of toil, especially long marches on foot, having applied himself to field-sports in Italy, and become an expert walker. His face was strikingly handsome, of a perfect oval, and a fair complexion; his eyes light blue; his features high and noble. Contrary to the custom of the time, which prescribed perukes, his own fair hair usually in long ringlets on his neck. This goodly person was enhanced by his graceful manners; frequently condescending to the most familiar kindness, yet always shielded by a regal dignity: he had a peculiar talent to please and to persuade, and never failed to adapt his conversation to the taste or to the station of those whom he addressed.” Hist. vol. iii. p. 280.-E.
363 Letter 132
To Sir Horace Mann.
March 5th, 1744, eight o’clock at night.
I have but time to write you a minute-line, but it will be a comfortable 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 Dunkirk, destroyed twelve of their transports, and obliged the whole number of troops, which were fifteen thousand, to debark. You may look upon the invasion is at an end, at least for the present; though, as every thing is coming to a crisis, one shall not be surprised to hear of the attempt renewed. We know nothing yet certain 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 all joy.
364 Letter 133
To Sir Horace Mann.
March 15th, 1744
I have nothing new to tell you: that great storm certainly saved us from the invasion-then.(910) Whether it has put an end to the design is uncertain. They say the embargo at Dunkirk and Calais is taken off, but not a vessel of ours is come in from thence. They have, indeed, opened again the communication with Ypres and Nieuport, etc. but we don’t yet hear whether they have renewed their embarkation. However, we take it for granted it is all over-from which, I suppose it will not be over. We expect the Dutch troops every hour. That reinforcement, and four thousand men from Ireland, will be all the advantage we shall have made of gaining time.
At last we have got some light into our Mediterranean affair, for there is no calling it a victory. Villettes has sent a courier, by which it seems we sunk one great Spanish ship; the rest escaped, and the French fled shamefully; that was, I suppose, designedly, and artfully. We can’t account for Lestock’s not coming up with his seventeen ships, and we have no mind to like it, which will not amaze you. We flatter ourselves that, as this was only the first day, we shall get some more creditable history of some succeeding day.
The French are going to besiege Mons: I wish all the war may take that turn; I don’t desire to see England the theatre of it. We talk no more of its becoming so, nor of the plot, than of the gunpowder-treason. Party is very silent; I believe, because the Jacobites have better hopes than from parliamentary divisions,-those in the ministry run very high, and, I think, near some crisis.
I have enclosed a proposal from my bookseller to the undertaker of the Museum Florentinum, or the concerners of it, as the paper called them; but it was expressed in such wonderfully-battered English, 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 sign of perspicuity, I hope, more intelligible. Adieu!
(910) “The pious motto,” says Mr. P. Yorke, “upon the medal struck by Queen Elizabeth after the defeat of the Armada, may, with as much propriety, be applied to this event-“Flavit ventO, et dissipati sunt;’ for, as Bishop Burnet somewhere observes, ‘our preservation at this juncture was one of those providential events, for which we have much to answer.”‘ MS. Parl. Journal.-E.
365 Letter 134
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,(911) that Monsieur Amelot had sent for him and given him notice to be gone, for a declaration of war with England was to be published in two days. Politically, I don’t think it so bad; for the very name of war, though in effect, on foot before,, must make our governors take more precautions; and the French declaring it will range the people more on our side than on the Jacobite: besides, the latter will have their communication with France cut off. But, my dear child, what lives, what misfortunes, must and may follow all this! As a man, I feel my humanity more touched than my spirit-I feel myself more an universal man than an Englishman! We have already lost seven millions of money and thirty thousand men in the Spanish war-and all the fruit of all this blood and treasure is the glory of having Admiral Vernon’s head on alehouse signs! for my part, I would not purchase another Duke of Marlborough at the expense of one life. How I should be shocked, were I a hero, when I looked on my own laurelled head on a medal, the reverse of which would be widows and orphans. How many such will 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 retired designedly, to come up to Brest, where we every day expect to hear of them. If Matthews does not follow them, adieu our triumphs in the Channel-and then! Sir John Norris has desired leave to come back, as little satisfied with the world as the world is with him. He is certainly very unfortunate;(912) but I can’t say I think he has tried to correct his fortune. If England is ever more to be England, this sure is the crisis to exert all her vigour. We have all the disadvantage of Queen Elizabeth’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?”(913)
I will not talk any more politically, but turn to hymeneals, with as much indifference as if I were a first minister. Who do you think is going to marry Lady Sophia Fermor?(914)-only Lord Carteret!-this very week!-a drawing-room conquest. Do but imagine how many passions will be gratified in that family! her own ambition, vanity, and resentment-love she never had any; the politics, management, and pedantry of the mother, who will think to govern her son-in-law out of Froissart.(915) Figure the instructions she will 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 and cleverness did deserve a better fate, than she was on the point of having determined for her for ever,. How graceful, how charming, and how haughtily condescending she will be! how, if Lincoln should ever hint past history, she will
“Stare upon the strange man’s face,
As one she ne’er had known!”(916)
I wonder I forgot to tell you that Doddington 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 silver medal, which has already 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 still occasion for all Providence!
I am very sorry for the young Sposa Panciatici, and wish all the other parents joy of the increase of their families. Mr. Whithed is en bon train; but the recruits he is raising will 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 public spirit. The other day, when the Jacobites and patriots were carrying every thing 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 replied, “I should love my country exceedingly,’If it were not for my countrymen.” Adieu!
(911) Chaplain to the late Lord Waldegrave; after whose death he acted as minister at Paris, till the war, when he returned, and was made a dean in Ireland.
(912) He was called by the seamen “Foul-weather Jack.”
(913) Motto of a medal of Charles the Second.
(914) Eldest daughter of Thomas, Earl of Pomfret.
(915) lady Pomfret had translated Froissart.
(916) Verses in Congreve’s Doris.
366 Letter 135
To Sir Horace Mann.
April 2, 1744.
I am afraid our correspondence will be extremely disjointed, and the length of time before you get my letters will make you very impatient, when all the world will be full of events; but I flatter myself that you will hear every thing sooner than by my letters; I mean, that whatever happens will be on the Continent; for the danger from Dunkirk seems blown over. We declared war on Saturday: that is all I know, for every body has been out of town for the Easter holidays. 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 all our strength in their preparations.
The town is persuaded that Lord Clinton (916) is gone to Paris to make peace – he is certainly gone thither, nobody knows why. He has gone thither every year -all his life, 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 religion, especially as his father-in-law, Bulkeley,(917), was colonel of one of the embarked regiments,) is gone to carry his sister to be married to a Count de Rohan,(918) and then returns, having a sign manual for leaving his wife there.
We shall not be surprised to hear that the Electorate(919) has got a new master; shall you? Our dear nephew of Prussia will probably take it, to keep it safe for us.
I had written thus far on Monday, and then my lord came from New Park: and I had no 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 falling dangerously ill 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 and the whole family. What do you think my lady intends? Adieu! my dear Sir! Pray for peace.
(916) 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 riband and star for one day, but thought better of it, and put them on the next. He was created Lord Fortescue and Earl of Clinton in 1746, and died in 1751.)
(917) Mr. Bulkeley, an Irish Roman Catholic, married the widow Cantillon, mother of the Countess of Stafford. He rose high in the French army, and had the cordon bleu: his sister was second wife of the first Duke of Berwick.
(918)Afterwards Duke of Rohan Chabot.-D.
(919) Of Hanover.-D.
367 Letter 136
To Sir Horace Mann.
London, April 15, 1744.
