To Richard Bentley, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 5, 1755.
You vex me exceedingly. I beg, if it is not too late, that you would not send me these two new quarries of granite; I had rather pay the original price and leave them where they are, than be encumbered with them. My house is already a stone-cutter’s shop, nor do I know what to do with what I have got. But this is not what vexes me, but your desiring me to traffic with Carter, and showing me that you are still open to any visionary project! Do you think I can turn broker and factor, and- I don’t know what? And at your time of life, do you expect to make a fortune by becoming a granite-merchant? There must be great demand for a commodity that costs a guinea a foot, and a month an inch to polish! You send me no drawings, for which you know I should thank you infinitely, and are hunting for every thing that I would thank you for letting alone. In short, my dear Sir, I am determined never to be a projector, nor to deal with projects. If you still pursue them, I must beg you will not only not employ me in them, but not even let me know that you employ any body else. If you will not be content with my plain, rational way of serving you, I can do no better, nor can I joke upon it. I can combat any difficulties for your service but those of your own raising. Not to talk any more crossly, and to prevent, if I can, for the future, any more of these expostulations, I must tell you plainly, that with regard to my own circumstances. I generally drive to a penny, and have no money to spare for visions. I do and am doing all I can for you; and let me desire you once for all, not to send me any more persons or things without asking my consent, and stay till you receive it. I cannot help adding to the chapter of complaint* * * *
These, my dear Sir, are the imprudent difficulties you draw me into, and which almost discourage me from proceeding in your business. If you anticipate your revenue, even while in Jersey, and build castles in the air before you have repassed the sea, can I expect that you will be a better economist either of your fortune or your prudence here? I beg you will preserve this letter, ungracious as it is, because I hope it will serve to prevent my writing any more such.
Now to Mr. Muntz;-Hitherto he answers all you promised and vowed for him: he is very modest, humble, and reasonable; and has seen so much and knows so much, of countries and languages that I am not likely to be soon tired of him. His drawings are very pretty: he has done two views of Strawberry that please me extremely; his landscape and trees are much better than I expected. His next work is to be a large picture from your Mr. bland for Mr. Chute, who is much content with him: he goes to the Vine in a fortnight or three weeks. We came from thence the day before yesterday. I have drawn up an inventionary of all I propose he should do there; the computation goes a little beyond five thousand pounds; but he does not go half so fast as my impatience demands: he is so reasonable, and will think of dying, and of the gout, and of twenty disagreeable things that one must do and have, that he takes no joy in planting and future views, but distresses all my rapidity of schemes. last week we were at my sister’s at Chaffont in Buckinghamshire, to see what we could make of it; but it wants so much of every thing, and would require so much more than an inventionary of five thousand pounds, that we decided nothing, except that Mr. Chute has designed the prettiest house in the world for them. We Went to See the objects of the neighbourhood, Bolstrode and Latimers. The former is a melancholy monument of Dutch magnificence: however there is a brave gallery of old pictures, and a chapel with two fine windows in modern painted glass. The ceiling was formerly decorated with the assumption, or rather presumption, of Chancellor Jeffries, to whom it belonged; but a very judicious fire hurried him somewhere else; Latimers belongs to Mrs. Cavendish. I have lived there formerly with Mr. Conway, but it is much improved since; yet the river stops short at an hundred yards just under your eye, and the house has undergone Batty Langley discipline: half the ornaments are of his bastard Gothic, and half of Hallet’s mongrel Chinese. I want to write over the doors of most modern edifices, “Repaired and beautified; Langley and Hallet churchwardens.” The great dining-room is hung with the paper of my staircase, but not shaded properly like mine. I was much more charmed lately at a visit I made to the Cardigans at Blackheath. Would you believe that I had never been in Greenwich Park? I never had, and am transported! Even the glories of Richmond and Twickenham hide their diminished rays. Yet nothing is equal to the fashion of this village: Mr. Muntz says we have more coaches than there are in half France. Mrs. Pritchard has bought Ragman’s Castle, for which my Lord Litchfield could not agree. We shall be as celebrated as Baiae or Tivoli; and, if we have not such sonorous names as they boast, we have very famous people: Clive and Pritchard, actresses; Scott and Hudson, painters; my Lady Suffolk, famous in her time; Mr. H * * *, the impudent lawyer, that Tom Hervey wrote against; Whitehead, the poet–and Cambridge, the every thing. Adieu! my dear Sir–I know not one syllable of news.
259 Letter 138
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, July 16, 1755.
Our correspondence will revive: the war is begun. I cannot refer you to the Gazette, for it is so prudent and so afraid that Europe should say we began first, (and unless the Gazette tell, how should Europe know?) that it tells nothing at all. The case was; Captain Howe and Captain Andrews lay in a great fog that lasted near fifty hours within speech of three French ships and within sight of nine more. The commandant asked if it was war or peace? Howe replied he must wait for his admiral’s signal, but advised the Frenchman to prepare for war. Immediately Boscawen gave the signal, and Howe attacked. The French, who lost one hundred and thirty men to our thirteen, soon struck; we took one large ship, one inconsiderable, and seven thousand pounds: the third ship escaped in the fog. Boscawen detained the express ten days in hopes of more success; but the rest of our new enemies are all got safe into the river of Louisbourg. This is a great disappointment! We expect a declaration of war with the first fair wind. Make the most of your friendship with Count lorenzi,(580) while you may.
I have received the cargo of letters and give you many thanks; but have not seen Mr. Brand; having been in the country while he was in town.
Your brother has received and sent you a dozen double prints of my eagle, which I have had engraved. I could not expect that any drawing could give you a full idea of the noble spirit of the head, or of the masterly tumble of the feathers: but I think Upon the whole the plates are not ill done. Let me beg Dr. Cocchi to accept one of each plate; the rest, my dear Sir, you will give away as you please.
Mr. Chute is such an idle wretch, that you will not wonder I am his secretary for a commission. At the Vine is the most heavenly chapel(581) in the world; it only wants a few pictures to give it a true Catholic air-we are so conscious of the goodness of our Protestantism, that we do not care how things look. If you can pick us up a tolerable Last Supper, or can have one copied tolerably and very cheap, we will say many a mass for the repose of your headaches. The dimensions are, three feet eleven inches and three quarters by two feet eight inches and a half high. Take notice of two essential ingredients; it must be cheap, and the colouring must b very light, for it will hang directly under the window.
I beg YOU Will nurse yourself up to great strength; consider w what German generals and English commodores you are again going to have to govern! On my side, not a Pretender
shall land, nor rebellion be committed, but you shall have timely notice. Adieu!
(580) A Florentine, but minister of France to the Great Duke.
(581) At Mr. Chute’s seat of the Vine, in Hampshire, is a chapel built by Lord Sandys of the Vine, lord chamberlain to Henry VIII. In the painted glass windows, which were taken at Boulogne in that reign, are portraits of Francis 1. his Queen, and sister.
260 Letter 139
To Richard Bentley, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 17, 1755.
To be sure, war is a dreadful calamity, etc.! But then it is a very comfortable commodity for writing letters and writing history; and as one did not contribute to make it, why there is no harm in being a little amused with looking on; and if one can but keep the Pretender on t’other side Derby, and keep Arlington Street and Strawberry Hill from being carried to Paris, I know nobody that would do more to promote peace, or that will bear the want of it, with a better grace than myself. If I don’t send you an actual declaration of war in this letter, at least you perceive I am the harbinger of it. An account arrived yesterday morning that Boscawen had missed the French fleet, who are got into Cape Breton; but two of his captains(582) attacked three of their squadron and have taken two, with scarce any loss. This is the third time one of the French captains has been taken by Boscawen.
Mr. Conway is arrived from Ireland, where the triumphant party are what parties in that situation generally are, unreasonable and presumptuous. They will come into no terms without a stipulation that the Primate(583) shall not be in the Regency. This is a bitter pill to digest, but must not it be swallowed? Have we heads to manage a French war and an Irish civil war too?
There are little domestic news. If you insist upon some, why, I believe I could persuade somebody or other to hang themselves; but that is scarce an article uncommon enough to send cross the sea. For example, the rich * * * * whose brother died of the smallpox a year ago, and left him four hundred thousand Pounds, had a fit of the gout last week, and shot himself. I only begin to be afraid that it should grow as necessary to shoot one’s self here, as it is to go into the army in France. Sir Robert Browne has lost his last daughter, to whom he could have given eight thousand pounds a-year. When I tell these riches and n)adnesses to Mr. Muntz, he stares so, that I sometimes fear he thinks I mean to impose on him. It is cruel to a person who collects the follies of the age for the information of posterity to have one’s veracity doubted; it is the truth of them that makes them worth notice. Charles Townshend marries the great dowager Dalkeith;(583 his parts and presumption are prodigious. He wanted nothing but independence to let him loose: I propose great entertainment from him; and now, perhaps, the times will admit it. There may be such things again as parties–odd evolutions happen. The ballad I am going to transcribe for you is a very good comment on so commonplace a text. My Lord Bath, who was brought hither by my Lady Hervey’s and Billy Bristow’s reports of the charms of the place, has made the following stanzas, to the old tune which you remember of Rowe’s ballad on Doddington’s Mrs. Strawbridge:–
“Some talk of Gunnersbury,
For Sion some declare;
And some say that with Chiswick-house No villa can compare;
But all the beaux of Middlesex,
Who know the country well,
Say, that Strawberry Hill, that Strawberry Doth bear away the bell.
Though Surry boasts its Oatlands,
And Claremont kept so jim;
And though they talk of Southcote’s, ‘Tis but a dainty whim;
For ask the gallant Bristow,
Who does in taste excel,
If Strawberry Hill, if Strawberry
Don’t bear away the bell.”
Can there be an odder revolution of things, than that the printer of the Craftsman(585) should live in a house of mine, and that the author of the Craftsman should write a panegyric on a house of mine?
