1 / 1 jSS IP IP it 19 HI! - r, THE better© of Horace WalpoU VOLUME 11. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/lettersofhoracew02walp_0 les 'Jerv&s. HOWARD COUNTESS OP SUITOXK ROM THE PICTURE IN" THE POET POPES COLLE CTT ON , BO'D GET BY TEE COUNTESS OE AT MARTHA BIjOBHT'S SALE & PRE SEATED BY HER TO HORACE WAT.BOEE THE LETTERS OF HORACE WALPOLE FOURTH EARL OF OR FORD EDITED BY PETER CUNNINGHAM mow Jfirst Cbronologfcalls Bvrangel> STRAWBERRY HILL— ROAD BETWEEN TWICKENHAM AND TEDDINGTON IN NINE VOLUMES VOL. II. LONDON RICHARD BENT LEY AND SON ^ubtts^ns in ©rtifaarp to l*r JWaftste tfje <^uten 1 891 Ballantyne Press: Ballantyne, Hanson and Co. i EDINBURGH AND LONDON. CONTENTS. LETTERS. 1746-1756. [The Letters now first published or collected are marked N.] LETTER I-A0I 205. To Mann. Jan 17. — The rebels fortifyinc themselves in Scotland — Hawley's executions — Anecdotes of Hawley — French invasion laid aside ... 1 206. To the same. Jan. 28.— Battle of Falkirk 3 207. To the same, Feb. 7. — Flight of the rebels — New regiments— Confusion at court . . 4 208. To the same, Feb. 14. — Insurrection in the Closet — The Pelhams throw up the Seals- -Reconciliation and return to office— History of a long Administration 6 209. To the same, March 6. — Re-union of the dispersed clans — Lord Lovat . . 9 210. To the same, March 21. — The rebels take Fort Augustus — The Prince of Wales's new Opposition ... ...... 12 211. To the same, March 28. — The rebels out of spirits — Lady Walpole — Peggy Banks — The Opera — Shocking murder 13 212. To the same, April 15. — The rebellion at its last gasp — Supplies from France taken — Hanoverian troops — Trial of Hawley —Marriage of Lord Kildare — An odd discovery — Strange event 14 213. To the same, April 25. — Battle of Culloden — Escape of the young Pretender — Fireworks and illuminations — Death of Mr. Winnington . . . 18 214. To the same, May 16. — End of the Rebellion — Old Tullybardine — Lords Kilmarnock, Balmerino, and Ogilvie prisoners— Antwerp taken . . 21 215. To Montagu, May 22.— Visit to Langley — The Sidney papers — Sir Philip Sidney's defence of the Earl of Leicester . . . . . . . 22 816. To the same, June 5. — Character of the Prince of Hesse — Fame of the Yiolette 23 217. To Mann, June 6. — Marriage of the Princess Mary to the Prince of Hesse . 26 218. To Montagu, June 12.— Anecdotes of the Prince of Hesse — Lady Caroline Fitzroy — Dick Edgecumbe 27 216. To the same, June 17. — Prospect of Peace— Death of Augustus Townshend . 28 VOL. It. (, iv CONTENTS. [1746-7. LETTER PAQB 220. To Mann, June 20. — Battle of Placentia — Old Tullybardine and Lord Croniartie in the Tower — Death of Jack Spenser . . . 29 221. To Montagu, June 24. — Ministerial changes — Arrival of rebel prisoners. Jack Spenser's will — Lady Townshend's bon-mots — Anecdotes of Lords Bath and Sandys, and of the Duke of Cumberland 31 222. To the same, July 3. — Promotions and marriages .... .33 223. To Mann, July 7 — Lord Lovat, and Murray the Pretender's secretary, taken 34 224. To Conway, July 19. — Lady Caroline Fitzroy — "The Beauties" — Fanny Murray. N. 35 225. To the same, July 24. — Mr. Fox's commendation of his Epistle to Eckardt. N. 37 226. To Mann, Aug. 1. — Trials of the rebel Lords — Description of Lords Kilmarnock, Cromartie, and Balmerino — Intercessions in their behalf — Confessions of Murray 38 227. To Montagu, Aug. 2. — Trials of the rebel Lords — Anecdotes . . . . 43 228. To the same, Aug. 5. — Discoveries of Murray — Lady Cromartie's petition — Anecdotes of the rebel Lords — The Duke of Cumberland's ball . . 45 229. To the same. — Lord Cromartie's pardon — Lady Caroline Fitzroy's marriage . 47 230. To Mann, Aug. 12. — Opera squabbles — The Violette — Lord Sandwich's embassy — Marriage of Lady Charlotte Fermor, and of the Princess Louisa to the King of Denmark — Wanderings of the young Pretender — Conduct of the rebel Lords — Story of Lord Balmerino 48 231. To Montagu, Aug. 16. — Anecdotes of the rebel Lords under sentence . . 50 232. To Mann, Aug. 21. — Account of the execution of Lords Balmerino and Kilmarnock ........... 52 233. To the same, Sept. 15.— Lady Orford and Mr. Shirley 55 234. To the same, Oct. 2.— Arrival of Mr. Chute from Italy— Mr. Whithed described . . . . 58 235. To Conway, Oct. 3. — Enclosing Gray's " Ode on a distant Prospect of Eton College" 59 236. To Mann, Oct. 14. — Defeat of the allies in Flanders — Capitulation of Genoa — Acquittal of Cope — General Oglethorpe's sentence .... 60 237. To Conway, Oct. 24. — Campaign in Scotland 61 238. To Montagu, Nov. 3. — Epilogue to Tamerlane . . . . . 63 239. To Mann, Nov. 4. — Ministerial changes — Lord Chesterfield accepts the seals — Expedition to Quiberon — Admiral Matthew's court-martial . . . 64 240. To the same, Nov. 12 66 241. To the same, Dec. 5. — Marriages — Reformations in the army — Arrest of Orator Henley — Theatricals 67 242. To the same, Dec. 25. — Trial of Lord Lovat — Mr. Davis's copy of Domi- nichino ............ 69 243. To the same, Jan. 27. — The Prince of Wales's new Opposition . . . 71 244. To the same, Feb. 23. — The Opera — Debates on places and pensions — Lord Kildare's marriage— Panciatici — Anecdotes of Lords Holdernesse and Hervey . 73 1747-8.J CONTENTS. 'LETTER PAGE 245. To the same, March 20. — Lord Lovat's trial — Anecdotes . . . . 75 246. To the same, April 10. — Account of Lord Lovat's execution — The Inde- pendents — Tottering state of the ministry — Civil war in the House of Finch 77 247. To Conway, April 16. — Mutability of fame and popularity — Lord Lovat's burial — Story of George Selwyn — Debate on the Heritable Jurisdictions bill . 80 248. To Mann, May 5.— The new Stadtholder— Scotch Clanships bill— Bill for allowing counsel to prisoners on impeachment for treason — Resignations — Holland House , 81 249. To the same, May 19. — Anson's victory — Death of Captain Grenville — Mr. Dayrolles 84 250. To the same, June 5. — Sudden dissolution of Parliament — Rumoured ministerial changes — Purchase of Strawberry Hill 85 251. To Conway, June 8. — Description of Strawberry Hill — Dissolution of Par- liament — Measures for carrying the elections 86 252. To Mann, June 26. — Election tumults— Sir Jacob Bouverie's peerage — The Duchess of Queensberry at court — Instance of English bizarrerie . . 88 253. To Montagu, July 2. — 111 success of the army in the Netherlands — Battle of Laffeldt — Gallant conduct of Mr. Conway — Naval captures . . . 90 254. To Mann, July 3. — Battle of Laffeldt— Capture of the Domingo fleet — Pro- gress of the elections 92 255. To the same, July 28. — Piedmontese victory over the French — Death of the Chevalier Belleisle 92 256. To the same, Sept. 1. — Bergen-op-Zoom — Sir James Grey — Panciatici . . 93 257. To Montagu, Oct. 1. — Cardinal Polignac's A nti- Lucretius— George Selwyn — Anecdotes 95 258. To Mann, Oct. 2. — Capture of Bergen-op-Zoom — Character of Mr. Chute- Chit-chat — Anecdote of Lord Bath 95 259. To the same, Nov. 10. — Admiral Hawke's victory — Meeting of the new Par- liament — The musical clock 97 260. To the same, Nov. 24. — Meditates a journey to Florence — Congress at Aix- la-Chapelle — Ministerial interference in the Seaford election — Mr. Potter — Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Eclogues . . . . . . 98 261. To the same, Jan. 12. — General disposition for war — Diplomatic changes — Lord and Lady Coke — Matrimonial fracas 100 262. To the same, Jan. 26. — Mr. Legge's embassy to the King of Prussia — Mr. Villiers — Ministers triumphant in Parliament — Admiral Vernon's letters 101 263. To the same, Feb. 16. — Resignation of Lord Chesterfield — Ministerial changes — Hitch in Mr. Legge's embassy — Discontent in the army — Public amuse- ments — Moore's comedy of "The Foundling" ..... 104 264. To Mann, March 1 1 . — Prevalence of miliary fever — Death of the Marquis of Powis — Private theatricals — Attempt to damn " The Foundling " — Ani- mosities in the House of Commons — Buckingham assizes — Duchess of Queensberry's masquerade . . . • . . • . . . 105 CONTENTS. [1748-9. LETTER PAGE 265. To Mann, April 29. — Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle — Masquerade at the Hay market 107 266. To Montagu, May 18. — Lord Anson's marriage with Lady Elizabeth Yorke — His voyage — Anecdotes — Marshal Wade's house . . . . .109 267. To the same, May 26. — Ranelagh — Anecdotes — Sir Thomas Bootle — Story of Prince Edward . . . . . . . . . Ill 268. To the same, June 7. — The Duke of Newcastle's journey to Holland — "Straw- berry Hill," the old name of Walpole's house 112 269. To Conway, June 27. — His rural occupations — Lord Coke — Friendly advice from White's— Fete at Vauxhall 114 270. To Mann, July 14. — Duke of Newcastle's travels — Anecdote . . . 