I could tell 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 town has made up a list of six and thirty weddings, which I shall 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 and the fair Sophia. On the point of matrimony she fell ill of a scarlet fever, and was given over, while he had the gout, but heroically sent her word, that if she was well, he would be so. They corresponded every day, and he used to plague the cabinet council with reading her letters to them. Last night they were married; and as all he does must have a particular air in it, they supped at Lord Pomfret’s: at twelve, Lady Granville, his mother, and all his family went to bed, but the porter: then my lord went home, and waited for her in the lodge: she came alone in a hackney-chair, met him in the hall, and was led up the back stairs to bed. What is ridiculously lucky is, that Lord Lincoln goes into waiting, to-day, and will be to present her! On Tuesday she stands godmother with the King to Lady Dysart’s(920) child, her new grand-daughter. I am impatient to see the whole m`enage; it will be admirable. There is a wild young Venetian ambassadress(921) come, who is reckoned very pretty. I don’t think so; she is foolish and childish to a degree. She said, “Lord! the old secretary is going to be married!” hey told her he was but fifty-four. “But fifty-four! why,” said she, “my husband is but two-and-forty, and I think him the oldest man in the world.” Did I tell you that Lord Holderness(922) goes to Venice with the compliments of accommodation, and leaves Sir James Grey resident there?
The invasion from Dunkirk seems laid aside. We talk little of our fleets – Sir John Norris has resigned -. Lestock is coming home, and sent before him great complaints of Matthews; so that affair must be cleared up. the King talks much of going abroad, which will not be very prudent. The campaign is not opened yet, but I suppose will disclose at once with great `eclat in several quarters.
I this instant receive your letter of March 31st, with the simple Demetrius, for which, however, I thank you. I hope by this time you have received all 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 troops, and call it the worst measure ever taken. Those terms so generally dealt to every measure successively, will at least soften the Hanoverian history.
Adieu! I have nothing more to tell you: I flatter myself you content yourself with news; I cannot write sentences nor sentiments. My best love to the Chutes, and now and then let my friends the Prince and Princess and Florentines know that I shall never forget their goodness to me. What is become of Prince Beauvau?
(920) Lady Grace Carteret, eldest daughter of Lord Carteret. She was married in 1729 to Lionel Tollemache, third Earl of Dysart; by whom she had fifteen children.-E.
(921) Wife of Signor Capello.
(922) Robert Darcy, Earl of Holderness, ambassador at Venice and the Hague, and afterwards secretary of state.
369 Letter 137
To Sir Horace Mann.
London, May 8, 1744.
I begin to breathe a little at ease; we have done with the Parliament for this year: it rises on Saturday. We have had but one material day lately, last Thursday. The Opposition had brought in a bill to make it treason to correspond with the young Pretenders:(923) the Lords added a clause, after a long debate, to make it a forfeiture of estates, as it is for dealing with the father. We sat till one in the morning, and then carried it by 255 to 106. It was the best debate I ever heard.(924) The King goes to Kensington to-morrow, and not abroad. We hear of great quarrels between Marshal Wade and Duc d’Aremberg. The French King is at Valenciennes with Monsieur de Noailles, who is now looked upon as first minister. He is the least dangerous for us of all. It is affirmed that Cardinal Tencin is disgraced, who was the very worst for us. If he is, we shall at least have no invasion this summer. Successors of ministers seldom take up the schemes of their predecessors; especially such as by failing caused their ruin, which, I believe, was Tencin’s case at Dunkirk.
For a week we heard of the affair at Villafranca in a worse light than was true: it certainly turns out ill for both sides. Though the French have had such a bloody loss, I cannot but think they will carry their point, and force their passage into Italy.
We have no domestic news, but Lord Lovel’s being created Earl of Leicester, on an old promise which my father had obtained for him. Earl Berkeley(925) is married to Miss Drax, a very pretty maid of honour to the Princess; and the Viscount Fitzwilliam(926) to Sir Matthew Decker’s eldest daughter , but these are people I am sure you don’t know.
There is to be a great ball tomorrow at the Duchess of Richmond’s for my Lady Carteret: the Prince is to be there. Carteret’s court to 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, tr`es grande dame; full of herself, and yet not with an air of happiness. She looks ill and is grown lean, but is still the finest figure in the world. The mother 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 town yet; I don’t propose to be at Houghton till August. Adieu!
(923) Charles Edward, and Henry his brother, afterwards the Cardinal of York.-D.
(924) The Honourable Philip Yorke, in his MS. Parliamentary Journal, says, “it was a warm and long d(.-bate, 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 this occasion 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 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.”-E.
(925) Augustus. fourth Earl Berkeley, Knight of the Thistle. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Drax, Esq, of Charborough, in Dorsetshire; and died in 1755.-D.
(926) Richard, sixth Viscount Fitzwilliam in Ireland, married Catherine, daughter and heiress of Sir Matthew Decker, Bart., and died in 1776.-E.
370 Letter 138
To Sir Horace Mann.
London, May 29, 1744.
Since I wrote I have received two from you of May 6th and 19th. I am extremely sorry you get mine so late. I have desired 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 full 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 their desertion is prodigious, and their troops extremely bad. Fourteen thousand more Dutch are ordered, and their six thousand are going from hence with 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 present ministry fear the detection of conspiracies more than the thing itself: that is, they fear every thing that they are to do themselves.
My father has been extremely ill, from a cold he caught last week at New-park. Princess Emily came thither to fish, and he, who is grown quite indolent, and has not been out of a hot room this twelve- month, sat an hour and a half 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 him with his infirmities. My sister was at his bedside; I came into the room,-he burst into tears and could not speak to me – but he is quite well now; though I cannot say I think he will preserve his life long, as he has laid aside all exercise, which has been of such vast service to him. he talked the other day of shutting himself up in the farthest wing at Houghton; I said, “Dear, my Lord, you will be at a distance from all the family there!” He replied, “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 Chiswick, he said,- to my Lady Burlington, “Look at our Saviour there! how ill they have crucified him!”(927)
There is a Prince of Ost-Frize(928) dead, which is likely to occasion most unlucky broils: Holland, Prussia, and Denmark have all pretensions to his succession; but Prussia is determined to make his good. If the Dutch don’t dispute it, he will 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 fell in love with Lady Caroline Lennox;(929) asked her, was refused, and stole her. His father(930) was a footman; her great grandfather a king: hinc illae, lachrymae! all 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 Caroline had been stolen, there could not have been more noise made. The Pelhams, who arc much attached to the Richmonds, but who have tried to make Fox and all that set theirs, wisely entered into the quarrel, and now don’t know how to get out of it. They were for hindering Williams,(931) who is Fox’s great friend, and at whose house they were married, from having the red riband; but he has got it, with four others, the Viscount Fitzwilliam, Calthorpe, Whitmore, and Harbord. Dashwood, 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 obliged to you for all your Sardinian and Neapolitan journals. I am impatient for the conquest of Naples, and have no notion of neglecting sure things, which may serve by way of d`edommagement.
I am very sorry I recommended such a troublesome booby to you. Indeed, dear Mr. Chute, I never saw him, but was pressed by Mr. Selwyn, whose brother’s friend he is, to give him that letter to you. I now hear that he is a warm Jacobite; I suppose you somehow disobliged him politically.
We are now mad about tar-water, on the publication of a book that I will send you, written by Dr. Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne.(932) The book contains every subject from tar-water to the Trinity; however, all the women read, and understand it no more than they would if it were intelligible. A man came into an apothecary’s shop the other day, “Do you sell tar-water?” “Tar-water!” replied the apothecary, “why, I sell nothing else!” Adieu!