I dined yesterday at Wanstead many years have passed since I saw it. The disposition of the house and the prospect are better than I expected, and very fine: the garden, which they tell you cost as much as the house, that is, 100,000 pounds (don’t tell Mr. Muntz) is wretched; the furniture fine, but totally without taste: such continences and incontinences of Scipio and Alexander by I don’t know whom! such flame-coloured gods and goddesses, by Kent! such family-pieces, by–I believe the late Earl himself, for they are as ugly as the children he really begot! The whole great apartment is of oak, finally carved, unpainted and has a charming effect(586) The present Earl is the most generous creature in the world: in the first chamber I entered he offered me four marble tables that lay in cases about the room: I compounded, after forty refusals of every thing I commended, to bring away only a haunch of venison: I believe he has not had so cheap a visit a good while. I commend myself, as I ought: for, to be sure, there were twenty ebony chairs, and a couch, and a table, and a glass, that would have tried the virtue of a philosopher of double my size! After dinner we dragged a gold-fish pond(587) for my lady Fitzroy and Lord S@ I could not help telling my Lord Tilney, that they would certainly burn the poor fish for the gold, like the old lace. There arrived a Marquis St. Simon, from Paris, who understands English, and who has seen your book of designs for Gray’s Odes: he was much pleased at meeting me, to whom the individual cat(588) belonged, and you may judge whether I was pleased with him. Adieu! my dear Sir.
(582) The two captains were the Honourable Captain Richard Howe of the Dunkirk, and Captain Andrews of the Defiance, who, on the 10th of June, off Cape Race, the southernmost part of Newfoundland, fell in with three men-of war, part of the French fleet, Commanded by M. Bois de la Motte; and, after a very severe engagement of five Hours, succeeded in capturing the Alcide of sixty-four guns, and the Lys of sixty-four.- E.
(583) Dr. Stone.
(584) Eldest daughter and coheiress of the great Duke of Argyle, and widow of the Earl of Dalkeith.-E.
(585) Franklin, who occupied the cottage in the enclosure which Mr. Walpole afterwards called the Flower-garden at Strawberry Hill. When he bought the ground on which this tenement stood, he allowed Franklin to continue to occupy it during his life.
(586) Arthur Young, in his “Six Weeks’ Tour,” gives the following description of Wanstead: “It is one of the noblest houses in England. The magnificence of having four state bed- chambers, with complete apartments to them, and the ball-room, are superior to any thing of the kind in Houghton, Holkham, Blenheim and Wilton: but each of these houses is superior to this in other particulars; and, to form a complete, palace, something must be taken from all.”-E.
(587) Evelyn, who visited Wanstead, March 16, 1682-3, says, “I went to see Sir Josiah Child’s prodigious cost in planting walnut-trees about his seat, and making fish-ponds many miles in circuit, in Epping Forest, in a barren spot, as oftentimes these suddenly moneyed men for the most part. seat themselves. He, from a merchant’s apprentice, and management of the East India Company’s stock, being arrived to an estate (’tis said) 200,000 pounds, and lately married his daughter to the eldest son of the Duke of Beaufort, late Marquis of Worcester, with 50,000 pounds portional present, and various expectations.”
(588) Walpole’s favourite cat Selima, on the death of which, by falling into a china tub, with gold fishes in it, Gray wrote an Ode. After the death of the poet, Walpole placed the china vase on a pedestal at Strawberry Hill, with a few lines of’ the Ode written for its inscription.-E.
263 Letter 140
To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 17, 1755.
Having done with building and planting, I have taken to farming; the first fruits of my proficience in that science I offer to you, and have taken the liberty to send you a couple of cheeses. If you will give yourself the trouble to inquire at Brackley for the coach, which set out this morning you will receive a box and a roll of paper. The latter does not contain a cheese, only a receipt for making them. We have taken so little of the French fleet, that I fear none of it will come to my share, or I would have sent you part of the spoils. I have nothing more to send you, but a new ballad, which my Lord Bath has made on this place; you remember the old burden of it, and the last lines allude to Billy Bristow’s having fallen in love with it.
I am a little pleased to send you this, to show you, that in summer we are a little pretty, though you will never look at us but in our ugliness. My best compliments to Miss Montagu, and my service to whatever baronet breakfasts with you, on negus. Have you heard that poor Lady Browne is so unfortunate as to have lost her last daughter; and that Mrs. Barnett is so lucky as to have lost her mother-in-law, and is Baroness Dacre of the South? I met the great C`u t’other day, and he asked me if I ever heard from you; that he never did: I told him that I did not neither; did not I say true?
263 Letter 141
To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 26, 1755.
who would not turn farmer, when their very first essay turns to so good account? Seriously, I am quite pleased with the success of mystery, and infinitely obliged to you for the kind things you say about my picture. You must thank Mrs. Whetenhall, too, for her prepossession about my cheeses: I fear a real manufacturer of milk at Strawberry Hill would not have answered quite so well as our old commodities of paint and copper-plates.
I am happy for the recovery of Miss Montagu, and the tranquillity you must feel after so terrible a season of apprehension. Make my compliments to her, and if you can be honest on so tender a topic, tell her, that she will always be in danger, while you shut her up in Northamptonshire, and that with her delicate constitution she ought to live nearer friends and help; and I know of no spot so healthy or convenient for both, as the county of Twicks.
Charles Townshend is to be married next month: as the lady had a very bad husband before, she has chosen prudently, and has settled herself in a family of the best sort of people in the world, who will think of nothing but making her happy. I don’t know whether the bridegroom won’t be afraid of getting her any more children, lest it should prejudice those she has already! they are a wonderful set of people for good-natured considerations!
You know, to be sure, that Mr. Humberston(589) is dead, and your neighbouring Brackley likely to return under the dominion of its old masters. Lady Dysart(590) is dead too.
Mr. Chute is at the Vine. Your poor Cliquetis is still a banished man. I have a scheme for bringing him back, but can get Mrs. Tisiphone into no kind of terms, and without tying her up from running him into new debts, it is in vain to recover him.
I believe the declaration of war has been stopped at the Custom-house, for one hears nothing of it. You see I am very paragraphical, and in reality have nothing to say; so good night! Yours ever.
(589)Member for Brackley.-E.
(590) Daughter of the Earl of Granville.
264 Letter 142
To Richard Bentley, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, August 4, 1755, between 11 and 12 at night.
I came from London to-day, and am just come from supping at Mrs. Clive’s, to write to you by the fireside. We have been exceedingly troubled for some time with St. Swithin’s diabetes, and have not a dry thread in any walk about us. I am not apt to complain of this malady, nor do I: it keeps us green at present, and will make our shades very thick, against we are fourscore, and fit to enjoy them. I brought with me your two letters of July 30 and August 1st; a sight I have not seen a long time! But, my dear Sir, you have been hurt at my late letters. Do let me say thus much in excuse for myself. You know how much I value, and what real and great satisfaction I have in your drawings. Instead of pleasing me with so little trouble to yourself, do you think it was no mortification to receive every thing but your drawings? to find you full of projects, and, I will not say, with some imprudences? But I have done on this subject–my friendship will always be the same for you; it will only act with more or less cheerfulness, as you use your common sense, or your disposition to chimerical schemes and carelessness. To give you all the present satisfaction in my power, I will tell you * * * * *
I think your good-nature means to reproach me with having dropped any hint of finding amusement in contemplating a war. When one would not do any thing to promote it, when one would do any thing to put a period to it, when one is too insignificant to contribute to either, I must own I see no blame in thinking an active age more agreeable to live in, than a soporific one. But, O my dear Sir, I must adopt your patriotism-Is not it laudable to be revived with the revival of British glory? Can I be an indifferent spectator of the triumphs of my country’? Can I help feeling a tattoo at my heart, when the Duke of Newcastle makes as great a figure in history as Burleigh or Godolphin-nay, as Queen Bess herself! She gained no battles in person; she was only the actuating genius. You seem to have heard of a proclamation of war, of which we have not heard; and not to have come to the knowledge of taking of Beau S`ejour(591) by Colonel Monckton. In short, the French and we seem to have crossed over and figured in, in politics.(592) Mirepoix complained grievously that the Duke of Newcastle had overreached him-but he is to be forgiven in so good a cause! It is the first person he ever deceived! I am preparing a new folio for heads of the heroes that are to bloom in mezzo-tinto from this war. At present my chief study is West Indian history. You would not think me very ill-natured if you knew all I feel at the cruelty and villany of European settlers: but this very morning I found that part of the purchase of Maryland from the savage proprietors (for we do not massacre, we are such good Christians as only to cheat) was a quantity of vermilion and a parcel of Jews-harps! Indeed, if I pleased, I might have another study; it is my fault if I am not a commentator and a corrector of the press. The Marquis de St. Simon, whom I mentioned to you, at a very first visit proposed to me to look over a translation he had made of The Tale of a Tub: the proposal was soon followed by a folio, and a letter of three sides, to press me seriously to revise it. You shall judge of my scholar’s competence. He translates L’Estrange, Dryden, and others, l’`etrange Dryden, etc.(593) Then in the description of the tailor as an idol, and his goose as the symbol; he says in a note, that the goose means the dove, and is a concealed satire on the Holy Ghost. It put me in mind of the Dane, who, talking of orders to a Frenchman, said, “Notre St. Esprit, est un `el`ephant.”
Don’t think, because I prefer your drawings to every thing in the world, that I am such a churl as to refuse Mrs. Bentley’s partridges: I shall thank her very much for them. You must excuse me If I am vain enough to be so convinced of my own taste, that all the neglect that has been thrown upon your designs cannot make me think I have overvalued them. I must think that the states of Jersey who execute your town-house,- have much more judgment than all our connoisseurs. When I every day see Greek, and Roman, and Italian, and Chinese, and Gothic architecture embroidered and inlaid upon one another, or called by each other’s names, I can’t help thinking that the grace and simplicity and truth of your taste, in whichever you undertake is real taste. I go farther: I wish you would know in what you excel, and not be bunting after twenty things unworthy your genius. If flattery is my turn, believe this to be so.
Mr. Muntz is at the Vine, and has been some time. I want to know more of this history of the German: I do assure you, that I like both his painting and behaviour; but if any history of any kind is to accompany him, I shall be most willing to part with him. However I may divert myself as a spectator of broils, believe me I am thoroughly sick of having any thing to do in any. Those in a neighbouring island are likely to subside-and, contrary to custom, the priest(594) himself is to be the sacrifice.
I have contracted a sort of intimacy with Garrick, who is my neighbour. He affects to study my taste: I lay it all upon you–he admires you. He is building a grateful temple to Shakspeare: I offered him this motto: “Quod spiro et placeo, si placeo tuum est!” Don’t be surprised if you should hear of me as a gentleman come upon the stage next winter for my diversion. The truth is, I make the most of this acquaintance to protect my poor neighbour at Clivden–You understand the conundrum, Clive’s den.
Adieu, my dear Sir! Need I repeat assurances? If I need, believe that nothing that can tend to your recovery has been or shall be neglected by me. You may trust me to the utmost of my power: beyond that, what can I do? Once more, adieu!