115 271. To the same. — Bad state of Lord Orford's health — Reflections — Has finished his iEdes Walpolianse — Improvements at Strawberry Hill . . . . 117 272. To Montagu, July 25.- — Account of a visit to Nugent — Tombs of the Aubrey de Veres, Earls of Oxford — Henningham Castle — Gosfield . . .118 273. To the same, Aug. 11. — Anecdotes of the House of Vere — Kitty Clive — Garrick and Lee — Visit to Esher — Claremont House — Mrs. Pritchard . 121 274. To Conway, Aug. 29. — His progress in planting — Anticipations of future discoveries 124 275. To Montagu, Sept. 3 —Bon-mot of the Duke of Cumberland— " The new light" — Whitfield and the Methodists — Smell of thieves — Story of hand- some Tracy — Gray, the worst company in the world , . . . 126 276. To Mann, Sept. 18.— Death of Bishop Gibson 129 277. To Montagu, Sept. 25. — Disinterested friendship — Pretty passage in Chilling- worth — The Duchess of Ireland's Hennins, or piked horns . . . . 130 278. To Conway, Oct. 6. — Meeting of Parliament — Preparations for proclaiming the peace — Lady Cadogan 131 279 . To Montagu, Oct. 20 - . . 133 280. To Mann, Oct. 24. — Adventure of Milord Richard Onslow— Character of Lord Walpole — Unpopularity of the peace — Death of old Tom Walker . 133 281. To the same, Dec. 2. — The King's return — Prospects of a stormy session — League of the Tories with the Prince's party — Bon -mots of Mr. Chute — The Opera — Pertici — Lord Marchmont and Hume Campbell — Treason at Oxford 134 282 To the same, Dec. 15. — Imprisonment of the young Pretender at Vincennes — Death of the proud Duke of Somerset ; his will — Bon-mot of John Stanhope — Hogarth at Calais 136 283. To the same, Dec. 26. — Improvements at Strawberry Hill — Diplomatic movements — Old Somerset's will — Trial of the Vice-Chancellor at Oxford —Story of Sir William Burdett 139 284. To the same, March 4. — Proceedings in Parliament — Formidable minority headed by the Prince — Character of Lord Egmont — Innovations in the Mutiny bill — New Navy bill 143 285. To the same, March 23. — Debates on the Military bills— Jar at Leicester House — Theodore King of Corsica — The two black Princes of Anamaboe — Spread of Methodism — Stories of his brother Ned's envy , . .147 1749-50.] CONTENTS. ni LETTER ?AGH 286. To the same, May 3. — Rejoicings for the peace — Jubilee masquerade — Fire- works — English credulity — Subscription masquerade — Projected chastise- ment of Oxford — Union between the Prince's party and the Jacobites — Disgrace of Maurepas — Epigram on Lord Egmont's opposition to the Mutiny bill — Bon-mot of Wall ; and of Lady Townshend — Increase of Methodism, drinking, and gaming 150 287. To the same, May 17. — Duke of Richmond's fireworks in celebration of the peace — Second jubilee masquerade — Miss Chudleigh — Lady Rochford — Death of Miss Jenny Conway — Publication of Lord Bolingbruke's letters — Anecdotes of Pope and Bolingbroke 155 288. To Montagu, May 18.— The Duke of Richmond's fireworks— The Violette and Garrick — Story of the Duchess of Queensberry — Mary Queen of Scots — Dignity of human nature — Anecdote of Fielding — West's "Pindar" — Story of Charles Townshend 160 289. To Mann, June 4. — Anecdotes of Pope, Bolingbroke, and Atterbury . . 164 290. To the same, June 25. — Cambridge installation — Installation of six Knights of the Bath — Garrick's marriage to the Violette — Lord Mountford's crick e' -matches . . 167 291. To Montagu, July 5. — Improvements at Mistley — Visit to the Prince of Wales — Anecdote of Lady Anson — Epigram 169 292. To Montagu, July 20. — Excursion — Layer Marney — Messing — Witham parsonage — Death of the Duke of Montagu ; his will . . . . 172 293. To Mann, July 24.— Death of the Duke of Montagu— Principles of the Methodists 174 294. To the same, Aug. 17. — Fire at Kensington Palace 176 295. To Montagu, Aug. 26. — Expedition to Arundel Castle — Pet worth — Cow dry . 1 7 S 296. To Mann, Sept. 12. — Madame de Mirepoix — Madame Sevigne's "Letters'" . ISO 297. To John Chute, Sept. 22 Ic2 298. To Montagu, Sept. 28.— Church at Cheneys— Tombs of the Bedfords— Latimers — Stoke church 1S2 299. To Mann, Oct. 27. — Dodington first minister at Carlton House — Lady Yarmouth 183 300. To the same, Nov. 17. — Walpole is robbed in Hyde Park — Riots at the new French theatre . .< 185 301. To the same, Jan. 10. — Montesquieu's "Esprit des Loix" — Hainault's — "Abrege de V Histoire de France." — Westminster election — Death of Lord Pembroke ; his character — Death of Lord Crawford — Story of General Wade — Sir John Barnard's scheme for the reduction of interest . 186 302. To the same, Jan. 31. — Numerous robberies — Secession on the Mutiny bill — Hurricane in the East Indies — Bon-mot of the Chevalier Loreuzi . . 190 303. To the same, Feb. 25. — Ministerial quarrels — Dispute of precedence — Bon- mot of a chair-maker — Westminster election — Extraordinary wager — Death of the Duke of Somerset — Madame Munchausen — Horrors of the slave- trade — Montesquieu's " Esprit des Loix " — Grecian architecture . 193 304. To the same, March 11. — The earthquakes — Middlesex election — Story of M.irie Mignot 198 viii CONTENTS. [1750-1. LETTER PAGE 305. To the same, April 2. — Terror occasioned by the earthquake — Death of Lady Bolingbroke — Death of Lord Dalkeith — Mr. Mann's pedigree — Epigram on Lady Caroline Petersham, and on Lady Bingley — Madame du Boccage . 200 306. To Montagu, May 15. — Westminster election 206 307. To Mann, May 19. — Absurdities committed after the earthquake — West- minster election — Commotions in Dublin — Bower's "History of the Popes" . 207 308. To Montagu, June 23. — Character of Mr. Bentley — Account of a party of pleasure at Vauxhall 210 309. To Mann, July 25. — The Houghton lantern — King Theodore of Corsica in prison for debt — Mr. Ashton — Dr. Mead . . . , . .214 310. To the same, Aug. 2. — Tuscan villas — Improvement in the seats about London — Consequences of the excessive heat of the weather — Death of Dr. Middleton, and of Tacitus Cordon. Account of M 'Lean, the fashion- able highwayman 216 311. To the same, Sept. 1. — Pedigrees — Young Craggs's epitaph — Story of old Craggs — George Selwyn's passion for coffins and executions — Death of the Duke of Richmond — Lord Granby's marriage — Hanoverian duel — Singular bet at White's 221 312. To Montagu, Sept. 10. — Death of General Handasyde — And of Sir Gerard Vanneck — Riches conducive to happiness 225 313. To Mann, Sept. 20. — Dr. Mead — Sermon against Dr. Middleton — Ecclesiastical absurdity — Project for publishing an edition of the Bible without pointings or stops — Sir Charles Williams's letters — Frequency of robberies — Visit to Spence 226 314. To the same, Oct. 18. — Treaty of Commerce with Spain — M 'Lean's condemna- tion and execution — Rage for visiting a highwayman in Newgate . . 228 315. To the same, Nov. 19. — Shattered state of the ministry — State of parties . 230 316. To the same, Dec. 19. — Interministerium — Droll cause in Westminster Hall — Duke of Cumberland and Edward Bright — Sir Ralph Gore — Bon-mots of Quin 233 317. To the same, Dec. 22.— Miss Chudleigh— Fontenelle— Reply of Lord Corn- bury — Colley Cibber's letter soliciting the laureateship for Harry Jones — A very odd new story — Ashton' s ingratitude 235 318. To Mann, Feb. 9. — Debates in Parliament — " Constitutional queries " — Westminster petition — Proceedings against Mr. Murray — Account of young Wortley Montagu 238 319. To the same, March 13. — Further proceedings against Mr. Murray — Lady Vane's memoirs of her own life — Fashionable theatricals — The English " a grave nation " 242. 320. To the same, March 21. — Death of Frederick, Prince of Wales— Conduct of the King thereon 243 321. To the same, April 1.— Death of Mr. Whithed ; his will— Death of the Earl of Orford — Harmony between the King and Princess of Wales — Prince George — Prince Edward .......... 245 1751-2.] CONTENTS. ix LETTER PAGE. 322. To the same, April 22. — Dodington's project of a ministry upset by the death of the Prince — Story of Sir T. Bootle — Character of Dr. Lee — Prince George created Prince of Wales ; his household — Bishop Hayter and Arch- bishop Blackburne — The young Earl of Orford — Regency bill— Clash of politics 248- 323. To Mann, May 30. — Emptiness and vanity of life — Match between Lord Orford and the rich Miss Nicholl broken off — Debates on the Regency bill . 