(927) Pope died the day after this letter was written; “in the evening,” says Spence, “but they did not know the exact time; for his departure was so easy, that it was imperceptible even to the standers by.”
(928) The Prince of East Friesland.
(929) Eldest daughter of Charles Duke of Richmond, grandson of King Charles II.
(930) Sir Stephen Fox.
(931) Sir C. Hanbury Williams.
(932) Having cured himself of a nervous colic by the use of tar-water, the bishop this year published a book entitled “Philosophical Reflections and Enquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar-water.’,-E.
372 Letter 139
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 Englishman, to expect all this -but what if all these 10 paeans should be played to the Dunkirk tune? I must prepare you for some such thing; for unless the French are as much their own foes as we are our own, I don’t see what should hinder the festival to-day(933) being kept next year a day sooner. But I will draw no consequences; only sketch you out our present situation: and if Cardinal Tencin can miss making his use of it, we may burn our books and live hereafter upon good fortune.
The French King’s army is at least ninety thousand strong; has taken Menin already, and Ypres almost. Remains then only Ostend; which you will look in the map and see does not lie in the high road to the conquest of the Austrian Netherlands. Ostend may be laid under water, and the taking it an affair of time. But there lies all our train of artillery Which cost two hundred thousand pounds; and what becomes of our communication with our army? Why, they may go round by Williamstadt, and be in England just time enough to be some other body’s army! It turns out that the whole combined army, English, Dutch, Austrians, and Hanoverians, does not amount to above thirty-six thousand fighting men! and yet forty thousand more French, under the Duc d’Harcourt are coming into Flanders. When their army is already so superior to ours, for what can that reinforcement be intended, but to let them spare a triumph to Dunkirk? Now you will naturally 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 their barrier is in the hands of the Queen or the Emperor and while you are so mad, think it prudent not to be so themselves. For our own force, it is too melancholy to mention: six regiments go away to-morrow to Ostend, with the six thousand Dutch. Carteret and Botzlaer, the Dutch envoy extraordinary, would have hurried them away without orders; but General Smitsart, their 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 live to be mistaken!” When these troops are gone, we shall not have in the whole island above six thousand men, even when the regiments are complete; and half of those pressed and new-listed men. For our sea-force, I wish it may be greater in proportion! Sir Charles Hardy, whose name(934) at least is ill-favoured, is removed, and old Balchen, a firm Whig, put at the head of the fleet. Fifteen ships are sent for from Matthews; but they may come as opportunely as the army from Williamstadt-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 living to see how terribly his own conduct is justified. In the city the word is, “Old Sunderland’S(935) game is acting over again.” Tell me if you receive this letter: I believe you will 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 fell 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 well for all the service she can do us. If she can work miracles, now is her time. If she can’t, I believe we all shall be forced to adore her. Adieu! Tell Mr. Chute I fear we should not be quite so well received at the conversazzioni, at Madame de Craon’s, and the Casino,(936) when we are but refugee heretics. Well, we must hope! Yours I am, and we will bear our wayward fate together.
(933) The 10th of June was the Pretender’s birthday, and the 11th the accession of George II.
(934) He was of a Jacobite family.
(935) Lord Sunderland, who betrayed James II.
(936) The Florentine coffee-house.
373 Letter 140
To Sir Horace Mann.
London, June 18, 1744.
I have not any immediate bad news to tell you in consequence of my last. The siege of Ypres does not advance so expeditiously as was expected; a little time gained in sieges goes a great way in a campaign. The Brest squadron is making just as great a figure in our channel as Matthews does before Toulon and Marseilles. I should be glad to be told by some nice computers of national glory, how much the balance is on our side.
Anson(937) is returned with vast fortune, substantial and lucky. He has brought the Acapulca ship into Portsmouth, and its treasure is at least computed at five hundred thousand pounds. He escaped the Brest squadron by a mist. You will have all the particulars in a gazette.
I will not fail 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 any body. I was with them all 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 well pleased at her condescending to take it to herself. My lord stayed with her there till four in the morning. They are all fondness -walk together, and stop every five steps to kiss. Madame de Craon is a cypher to her for grandeur. The ball 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 all her dress:-“How charming your ladyship’s cross is! I am sure the design was your own.”-“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. Do you wonder I say better things than any body?
I send you by a ship going to Leghorn the only new books at all worth reading. The Abuse(938) of Parliaments is by Doddington and Waller, circumstantially scurrilous. The dedication of the Essay(939) to my father is fine; pray mind the quotation from Milton. There is Dr. Berkeley’s mad book on tar-water, which has made every body as mad as himself.
I have lately made a great antique purchase of all Dr. Middleton’s collection which he brought from Italy, and which he is now publishing. I will send you the book as soon as it comes out. I would not buy the things till the book was half printed, for fear of an `e Museo Walpoliano.-Those honours are mighty well for such known and learned men as Mr. Smith,(940) the merchant of Venice. My dear Mr. Chute, how we used to enjoy the title-page(941) of his understanding! Do you remember how angry he was when showing us a Guido, after pompous roomsfull of Sebastian Riccis, which he had a mind to establish for capital pictures, you told him he had now made amends for all 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(942) whom he employed to ask it – yet it was not a point that required capacity-merely gratitude. Adieu!
(937) The celebrated circumnavigator, afterwards a peer, and first lord of the admiralty.-D.
(938) Detection of the Use and Abuse of Parliaments, by Ralph, under the direction of Doddington and Waller.
(939) Essay on Wit, Humour, and Ridicule, by Corbyn Morris.
(940) Mr. Smith, consul at Venice, had a fine library” of which he knew nothing at all but the title-pages.
(941) Expression of Mr. Chute.
(942) Mr. Pelham.
375 Letter 141
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(943)
Arlington Street, June 29, 1744.
My dearest Henry,
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 administration of attempting to know any one kind of thing! I remember when I was at Eton, and Mr. Bland(944) had set me an extraordinary task, I used sometimes to pique myself upon not getting it, because it was not immediately my school business. What! learn more than I was absolutely forced to learn! I felt the weight of learning that; for I was a blockhead, and pushed up above my parts.
Lest you maliciously think I mean any application of this last sentence any where in the world, I shall go and transcribe some lines out of a new poem, that pretends to great impartiality, but is evidently wrote by some secret friend of the ministry. It is called Pope’s, but has no good lines but the following. 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 transition to show that all the present misfortunes of the world flow from a parallel disagreement; for instance, in politics:
“Ask 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(945) and giving Europe laws, That camps, and fleets, and treaties fill the news, And succours unobtain’d and unaccomplish’d views.
“Like solemn Burton grave Plumbosus acts; He thinks 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 concerned 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 will never tell me any news till it has past every impression of the Dutch gazette; for one is apt to mention what is wrote 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,-especially for an absurd one, which is just possible.
If I was writing to any body but you, who know me so well, I should be afraid this would be taken for pique and pride, and be construed into my thinking all ministers inferior to my father but, my dear Harry, you know it was never my foible to think over-abundantly well of him. Why I think as I do of the great geniuses, answer for me, Admiral Matthews, great British Neptune, bouncing in the Mediterranean, while the Brest squadron is riding in the English Channel, and an invasion from Dunkirk every moment threatening your coasts: against which you send for six thousand Dutch troops, while you have twenty thousand of your own in Flanders, which not being 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 third part of which half 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 military, we find we have no force at home; we send for fifteen ships from the Mediterranean to guard our coasts, and demand twenty from the Dutch. The first fifteen will be here, perhaps in three months. Of the twenty Dutch, they excuse all but six, of which six they send all but four; and your own small 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-and ten-subtract twenty-add half the first number-take away all you added: now, what remains?