(591) In June, 1755, the French fort of Beau Sejour, in the Bay of Fundy, surrendered to Colonel Monckton, and two small forts, Gaspereau and Venango, also capitulated. These were the first conquests of the British arms in America during that war. He gave the name of Fort Cumberland to Beau S`ejour.-E.
(592) This alludes to England and France not being at open war, though constantly committing aggressions against each other. The capture of these forts formed the first article Of complaint against England, in the French declaration of war, in June, 1756.-E.
(593) The Marquis de St. Simon did publish, in 1771, a translation of Pope’s Essay on Man.-E.
(594) The Primate of ireland.
266 Letter 143
To Richard Bentley, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, August 15, 1755.
My dear sir,
Though I wrote to you so lately, and have certainly nothing new to tell you, I can’t help scribbling a line to YOU to-night, as I am going to Mr. Rigby’s for a week or ten days, and must thank you first for the three pictures. One of them charms me, the Mount Orgueil, which is absolutely fine; the sea, and shadow upon it, are masterly. The other two I don’t, at least won’t, take for finished. If you please, Elizabeth Castle shall be Mr. Muntz’s performance: indeed I see nothing of You in it. I do reconnoitre you in the Hercules and Nessus; but in both your colours are dirty, carelessly dirty: in your distant hills you are improved, and not hard. The figures are too large–I don’t mean in the Elizabeth Castle, for there they are neat; but the centaur, though he dies as well as Garrick can, is outrageous. Hercules and Deianira are by no means so: he is sentimental, and she most improperly sorrowful. However, I am pleased enough to beg you would continue. As soon as Mr. Muntz returns from the Vine, you shall have a supply of colours. In the mean time why give up the good old trade of drawing? Have you no Indian ink, no soot-water, no snuff, no Coat of onion, no juice of any thing? If you love me, draw: you would if you knew the real pleasure you can give me. I have been studying all your drawings; and next to architecture and trees, I determine that you succeed in nothing better than animals. Now (as the newspapers say) the late ingenious Mr. Seymour is dead, I would recommend horses and greyhounds to you. I should think you capable of a landscape or two with delicious bits of architecture. I have known you execute the light of a torch or lanthorn so well, that if it was called Schalken, a housekeeper at Hampton-court or Windsor, or a Catherine at Strawberry Hill, would show it, and say it cost ten thousand pounds. Nay, if I could believe that you would ever execute any more designs I proposed to you, I would give you a hint for a picture that struck me t’other day in P`er`efixe’s Life of Henry IV.(595) He says, the king was often seen lying upon a common straw-bed among the soldiers, with a piece of brown bread in one hand, and a bit of charcoal in t’other, to draw an encampment, or town that he was besieging. If this is not a character and a picture, I don’t know what is.
I dined to-day at Garrick’s: there were the Duke of Grafton, Lord and Lady Rochford, Lady Holderness, the crooked Mostyn, and Dabreu the Spanish minister; two regents, of which one is lord chamberlain, the other groom of the stole; and the wife of a secretary of state. This is the being sur un assez bon ton for a player! Don’t you want to ask me how I like him? Do want, and I will tell you. I like her exceedingly; her behaviour is all sense, and all sweetness too. I don’t know how, he does not improve so fast upon me: there is a great deal of parts, and vivacity, and variety, but there is a great deal too of mimicry and burlesque. I am very ungrateful, for he flatters me abundantly; but unluckily I know it. I was accustomed to it enough when my father was first minister: on his fall I lost it all at once: and since that, I have lived with Mr. Chute, who is all vehemence; with Mr. Fox, who is all disputation; with Sir Charles Williams, who has no time from flattering himself; with Gray, who does not hate to find fault with me; with Mr. Conway, who is all sincerity; and with you and Mr. Rigby, who have always laughed at me in a good-natured way. I don’t know how, but I think I like all this as well–I beg his pardon, Mr. Raftor does flatter me; but I should be a cormorant for praise, if I could swallow it whole as he gives it me.
Sir William Yonge, who has been extinct so long is at last dead and the war, which began with such a flirt of vivacity, is I think gone to sleep. General Braddock has not yet sent over to claim the surname of Americanus. But why should I take pains to show You in how many ways I know nothing?–Why; I can tell it you in one word–why, Mr. Cambridge knows nothing!–I wish you good-night! Yours ever.
(595) Hardouin de P`er`efixe’s Histoire du Roi Henri le Grand appeared in 1661. He is stated, by the editor Of the Biog. Univ. to be the best historian of that monarch, and the work has been translated in many languages. He was appointed preceptor to Louis XIV. in 1644, and Archbishop of Paris in 1622. He died in 1670.-E.
268 Letter 144
To Sir Horace Mann.
Mistley, August 21, 1755. ‘
I shall laugh at you for taking so seriously what I said to you about my Lady Orford. Do you think, my dear Sir, that at this time I can want to learn your zeal for us? or can you imagine that I did not approve for your own sake your keeping fair terms with the Countess? If I do not much forget, I even recommended it to you–but let us talk no more of her; she has engrossed more paragraphs in our letters than she deserves.
I promised you a brisk war: we have done our part, but can I help it, if the French will not declare it?-if they are backward, and cautious, and timorous; if they are afraid of provoking too far SO great a power as England, who threatens the liberties of Europe? I laugh, but how not to laugh at such a world as this! Do you remember the language of the last war? What were our apprehensions? Nay, at the conclusion of the peace, nothing was laid down for a maxim but the impossibility of our engaging in another war; that our national debt was at its ne plus ultra; and that on the very next discussion France must swallow us up! Now we are all insolent, alert, and triumphant: nay the French talk of nothing but guarding against our piracies, and travel Europe to give the alarm against such an overbearing power as we are. On their coasts they are alarmed–I mean the common people; I scarce believe they who know any thing, are in real dread of invasion from us! Whatever be the reason, they don’t declare war: some think they wait for the arrival of their Martinico fleet. You will ask why we should not attack that too? They tell one, that if we began hostilities in Europe, Spain would join the French. Some believe that the latter are not ready: certain it is, Mirepoix gave them no notice nor suspicion of our flippancy; and he is rather under a cloud–indeed this has much undeceived me in one point: I took him for the ostensible mister; but little thought that they had not some secret agent of better head, some priest, some Scotch or Irish Papist-or perhaps some English Protestant, to give them better intelligence. But don’t you begin to be impatient for the events of all our West Indian expeditions? The Duke,(596) who is now the soul of the Regency, and who on all hands is allowed to make a great figure there, is much dissatisfied at the slowness of General Braddock, who does not march as if he was at all impatient to be scalped. It is said for him, that he has had bad guides, that the roads are exceedingly difficult, and that it was necessary to drag as much artillery as he does. This is not the first time, as witness in Hawley,(597) that the Duke has found that brutality did not necessarily consummate a general. I love to give you an idea of our characters as they rise upon the stage of history. Braddock is a very Iroquois in disposition. He had a sister, who having gamed away all her little fortune at Bath, hanged herself(598) with a truly English deliberation, leaving only a note upon the table with those lines “To die is landing on some silent shore,” etc. When Braddock was told of it, he only said, “Poor Fanny! I always thought she would play till she would be forced to tuck herself up!”‘ But a more ridiculous story of him, and which is recorded in heroics by Fielding in his Covent-Garden tragedy, was an amorous discussion he had formerly with a Mrs. Upton, who had kept him. He had gone the greatest lengths with her pin-money, and was still craving. One day that he was very pressing, she pulled out her purse and showed him that she had but twelve or fourteen shillings left; he twitched it from her, “Let me see that.” Tied up at the other end he found five guineas; he took them, tossed the empty purse in her face, saying, “Did you mean to cheat me?” and never went near her more:–now you are acquainted with General Braddock.
We have some royal negotiations proceeding in Germany, which are not likely to give quite so much satisfaction to the Parliament of next winter, as our French triumphs give to the City, where nothing is so popular as the Duke of Newcastle. There is a certain Hessian treaty, said to be eighteen years long, which is arrived at the Treasury, Legge refused peremptorily to sign it–you did not expect patriotism from thence? It will not make him popular: there is not a mob in England now capable of being the dupe of patriotism; the late body of that denomination have really so discredited it, that a minister must go great lengths indeed before the people would dread him half so much as a patriot! On the contrary, I believe nothing would make any man so popular, or conciliate so much affection to his ministry, as to assure the people that he never had nor ever would pretend to love his country. Legge has been frowned upon by the Duke of Newcastle ever since he was made chancellor of the exchequer by him, and would have been turned out long ago if Sir George Lee would have accepted the post. I am sorry that just when Tuscany is at war with Algiers, your countrymen should lie under the odour of piracy too; it will give Richcourt opportunities of saying very severe things to you!–Barbarossa our Dey is not returned yet-we fear he is going to set his grandson(599) up in a seraglio; and as we have not, among other Mahometan customs, copied the use of the bowstring for repressing the luxuriancy of the royal branches, we shall be quite overrun with young Sultans! Adieu!
(596) The Duke of Cumberland.
(597) General Hawley, who behaved with great cruelty and brutality in the Scotch rebellion, which did not however Prevent his being beaten by the rebels,-D.
(598) The story of this unfortunate young lady is told by Goldsmith, in his amusing Life of Beau Nash, introduced into the new and @greatly enlarged edition of his “Miscellaneous Works,” published by Mr. Murray, in 1837, in four volumes octavo. See vol. iii. p. 294. According to the poet, the lines which were written on one of the panes of the window, were these:-
“O Death! thou pleasing end of human wo! Thou cure for life! thou greatest good below! Still may’st thou fly the coward and the slave, And thy soft slumbers only bless the brave.”-E.
(599) The King had a mind to marry the Prince of Wales to a Princess of Brunswick.
270 Letter 145
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, August 28, 1755.