253 324. To Montagu, May 30.— Lady Orford and Mr. Shirley married . . . 255 325. To Rev. Joseph Spence, June 3. — With a translation of a couplet of Tibullus. 256 326. To Montagu, June 13. — Change of ministry — Bon-mot on Lord North's "wedding — Spenser's "Faerie Queen," with Kent's designs — Beutley's "Gray" — Warburton's "Pope" — Edwards's " Canons of Criticism " . 256 327. To Mann, June 18. — Resignations — New ministry —Epigram on Lord Hulder- nesse — The two Miss Gunnings — Extravagant dinner at White's — Bubb de Tristibus — Dodington's bombastic eulogium on the Prince — Sale of the pictures at Houghton 258 328. To the same, July 16. — Mr. Conway's intended visit to Florence . . . 261 329. To Montagu, July 22. — Projected edition of Grammont — Visit to Wimbledon — Ragley — Warwick Castle — "Capability" Brown — Easton Neston — Stowe 262 330. To Mann, Ang. 31. — Story of the Gunnings — And of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in durance in the Brescian — Lord Orford and Miss Nicholl . 265 331. To Montagu, Oct. 8.— Description of Woburn 267 332. To Mann, Oct. 14.— Death of the Priuce of Orange— Lady Pembroke— Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Letters — Lady Russell's Letters . . . 269 333. To the same, Nov. 22. — Unanimity of Parliament— Plots in the Duke of Burgundy's cradle — Verses stuck up on the Louvre — Youug Wortley Montagu's imprisonment at Paris — Bon-mot of Lord Coke — Anecdote of the King 272 334. To the same, Dec. 12.— Lord Stormont— Death of Lord Bolingbroke— The wonderful tooth-drawer 274 335. To Montagu, Jan. 9. — The St. James's Evening Post parodied . . . 275 336. To Mann, Feb. 2.— Debates on the treaty with Saxony— A black-ball at White's 277 337. To the same, Feb. 27. — Death of Sir Horace Mann's father— Marriage of the Miss Gunnings to Lord Coventry and the Duke of Hamilton . . . 278 338. To the same, March 23. — Sir Horace Mann's Portrait — Duke of Argyll's job — Duchess of Hamilton at court — Miss Jefferies and Miss Blandy — Frequency of executions 280 839. To Conway, May 5.— Mr. Conway's infant daughter 282 340. To Montagu, May 12. — Irish politics — Mother Midnight's Oratory — Captain Hotham's bon-mot .......... 283 841. To Mann, May 13. — Irish politics — Miss Blandy's execution. . . . 281 342. To Montagu, June 6. — Capture of a housebreaker at Strawberry Hill — Gray's Odes— Story of Lord Bury 286 CONTENTS. [1752-i LKTTER PAGB 343. To the same 288 344. To Conway, June 23. — Story of Mr. Seymour and Lady Di. Egerton — Distress and poverty of France — Profligacy of the French Court — Births and marriages ............ 289 345. To Montagu, July 20. — Alarm at the visit of a King's messenger. — The "Memoires" 291 346. To Mann, July 27. — Fire at Lincoln's-inn — Princess Emily and Richmond Park — Discussions concerning the tutorhood of the Prince of Wales — Portraits of Crebillon and Marivaux, by Liotard . . . . .292 347. To Bentley, Aug. 5. — Excursion to Kent and Sussex — Bishop's palace, Rochester — Knowle — Tunbridge — Summer Hill — Bayham Abbey — Hurst Monceaux — Battle Abbey — Silver Hill — Penshurst — Mereworth — Sissing- hurst — Bocton Malherbe — Leeds Castle 296 348. To Montagu, Aug. 28. — Adventure at Mrs. Boscawen's — Privilege of Parlia- ment — Standing Army — Gray's Odes 305 349. To Mann, Oct. 28. — Projected trip to Florence — Madame de Brionne— Lady Coventry at Paris — Duke Hamilton and his Duchess — Anecdotes — Parisian indecorums — Madame Pompadour's husband — Trait of Louis the Fifteenth — Epigram on the quarrel of the Pretender and his second son — Astley's pictures 307 350. To Conway, Nov. 8 311 351. To Mr. Pelham, Nov. 25. — Asking to obtain the enjoyment of the patent for his own life, now depending upon that of his brother Sir Edward. N. . 312 352. To Montagu, Dec. 3. — Lord Harcourt's removal from the Governorship of the Prince of Wales — Bon-mot of George Selwyn 314 353. To Mann, Dec. 11. — Education of the Prince of Wales — Resignation of Lord Harcourt and the Bishop of Norwich — The Bishop of Gloucester the new preceptor, and Lord Waldegrave the new governor 315 354. To the same, Feb. 14. — Death of Sir Hans Sloane ; his Museum . . . 320 355. To Gray, Feb. 20. — New edition of Gray's Odes with Bentley's designs . 321 356. To Mann, March 4. — Lord Ravensworth's accusation of Stone, Murray, and the Bishop of Gloucester, on the information of Fawcett — Liotard — Crebillon's portrait .......... 323 357. To the same, March 27. — Debates in the Lords on the charges against Stone, Murray, and Bishop Johnson 325 358. To the same, April 16 326 359. To the same, April '27. — Improvements at Strawberry Hill — Account of the taking of Dr. Cameron. — Paper in " The World," to promote a subscription for King Theodore — Lord Bath and " Craftsman " .... 327 360. To Conway, May 5. — Madame de Mezieres — Sir Charles Williams's distich on the Queen of Hungary — Lord Bolingbroke's Works — Anecdote of Lady Harrington . . . 330 361. To Montagu, May 22.— Debates on the Marriage bill .... 332 362. To Conway, May 24. — Same subject 334 1753-4.] CONTENTS. xi LETTER PAGE 363. To Montagu, June 11. — Parliamentary altercations — Clandestine Marriage bill —Bon-mot of Keith's 336 364. To Mann, June 12. — Description of Strawberry Hill — Clandestine Marriage bill — Execution of Dr. Cameron 338 365. To Montagu, July 17. — Death of Miss Brown — Tom Hervey's letter to Sir William Bunbury — Story of Dr. Suckling — George Selwyn's bon-mot — Elopement — Marriage-bill 311 366. To Mann, July 21. — Electioneering — Snuff-taking — Death of Lord Pomfret 343 367. To John Chute, Aug. 4. — Visit to Greatworth — Sir Harry Danvers described — White-knights — Middleton — Wroxton — Steane Chapel— Stowe— Temple of Friendship — War k worth 345 368. To Montagu, Aug. 16. — Stowe — Sir Harry Danvers .... 349 369. To Bentley, Sept. — New Camden's " Britannia "—Oxford — Birmingham — Hagley — Worcester — Malvern Abbey — Visit to George Selwyn at Matson — Gloucester Cathedral — Hutchinsonians ...... 351 370. To Mann, Oct. 6. — The Modenese treaty — Gothic amusements . . . 357 371. To the same, Dec. 6. — Prince Heraclius — Party feuds in Ireland— Bianca Capello 359 372. To Montagu, Dec. 6.— Death of his uncle Erasmus Shorter, and of Lord Burlington — The Opera — Glover's "Boadicea" — Lords Huntingdon and Stormont - 361 373. To Bentley, Dec. 19. — Eulogy on his drawings — Deaths of Lords Clarendon, Thanet, and Burlington — " Sir Charles Grandison " — Hogarth's "Analysis of Beauty" — Wood's " Palmyra " — Opera — The Niccolini . . . 362 374. To Mann, Jan. 28. — Story of Bianca Capello — SortesWalr-oliana; — Serendipity — Dissuades him from taking the name of Guise— Sir James Gray — Sir Robert Walpole's maxim — The Opera and Niccolini — Miss Elizabeth Pitt 364 375. To Bentley, March 2. — The Duke of Cumberland's visit to Strawberry Hill — Proceedings in Parliament — New Mutiny bill — Death of Dr. Mead — Sortes Walpolianae 368 376. To the same, March 6. — Ironical account of the death of Mr. Pelham — Francis's tragedy of M Constantrne " — Crisp's "Virginia" — Lord Boling- broke's works 370 377. To Mann, March 7. — State of parties — The new candidates for office — Par- ticulars of the death of Mr. Pelham 373 378. To Bentley, March 17. — The new ministry — George Selwyn's bons-mots— Orator Henley — Beckford and Delaval at Shaftesbury . . . . 375 379. To Montagu, March 19. — The Newcastle administration . . . 377 380. To Mann, March 28. — The new ministry — Resignation of Lord Gower . 378 381. To the same, April 24. — Duke of Newcastle all-powerful — The new Parlia- ment — Irish politics — Drumroond's " Travels" 380 382. To John Chute, April 30.— Whitehead's tragedy of " Creusa"— Tragi-comedy at the Opera 3S2 383. To the same, May 14. — Anecdote of Prince Poniatowski and the Duchess of Gordon 383 xii CONTENTS. [1754-6-. LETTER PAGE 384. To Bentley, Mayl8. — Progress of improvements at Strawberry Hill — Trial of Betty Canning — Kegency bill ........ 384 385. To Montagu, May 21.— Death of Mr. Chute's father . 386 386. To Mann, May 23.— War of the Delmontis— Death of Mr. Chute's father- Regency bill 388 387. To the same, June 5. — Mr. Brand of the Hoo — Lady Caroline Pierpoint — Affair of Lord Orford and Miss Nicholl — Election petitions . . . 