That you may 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 totally beat Vauxhall. Nobody goes any where else-every body goes there. My Lord Chesterfield is so fond of it, that he says he has ordered all his letters to be directed thither. If you had never seen it, I would make you a most pompous description of it, and tell you how the floor is all of beaten princes-you can’t set your foot without treading on a Prince of Wales or Duke of Cumberland. The company is universal: there is from his Grace of Grafton down to Children out of the Foundling Hospital- from my Lady Townshend to the kitten–from my Lord Sandys to your humble cousin and sincere friend.
(943) Now first printed.
(944) Dr. Henry Bland, head-master, and from 1732 to his death, in 1746, provost of Eton College. In No. 628 of the Spectator is a Latin version by him of Cato’s soliloquy.-E.
(945) This is nonsense@H. W.
377 Letter 142
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 fourscore thousand men-where, and with what circumstances, I don’t know a word; ma basta cos`i. It is said, too, that the Marquis de la Ch`etardie(946) is sent away from Russia: but this one has no occasion to believe. False good news are always produced by true good, like the waterfall by the rainbow. But why do I take upon me to tell you all this?-you, who are the centre of ministers and business! the actuating genius in the conquest of Naples! You cannot imagine how formidable you appear to me. My poor little, quiet Miny, with his headache and `epuisements, and Cocchio, and coverlid of cygnet’s down, that had no dealings but with a little spy-abb`e at Rome, a civil whisper with Count Lorenzi,(947) or an explanation on some of Goldsworthy’s absurdities, or with Richcourt about some sbirri,(948) 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 with Prince lobkowitz, Cardinal Albani(949) and Admiral Matthews! Why, my dear child, I should not know you again; I should not dare to roll you up between a finger and thumb like wet brown paper. Well, 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(950) to take a journey hither. My Lady Carteret would take violently to any thing that came so far as to adore her grandeur. I believe even my Lady Pomfret would be persuaded he had seen the star of their glory travelling westward to direct him. For my part, I expect soon to make a figure too in the political magazine, for all our Florence set is coming to grandeur; but you and my Lady Carteret have outstripped me. I remain with -the Duke of Courtland in Siberia-my father has actually gone thither for a long season. I met my Lady Carteret the other day at Knaptons,(951) and desired leave to stay while she sat for her picture. She is drawn crowned with corn, like the Goddess of Plenty, and a mild dove in her arms, like Mrs. Venus. We had much of my lord and my lord. The countess-mother 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 politically as if’ you yourself had been there in person.
To fill up this sheet, I shall transcribe some very good lines published 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 mouldering, more ignoble part of Pope; The hard, whose sprightly genius dared to wage Poetic war with an immoral age;
Made every vice and private folly known In friend and foe–a stranger to his own Set Virtue in its loveliest form to view, And still professed to be the sketch he drew. As humour or as interest served, his verse Could praise or flatter, libel or asperse: 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 dunces whom his malice made- The impious plague of the defenceless dead: To real knaves 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 greater part was his true character; Here is another epitaph by Rolli;(952) which for the profound fall in some of the verses’, especially in the last, will divert you.
“Spento `e il Pope: de’ poeti Britanni Uno de’ lumi che sorge in mille anni:
Pur si vuol che la macchia d’Ingrato N’abbia reso il fulgor men sereno:
Stato fora e pi`u giusto e pi`u grato. Men lodando e biasmando ancor meno.”
(946) French ambassador at the court of St. Petersburg, and for some time a favourite of the Empress Elizabeth. The report of his disgrace was correct. He died in 1758.-E.
(947) A Florentine, but employed as minister by France.
(948) The officers of justice, who are reckoned so infamous in Italy, that the foreign ministers have always pretended to hinder them from passing through the streets where they reside.
(949) Cardinal Alexander Albani, nephew of Clement XI. was minister of the Queen of Hungary at Rome.
(950) Giovanni Battista Uguecioni, a Florentine nobleman, and great friend of the Pomfrets.
(951) George Knapton, a portrait painter. Walpole says, he was well versed in the theory of painting, and had a thorough knowledge of the hands of the good masters. He died at Kensington, in 1778, at the age of eighty.-E.
(952) Paolo Antonio Rolli, composer of the operas, translated and published several things. [Thus hitched into the Dunciad-
“Rolli 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.”
379 Letter 143
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, July 20, 1744.
My dearest Harry,
I feel that I have so much to say to you, that I foresee there will be but little method in my letter; but if, 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 call 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 a 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 myself to give you my account of it, but, by your brother’s desire, suppressed my letter, and left it to be explained by him, who wrote to you so sensibly on it, that I shall say no more but that I think myself so ill-used that it will prevent my giving you thoroughly the advice you ask of me for how can I be sure that my resentment might not make me see in a stronger light the reasons for your breaking off an affair(953) which you know before I never approved?
You know my temper is so open to any body 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 silence 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 if you bore it? But, my dearest Harry, how can I advise you now? Is it not gone too far -for me to expect you should keep any resolution about it, especially in absence, which must be destroyed the moment you meet again? And if ever you should marry and be happy, won’t you reproach me with having tried to hinder it? I think you as just and honest as I think any man living; but any man living in that circumstance would think I had been prompted by private reasons. I see as strongly as you can all the arguments for your breaking off; but, indeed, the alteration of your fortune adds very little 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 believe this change will alter her sentiments, for I must do her the justice to say that it is plain she preferred you with nothing to all the world. I could talk upon this head, but I will only leave you to consider, without advising YOU On either side, these two things-whether you think it honester to break off with her after such engagements as yours (how strong 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 will wait with her till 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 with her (for, without 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 will forgive my declining, an act of friendship which your having put in my power gives me the greatest satisfaction. But it does put something else in my power, which I am sure nothing can make me decline, and for which I have long wanted an opportunity. Nothing could prevent my being unhappy at the smallness 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 still (though my Lord Walpole has cut off three hundred pounds a-year to save himself the trouble of signing his name ten times for once) bring me in near two thousand pounds a-year. I have no debts, no connexions; indeed, no -way to dispose of it particularly. By living with my father, I have little real use for a quarter of it. I have always flung it away all in the most idle manner; but, my dear Harry, idle -,is I am, and thoughtless, I have sense enough to have real pleasure in denying myself 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 with, even in having such an offer made him, much more in accepting it. I hope you will allow there are some in making it. But hear me: if there is such a thing as friendship in the world, these are the opportunities of exerting it, and it can’t be exerted without it is accepted. I must talk of myself to prove to you that it will be right for ‘you to accept it. I am sensible of having more follies and weaknesses, and fewer real good qualities than most men. I sometimes reflect on this, though I own too seldom. I always want to begin acting like a man, and a sensible one, which I think I might b, if 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 foolishly fond of twenty new people; but I don’t really love them-I have always loved you constantly: I am willing to convince you and the world, what I have always told you, that I loved you better than any body. If I ever felt much for any thing, which I know may be questioned, it was certainly my mother. I look on you as my nearest relation by her, and I 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.]
(953) This was an early attachment of Mr. Conway’s. By his having complied with the wishes and advice of his friends 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. (the lady alluded to was Lady Caroline Fitzroy, afterwards Countess of Harrington, whose sister, Lady Isabella, had, three years before, married Mr. Conway’s elder brother, afterwards Earl and Marquis of Hertford.]
381 Letter 144
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, July 22, 1744.
