. — Cunningham. 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANK. S46 I inclose you a pattern for a chair, which your brother desfred me to send you. I thank you extremely for the views of Florence ; you can't imagine what wishes they have awakened. My best thanks to Dr. Cocchi for his book : I have delivered aU the copies as dfrected. Mr. Chute avUI excuse me yet ; the first moment I have time, I avIU write. I have just received your letter of Feb. 16, and grieve for your disorder : you know how much concern your Ill-health gives me. Adieu ! my dear chUd : I write with twenty people In the room. 167. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, March 29, 1746. I BEGGED your brother to tell you what It was Impossible for me to teU you.' You share nearly in our common loss ! Don't expect me to enter at aU upon the subject. After the melancholy two months that I have passed, and in my situation, you vriU not wonder I shun a conversation which could not be bounded by a letter — a letter that would grow into a panegyric, or a piece of moral ; improper for me to write upon, and too distressful for us both ! — a death is only to be felt, never to be talked over by those it touches ! I had yesterday your letter of three sheets : I began to flatter myseff that the storm was blown over, but I tremble to think of the danger you are in ! a danger, in which even the protection of the great friend you have lost could have been of no serrice to you. How ridiculous it seems for me to renew protestations of my friend ship for you, at an instant when my father is just dead, and the Spaniards just bursting into Tuscany ! How empty a charm would my name have, when aU my interest and significance are buried in my father's grave ! -All hopes of present peace, the only thing that could save you, seem vanished. We expect every day to hear of the French declaration of war against HoUand. The new Elector of Bavaria is French, Hke his father ; and the King of Spain is not dead. I don't know how to talk to you. I have not even a beHef that the Spaniards wiU spare Tuscany. My dear chUd, what vrill become of you ? whither wiU you retfre tUl a peace restores you to your ministry ? for upon that distant riew alone I repose ! ' The death of his father. Lord Orford died at his house in Arlington Street, 18 March, 1746, and was buried at Houghton. — Cunningham. 346 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [171^ We are every day nearer confusion. The King is in aa bad humour as a monarch can be ; he wants to go abroad, and is detained by the Mediterranean affafr ; the inquiry into which was moved by a Major Selwyn, a dfrty pensioner, haff- turned patriot, by the Court being overstocked vrith votes.' This inquiry takes up the whole time of the House of Commons, but I don't see what conclu sion it can have. My confinement has kept me from being there, except the first day ; and aU I know of what is yet come out Is, as it was stated by a Scotch member the other day, " that there had been one (Matthews) vrith a bad head, another (Lestock) Arith a worse heart, and four (the captains of the inactive ships) Arith na heart at aU." Among the numerous risits of form that I have received, one was from my Lord Sandys : as we two could only converse upon general topics, we feU upon this of the Mediterranean, and I made him aUow, " that, to be sure, there is not so bad a court of justice In the world as the House of Commons ; and how hard It is upon any man to have his cause tried there ! " Sfr Everard Falkner ' is made secretary to the Duke, who is not yet gone : I have got Mr. Conway to be one of his aid-de-camps. Sfr Everard has since been offered the joint-postmastership, vacant by Sir John Eyles's ' death ; but he would not quit the Duke. It was then proposed to the King to give it to the brother : It happened to be a cloudy day, and he only answered, " I know who Sir Everard is, but I don't know who Mr. Falkner is." The world expects some change when the ParHament rises. My Lord GranviUe's physicians have ordered him to go to the Spa, as, you know, they often send ladles to the Bath who are very Ul of a want of diversion. It avUI scarce be possible for the present mimstry to endure this jaimt. Then they are losing many of thefr new aUies : the new Duke of Beaufort," a most determined and unwavering Jacobite, has openly set himseff at the head of that party, and forced them to vote agaiust the Court, and to renounce ' " 1745, February 26. We had an unexpected motion from a very contemptible fellow. Major Selwyn, for an inquiry into the cause of the miscarriage of the fleet in the action off Toulon. Mr Pelham, perceiving that the inclination of the House waa for an inquiry, acceded to the motion ; but forwarned it of the temper, patience, and caution with which it should be pursued." — Mr. Yorke's MS. Journal.— Weight. " He had been ambassador at Constantinople. — Walpole. ^ Sir John Eyles, Bart., an alderman of the city of London, and at one time member of parliament for the same. He died March 11, 1745.— Dover. " Charles Noel Somerset, fourth Duke of Beaufort, succeeded hia elder brother Henry in the dukedom, February 14, 1745. — Dover. 5746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 347 my Lord Gower. My vrise cousin, Sfr John PhiUIpps, has resigned his place ; and It Is beHeved that Sir John Cotton avUI soon resign : but the Bedford, Pitt, Lyttelton, and that squadi-on, stick close to thefr places. Pitt has lately resigned his bedchamber to the Prince, which, in friendship to Lyttelton, it was expected he would have done long ago. They have chosen for this resignation a very apposite passage out of Cato : " He toss'd his arm aloft, and proudly told me He would not stay, and perish like Semproni .lUK. This was WUHams's. My Lord Coke's match is broken off, upon some coquetry of the lady [Miss Shawe] vrith Mr. Mackenzie ' at the Ridotto. My Lord Leicester says, " there shaU not be a thfrd lady in Norfolk of the species of the two fortunes' that matched at Rainham and Houghton." Pray, wiU the new Countess of Orford come to England ? The town flocks to a new play of Thomson's called " Tancred and Sigismnnda : " It Is veiy duU ; I have read it. I cannot bear modem poetiy ; these refiners of the purity of the stage, and of the incorrectness of EngHsh verse, are most wofully insipid. I had rather have written the most absurd Hnes in Lee, than " Leonidas " or " The Seasons ; " as I had rather be put into the round-house for a wrong-headed quarrel, than sup quietly at eight o'clock vrith my grandmother. There is another of these tame genius's, a Mr. Akenside, who writes Odes : in one he has lately pubHshed, he says, " Light the tapers, urge the fire." ' Had not you rather make gods "jostle in the dark,"" than Hght the candles for fear they should break their heads ? One Russel, a mimic, has a puppet- show to ridicule Operas ; I hear, very duU, not to mention its being twenty years too late : It consists of three acts, vrith fooHsh ItaHan songs burlesqued in ItaHan. ' The Hon. Jamea Stuart Mackenzie, second son of James, second Earl of Bute, and brother of John, Earl of Bute, the minister. He married Lady Elizabeth Campbell, one of the daughters of John, the great Duke of Argyll, and died in 1800. — Dover. ' Margaret RoUe, Countess of Orford, and Ethelreda Harrison, Viscountesa Towns hend. — Walpole. Both were loose livers. The Holkham match, notwithstanding Lord Leicester's determination, proved anything but happy. — Cunningham. •* " Urge the warm bowl and ruddy fire," is Akenside's line in the first edition of his " Odes," 4to, 1745- the copy Walpole professes to quote.— Cunningham. •• As Nat Lee does in a passage which Warburton admired so extravagantly.— Cunninguam. S48 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745 There is a very good quarrel on foot between two duchessses : she of Queensberry sent to inrite Lady EmUy Lenox ' to a baU : her Grace of Richmond, who is wonderfuUy cautious since Lady Caroline's elopement [vrith Mr. Fox], sent word, "she could not determine." The other sent again the same night: the same answer. The Queensberry then sent word, that she had made up her company, and desfred to be excused from having Lady EmUy's ; but at the bottom of the card wrote, " Too great a trust." You know how mad she is, and how capable of such a stroke. There Is no declaration of war come out from the other Duchess; but, I beHeve it wUl be made a national quarrel of the whole Ulegltimate royal family.^ It is the present fashion to make conundrums : there are books of them printed, and produced at aU assembUes : they are fuU slUy enough to be made a fashion. I vriU teU you the most renoAvned: " Why Is my uncle Horace like two people conversing ? — Because he is both teUer and auditor." This was Winnlngton's. Well, I had almost forgot to teU you a most extraordinary Imper tinence of your Florentine Marquis Riccardi. About three weeks ago, I received a letter by Monsieur Wasner's footman from the marquis. He teUs me most cavaHerly, that he has sent me seventy- seven antique gems to seU for him, by the way of Paris, not canng it should be kno-wn In Florence. He vrill have them sold altogether, and the lowest price two thousand pistoles. You know what no- acquaintance 1 had Arith him. I shall be as frank as he, and not receive them. If I did, they nught be lost in sending back, and then I must pay his two thousand doppie di Spagna. The refusing to receive them is positively all the notice I shaU take of it. I inclose what I think a fine piece on my father : ' it was written by Mr. Ashton," whom you have often heard me mention as a particular friend. You see how I try to make out a long letter, in ' Second daughter of Charies, Duke of Richmond. — Walpole. Afterwards married to James Fitzgerald, first Duke of Leinster, in Ireland. — Dover. ^ " 1 had like to have forgot to tell you, that the Duchess of Queensberry, wanting a man to make up her ball last night, condescended so far as to send for him, and he danced with Lady Emily Lenox, and every body that was there says, it was the prettiest sight upon earth to see the two Lady Emilys dance together. The Duchesa never gives meat suppers, and Hobart told me himself, that he had nothing but halt au apple puff and a Uttle wine and water. If you had been there yourself you could have ordered nothing properer. . . . Mr. Walpole sits by me while I write this."— Sir C. H. Williams to Selwyn, 30 March, 1746. — Cunningham. ^ It was printed in the public papers. — Walpole. " Horace AValpole's early friend, see note, p. 2. — CrNNiNGHAM. *5.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 349 itum for your kind one, which yet gave me great pain by teUing .e of your fever. My dearest Sfr, it is terrible to have iUness ided to your other distresses ! I wUl take the ffrst opportunity to send Dr. Cocchi his translated 3ok ; I have not yet seen it myseff. Adieu ! my dearest child ! I write with a house full of relations, id must conclude. Heaven preserve you and Tuscany. 168. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, April 16, 1746. By this time you have heard of my Lord's death : I fear it avUI ave been a very great shock to you. I hope your brother vriU -rite you aU the particulars ; for my part, you can't expect I should nter into the detaUs of It. His enemies pay him the compliment of tying, " they do beHeve now that he did not plunder the pubHc, as e was accused (as they accused him) of doing, he having died in ich cfrcumstances." If he had no proofs of his honesty but this, don't think this would be such indisputable authority : not learing nmense riches would be scanty eridence of his not having acqufred lem, there happening to be such a thing as spending them. It Is jrtain, he is dead very poor : his debts, vrith his legacies, which are ifling, amount to fifty thousand pounds. His estate, a nominal ght thousand a-year, much mortgaged. In short, his fondness for foughton has endangered Houghton. If he had not so overdone it, e might have left such an estate to his family as might have icured the glory of the place for many years : another such debt LUst expose it to sale. If he had Hved, his unbounded generosity id contempt of money would have run him into vast difficulties. [owever irreparable his personal loss may be to his friends, he cer- linly died criticaUy weU for himseff: he had Hved to stand the idest trials Arith honour, to see his character universaUy cleared, is enemies brought to infamy for thefr Ignorance or viUany, and the orld aUowing him to be the only man in England fit to be what he id been ; and he died at a time when his age and infirmities •evented his again undertaking the support of a government, which igrossed his whole care, and which he foresaw was falling into the st confusion. In this I hope his judgment faUed ! His fortune tended him to the last ; for he died of the most painful of aU stempers, vrith Httle or no pain. 35U HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS, r:74£ The House of Commons have at last fiiushed thefr great affafr, thefr inqufry into the Mediterranean miscarriage. It was carried on vrith more decency and impartiaHty than ever was knovm In so tumultuous, popular, and partial a court. I can't say it ended so ; for the Tories, aU but one single man, voted against Matthews, whom they have not forgiven for lately opposing one of thefr friends in Monmouthshire, and for carrying his election. The greater part of the Whigs were for Lestock. This last is a very great man : his cause, most unfriended, came before the House Arith aU the odium that coiUd be laid on a man standing in the Hght of having betiayed his country. His merit, I mean his parts, prevaUed, and have set him in a very advantageous point of riew. Harry Fox has gained the greatest honour by his assiduity and capacity in this affair. Matthews remains in the Hght of a hot, brave, imperious, duU, con fused feUow. The question was to address the King to appoint a trial, by court-martial, of the two admfrals and the four coward captains. Matthews's friends were for leaving out his name, but, after a very long debate, were only 76 to 218. It is generaUy supposed, that the two admirals wUl be acquitted and the captains hanged. By what I can make out, (for you know I have been confined, and could not attend the examination,) Lestock preferred his own safety to the glory of his country ; I don't mean cowardly, for he Is most unquestionably brave, but selfishly. Having to do with a man who, he knew, would take the sHghtest opportunity to ruin him, if he in the least transgressed his orders, and knoAving that man too duff to give right orders, he chose to stick to the letter, when, by neglecting it, he might have done the greatest serrice. We hear of great news from Bavaria, of that Elector being forced into a neutraHty ; but it is not confirmed. Mr. Legge is made Lord of the Admiralty, and Mr. PhUipson Surveyor of the Roads in his room. This is all I know. I look vrith anxiety every day into the Gazettes about Tuscany, but hitherto I find aU is quiet. My dear Sir, I tremble for you ! I have been much desfred to get you to send five gesse figures ; the Venus, the Faun, the Mercury, the Cupid and Psyche, and the Httle Bacchus ; you know the original is modem : ff this is not to be had, then the Ganymede. My dear child, I am sorry to give you this trouble ; order anybody to buy them, aud to send them from Leghorn by the first ship. Let me have the bUl, and bUl of lading. Adieu! 7-1^.1 TO SIR HORACE UiANN. 351 166. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Strut, Ax/nl 25, 1746. When you wrote your last of the 6th of this month, you was stUl n hopes about my father. I wish I had received your letters on lis death, for it is most shocking to have aU the thoughts opened igaln upon such a subject ! — it is the great disadvantage of a distant iorrespondence. There was a report here a fortnight ago, of the lew Countess [of Orford] coming over. She could not then have leard it. Can she be so mad ? Why should she suppose aU her ihame buried in my lord's grave ? or does not she know, has she leen so Httle of the world, as not to be sensible that she wUl now •etui-n in a worse Hght than ever ? A few malicious, who would iave countenanced her to vex him, would now treat her Hke the rest ff the world. It is a private famUy affair ; a husband, a mother, md .a son, aU party against her, all wounded by her conduct, would )e too much to get over ! My dear chUd, you have nothing but nusfortunes of yom- friends 0 lament. You have noAV subject by the loss of poor Mr. Chute's )rother.' It reaUy is a great loss ! he was a most rising man, and me of the best-natured and most honest that ever lived. If it would lot sound ridiculously, though, I assure you, I am far fr-om feeling it ightly, I would teU you of poor Patapan's death : he died about ten lays ago. This peace with the Elector of Bavaria may produce a genera. ne. You have given great respite to my uneasiness, by telling me hat Tuscany seems out of danger. We have for these last three ays been in great expectation of a battle. The French have ivested Toumay ; our army came up Arith them last Wednesday, nd is certainly Httle inferior, and determined to attack them ; but ; is beHeved they are retired : we don't know who commands them ; ; is said, the Due d'Harcourt. Our good friend, the Count de Saxe, ! dying' — ^by Venus, not by Mars. The King goes on Friday ; this ' Francis Chute, a very eminent lawyer, [See p. 99,] — AValpole. " The Marshal de Saxe did not die till 1760. He was, however, exceedingly ill at e time of the battle of Fontenoy. Voltaire, in his " Sifecle de Louis XV." mentions iving met him at Paris just as he was setting off for the campaign. Observing how iwell he seemed to be, he asked him whether he thought he had strength enough to I through the fatigues which awaited him. To this the Marshal's reply was, " II : s'agit pas de vivre, mais de partir." — Dover 352 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745. may make the young Duke more impatient to give battle, to Lave aU the honour his own. There is no kind of news ; the ParHament rises on Thursday, and every body is going out of town. I shall only make short excursions in visits ; you knew I am not fond of the country, and have no caU into it now ! My brother -wiU not be at Houghton this year ; he shuts it up, to enter on new, and there very unknoAvn, economy: he has much occasion for it ! Commend me to poor Mr. Chute 1 Adieu! 170. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, May 11, 1746. I STAYED tUl to-day, to be able to give you some account of the battle of Toumay : ' the outHnes you avUI have heard already. We don't aUow it to be a rictory on the French side : but that Is, just as a woman is not caUed Mrs. tUl she is married, though she may have had haff-a-dozen natural chUdren. In short, we remained upon the field of battle three hours ; I fear, too many of us remain there stIU ! vrithout paUiating, it is certainly a heavy stroke. We never lost near so many officers. I pity the Duke [of Cumberland], for it is almost the first battle of consequence that we ever lost. By the letters arrived to-day, we find that Toumay stUl holds out. There are certainly kUled Sfr James CampbeU,' General Ponsonby,' Colonel Carpenter," Coh)nel Douglas, young Ross,' Colonel Montagu, Gee, Berkeley," and KeUet. Mr. Vanbragh' is since dead. Most of the young men of quaHty in the Guards are wounded. I have had the vast fortune to have nobody hurt, for whom I was in the least inte rested. Mr. Conway, in particular, has highly distinguished himseff, he and Lord Petersham,' who is sHghtly wounded, are most com- ' Since called the battle of Fontenoy.— Walpole. The Marshal de Saxe com manded the French army, and both Louis XV. and his son the Dauphin were pre sent in the action. The Duke of Cumberland commanded the British forces,- Dover. ^ K.B., Lieutenant-General and Colonel of the Scotch Greya.— Cunningham, ' Brother to the Earl of Beaborough, '' Neariy related to Lord Carpenter. He left a wife and seven chUdren.- - Cunningham. ° M.P. for Ross-shire, and the same on whom Collins wrote his " Ode. — Cunningham. ' Nephew to Lady Betty Germain and cousin to Earl Berkeley.— Cunningham. ' The poet's only son, Ensign in the 2nd regiment of Foot Guards.— Cunningham ' William, Lord Petersham, eldest son of the Earl of Harrington —Walpole. 1745.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. ars mended ; though none behaved Ul but the Dutch horse. There hao been but very little consternation here : the King minded it so little, that being set out for Hanover, and bloAvn back into Harvrich-roads since the news came, he could not be persuaded to retum, but saUed yesterday vrith the fafr Avind. I beHeve you avUI have the Gazette sent to-night ; but lest it should not be printed time enough, here Is a list of the numbers, as it came over this morning : British foot , 1237 killed. Ditto horse 90 ditto. Ditto foot 1968 wounded. Ditto horse 232 ditto. Ditto foot . 457 missing. Ditto horse . 18 ditto. Hanoverian foot . . 432 killed. Ditto horse . . 78 ditto. Ditto foot . . . 960 wounded. Ditto horse . . . 192 ditto. Ditto horse and foot ... 