388 388. To Montagu, June 8.— Invitation to Strawberry Hill . . . . 390 389. To the same, June 29. — Lady Caroline Petersham's christening . . 390 390. To Mann, July 5. — Effects of warm weather in England — Old courtiers — Separation between Lady Orford and Mr. Shirley — Dr. Cocchi's ' ' Greek Physicians" — French encroachments in Virginia — Revocation of the Parliament of Paris — Irish Parliament 391 391. To Conway, July 6. — Notice of gold fish to be sent to him . . . 393 392. To Bentley, July 9. — Sir Charles Williams and his daughter — Lady Walpole's monument in Westminster Abbey — Story of Sampson Gideon — Nugent and the Jew-bill — An admirable curiosity 393 393. To Conway, Aug. 6. — Duke of Cumberland's accident. N. ' . . 396 394. To Montagu, Aug. 29 396 395. To Mann, Oct. 6. — Prospect of an East and West Indian war — French encroachments — Re-establishment of the Inquisition at Florence — The Boccaneri — Major Washington — General Guise at Carthagena . . 397 396. To Conway, Oct. 24. — Congratulation on his being appointed groom of the bedchamber — And on his choice of a wife 399 397. To Bentley, Nov. 3.— Visit to Mr. Barret at Belhouse— Mrs. Clive— West Indian war — The Ontaouanoucs — General Braddock . . . .400 398. To the same, Nov. 11. — Ambassadorial circumspection — Death of the Queen Dowager of Prussia — New volumes of Madame Sevigne's Letters . . 404 399. To Montagu, Nov. 16. — Parts and merit of Lord North — Marriage of Mr. Pitt with Lady Hester Grenville — A new fashion . . . .405 400. To Bentley, Nov. 20. — On projectors — Advises him to lay aside visionary projects — Parliamentary divisions — Elections — The Prince of Hesse turned Roman Catholic — Operas — The Mingotti — Bon-mot of Madame Sevigne . 406 401. To Mann, Dec. 1. — Spring-tide of politics — Mr. Pitt and the Duke of New- castle — Lord Cork — Lord Bolingbroke's works — George the First at New Park — Dissensions in Ireland 408 402. To Bentley, Dec. 13. — Pitt and Fox dissatisfied with the Duke of Newcastle — Ministerial changes — Mr. Pitt turned out — Sale of Dr. Mead's library 411 403. To the same, Dec. 24.— Madame Sevigne's new letters — Dr. Browne's tragedy of " Barbarossa " — Walpole's papers in "The World" — Turning out of Mr. Pitt — The last new madness — Macklin's British Inquisition . . 413 404. To Montagu, Jan. 7. — Nuptials of Mr. Harris and Miss A. Conway — Countess Chamfelt . 415 1755.] CONTENTS. xiii LETTER PAGE 405. To Bentley, Jan. 9. — Death of Lord Albemarle — Story of Lord Montford's suicide — Gamesters — Insurance office for voluntary deaths — Ministerial changes — New nostrums and inventions . . . . 416 406. To Mann, Jan. 9. — Congratulation on his being created a baronet — Lord Albemarle's sudden death— Lord Bury — Lady Albemarle's dream — Lord Montford's suicide — The age of abortions — The Chevalier Taylor . 419 407. To Bentley, Feb. 8. — The Kussian ambassador's masquerade . . . 422 408. To the same, Feb. 23. — Oxfordshire and Colchester elections — Sir John Bland's suicide — English Opera — " Midsummer Night's Dream " — Walpole at a fire — Lady Herbert's providence — Fire at Fonthill . . . .423" 409. To the same, March 6. — Prospect of a war with France — Lord Holder- nesse's ball — Dancing senators 425 410. To Mann, March 10. — Lord Hertford's embassy to Paris — Warlike prospects — Progress of election trials — Lord Pomfret's collection of statues — Cerberus 427 411. To Bentley, March 27. — Hume's "History of England" — Motto for a ruby ring — Party struggles — Prospects of war — Sale of Dr. Mead's pictures . 42S 412. To the same, April 13. — Prospects of war — French preparations for invasion — Lord Chesterfield's prophecy 430 413. To Mann, April 22. — French preparations — Secret expedition — Motto- hunting 433 414. To Bentley, April 24. — Political rumours — M. Herault aud Lady Harrington 43-1 415. To Montagu, May 4. — Prince of Nassau Welbourg — George Selwyn and Lady Petersham * 436 416. To Bentley, May 6. — Lord Poulet's motion against the King's visiting Hanover — Mr. Legge's pun — The Regency — Ball at Bedford House — Great breakfast at Strawberry Hill — " Anecdotes Litteraires " — "Miseres des Scavans " — Gray's observation on learning 436 417. To Montagu, May 13. — Invitation to Strawberry Hill 43S 418. To the same, May 19. — King of Prussia's victory near Prague . . . 439 419. To Bentley, June 10. — Arrival of Mr. Miintz — Deluge at Strawberry Hill — New gunpowder-plot — Vannescbi appprebended 431/ 420. To Mann, June 15. — Countess of Orford aud Mr. Shirley — Lord Orf'ord described — Warlike preparations — Fureur des cabriolets . . . 443 421. To Bentley, July 5. — Expostulation on his love of visionary projects — Mr. Miintz — Visit to Chalfont — Bulstrode — Latimers — First visit to Greenwich Park 44fr 422. To Mann, July 16. — War commenced — Captain Howe's attack on the French squadron — Chapel at the Vine 448 423. To Bentley, July 17. — Attack on the French squadron — State of parties in Ireland — Domestic news — Lord Bath's ballad on Strawberry Hill — Wanstead House — Marquis de St. Simon 449 424. To Montagu, July 17— Farming— Lord Bath's ballad . . . .452 425. To the same, July 26. — Charles To wnshend's marriage . . . 452 xiv CONTENTS. [1765. LETTER PAGE 420. To Bentley, Aug. 4. — St. Swithin — Capture of Beau Sej our— Marquis de St. Simon's translation of the "Tale of a Tub " — Intimacy with Garrick . 453 427. To the same, Aug. 15. — Mr. Bentley's drawings— Perefixe's "Henry the Fourth " — Dinner at Garrick' s— Flattery 456 428. Tc Mann, Aug. 21. — West Indian expeditions — Character of General Brad- dock — Story of Fanny Braddock — Hessian treaty 458 429. To the same, Aug. 28. — Defeat and death of General Braddock — Anecdotes of him . . . . 460 430. To Bentley, Aug. 28. — General Braddock's defeat and death — Quarrel between Lords Lincoln and Anson — Visit to Harwich — Orford castle — Sudborn — Secretary Naunton's house — Ipswich and its church . . . 462 431. To the same, Sept. 18 — Visit to Winchester ; its cathedral — Bevismount — Netley Abbey — Capture of Governor Lyttelton — Gray's "Bard" . . 464 432. To Montagu, Sept. 20.— Catastrophe of Sir John Bland . . . . 466 433. To Conway, Sept. 23. — Irish politics — Russian and Hessian treaties . . 467 434. To Mann, Sept. 29. — M. Seychelles — French finances — Opposition to the Russian and Hessian treaties — Ministerial bickerings and changes — Tran- quillity of Ireland 469 435. To John Chute, Sept. 29.— Opposition in Parliament to the Russian and Hessian treaties 471 436. To Bentley, Sept. 30. — Political sermon — Mr. Legge's opposition to the Hessian treaty — Subsidy — Pacification of Ireland — Ministerial changes . 472 437. To Montagu, Oct. 7. — Death of Miss Montagu 474 438. To Bentley, Oct. 19. — Fears of invasion — Mr. Fox's ministry — Follies of the Opera — Impertinences of the Mingotti 474 439. To John Chute, Oct. 20. — Expectations of an invasion — Parliamentary politics — Subsidiary treaties 477 440. To Mann, Oct. 27. — Preparations against invasion 478 441. To the same, March 21. — Defeat of the French hi America by General Johnson — Lord Chesterfield at Bath — Suicide of Sir John Bland — Longevity of Beau Nash and Colley Cibber . . . . . . 480 442. To Montagu, Nov. 8. — Progress of planting 481 443. To Conway, Nov. 16. — Debates in Parliament on the treaties — Single-speech Hamilton — Pitt's speech 483 444. To Bentley, Nov. 16. — Debates in the House of Commons on the treaties — Riots at Drury Lane — French dancers 485 445. To Mann, Nov. 16. — Parliamentary proceedings — Changes and counter- changes— French inactivity 487 446. To Montagu, Nov. 25. — Earthquake at Lisbon— Political changes . . 488 447. To Mann, Dec. 4. — Earthquake at Lisbon — State of the Opposition . . 489 448. To Bentley, Dec. 17. — Mr. Pitt's speech on the subsidiary treaties — Ministerial changes — Postponement of the invasion 490 449. To Montagu, Dec. 20. — Political changes — the new Opposition . . . 493 1755-G.j CONTENTS. XV XETTER 1*AGK 450. To Mann, Dec. 21. — Expectations of a peace — Catalogue of ministerial altera- tions — Dodington again revolved to the court — Case of Lord Fitz waiter . 