I have not written to you, my dear child, a good while, I know but, indeed, it was from having nothing to tell you. You know I love you too well for it to be necessary to be punctually proving it to you; so, when I have nothing worth your knowing, I repose myself upon’ the persuasion that you must have of my friendship. But I will never let that grow into any negligence, I should say, idleness, which is always mighty ready to argue me out of every thing I ought to do; and letter-writing is one of the first duties that the very best people let perish out of their rubric. Indeed, I pride myself extremely 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 entirely out of all the little circumstances of each other’s society, and which are the soul of letters. We are forced to deal only in great events, like historians; and, instead of being Horace Mann and Horace Walpole, seem to correspond as Guicciardin and Clarendon would:
Discedo Alceus puncto Illius; ille meo quis! Quis nisi Callimachus?
Apropos to writing histories and Guicciardin; I wish to God, Boccalini was living! never was such an opportunity for Apollo’s playing off a set of looks, 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, have given one Carte,(954) a Jacobite parson, fifty pounds a-year, for seven years, to write the history of England; and four aldermen and six common councilmen are to .inspect his materials and the progress of the work. Surveyors and common sewers turned supervisors of literature! To be sure, they think a history of England is no more than Stowe’s Survey of the Parishes! Instead of having books published with the imprimatur of an university, they Will be printed, as churches are whitewashed, John Smith and Thomas Johnson, churchwardens.
But, brother historian, you will wonder I should have nothing to communicate, when all Europe is bursting with events, and every day “big with 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 tell us, ours is crossing the Scheldt to attack the Count de Saxe, now that we arc equal to him, from our reinforcement and his diminutions. In the mean time, as I am at least one of the principal heroes of my own politics, being secure of any invasion, I am going to leave all my lares, that is, all 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,(955) Lady Shannon’s daughter; she has thirty thousand pounds, and may have as much more, if her mother, who is a plain widow, don’t happen to Nugentize.(956) The girl is low and ugly, but a vast scholar.
Young Churchill has got a daughter by the Frasi;(957) Mr. Winnington calls it the opera-comique ; the mother is an opera girl; the grandmother was Mrs. Oldfield.
I must tell you of a very extraordinary print, which my Lady Burlington gives away, of her daughter Euston, -with 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.
Born May 14, 1724, married alas! Oct. 10, 1741, an delivered from extremest misery May 2, 1742.
This print was taken from a picture drawn by memory seven weeks after her death, by her most afflicted mother; DOROTHY BURLINGTON.(958)
I am forced to begin a new sheet, lest you should think my letter came from my Lady Burlington, as it ends so patly with her name. But is it not a most melancholy way of venting oneself? She has drawn numbers of these pictures: I don’t approve her having them engraved; but sure the inscription(959) is pretty.
I was accosted the other night by ‘a little, pert petit-maitre figure, that claimed me for acquaintance. Do you remember to have seen at Florence an Abb`e Durazzo, of Genoa? well, this was he: it is mighty dapper and French: however, I will be civil to it: I never lose opportunities of paving myself an agreeable passage back to Florence. My dear Chutes, stay for me: I think the first gale of peace will 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 line. 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 without 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 with her at Ranelagh the other night, and a Spanish refugee marquis,(960) 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 Pelham. Lady Carteret, with an accent of energy, replied, “J’esp`ere qu’il 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 and lame.”
Adieu! here is company; I think I may be excused leaving off at the sixth side.
(954) Thomas Carte, a laborious writer of history. His principal works are, his Life of the Duke of Ormonde, in three volumes, folio, and his History of England, in four. He died in 1754.-D. [The former, though ill-written, was considered by Dr. Johnson as a work of authority; and of the latter Dr. Warton remarks, “You may read Hume for his eloquence, but Carte is the historian for facts.”]
(955) Grace Boyle, daughter and sole heiress of Richard, Viscount Shannon. She became afterwards a favourite of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and died in 17 63.-D.
(956) See ant`e, p. 205. (Letter 48)
(957 Prima donna at the opera.
(958) This is an incorrect copy of the inscription on Lady Euston’s picture given in a note at 329 of this volume.-D. (Letter 110, p. 328/9)
(959) It is said to be Pope’s.
(960) The Marquis Tabernego.
383 Letter 145
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Aug. 6, 1744.
I don’t tell you any thing about Prince Charles, for you must hear all 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 retire-just as two months ago we retired and they advanced: but it is good to be leading up this part of the tune. Lord Stair is going into Scotland: the King is grown wonderfully fond of him, since he has taken the resolution of that journey. He said the other day, “I wish my Lord Stair was in Flanders! General Wade is a very able officer, but he is not alert.” I, in my private litany, am beseeching the Lord, that he may contract none of my Lord Stair’s alertness.
When I first wrote you word of la Ch`etardie’s disgrace, I did not believe it; but you see it is now public. What I like is, her Russian Majesty’s making her amour keep exact pace with her public 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 hair of a Muscovite Majesty in the light of the chairs which Gulliver made out of the combings of the Empress of Brobdignag’s tresses: the stumps he made into very good large-tooth combs. You know the present is a very Amazon. she has grappled with all her own grenadiers. I should like to see their loves woven into a French opera: La Ch`etardie’s character is quite adapted to the civil discord of their stage: and then a northern heroine to reproach him in their outrageous quavers, would make a most delightful crash of sentiment, impertinence, gallantry, contempt, and screaming. The first opera that I saw at Paris, I could not believe was in earnest, but thought they had carried me to the op`era-comique. The three acts of the piece(961) were three several interludes, of the Loves of Antony and Cleopatra, of Alcibiades and the Queen of Sparta, and of Tibuilus with a niece of Macenas; besides something of Circe, who was screamed by a Mademoiselle Hermans, seven feet high. She was in black, with a nosegay of black (for on the French stage they pique themselves on propriety,) and without powder: whenever you are a widow, are in distress, or are a witch, you are to leave off powder.
I have no news for you, and am going to have less, for I a)n going into Norfolk. I have stayed till I have not one acquaintance left: the next billow washes me last off the plank. I have not cared to stir, for fear of news from Flanders; but I have convinced myself that there will be none. Our army is much superior to the Count de Saxe; besides, they have ten large towns to garrison, which will reduce their army to nothing; or they must leave us the towns to walk into coolly.
I have received yours of July 21. Did neither I nor your brother tell you, that we had received the Neapolitan snuff-box?(962) 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, all which you mention to have sent. Lestock has long been arrived, so to be sure the cases never came with him: I hope Matthews will discover them. Pray thank Dr. Cocchi very particularly for his book.
I am very sorry too for your father’s removal; it was not done in the most obliging manner by Mr. Winnington; there was something exactly like a breach of promise in it to my father, which was tried to be softened by a civil alternative, that was no alternative at all. He was forced to it by my Lady Townshend, who has an implacable aversion to all my father’s people; and not having less to Mr. Pelham’s, she has been as brusque with Winnington about them. He has no principles himself, and those no principles of his are governed absolutely by hers, which are no-issimes.
I don’t know any of your English. I should delight in your Vauxhall-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,(963) in Henry the Eighth’s time; he was in love with the fair Geraldine of Florence; I have a mind to write under the Grifona’s picture these two lines 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 something prodigiously expressive and gallant in those days, by its being unintelligible now. Adieu! Do the Chutes cicisb`e it?
(961) I think it was the ballet de la paix.
(962) It was for a present to Mr. Stone, the Duke of Newcastle’s secretary
(963) Henry Howard, son of the Duke of Norfolk. Under a charge of high-treason, of which he was manifestly innocent, this noble soldier and accomplished poet was found guilty, and in 1547, in his thirty-first year, was beheaded on Tower Hill. History is silent as to the name of fair Geraldine.-E.