My last letter to you could not be got out of England, before I might have added a melancholy supplement. Accounts of a total defeat of Braddock, and his forces are arrived from America; the purport is, that the General having arrived within a few miles of Fort du Quesne, (I hope you are perfect in your American geography?) sent an advanced party, under Lord Gage’s brother: they were fired upon, invisibly, as they entered a wood; Braddock heard guns, and sent another party to support the former; but the first fell back in confusion on the second, and the second on the main body. The whole was in disorder, and it is said, the General himself’, though exceedingly brave, did not retain all the sang froid that was necessary. The common soldiers in general, fled; the officers stood heroically and were massacred: our Indians were not surprised, and behaved gallantly. The General had five horses shot under him, no bad symptoms of his spirit, and at last was brought off by two Americans, no English daring, though Captain Orme,(600) his aid-de-camp, who is wounded too, and has made some noise here by an affair of gallantry, offered Sixty guineas to have him conveyed away. We have lost twenty-six officers, besides many wounded, and ten pieces of artillery. Braddock lived four days, in great torment.(601) What makes the rout more shameful is, that instead of a great pursuit, and a barbarous massacre by the Indians, which is always to be feared in these rencontres, not a black or white soul followed our troops, but we had leisure two days afterwards to fetch off our dead. In short, our American laurels are strangely blighted! We intended to be in great alarms for Carolina and Virginia, but the small number of our enemies had reduced this affair to a panic. We pretend to be comforted on the French deserting Fort St. John, and on the hopes we have from two other expeditions which are on foot in that part of the world-but it is a great drawback on English heroism I pity you who represent the very flower of British courage ingrafted on a Brunswick stock!
I have already given you some account of Braddock; I may complete the poor man’s history in a few more words: he once had a duel with Colonel Gumley, Lady Bath’s(602) brother, who had been his great friend: as they were going to engage, Gumley, who had good humour and wit, (Braddock had the latter,) said “Braddock, you are a poor dog! here take my purse; if you kill me you will be forced to run away, and then you will not have a shilling to support you.” Braddock refused the purse, insisted on’ the duel, was disarmed, and would not even ask his life. However, with all his brutality, he has lately been Governor of Gibraltar, where he made himself adored, and where scarce any Governor was endured before. Adieu! Pray don’t let any detachment from Pannoni’s(603) be sent against us–we should run away!
(600) He married the sister of George Lord Townshend, without the consent of her family.
(601) Walpole, in his Memoires, says, that “he dictated an encomium on his officers, and expired.”-D.
(602) Elizabeth Gumley, wife of William Pulteny, Earl of Bath.
(603) Pannoni’s coffeehouse of the Florentine nobility, not famous for their courage of late.
271 Letter 146
To Richard Bentley, Esq.
Arlington Street, August 28, 1755.
Our piratic laurels, with which the French have so much reproached us, have been exceedingly pruned! Braddock is defeated and killed, by a handful of Indians and by the baseness of his own troops, who sacrificed him and his gallant officers. Indeed, there is some suspicion that cowardice was not the motive, but resentment at having been draughted from Irish regiments. Were such a desertion universal, could one but commend@it’@ Could one blame men who should refuse to be knocked on the head for sixpence a day, and for the advantage and dignity of a few ambitious? But in this case one pities the brave young @officers, who cannot so easily disfranchise themselves from the prejudices of glory! Our disappointment is greater than our loss; six-and-twenty officers are killed, who, I suppose, have not left a vast many fatherless and widowless, as an old woman told me to-day with great tribulation. The ministry have a much more serious affair on their hands-Lord Lincoln and Lord Anson have had a dreadful quarrel! Coquus teterrima belli causa! When Lord Mountford shot himself, Lord Lincoln said, “Well, I am very sorry for poor Mountford! but it is the part of a wise man to make the best of every misfortune-I shall now have the best cook in England.” This was uttered before Lord Anson. Joras,(604)– who is a man of extreme punctilio, as cooks and officers ought to be, would not be hired till he knew whether this Lord Mountford would retain him. When it was decided that he would not, Lord Lincoln proposed to hire Joras. Anson had already engaged him. Such a breach of friendship was soon followed by an expostulation (there was jealousy of the Duke of Newcastle’s favour already under the coals): in short the nephew earl called the favourite earl such gross names, that it was well they were ministers! otherwise, as Mincing says, “I vow, I believe they must have fit.” The public, that is half-a-dozen toad-eaters, have great hopes that the present unfavourable posture of affairs in America will tend to cement this breach, and that we shall all unite hand and heart against the common enemy.
I returned the night before last from my peregrination. It is very unlucky for me that no crown of martyrdom is entailed on zeal for antiquities; I should be a rubric martyr of the first class. After visiting the new salt-water baths at Harwich, (which, next to horse-racing, grows the most fashionable resource for people who want to get out of town, and who love the country and retirement!) I went to see Orford castle, and Lord Hertford’s at Sudborn. The one is a ruin, and the other ought to be so. Returning in a one-horse chair over a wild vast heath, I went out of the road to see the remains of Buttley Abbey; which however I could not see; for, as the keys of Orford castle were at Sudborn, so the keys of Buttley were at Orford! By this time it was night; we lost our way, were in excessive rain for above two hours, and only found our way to be overturned into the mire the next morning going into Ipswich. Since that I went to see an old house built by Secretary Naunton.(605) His descendant, who is a strange retired creature, was unwilling to let us see it; but we did, and little in it worth seeing. The house never was fine, and is now out of repair; has a bed with ivory pillars and loose rings, presented to the secretary by some German prince or German artist; and a small gallery of indifferent portraits, among which there are scarce any worth notice but of the Earl of Northumberland, Anna Bullen’s lover, and of Sir Antony Wingfield, who having his hand tucked into his girdle, the housekeeper told us, had had his fingers cut off by Harry VIII. But Harry VIII. was not a man pour s’arr`eter `a ces minuties la!
While we waited for leave to see the house, I strolled into the churchyard, and was struck with a little door open into the chancel, through the arch of which I discovered cross-legged knights and painted tombs! In short, there are no less than eight considerable monuments, very perfect, of Wingfields, Nauntons, and a Sir John Boynet and his wife, as old as Richard the Second’s time. But what charmed me still more, were two figures of Secretary Naunton’s father and mother in the window in painted glass, near two feet high, and by far the finest painting on glass I ever saw. His figure, in a puffed doublet, breeches and bonnet, and cloak of scarlet and yellow, is absolutely perfect: her shoulder is damaged. This church, which is scarce bigger than a large chapel, is very ruinous, though containing such treasures! Besides these, there are brasses on the pavement, with a succession of all the wonderful head-dresses which our plain virtuous grandmothers invented to tempt our rude and simple ancestors.- -I don’t know what our nobles might be, but I am sure that Milliners three or four hundred years ago must have been more accomplished in the arts, as Prynne calls them, of crisping, curling, frizzling, and frouncing, than all the tirewomen of Babylon, modern Paris, or modern Pall-Mall. Dame Winifred Boynet, whom I mentioned above, is accoutered with the coiffure called piked horns, which, if there were any signs in Lothbury and Eastcheap, must have brushed them about strangely, as their ladyships rode behind their gentlemen ushers! Adieu!
(604) The name of the cook in question.
(605) Sir Robert Naunton, master of the court of wards. He wrote Anecdotes of Queen Elizabeth and her favourites.
273 Letter 147
To The Rev. Henry Etough.(606)
Woolterton, Sept. 10, 1755.
Dear Etough,
I cannot forbear any longer to acknowledge the many favours from you lately; your last was the 8th of this month. His Majesty’s speedy arrival among his British subjects is very desirable and necessary, whatever may be the chief motive for his making haste. As to Spain, I have from the beginning told my friends, when they asked, both in town and country, that I was at all apprehensive that Spain would join with France against us; for this plain reason, because it could not possibly be the interest of the Spaniards to do it for should the views of the French take place in making a line of forts from the Mississippi to Canada, and of being masters of the whole of that extent of country, Peru and Mexico, and Florida, would be in more danger from them than the British settlements in America.
Mr. Fowle has made me a visit for a few days, and communicated to me your two pieces relating to my brother and Lord Bolingbroke, and I think you do great justice to them both in their very different and opposite characters; but you will give me leave to add with respect to Lord Orford, there are several mistakes and misinformations, of which I am persuaded I could convince you by conversation, but my observations are not proper for a letter. Of this more fully when I see you, but when that will be I can’t yet tell. I am ever most affectionately yours, etc.
(606) The Rev. Henry Etough, of Pembroke-hall, Cambridge. He received his education among the Dissenters, and Archbishop Secker and Dr. ‘Birch were among his schoolfellows. Through the interest of Sir Robert Walpole, he was presented to the rectory of Therfield, in Hertfordshire; where he died, in his seventieth year, in August 1757.-E.
273 Letter 148
To Richard Bentley, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, September 18, 1755.
My dear sir,
After an expectation of six weeks, I have received a letter from you, dated August 23d. Indeed I did not impute any neglect to you; I knew it arose from the war; but Mr. S. * * * * tells me the packets will now be more regular.–Mr. S * * * tells me!–What, has he been in town, or at Strawberry?–No; but I have been at Southampton: I was at the Vine; and on the arrival of a few fine days, the first we have had this summer, after a deluge, Mr. Chute persuaded me to take a jaunt to Winchester and Netley Abbey, with the latter of which he is very justly enchanted. I was disappointed in Winchester: it is a paltry town, and small: King Charles the Second’s house is the worst thing I ever saw of Sir Christopher Wren, a mixture of a town-hall and an hospital; not to mention the bad choice of the situation in such a country; it is all ups that should be downs. I talk to you as supposing that you never have been at Winchester, though I suspect you have, for the entrance of the cathedral is the very idea of that of Mabland. I like the smugness of the cathedral, and the profusion of the most beautiful Gothic tombs. That of Cardinal Beaufort is in a style more free and of more taste than any thing I have seen of the kind. His figure confirms me in my opinion that I have struck out the true history of the picture that I bought of Robinson; and which I take for the marriage of Henry VI. Besides the monuments of the Saxon Kings, of Lucius, William Rufus, his brother, etc. there are those of six such great or considerable men as Beaufort, William of Wickham, him of Wainfleet, the Bishops Fox and Gardiner, and my Lord Treasurer Portland.–How much power and ambition under half-a-dozen stones! I own, I grow to look on tombs as lasting mansions, instead of observing them for curious pieces of architecture!- -Going into Southampton, I passed Bevismount, where my Lord Peterborough
“Hung his trophies o’er his garden gate;”(607)
but General Mordaunt was there, and we could not see it. We walked long by moonlight on the terrace along the beach- -Guess, if we talked of and wished for you! The town is crowded; sea-baths are established there too. But how shall I describe Netley to you? I can only by telling YOU, that it is the spot in the world for which Mr. Chute and I wish. The ruins are vast, and retain fragments of beautiful fretted roofs pendent in the air, With all variety of Gothic patterns of windows wrapped round and round with ivy-many trees are sprouted up amongst the walls, and Only want to be increased with cypresses! A hill rises above the abbey encircled with wood: the fort, in which we would build a tower for habitation, remains with two small platforms. This little castle is buried from the abbey in a wood, in the very centre, on the edge of the hill: on each side breaks in the view of the Southampton sea, deep blue, glistering with silver and vessels; on one side terminated by Southampton, on the other by Calshot castle; and the Isle of Wight rising above the opposite hills. In short, they are not the ruins of Netley, but of Paradise.–OH! the purple abbots, what a spot had they chosen to slumber in! The scene is so beautifully tranquil, that they seem only to have retired into the world.(608)
I know nothing of the war, but that we catch little French ships like crawfish. They have taken one of ours with Governor Lyttelton(609) going to South Carolina. He is a very worthy young man, but so stiffened with Sir George’s old fustian, that I am persuaded he is at this minute in the citadel of Nantes comparing himself to Regulus.