494 451. To Montagu, Dec. 30 496 452. To Bentley, Jan. 6. — Attack of the gout — Overflow of the Thames — Progress of the Memoires — Mr. Miintz 497 453. To Conway, Jan 22. — Parliament and politics — French_Billingsgate memorial — Guarantee with Prussia — M. Mich ell — Dismissal of Sir Harry Erskine — Mr. Fox's repartee 498 454. To the same, Jan. 24. — Beckford's accusation against Admiral Knowles — Lyttelton's hudget speech — Lady Petersham and her footman Richard . 499 455. To Mann, Jan. 25. — Health of Sir Horace's brother — Prussian guarantee — M. Rouille's Memorial — The new Opposition nibbling, but not popular . 501 45S. To Mann, Feb. 5. — His brother's health — "War inevitable . . . 503 457. To Conway, Feb. 12. — Bickerings in Parliament — The Pennsylvanian regiment — Story of the Duke of Newcastle — Moral effects of the earthquake — Sir Eustace Drawbridgecourt 505 458. To Mann, Feb. 23. — The King of France and Madame Pompadour gone into devotion — Debates on the West Indian Regiment — Plot of the Papists against Bower — France determined to try invasion . . . . . 507 459. To Conway, March 4. — Debates in Parliament — Speeches of Single-speech Hamilton and Charles Townshend — The Militia-bill — The new taxes — Embargo — Old Nugent and Lady Essex — Epigram on Miss Chudleigh . 51 0 LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS. Mrs. Howard, Countess of Suffolk. From the picture in the poet Pope's Collection, bought by the Countess of Suffolk at Martha Blount's sale, and presented by her to Horace Walpole. Frontispiece Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, Chief of the Clan Fraser. From the original by Le Clare 69 Ethelreda Harrison, Viscountess Townsiiend, Wife of Charles, Third Viscount Townshend, Mother of Charles Townshend. From the original, formerly at Strawberry Hill 150 Elizabeth, Duchess of Argyll (Miss Gunning). From the original by C. Bead 259 John Chute, Esq., of the Vine, in Hampshire. From the original, formerly at Strawberry Hill 382 Madame de Sevigne. By G. P. Harding. From the original by Muntz, formerly at Strawberry Hill 413 THE LETTERS OF HORACE WALPOLE. 205. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Jan. 17, 1746. It is a very good symptom, I can tell you, that I write to you seldom : it is a fortnight since my last ; and nothing material has happened in this interval. The rebels are intrenching and fortifying themselves in Scotland ; and what a despicable affair is a rebellion upon the defensive ! General Hawley is marched from Edinburgh, to put it quite out. I must give you some idea of this man, who will give a mortal blow to the pride of the Scotch nobility. He is called Lord Chief Justice; 1 frequent and sudden executions are his passion. Last winter he had intelligence of a spy to come from the French army : the first notice our army had of his arrival, was by seeing him dangle on a gallows in his muff and boots. One of the surgeons of the army begged the body of a soldier who was hanged for desertion, to dissect : " Well," said Hawley, " but then you shall give me the skeleton to hang up in the guard-room." He is very brave and able ; with no small bias to the brutal. Two years ago, when he arrived at Ghent, the magistrates, according to custom, sent a gentleman, with the offer of a sum of money to engage his 1 See Vol. i. p. 414. " First, I diiect and order that (as there is now a peace, and I may die the common way) my carcase may be put anywhere ; 'tis equal to me ; but I will have no more expense or ridiculous show, than if a poor soldier (who is as good a man) was to be buried from the hospital. Tbe priest, 1 conclude, will have the fee ; let the puppy have it. Pay the carpenter for the carcase-box.'' — General Hawley's Will. — Cunningham. vol. II. Ii 2 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. favour. He told the gentleman, in great wrath, that the King his master paid him, and that he should go tell the magistrates so ; at the same time dragging him to the head of the stairs, and kicking him down. He then went to the town-hall ; on their refusing him entrance, he hurst open the door with his foot, and seated himself abruptly : told them how he had been affronted, was persuaded they had no hand in it, and demanded to have the gentleman given up to him, who never dared to appear in the town while he stayed in it. ISTow I am telling you anecdotes of him, you shall hear two more. When the Prince of Hesse, our son-in-law, arrived at Brussels, and found Hawley did not wait on him, the Prince sent to know if he exqected the first visit ? He replied, " He always expected that inferior officers should wait on their commanders ; and not only that, but he gave his Highness but half an hour to consider of it." The Prince went to him. I believe I told you of Lord John Drummond sending a drum to Wade to propose a cartel. Wade returned a civil answer, which had the King's and Council's appro- bation. When the drummer arrived with it at Edinburgh, Hawley opened it and threw it into the fire, would not let the drummer go back, but made him write to Lord J. Drummond, "That rebels were not to be treated with." If you don't think that spirit like this will do — do you see, I would not give a farthing for your / presumption. 1 The French invasion is laid aside ; we are turning our hands to war again upon the continent. The House of Commons is something of which I can give you no description : Mr. Pitt, the meteor of it, is neither yet in place, nor his friends out. Some Tories oppose : Mr. Pelham is distressed, and has vast majorities. When the scene clears a little, I will tell you more of it. The two last letters I have had from you, are of Dec. 21 and Jan. 4. You was then still in uneasiness; by this time I hope you have no other distresses than are naturally incident to your Minyness. I never hear any thing of the Countess [of Orford] except just now, that she is grown tired of sublunary affairs, and willing to come to a composition with her lord : I believe the price will be two thousand a-year. The other day, his and her lawyers were talking over the affair before her and several other people : her counsel, in 1 Glover, in his Memoirs, speaks of Hawley with great contempt, and talks of " his beastly ignorance and negligence," which occasioned the loss of the battle of Falkirk. — Dover. 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 3 the heat of the dispute, said to my lord's lawyers, " Sir, Sir, we shall be able to prove that her ladyship was denied nuptial rights .and conjugal enjoyments for seven years." It was excellent ! My lord must have had matrimonial talents indeed, to have reached to Italy ; besides, you know, she made it a point after her son was born, not to sleep with her husband. Thank you for the little medal. I am glad I have nothing more to tell you — -you little expected that we should so soon recover our tranquillity. Adieu ! 206. TO SIR HORACE MANN. I Arlington Street, Jan. 28, 1746. Do they send you the gazettes as they used to do ? If you have them, you will find there an account of another battle lost in Scotland. Our arms cannot succeed there. Hawley, of whom I said so much to you in my last, has been as unsuccessful as Cope, and by almost every circumstance the same, except that Hawley had less want of skill and much more presumption. The very same dragoons ran away at Falkirk, that ran away at Preston Pans. 1 Though we had seven thousand men, and the rebels but five, we had scarce three regiments that behaved well. General Huske and Brigadier Cholmondeley, 2 my lord's brother, shone extremely: the former beat the enemy's right wing ; and the latter, by rallying two regiments, prevented the pursuit. Our loss is trifling; for many of the rebels fled as fast as the glorious dragoons : but we have lost some good officers, particularly Sir Robert Monroe ; and seven pieces of cannon. A worse loss is apprehended, Stirling Castle, which could hold out but ten days ; and that term expires to-morrow. The Duke [of Cumberland] is gone post to Edinburgh, where he hoped to arrive to-night ; if possible, to relieve Stirling. Another battle will certainly be fought before you receive this : I hope with the Hessians in it, who are every hour expected to land in Scotland. With many other glories, the English courage seems 1 Hawley was never seen in the field during the battle ; and every thing would have gone to wreck, in a worse manner than at Preston, if General Huske had not acted with judgment and courage, and appeared everywhere. — Culloden Papers, p. 267. — Wright. 