385 Letter 146
To Sir Horace Mann.
London, Aug. 16, 1744.
I am writing to you two or three days beforehand, by way of settling my affairs-not that I am going to be married or to die; but something as bad as either if it were to last as long. You will guess that it can only be going to Houghton; but I make as much an affair of that, as other people would of going to Jamaica. Indeed I don’t lay in store of cake and bandboxes, and citron-water, and cards, and cold meat, as country-women do after the session. My packing-up and travelling concerns lie in very small compass; nothing but myself 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 travel without company; for then I take my own hours and my own humours, which I don’t think the most tractable to shut up in a coach with 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 with another person. I have found out that it will have its way, but I make it take its way by itself. It is such sort of reflection as this, that makes me hate the country: it is impossible in one house with one set of company, to be always enough upon one’s guard to make one’s self 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 live there now and then alone, or frequently changing my company, I am persuaded I should like it; at least, I fancy I should; for when one begins to reflect why one don’t like the country, I believe one grows near liking to reflect in it. I feel very often that I grow to correct twenty things in myself, as thinking them ridiculous at my age; and then with my spirit of whim and folly, I make myself believe that this is all prudence, and that I wish I were young enough to be as thoughtless and extravagant as I used to be. But if I know any thing of the matter, this is all flattering myself. I grow older, and love my follies less-if I did not, alas! poor prudence and reflection!
I think I have pretty well exhausted the chapter of myself. I will now go talk to YOU Of another fellow, who makes me look upon myself as a very perfect character; for as I have little merit naturally, and only pound a stray virtue now @ind then by chance, the other gentleman seems to have no vice, rather no villainy, but what he nurses in himself and metliodizes with as much pains as a stoic would patience. Indeed his pains are not thrown away. This painstaking person’s name is Frederic, King of Prussia. Pray remember for the future never to speak of him and H. W. without giving the latter the preference. Last week we were all alarm! He was before Prague with 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 militias and loyal nobilities. The King of Poland is to attack him on his march, and the Russians to fall on Prussia.(964) In the mean time, his letter or address to the people of England(965) has been published here: it is a poor performance! His Voltaires and his litterati should correct his works before they are printed. A careless song, with a little nonsense in it now and then, does not misbecome a monarch; but to pen manifestoes worse than the lowest commis that is kept jointly by two or three margraves, is insufferable!
We are very strong in Flanders, but still expect to do nothing this campaign. The French are so entrenched, 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 the 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 all bloody, and with the lappet of his coat held up full of ears: he had been in the stable and cropped all the horses! He is shut up.(966) My lady is in the honeymoon of her grandeur: she lives in public places, whither she is escorted by the old beaux of her husband’s court; fair white-wigged old gallants, the Duke of Bolton,(967) Lord Tweedale, Lord Bathurst, and Charles Fielding;(968) and she all over knots, and small hoods, and ribands. Her brother told me the other night, “Indeed I think my thister doesth countenanth Ranelagh too mutch.” They call 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 tell you two or three strokes in it that I have heard. Pierot asks Harlequin, “Que donne-t’on aux g`en`eraux qui ne se sont pas trouv`es `a la bataille!” Harl. “On leur donne le cordon rouge.” Pier. “Et que donne-t’on au g`en`eral en Chef(969 qui a gagn`e la victoire!” Harl. “Son cong`e.” Pier. “Qui a soin des bless`es?” Harl. “L’ennemi.” Adieu!
(964) This alludes to the King of Prussia’s retreat from Prague, on the approach of the Austrian army commanded by Prince Charles Lorraine.-D.
(965) In speaking of this 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 is certainly a very artful prince, and I cannot but think his projects and his ambition still more extensive, than people at present imagine them.”-E.
(66) On the death of his father this son succeeded to the earldom in 1763. He died in 1776, when the title became extinct.-E.
(967) Charles Poulett, third Duke of Bolton.
(968) The Hon, Charles Fielding, third son of William, third Earl of Denbigh; a lieutenant-colonel in the guards, and Gentleman-usher to Queen Caroline. He died in 1765.-E.
(969) Lord Stair.-D.
387 Letter 147
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, Sept. 1, 1744.
I wish you joy of your victory at Velletri!(970) I call it yours, for you are the great spring of all that war. I intend to publish your life, with an Appendix, that shall contain all the letters to you from princes, cardinals, and great men of the time. In speaking of Prince Lobkowitz’s attempt to seize the King of Naples at Velletri, I shall say: “for the share our hero had in this great action, vide the Appendix, Card. Albani’s letter, p. 14.” You shall no longer be the dear Miny, but Manone, the Great Man; you shall figure with the Great Pan, and the Great Patapan. I wish 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 first, nor the Prince of Conti advanced within three days of Turin, and the King of Prussia would already have been terrified from entering the last-all this lumping bad news came to counterbalance your Neapolitan triumphs. Here is all the war to begin again! and perhaps next winter a second edition of Dunkirk. We could not even have the King of France die, though he was so near it. He was in a woful fright, and promised the Bishop of Soissons, that if he lived, he would have done with his women.(971) A man with all these crowns on his head, and attaching and disturbing all those on the heads of other princes, who is the soul of all the havoc and ruin that has been and is to be spread through Europe in this war, haggling thus for his bloody life, and cheapening it at the price of a mistress or two! and this was the fellow that they fetched to the army to drive the brave Prince Charles beyond the Rhine again. It is just Such another paltry mortal(972) that has fetched him back into Bohemia-I forget which of his battles(973) it was, that when his army had got the victory, they could not find the King: he had run away for a whole day without 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 captivity; and make their addresses to you, who, they hear, have such power with Prince Lobkowitz, to obtain his liberty. If he has Spanish gallantry in any proportion to his name, he will immediately come to England, and vow himself 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 all surprised at my Lady Walpole’s ill-humour to you about the messenger. If the resentments of women did not draw them into little dirty 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 public politics, 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 will answer it very soon; but in the country I am forced to let my pen lie fallow between letter and letter.
(970) The Austrians had formed a scheme to surprise 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.-E.
(971) On the 8th of August, Louis the Fifteenth was seized at Metz, on his march to Alsace, with a malignant putrid fever, which increased so rapidly, that, in a few days, his life was despaired of. In his illness, he dismissed his reigning mistress, Madame de Chateauroux.-E.
(972) The King of Prussia.
(973) The battle of Molwitz.
388 Letter 148
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Houghton, Oct. 6, 1744.
My dearest Harry,
My lord bids me tell you how much he is obliged to you for your letter, and hopes you will accept my answer for his. I’ll tell you what, we shall both be obliged to you if you will inclose a magnifying-glass in your next letters; for your two last were in so diminutive a character, that we were forced to employ all Mrs. Leneve’s spectacles, besides an ancient family reading-glass, with which my grandfather used to begin the psalm, to discover what you said to us. Besides this, I have a piece of news for you: Sir Robert Walpole, when he was made Earl of Orford, left the ministry, and with it the palace in Downing-street; as numbers of people found out three years ago, who, not having your integrity, were quick in perceiving the change of his situation. Your letter was full as honest as you; for, though directed to Downing-street, it would not, as other letters would have done, address itself to the present possessor. Do but think if it had! The smallness of the hand would have immediately struck my Lord Sandys with the idea of a plot; for what he could not read’ at first sight, he would certainly have concluded must be cipher.