Gray has lately been here. He has begun an Ode,(610) which if he finishes equally, will, I think, inspirit all your drawing again. It is founded on an old tradition of Edward 1. putting to death the Welsh bards. Nothing but you, or Salvator Rosa, and Nicolo Poussin, can paint up to the expressive horror and dignity of it. Don’t think I mean to flatter you; all I would say is, that now the two latter are dead, you must of necessity be Gray’s painter. In order to keep your talent alive, I shall next week send you flake white, brushes, oil, and the enclosed directions from Mr. Muntz, who is still at the Vine, and whom, for want of you, we labour hard to form. I shall put up in the parcel two or three prints of my eagle, which, as you never would draw it, is very moderately performed; and yet the drawing was much better than the engraving. I shall send you too a trifling snuff-box, only as a sample of the new manufacture at Battersea, which is done with copper-plates. Mr. Chute is at the Vine, where I cannot say any works go on in proportion to my impatience. I have left him an inventionary of all I want to have done there; but I believe it may be bound up with the century of projects of that foolish Marquis of Worcester, who printed a catalogue of titles of things which he gave no directions to execute, nor I believe could.(611) Adieu!
(607) “Our Gen’rals now, retired to their estate, Hang their old trophies o’er the garden gate.” Pope, in this couplet, is said to have alluded to the entrance of Lord Peterborough’s lawn at Bevismount.-E.
(608) Gray, who visited Netley Abbey in the preceding month, calls it “a most beautiful ruin in as beautiful a situation.”-E.
(609) william Henry, brother of Sir George, afterwards Lord Lyttelton. The man-of-war in which he was proceeding to South Carolina was captured by the French squadron under Count Guay, and sent into Nantes, but was shortly afterwards restored.-E.
(610) “The Bard” was commenced this year, but was for some time left unfinished; but the accident of seeing a blind Harper (Mr. Parry) perform on a Welsh harp, again put his Ode in motion, and brought it at last to a conclusion, See Works, vol. i. p. xxxiii.-E.
(611) Vol. i. letter 259 to H. S. Conway, Aug. 29, 1748.
275 Letter 149
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 23, 1755.
Dear harry,
Never make me excuses for a letter that tells me so many agreeable things -as your last; that you are got well to Dublin;(612) that you are all well, and that you have accommodated all your politics to your satisfaction–and I may be allowed to say, greatly to your credit ‘What could you tell me that would please me so much When I have indulged a little my joy for your success and honour, it is natural to consider the circumstances you have told me; and you will easily excuse me if I am not quite as much satisfied with the conduct of your late antagonists, as I with yours. You have tranquillized a nation, have repaired your master’s honour, and secured the peace of your administration;-but what shall one say to the Speaker, Mr. Malone and the others? Don’t they confess that they have gone the greatest lengths, and risked the safety of their country on a mere personal pique? If they did not contend for profit, like our patriots (and you don’t tell me that they have made any lucrative stipulations), yet it is plain that their ambition had been wounded, and that they resented their power being crossed. But I, Who am Whig to the backbone, indeed in the strictest sense of the word, feel hurt in a tenderer point, and which you,. who are a minister, must not allow me: I am offended at their agreeing to an address that avows such deference for prerogative, and that is to protest so deeply against having to attack it. However rebel this may sound at your court, my Gothic spirit is hurt; I do not love such loyal expressions from a Parliament. I do not so much consider myself writing to Dublin castle, as from Strawberry castle, where you know how I love to enjoy my liberty. I give myself the airs, in my nutshell, of an old baron, and am tempted almost to say with an old Earl of Norfolk, who was a very free speaker at least, if he was not an excellent poet,
“When I am in my castle of Bungey,
Situate upon the river Waveney,
I ne care for the King of cockney.”
I have been roving about Hampshire, have been at Winchester and Southampton and twenty places, and have been but one day in London –consequently know as little news as if I had been shut up in Bungey castle. Rumours there are of great bickerings and uneasiness; but I don’t believe there will be any bloodshed of places, except Legge’s, which nobody seems willing to take-I mean as a sinecure. His Majesty of Cockney is returned exceedingly well, but grown a little out of humour at finding that we are not so much pleased with all the Russians and Hessians that he has hired to recover the Ohio. We are an ungrateful people! Make a great many compliments for me to my Lady Ailesbury; I own I am in pain about Missy. As my lady is a little coquette herself, and loves crowds and admiration, and a court life, it will be very difficult for her to keep a strict eye upon Missy. The Irish are very forward and bold:–I say no more but it would hurt you both extremely to have her marry herself idly and I think my Lord Chancellor has not extended his matrimonial foresight to Ireland. However, I have much confidence in Mrs. Elizabeth Jones:(613) I am sure, when they were here, she would never let Missy whisper with a boy that was old enough to speak. Adieu! As the winter advances, and plots thicken, I will write you letters that shall have a little more in them than this. In the mean time I am going to Bath, not for my health, you know I never am ill, but for my amusement. I never was there, and at present there are several of my acquaintance. The French academy have chosen my Lord Chesterfield, and he has written them a letter of thanks. that is the finest composition in the world – indeed, I was told so by those who have not seen it; but they would have told me so if they had seen it, whether it was the finest or the worst; suffices it to be his! Yours ever.
(612) mr. Conway was now secretary of state to the Marquis of Hartington, lord lieutenant of Ireland.
(613) Miss Conway’s nurse.
277 Letter 150
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Sept. 29, 1755.
It is not that I am perjured for not writing to you oftener, as I promised; the war is forsworn. We do all we can; we take, from men-of-war and Domingo-men, down to colliers and cock-boats, and from California into the very Bay of Calais. The French have taken but one ship from us, the Blandford, and that they have restored–but I don’t like this drowsy civil lion; it will put out a talon and give us a cursed scratch before we are aware. Monsieur de seychelles, who grows into power, is labouring at their finances and marine: they have struck off their sous-fermiers, and by a reform in what they call the King’s pleasures, have already saved 1,200,000 pounds sterling a year. Don’t go and imagine that 1,200,000 pounds was all stink in the gulf of Madame Pompadour, or even in suppers and hunting; under the word the King’s pleasures, they really comprehended his civil list; and in that light I don’t know why our civil list might not be called another King’s pleasures(614) too, though it is not all entirely squandered. In short, the single article of coffee for the Mesdames(615) amounted to 3000 pounds sterling a year–to what must their rouge have amounted?–but it is high time to tell you of other wars, than the old story of France and England. You must know, not in your ministerial capacity, for I suppose that is directed by such old geographers as Sanson and De Lisle, who imagined that Herenhausen was a town in Germany, but according to the latest discoveries, there is such a county in England as Hanover, which lying very much exposed to the incursions of the French and Prussians (the latter are certain hussars in the French army), it has been thought necessary to hire Russians, and Hessians, and all the troops that lie nearest to the aforesaid weak part of Great Britain called Hanover, in order to cover this frontier from any invasion. The expedience of this measure was obvious; yet many People who could not get over the prejudice of education, or who having got over these prejudices have for certain reasons returned to them, these Ptolemaic geographers Will not be persuaded that there is any such county in England as Hanover, and not finding it in their old maps, or having burnt their new ones in a passion–(Mr. Legge, indeed, tore his at the treasury board the day that the warrant for the Hessian subsidy came thither)–they determined that England had no occasion for these mercenaries. Besides Legge, the Duke of Devonshire, the Speaker, Sir George Lee, and one MR. William Pitt, a man formerly remarkable for disputing the new geography, declared strongly against the system of treaties.(616) Copernicus no sooner returned from Germany, than the Duke of Newcastle, who had taken the alarm, frightened him out of his wits. In short, they found that they should have no Professor to defend the new system in Parliament. Every body was tried–when every body had refused, and the Duke of Newcastle was ready to throw up the cards, he determined to try Fox,(617) who, by the mediation of Lord Granville, has accepted the seals, is to be secretary of state, is to have the conduct of the House of Commons, and is, I think-very soon to be first minister-or what one has known to happen to some who of very late years have joined to support a tottering administration, is to be ruined. Indeed, he seems sensible of the alternative, professes no cordiality to Duke Trinculo, who is viceroy over him, but is listing Bedford’s, and whoever will list with him, as fast as he can. One who has been his predecessor in suffering by such an alliance, my Lord Chesterfield, told him, “Well, the Duke of Newcastle has turned out every body else, and now he has turned out himself.” Sir Thomas Robinson is to return to the great wardrobe, with an additional pension on Ireland of 2000 pounds a year. This is turning a cipher into figures indeed! Lord Barrington is to be secretary at war. This change, however, is not to take place till after the Parliament is met, which is not till the 13th of’ next month, because Mr. Fox is to preside at the Cockpit the night before the House opens. How Mr. Legge will take his deposition is not known. He has determined not to resign, but to be turned out; I should think this would satisfy his scruples, even if he had made a vow against resigning.
As England grows turbulent again, Ireland grows calm again. Mr. Conway, who has gone thither secretary to Lord Hartington, has with great prudence and skill pacified that kingdom: you may imagine that I am not a little happy at his acquiring renown. The Primate is to be the peace-offering.
If there were any private news, as there are none, I could not possibly to-day step out of my high historical pantoufles to tell it you. Adieu! You know I don’t dislike to see the Kings and queens and Knaves of this world shuffled backwards and forwards; consequently I look on, very well amused, and very indifferent whatever is trumps!
(614) Alluding to the King’s love of money.
(615 The daughters of Louis the Fifteenth.-D.