53 missing. Dutch 626 killed and wounded. Ditto . . . . .1019 missing. So the whole hors de combat is above seven thousand three hundred. The French own the loss of three thousand ; I don't beHeve many more, for it was a most rash and desperate perseverance on our side. The Duke behaved very bravely and humanely ;' but this -wiU not have advanced the peace. However cooUy the Duke may have behaved, and coldly his father, at least his brother [the Prince of Wales] has outdone both. He not only went to the play the night the news came, but in two days made a ballad. It is In Imitation of the Regent's style, and has miscarried In nothing but the language, the thoughts, and the poetry. Did not I tell you in my last that he was going to act Paris in Con greve's Masque ? The song' is addressed to the goddesses. Venez, mes chferes Dresses, Veuez calmer mon chagrin ; Aidez, mes belles Princesses, A le noyer dans le vin. ' The Hon. Philip Yorke, in a letter to Horace Walpole, the elder, of the following day, aaya, " the Duke's behaviour was, by aU accounts, the most heroic and gaUant imaginable : he was the whole day in the thickest of the fire. His Royal Highness drew out a pistol upon an officer whom he saw running away." — Wright. ^ " Frederic Prince of Wales wrote French songs, in imitation of the Regent [Duke of Orleans], and did not miscarry solely by writing in a language not his own. ' — Walpole, Works, i. 278, ed. 1798. The song was written immediately after the battle 354 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS [1745. Poussona cette douce Ivrease Jusqu'au milieu de la nuit, Et n'ccoutons que la tendrcaaf D'un charmant vis-il-vis. Quand le ch.agrin me devorc, Vite a table je me mets, Loin des objets que j'abhorre, Avec joie j'y trouve la paix. Pen d'amis, reates d'un naufragc Je ras.semble autour de moi, Et je me ris de I'fitalage Qu'a chez lui toujours un Roi. Que m'importe, que I'Europe A.it un, ou plusieurs tyrans ? Prions aeulement Calliope, Qu'elle inspire nos vers, nos chants. Laissons Mars et toute la gloire ; Livrons nous tons §, I'amour ; Que Bacchus nous donne a boire ; A ces deux fasions la cour Passons ainsi notre vie. Sans rSver 3, ce qui suit ; Avec ma chiire Sylvie ' Le tems trop vlte me fuit. Mais si, par un malheur extreme, Je perdois cet objet charmant, Oui, cette compagnie m6me Ne me tiendroit un moment. Me livrant a ma tristesse, Toujours plein de mon chagrin. Je n'aurois plus d'allegresse Pour mettre Bathurst ^ en train Ainsi pour vous tenir en joie Invoquez toujours les Dieux, Qu'elle vive et qu'elle soit Avec nous toujours heureuae ' Adieu! I am in great hurry. of Fontenoy, and waa addreaaed to Lady Catherine Hanmer, Lady Fauconberg, and Lady Middlesex, who were to act the three goddesses, with the "Prince of Walea, in Congreve's " Judgment of Paris," whom he was to represent, and Prince Lobkowitz, Mercury.— Wright. It was first printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for I18O, p. 196. — Cunningham. ' The Princess. — Walpole. ' Allen, Lord Bathurst. — Walpcle. 1745.1 TO HOEACE WALPOLE. 355 171. SIR EDWARD WALPOLE TO HORACE WALPOLE.' Sir : Pall Mall, May 17, 1745. Castle Rising is a famUy Borough. Lord Orford's son ought to be brought in there preferably to anybody. Next to him, I, and then you. My uncle and his chUdren have the next claim, then the Townshends, and the Hammonds, who altogether make so large a number, that I did not Imagine there was a possibility of a recom mendation of mine taking place. Othervrise, as I have frequently wished it, I should have spoken to my lord long ago ; but I always thought he was bound to offer it to some one of them, whether they appHed or not. .Ajid in case they should aU of them decline It, I did imagine my lord must have out of his own particular friends more than one whom he would ¦wish to distinguish by so great a favour ; for which reason, besides the consideration of our near rela tions, I should have thought it presumption in me to apply, though there is no one thing I should covet more than thus to support a friend, and by it, to give myseff an additional credit and weight in ParHament.' How you came never to think of me, who stand so directly before you, or, ff you did think of me, how you happened to imagine that I was not to be consulted in an affafr of this conse quence, where birth and seniority give me so just and natural a pre tension, I cannot conceive. It is so contemptuous and arrogant a tieat- ment, that It is not easily to be forgotten ; for to be sensible yourseff how very desfrable a thing it is, either in a private riew in regard to a friend, or in the eye of the world, in respect to oneseff, and to think that I either did not desfre it, or did not know its advantages, is to despise me beyond measm-e. But your conduct to me has always been of the same kind, and has made it the most painful thing in the world to me to have any commerce vrith you. You have, I must coiffess, showed a great disposition to me and to my chUdren at aU times, which is agreeable to the good nature that I shaU ever do you ' This remarkable letter, and the answers to it, still more remarkable, are now first published. The death of old General Churchill (a few weeks only after his friend. Sir Robert Walpole) caused a vacancy for Castle Rising, in Norfolk ; and Horace interested himself, greatly to the annoyance of his elder brother, Edward, in returning the new member for the family borough. Horace had his way. The member returned was John Rigby. — Cunningham. '^ Sir Edward Walpole sat tor Yarmouth : Horace for Callington, in Cornwall.— Cunningham. 356 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745. the justice to think and say you possess in a great degree ; but it has been mixed with what I dare say you can't help, and never meant offence by, but still what I am not obliged to bear, such a confidence and presumption of some Mnd of superiority, that, my sentiments not tallying with yours upon that head, it has been very unpleasant. You have assumed to yourself a pre-eminence, from an imaginary disparity between us in point of abilities and character,^ that, although you are a very great man, 1 cannot submit to ; and you have crowned the whole vrith this most evident proof that I have not mistaken you ; therefore, since the conditions of your friendship and kindness are such that I must be subject to dfrect injuries, such as this cruel wrong done me now, or those kinds of hurts that a man feels most when they have the face of kindness, I must be excused, if I beg it of you as a favour, never to be kind to me again. I am your humble Servant, Ed. Walpole. 172. HORACE WALPOLE TO SIR EDWARD WALPOLE.^ May, 1745. Brother, I am sorry you won't let me say. Dear Brother ; but tiU you have still farther proved how impossible It is for you to have any affection for me, I vriU never begin my letters as you do — " Sir," Before I enter upon your letter, I must be so impertinent even as to give my elder brother adrice, and that is, the next letter you write, to consider whether the person it Is addressed to, has any dependence upon you, or which I am sure your heart wiU teU you I have not any obHgation to you. If they have neither, they may happen to laugh at your style. Castle Rising is a Family-Borough. This is your first proposition, but not very definite. It is a borough in our famUy, but I never heard that it was parliamentarUy entaUed upon every branch of our famUy. If it was, how came Mr. ChurchUl to be always chosen there ? However, before I ever undertake any thing again, I avUI certainly examine our genealogical table, and be sure that Lord Walpole, yourself, and aU our eleven first cousins, have no mind tc the same thing. Lord Orford's son ought to be brought in there preferably to anybody ' Sir Edward was eleven years older than Horace. — Cunningham. - Endorsed. This answer not sent. — Cunningham. 1746.] TO SIR EDWARD WALPOLB. 357 Lord Orford's son is but fifteen,' and consequently incapable of being brought in anywhere these six years. Next to him L, a-nd then you. N.B. We arc both in afready, though to be sure you are right In the order of succession, which you seem to be perfectly master of Other tmse, as L have long wished it, I should have spoke to my lord long ago. I spoke to my lord lately, and have got it. L alivays tliought he was bound to offer it to some one of them. He does not seem to have been of your opinion. To give myself an additional credit and weight in Parliament. You might have left out additional Hoiv you came never to think of me. For your sake I won't answer this. Or how you Jiappened to imagine I was not to be consulted. I avUI ask you another question, how you happen to imagine it was neces sary for me to consult you ? Have you ever given me any encouragement to consult you in anything ? How must I consult you ? By letter ? You never would see me either at your OAvn house or here ! The authority you affect over me is ridiculous ; and for consulting you, good God ! do you think you ever judge so dis passionately, as that any man living Avould consult you ! Whose birth and seniority give me so just and natural a pretension. To my father's estate before me, to nothing else that I know of. Lt is so contemptuous and arrogant a treatment. Those words I retum you, being fuU as proper and decent from me to you, as from you to me, whose bfr-th, though thank God not my seniority, is as considerable as yours. At to the desirableness of this affair. Your whole paragraph may be very poHtical but is not argumentative. But your conduct to me has always been of the same kind. As you are so kind afterwards as to explain what my conduct has always been to you, I shaU certainly not endeavour to refute this passage, but submit myseff to your own acknowledgments. The most painful thing in the world to have any commerce with you. I beHeve it, for I have always seen it, and in vain endeavoured to make it more tolerable to you. You have, L must confess, showed a great disposition to me and to my children at all times. Thank you. Good nature, tchich L think and say you possess in a great degree. Dear brother, I vrish I could think the same of you. George, third Earl of Orford, was born 1st April, 1730.— Cunningham. 358 HOEACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745 It has been mixed with what I dare say you can't help and never vieant offence by. 1 may, ff I please, beHeve the same of your letter. A confidence and presumption of sotne kind of superiority. This I must answer a Httle fuUer, as being the only thing in your letter which you have not confuted yourseff. I won't appeal to everybody that has ever seen me vrith you, but to yourseff. Lay your hand on your heart, and say, ff I have not aU my Hfetime to this very instant, treated you -with a respect, a deference, an awe, a submission beyond what, I say to my shame, I ever showed my father ; and you ought to be ashamed too, who made it necessary for his peace and for my own, that I should treat you so ; I never disputed your opinion, I never gave my own tUl you had yours: this was confidence and pre sumption ! You have assumed to yourself a pre-eminence, from an imaginary disparity between us in point of abilities and character. Who told you so ? not your eyes, but your jealousy. I'U teU you, brother, the only superiority I ever pretended over you, was in my temper. Alt/iough you are a very great man. I leave that expression tc support itseff upon its own force, meaning, and elegance. Since t/ie conditions of your friendship and Icindness are such that 1 must be subject to direct injuries. What those direct injuries are, may be coUected from what you have said above of my constant behariout to you and your chUdren at aU times, or stUl more clearly from the next paragraph, wherein you caU them, those kinds of hurts that a man feels most when they have the face of kindness. This, by aU truth, is the only hurt I am ever conscious of having done you. Before I take notice of the conclusion of your letter, I must mention a few other things. In your letter to our brother [Lord Orford], who has stiU less deserved your monstrous behaviour to him, having always had that affection for you, which I was always desfrous of having, you teU him he gives away his interest, and in the same letter are for recom mending a friend of yours. Whatever your injustice may make you think of me and my friends, neither my brother Orford, nor I hope any man ^e, thinks his interest in worse hands, when given at my suit, than at yours. You teU him, too, your honour is concerned in this — 'tis a stiange point of honour — ^you have always laid down to yourseff of opposing everything I vrish. 'Tis your own fault that I rake up your wrongs vrith me. Because I was always sUent, did you imagine I was always ignorant ? In my mother's Hfetime, you accused me of fomenting her anger against you. The instant she 1745,] TO SIS EDWARD WALPOLE, 869 died, did 1 not bring you all my letters to her which she had kept ; in never in any one of which was your name mentioned, but to persuade her to continue that love to you, which your behaviour has always laboured to extinguish m the hearts of aU your relations. As to my father, I weU know how Ul you always used him on my account. Your writing against Dr. Iffiddleton,' who came to make me a visit at Houghton of two days, is one instance among many. Your converting aU the jealousy you used to have of Lady Mary,' into a friendship vrith her, to prevent her loving me, is another. I only touch on these. Know, brother, that you never came where my father was, that I did not beg and beseech bim never to take notice of me before you. This I have Hvring vritnesses to prove. For your transports of jealousy about my speaking in ParHament, I wiU say nothing, but this — Was it reasonable I should be sUent there, because you had an ambition of malting a figure ! Oh ! brother, so far from having that seff-conceit you attribute to me, aU my famUy and acquaintance know, that no man has a greater opinion of your parts ; no man has commended you more. I have always said, aU the world would love you ff you would let them ; but for your love to your father, I have always declared, that of aU his children I was convinced you loved him the best. What have you said of me behind my back ? I have done, brother, though by this example beHeve I have not said the hardest things that I could to you. You conclude vrith disclaiming aU friendship vrith, and relation to, me. After the vain pains I have taken to deserve that friendship, and the regard I have in vain had to that relation, I don't know whether I ought not readUy to embrace this entfre rupture. How ever, as I think you are good-natured when you are cool, and must have repented the unmerited ill-treatment, I can forgive you, and for this last time offer you my friendship ; at the same time assuring you that I despise your anger, and ff you persist in disclaiming my brotherhood, the only cover that you have for your abuse I must teU you, that you shaU treat me Hke a gentleman. Yours or not, as you please, HoR. Walpole. P.S. If I have entered upon more points than your letter led me to, ' Dr. Conyers Middleton, author of the "Life of Cicero.'' Walpole bought hia collection of antiquities. — Cunningham. ' Sir Robert's daughter by Miss Skerrett. — Cunningham 860 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. it was from my heart being full of resentment for a long series of your injustice to me, and from being glad to take the opportunity of making you sensible of it by this expostulation, which I have never been able to do by the most submissive behaviour, and by every instance I had in my power of shovring you, how much I vrished you would be my friend. But that is past, ff you have anything farther to say to me, it must be in person, for I AriU not read any more such letters, nor wUl' I be affronted. 173. HORACE WALPOLE TO SIR EDWARD WALPOLE.' Dear Brother : May 17, 1746. You have used me very ill without any provocation or any pre tence. I have always made it my study to deserve your friendship, as you yourseff own, and by a submission which I did not owe you. For consulting you in what you had nothing to do, I certainly did not, nor ever vvIU, whUe you profess so much aversion for me. I am stIU ready to Hve with you upon any terms of friendship and equality ; but I don't mind your anger, which can only hurt yourseff, when you come to refiect vrith what strange passion you have treated me, who have always loved you, have always tried to please you, have always spoken of you with regard, and who wUl yet be, ff you wiU let me, Your affectionate brother and humble servant, Hon. Walpole.' 174. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George: Arlington Street, May 18, 1746. I AM very sorry to renew our correspondence upon so melancholy a cfrcumstance, but when you have lost so near a friend as your brother,' 'tis sure the duty of aU your other friends to endeavour to aUeviate your loss, and offer aU the increase of affection that is possible to compensate it. This I do most heartUy ; I wish I could most effectuaUy. ' Endorsed by Walpole. This answer sent. — Cunningham. 2 " There is nothing in the world the Baron of Englefield has such an aversion for as for his youngest brother" — Walpole to Montagu, 25 May, 1745. They were after wards reconcUed, but their friendship was never intimate. John Rigby and Lord Andover sat for Castle Rising tiU 1747, when Horace Walpole himself was returned. — Cunningham. *Lieutenaut-Colonel Edward Montagu, killed at the battle of Fontenoy. — Walpole. HOUACE W7VLPOXE, ¦1^9^./'.^ / ._."^V- if^^ y^t- .^AiP'c'''c:Z-i^' '"/^Myw.^tS- ''"'^.yyl/y-e/- u'u':''- i'JtOM A MilTIATURE IIT E1T.AMEI, POrA.l.'ri tLLY AI STRAW Bt.SILT BI.LL i74B.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 361 You v^iU always find in me, dear Sir, the utmost incHnation to be of service to you; and let me beg that you wiU remember your promise of writing to me. As I am so much in town and in the Avorld, I flatter myseff Arith having generaUy something to teU you that may make my letters agreeable in the country : you, any where, make yours charming. Be so good to say any thing you think proper from me to your sisters, and beHeve me, dear George, yours most sincerely. 175. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, May 24, 1745. I HAVE no consequences of the battle of Toumay to tell you but the taking of the tovm : the governor has eight days allowed him to consider whether he wiU give up the citadel. The French certainly lost more men than we did. Our army is stUl at Lessines, waiting for recruits from HoUand and England ; om-s are saUed. The King is at Hanover. AU the letters are fuU of the Duke's humanity and bravery : he wiU be as popular vrith the loAver class of men as he has been for three or four years vrith the low women : he AviU be the soldier's Great Sir as well as thefrs. I am reaUy glad ; it AvUl be of great serrice to thc famUy, ff any one of them come to make a figure. Lord Chesterfield is returned from HoUand ; you wiU see a most simple fareweU speech of his in the papers.' I have received yours of the 4th of May, and am extremely obHged to you for your expressions of kindness : they did not at aU surprise me, but every instance of your friendship gives me pleasure. I vrish I could say the same to good Prince Craon. Yet I must set about answering his letter : it is quite an affair ; I have so great a disuse of writing French, that I beHeve it AviU be very barbarous. My fears for Tuscany are again awakened : the wonderful march which the Spanish Queen has made Monsieur de Gage take, may probably end in his turning short to the left ; for his route to Genoa wiU be fuU as difficult as what he has afready passed. I watch eagerly every article from Italy, at a time when nobody AviU read a paragraph but from the army in Flanders. ' " Have you Lord Chesterfield's speech on taking leave ? It is quite calculated for the language it is wrote in, and makes but an indifferent figure in English. The thoughts are common, and yet he strains hard to give them an air of novelty ; and the quaiutneaa of the expresaion ia quite d la Fran(aise." — The Hon. P. Yorke to Horatio Walpole. — Wright. 362 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745. I am diverted vrith my Lady's [Countess of Orford's] accotmt of the great riches that are now coming to her. She has had so many fooHsh golden visions, that I should think even the Florentines would not be the dupes of any more. As for her moui-ning, she may save it, ff she expects to have it notified. Don't you remember my Lady Pomfret's having a piece of economy of that sort, when she would not know that the Emperor was dead, because my Lord Chamberlain had not notified it to her ? I have a good story to teU you of Lord Bath, whose name you have not heard very lately ; have you ? He owed a tradesman eight hundred pounds, and would never pay him : the man deter mined to persecute him tUl he did ; and one morning foUowed him to Lord WinchUsea's, and sent up word that he wanted to speak with him. Lord Bath came down, and said, " FeUow, what do you want vrith me ! " — " My money," said the man, as loud as ever he could bawl, before aU the servants. He bade bim come the next morning, and then would not see him. The next Sunday the man followed him to church, and got into the next pew : he leaned over, and said, " My money ; give me my money ! " My lord went to the end of the pew ; the man too : " Give me my money ! " The sermon was on avarice, and the text, " Cursed are they that heap up riches." The man groaned out, " 0 Lord ! " and pointed to my Lord Bath. In short, he persisted so much, and drew the eyes of aU the congregation, that my Lord Bath went out and paid him dfrectly. I assure you this is fact. Adieu ! 176. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George : Arlington Street, May 26, 1745. I don't write to you now so much to answer your letter as to promote your diversion, which I am as much obHged to you for consulting me about, at least as much as about an affafr of honour, or your marriage, or any other important tiansaction ; any one of which you might possibly disHke more than diverting yourseff. For my part, I shaU give you my advice on this point vrith as much reflection as I should, ff it were necessary for me, Hke a true friend, to counsel you to displease yourseff. You propose making a visit at Englefield Green,' and ask me, ff ' Where Horace Walpole'a brother. Sir Edward, had a houae. He was fond of thia locality, and iu his will desires to be buried in the chancel of the church at New Windsor, iu the immediate neighbourhood of Englefield Green, — Cunningiiam, 1745.] TO THE HON. H. S. CONWA'i'. 363 I tlfrnk it right ? Extremely so. I have heard it is a very pretty place. You love a jaunt — have a pretty chaise, I beHeve, and, I dare swear, very easy ; in aU probabUity, you vrill have a fine even ing too ; and, added to aU this, the gentleman [Sfr Edward Walpole] you would go to see is very agreeable and good-humoured. He has some very pretty chUdren,' and a sensible, learned man that Hves vrith him, one Dr. Thfrlby,' whom, 1 believe, you know. The master of the house plays extremely weU on the bass-viol, and has generaUy other musical people vrith him. He knows a good deal of the private history of a late Ministry ; and, my dear George, you love Memofres. Indeed, as to personal acquaintance vrith any of the court beauties, I can't say you wiU find your account in him ; but, to make amends, he is perfectly master of aU the quarrels that have been fashionably on foot about Handel, and can give you a very per fect account of aU the modern rival painters.' In short, you may pass a very agreeable day vrith him ; and ff he does but take to you, as I can't doubt, who know you both, you wUl contract a great friend ship Arith him, which he wUl preserve Arith the greatest warmth and partiaHty. In short, I can tlunk of no reason in the world against your going there but one : do you know his youngest brother P If you happen to be so unlucky, I can't flatter you so far as to adrise you to make bim a visit ; for there is nothing in the world the Baron of Englefield has such an aversion for as for his brother. 177. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. My Dear Harry ; Arlington Street, May 27, 1746, As gloriously as you have set out, yet I despair of seeing you a ' All natural chUdren, by Mary Clement, a milliner. — Cunningham. " Styan Thirlby [died 1761], Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, published an edition of Justin Martyr, and I think, wrote something against Middleton. Ho com municated several notes to Theobald for his Shakespeare, and in the latter part of his life took to study the common law. He lived chiefly for his last years with Sir Edward Walpole, who had procured for him a small place in the Custom-house, and to whom he left his papers : he had lost his intellects some time before his death. — Walpole. Mr. Nichola says, that, while in Sir Edward's house, he kept a miscel laneous book of Memorables, containing whatever was said or done amiss by Sir Edward, or any part of his family. — Wright. •* " He [Roubiliac] had little business till Sir Edward Walpole recommended him to execute half the busts at Trinity CoUege, Dublin." — Walpole's Anecdotes. " Sir Edward Walpole has several of his [Scott's] largest and most capital works." — Ditto. — Cunningham. S64 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. perfect hero ! You have none of the charming riolences that are so essential to that character. You write as cooUy, after behaving weU in a battle, as you fought in it. Can your friends flatter themselves vrith seeing you, one day or other, be the death of thousands, when you Arish for peace in three weeks after your ffrst engagement,' and laugh at the ambition of those men who have given you this oppor tunity of distinguishing yourseff ? With the person of an Orondates, and the courage, you have aU the compassion, the reason, and the reflection of one that never read a romance. Can one ever hope you AviU make a figm-e, when you only fight because it was right you should, and not because you hated the French or loved destioying mankind ? This is so un-EngHsh, or so un-herolc, that I despafr of you ! Thank Heaven, you have one spice of madness ! Your admiration of your master ' leaves me a gUmmerlng of hope, that you avUI not be always so mireasonably reasonable. Do you remember the humorous Heutenant, in one of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays, that is in love vrith the king ? Indeed, your master is not behind-hand Arith you ; you seem to have agreed to puff one another. If you are all acting up to the strictest rules of war and chivafry in Flanders, we are not less scrupulous on this side the water in fulfiUing aU the duties of the same order. The day the young volunteer ' departed for the army (unluckily, indeed. It was after the battle), his tender mother Sisygambis, and the beautiful Statfra," a lady formerly known in your history by the name of Artemisia, from her cutting off her hair on your absence, were so afflicted and so Inseparable, that they made a party together to Mr. Graham's' (you may read Lapis, ff you please) to be blooded. It was settled that this was a more precious way of expressing concern than shaving the head, which has been known to be attended vrith false locks the next day. For the other princess you wot of, who is not entfrely so taU as the former, nor so evidently descended from a line of monarchs — I don't hear her talk of retiring. At present, she is employed in buying up aU the nosegays in Covent Garden and laurel-leaves at ' The battle of Fontenoy, where Mr. Conway greatly distinguiahed himaelf. — Walpole. - The Duke of Cumberland, to whom Mr. Conway was aide-de-camp. — Walpole. ¦* George, afterwarda Marquis Townshend [d. 1807]. — Walpole. Mo * Ethelreda Harrison, Viscountess Townshend, and her daughter, the Hon. Audrey rownshend, afterwards married to Robert Orme, Esq. — Walpole. (j f, ' A celebrated apothecary in Pall-Mall, — Walpole. 1745, 1 TO SIR HORACE MANN. 365 the pastry-cooks, to weave chaplets for the return of her hero. Who that Is I don't pretend to know or guess. AU I know Is, that in this age retfrement is not one of the fashionable expressions of passion. 178. TO SIR HORACE MANN. I HAVE the pleasm-e of recommending you a new acquaintance, for which I am sure you vrill thank me. Mr. Hobart ' proposes passing a Httle time at Florence, which I am sure you vriU endeavour to make as agreeable to him as possible. I beg you wUl introduce him to aU my friends, who, I don't doubt, -wiU show him the same civiHties that I received. Dear Sir, this AriU be a particular obH gation to me, who am, &c. 179. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, June 24, 1745. I H.vvE been a fortnight in the country, and had ordered aU my letters to be kept tUl I came to town, or I should have written to you sooner about my sister-countess [of Oi'ford]. She is not arrived yet, but is certainly coming : she has despatched several letters to notify her intentions : a short one to her mother, saying, " Dear Madam, as you have often desfred me to return to England, I am determined to set out, and hope you avUI give me reasons to subscribe myseff your most affectionate daughter." This ' often desired me to retum " has never been repeated since the first year of her going away. The poor signora-madre is in a terrible fright, and vriU not come to toAvn tUl her daughter is gone again, which aU adrices agree wiU be soon. Another letter is to my Lady Townshend, telling her, " that, as she knows her ladyship's way of thinking, she does not fear the continuance of her friendship." Another, a long one, to my Lord Chesterfield ; another to Lady IsabeUa Scot,' an old friend of hers ; and another to Lady Pomfret. This last says, that she hears from Uguccioni, my Lady 0. wUl stay here very Httle time, having taken a house at Florence for three years. She is to come to ' Eldest son of John, Earl of Buckinghamshire. — Walpole. The Hon. John Hobart, afterwards second Earl of Buckinghamshire, and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland [died 1'793].— Dover. 2 Iiady Isabella Scott, daughter of the Duchess of Monmouth, by her aecond hus band, Charles, third Lord Comwallia. She died unmarried, Feb. 18, 1748. — Dover. 36S HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745 my Lady Denbigh.' My brother [the Earl of Orford] is extiemely obHged to you for all your notices about her, though he is very indifferent about her motions. If she happens to choose law (though on wh-at foot no mortal can guess), he is prepared ; having, from the first hint of her journey, fee'd every one of the considerable lawyers. In short, this jaunt is as simple as aU the rest of her actions have been hardy. Nobody wonders at her bringing no English servants vrith her — they know, and consequently might teU too much. I feel excessively for you, my dear chUd, on the loss of Mr. [Francis] Chute ! — ^so sensible and so good-natured a man would be a loss to anybody ; but to you, who are so meek and helpless, it Is irreparable ! who wUl dry you when you are very wet broum- paper ? ' Though I laugh, you know how much I pity you : you AriU want somebody to talk over English letters, and to conjecture Arith you ; in short, I feel your distress in aU its Hghts. The citadel of Toumay is gone ; ' our affafrs go Ul. Your brother Charles of Lorraine " has lost a great battle grossly ! He was con stantly drunk, and had no kind of IntelHgence. Now he acts from his own head, his head turns out a very bad one. I don't know. Indeed, what they can say in defence of the great general to whom we have just given the garter, the Duke of Saxe Welsseiffels ; he is not of so serene a house but that he might have known something of the motions of the Prussians. Last night we heard that the Hungarian insurgents had cut to pieces two Prussian regiments. The King of Prussia and Prince Charles are so near, that we every day expect news of another battle. We don't know yet what is to be the next step in Flanders. Lord Cobham has got ChurchiU's ' regiment, and Lord Dunmore his government of Plymouth. At the Prince's Court there is a great revolution : he, or rather Lord GranriUe, or perhaps the Princess (who, I firmly beHeve, by all her quiet sense, wiU tum out a CaroHne), have at last got rid of Lady ' Isabella de Jonghe, a Dutch lady, and wife of WUliam Fielding, fifth Earl of Denbigh. She died in 1769. — Dover. " Mr. Mann was so thin and weak that Mr. Walpole used to compare him to wet brown-paper. [See p. 396.] — Walpole. ^ The treachery of the principal engineer, who deaerted to the enemy, and the timidity of other officers in the garrison, produced a surrender of the city in a fort night, and of the citadel in another week. — Wright. ¦* Brother of Francis, at this time Grand Duke of Tuscany. On the 3rd of June, the King of Prussia had gained a signal victory over him at Priedberg. — Wright. » Lieutenant-General Charles Churchill (the friend of Sir Robert Walpole), died 14 May, 1745. — Cunningham. 1745.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 367 Archibald,' who was strongly attached to the coaHtion. They have cIviUy asked her, and grossly forced her to ask civUly to go away, which she has done, vrith a pension of twelve hundred a-year. Lady Middlesex ' is Mistiess of the Robes : she Hves vrith them perpetuaUy, and sits up tUl five in the morning at thefr suppers. Don't mistake ! — not for her person, which is wondrous plain and little : the toAvn says it is for her friend Miss GranviUe, one of the maids of honour ; but at least yet, that is only scandal. She is a fair, red hafred gfrl, scarce pretty ; daughter of the poet. Lord Lansdown.^ Lady Berkeley is lady of the bedchamber, and a Miss Lawson maid of honour. Miss NevUle, a charming beauty, and daughter of the pretty, unfortunate Lady Abergavenny," is named for the next vacancy. I was scarce settled in my joy for the Spaniards baring taken the opposite route to Tuscany, when I heard of Mr. Chute's learing you. I long to have no reason to be uneasy about you. I am obHged to you for the gesse figures, and beg you -wiU send me the biU in your first letter. Rysbrach has perfectly mended the Ganymede aud the model, which to me seemed frrecoverably smashed. I have just been glAong a recommendatory letter for you to Mr. Hobart ; he is no particular friend of mine, but Is Norfolk, and in the world ; so you wiU be ciril to him. He Is of the Damon- kind, and not one of whom you vrill make a Chute. Madame Snares may make something of him. Adieu ! ' Lady Archibald HamUton, daughter of Lord Abercorn, and wife of [1719] Lord Archibald Hamilton. — Walpole. " Lady Archib.ald was not young [iu 1735], had never been very pretty, and had lost at least as much of that small share of beauty she once possessed as it is usual for women to do at thirty-five, after being the mother often children." — Hervey's Memoirs, ii. 17. — Cunningham. '- Daughter of Lord Shannon, and wife of Charles, Earl of Middlesex, eldest son of Lionel, Duke of Dorset. Her favour grew to be thought more than platonic [See p. 316.] — Walpole. ^ The Hon. Mrs. EUza Granville (see p. 158), the last surviving child of the first Lord Lansdowne, died in Queen Street, May Fair, in 1790 (Gent.'s Mag. for 1790. p. 967). — Cunningham. ' Catherine Tatton, daughter of Lieutenant-General Tatton. She married, first, Edward Neville, thirteenth Lord Abergavenny, who died without issue in his nine teenth year, in 1724. She remarried with his cousin and successor, WiUiam, fourteenth Lord Abergavenny, by whom she had issue one son, George, afterwards fifteenth Lord Abergavenny, and one daughter, Catherina, who is mentioned above. Lady Aber gavenny herself died in childbed, Deo. 4, 1729, in less than one month after the detection of an intrigue between her and Richard Lyddel, Esq., against whom Lord Abergavenny brought an action for damages, and recovered five thousand pounds. In a poem written on her death by Sir Cnarles Hanbury WUliams, she is praised for her gentleness, and pitied for her " cruel wrongs." Her husband is also called " that stem lord." All further details respecting her are, however, now unknown. — Dover Compare what Lady Marj' W. Montagu says at p. 79 of this volume.- Cunningham 368 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745. 180. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear Geoeoe: Arlington Street, June 25, 1746. I HAVE been near three weeks in Essex, at Mr. Rigby'3,1 and had left your direction behind me, and could not write to you. It is the charmingest place by nature, and the most trumpery by art, that ever I saw. The house stands on a high bill, on an arm of the sea, which vrinds itseff before two sides of the house. On the right and left, at the very foot of this hill. He two towns ; the one of market quality, and the other vrith a wharf where ships come up. This last was to have a church, but by a lucky want of reHgion in the inhabitants, who would not contribute to buUding a steeple, it remains an absolute antique temple, vrith a portico on the very stiand. Cross this arm of the sea, you see six churches and charming woody hiUs in Suffolk. AU this parent Nature did for this place ; but its godfathers and godmothers, I beHeve, promised it .should renounce aU the pomps and vanities of this world, for they have patched up a square house, fuU of windows, low rooms, and thin waUs ; piled up waUs wherever there was a gUmpse of prospect ; planted avenues that go nowhere, and dug fishponds where there should be avenues. We had very bad weather the whole time I was there ; but however 1 rowed about and saUed, not having the same apprehensions of catching cold that Mrs. Kerwood had once at Chelsea, when I persuaded her not to go home by water, because it would be damp after rain. The town is not quite empty yet. My Lady Fitzwalter, Lady Betty Germain, Lady GranviUe [Sophia Fermor], and the dowager Strafford ' have their At-homes, and amass company. Lady BroAvn has done Arith her Sundays, for she is changing her house into Upper Brook Stieet. In the mean time, she goes to Knightsbridge, and Sfr Robert to the woman he keeps at Scarborough : Winnington goes on vrith the Frasi ; so my Lady Townshend is obliged only to ' Mistley Hall, near Manningtree. — Walpole. When Walpole was about the Castle Rising election, Richard Rigby was one of a school, writes Lord John Russell, " which covered its loose morality and corrupt politics under the honoured mantle of Sir Robert Walpole." Horace VValpole has drawn his character in his "Memoires of George II.," vol. ii. p. 254. He waa the wiUing tool of the Bedford faction ; and at hia death, 8th April, 1788, was M.P. for Tavistock (a Bedford borough). Garrick was a frequent visitor at Mistley. He died involved in debt, with his accounts as Paymaster of the Forces hopelessly unsettled. — Cunningham. ^ Ann, sole daughter and heir of Sir Henry Johnson, of Bradeuham, Bucks. Married 1711, died 1754. — Cunningham. 1746.1 TO THE HON. MR. CONWAY. S69 He of people. You have heard of the disgrace of the Archibald [Lady .Archibald HamUton], and that in ftiture scandal she must only be ranked with the Lady EUzabeth Lucy and Madam Lucy Walters, instead of being historicaUy noble among the Clevelands, Portsmouths, and Yarmouths. It is said Miss GranviUe has the reversion of her coronet ; others say, she won't accept the patent. Your friend Jemmy Lumley,'— I beg pardon, I mean your kin, is not he ? I am sure he is not your fiiend ; — weU, he has had an assembly, and he would write aU the cards himseff, and every one of them was to desfre he's company and she's company, vrith other pieces of curious orthography. Adieu, dear George ! I wish you a merry farm, as the children say at VauxhaU. My compli ments to your sisters. 181. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. My Dear Harry ; Arlington Street, July 1, 1746. If it were not for that one sHght inconvenience, that I should probably be dead now, I should have Hked much better to have Hved in the last war than in this ; I mean as to the pleasantness of Avriting letters. Two or three battles won, two or three towns taken, in a summer, were pretty objects to keep up the Hveliness of a cor respondence. But now it hurts one's dignity to be talking of EngHsh and French armies, at the ffrst period of our history in which the tables are turned. .After having leamt to speU out of the reigns of Edward the Thfrd and Harry the Fifth, and begun Hsping vrith Agincourt and Cressy, one uses one's seff but awkwardly to the sounds of Toumay and Fontenoy. I don't Hke foreseeing the time so near, when all the young orators in ParHament vrill be haranguing out of Demosthenes upon the imminent danger we are in from the over grown power of King PhUip. As becoming as aU that pubHc spirit wiU be, which to be sure wiU now come forth, I can't but think we were at least as happy and as great when aU the young Pitts and Lyt teltons were pelting oratory at my father for rolling out a twenty years' peace, and not envying the trophies which he passed by every day in Westminster HaU. But one must not repine ; rather reflect on the glories which they have drove the nation headlong into. One must think aU our distiesses and dangers weU laid out, when they ' Seventh son of the first Earl of Scarborough. He died in 1766, unmarried.— Wright. 370 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745. have purchased us Glover's ' Oration for the merchants, the Admiralty for the Duke of Bedford, and the reversion of Secretary at war for Pitt, which he wiU certainly have, unless the French King should happen to have the nomination ; and then I fear, as much obHged as that court is to my Lord Cobham and his nephews, they would be so partial as to prefer some iUiterate nephew of Cardinal Tencin's, who never heard of " Leonidas " or the Hanover troops. With aU these reflections, as I love to make myseff easy, espe ciaUy poHticaUy, I comfort myseff vrith what St. Evremond (a favourite phUosopher of mine, for he thought what he Hked, not liked what he thought) said in defence of Cardinal Mazarin, when he was reproached vrith neglecting the good of the kingdom that he might engross the riches of it : " WeU, let hfrn get aU the riches, and then he wUl think of the good of the kingdom, for it wiU aU be his own." Let the French but have England, and they won't want to conquer it. We may possibly contiact the French spirit of being supremely content vrith the glory of our monarch, and then — why then it wUl be the first time we ever were contented yet. We hear of nothing but vour retiring,' and of Dutch treachery : in short, 'tis an ugly scene ! I know of no home news but the commencement of the gaming act,' for which they are to put up a scutcheon at White's for the death of play ; and the death [on the 25th of June] of Win nlngton's wffe, which may be an unlucky event for my Lady Town shend. -As he has no chUdren, he vrill certainly marry again ; and who wUl give him thefr daughter, unless he breaks off that affafr [Arith the Frasi], which I beHeve he wiU now very wiUingly make a marriage article ? We want him to take Lady Charlotte Fermor." She was always his beauty, and has so many charming quaHties, that she would make anybody happy. He AviU make a good husband ; for he is excessively good-natured, and was much better to that strange wffe than he cared to own. You wondered at my journey to Houghton ; now wonder more, for I am going to Mount Edgeeumbe. Now my summers are in my own hands, and I am not obliged to pass great part of them in ' The author of " Leonidas." — Walpole. ' Mr. Conway waa still with the army in Flanders. — Walpole. ' An act had recently passed to prevent exceaaive and deceitful gaming.— Wright. '' Lady Charlotte Fermor married in 1746, in the year in which Winnington died, the Right Hon. William Finch. She died in 1813, nnd is now best remembered by the fire of her wardrobe. See p, 52,— Cunningham, 1745.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 371 Norfolk, I find it is not so very terrible to dispose of them up and down. In about three weeks I shall set out, and see WUton and Dodington's [at Eastbury] in my way. Dear Harry, do but get a rictory, and I wUl let off every cannon at Plymouth ; reserring two, tUl I hear particularly that you have IdUed two more Frenchmen vrith your own hand.' Lady Mary [Walpole] sends you her com pliments ; she is going to pass a week vrith Miss To'wnshend ' at Muffits ; I don't think you wUl be forgot. Your sister Anne has got a new distemper, which she says feels Hke something jumping in her. You know my style on such an occasion, and may be sure T have not spared this distemper. Adieu ! Yours ever. 182. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, July 5, 1745. All yesterday we were in the utmost consternation ! an express came the lught before from Ostend Arith an account of the French army in Flanders baring seized Ghent and Bruges, cut off a detach ment of four thousand men, surrounded our army, who must be cut to pieces or surrender themselves prisoners, and that the Duke was gone to the Hague, but that the Dutch had signed a neutrality. You wUl aUow that here was ample subject for confusion ! To-day we are a Httle reUeved, by finding that we have lost but five hundred men ' instead of four thousand, and that our army, which is inferior by half to thefrs, is safe behind a river. With this came the news of the Great Duke's rictory over the Prince of Conti : " he has kiUed fifteen thousand, and taken six thousand prisoners. Here is afready a thfrd great battle this summer ! But Flanders is gone ! The Dutch have given up aU that could hinder the French from over running them, upon condition that the French should not overrun ' Alluding to Mr. Conway's ha'ving been engaged with two French grenadiers at once in the battle of Fontenoy. — Walpole. ^ Daughter of Charles Viscount Townshend, afterwards married to Edward Corn- wallis, brother to Earl Cornwallis, and groom of the bedchamber to the King. — Walpole, ^ The French had been successful in a skirmish against the English army, at a place called Melle. The consequence of this success was their obtaining possession of Ghent. — Dover. ¦* The army of the Prince of Conti, posted near the Maine, had been so weakened by the detachments sent from it to reinforce the army in Flanders, that it was obliged to retreat before the Austrians. This retrograde movement was effected with con siderable loss, both of soldiers and baggage ; but it does not appear that any decisive general engagement took place during the campaign between the French and Austrians. — Dover. 