I march next week towards London, and have already begun to send my heavy artillery before me, consisting of half-a-dozen books and part of my linen: my light-horse, commanded by Patapan, follows 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 advice of another litter being advanced as far as Darsingham, Lord Walpole commanded Captain Riley’s horse, with a strong party of foxhounds, 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 all I have to tell you, and, to my great joy, which you must forgive me, is full as memorable as any part of the Flanders campaign. I do not desire 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 having lost an arm or a leg, and have as full persuasion of your courage as if you had contributed to the slicing off twenty pair from French officers. Thank God. you have sense enough to content yourself without being a hero! though I don’t quite forget your expedition a hussar-hunting the beginning of this campaign. Pray, no more of those jaunts. I don’t know any body you would oblige with 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 live one, I must tell you, I like my raccoon infinitely better.
Adieu! my dear Harry. I long to see you, You will easily believe the thought I have of being particularly well 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.
390 Letter 149
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, Oct. 6, 1744.
Does decency insist upon one’s writing within certain periods, when one has nothing to say? because, if she does, she is the most formal, ceremonious personage I know. I shall not enter into a dispute with her, as my Lady Hervey did with the goddess of Indolence, or with the goddess of letter-writing, I forget which, in a long letter that she sent to the Duke of Bourbon; because I had rather write than have a dispute about it. Besides, I am not at all used to converse with hierglyphic ladies. But, I do assure you, it is merely to avoid scolding that I set about this letter: I don’t mean your scolding, for you are all goodness to me; but my own scolding of myself-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 smile and jog one’s foot, and affect not to mind it; but those airs won’t do with oneself; One always comes by the worst in a dispute with one’s own conviction.
Admiral Matthews sent me down hither your great packet: I am charmed with your prudence, and with the good sense of your orders for the Neapolitan expedition; I won’t say your good nature, which is excessive for I think your tenderness of the little Queen(974) a little outree, especially as their apprehensions might have added great weight to your menaces. I would threaten like a corsair, though I would conquer with all the good-breeding of a Scipio. I most devoutly wish you success; you are sure of having me most happy with any honour you acquire. You have quite soared above all fear of Goldsworthy, and, I think, must appear of consequence to any ministry. I am much obliged to you for the medal, and like the design: I shall preserve it as part of your works.
I can’t forgive what you say to me about the coffee-pot: one would really 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 with it. My dear child, is it treating me justly to enter into the detail of your reasons? was it even necessary to say, ,I have changed your coffee-pot for some other plate?”
I have nothing to tell you but that I go to town next week, and will then write you all I hear. Adieu!
(974) The Queen of Naples,-Maria of Saxony, wife of Charles the Third, King of Naples, and subsequently, on the death of his elder brother, King of Spain. This alludes to the Austrian campaign in the Neapolitan territories, the attack on the town of Velletri, etc.-E.
391 Letter 150
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Oct 19, 1744.
I have received two or three letters from you since I wrote to you last, and all contribute to give me fears for your situation at Florence. How absurdly all the Queen’s ban haughtinesses are dictated to her by her ministers, or by her own Austriacity! She lost all Silesia because she would not lose a small piece of it, and she is going to lose Tuscany for want of a neutrality, because she would not accept one for Naples, even after all prospect of conquering it was vanished. Every thing goes ill! the King of Sardinia beaten; and to-day we hear of Coni lost! You will see in the papers too, that the Victory, our finest ship, is lost, with Sir John Balchen and nine hundred men.(975) 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 Charles over the Prussian, who, it ‘Is said, has lost ten thousand men, and both his legs by a cannon-ball. I have no notion of his losing them, but by breaking them in over-hurry to run away. However, it comes from a Jew, who had the first news of the passage of the Rhine.(976) But, my dear child, how will this comfort me, if you are not to remain in peace at Florence! I tremble as I write!
Yesterday morning carried off those two old beldamss, Sarah of Marlborough and the (.countess Granville;(977) so now Uguccioni’s(978) 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 English the eight hundred and forty heroics! When I know the particulars of old Marlborough’s will, you shall.
My Lord Walpole has promised me a letter for young Gardiner; who, by the way, has pushed his fortune en vrai b`atard, 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 gallantries.
I have not seen Admiral Matthews yet, but I take him to be very mad. He walks in the Park with a cockade of three /colours: the Duke desired a gentleman to ask him the meaning, and all 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(979) death: if 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, telling him that it is a judgment upon him for all his undutifulness, and that he must always look upon himself. as the cause of’ his son’s death. Lord Hertford is as good a man as lives, and has always been most unreasonably ill-used by that old tyrant. The title of’ Somerset will revert to Sir Edward Seymour, whose line has been most unjustly deprived of it from the first 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 Anne Stanhope, with whom he was In love, and not only procured an act of parliament to deprive Lord Beauchamp of’ his honours and to settle the title of Somerset, which he was going to have, on the children of’ this second match, but took from him even his mother’s fortune. From him descended Sir Edward Seymour, the Speaker, who, on King William’s landing, when he said to him, “Sir Edward, I think you are of the Duke of Somerset’s family!” replied, “No, Sir: he is of mine.”
Lord Lincoln was married last Tuesday, and Lord Middlesex will be very soon. Have you heard the gentle manner of the French King’s dismissing Madame de Chateauroux? In the very circle, the Bishop of Soissons(980) told her, that, as the scandal the King had given with her was public, his Majesty thought his repentance ought to be so too, and that he therefore forbade her the court; and then turning to the monarch, asked him if that was not his pleasure, who replied, Yes. They have taken away her pension too, and turned out even laundresses that she had recommended for the future Dauphiness. A-propos to the Chateauroux: there is a Hanoverian come over, who was so ingenuous as to tell Master Louis,(981) how like he is to M. Walmoden. You conceive that “nous autres souvereins nous n’aimons pas qu’on se m`eprenne aux gens:” we don’t love that our Fitzroys should be scandalized with any mortal resemblance.
I must tell you a good piece of discretion of a Scotch soldier, whom Mr. Selwyn met on Bexley Heath walking back to the army. He had met with a single glove at Higham, which had been left there last year in an inn by an officer now in Flanders: this the fellow was carrying in hopes of a little money; but, for fear he should lose the glove, wore it all the way.
Thank you for General Braitwitz’s deux potences.(982) I hope that one of them, at least will rid us of the Prussian. Adieu! my dear child: all my wishes are employed about Florence.
(975) The Victory, of a hundred and ten brass guns, was lost, between the 4th and 5th of October, near Alderney.-E.
(976) This report proved to be without foundation.
(977) Mother of John, Lord Carteret, who succeeded her in the title.
(978) A Florentine, who had employed an 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.-D.
(979) Only son of Algernon, Earl of Hertford, afterwards the last Duke of Somerset of that branch. [lord Beauchamp was seized with the smallpox at Bologna, and, after an illness of four days, died on the 11th of September; on which day he had completed his nineteenth year.]
(980) Son of Fitzjames, Duke of Berwick. This Bishop of Soissons, on the King being given over at Metz, prevailed on him to part with his mistress, the Duchess de Chateauroux; but the King soon recalled her, and confined the bishop to his diocese.
(981) Son of King George II. by Madame Walmoden, created Countess of Yarmouth.
(982) General Braitwitz, commander of the Queen of Hungary’s troops in Tuscany, speaking of the two powers, his mistress and the King of Sardinia, instead of’ saying “ces deux pouvoirs,” said “ces deux potences.”
393 Letter 151
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Nov. 9, 1744.
I find I must not wait any longer for news, if I intend to keep up our correspondence. Nothing happens; nothing has since I wrote last, but Lord Middlesex’s wedding;(983) which was over above a week before it was known. I believe the bride told it then; for he and all his family are so silent, that they Would never have mentioned it: she might have popped out a child, before a single Sackville would have been at the expense of a syllable to justify her.