(616) The following is from Dodington’s Diary:-“Sept. 3. Mr. Pitt told me, that he had painted to the Duke of Newcastle all the ill Consequences of this system of subsidies in the strongest light that his imagination could furnish him with: he had deprecated his Grace not to complete the ruin which the King had nearly brought upon himself by his journey to Hanover, which all people should have prevented, even with their bodies. A King abroad, at this time, without one man about him that has one English sentiment, and to bring home a whole set of subsidies! That he was willing to promote the King’s service; but if this was what he was sent for to promote, few words were best–nothing in the world should induce him to consent to these subsidies.”-E.
(617) ” Fox must again be treated with; for the session of Parliament approached, and it was become a general maxim, that the House of Commons had been so much accustomed to have a minister of its own, they would not any longer be governed by deputy. Fox insisted on being made secretary of state, much against the King’s inclination, as well as the Duke of Newcastle’s: for though his Majesty preferred Fox to Pitt, he liked Sir Thomas Robinson better than either of them; for Sir Thomas did -is he was directed, understood foreign affairs, and pretended to nothing further. However, Fox carried his point.” Waldegrave’s Memoirs, p. 51.-E.
279 Letter 151
To John Chute, Esq.(618)
Arlington Street, Sept. 29, 1755.
I should not answer your letter so soon, as you write so often, if I had not something particular to tell you. Mr. Fox is to be secretary of state. The history of this event, in short, is this: George Elector of Hanover, and Thomas King of England, have been exceedingly alarmed. By some misapprehension, the Russian and Hessian treaties, the greatest blessings that were ever calculated for this country, have been totally, and almost universally disapproved. Mr. Legge grew conscientious about them; the Speaker, constitutional; Mr. Pitt, patriot; Sir George Lee. scrupulous; Lord Egmont, uncertain; the Duke of Devonshire, something that he meant for some of these; and my uncle, I suppose, frugal– how you know. Let a Parliament be ever so ready to vote for any thing, yet if every body in both Houses is against a thing, why the Parliament itself can’t carry a point against both Houses. This made such a dilemma, that, after trying every body else, and being ready to fling up themselves, King Thomas and his Chancellor offered Mr. Fox the honour of defending and saving them. He, who is all Christian charity, and forgiving every body but himself and those who dissuaded him, for not taking the seals before, consented to undertake the cause of the treaties, and is to have the management of the House Of Commons as long as he can keep it. In the mean time, to give his new friends all the assistance he can, he is endeavouring to bring the Bedfords to court; and if any other person in the world hates King Thomas, why Mr. Fox is very willing to bring them to court too. In the mean time, Mr. Pitt is scouring his old Hanoverian trumpet and Mr. Legge is to accompany him with his hurdy-gurdy.
Mr. Mann did not tell me a word of his intending you a visit. The reason the Dacres have not been with you is, they have been at court; and as at present there are as many royal hands to kiss as a Japanese idol has, it takes some time to slobber through the whole ceremony.
I have some thoughts of going to Bath for a week; though I don’t know whether my love for my country, while my country is in a quandary, may not detain me hereabouts. When Mr. Muntz has done, you will be so good as to pacquet him up, and send him to Strawberry. I rather wish you would bring him yourself; I am impatient for the drawing you announce to me. A commission has passed the seals, I mean of’ secrecy, (for I don’t know whether they must not be stole,) to get you some swans; and as in this age one ought not to despair of any thing where robbery is concerned, I have some hopes of succeeding. If you should want any French ships for your water, there are great numbers to be had cheap, and small enough. Adieu!
618) Now first printed.
280 Letter 152
To Richard Bentley, Esq.
Arlington Street, Sept. 30, 1755.
Solomon says somewhere or other, I think it is in Castelnuovo’s edition–is not there such a one?–that the infatuation of a nation for a foolish minister is like that of a lover for an ugly woman: when once he opens his eyes, he wonders what the devil bewitched him. This is the text to the present sermon in politics, which I shall not divide under three heads, but tell you at once, that no minister was ever nearer the precipice than ours has been. I did tell you, I believe, that Legge had refused to sign the warrant for the Hessian subsidy: in short, he heartily resented the quick coldness that followed his exaltation, waited for an opportunity of revenge, found this; and, to be sure, no vengeance ever took speedier strides. All the world revolted against subsidiary treaties; nobody was left to defend them but Murray, and he did not care to venture. Offers of graciousness, of cabinet councillor, or chancellor of the exchequer, were made to right and left. Dr. Lee was conscientious; Mr. Pitt might be brought, in compliment to his Majesty, to digest one–but a system of subsidies–impossible! In short, the very first ministership was offered to be made over to my Lord Granville. He begged to be excused–he was not fit for it. Well, you laugh–all this is fact. At last we were forced to strike sail to Mr. Fox he is named for secretary of state, with not only the lead, but the power of the House of Commons. You ask, in the room of which secretary? What signifies of which? Why, I think, of Sir Thomas Robinson, who returns to his wardrobe; and Lord Barrington comes into the war-office. This is the present state of things in this grave reasonable island: the union hug like two cats over a string; the rest are arming for opposition. But I Will not promise you any more warlike winters; I remember how soon the campaign of the list was addled.
In Ireland, Mr. Conway has pacified all things: the Irish are to get as drunk as ever to the glorious and immortal memory of King George, and the prerogative is to be exalted as high as ever, by being obliged to give up the Primate. There! I think I have told you volumes: yet I know you will not be content, you will want to know something of the war, and of America; but, I assure you, it is not the bon-ton to talk of either this week. We think not of the former, and of the latter we should think to very little purpose ‘. for we have not heard a syllable more; Braddock’s defeat still remains in the situation of the longest battle that ever was fought with nobody. Content your English spirit with knowing that there are very near three thousand French prisoners in England, taken out of several ships.
281 Letter 153
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Oct. 7, 1755.
My dear sir,
Nobody living feels more for you than I do: nobody knows better either the goodness and tenderness of your heart, or the real value of the person you have lost.’ I cannot flatter myself that any thing I could say would comfort you under an affliction so well founded; but I should have set out, and endeavoured to share your concern, if Mrs. Trevor had not told me that you were going into Cheshire. I will only say, that if you think change of place can contribute at all to divert your melancholy, you know where you would be most welcome; and whenever you will come to Strawberry Hill, you will, at least, if you do not find a comforter, find a most sincere friend that pities your distress, and would do any thing upon earth to alleviate your misfortune. If you can listen yet to any advice, let me recommend to you to give up all thoughts of Greatworth; you will never be able to support life there any more: let me look out for some little box for you in my neighbourhood. You can live nowhere where you will be more beloved; and you will there always have it in your power to enjoy company Or solitude, as you like. I have long wished to get you so far back into the world, and now it is become absolutely necessary for your health and peace. I will say no more, lest too long a letter should be either troublesome or make you think it necessary to answer; but do not, till you find it more agreeable to vent your grief this way than in any other. I am, my good Sir, with hearty concern and affection, yours most sincerely.
(619) His sister, Miss Harriet Montagu.
281 Letter 154
To Richard Bentley, Esq.
Arlington Street, Oct. 19, 1755.
Do you love royal quarrels? You may be served-I know you don’t love an invasion-nay, that even passes my taste; it will make too much party. In short, the lady dowager Prudence begins to step a little over the threshold of that discretion which she has always hitherto so sanctimoniously observed. She is suspected of strange whims; so strange, as neither to like more German subsidies or more German matches. A strong faction, professedly against the treaties,(620) openly against Mr. Fox, and covertly under the banners of the aforesaid lady Prudence, arm from all quarters against the opening of the session. Her ladyship’s eldest boy declares violently against being bewulfenbuttled,(621) a word which I don’t pretend to understand, as it is not in Mr. Johnson’s new dictionary. There! now I have been as enigmatic as ever I have accused you of being; and hoping you will not be able to expound my German hieroglyphics, I proceed to tell you in plain English that we are going to be invaded. I have within this day or two seen grandees of ten, twenty, and thirty thousand pounds a-year, who are in a mortal fright; consequently, it would be impertinent in much less folk to tremble, and accordingly they don’t. At court there is no doubt but an attempt will be made before Christmas. I find valour is like virtue: impregnable as they boast themselves, it is discovered that on the first attack both lie strangely open! They are raising more men, camps are to be formed in Kent and Sussex, the Duke of Newcastle is frightened out of his wits, which, though he has lost so often, you know he always recovers, and as fresh as ever. Lord Egmont despairs of the commonwealth; and I am going to fortify my castle of Strawberry, according to an old charter I should have had for embattling and making a deep ditch. But here am I laughing when I really ought to cry, both with my public eye and my private one. I have told you what I think ought to sluice my public eye; and your private eye too will moisten, when I tell you that poor Miss Harriet Montagu is dead. She died about a fortnight ago; but having nothing else to tell you, I would not send a letter so far with only such melancholy news-and so, you will say, I stayed till I could tell still more bad news. The truth is, I have for some time had two letters of yours to answer: it is three weeks since I wrote to you, and one begins to doubt whether one shall ever be to write again. I will hope all my best hopes; for I have no sort of intention at this time of day of finishing either as a martyr or a hero. I rather intend to live and record both those professions, if need be; and I have no inclination to scuttle barefoot after a Duke of Wolfenbuttle’s army as Philip de Comines says he saw their graces of Exeter and Somerset trudge after the Duke of Burgundy’s. The invasion, though not much in fashion yet, begins, like Moses’s rod, to swallow other news, both political and suicidical. Our politics I have sketched out to you, and can only add, that Mr. Fox’s ministry does not as yet promise to be of long duration. When it was first thought that he had cot the better of the Duke of Newcastle, Charles Townshend said admirably, that he was sure the Duchess, like the old Cavaliers, would make a vow not to shave her beard till the restoration.
I can’t recollect the least morsel of a fess or chevron of the Boynets: they did not happen to enter into any extinct genealogy for whose welfare I interest myself. I sent your letter to Mr. Chute, who is still under his own vine: Mr. Muntz is still with him, recovering of a violent fever. Adieu! If memoirs don’t grow too memorable, I think this season will produce a large crop.