372 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745 them. Indeed, I cannot be so exasperated at the Dutch as it is the fashion to be ; they have not forgot the peace of Utrecht, though we have. Besides, how could they rely on any negotiation 'with a people whose poHtics alter so often as ours ? Or why were we to fancy that my Lord Chesterfield's parts would have more weight than my uncle had, whom, ridiculous as he was, they had never knovm to take a trip to Arignon to confer Arith the Duke of Ormond ? ' Our communication Arith the army is cut off through Flanders ; and we are in great pain for Ostend : the fortifications are aU out of repair. Upon Marshal Wade's reiterated remonstrances, we did cast thfrty cannon and four mortars for it — and then the economic ministry would not send them. " What ! fortffy the Queen of Hungary's towns ? there wiU be no end of that." As ff Ostend was of no more consequence to us, than Mons or Namur ! Two more battaHons are ordered over immediately ; and the old pensioners of Chelsea CoUege are to mount guard at home ! Flourishing in a peace of twenty years, we were told that we were tiampled upon by Spain and France. Haughty nations, Hke those, who can tiample upon an enemy country, do not use to leave it in such wealth and happiness as we enjoyed ; but when the Duke of Marlborough's old rictorious veterans are dug out of their coUeges and repose, to guard the King's palace, and to keep up the show of an army which we have buried In America, or in a manner lost in Flanders, we shaU soon know the real feel of being trampled upon ! In this crisis, you vrill hear often from me ; for I avIU leave you in no anxious un certainty from which I can free you. The Countess [of Orford] Is at Hanover, and, we hear, extremely weU received. It is conjectured, and it is not impossible, that the Count may have procured for her some dfrty dab of a negotiation about some acre of territory more for Hanover, in order to facUitate her reception. She has been at Hesse Cassel, and fondled extremely Princess Mary's" chUdren; just as you know she used to make a rout about the Pretender's Iboys. Mj Lord Chesterfield laughs at her letter to him ; and, what would anger her more than the neglect, ridicules the style and orthography. Nothing promises weU for her here. You told me you vrished I would condole Arith Prince Craon on ' See note on Letter to Mann, 10 Dec. 1741. — Wright. 2 Princess Mary of England, daughter of George II. ; married in 1740 to the Prince of Hesse Cassel, who treated her with great inhumanity. She died in June, 1771. — Wright. S745.] TO SIR HORACE MANli<. 378 the death of his son : ' which son ? and where was he kiUed ? You don't teU me, and I never heard. Now it would be too late. I should have been uneasy for Prince Beauvau, but that you say he is in Piedmont. Adieu ! my dear chUd : we have much to vrish ! A little good fortune wUl not re-estabHsh us. I am in pain for your health from the great increase of your business. 183. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, July 12, 1746. I AM charmed vrith the sentiments that Mr. Chute expresses for you ; but then you have lost him ! Here is an answer to his letter ; I send it unsealed, to avoid repeating what I have thought on our affafr-s. Seal it and send it. Its being open, prevented my saying haff so much about you as I should have done. There is no more news : the Great Duke's rictory, of which we heard so much last week, is come to nothing! So far from having defeated the Prince of Conti, it is not at aU impossible but the Prince may wear the imperial coat of diamonds, though I am per suaded the care of that wUl be the chief concern of the Great Duke, (next to his own person,) in a battle. Our army is retreated beyond Brussels ; the French gather laurels and towns, and prisoners, as one would a nosegay. In the meantime you are bullying the King of Naples, in the person of the EngHsh fleet ; and I think may pos sibly be doing so for two months after that very fleet belongs to the King of France ; as astrologers teU one that we should see stars shine for I don't know how long after they were annihilated. But I Hke your spfrit ; keep it up ! MUlamant, in the " Way of the World," teUs Mfrabel, that she vriU be soHcited to the very last ; nay, and afterwards. He repHes, " What ? after the last ! " I am in great pain about your arrears : it is a bad season for obtaining payment. In the best times, they make a custom of pay ing foreign ministers Ul ; which may be very poHtic, when they send men of too great fortunes abroad, in order to lessen them : but, my dear child, God knows that is not your case ! I have some extremely pretty dogs of King Charles's breed, ff I ' The young Prince de Craon was killed at the head of hia regiment at the batti? of Fontenoy. — Dover. 374 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745 knew how to convey them to you : Indeed they are not Patapans. I can't teU how they would Hke travelling into Italy, when there is a prospect of the rest of thefr race returning from thence : besides, you must certify me that none of them shaU ever be married below themselves ; for since the affafr of Lady Caroline Fox, one durst not hazard the Duke of Richmond's resentment even about a dog and bitch of that breed. Lord Lempster ' is taken prisoner in the affair of the detachment to Ghent. My lady [Countess of Pomfret], who has heard of Spartan mothers, (though you know she once asserted that nobody knew anything of the Grecian Republics,) affects to bear it vrith a patriot insensibUity. She told me the other day that the Abbe NiccoHni and the eldest Pandolfini are coming to England : is it true ? I shaU be very glad to be ciril to them, especiaUy to the latter, who, you know, was one of my friends. My Lady Orford is at Hanover, most graciously received by " the Father of all his people." In the papers of yesterday was this paragraph : " Lady 0., who has spent several years in Italy, arrived here (Hanover) the 3rd, on her retum to England, and was graciously received by his Majesty." Lady Denbigh is gone into the country ; so I don't know where she is to lodge — perhaps at St. James's, out of regard to my father's memory. Trast me, you escaped weU in Pigwiggin's " not accepting your inritation of Hring vrith you : you must have afred your house, as Lady Pomfret was forced to air Lady Mary Wortley's bedchamber. He has a most unfortunate breath : so has the Princess his sister. When I was at their country-house, I used to sit in the library and turn over books of prints : out of good-breeding they would not quit me ; nay, would look over the prints vrith me. A whiff would come from the east, and I turned short to the west, whence the Prmcess would puff me back vrith another gale fuU as richly perfumed as her brother's. Adieu ! ' George Fermor ; who, on the death of his father in 1753, became second Eari of Pomfret. He died in 1785. — Wright. ^ A nickname given by Walpole to his cousin Horace, eldest son of " Old Horace Walpole," afterwards first Earl of Orford of the second creation. He died in 1809, at the age of eighty-six.— Wright. His aunt Walpole went by the name of " Pug." See p. 200. — Cunningham. '746.] TO MR. MONTAGU. 375 c 184. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George ; Arlington Street, July 13, 1745. We are aU Cabob'd and Cocofagoed, as my Lord Denbigh says. We, who formerly, you know, could any one of us beat three Frenchmen, are now so degenerated, that three Frenchmen ' can evidently beat one EngHshman. Our army is running away, aU that is left to run ; for haff of it is picked up by three or four hundred at a time. In short, we must step out of the high pan- toufles that were made by those cimning shoemakers at Poitiers and RamiUies, and go clumping about perhaps in wooden ones. My Lady Hervey, who you know dotes upon everything French, is :harmed with the hopes of these new shoes, and has afready bespoke herseff a pair of pigeon wood. How did the tapestry at Blenheim look ? Did it glow with rictory, or did all our glories look overcast ? I remember a very admired sentence in one of my Lord Chester field's speeches, when he was haranguing for this war ; Arith a most rhetorical transition, he turned to the tapestry In the House of Lords,' and said, vrith a sigh, he feared there were no historical looms at work now ! Indeed, we have reason to bless the good patiiots, who have been for employing our manufactures so histori caUy. The Countess of that Arise Earl [Denbigh], -with whose two expressive words I began this letter, says, she is very happy now that my lord had never a place upon the coaHtion, for then all this bad situation of our affafrs would have been laid upon him. Now I have been talking of remarkable periods in our annals, I must teU you what my Lord Baltimore thinks one : — He said to the Prince [of Wales] t'other day, " Sir, your Royal Highness's marriage vrill be an area in EngHsh history." If it were not for the Hfe that is put into the town now and then by verj^ bad news from abroad, one should be quite stupified. There Is nobody left but two or three soHtary regents ; and they are always whisking backwards and forwards to thefr viUas ; and about a dozen ' Alluding to the success of the French army in Flanders, under the command of Mareschal Saxe. — Walpole. " The tapestry in the House of Lords, representing the destruction, in 1588, of the Spanish Armada, wrought for the Earl of Nottingham, the Lord High Admiral, and destroyed with the Houses of Parliament, by fire, in 1834. This historical tapestry was well engraved by Pine, — Cunningham. 876 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745 antedUurian dowagers, whose carcases have mfraculously resisted the wet, and who every Saturday compose a very reverend catacomb at my old Lady Strafford's. She does not take money at the door for showing them, but you pay twelvepence apiece under the denomina tion of card money. Wit and beauty, indeed, remain in the per sons of Lady Townshend [Harrison] and Lady CaroHne Fitzroy [Petersham] ; but such is the want of taste of this age, that the former is very often forced to Avrap up her vrit in plain EngHsh before it can be understood ; and the latter is almost as often obHged to have recourse to the same artifices to make her charms be taken notice of. Of beauty, I can teU you an admfrable story. One Mrs. Comyns, an elderly gentlewoman, has lately taken a house in St. James's Street : some young gentlemen went there t'other night : — " WeU, Mrs. Comyns, I hope there won't be the same disturbances here that were at your other house in Air Street." — " Lord, Sfr, I never had any disturbances there : mine was as quiet a house as any in the neighbourhood, and a great deal of good company came to me : It was only the ladies of quaHty that enried me." — " Enried you ! why, your heuse was puUed doAvn about your ears." — " Oh, dear, Sfr! don't you know how that happened ? " — " No ; pray how ? " — " Why, dear Sfr, it was my Lady * * * *^ -^ho gave ten guineas to the mob to demoHsh my house, because her ladyship fancied I got women for Colonel Conway." My dear George, don't you delight in this story ? If poor Harry [Conway] comes back from Flanders, I Intend to have infinite fun Arith his prudery about this anecdote, which Is full as good as ff it was true. I beg you wUl visit Mrs. Comyns when you come to toAvn : she has infinite humour. 185. TO SIR HORACE MANN. July 16, 1745. You vrill be sm-prised at another from me so soon, when I wrote to you but four days ago. This is not vrith any news, but upon a private affafr. You have never said any thing to me about the extraordinary procedure of Marquis Riccardi, of which I wrote you word. Indeed, as his letter came just upon my father's death, I had forgot it too ; so much so, that I have lost the catalogue which he sent me. WeU, the other day I received his cargo. Now, my dear child, I don't write to him upon it, because, as he sent the 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 377 things Arithout asking my leave, I am determined never to acknow ledge the receipt of them, because I vriU in no manner be Hable to day for them ff they are lost, which I think highly probable ; and as I have lost the catalogue, I cannot teU whether I have received aU or not. I beg you wUl say just what foUows to him. That I am extremely amazed he should think of employing me to seU his goods fbr him, especiaUy vrithout asking my consent : that an EngHsh gentleman, just come from France, has brought me a box of things, of which he himseff had no account ; nor is there any letter or catalogue vrith them : that I suppose they may be the Marquis's coUection, but that I have lost the catalogue, and consequently cannot teU whether I have received all or not, nor whether they are his ; that as they came in so blind a manner, and have been opened at several custom houses, I wiU not be answerable, especiaUy having never given my consent to receive them, and baring opened the box ignorantly, vrithout knovring the contents : that when I did open it, I concluded it came from Florence, baring often refused to buy most of the things, which had long lain upon the jeweUer's hands on the old bridge, and which are very improper for sale here, as aU the EngHsh for some years have seen them, and not thought them worth purchasing : that I remember in the catalogue the price for the whole was fixed at two thousand pistoles ; that they are fuU as much worth two-and-twenty thousand ; and that I have been laughed at by people to whom I have showed them for naming so extravagant a price : that nobody Hving would think of buying aU together : that for myseff, I have entfrely left off making any coUection ; and if I had not, would not buy things dear now which I have formerly refused at much lower prices. That, after aU, though I cannot think myseff at aU weU used by Marquis Riccardi, either In sending me the things, in the price he has fixed on them, or in the things themselves, which to my knowledge he has picked up from the shops on the old bridge, and were no famUy coUection, yet, as I received so many civiHties at Florence from the nobiHty, and in particular from his vrife, Madame Riccardi, ff he -wiU let me do any thing that is practicable, I wUl seU what I can for him. That ff he vriU send me a new and distinct catalogue, vrith the price of each piece, and a price considerably less than what he has set upon the whole, I vriU endeavour to dispose of what I can for him. But as most of them are very indifferent, and the total value most unreasonable, I abso lutely AvUl not undertake the sale of them upon any other terms. 378 HORACE AVALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745. but vrill pack them up, and send them away to Leghorn by the first ship that saUs ; for as we are at war vrith France, I cannot send them that way, nor avUI I trouble any gentleman to carry them, as he might think himseff Hable to make them good ff they met Arith any accident ; nor wUl I answer for them by whatever way they go, as I did not consent to receive them, nor am sure that I have received the Marquis's coUection. My dear Sfr, translate this very distinctly for him, for he never shaU receive any other notice from me ; nor avUI I give them up to Wasner or Pucci,' or anybody else, though he should send me an order for It ; for nobody saw me open them, nor shaU anybody be able to say I had them, by receiring them from me. In short I think I cannot be too cautious in such a negotiation. If a man will send me things to the value of two thousand pistoles, whether they are reaUy worth it or not, he shaU take his chance for losing them, and shaU certainly never come upon me for them. He must abso lutely take his choice, of seUing them at a proper price and separately, or of haring them directly sent back by sea ; for whether he consents to either or not, I shaU certainly proceed in my resolution about them the very instant I receive an answer from you ; for the sooner I am clear of them the better. If he AvUl let me seU them Arithout setting a price, he may depend upon my taking the best method for his service ; though reaUy, my dear child, it wiU be for my own honour, not for his sake, who has treated me so impertinently. 1 am sorry to give you this trouble, but judge how much the fool Adieu ! 186. TO SIR HORACE MANN Arlington Street, July 26, 1745. It is a pain to me to write to you, when aU I can tell you avUI but distress you. How much I vrish myseff vrith you ! anywhere, where I should have my thoughts detached in some degree by distance and by length of time from England ! With aU the reasons that I have for not loving great part of it, it is impossible not to feel the shock of Hring at the period of all its greatness ! to be one of the JJltimi Romanorum ! I vriU not proceed upon the chapter of reflections, but mention some facts, which wiU supply your thoughts vrith aU I should say. ' Ministers of tbe Queen of Hungary and the Great Duke. — Walpole. 1748.J TO SIR HORACE MANN. 879 The French make no secret of thefr intending to come hither ; the letters from HoUand speak of it as a notoriety. Their Mediterranean fleet is come to Rochfort, and they have another at Brest. Their immediate design is to attack our army, the very lessening which wUl be victory for them. Our six hundred men, which have lain cooped up in the river tlU they had contracted diseases, are at last gone to Ostend. Of aU this our notable ministry stUl make a secret: one cannot learn the least particulars from them. This anxiety for my friends In the army, this uncertainty about ourselves, ff It can be caUed uncertain that we are undone, and the provoking foUy that one sees prevaU, have determined me to go to the Hague,. I shaU at least hear sooner from the army, and shaU there know better what is Hkely to happen here. The moment the crisis is come I shaU return hither, which I can do from Helvoetsluys in twelve hours. At aU events, I shall certainly not stay there above a month or six weeks : It thickens too fast for something important not to happen by that time. You may judge of our situation by the conversation of Marshal BeUeisle : he has said for some ti'me, that he saw we were so Httle capable of making any defence, that he would engage, vrith five thousand sculHons of the French army, to conquer England — yet, just now, they choose to release him ! he goes away in a week.' When he was told of the taking Cape Breton, he said, " he could beHeve that, because the ministry had no hand in It." We are making bonfires for Cape Breton, and thundering over Genoa, whUe our army in Flanders is running away, and dropping to pieces by detachments taken prisoners every day ; while the King is at Hanover, the regency at their country-seats, not five thousand men in the island, and not above fourteen or fifteen ships at home ! AUelujah ! I received yours yesterday, vrith the bUl of lading for the gesse figures, but you don't teU me thefr price ; pray do in your next. I don't know what to say to Mr. Chute's eagle ; " I would fain have it ; I can depend upon his taste — but would not it be foUy to be buying curiosities now ? how can I teU that I shaU have anything in the world to pay for It, by the time it is bought ? You may present 1 The Marshal and his brother left England on the 13th of August. — V/'right. " The famous Strawberry Hill eagle, found in the year 1742 in the gardens of Boccapadugli, within the precincts of Caracalla'a baths at Rome ; sold at the Straw berry Hill sale to the Earl of Leicester for 210^., and since sold by auction to Lord Fitzwilliam for a much larger sum.— Cunningham. 380 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745. these reasons to Mr. Chute ; and ff he laughs at them, Avhy then he wUl buy the eagle for me ; if he thinks them of weight, not. Adieu ! I have not time or patience to say more. 187. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George ; [August 1, 1746.] I CANNOT help thinking you laugh at me when you say such very ciAil things of my letters, and yet, coming from you, I would fain not have it aU flattery : So much the more, as, from a little elf, I've had a high opinion of myself. Though sickly, slender, and not large of limb. With this modest prepossession, you may be sure I Hke to have you commend me, whom, after I have done Arith myseff, I admire of aU men Hving. I only beg that you AviU commend me no more : it is very ruinous ; and praise, like other debts, ceases to be due on being paid. One comfort indeed is, that it is as seldom paid as other debts. I have been very fortunate lately : I have met vrith an extreme good print of M. de Grignan ; ' I am persuaded, very Hke ; and then it has his touffe ebourifee ; I don't, indeed, know what that was, but I am sure it is in the print. None of the critics could ever make out what Livy's Patavinlty is ; though they are aU confident it is in his writings. I have heard vrithin these few days what, for yom- sake, I vrish I could have told you sooner— that there is in BeUelsle's suite the Abbe Perrin, who published Madame S^rigne's letters, and who has the originals in his hands. How one should have Hked to have known him ! The Marshal was privately in London last Friday. He is entertained to-day at Hampton Court by the Duke of Grafton.' Don't you beHeve it was to settle the binding the scarlet thread in the window, when the French shall come in unto the land to possess it ? I don't at aU wonder at any shrewd observations the Marshal has made on our situation. The bringing bim here at aU — the sending bim away now — ^in short, the whole series of our conduct convinces me, that we shaU soon see as ' Franjois-AdhSmar de Monteil, Comte de Grignan, Lieutenant-General of Pro vence. He married, in 1669, the daughter of Madame de SSvignS. — Wright. - As he was, on the preceding day, by the Duke of Newcastle, at Claremont.— Wright. 1746.] TO MR. MONTAGU. 