Our old acquaintance, the Pomfrets, are not so reserved about their great matrimony: the new Lady Granville was at home the other night for the first time of her being mistress of the house. I was invited, for I am in much favour with them all, but found myself extremely d`eplac`e: there was nothing but the Winchilseas 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 if I corresponded still with the Grifona: “No,” I said, “since I had been threatened with a regale of hams and Florence wine, I had dropped it.” My Lady Granville said, “You was afraid of being thought interested.”–“Yes,” said the queen-mother, with all the importance with which she used to blunder out pieces of heathen mythology, “I think it was very ministerial.” Don’t you think that the Minister word came in as awkwardly as I did into their room? The Minister is most gracious to me; he has returned my visit, which, you know, IS never practised by that rank: I put it all down to my father’s account, who is not likely to keep up the civility.
You will see the particulars of old Marlborough’s will 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 life may be written in verse by Glover and Mallet, to whom she gives five hundred pounds apiece for writing it in prose.(984) There is a great deal of humour in the thought: to be sure the spirit of the dowager Leonidas(985) inspired her with it.
All public affairs in agitation at present go well for us; Prince Charles in Bohemia, the raising of the siege of Coni, and probably of that of Fribourg, are very good circumstances. I shall be very tranquil this winter, if Tuscany does not come into play, or another scene of invasion. In a fortnight meets the Parliament; nobody guesses what the turn of the Opposition will be. Adieu! My love to the Chutes. I hope you now and then make my other compliments: I never forget the Princess, nor (ware hams!) the Grifona.
(983) The Earl of Middlesex married Grace, daughter and sole heiress of Lord Shannon. On the death of his father in 1765, he succeeded, as second Duke of Dorset, and died without issue, in 1769.-E.
(984) Glover, though in embarrassed circumstances at the time, renounced the legacy; Mallet accepted it, but never fulfilled the terms.-E.
(985) Glover wrote a dull heroic poem on the action of Leonidas at Thermopylae. [“Though far indeed from being a vivid or arresting picture of antiquity, Leonidas,” says Mr. Campbell, “the local descriptions of Leonidas, its pure sentiments, and the classical images which it recalls, render it interesting, as the monument of an accomplished and amiable mind.”]
394 Letter 152
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Nov. 26, 1744.
I have not prepared for you a great event, because it was really,
so unlikely to happen, that I was afraid of being the author of a mere political report; but, to keep you no longer in suspense, Lord Granville has resigned: that is the term “l’honn`ete fa`con de parler;” but, in 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 Granville(986) as he had been of Lord Orford, and wanting to be first minister himself, which, a puppy! how should he be?” (autre phrase royale) and his brother being as susceptible of the noble passion of jealousy as he is, have long been conspiring to overturn the great lord. Resolution and capacity were all they wanted to bring it about; for the imperiousness and universal contempt which their rival had for them, and for the rest of the ministry, and for the rest of the nation, had made almost all men his engines; and, indeed, he took no pains to make friends: his maxim was, “Give any man the Crown on his side, and he can defy every thing.” Winnington asked him, if that were true, how he came to be minister? About a fortnight ago, the whole cabinet-council, except Lord Bath, Lord Winchilsea, Lord Tweedale, the Duke of Bolton, and my good brother-in-law,(987) (the two last severally bribed with the promise of Ireland,) did venture to let the King know, that he must part with them or with Lord Granville. The monarch does not love to be forced, and his son is full as angry. Both tried to avoid the rupture. My father was sent for, but excused himself from coming till last Thursday, and even then would not ,go to the King; and at last gave his opinion very unwillingly. But on Saturday it was finally determined: Lord Granville resigned the seals, which are given back to my Lord President Harrington. Lord Winchilsea quits too; but for all the rest of that connexion, they have agreed not to quit, but to be forced out: so Mr. Pelham must have a new 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 Granville has his opinion and affection-the Prince warmly and openly espouses him. Judge how agreeably the two brothers will enjoy their ministry! To-morrow the Parliament meets: all in suspense! every body will be staring at each other! I believe the war will still go on, but a little more Anglicized. For my part, I behold all with great tranquillity; I cannot –be sorry for Lord Granville,-for he certainly sacrificed everything to please the King; I cannot be glad for the Pelhams, for they sacrifice every thing to their own jealousy and ambition.
Who are mortified, are the fair Sophia and Queen Stanislaus. However, the daughter carries it off heroically: the very night of her fall she went to the Oratorio. I talked to her much, and recollected all that had been said to me upon the like occasion three years ago: I succeeded, and am invited to her assembly next Tuesday. Tell Uguccioni that she still keeps conversazioni, or he will hang himself. She had no court, but an ugly sister and the fair old-fashioned Duke of Bolton. It put me in mind of a scene in Harry VIII., where Queen Catherine appears after her divorce, with Patience her waiting-maid, and Griffith her gentleman-usher.
My dear child, voil`a le monde! are you as great a philosopher about it as I am? You cannot imagine how I entertain myself, especially as all 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.(988) the only man mitred by Lord Granville! As I was not at all mortified with our fall, I am only diverted with this imaginary restoration. They little think how incapable my lord is of business again. He has this whole summer been troubled with bloody water upon the least motion; and to-day Ranby assured me, that he has a stone in his bladder, which he himself believed before: so now he must never use the least exercise, never go into a chariot again; and if ever to Houghton, in a litter. Though this account will grieve you, I tell it you, that you may know what to expect; yet it is common for people to live many years in his situation.
if you are not as detached from every thing as I am, you will wonder at my tranquillity, to be able to write such variety in the midst of hurricanes. It costs me nothing; so I shall write on, and tell you an adventure of my own. The town has been trying all this winter 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 every body that hissed. The pit rallied their forces, and drove them out: I was sitting very quietly in the side-boxes, contemplating all this. On a sudden the curtain flew up, and discovered the whole stage filled with blackguards, armed with 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 philosopher. In short, one of the actors, advancing to the front of the stage to make an apology for the manager, he had scarce begun to say, “Mr. Fleetwood–” when your friend, with a most audible voice and dignity of anger, called 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 still better, while my shadow of a person was dilating to the consistence of a hero, One of the chief ringleaders of the riot, coming under the box where I sat, and pulling 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 with greater violence, and nothing was heard but voices calling out, “Where’s Mr. W.? where’s Mr. W.?” In short, the whole town has been entertained with my prowess, and Mr. Conway has given me the name of Wat Tyler; which, I believe, would have stuck by me, if this new episode of Lord Granville had not luckily interfered.
We every minute expect news of the Mediterranean engagement for, besides your account, Birtles has written the same from Genoa. We expect good news, too, from Prince Charles, who is driving the King of Prussia before him. In the mean time, his wife the Archduchess is dead, which may be a signal loss to him.
I forgot to tell you that, on Friday, Lord Charles Hay,(989) who has more of the parts of an Irishman than of a Scot, told my Lady Granville at the drawing-room, on her seeing so full a court, “that people were come out of curiosity.” The Speaker,(990) is the happiest of any man in these bustles: he says, “this Parliament has torn two favourite ministers from the throne.” His conclusion is, that the power of the Parliament will in the end be so great, that nobody can be minister but their own speaker.
Winnington says my Lord Chesterfield and Pitt will have places before old Marlborough’s legacy to them for being patriots is paid. My compliments to the family of Suares on the Vittorina’s marriage. Adieu!
(986) By the death of his mother, Lord Carteret had become