2 The Hon. James Cholmondeley, second son of George, second Earl of Chol- mondeley. He served with distinction both in Flanders and Scotland. In 1750, he became colonel of the Inniskillen regiment of dragoons, and died in 1775.— Dover. 4 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. gone too ! The great dependence is npon the Duke ; the soldiers adore him, and with reason : he has a lion's courage, vast vigilance and activity, and, I am told, great military genius. For my own particular, I am uneasy that he is gone ; Lord Bury and Mr. Conway, two of his aides-de-camp, and brave as he, are gone with him. The ill behaviour of the soldiers lays a double obligation on the officers to set them examples of running on danger. The Ministry would have kept back Mr. Conway, as being in Parliament; which when the Duke told him, he burst into tears, and protested that nothing should hinder his going — and he is gone ! Judge, if I have not reason to be alarmed ! Some of our prisoners in Scotland (the former prisoners) are released. They had the privilege of walking about the town, where they were confined, upon their parole : the militia of the country rose and set them at liberty. General Hawley is so strict as to think they should be sent back ; but nobody here comprehends such refinement: they could not give their parole that the town should not be taken. There are two or three others, who will lay the government under difficulties, when we have got over the Rebel- lion. They were come to England on their parole ; and when the executions begin, they must in honour be given up — the question indeed will be, to whom ? Adieu ! my dear Sir ! I write you this short letter, rather than be taxed with negligence on such an event ; though, you perceive,- I know nothing but what you will see in the printed papers. P.S. The Hessians would not act, because we would not settle a cartel with rebels ! 207. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Feb. 7, 1746. Till yesterday that I received your last of Jan. 27, I was very uneasy at finding you still remained under the same anxiety about the Rebellion, when it had so long ceased to be formidable with us : but you have got all my letters, and are out of your pain. Hawley's defeat (or at least what was called so, for I am persuaded that the victory was ours as far as there was any fighting, which indeed lay in a very small compass, the great body of each army running away) will have thrown you back into your terrors ; but here is a letter to 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 5 calm you again. All Monday and Tuesday we were concluding that the battle between the Duke and the rebels must be fought, and nothing was talked of but the expectation of the courier. He did arrive indeed on Wednesday morning, but with no battle ; for the moment the rebel army saw the Duke's, they turned back with the utmost precipitation ; spiked their cannon, blew up their magazine, and left behind them their wounded and our prisoners. They crossed the Forth, and in one day fled four-and-thirty miles to Perth, where, as they have strong intrenchments, some imagine they will wait to fight ; but their desertion is too great : the whole clan of the Macdonalds, one of their best, has retired on the accidental death of their chief. In short, it looks exceedingly like the conclusion of this business, though the French have embarked Fitz-James's regiment at Ostend for Scotland. The Duke's name disperses armies, as the Pretender's raised them. The French seem to be at the eve of taking Antwerp and Brussels, the latter of winch is actually besieged. In this case I don't see how we can send an army abroad this summer, for there will be no considerable towns in Flanders left in the possession of the Empress- Queen. The new regiments, of which I told you so much, have again been in dispute : as their term was near expired, the ministry proposed to continue them for four months longer. This was last Friday, when, as we every hour expected the news of a conclusive battle, which, if favourable, would render them useless, Mr. Fox, the general against the new regiments, begged it might only be post- poned till the following Wednesday, but 170 against 89 voted them that very day. On the very Wednesday came the news of the flight of the rebels ; and two days before that, news from Chester of Lord Gower's new regiment having mutinied, on hearing that they were to be continued beyond the term for which they had listed. At court all is confusion : the King, at Lord Bath's instigation, has absolutely refused to make Pitt Secretary at War. 1 How this 1 Lord Marchmont, in his Diary of Feb. 9, says, " My brother told me, that on the ministry insisting on Mr. Pitt being secretary at war, and the King having said he should not be his secretary, Lord Bath had gone to the King and told him, though he had resolved never to take a place, yet now, finding his ministers would force a servant ■on him, rather than he should be so used, he would undertake to get him his money. The King said, the ministers had the Parliament; Lord Bath said, his Majesty had it, and not they : and that hereupon the King thanked him ; and it was expected the ministers would all be out." — Wright. I ordered Mr. Stone to acquaint you that we had prevailed with the King to make Mr. Pitt paymaster. His Majesty was 6 HOEACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS, [1746. will end, I don't know, but I don't believe in bloodshed : neither side is famous for being incapable of yielding. I wish you joy of having the Chutes again, though I am a little sorry that their bravery was not rewarded by staying at Rome till they could triumph in their turn: however, I don't believe that at Florence you want opportunities of exulting. That Monro 1 you mention was made travelling physician by my father's interest, who had great regard for the old doctor : if he has any skill in quack- ing madmen, his art may perhaps be of service now in the Pretender's court. I beg my Eagle may not come till it has the opportunity of a man- of-war : we have lost so many merchantmen lately, that I should never expect to receive it that way. I can say nothing to your opinion of the young Pretender being a cheat ; nor, as the Rebellion is near at an end, do I see what end it would answer to prove him original or spurious. However, as you seem to dwell upon it, I will mention it again to my uncle. I hear that my sister- Countess [of Orford] is projecting her return, being quite sick of England, where nobody visits her. She says there is not one woman of sense in England. Her journey, however, will have turned to account, and, I believe, end in almost doubling her allowance. Adieu ! my dear child ; love the Chutes *br me as well as for yourself. 208. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Feb. 14, 1746. By the relation I am going to make, you will think that I am describing Turkish, not English revolutions ; and will cast your eye- upwards to see if my letter is not dated from Constantinople. Indeed, violent as the changes have been, there has been no blood- shed ; no Grand Yizier has had a cravat made of a bowstring, no Janizaries have taken upon them to alter the succession, no Grand Signior is deposed — only his Sublime Highness's dignity has been a little impaired. Oh ! I forgot ; I ought not to frighten you ; you will interpret all these fine allusions, and think on the Rebellion — pho ! we are such considerable proficients in politics, that we can determined not to give him the War Office. — Duke of Newcastle to Duke of Bedford ' r 28th April, 1746. — Cunningham. 1 Dr. John Monro, son of Dr. James Monro. See vol. i., p. 243.— Cunningham. 