P. S. I believe I scarce ever mentioned to you last Winter the follies of the Opera: the impertinences of a great singer were too old and common a topic. I must mention them now, when they rise to any improvement in the character Of national folly. The Mingotti, a noble figure, a great mistress of music, and a most incomparable actress, surpassed any thing I ever saw for the extravagance of her humours.(622) She never sung above one night in three, from a fever upon hot-temper: and never would act at all when Ricciarelli, the first man, was to be in dialogue with her.(623) Her fevers grow so high, that the audience caught them, and hissed her more than once: she herself once turned and hissed again–Tit pro tat geminat phoy d’achamiesmeyn–among the treaties which a secretary of state has negotiated this summer, he has contracted for a succedaneum to the Mingotti. In short, there is a woman hired to sing when the other shall be- out of humour!
Here is a “World” by Lord Chesterfield:(624) the first part is very pretty, till it runs into witticism. I have marked the passages I particularly like.
You would not draw Henry IV. at a siege for me: pray don’t draw Louis XV.(625
(620) Lord Chesterfield, in a letter to Mr. Dayrolles, of the 4th of this month, says, “the next which now draws very near, will, I believe, be a very troublesome one; and I really think it very doubtful whether the subsidiary treaties with Russia and Cassel will be carried or not. To be sure, much may be said against both; but yet I dread the consequences of rejecting them by Parliament, since they are made.”-E.
(621) This is an allusion to a contemplated marriage between the Prince of Wales, afterwards George the Third, and a daughter of the Duke of Brunswick Wolfenbuttle. The following is Lord Waldegrave’s account of this project:–“An event happened about the middle of the summer, which engaged Leicester House still deeper in faction than they at first intended. The Prince of Wales was just entering into his eighteenth year; and being of a modest, sober disposition, with a healthy, vigorous constitution, it might reasonably be supposed that a matrimonial companion might be no unacceptable amusement. The Duchess of Brunswick Wolfenbuttle, with her two unmarried daughters, waited on his Majesty at Hanover. The older, both as to person and understanding, was a most accomplished Princess: the King was charmed with her cheerful, modest, and sensible behaviour, and wished to make her his granddaughter, being too old to make her his wife. I remember his telling me, with great eagerness, that had he been only twenty years younger, she would never have been refused by a Prince of Wales, but should at once have been Queen of England. Now, whether his Majesty spoke seriously is very little to the purpose; his grandson’s happiness was undoubtedly his principal object; and he was desirous the match might be concluded before his own death, that the Princess of Wales should have no temptation to do a Job for her relations, by marrying her son to one of the Saxe Gotha family, who might not have the amiable accomplishments of the Princess of Wolfenbuttle. The King’s intentions, it may easily be imagined, were not agreeable to the Princess of Wales. She knew the temper of the Prince her son; that he was by nature indolent, hated business, but loved a domestic life, and would make an excellent husband. She knew also that the young Princess, having merit and understanding equal to her beauty, must in a short time have the greatest influence over him. In which circumstances, it may naturally be concluded that her Royal Highness did every thing in her Power to prevent the match. The Prince of Wales was taught to believe that he was to be made a sacrifice merely to gratify the King’s private interest in the electorate of Hanover. The young Princess was most cruelly misrepresented; many even of her perfections were aggravated into faults; his Royal Highness implicitly believing every idle tale and improbable assertion, till his prejudice against her amounted to aversion itself.” Memoirs, p. 39.-E.
(622) The following is Dr. Burney’s account:–“Upon the success of Jomelli’s ‘Andromaca’ a damp was thrown by the indisposition of Mingotti, during which Frasi was called upon to play her part in that opera; when suspicion arising, that Mingotti’s was a mere dramatic and political cold, the public was much out of humour, till she resumed her function in Metastasio’s admirable drama of ‘Demofoonte,’ in which she acquired more applause, and augmented her theatrical consequence beyond any period of her performance in England.”-E.
(623) “Ricciarelli was a neat and pleasing performer, with a clear, flexible, and silver-toned voice; but so much inferior to Mingotti, both in singing and acting, that he was never in very high favour.” Burney.-E.
(624) No. 146, Advice to the Ladies on their return to the country.-E.
(625) Alluding to the subject Mr. Walpole had proposed to him for a picture, in the letter of the 15th of August (letter 143), and to the then expected invasion of’ England by Louis XV.
284 Letter 155
To John Chute, Esq.(626)
Arlington Street, October 20, 1755.
You know, my dear Sir, that I do not love to have you taken unprepared: the last visit I announced to you was of the Lord Dacre of the South and of the Lady Baroness, his spouse: the next company you may expect will be composed of the Prince of Soubise and twelve thousand French; though, as winter is coming on, they will scarce stay in the country, but hasten to London. I need not protest to you I believe, that I am serious, and that an invasion before Christmas will certainly be attempted; you will believe me at the first word. It is a little hard, however! they need not envy us General Braddock’s laurels; they were not in such quantity!
Parliamentary and subsidiary politics are in great ferment. I could tell you much if I saw you; but I will not while you stay there–yet, as I am a true friend and not to be changed by prosperity, I can’t neglect offering YOU my services when I am cens`e to be well with a minister. It is so long since I was, and I believe so little a while that I shall be so,, (to be sure, I mean that he will be minister,) that I must faire valoir my interest, while I have any-in short, shall I get you one of these new independent companies ?-Hush! don’t tell Mr. Muntz how powerful I am: his warlike spirit will want to coincide with my ministerial one; and it would be very inconvenient to the Lords Castlecomers to have him knocked on the head before he had finished all the strawberries and vines that we lust after.
I had a note from Gray, who is still at Stoke; and he desired I would tell you, that he has continued pretty well. Do come. Adieu!
Lottery tickets rise: subsidiary treaties under par–I don’t say, no price. Lord Robert Bertie, with a company of the Guards, has thrown himself into Dover castle; don’t they sound very war-full?
(626) Now first printed.
285 Letter 156
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 27, 1755.
When the newspapers swarm with our military preparations at home, with encampments, fire-ships, floating castles at the mouths of the great rivers, etc. in short, when we expect an invasion, you would chide, or be disposed to chide me, if I were quite silent-and yet, what can I tell you more than that an invasion is threatened? that sixteen thousand men are about Dunkirk, and that they are assembling great quantities of flat-bottomed boats! Perhaps they will attempt some landing; they are certainly full of resentment; they broke the peace, took our forts and built others on our boundaries; we did not bear it patiently; we retook two forts, attacked or have been going to attack others, and have taken vast numbers of their ships: this is the state of the provocation–what is more provoking, for once we have not sent twenty or thirty thousand men to Flanders on whom they might vent their revenge. Well! then they must come here, and perhaps invite the Pretender to be of the party; not in a very popular light for him, to be brought by the French in revenge of a national war. You will ask me, if we are alarmed? the people not at all so: a minister or two, who are subject to alarms, are–and that is no bad circumstances We are as much an island as ever, and I think a much less exposed one than we have been for many years. Our fleet is vast; our army at home, and ready, and two-thirds stronger than when we were threatened in 1744; the season has been the wettest that ever has been known, consequently the roads not very invade-able: and there is the additional little circumstance of the late rebellion defeated; I believe I may reckon too, Marshal Saxe dead. You see our situation is not desperate: in short, we escaped in ’44, and when the rebels were at Derby in ’45; we must have bad luck indeed, if we fall now.
Our Parliament meets in a fortnight; if no French come, our campaign there will be warm; nay, and uncommon, the opposition will be chiefly composed of men in place. You know we always refine; it used to be an imputation on our senators, that they opposed to get places. They now oppose to get better places! We are a comical nation (I Speak with all due regard to our gravity!)-It were a pity we should be destroyed, if it were only for the sake of posterity; we shall not be half so droll, if we are either a province to France, or under an absolute prince of our own.
I am sorry you are losing my Lord Cork; you must balance the loss with that of Miss Pitt,(627) who is a dangerous inmate. You ask me if I have seen Lord Northumberland’s Triumph of Bacchus;(628) I have not: you know I never approved the thought of those copies and have adjourned my curiosity till the gallery is thrown open with the first masquerade. Adieu! my dear Sir.
(627) Elizabeth Pitt, sister of Lord Chatham@ She had been maid of honour to Augusta Princess of Wales; then lived openly with Lord Talbot as his mistress; went to Italy, turned Catholic, and married; came back, wrote against her brother, and a trifling pamphlet recommending magazines of corn, and called herself Clara Villiers Pitt.
(628) Hugh, Earl and afterwards Duke of Northumberland, bespoke at a great price five copies of capital pictures in Italy, by Mentz, Pompeo, Battoni, etc. for his gallery at Northumberland House.
286 Letter 157
To Richard Bentley, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, October 31, 1755.
As the invasion is not ready, we are forced to take up with a victory. An account came yesterday, that General Johnson(629) had defeated the French near the lake St. Sacrement, had killed one thousand, and taken the lieutenant-general who commanded them prisoner! his name is Dieskau, a Saxon, an esteemed `el`eve of Marshal Saxe. By the printed account, which I enclose, Johnson showed great generalship and bravery. As the whole business was done by irregulars, it does not lessen the faults of Braddock, and the panic of his troops. If I were so disposed, I could conceive that there are heroes in the world who are not quite pleased with this extra- martinette success(630)–but we won’t blame those Alexanders, till they have beaten the French in Kent! You know it will be time enough to abuse them, when they have done all the service they can! The other enclosed paper is another World,(631) by my Lord Chesterfield; not so pretty, I think, as the last; yet it has merit. While England and France are at war, and Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt going to war, his lordship is coolly amusing himself at picquet at Bath with a Moravian baron, who would be in prison, if his creditors did not occasionally release him to play with and cheat my Lord Chesterfield, as the only chance they have for recovering their- money!
We expect the Parliament to be thronged., and great animosities. I will not send you one of the eggs that are laid; for so many political ones have been addled of late years, that I believe all the state game-cocks in the world are impotent.
I did not doubt but u would be struck with the death of poor Bland.(632) I, t’other night, at White’s, found a very remarkable entry in our very-very remarkable wager-book: “Lord Mountford(633) bets Sir John Bland twenty guineas that Nash outlives Cibbor!” How odd that these two old creatures, selected for their antiquities, should live to see both their wagerers put an end to their own lives! Cibber is within a few days of eighty-four, still hearty, and clear, and well. I told him I was glad to see him look so well: “Faith,” said he, “it is very well that I look at all!”–I shall thank you for the Ormer shells and roots; and shall desire your permission to finish my letter already. As the Parliament is to meet so soon, you are likely to be overpowered with my despatches.–I have been thinning my wood of trees and planting them out more into the field: I am fitting up the old kitchen for a china-room: I am building a bedchamber for my self over the old blue-room, in which I intend to die, though not yet; and some trifles of this kind, which I do not specify to you, because I intend to reserve a little to be quite new to you. Adieu!