381 sUent a change as that in " The Rehearsal," of King Usher and King Physician. It may weU be so, when the disposition of the drama is in the hands of the Duke of Newcastie— those hands that are always groping and sprawHng, and fluttering, and hurrying on the rest of his precipitate person. But there Is no describing bim but as M. CourceUe, a French prisoner, did t'other day : " Je ne scais pas," dit il, " je ne scaurois m'exprimer, mais 11 a un certain tatUlonage." If one could conceive a dead body hung in chains, always wanting to be hung somewhere else, one should have a comparative idea of hfrn. For my own part, I comfort myseff vrith the humane reflection of the Irishman in the ship that was on fire — I am but a passenger ! If I were not so indolent, I think I should rather put in practice the late Duchess of Bolton's ' geographical resolution of going to China, when Whiston told her the world would be burnt In three years. Have you any phUosophy ? TeU me what you think. It is quite the fashion to talk of the French coming here. Nobody sees it in any other Hght but as a thing to be talked of, not to be precautioned against. Don't you remember a report of the plague being in the City, and everybody went to the house where it was to see It ? You see I laugh about it, for I would not for the world be so unengHshed as to do othervrise. I am persuaded that when Count Saxe, Arith ten thousand men. Is vrithin a day's march of London, people wiU be hiring windows at Charlng-cross and Cheapside to see them pass by. 'Tis our characteristic to take dangers for sights, and evrils for curiosities. Adieu ! dear George : I am laying in scraps of Cato against it may be necessary to take leave of one's correspondents a la Romaine, and before the play itseff Is suppressed by a lettre de cachet to the bookseUers. P.S. Lord ! 'tis the fir,st of August, 1745, a hoHday ' that Is going to be turned out of the almanack ! ' Henrietta Crofts, natural daughter of the Duke of Monmouth, by Eleanor, daughter of Sir Robert Needham. She was the third wife of the second Duke of Bolton, and died 27th Feb., 1729-30. "The Duchess Dowager of Bolton, who was natural daughter to the Duke of Monmouth, used to divert George I. by affecting to make blunders. Once when she had been at the play of ' Love's Last Shift,' she caUed it, 'La dernifere Chemise de I'Amour' Another time she pretended to come to Court in a great fright, and the King asking the cause, she said she had been at Mr. Whiston's, who told her the world would be burnt in three years ; and for her part she was deter mined to go to China." — Walpoliana, vol. i., p. 16. — Cunningham. ^ The anniversary of the accession of the House of Brunswick to the throne of England. — Walpole. 35-;' HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. (I745. 188. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Aug. 1, 1746. I HAVE no news to teU you : Ostend is besieged, and must be gone in a few days. The Regency are all come to town to prevent an invasion — I should as soon think them able to make one — ^not but old Stafr, who stUl exists upon the embers of an absurd fire that warmed him ninety years ago, thinks it stUl practicable to march to Paris, and the other day in councU prevented a resolution of sending for our army home ; but as we always do haff of a thing, when even the whole would scarce signify, they seemed determined to send for ten thousand — the other ten AriU remain in Flanders, to keep up the bad figure that we have been making there aU this summer. Count Saxe has been three times tapped since the battle of Fontenoy ; but ff we get rid of his enmity, there is Belleisle gone, amply to supply and succeed to his hatred ! Van Hoey, the ingenious Dutchman at Paris, wrote to the States, to know ff he should make new Hveries against the rejoicings for the French conquests in Flanders. I love the governor of Sluys ; when the States sent him a reprimand, for not admitting our troops that retieated thither from the affafr of Ghent, asking him ff he did not know that he ought to admit thefr aUies ? he repHed, " Yes ; and would they have bim admit the French too as their aUies ? " There is a proclamation come out for apprehending the Pre tender's son ; ' he was undoubtedly on board the frigate attendant on the EUzabeth, vrith which Captain Brett fought so bravely : '' the boy is now said to be at Brest. I have put off my journey to the Hague, as the sea is fuU of ships, and many French ones about the siege of Ostend : I go to-morrow to Mount Edgecumbe. I don't think it impossible but you may receive a letter from me on the road, vrith a paragraph Hke that in Cibber's lffe, " Here I met the revolution."' ' The proclamation was dated the 1 st of August, and offered a reward of thirty thousand pounds for the Prince's apprehension. He left the island of Belleisle on the 13th of July, disguised in the habit of a student of the Scots' college at Paris, and allowing his beard to grow. — Weight. '-' Captain Brett was the same officer who, in Anson's expedition, had stormed Paita. His ship was called the Lion. After a well-matched fight of five or aix hours, the vessels parted, each nearly disabled. — Wright. ¦' " Met the revolution at Nottingham " is part of the contents of Chapter III. of Cibber's Apology, Walpole was fond of this expression of Cibber's, — Cunningham, '715] TO SIR HORACE MANN. ?W, My Lady Orford is set out for Hanover : her gracious soveielgn does not seem incHned to leave it. Mrs. Chute' has sent me tins letter, which you vriU be so good as to send to Rome. Wo have taken infinite riches ; vast wealth iu the East Indies, vast from the West ; in short, we grow so fat, that we shaU very soon be fit tokUl. Your brother has this moment brought me a letter from you, fuU of your good-natured concem for the Genoese. I have not time to write you anything but short paragraphs, as I am in the act of Avnting aU my letters and doing my business before my journey. I can say no more now about the affair of your secretary. Poor Mrs. Gibbeme has been here this morning almost in fits about her son. She brought me a long letter to you, but I absolutely prevented her sending it, and told her I would let you know that it was my fault ff you don't hear from her, but that I would take the answer upon myseff. My dear Sir, for her sake, for the sUly boy's, who is ruined ff he foUows his own whims, and for your own sake, who vrill have so much trouble to get and form another, I must try to pre vent your parting. I am persuaded, that neither the fatigue of wnting, nor the inclination of going to sea, are the boy's true motives. They are, the smaUness of his allowance, and his aversion to waiting at table. For the first, the poor woman does not expect that you should put yourseff to any inconveiuence ; she only begs that you vriU be so good as to pay him twenty pounds a-year more, which she herseff wUl repay to your brother ; and not let her son know that it comes from her, as he would then refuse to take it. For the other point, I must teU you, my dear chUd, fafrly, that in goodness to the poor boy, I hope you wiU give it up. He Is to make his fortune in your way of lffe, ff he can be so lucky. It wUl be an insuperable obstacle to him that he is vrith you in the light of a menial servant. When you reflect that his fortune may depend upon it, I am sure you wUl free hfrn from this serritude. Your brother and I, you know, from the very first, thought that you should not insist upon it. If he wiU stay vrith you upon the terms I propose, I am sure, from the trouble it wUl save yourseff, and the ruin from which it vrill save him, you AriU yield to this request ; Avhlch I seriously make to you, and adrise you to comply -with. Adieu ! ' Widow of Francis Chute, Esq — AValpulr 384 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745. 189. TO THE REV. THOMAS BIRCH.' Sir: Woolterton, [Aug.] 6, 1746. When I was lately in toAvn I was favoured Arith yours of the 21st past ; but my stay there was so short, and my hurry so great, that I had not time to see you as I intended. As I am persuaded that nobody is more capable than yourseff, in aU respects, to set his late Majesty's reign in a true Hght, I am sure there is nobody to whom I would more readily give my assistance, as far as I am able ; but , as I have never wrote any thing in a historical way, have now and then suggested hints to others as they were writing, and never pubHshed but two pamphlets — one was to justify the taking and keeping in our pay the twelve thousand Hessians, of which I have forgot the title, and have it not in the country ; the other was published about two years since, entitled " The Interest of Great Britain steadUy Pursued," in answer to the pamphlets about the Hanover forces — I can't teU in what manner, nor on what heads to answer your desfre, which is conceived in such general terms : ff you could point out some stated times, and some particular facts, and I had before me a sketch of your narration, I perhaps might be able to suggest or explain some things that are come but imperfectly to your knowledge, and some anecdotes might occur to my memory relating to domestic and foreign affafrs, that are curious, and were never yet made pubHc, and perhaps not proper to be pubHshed yet; particularly vrith regard to the alteration of the ministiy in 1717, by the removal of my relation [his father], and the measures that were pursued in consequence of that alteration ; but in order to do this, or any thing else for your serrice, requires a personal conversation vrith you, in which I should be ready to let you know what might occur to me. I am most tiuly, &c. 190. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Sept. 6, 1745. It would have been inexcusable in me, in our present circum stances, and after aU I have promised you, not to have written to ' Dr. Thomas Birc'n — the best read man in EngUsh history and biography of hie own time. He died in 1765. — Cunningham. 1746.1 TO SIR HORACE MANN. 386 you for this last month, ff I had been in London ; but I have been at Mount Edgecumbe, and so constantly upon the road, that I neither received your letters, had time to write, or knew what to write. I came back last night, and found three packets from you, which I have no time to answer, and but just time to read. The confusion I have found, and the danger we are in, prevent my talking of anything else. The young Pretender,' at the head of three thousand men, has got a march on General Cope, who Is not eighteen hundred strong ; and when the last accounts came away, was fifty miles nearer Edinburgh than Cope, and by this time is there. The clans vrill not rise for the Government : the Dukes of Argyll' and Athol' are come post to town," not having been able to raise a man. The young Duke of Gordon ' sent for his uncle, and told him he must arm their clan. " They are in arms." — " They must march against the rebels." — " They AvUl Avait on the Prince of Wales." The Duke flew in a passion ; his uncle pulled out a pistol, and told hfrn it was In vain to dispute. Lord Loudon,* Lord Fort- rose,' and Lord Panmure ' have been very zealous, and have raised some men ; but I look upon Scotland as gone ! I think of what King William said to Duke Hamilton, when he was extoUing Scotland ; " My Lord, I only vrish it was a hundred thousand mUes off, and that you was king of it ! " There are two manffestos published, signed Charles Prince, Regent for his father. King of Scotland, England, France, and Ireland. By one, he promises to preserve every body in their just rights ; and orders aU persons who have pubHc monies in their hands to bring it to him ; and by the other dissolves the union between England and Scotland. But all this is not the worst ! Notice came yesterday, that there are ten thousand men, tbii-ty transports, and ' The Pretender had landed, with a few followers, in the Highlands of Scotland, on the 25th of July. — Wright. ¦- Archibald Campbell, Earl of Islay, and third Duke of Argyll. — Cunningham. ^ James Murray, second Duke of Athol ; to which he succeeded upon the death of his father in 1724, in consequence of the attainder of his elder brother, William, Marquis of TuUibardine. — Dover. ¦> This was not true of the Duke of Argyll ; for he did not attempt to raise any men, but pleaded a Scotch act of parliament against arming without authority — Walpole. ' Cosmo George, third Duke of Gordon. He died in 1752. — Dover. * John Campbell, fourth Earl of Loudon; a general in the army. He died in 1782.— Dover. ' The eldeat aon of Mackenzie, Earl of Seaforth. — Dover. ' William Maule, Earl of Panmure, in Ireland, ao created in 1743, in conaequenoe of the forfeiture of the Scotch honours in 1715, by his elder brother, James, Earl of Panmure. — Dover. VOL. I. 0 0 886 HORACE WALPOLES LETTERS. [1746 ten men-of-war at Dunkfrk. Against this force we have — I don't know what — scarce fears ! Three thousand Dutch we hope are by this time landed in Scotland ; three more are coming hither. We have sent for ten regiments from Flanders, which may be here in a week, and we have fifteen men-of-war in the Downs. I am grieved to teU you all this ; but when it is so, how can I avoid teUing you ? Your brother is just come in, who says he has written to you — I have not time to expatiate. My Lady 0[rford] is arrived ; I hear she says, only to endeavour to get a certain aUowance. Her mother has sent to offer her the use of her house. She is a poor weak woman. I can say nothing to Marquis Ricardi, nor think of him ; only tell him that I avIU when I have time. My sister [Lady Maria Walpole] has married herseff, that is, declared she wiU, to young ChurchUl. It is a foolish match ; ' but I have nothing to do vrith it. Adieu ! my dear Sir ; excuse my haste, but you must imagine that one is not much at leisure to write long letters — hope If you can ! 191. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Sept, 13, 1745. The RebeUion goes on ; but hitherto there is no rising in England, nor landing of troops from abroad ; indeed not even of ours or the Dutch. The best account I can give you is, that if the Boy has apparently no enemies in Scotland, at least he has openly very few friends. Nobody of note has joined him, but a brother of the Duke of Athol [the Marquis of TulHbardlne], and another of Lord Dunmore.' For cannon, they have nothing but one-pounders : their greatest resource is money ; they have force Louis-d'ors. The last accounts left them at Perth, making shoes and stockings. It is certain that a serjeant of Cope's, Arith twelve men, put to flight two hundred, on kUHng only six or seven. Two hundred of the Monroe clan have joined our forces. Spfrit seems to rise in London, though not in the proportion it ought; and then the person [the King] most concerned does every thing to check its progress : when ' They were married 12 Feb., 1745-6. — Cunningham. - John Murray, second Earl of Dunmore, brother of the Hon. Wm. Murray, of Taymount. He was subsequently pardoned for the part he took in the Rebellion, and succeeded to the earldom in 1754, on the death of Earl John. — Dover. 1745.] TO SIR HORACE MANN 887 the Ministers propose any thing vrith regard to the RebeUion, ho cries, " Pho ! don't taUi to me of that stuff." Lord GranriUe has persuaded him that it is of no consequence. Mr. Pelham talks every day of resigning : he certainly vriU as soon as this Is got over ! — ff it is got over. So, at least we shaU see a restoration of Queen Sophia [Lady GranvUle]. She has laln-in of a girl ; though she had aU the pretty boys in town brought to her for patterns. The young ChevaHer has set a reward on the King's head : we are told that his brother is set out for Ireland. However, there Is hitherto Httle countenance given to the undertaking by France or Spain. It seems an effort of despafr and weariness of the manner in which he has been kept in France. On the grenadiers' caps is written " a grave or a throne." He stayed some time at the Duke of Athol's, whither old Marquis TuUibardine ' sent to bespeak dinner ; and has since sent his brother word, that he likes the alterations made there. The Pretender found pine- apples there, the first he ever tasted. Mr. Breton,' a great favourite of the Southern Prince of Wales, went the other day to risit the Duchess of Athol,' and happened not to know that she is parted from her husband : he asked how the Duke did ? " Oh," said she, " he fumed me out of his house, and now he is turned out himseff." Every now and then a Scotchman comes and puUs the Boy by the sleeve ; " Prence, here is another mon taken ! " then vrith aU the dignity in the world, the Boy hopes nobody was kUled in the action ! Lord Bath has made a piece of a baUad, the Duke of Newcastle's speech to the Regency ; I have heard but these two Hnes of it : " Pray consider my Lords, how disastrous a thing. To have two Prince of Wales's and never a King I " The merchants are very zealous, and are opening a great sub scription for raising troops. The other day, at the city meeting to draw up the address, AJderman Heathcote proposed a petition for a redress of grievances, but not one man seconded him. In the midst of aU this, no ParHament is caUed ! The Ministers say they have nothing ready to offer ; but they have nothing to notffy ! I must teU you a ridiculous accident : when the magistrates of ' Elder brother of the Duke of Athol, but outlawed for the last rebellion. He was taken prisoner after the battle of CuUoden, and died in the Tower. — Wa lpole. - Afterwards Sir WiUiam Breton. He held an office in the houaehold of Frederick, Prince of Wales. — Dover. '' Jane, daughter of John Frederick, Esq., and widow of James Lanoy, Esq. — Dover. 388 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [I745. Edinburgh were searching houses for arms, they came to Mr. Maule's, brother of Lord Panmure, and a great friend of the Duke of Argyll. The maid would not let them go into one room, which was locked, and, as she said, full of arms. They now thought they had found what they looked for, and had the door broke open — where they found an ample co'Jeetion of coats of arms ! The deputy governor of Edinburgh Castle has threatened the miigistrates to beat thefr town about their ears, ff they admit the rebels. Perth is twenty-four mUes from Edinburgh, so we must soon know whether they vriU go thither ; or leave it, and come into England. We have great hopes that the Highlanders wUl not foUow him so far. Very few of them could be persuaded the last time to go to Preston ; and several refused to attend King Charles II. when he marched to Worcester. The Caledonian Mercury never caUs them " the rebels," but " the Highlanders." Adieu ! my dear chUd : thank Mr. Chute for his letter, which I vrill answer soon. I don't knoAV how to define my feeling : I don't despair, and yet I expect nothing but bad ! Yours, &c. P.S. Is not my Princess very happy 'with hopes of the restoration of her old tenant ? 192. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George ; Arlington Street, Sept. 17, 1745. How could you ask me such a question, as whether I should be glad to see you ? Have you a mind I should make you a formal speech, Arith honour, and pleasure, and satisfaction, &c. ? I vrill not, for that would be telling you I should not be glad. However, do come soon, ff you should be glad to see me ; for we, I mean we old folks that came over vrith the Prince of Orange in eighty-eight, have had notice to remove by Christmas-day. The moment I have smugged up a closet or a dressing-room, I have always waming given me, that my lease is out. Four years ago I was mightUy at my ease in Downing-stieet, and then the good woman, Sandys,' took my lodgings over my head, and was in such a hurry to junket her ' When the Old Pretender was in Lorrain, he lived at Prince Craon's. — Walpole. 2 Lord Sandys, who succeeded Sir Robert Walpole as Chancellor of the Exche quer, and consequently in the Chancellor's official residence in Downing Street. — Cunninghah. .1 f. 1. Y R LL 1745.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 889 neighbours, that I had scarce time aUowed me to wrap my old china in a Httle hay. Now comes the Pretender's boy, and promises aU my comfortable apartments in the Exchequer and Custom-house to some forlorn Irish peer, who chooses to remove his pride and poverty out of some large unfurnished gaUery at St. Germain's. Why reaUy Mr. Montagu this is not pleasant ; I shaU wonderfuUy dislike being a loyal sufferer in a thread-bare coat, and shivering in an ante-chamber at Hanover, or reduced to teach Latin and English to the young princes at Copenhagen. The Dowager Strafford has afready written cards for my Lady Nithsdale, my Lady TuUibardine, the Duchess of Perth and Berwick, and twenty more rerived peeresses, to inrite them to play at whisk, Monday three months : for your part, you wUl divert yourseff vrith their old taffeties, and tarnished sHppers, and their awkwardness, the first day they go to Court in shffts and clean Hnen. WUl you ever write to me at my garret at Herenhausen ? I wiU give you a faithful account of aU the promising speeches that Prince George and Prince Edward make whenever they have a new sword, and intend to reconquer England. At least write to me, whUe you may Arith acts of parHament on your side : but I hope you are coming. Adieu ! 193. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Sept. 20, 1746. One really don't know what to write to you : the accounts from Scotland vary perpetuaUy, and at best are never very certain. I was just going to teU you that the rebels are in England ; but my uncle [old Horace] is this moment come in, and says, that an ex press came last night vrith an account of their being at Edinburgh to the number of five thousand. This sounds great, to have walked through a kingdom, and taken possession of the capital ! But this capital is an open toAvn ; and the castie impregnable, and in our possession. There never was so extraordinary a sort of rebeUion I One can't teU what assurances of support they may have from the Jacobites in England, or from the French ; but nothing of either sort has yet appeared — and ff there does not, never was so desperate an enterprise.' One can hardly beHeve that the EngHsh are more dis- ' Mr. Henry Fox, in letters to Sir C. H. WUliams, of September 6th and 19th, writes," England, Wade says, and I believe it, is for the first comer; and if you can tell whether the six thousand Dutch, and the ten battalions of English, or five 390 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745. affected than the Scotch ; and among the latter, no persons of pro perty have joined them : both nations seem to profess a neutraHty. Thefr money is aU gone, and they subsist merely by levying contri butions. But, sure, banditti can never conquer a kingdom ! On the other hand, what cannot any number of men do, who meet no opposition ? They have hitherto taken no place but open towns, nor have they any artUlery for a siege but one-pounders. Three bat taHons of Dutch are landed at Gravesend, and are ordered to Lancashire : we expect every moment to hear that the rest are got to Scotland ; none of our own are come yet. Lord GranviUe and his faction persist in persuading the King, that it is an affafr of no con sequence ; and for the Duke of Newcastle, he is glad when the rebels make any progress, in order to confute Lord GranviUe's assertions. The best of our situation is, our strength at sea : the Channel is well guarded, and twelve men of war more are arrived from Rowley. Vernon, that simple noisy creature, has hit upon a scheme that is of great serrice ; he has laid Folkstone cutters all roimd the coast, which are continuaUy reUeved, and bring constant notice of everything that stfrs. I just now hear that the Duke of Bed ford ' declares he vrill be amused no longer, but wUl ask the King's leave to raise a regiment. The Duke of Montagu has a troop of horse ready, and the Duke of Devonshire is raising men in Derby- shfre. The Yorkshiremen, headed by the Archbishop [Herring]^ thousand French or Spaniards will be here first, you know our fate." " The French are not come, God be thanked I But had five thousand landed in any part of this island a week ago, I verily believe the entire conquest would not have cost them a battle." — Wright. ' This plan of raising regiments afterwards degenerated into a gross job. Sir C. H. Williams gives an account of it in his ballad, entitled " The Heroes." To this Horace Walpole appended the following explanatory note; — "In the time of the Rebellion these lords had proposed to raise regiments of their own dependants, and were allowed ; had they paid them too, the service had been noble : being paid by Government, obscured a little the merit ; being paid without raising them, would deserve too coarse a term. It is certain, that not six regiments ever were raised ; not four of which were employed. The chief persons who were at the head of this scheme were the Dukes of Bedford and Montagu ; the Duke of Bedford actually raised and served with his regiment." — The other lords mentioned in the ballad are, the Duke oi Bolton, Lord Granby, Lord Harcourt, Lord Halifax, Lord Falmouth, Lord Cholmondeley, and Lord Berkeley. They were iu all fifteen — " Of fifteen nobles of great fame. All brib'd by one fake muster." — Dover. See the Correspondence of the Duke of Bedford, vol. i. p. 51. — Cunningham. - An excellent prelate, afterwards promoted to the see of Canterbury. Walpole, in his Memoires, mentioning his death, thus speaks of him ; " On the 13th of March, 1767, died Dr. Herring, Archbishop of Canterbury, a very amiable man, to whom no fault was objected ; though perhaps the gentleness of his principles, his great merit, 1745.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 391 and Lord Malton, meet the gentlemen of the county the day after to-morrow, to defend that part of England. Unless we have more Ul fortune than is conceivable, or the general supineness continues, it is impossible but we must get over this. You desire me to send you news : I confine myseff to tell you nothing but what you may de pend upon ; and leave you in a fright rather than deceive you. I confess my own apprehensions are not near so strong as they were ; and ff we get over this, I shaU believe that we never can be hurt ; for we never can be more exposed to danger. Whatever disaffection there is to the present famUy, it plainly does not proceed from love to the other. My Lady 0[rford] makes Httle progress in popularity. Neither the protection of my Lady Pomfret's prudery, nor of my Lady ToAvn- shend's Hbertlnism, do her any serrice. The women stare at her, think her ugly, awkward, and disagreeable ; and what is worse, the men think so too. For the height of mortification, the King has declared pubHcly to the Ministry, that he has been told of the great civiHties which he was said to show her at Hanover ; that he pro tests he shoAved her only the common civiHties due to any EngHsh lady that comes thither ; that he never Intended to take any parti cular notice of her ; nor had, nor would let my Lady Yarmouth. In fact, my Lady Yarmouth peremptorily refused to carry her to court here ; and when she did go vrith my Lady Pomfret, the King but just spoke to her. She declares her intention of staying in England, and protests against aU lawsuits and riolences ; and says she only asks articles of separation, and to have her aUowance settled by any two arbitrators chosen by my brother and herseff. I have met her tvrice at my Lady ToAvnshend's, just as I used at Florence. She dresses EngHsh and plays at whist. I forgot to teU a bon-mot of Leheup ' on her first coming over ; he was asked ff he would not go and see her ? He replied, " No, I never visit modest women." Adieu ! my dear child ! I flatter myseff you wUl coUect hopes from this letter. was thought one. During the RebeUion he had taken up arms to defend from oppression that religion, which he abhorred making an instrument of oppression." — Dover. ' Isaac Leheup, brother-in-law of Horace Walpole the elder He was a man of great wit and greater brutality, and being minister at Hanover, was recalled for very indecent behaviour there. — Walpole. Walpole is your tyrant to-day ; and any man his Majesty pleases to name, Horace or Leheup may be so to-morrow. Bolingbroke to Marchmont, 22 J^dy, 1739.— Cunningham. 392 HORACE AVALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. 194. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Sept, 27, 1746. I can't doubt but the joy of the Jacobites has reached Florence before this letter. Your two or three Irish priests, I forget their names, vriU have set out to take possession of abbey-lands here. I feel for what you vriU feel, and for the insulting things that AviU be said to you upon the battle ' we have lost in Scotland ; but aU this is nothing to what it prefaces. The express came hither on Tuesday morning, but the Papists knew it on Sunday night. Cope lay in face of the rebels all Friday ; he scarce two thousand strong, they vastly superior, though we don't know their numbers. The mUitary people say that he should have attacked them. However, we are sadly conrinced that they are not such raw ragamuffins as they were represented. The rotation that has been estabHshed in that country, to give aU the Highlanders the benefit of serving in the independent companies, has trained and disciplined them. Macdonald ' (I sup pose, he from Naples), who is reckoned a very experienced able officer, is said to have commanded them, and to be dangerously wounded. One does not hear the Boy's personal valour cried up ; by which I conclude he was not in the action. Our dragoons most shamefrUly fied Arithout striking a blow, and are vrith Cope, who escaped in a boat to Berwick. I pity poor him,' who vrith no shining abiHties, and no experience, and no force, was sent to fight for a crown ! He never saw a battle but that of Dettingen, where he got . his red ribbon : Churchill, whose led-captain he was, and my Lord Harrington, had pushed him up to this misfortune." We have lost aU our artUlery, five hundred men taken — and three kUled, and several officers, as you wiU see in the papers. This defeat has frightened every body but those it rejoices, and those it should ' At Preston-Pan.s, near Edinburgh ; where the Pretender completely defeated Sir John Cope, ou the 21st of September. — Dover. ^ " It is remarkable, that among the foremost to join Charles, was the father of Marshal Macdonald, Duke de Tarento, long after raised to these honours by his merit in the French revolutionary wars, and not more distinguished for courage and capacity than for integrity and honour" Mahon's Hist. vol. iii. p. 344. — Cunningham. ^ General Cope waa tried afterwards for his behaviour in this action, and it appeared very clearly, that the Ministry, his inferior officers, and hia troops, were greatly to blame ; and that he did all he could, ao ill-directed, ao iU-aupplied, and ao ill-obeyed. — Walpole. " " General Cope, whom the Earl of Harrington created and atill preaerves." Mallet to Aaron HiU, October 22, 1748 (J/.?.).- Cunningham. '745.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 893 frighten most ; but my Lord GranriUe stiU buoys up the King's spirits, and persuades him it is nothing. He uses his jiinisters as Ul as possible, and discourages every body that would risk their Hves and fortunes vrith him. Marshal Wade is marching against the rebels ; but the King wiU not let him take above eight thousand men ; so that ff they come into England, another battle, vrith no advantage on our side, may determine our fate. Indeed, they don't seem so uuArise as to risk their cause upon so precarious an event ; but rather to design to estabUsh themselves iu Scotland, tlU they can be supported from France, and be set up Arith taking Edinburgh Castle, where there is to the value of a miUion, and which they would make a stronghold. It Is scarcely rictuaUed for a month, and must surely faU into thefr hands. Our coasts are greatly guarded, and London kept in awe by the arrival of the guards. I don't beHeve what I have been told this moriung, that more troops are sent for from Flanders, and aid asked of Denmark. Prince Charles has caUed a ParHament in Scotland for the 7th of October ; ours does not meet tiU the 17th, so that even in the show of liberty and laws they are beforehand Arith us. With aU this, we hear of no men of quaHty or fortune haring joined him but Lord Elcho,' whom you have seen at Florence ; and the Duke of Perth, a sUly race-horsing boy, who is said to be kiUed in this battle. But I gather no confidence from hence : my father always said, " If you see them come again, they AriU begin by their lowest people ; thefr chiefs AriU not appear tUl the end." His prophecies verify every day ! The town is stiU empty ; on this point only the EngHsh act contrary to their custom, for they don't throng to see a ParHament, though it is likely to grow a curiosity ! I have so trained myseff to expect this ruin, that I see it approach vrithout any emotion. I shaU suffer vrith fools, vrithout having any maHce to our enemies, who act sensibly from principle and from interest. Ruling parties seldom have caution or common sense. I don't doubt but Whigs and Protestants wUl be alert enough in trying to recover what they lose so supinely. I know nothing of my Lady 0[rford]. In this situation I dare say ' Eldest son of the Eari of Wemyss.— AValpole. ¦' James Drnmmond, who would have been the fifth Earl of Perth, had it not been for the attainder and outlawry under which his family laboured. His grandfather, the fourth earl, had been created a duke by James 11. after his abdication. He was not killed at Preston Pans. — Dover. 394 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745. •he AviU exert enough of the spirit of her Austrian party, to be glad thc present government is oppressed ; her piques and the Queen of Hungary's bigotry vriU draw satisfaction from what ought to be so contrary to each of thefr vrishes. I don't wonder my Lady hates you so much, as I think she meant to express by her speech to Blair— " Quem non credit Cleopatra nocentem, A quo casta fuit V She Hves chiefly vrith my Lady ToAvnshend : the latter told me last night, that she had seen a new fat player, who looked like every body's husband. I repHed, " I could easUy beHeve that, from seeing so many women who looked Hke everybody's vrives." Adieu ! my dear Sir ; I hope your spirits, like mine, AriU grow calm, from being callous vrith Ul-news. 196. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Oct. i, 1745. I AM stUl ¦writing to you as " Resident de sa Majeste Britaimique;" and vrithout the apprehension of your suddenly receiving letters of recaU, or orders to notify to the councU of Florence the new acces sion. I dare say your fears made you think that the young Prince (for he is at least Prince of Scotland) had vaulted from Cope's neck into St. James's House ; but he is stUl at Edinburgh ; and his cousin Grafton,' the Lord Chamberlain, has not even given orders for fitting up this palace for his reception. The good people of England have at last rubbed their eyes and looked about them. A wonderful spfrit is arisen in aU counties, and among aU sorts of people. The nobUity are raising regiments, and every body else Is — being raised. Dr. Herring, the Archbishop of York, has set an example that would rouse the most indifferent : in two days after the news arrived at York of Cope's defeat, and when they every moment expected the victorious rebels at their gates, the Bishop made a speech to the assembled county, that had as much true spirit, honesty, and bravery in it, as ever was penned by an historian for an ancient hero. The rebels returned to Edinburgh, where they have no hopes of taking the Castle, for old Preston, the deputy-governor, and General ' The Duke of Grafton waa the grandson of Charles II. ; the young Pretender the grandson of James II. — Cunningham. 1^45.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 895 Guest, have obliged them to supply the Castle constantly with fresh provisions, on pain of having the town fired with red-hot bullets. They did fling a bomb on Holyrood House, and obliged the Boy to shift his quarters. Wade is marching against them, and wiU have a great army : aU the rest of our troops are ordered from Flanders, and are to meet hfrn in Yorkshfre, with some Hessians too. That county raises four thousand men, besides a body of foxhunters, whom Oglethorpe has converted mto hussars. I am told that old Stair,' who certainly does not want zeal, but may not want envy neither, has practised a Httle Scotch art to prevent Wade from haring an army, and consequently the glory of saring this country. This I don't doubt he wUl do, ff the rebels get no foreign aid ; and I have great reason to hope they wUl not, for the French are privately making us overtures of peace. My dear chUd, dry your wet-brown- paperness,^ and be in spirits again ! It is not a very ciril joy to send to Florence, but I can't help telling you how glad I am of news that came two days ago, of the King of Prussia ha^ving beat Prince Charles,' who attacked him just after we could have obtained for them a peace vrith that King. That odious house of Austria ! It wiU not be decent for you to insult Richcourt, but I would, were I at Florence. Pray let Mr. Chute have ample accounts of our zeal to figure vrith at Rome ; of the merchants of London undertaking to support the pubHc credit ; of universal associations ; of regiments raised by the Dukes of Devonshire, Bedford, Rutland, Montagu ; Lords Herbert, HaHfax, Cholmondeley, Falmouth, Malton, Derby," &c. ; of Wade vrith an army of twenty thousand men ; of another about London of near as many — and lastly, of Lord Gower ' having in person assured the King that he is no Jacobite, but ready to serve him vrith his Hfe and fortune. TeU him of the whole coast so guarded, that nothing can pass unvisited ; and in short, send him this adver tisement out of to-day's paper, as an instance of more spirit and Arit than there is in aU Scotland : ' By our news from the North it looks as if the rebels were upon the point to leave Edinburgh, it being now plain that they cannot take the Castle. — Lord Stair to the Duke of Bedford, London, Oct. 11, 1745. ' See note, p. 366. — Cunningham. ^ The Battle of Soor in Bohemia, gained by the King of Prussia over the .\uafrians, on the 30th of September 1746.— Dover. '' See note, p. 390. — Cunningham. ° See note, p. 176. — Cunningham. 396 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETl'ERS. flT^S. TO All JOLLY BVTCHBKS. My bold hearts : The Papists eat no meat on Wednesdays, Fridays, Salordaye, nor daring Lent. Your friend, John Stsel. Just as I wrote this, a person is come in, who teUs me that tho rebels have cut off the communication between Edinburgh and the Castle : the commanders renewed their threats ; and the good magistrates have sent up hither to beg orders may be sent to forbid this execution. It is modest ! it is Scotch !— and, I dare say, vriU be granted. Ask a govemment to spare your town, which you your self have given up to rebels ; and the consequence of saring which AvUl be the loss of your Castle ! — but they knew to what government they appHed ! You need not be in haste to have this notified at Rome. TeU it not in Gath ! Adieu ! my dear Sir. This account has put me so out of humour, and has so altered the strain of my letter, that I must finish. 196. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Oct. 11, 1745. This is Hkely to be a very short letter ; for I have nothing to teU you, nor anything to answer. I have not had one letter from you this month, which I attribute to the taking of the packet-boat by the French, vrith two maUs in it. It was a very critical time for our negotiations ; the Ministry vrill say, it puts their transactions out of order. Before I talk of any pubHc news, I must teU you what you AriU be very sorry for — Lady GranviUe [Lady Sophia Fermor] is dead. She had a fever for six weeks before her lying-in, and could never get it off. Last Satm-day they called in another physician, Dr. OHver : on Monday he pronounced her out of danger. About seven in the evening, as Lady Pomfret and Lady Charlotte [Fermor] were sitting by her, the first notice they had of her immediate danger, was her sighing and saying, " I feel death come very fast upon me ! " She repeated the same words frequently — remained perfectly in her senses and calm, and died about eleven at night. Her mother and sister sat by her till she was cold. It is very shocking for anybody so young, so handsome, so arrived at the height of happiness, so sensible of it, '•^6.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 397 and on whom aU the joy and grandeur of her famUy depended, to be so quickly snatched away ! Poor Uguccioni ! he wiU be A'ery sorry and simple about it. For the rebels, they have made no figure since their rictory. The Castie of Edinburgh has made a sally, and taken twenty head of cattle, and about thirty head of Highlanders. We heard yesterday, that they are coming this way. The troops from Flanders are ex pected to land in Yorkshire to-morrow. A privateer of Bristol has taken a large Spanish ship, laden Arith arms and money for Scotiand. A piece of a plot has been discovered in Dorsetshire, and one Mr. Weld' taken up. The French have declared to the Dutch, that the House of Stuart is their aUy, and that the Dutch troops must not act against them ; but we expect they shaU. The ParHament meets next Thursday, and by that time, probably, the armies wUl too. The rebels are not above eight thousand, and have little artUlery ; so you may wear what ministerial spfrits you wiU. The Venetian ambassador has been making his entiles this week : he was at Leicester- fields to-day Arith the Prince, and very pretty compliments passed between them in ItaHan. Do excuse this letter : I reaUy have not a word more to say ; the next shaU be aH arma virumque cano ! 197. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Oct. 21, 1746. I HAD been almost as long Arithout any of your letters as you had Arithout mine ; but yesterday I received one, dated the 5th of this month, N.S. The rebels have not left their camp near Edinburgh, and, I sup pose, wUl not now, unless to retreat into the Highlands. General Wade was to march yesterday from Doncaster for Scotland. By their not advancing, I conclude that either the Boy and his council could not prevaU on the Highlanders to leave their own country, or that they were not strong enough, and stiU wait for foreign assistance, which, in a new declaration, he intimates that he stUl expects.' One ' Edward Weld, Esq., of Lulworth Castle. Hutehins, in his History of Dorsetshire, says, that, " although he ever behaved as a peaceful subject, he was ordered into custody, in 1745, on account of his name being mentioned in a treasonable anonymous letter dropped near Poole ; but his immediate and honourable discharge ia the moat convincing proof of hia innocence." — Wright. ¦ " At three aeveral councila did Charlea propoae to march into England and fight 398 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. only ship, I believe, a Spanish one, is got to them with arms, and Lord John Drummond ' and some people of quaHty on board. We don't hear that the younger Boy is of the number. Four ships saUed from Corunna ; the one that got to Scotland, one taken by a privateer of Bristol, and one lost on the Irish coast ; the fourth is not heard of At Edinburgh and thereabouts they comnut the most horrid barbarities. We last night expected as bad here : informa tion was given of an intended insurrection and massacre by the Papists ; aU the Guards were ordered out, and the Tower shut up at seven. I cannot be surprised at anything, considering the supine ness of the Ministry — nobody has yet been taken up ! The ParHament met on Thursday. I don't think, considering the crisis, that the House was very flUl. Indeed, many of the Scotch members cannot come ff they would. The young Pretender had published a declaration, threatening to confiscate the estates of the Scotch that should come to ParHament, and making it treason for the English. The only points that have been before the House, the address and the suspension of the Habeas corpus, met Arith obstruc tions from the Jacobites. By this we may expect what spirit they vriU show hereafter.' With aU this, I am far from thinking that they are so confident and sanguine as thefr friends at Rome. I blame the Chutes extremely for cockading themselves : why take a part, when they are only traveUing ? I should certainly retire to Florence on this occasion. You may imagine how Httle I Hke our situation; but I don't despair. The Httle use they made, or could make of thefr victory ; their not having marched into England ; thefr miscarriage at the Castle of Edinburgh ; the arrival of our forces, and the non-arrival of any French or Sparush, make me conceive great hopes of getting over this ugly business. But it is stUl an affair wherein the chance of battles, or perhaps of one battle, may decide. I Avnte you but short letters, considering the circumstances of the Marahal Wade ; but as often was hia proposal overruled. At length he declared, in a very peremptory manner, ' I see, gentlemen, you are determined to stay in Scotland and defend your country ; but lam not less resolved to try my fate in England, though I should go alone.' " — Lord Mahon, vol. iii. p. 241. — Wright. ' Brother of the titular Duke of Perth.