1746.] TO SIR HOEACE MANN. 7 form rebellions within rebellions, and turn a government topsy-turvy at London, while we are engaged in a civil war in Scotland. In short, I gave you a hint last week of an insurrection in the closet, and of Lord Bath having prevented Pitt from being Secretary at War. The Ministry gave up that point ; but finding that a change had been made in a scheme of foreign politics, which they had laid before the King, and for which he had thanked them ; and perceiv- ing some symptoms of a resolution to dismiss them at the end of the session, they came to a sudden determination not to do Lord Gran- ville's business by carrying the supplies, and then to be turned out : so on Monday morning, to the astonishment of every body, the two Secretaries of State threw up the seals ; and the next day Mr. Pel- ham, with the rest of the Treasury, the Duke of Bedford with the Admiralty, Lord Gower, Privy Seal, and Lord Pembroke, 1 Groom of the Stole, gave up too : the Dukes of Devonshire, Grafton, and Rich- mond, the Lord Chancellor, Winnington, (Paymaster), and almost all the other great officers and offices, declaring they would do the same. Lord Granville immediately received both seals, one for himself, and the other to give to whom he pleased. Lord Bath was named first commissioner of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer ; Lord Carlisle, Privy Seal, and Lord Winchelsea reinstated in th . Admiralty. Thus far all went swimmingly ; they had only forgot on., little point, which was, to secure a majority in both Houses : in the Commons they unluckily found that they had no better man to take the lead than poor Sir John Pushout, for Sir John Barnard refused to be Chancellor of the Exchequer ; so did Lord Chief Justice AVilles to be Lord Chancellor ; and the wildness of the scheme soon pre- vented others, who did not wish ill to Lord Granville, or well to the Pelhams, from giving in to it. Hop, the Dutch minister, did not a little increase the confusion by declaring that he had immediately dispatched a courier to Holland, and did not doubt but the States would directly send to accept the terms of France. I should tell you too, that Lord Bath's being of the enterprise contributed hugely to poison the success of it. In short, his lordship, whose politics were never characterised by steadiness, found that he had not courage enough to take the Treasury. You may guess how ill laid his schemes were, when he durst not indulge both his ambition and avarice ! In short, on Wednesday morning 1 Henry Herbert, ninth Earl of Pembroke, the architect Earl ; died 9th January, 1750-51. See p. 18S. — Cunningham. 8 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. (pray mind, this was the very Wednesday after the Monday on which the change had happened) he went to the King, and told him he had tried the House of Commons, and found it would not do ! 1 Bounce ! went all the project into shivers, like the vessels in Ben Jonson's Alchemist, when they are on the brink of the philosopher's stone. The poor King, who, from being fatigued with the Duke of Newcastle, and sick of Pelham's timidity and compromises, had given in to this mad hurly-burly of alterations, was confounded with having floundered to no purpose, and to find himself more than ever in the power of men he hated, shut himself up in his closet, and refused to admit any more of the persons who were pouring in upon him with white sticks, and golden keys, and commissions, &c. At last he sent for Winnington, and told him, he was the only honest man about him, and he should have the honour of a reconciliation, and sent him to Mr. Pelham to desire they would all return to their employments. 2 Lord Granville is as jolly as ever ; laughs and drinks, and owns it was mad, and owns he would do it again to-morrow. It would not be quite so safe, indeed, to try it soon again, for the triumphant party are not at all in the humour to be turned out every time his lord- ship has drunk a bottle too much ; and that House of Commons that he could not make do for him, would do to send him to the Tower till he was sober. This was the very worst period he could have selected, when the fears of men had made them throw themselves absolutely into all measures of government to secure the government itself ; and that temporary strength of Pelham has my Lord Granville contrived to fix to him ; and people will be glad to ascribe to the merit and virtue of the ministry, what they would be ashamed to own, but was really the effect of their own apprehensions. It was a good idea of 1 1746, " Feb. 13. Lord Bolingbroke told me, that Bath had resigned, and all was now over. He approved of what had been done, though he owned that Walpole's faction had done what he had wrote every King must expect who nurses up a faction by governing by a party ; and that it was a most indecent thing, and must render the King contemptible. Lord Cobham told me, that the King had yesterday sent Winnington to stop the resignations ; that he had offered Winnington the seal of Exchequer, after Bath had resigned it ; but Winnington said, it would not do. At court I met Lord Granville, who is still secretary, but declared to be ready to resign when the King pleases." — Marchmont Diary. —Wright. 2 In a letter to the Duke of Newcastle, of the 18th, Lord Chesterfield says, " Your victory is complete : for God's sake pursue it. Good policy, still more than resent- ment, requires that Granville and Bath should be marked out, and all their people cut off. Everybody now sees and knows that you have the power ; let them see and know too, that you will use it. A general run ought to be made upon Bath by all your followers and writers." — Wright. 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 9 somebody, when no man would accept a place under the new system, that Granville and Bath were met going about the streets, calling odd man ! as the hackney chairmen do when they want a partner. This little faction of Lord Granville goes by the name of the Grand- villains. There ! who would think that I had written you an entire history in the compass of three sides of paper. Yertot would have composed a volume on this event, and entitled it, the Revolutions of England. You will wonder at not having it notified to you by Lord Granville himself, as is customary for new Secretaries of State : when they mentioned to him writing to Italy, he said — " To Italy ! no : before the courier can get thither, I shall be out again." It absolutely makes one laugh : as serious as the consequences might be, it is impossible to hate a politician of such jovial good-humour. I am told that he ordered the packet-boat to be stopped at Harwich till Saturday, till he should have time to determine what he would write to Holland. This will make the Dutch receive the news of the double revolution at the same instant. The Duke and his name are pursuing the scattered rebels into their very mountains, determined to root out sedition entirely. It is believed, and we expect to hear, that the young Pretender is embarked and gone. Wish the Chutes joy of the happy conclusion of this affair ! Adieu ! my dear child ! After describing two revolutions, and announcing the termination of a rebellion, it would be below the dignity of my letter to talk of any thing of less moment. Next post I may possibly descend out of my historical buskins, and converse with you more familiarly— en attendant, gentle reader, I am, your sincere well-wisher, Horace AValpole, Historiographer to the high and mighty Lord John, Earl Granville. 209. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, March 6, 1746. I know I have missed two or three posts, but you have lost nothing : you perhaps expected that our mighty commotions did not subside at once, and that you should still hear of struggles and more shocks : but it all ended at once ; with only some removals and pro- 10 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. motions which, you saw in the Gazette. I should have written, however, but I have been hurried with my sister's 1 wedding; but all the ceremony of that too is over now, and the dinners and the visits, &c. The Rebellion has fetched breath ; the dispersed clans have re-united and marched to Inverness, from whence Lord Loudon was forced to retreat, leaving a garrison in the castle, which has since yielded without tiring a gun. Their numbers are now reckoned at seven thousand : old Lord Lovat 2 has carried them a thousand Frasers. The French continually drop them a ship or two : we took two, with the Duke of Berwick's brother on board : it seems evident that they design to keep up our disturbances as long as possible, to prevent our sending any troops to Flanders. Upon the prospect of the Rebellion being at an end, the Hessians were ordered back, but luckily were not gone ; and now are quartered to prevent the rebels slipping the Duke, (who is marching to them,) and returning into England. This counter- order was given in the morning, and in the evening came out the Gazette, and said the Hessians are to go away. This doubling style in the ministry is grown so characteristic, that the French are actually playing a farce, in which harlequin enters, as an English courier, with two bundles of dispatches fastened to his belly and his back ; they ask him what the one is ? " Eh ! ces sont mes ordres." — And what the other ? " Mais elles sont mes contre- ordres." We have been a little disturbed in some other of our politics, by the news of the King of Sardinia having made his peace : I think it comes out now that he absolutely had concluded one with France, but that the haughty court of Spain rejected it : what the Austrian pride had driven him to, the Spanish pride drove him from. You will allow that our affairs are critically bad, when all our hopes centre in that honest monarch, the King of Prussia — but so it is ; and I own I see nothing that can restore us to being a great nation but his interposition. Many schemes are framed, of making him Stadth older of Holland, or Duke of Burgundy in Flanders, in lieu of the Silesias, or altogether, and that I think would follow — but I don't know how far any of these have been carried into propositions. 