(629) In the Following month created Sir William Johnson, Bart. Parliament was so satisfied with his conduct on this occasion, that it voted him the sum of 5000 pounds. He afterwards distinguished himself as a negotiator with the Indian tribes, and was ultimately chosen colonel of the Six Nations, and superintendent of Indian affairs for the northern parts of America. He became well acquainted with the manners and language of the Indians, and in 1772, sent to the Royal Society some valuable communications relative to them. He died in 1774.-E.
(630) Alluding to the Duke of Cumberland.
(631) No. 148, On Civility and Good-breeding.-E.
(632) Sir John Bland, member for Luggershall. The event took place on the road between Calais and Paris.-E.
(633) Lord Mountford would have been the winner. Colley Cibber died in 1757: Beau Nash survived till 1761. A very entertaining Memoir of the King of Bath will be found in Mr. Murray’s enlarged and elegant edition of Goldsmith’s Miscellaneous Works. It is matter of surprise, that so many pieces, from the pen of the delightful author of the Vicar of Wakefield, should have so long remained uncollected.-E.
287 Letter 158
To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 8, 1755.
My dear sir,
You oblige me extremely by giving me this commission; and though I am exceedingly unlike Solomon in every thing else, I will at least resemble him in remembering you to the Hiram from whom I obtained my cedars of libanus. He is by men called Christopher Gray, nurseryman at Fulham. I mention cedars first, because they are the most beautiful of the evergreen race, and because they are the dearest; half a guinea apiece in baskets. The arbutus are scarce a crown apiece, but they are very beautiful: the lignumvitae I would not recommend to you; they stink abominably if you touch them, and never make a handsome tree: The Chinese arborvitae is very beautiful. I have a small nursery myself, scarce bigger than one of those pleasant gardens which Solomon describes, and which if his fair one meant the church, I suppose must have meant the churchyard. Well, out of this little parsley-bed of mine, I can furnish you with a few plants, particularly three Chinese arborvitaes, a dozen of the New England or Lord Weymouth’s pine, which is that beautiful tree that we have so much admired at the Duke of Argyle’s for its clean straight stem, the lightness of its hairy green, and for being feathered quite to the ground: they should stand in a moist soil, and Care must be taken every year to clear away all plants and trees round them, that they may have free air and room to expand themselves. Besides these’ I shall send you twelve stone or Italian pine, twelve pinasters, twelve black spruce firs, two Caroline cherries, thirty evergreen cytisus, a pretty shrub that grows very fast, and may be cut down as you please, fifty Spanish brooms, and six acacias, the genteelest tree of all, but you must take care to plant them in a first row, and where they will be well sheltered, for the least wind tears and breaks them to pieces. All these are ready, whenever you will give me directions, how and where to send them. They are exceedingly small, as I have but lately taken to propagate myself; but then they will travel more safely, will be more sure of living, and will grow faster than larger. Other sorts Of trees that you must have, are silver and Scotch firs; Virginia cedars, which should stand forwards and have nothing touch them; and above all cypresses, which, I think, are my chief passion; there is nothing So picturesque, where they Stand two or three in a clump, upon a little hillock, or rising above low shrubs, and particularly near buildings. There is another bit of picture, of which I am fond, and that is a larch or a spruce fir planted behind a weeping willow, and shooting upwards as the willow depends. I think for courts about a house, or winter gardens, almond trees mixed with evergreens, particularly with Scotch firs, have a pretty effect, before any thing else comes out; whereas almond trees being generally planted among other trees, and being in bloom before other trees have leaves, have no ground to show the beauty of their blossoms. Gray at Fulham sells cypresses in pots at half a crown apiece; you turn them out of the pot with all their mould, and they never fall. I think this is all you mean; if you have anymore garden-questions or commissions, you know you command my little knowledge.
I am grieved that you have still any complaints left. Dissipation, in my opinion, will be the best receipt; and I do not speak merely for my own sake, when I tell you, how much I wish to have you keep your resolution of coming to town before Christmas. I am still more pleased with the promise you make to Strawberry, which you have never seen in its green coat since it cut its teeth. I am here all alone, and shall stay till Tuesday, the day after the birthday. On Thursday begins our warfare, and if we may believe signs and tokens, our winter will be warlike-. I mean at home; I have not much faith in the invasion. Her Royal Highness and His Royal Highness(634) are likely to come to an open rupture. His grace of Newcastle, who, I think, has gone under every nickname, waits, I believe to see to which he will cling. There have been two Worlds by my Lord Chesterfield lately, very pretty, the rest very indifferent.
(634) The Princess Dowager and the Duke of Cumberland.
289 Letter 159
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington street, Nov. 15, 1755.
I promised you histories, and there are many people that take care I should have it in my power to keep my word. To begin in order, I should tell you that there were 289 members at the Cockpit meeting, the greatest number ever known there: but Mr. Pitt, who is too great a general to regard numbers, especially when there was a probability of no great harmony between the commanders, did not, however, postpone giving battle. The engagement was not more decisive than long: we sat till within a quarter of five in the morning; an uninterrupted serious debate from before two. Lord Hillsborough moved the address, and very injudiciously supposed an opposition. Martin, Legge’s secretary, moved to omit in the address the indirect approbation of the treaties, and the direct assurances of protection to Hanover. These questions were at length divided: and against Pitt’s inclination, the last, which was the least unpopular, was first decided by a majority of 311 against 105. Many then went away; and on the next division the numbers were 290 to 89. These are the general outlines. The detail of the speeches, which were very long, and some extremely fine, it would be impossible to give you in any compass. On the side of the opposition, (which I must tell you by the way, though it set out decently, seems extremely resolved) the speakers (I name them in their order) were: the 3d Colebrook, Martin, Northey, Sir Richard Lyttelton, Doddington, George Grenville, Sir F. Dashwood, Beckford, Sir G. Lee, Legge, Potter, Dr. Hay, George Townshend, Lord Egmont, Pitt, and Admiral Vernon on the other side were, Lord Hillsborough, Obrien, young Stanhope,(635) Hamilton, Alstone, Ellis, Lord Barrington, Sir G. Lyttelton, Nugent, Murray, Sir T. Robinson, my uncle, and Mr. Fox. As short as I can, I will give you an account of them. Sir Richard, Beckford, Potter, G. Townshend, the Admiral of course, Martin, Stanhope, and Ellis, were very bad: Doddington was well, but very acceding: Dr. Hay by no means answers his reputation; it was easy but not striking. Lord Egmont was doubting, absurd, and obscure. Sir G. Lee and Lord Barrington were much disliked; I don’t think so deservedly. Poor Alstone was mad, and spoke ten times to order. Sir George(636) our friend, was dull and timid. Legge was the latter. Nugent roared, and Sir Thomas rumbled. My uncle did justice to himself, and was as wretched and dirty as his whole behaviour for his coronet has been. Mr. Fox was extremely fatigued, and did little. Geo. Grenville’s was very fine and much beyond himself, and very pathetic. The Attorney-general(637) in the same style, and very artful, was still finer. Then there was a young Mr. Hamilton,(638) who spoke for the first time, and was at Once perfection: his speech set, and full of antithesis, but those antitheses were full of argument: indeed his speech was the most argumentative of the whole day; and he broke through the regularity of his own composition, answered other people, and fell into his own track again with the greatest ease. His figure is advantageous, his voice strong and clear, his manner spirited, and the whole with the ease of an established speaker. You will ask, what could be beyond this? Nothing, but what was beyond what ever was, and that was Pitt! He spoke at past one, for an hour and thirty-five minutes: there was more humour, wit, vivacity, finer language, more boldness, in short, more astonishing perfections, than even you who are used to him, can conceive. He was not abusive, yet very attacking on all sides: he ridiculed my Lord Hillsborough, crushed poor Sir George, terrified the Attorney, lashed my Lord Granville, painted my Lord of Newcastle, attacked Mr. Fox, and even hinted up to the Duke.(639) A few of the Scotch were in the minority, and most of the Princess’s people, not all: all the Duke of Bedford’s in the majority. He himself spoke in the other House for the address (though professing incertainty about the treaties themselves), against my Lord Temple and Lord Halifax, without a division. My Lord Talbot was neuter; he and I were of a party: my opinion was strongly with the opposition; I could not vote for the treaties; I would not vote against Mr. Fox. It is ridiculous perhaps, at the end of such a debate, to give an account of my own silence; and as it is of very little consequence what I did, so it is very unlike me to justify myself. You know how much I hate professions of integrity; and my pride is generally too great to care what the generality of people say of me: but your heart is good enough to make me wish you should think well of mine.
You will want to know what is to be the fate of the ministry in opposition: but that I can’t tell you. I don’t believe they have determined what to do, more than oppose, nor that it is determined what to do with them. Though it is clear that it is very humiliating to leave them in place, you may conceive several reasons why it is not eligible to dismiss them. You know where you are, how easy it is to buy an opposition who have not places; but tell us what to do with an opposition that has places? If you say, Turn them out; I answer, That is not the way to quiet any opposition, or a ministry so constituted as ours at present. Adieu!
(635) Son of the Earl of Chesterfield; who upon this occasion addressed the House for the first time. “His father,” says Dr. Maty, “took infinite pains to prepare him for his first appearance as a speaker. The young man seems to have succeeded tolerably well upon the whole, but on account of his shyness was obliged to stop, and, if I am not mistaken, to have recourse to his notes. Lord Chesterfield used every argument in his power to comfort him, and to inspire him with confidence and courage to make some other attempt; but I have not heard that Mr. Stanhope ever spoke again in the House.”- E.
(636) Sir George Lyttelton.
(637) William Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield.
(638) William Gerard Hamilton. It was this speech which, not being followed, as was naturally expected, by repeated exhibitions of similar eloquence, acquired for him the name of single-speech Hamilton.
(639) The Duke of Cumberland.
291 Letter 160
To Richard Bentley, Esq.
Arlington Street, November 16, 1755.
Never was poor invulnerable Immortality so soon brought to shame! Alack! I have had the gout! would fain have persuaded myself that it was a sprain: and, then, that it was only the gout come to look for Mr. Chute at Strawberry Hill: but none of my evasions will do! I was, certainly, lame for two days; and though I repelled it–first, by getting wet-shod, and then by spirits of camphor; and though I have since tamed it more rationally by leaving off the little wine I drank, I still know where to look for it whenever I have an occasion for a