— Walpole. - " As to the Parliament," writes Horatio Walpole to Mr. Milling, on the 29th of October, " although the address was unanimous on the first day, yesterday, upon a motion ' to enquire into the causes of the progress of the rebellion,' the House was so fully convinced of the necessity of immediately putting an end to it, and that the fire should be quenched before we should enquire who kindled or promoted it, that it was carried, not to put that question at this time, by 194 against 112." — Wright. 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 899 time ; but I hate to send you paragi-aphs only to contradict them again : I stiU less choose to forge events ; and, indeed, am glad I have so few to tell you. My Lady 0[rford] has forced herseff upon her mother, who receives her very cooUy: she talks highly of her demands, and quietly of her methods : the fruitlessness of either AriU, I hope, soon send her back — I am sorry it mu.st be to you ! You mention Holdisworth : ' he has had the confidence to come and risit me Arithin these ten days ; and (I suppose, from the over- floAving of his joy) talked a great deal and quick — Arith as Httle sense as when he was more tedious. Since I Avrote this, I hear the Countess [of Orford] has told her mother, that she thinks her husband the best of our famUy, and me the worst — nobody so bad, except you ! I don't wonder at my being so Ul vrith her ; but what have you done ? or is it, that we are worse than anybody, because we know more of her than anybody does ? Adieu ! 198. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Nov. 4, 1745. It is just a fortnight since I wrote to you last : in aU that time the RebeUion has made no progress, nor produced any incldenis worth mentioning. They have intrenched themselves very strongly in the Duke of Buccleuch's park, whose seat, about seven mUes from Edinburgh, they have seized. We had an account last week of the Boy's being retfred to Dunkirk, but it was not true. KeUy,' who is gone to soHcit succour from France, was seized at Helvoet, but by a stupid burgher released. Lord Loudon is very brisk in the north of Scotland, and has intercepted and beat some of their parties. Marshal Wade was to march from Newcastle yesterday. But the RebelHon does not make half the noise here that one of its consequences does. Fourteen lords (most of them I have named to you), at the beginning, offered to raise Regiments ; these regi ments, so handsomely tendered at first, have been since put on the regular estabHshment ; not much to the honour of the undertakers or of the firmness of the Ministry, and the King is to pay them. One of the great grievances of this is, that these most disinterested colonels have named none but thefr own relations and dependents ' A nonjuror, who travelled with Mr. George Pitt. — Walpole. ' He had been confined in the Tower ever since the assassination-plot, in the reign of King WUliam ; but at last made his escape. — Walpole. 400 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745. for the officers, who are to have rank ; and consequently both colonels and subalterns will interfere with the brave old part of the army, who have served all the war. This has made great clamour. The King was against their having rank, but would not refuse it; yet wished that the House of Commons would address him not to grant it. This notification of his royal mind encouraged some of the old part of the Ministry, particularly Winnington and Fox, to under take to procure this address. Friday it came on in the committee ; the Jacobites and patriots (such as are not included in the coalition) riolently opposed the regiments themselves ; so did Fox, in a very warm speech, leveUed particularly at the Duke of Montagu, who, besides his old regiment, has one of horse and one of foot on this new plan.' Pitt defended them as warmly : the Duke of Bedford, Lord Gower, and Lord HaHfax, being at the head of this job. At last, at ten at night, the thirteen regiments of foot weie voted vrith out a division, and the two of horse carried by 192 to 82. Then came the motion for the address, and in an hour and haff more, was rejected by 126 to 124. Of this latter number were several of the old corps ; I among the rest. It is to be reported to the House to morrow, and vrill, I conclude, be at least as warm a day as the former. The King is now against the address, and aU sides are using their utmost efforts. The fourteen lords threaten to throw up, unless their whole terms are complied Arith ; and the Duke of Bedford is not moderately insolent against such of the King's servants as voted against him. Mr. Pelham espouses him ; not recoUecting, that at least twice a-week aU his new aUies are suffered to oppose him as they please. I should be sorry, for the appearance, to have the regiments given up ; but I am sure our affair is over, ff our two old armies are beaten and we should come to want these new ones ; four only of which are pretended to be raised. Pitt, who has alternately buUied and flattered Mr. Pelham, is at last to be Secretary-at-War ;' Sir W. Yonge to be removed to Vice-Treasurer ' This circumstance is thus alluded to in Sir C. H. Williams's ballad of "The Heroes." " Three regiments one Duke contents, With two more places you know : Since hia Bath Knights, his Grace delights In Tri-a-junct' in U-no." The Duke of Montagu was aiastcr of the great wardrobe, a place worth eight thou sand pounds a-year. He was also grand-master of the order of the Bath.— Dover. - In the May following, Mr. Pitt was appointed paymaater of the foreoB.- WRianr 1745.] TO SIR HOEACE MANN. 401 of Ireland, and Lord Torrington ' to have a pension in Heu of it. An ungracious parallel between the mercenary riews of these patriot heroes, the regiment factors, aud of their acquiescent agents, the ministry, Arith the disinterested behariour of my Lord Kildare,' Avas draAvn on Friday by Lord Doneraile ; who read the very proposals of the latter for raising, clothing, and arming a regiment at his oavu expense, and for Avhich he had been told, but the very day before this question, that the King had no occasion. — " And how," said Lord DoneraUe, " can one account for this, but by saying, that we have a ministry Avho are either too good-natured to refuse a wrong thing, or too irresolute to do a right one ! " I am extremely pleased Arith the purchase of the Eagle and Altar,' and think them cheap : I even begin to believe that I shaU be able to pay for them. Tho gesse statues are all arrived safe. Your last letter was dated Oct. 19, N.S. and left you up to the chin in water," just as we were droAvned five years ago. Good night, ff you are aHve stiU ! 199. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Nov. 15, 1746. I TOLD you in my last what disturbance there had been about the new Regiments ; the affair of rank was again disputed on the report tiff ten at night, and carried by a majority of 23. The King had been persuaded to appear for it, though Lord GranriUe made it a party point against Mr. Pelham. Winnington did not speak. I was not there, for I could not vote for It, and yielded not to give any hindrance to a pubHc measure (or at least what was called so) just now. The prince acted openly, and influenced his people against It ; but it only served to let Mr. Pelham see, what, like every thing else, he did not know, how strong he is. The King vriU scarce speak to him, and he cannot yet get Pitt into place. The rebels are come into England : for tAvo days we beHeved them near Lancaster, but the ministry now oavu that they don't know ff they have passed OarHsle. Some think they avUI besiege that toAvn, which has an old waU, and aU the militia in it of Cumber- ' Pattee Byng, second Viacount Torrington [1733-1747]. He had been made vice- treaai-rer of Ireland upon the going out of the Walpole administration. — Dover. - James Fitzgerald, twentieth Earl of Kildare ; created in 1761, Marquis of Kildare • and in 1766 Duke of Leinster— Irish honours.- Dover. ^ Soa note, ante. p. 379. — Cunningham. ^ By an inundation of the Arno.— AA'alpole. VOL. I. » » 402 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. land and Westmoreland ; but as they can pass by it, I don't see why they should take it ; for they are not strong enough to leave garrisons. Several desert them as they advance south ; and alto gether, good men and bad, nobody beUeves them ten thousand. By their marching westward to avoid Wade, it is evident that they are not strong enough to fight him. They may yet retfre back into their mountains, but ff once they get to Lancaster, thefr retreat is cut off; for Wade vriU not stir from Newcastle, tiU he has embarked them deep into England, and then he vrill be behind them. He has sent General Handasyde from Berwick vrith two regiments to take possession of Edinburgh. The rebels are certainly in a very desperate situation : they dared not meet Wade ; and ff they had waited for hfrn, their troops would have deserted. Unless they meet Arith great risings in their favour in Lancashire, I don't see what they can hope, except from a continuation of our neglect. That, indeed, has nobly exerted itseff for them. They were suffered to march the whole length of Scotland, and take possession of the capital, vrithout a man appearing against them. Then two thousand men sailed to them, to run from them. TiU the fUght of Cope's army, Wade was not sent. Two roads stUl lay into England, and tiU they had chosen that which Wade had not taken, no army was thought of being sent to secure the other. Now Ligonier, vrith seven old regiments, and six of the new, is ordered to Lancashire : before this first dirision of the army could get to Coventiy, they are forced to order it to halt, for fear the enemy should be up vrith it before it was aU assembled. It is uncertain ff the rebels AviU march to the north of Wales, to Bristol, or towards London. If to the latter, Ligonier must fight them : ff to either of the other, which I hope, the two armies may join and drive them into a corner, where they must aU perish. They cannot subsist in Wales, but by being suppHed by the Papists in Ireland. The best is, that we are in no fear from France ; there is no preparation for invasions in any of thefr ports. Lord Clancarty,' a Scotchman of great parts, but mad and drunken, and whose famUy forfeited 90,000/. a-year, for King James, is made vice-admiral at Brest. The Duke of Bedford goes in his Httle round person with his regiment ; he now takes to the land, and says he is tired of being a pen and ink man. Lord Gower insisted, too, upon going Arith his regiment, but is laid up Arith the gout. ' Donagh Maccarty, Earl of Clancarty, was an Irishman, and not a Scotchman.-" Dover. 1745.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 403 With the rebels in England, you may imagine we have no private news, nor think of foreign. From this account you may judge, that our case is far from desperate, though disagreeable. The Prince. whUe the Princess Hes-in, has taken to give dinners, to which he asks two of the ladies of the bed-chamber, two of the maids of honour, &c., by turns, and five or six others. He sits at the head of the table, drinks and harangues to aU this medley till nine at night ; and the other day, after the affair of the regiments, drank Mr Fox's health in a bumper, Arith three huzzas, for opposing Mr. Pelham— " Si quil fata aspera rumpas, Tu Marcellus eris ! " You put me in pain for my Eagle, and in more for the Chutes, whose zeal is very heroic, but very Ul-placed. I long to hear that aU my Chutes and eagles are safe out of the Pope's hands ! Pray ¦wish the Suares's joy of aU their espousals. Does the Princess pray abundantly for her friend the Pretender ? Is she extremely abbatue Arith h'er devotion? and does she fast tlU she has got a riolent appetite for supper ? And then, does she eat so long, that old Sarrasin is quite Impatient to go to cards again ? Good night ! I intend you shall stUl be resident from King George. P. S. I forgot to teU you, that the other day I concluded the ministry knew the danger was all over ; for the Duke of Newcastle ventured to have the Pretender's declaration burnt at the Royal Exchange. 200. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Nov. 22, 1745. Foe these two days we have been expecting news of a battle. Wade marched last Saturday from Newcastle, and must have got up vrith the rebels ff they stayed for him, though the roads are exceed ingly bad and great quantities of snow have faUen. But last night there was some notice of a body of rebels being advanced to Penryth. We were put into great spirits by an heroic letter from the mayor of OarHsle, who had fired on the rebels and made them retfre ; he concluded Arith saying, " And so I think the town of OarHsle has done his Majesty more service than the great city of Edinburgh, or than aU Scotland together." But this hero, who was grovm the whole fashion for four-and-twenty hours, had chosen to stop aU other 404 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745. letters. The King spoke of him at his levee vrith great encomiums ; Lord Stair said, " Yes, sir, Mr. Patterson has behaved very bravely." The Duke of Bedford interrupted him ; " My lord, his name is not Paterson ; that is a Scotch name ; his name is Patinson." But, alack ! the next day the rebels returned, having placed the women and chUdren of the country in waggons in front of thefr army, and forcing the peasants to fix the scaling-ladders. The great Mr. Pattin- son, or Patterson (for noAV his name may be which one pleases), instantly surrendered the toAvn, and agreed to pay two thousand pounds to save it from piUage. WeU ! then we were assured that the citadel could hold out seven or eight days ; but did not so many hours. On mustering the mUitia, there were not found above fom- men in a company ; and for two companies, which the ministry, on a report of Lord Albemarle, who said they were to be sent from Wade's army, thought were there, and did not know were not there, there was nothing but two of InvaHds. Colonel Durand, the governor, fled, because he would not sign the capitulation, by which the garrison, it is said, has sworn never to bear arms against the house of Stuart. The Colonel sent two expresses, one to Wade, and another to Ligonier at Preston ; but the latter Avas playing at whist Arith Lord Harrington at Petersham. Such is our dUigence and attention ! AU my hopes are in Wade, who was so sensible of the ignorance of our governors, that he refused to accept the command, till they consented that he should be subject to no kind of orders from hence. The rebels are reckoned up at thirteen thousand ; Wade marches vrith about twelve ; but ff they come southward, the other army AviU probably be to fight them ; the Duke is to command it, and sets out next week Arith another brigade of Guards, and Ligonier under him. There are great apprehensions for Chester from the Flintshire-men, who are ready to rise. A quarter-master, first sent to OarHsle, was seized and carried to Wade ; he behaved most inso lently ; and being asked by the General, how many the rebels were, repHed, " Enough to beat any army you have in England." A Mackintosh has been taken, who reduces thefr formidabUity, by being sent to raise two clans, and vrith orders, ff they would not rise, at least to give out they had risen, for that three clans would leave the Pretender, unless joined by those two. Five hundred new rebels are arrived at Perth, where our prisoners are kept. I had this morning a subscription-book brought me for our parish; ' St. James's, AV^estminstei, in which Arlington Street was. Lord GranvUle and Horace Walpole had houses there. — Cunningham. 1746.J TO SIR HORACE MANN. 406 Lord GrauAiUe had refused to subscribe. This is in thc style of his friend Lord Bath, who has absented himself whenever any act ot authority was to be executed against the rebels. Five Scotch lords are going to raise regiments a I'Angloise ! resident in London, whUe the rebels were in Scotland ; they are to receive mUitary emoluments for their neutrality ! The Fox man-of-war of 20 guns is lost off Dunbar. One Beavor, the captain, has done us notable serrice : the Pretender sent to com mend his zeal and actlrity, and to teU him, that ff he Avould retum to his aUegiance, he should soon have a flag. Beavor replied, " He never treated ¦with any but principals ; that ff the Pretender would come on board him, he Avould talk Arith him." I must now teU you of our great Vernon : Arithout once complaining to the Ministry, he has written to Sir John PhUipps, a distinguished Jacobite, to com plain of Avant of provisions ; yet they do not venture to recaU him ! Yesterday they had another baiting from Pitt, who is ravenous for the place of Secretary at War : they would give it him ; but as a preliminary, he insists on a declaration of our haring nothing to do Arith the continent. He mustered his forces, but did not notffy his intention ; only at two o'clock Lyttelton said at the Treasury, that there would be business at the House. The motion was, to augment our naval force, which, Pitt said, was the only method of putting an end to the rebeUion. Ships built a year hence to suppress an army of Highlanders, now marching through England ! My uncle [old Horace] attacked him, and congratulated his country on the -Arisdom of the modern young men ; and said he had a son of two-and-twenty, who, he did not doubt, would come over Ariser than any of them. Pitt was provoked, and retorted on his negotiations and grey-headed experience. At those words, my uncle, as ff he had been at Bartholomew fair, snatched off his wig, and showed his grey hafrs, which made the august senate laugh, and put Pitt out, who, after laughing himseff, diverted his venom upon Mr. Pelham. Upon the question, Pitt's party amounted but to thfrty-six : in short, he has nothing left but his words, and his haughtiness, and his Lytteltons, and his GrenviUes. Adieu ! 201. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Nov. 29, 1745. We have had your story here this week of the pretended Pretender, but vrith the unlucky circumstance of its coming from 406 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. the Roman CathoHcs. With all the faith you have in your Httle spy, I cannot beHeve it ; though, to be sure, it has a Stuart-afr, the not exposing the real boy to danger. The Duke of Newcastle men tioned your account this morning to my uncle ; but they don't give any credit to the courier's relation. It grows so near being necessary for the young man to get off by any evasion, that I am persuaded aU that party avUI try to have it beHeved. We are so far from thinking that they have not sent us one son, that two days ago we beHeved we had got the other too. A smaU ship has taken the SoleU privateer from Dunkfrk, going to Montrose, Arith twenty French officers, sixty others, and the brother of the beheaded Lord Derwentwater and his son,' who at first was beHeved to be the second boy. News came yesterday of a second privateer, taken vrith arms and money ; of another lost on the Dutch coast, and of Vernon being in pursuit of two more. AH this must be a great damp to the party, who are coming on fast — ^fast to their destiuction. Last night they were to be at Preston, but several repeated accounts make them under five thousand — none above seven ; they must have diminished greatly by desertion. The country is so far from rising for them, that the toAvns are left desolate on their approach, and the people hide and bury their effects, even to thefr pewter. Warrington bridge is broken doAvn, which wiU turn them some mUes aside. The Duke, Arith the flower of that brave army which stood aU the ffre at Fontenoy, wUl rendezvous at Stone, beyond Litchfield, the day after to-morrow: Wade is advancing behind them, and wiU be at Wetherby in Yorkshfre to-morrow. In short, I have no conception of their daring to fight either army, nor see any risible possibUity of their not being very soon destroyed. My fears have been great, from the greatness of our stake ; but I now vmte in the greatest confidence of our getting over this ugly business. We have another very disagreeable affafr, that may have fatal consequences : there rages a murrain among the cows ; we dare not eat mUk, butter, beef, nor anything from that species. Unless there is snow or frost soon, It is Hkely to spread dreadfuUy ; though hitherto it has not reached many mUes from London. At ffrst, it was imagined that the Papists had poisoned the pools ; but the physicians have pronounced it infectious, and brought from abroad. ' Charles Radcliffe, brother of James, Earl of Derwentwater, who was executed for the share he took in the rebellion of 1'715. Charles was executed in 1746, upon the sentence pronounced against him in 1716, which he had then evaded, by escaping from Newgate. His son was Bartholomew, third Earl of Newburgh, a Scotch tiile ho inherited from his mother. — Dover. 1746.1 TO SIR HORACE MANN. 407 I forgot to tell you, that my uncle [old Horace] begged the Duke of Newcastle to stifle this report of the sham Pretender, lest the Kfrig should hear ff and recaU the Duke, as too great to fight a counterfeit. It is certain that the army adore the Duke, and are gone in the greatest spfrits ; and on the parade, as they began their march, the Guards vowed that they would neither give nor take quarter. For bravery, his Royal Highness is certainly no Stuart, but HteraUy loves to be In the act of fightfrig. His brother [the Prince of Wales] has so far the same taste, that the night of his new son's christening, he had the citadel of Carlisle in sugar at supper, and the company besieged it vrith sugar plums. It was weU imagined, considering the time and the circumstances. One thing was very proper ; old Marshal Stair was there, who is groAvn chUd enough to be fit to war only -with such artiUery. Another piece of ingenuity of that Court was on the report of Pitt befrig named Secretary at War. The Prince hates him, since the fall of Lord GranviUe : he said, Miss Chudleigh,' one of the Maids, was fitter for the emplojnnent ; and dictated a letter, which he made her Avrite to Lord Harrington, to desire he would draw the warrant for her. There were fourteen people at table, and aU were to sign it : the Duke of Queensberry' would not, as being a friend of Pitt, nor Mrs. Layton,' one of the dressers : however, it was actuaUy sent, and the footman ordered not to deHver it tiU Sir WiUiam Yonge was at Lord Harrington's — alas ! it would be endless to teU you aU his Caligulisms ! A ridiculous thing happened when the Princess saw company : the new-bom babe' was sHoaati in a mighty pretty cradle, designed by Kent, under a canopy in the great draAving- room. Sfr WUHam Stanhope went to look at it ; Mrs. Herbert, the governess, advanced to unmantle it : he said, " In wax, I suppose." —"Sfr!"— "In wax. Madam?"— "The young Prince, Sfr."— "Yes, in wax, I suppose." This is his odd humour : when he went to see this Duke at his birth, he said, " Lord : it sees ! " The good Provost of Edinburgh has been vrith Marshal Wade at Newcastle, and it is said, is coming to London — he must trust hugely to the inactirity of the IVIinistry! They have taken an ' Miaa Elizabeth Chudleigh, afterwarda the well-known Duchess of Kingston. The Maids of Honour of the Princess of Wales were at this time Albinia Selwyn, Elizabeth Hamilton, Lucy Boscawen, Miss Lawson, and Miss Chudleigh. — Cunningham. - Gay's Duke, husband of Gay's Duchess. — Cunningham. ' Jane Layton, one of the Bedchamber-women to the Princess — Cunningham. '' Henry Frederic, Duke of Cumberland, born 26 October, 1745 the same who married Mrs. Horton. — Cunningham. 408 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. agent there going vrith large contributions from the Roman CathoHcs, who have pretended to be so quiet ! The Duchess of Richmond, while her husband is at the army, was going to her grace of Norfolk : ' when he was very uneasy at her intention, she showed him letters from the Norfolk, " wherein she prays God that this vricked rebeUion may be soon suppressed, lest it hurt the poor Roman CathoHcs." But this vrise jaunt has made such a noise that it is laid aside. Your friend Lord SandArich has got one of the Duke of Montagu's regiments ; he stayed quietly tUl all the noise was over. He is now Lord of the Admfralty, Heutenant-colonel to the Duke of Bedford, aid-de-camp to the Duke of Richmond, and colonel of a regiment ! A friend of mine, Mr. Talbot, who has a good estate in Cheshire, vrith the great tithes, which he takes in kind, and has generally fifteen hundred pounds stock, has expressly ordered his steward to burn it, ff the rebels come that way : I don't think this AviU make a bad figure in Mr. Chute's brave gazette. As we go on prospering, I avUI take care to furnish hfrn vrith paragraphs, till he kiUs Ririera' and aU the faction. When my lovely Eagle comes, I ¦wffl consecrate it to his Roman memory ; don't think I want spirits more than he, when I beg you to send me a case of drams : I remember your getting one for Mr. Trevor. I guessed at having lost two letters from you in the packet-boat that was taken : I have received aU you mention, but those of the 21st and 28th of September, one of which I suppose was about Gib beme : his mother has told me how happy you have made her and him, for which I much thank you and your usual good-nature. Adieu ! I trust all my letters wUl grow better and better. You must have passed a lamentable scene of anxiety ; we have had a good deal ; but I think we grow In spirits again. There never was so melancholy a toAVn ; no kind of public place but the playhouses, and they look as ff the rebels had just driven away the company. No body but has some fear for themselves, for thefr money, or for thefr friends In the army : of this number am I deeply ; Lord Bury' and Mr. Conway, two of the first in my Hst, are aid-de-camps to ' Mary Blount, Duchess of Norfolk, the wife of Duke Edward. She and her husband were suspected of Jacobitism. — Dover. ' Cardinal Riviera, promoted to the purple by the interest of the Pretender.^ Walpole. '' George Keppel, eldest son of the Earl of Albemarle, whom he succeeded in thc title in 1754. — Walpole. 1745.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 409 the Duke, and another, Mr. CornwaUis,' is in the same army, and my nephew. Lord Malpas' — so I stIU fear the rebels beyond my reason. Good night. P.S. It is now generaUy beHeved from many circumstances, that the youngest Pretender is actuaUy among the prisoners taken on board the SoleU : pray Arish Mr. Chute joy for me. 202. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Dec. 9, 1746. I AM glad I did not write to you last post as I Intended ; I should have sent you an account that would have alarmed you, and the danger would have been over before the letter had crossed the sea. The Duke, from some strange want of intelHgence, lay last week for four-and-twenty hours under arms at Stone, in Stafford- shfre, expecting the rebels every moment, while they were marching in aU haste to Derby.' The news of this threw the to-wn into great consternation ; but his Royal Highness repaired his mistake, and got to Northampton, between the Highlanders and London. They got nine thousand pounds at Derby, and had the books brought to them, and obHged everybody to give them what they had subscribed against them. Then they retreated a few mUes, but returned again to Derby, got ten thousand pounds more, plundered the fcown, and burnt a house of the Countess of Exeter. They are gone again, and go back to Leake, in Staffordshire, but miserably harassed, and, it is said, have left aU their cannon behind them, and twenty waggons of sick. The Duke has sent General Hawley Arith the dragoons to harass them in their retreat, and despatched Mr. Conway to Marshal Wade, to hasten his march upon the back of them. They miist either go to North Wales, where they avUI probably aU perish, or ^ Scotland, vrith great loss. We dread them no longer. We are threatened with great preparations for a French invasion, but the coast is exceedingly guarded ; and for the people, the spirit against the rebels increases every day. Though they have marched thus ' Edward, brother of Earl CornwaUis, groom of the bedchamber to the King, and afterwards governor of Nova Scotia. — Walpole. - George, eldest aon of George, Earl of Cholmondeley, and of Mary, second daughtei of Sir Robert AA^alpole. — AValpole. ^ The consternation waa so great as to occasion that day being named Black Friday. — Walpole. 410 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745. into the heart of the kingdom, there has not been the least symptom of a rising, not even in the great toAvns of which they possessed themselves. They have got no recruits since their first entry into England, excepting one gentleman in Lancashire, one hundred and fffty common men, and two parsons, at Manchester, and a physician from York. But here in London, the aversion to them is amazing : on some thoughts of the King's going to an encampment at Finchley,' the weavers not only offered him a thousand men, but the whole body of the Law formed themselves into a Httle army, under the command of Lord Chief-Justice WUles,' and were to have done duty at St. James's, to guard the royal famUy in the King's absence. But the greatest demonstration of loyalty appeared on the prisoners being brought to toAvn from the SoleU prize : the young man is cer tairUy Mr. RadcUffe's son ; but the mob, persuaded of his being the youngest Pretender, could scarcely be restrained from tearing him to pieces aU the way on the road, and at his arrival. He said he had heard of EngHsh mobs, but could not conceive they were so dreadful, and Arished he had been shot at the battle of Dettingen, where he had been engaged. The father, whom they caU Lord Derwentwater, said, on entering the Tower, that he had never expected to arrive there aHve. For the young man, he must only be treated as a French captive ; for the father, it is sufficient to produce him at the Old Bailey, and prove that he is the indlridual person condemned for last RebelHon, and so to Tyburn. We begin to take up people, but it is Arith as much caution and timidity as women of quaHty begin to pawn thefr jewels ; we have not ventured upon any great stone yet ! The Provost of Edinburgh is in custody of a messenger ; and the other day they seized an odd man, who goes by the name of Count St. Germain. He has been here these two years, and AriU not teU who he is, or whence, but pro fesses that he does not go by his right name. He sings, plays on the violin wonderfuUy, composes, is mad, and not very sensible. He is caUed an ItaHan, a Spaniard, a Pole ; a somebody that married a great fortune in Mexico, and ran away Arith her jewels to Constan tinople ; a priest, a fiddler, a vast nobleman. The Prince of Wales has had unsatiated curiosity about him, but in vain. However, ' The march of the Guards to Finchley has been made immortal by Hogarth. — Cunningham. ' Sir John WUles, 'Knight, chief-justice of the common pleas from 1737 to 1762.— Dover. 1745.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 411 nothing has been made out against him ;' he is released ; and, what conrinces me that he is not a gentleman, stays hero, and talks of his being taken up for a spy. I think these accounts, upon which you may depend, must raise your spirits, and figure in Mr. Chute's loyal jom-nal. — But you don't get my letters : I have sent you eleven since I came to town ; how many of these have you received ? Adieu ! 203. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Dec. 20, 1745, I HAVE at last got your great letter by Mr. Gambler, and the riews of the vUlas,' for which I thank you much. I can't say I think them too well done, nor the vUlas themselves pretty, but the prospects are charming. I have since received two more letters from you, of November 30th and December 7th. You seem to receive mine at last, though very slowly. We have at last got a spring-tide of good luck. The rebels turned back from Derby, and have ever since been flying Arith the greatest precipitation. The Duke, Arith aU his horse, and a thou sand foot mounted, has pursued them vrith astonishing rapidity ; and General Oglethorpe, vrith part of Wade's horse, has crossed over upon them. There has been Httle prospect of coming up vrith their entfre body, but it dismayed them ; their stragglers were picked up, and the towns In thefr way preserved from plunder, by thefr not haAong time to do mischief. This morning an express is arrived from Lord Malton ' in Yorkshfre, who has had an account of Oglethorpe's cutting a part of them to pieces, and of the Duke's overtaking their rear and entirely demoHshing it. We beHeve aU this ; but, as it is not yet confirmed, don't depend upon it too much. The fat East India ships are arrived safe from Ireland — I mean the prizes ; ' In the beginning of the year 1765, on rumours of a great armament at Brest, one Virette, a Swiss, who had been a kind of toad-eater to this St. Germain, was denounced to Lord Holdemess for a spy ; but Mr. Stanley going pretty suriUy to his lordship, on his suspecting a friend of his, Virette waa declared innocent, and the penitent secretary of atate made him the amende honorable of a dinner in form. About thc same time, a spy of ours was seized at Brest, but not happening to be acquainted with Mr. Stanley, was broken upon the wheel. — Walpolb. - VUlas of the Florentine nobility.— Walpole. ' Sir Thomas Watson Wentworth, Knight of the Bath and Earl of Malton.— Walpole. Afterwards, 1746, Marquis of Rockingham. He died in 1750, and waa succeeded by his second son, the Minister Marquis of Rockingham.— Cunningham. 412 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745. and yesterday a letter arrived from Admfral Townshend in the West Indies, where he has faUen in with the Martinico fleet (each ship valued at eight thousand pounds), taken twenty, sunk ten, and driven ashore two men-of-war, their convoy, and battered them to pieces. AU this wUl raise the pulse of the stocks, which have been exceedingly low this week, and the bank itseff in danger. The private rich are making immense fortunes out of the pubHc distress : the dread of the French invasion has occasioned this. They have a vast embarkation at Dunkirk ; the Due de Richelieu, Marquis Fimarcon, and other general officers, are named in form to command. Nay, it has been notified in form by the insolent Lord John Drum mond,' who has got to Scotland, and sent a drum to Marshal Wade, to announce himseff commander for the French King in the war he designs to wage in England, and to propose a cartel for the exchange of prisoners. No answer has been made to this rebel ; but the King has acquainted the ParHament -with this audacious message. We have a vast fleet at sea ; and the main body of the Duke's army is conung doAvn to the coast to prevent their landing, ff they should slip our ships. Indeed, I can't beHeve they avUI attempt coining hither, as they must hear of the destruction of the rebels in England ; but they wUl, probably, dribble away to Scotland, where the war may last considerably. Into England, I scarce beHeve the Highlanders AriU be draAvn again :— to have come as far as Derby — to have found no rising in their favour, and to find themselves not strong enough to fight either army, avUI make lasting impressions ! Vemon, I hoar, is recaUed for his absurdities, and at his OAvn request, and Martin named for his successor. We had yesterday a very remarkable day in the House : the King notified his haring sent for six thousand Hessians into Scotland. Mr. Pelham for an address of thanks. Lord Cornbury (indeed, an exceedingly honest man ^) was for thanking for the notice, not for the sending for the troops ; and proposed to add a representation of the national being the only constitutional troops, and to hope we should be exonerated of these foreigners as soon as possible. Pitt, and that clan, joined him; but the voice of the House, and the desfres of the whole ' Brother of the titular Duke of Perth. — Walpole. - Henry Hyde, only son of Henry, the last Earl of Clarendon. He was called up to the House of Peers, by the style of Lord Hyde, and died unmarried, before his father, at Paris, 1753. — Walpole. Pope's Lord Cornbury, the same to whom Bolingbroke addrcRsed his "Letters on the Study of History," — and to whose comedy of " The Mistakes " Walpole wrote the " Advertisement," in the name of Mrs. Porter the actress (Works, i. 228). See vol. i., p. Ixiv. — Cunningham. 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 413 kingdom for all the troops we can get, were so strong, that, on the dirision, we were 190 to 44 : I think and hope this Arill produce some Hanoverians too. That it wUl produce a dismission of the Cobhamites is pretty certain ; the Duke of Bedford and Lord Gower are warm for both points. The latter has certainly renounced Jacobitism. Boetslaar is come again from Holland, but his errand not yet known. You AviU have heard of another victory' which the Prussian has gained over the Saxons ; very bloody on both sides : but now he Is master of Dresden. We again think that we have got the second son,' under the name of Macdonald. Nobody is permitted to see any of the prisoners. In the midst of our political distresses, which, I assure you, have reduced the toAvn to a state of Presbyterian dulness, we have been entertained Arith the marriage of the Duchess of Bridgewater' and Dick Lyttelton : she, forty, plain, very rich, and Arith five children ; he, six-and-twenty, handsome, poor, and proper to get her five more. I saw, the other day, a very good Irish letter. A gentleman in Dublin, fuU of the great quaHties of my Lord Chesterfield, has written a panegyric on them, particularly on his affabUity and humUity ; Arith a comparison between him and the hauteur of aU other lord-Heutenants. As an instance, he says, the earl was inrited to a great dinner, whither he went, by mistake, at one, instead of three. The master was not at home, the lady not dressed, every thing in confusion. My lord was so humble as to dismiss his train and take a hackney-chafr, and went and stayed vrith Mrs. Phipps tUl dinner-time — la belle humilite ! I am not at aU surprised to hear of my cousin Don Sebastian's stupidity. Why, chUd, he cannot articulate ; how would you have had him educated ? Cape Breton, Bastia, Martinico ! if we are undone this year, at least we go out with eclat. Good night. ' The battle of Kesselsdorf, gained by Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Desaau over the Saxon army, commanded by Count Rutowsky. This event took place on the 15th of December, and was followed by the taking of Dresden by the King of Prussia. — Dover. 2 Henry Stuart, afterwards Cardinal of York. This intelligence did not prove true. — Dover. ^ Lady Rachel Russel, eldest sister of John, Duke of Bedford, and widow of Scrope Egerton, Duke of Bridgewater ; married to her second hu.sband. Colonel Richard Lyttelton, brother of Sir George Lyttelton, and afterwarda Knight of rhe Bath. — Walpole. 414 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [174ft 204. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Jan. 3, 1746. I DEi'ERRED Writing to you till I could teU you that the rebeUion was at an end In England. The Duke has taken Carlisle, but was long enough before it to prove how basely or cowardly it was yielded to the rebel : you avUI see the particulars in the Gazette. His Royal Highness is expected in town every day ; but I stUl think it probable that he vriU go to Scotland.' That country is very clamorous for it. If the King does send him, it should not be vrith that sword of mercy with which the present famUy have govemed those people. All the world agrees in the fitness of severity to highwaymen, for the sake of the innocent who suffer ; then, can rigour be Ul placed against banditti who have so terrified, pUlaged, and injured the poor people in Cumberland, Lancashfre, Derbyshire, and the counties through which this rebeUion has stalked ? There is a miUtary magistrate of some fierceness sent into Scotland vrith Wade's army, who is coming to town ; it is General Hawley.' He avUI not sow the seeds of future disloyalty by too easUy pardoning the present. The French stiU go on Arith their preparations at Dunkirk and thefr sea-ports ; but, I think, few people beHeve now that they AviU be exerted against us : we have a numerous fleet in the Channel, and a large army on the shores opposite to France. The Dutch fear that aU this storm is to burst on them. Since the Queen's making peace Arith Prussia, the Dutch are applying to him for protection ; and, I am told, wake from thefr neutral lethargy. We are in a good quiet state here in toAvn ; the ParHament is reposing itseff for the holidays ; the uUnistry is in private agitation ; ' The Duke of Cumberland entered Carlisle on the 31st of December; but his pursuit of the Highlanders in person was interrupted by despatches, which called him to London, to be ready to take command against the projected invasion from France. — Wright. ^ Lieutenant General Henry Hawley, Governor of Portsmouth and Colonel of the Royal Regiment of DragoonP, died unmarried at his seat near Portsmouth, 24th March, 1769, aged 80. His extraordinary wiU i^ printed in the "The Gentleman's Magazine" for 1759, p. 167. — Cunningham. "Hawley," says Lord Mahon, "was .an officer of some experience, but destitute of capacity, and hated, not merely by his enemies, but by his own soldiers, for a most violent and vindictive temper. One of his first measures, on arriving at Edinburgh to take the chief command, was to order two gibbets to be erected, ready for the rebels who might fall into his hands ; and, with a similar view, he bid several executioners attend hia array on hia march " Vol iii. p. 357.— Wright. 1746] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 415 the Cobham part of the coaHtion is going to be disbanded ; Pitt's wUd ambition cannot content itseff Arith what he had asked, and had had granted ; and he has driven Lyttelton and the GrenviUes to adopt aU his extravagances. But then, they are at variance again vrithin themselves : Lyttelton's Avffe ' hates Pitt, and does not approve his governing her husband and hurting their famUy ; so that, at present, it seems he does not care to be a martyr to Pitt's caprices, which are in exceUent training ; for he is govemed by her mad Grace of Queensberry. All this makes foul weather ; but, to me, it is only a cloudy landscape. The Prince has dismissed Hume Campbell,' who was his SoHcitor, for attacking Lord Tweeddale ' on the Scotch affairs : the latter has resigned the Seals of Secretary of State for Scotland to-day. I con clude, when the holidays are over, and the rebeUion traveUed so far back, we shaU have warm inquiries in Parliament. This is a short letter, I perceive ; but I know nothing more ; and the Carlisle part of it wiU make you wear your beaver more erect than I beHeve you have of late. Adieu ! ' Lucy Fortescue, sister of Lord Clinton, first wife of Sir George, afterwards. Lord Lyttelton. — Walpole. She died in January, 1747, at the age of twenty-niue. — Wright. - Twin-brother to the Earl of Marchmont [see p. 117]; who, in hia diary of the 2nd of January, aaya, "My brother told me he had been, last night, with Mr Drax, the Prince's secretary, when he had notified to him, that the Prince expected all his family to go together to support the measures of the administration, and that, as Mr. Hume did not act so, he was to write him a letter, discharging him. In the conversation, Mr, Drax said, that the Prince waa to support the Pelhams, and that his dismission was to be .ascribed to Lord GranviUe. My brother said, that he had nothing to .say to the Prince, other than that he would support all the measures he thought conducive to the King's interests, tint no others. — Wright. ¦' The Marquis of Tweeddale was one of the discontented Whigs, during the administration of Sir Robert Walpole ; on whose removal he came to Court, and was made Secretary of State, attaching himself to Lord Granville's faction, whose youngest daughter, Frances, he afterwards married. He was reckoned a Rood civilian, but was a very dull man. — Walpole. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 3 9002 00515 3730 ' '' >lili'!'!:':.''W-i iiliii liiiittd'H ¦ ¦ IJ . .. 'I. l' ll|i|ii; 'iii'!;! Lii