1 Lady Maria Walpole [vol. i., p. 82] married to Charles Churchill, Esq. — Walpole. 2 Simon Eraser, Lord Lovat, a man of parts, but of infamous character. He had the folly, at the age of eighty, to enter into the Rebellion, upon a promise from the Pretender that he would make him Duke of Fraser. He "was taken, tried, and beheaded. — Dover. 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. II I see by your letters that our fomentations of the Corsican rebel- lion have had no better success than the French tampering in ours — for ours, I don't expect it will be quite at an end, till it is made- one of the conditions of peace, that they shall give it no assistance. The small-pox has been making great havoc in London ; the new Lord Rockingham, 1 whom I believe you knew when only Thomas Watson, is dead of it, and the title extinct. My Lady Conway has had it, but escaped. My brother [Orford] is on the point of finishing all his affairs with his Countess ; she is to have fifteen hundred per year ; and her mother gives her two thousand pounds. I suppose this will send her back to you, added to her disappointments in politics, in which it appears she has been tampering. Don't you remember a very foolish knight, one Sir Bourchier Wrey ? 2 Well, you do : the day Lord Bath was in the Treasury, that one day ! she wrote to Sir Bourchier at Exeter, to tell him that now their friends were coming into power, and it was a brave opportunity for him to come up and make his own terms. He came, and is lodged in her house, and sends about cards to invite people to come and see him at the Countess of Orford's. There is a little fracas I hear in their domestic ; the Abbe-Secretary has got one of the maids with child. I have seen the dame herself but once these two months, when she came into the Opera at the end of the first act, fierce as an incensed turkey-cock, you know her look, and towing after her Sir Francis Dashwood's new wife, 3 a poor forlorn Presbyterian prude, whom he obliges to consort with her. Adieu ! for I think I have now told you all I know. I am very sorry that you are so near losing the good Chutes, but I cannot help having an eye to myself in their coming to England. 1 The barony of Rockingham devolved on his kinsman, Thomas Watson Went- worth, Earl of Malton, created, 19th April, 1746, Marquis of Rockingham ; died 1750. — Cunningham. 2 Sir Bourchier Wrey, of Tawstock, in Devonshire, the fifth baronet of the family. He was member of parliament for Barnstaple, and died in 1784. — Dover. 3 I wish you would inform me who Sir Francis Dashwood has married. I knew him at Florence ; he seemed so nice in the choice of a wife, I had some curiosity to know who it is that has had charms enough to make him enter into an engagement he used to speak of with fear and trembling.— Lady M. W. Montagu to her daughter Lady Bute. Sir Francis Dashwood married Sarah, daughter and co-heir of Thomas Gould, Esq., of Ivor, Bucks, and widow of Sir Richard Ellis, Bart.— Cunningham. 12 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. 210. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, March 21, 1746. I have no new triumphs of the Duke to send you : he has been detained a great while at Aberdeen by the snows. The rebels have gathered numbers again, and have taken Fort Augustus, and are marching to Fort William. The Duke complains extremely of the loyal Scotch ; says he can get no intelligence, and reckons himself more in an enemy's country than when he was warring with the French in Flanders. They profess the big professions wherever he comes, but before he is out of sight of any town, beat up for volun- teers for rebels. We see no prospect of his return, for he must stay in Scotland while the Eebellion lasts ; and the existence of that seems too intimately connected with the being of Scotland, to expect it should soon be annihilated. We rejoice at the victories of the King of Sardinia, whom we thought lost to our cause. To-day we are to vote subsidies to the Electors of Cologne and Mentz. I don't know whether they will be opposed by the Electoral Prince [the Prince of Wales] ; but he has lately erected a new opposition, by the councils of Lord Bath, who has got him from Lord Granville : the latter and his faction act with the court. I have told you to the utmost extent of my political knowledge ; of private history there is nothing new. Don't think, my dear child, that I hurry over my letters, or neglect writing to you ; I assure you I never do, when I have the least grain to lap up in a letter : but consider how many chapters of correspondence are extinct : Pope and poetry are dead ! Patriotism has kissed hands on accepting a place : the Ladies 0[rford] and T[ownshend] have exhausted scandal both in their persons and conversations : divinity and controversy are grown good Christians, say their prayers and spare their neighbours ; and I think even self-murder is out of fashion. Now judge whether a correspondent can furnish matter for the common intercourse of the post ! Pray what luxurious debauch has Mr. Chute been guilty of, that he is laid up with the gout ? I mean, that he was, for I hope his fit has not lasted till now. If you are ever so angry, I must say, I natter myself I shall see him before my Eagle, which I beg may repose itself still at Leghorn, for the French privateers have taken such 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN". 13 numbers of our merchantmen, that I cannot think of suffering it to come that way. If you should meet with a good opportunity of a man-of-war, let it come — or I will postpone my impatience. Adieu ! P. S. I had sealed my letter, but break it open, to tell you that an account is just arrived of two of our privateers having met eight- and-twenty transports going with supplies to the Brest fleejt, and sunk ten, taken four, and driven the rest on shore. 211. TO SIR HORACE MANN Arlington Street, March 28, 1746. I don't at all recollect what was in those two letters of mine, which I find you have lost : for your sake, as you must be impatient for English news, I am sorry you grow subject to these miscarriages; but in general, I believe there is little of consequence in my cor- respondence. The Duke has not yet left Aberdeen, for want of his supplies ; but by a party which he sent out, and in which Mr. Conway was, the rebels do not seem to have recovered their spirits, though they have recruited their numbers ; for eight hundred of them fled on the first appearance of our detachment, and quitted an advantageous post. As much as you know, and as much as you have lately heard of Scotch finesse, you will yet be startled at the refinements that nation have made upon their own policy. Lord Fortrose, 1 whose father was in the last Rebellion, and who has himself been restored to his fortune, is in Parliament and in the army : he is with the Duke — his wife and his clan with the Rebels. The head of the Mackintosh's is acting just the same part. The clan of the Grants, always esteemed the most Whig tribe, have literally in all the forms signed a neutrality with the rebels. The most honest instance I have heard, is in the town of Forfar, where they have chosen their annual magistrates ; but at the same time entered a memorandum 1 William Mackenzie, fifth Earl of Seafortk, the father of Kenneth Lord Fortrose, had been engaged in the Rebellion of 1715, and was attainted. He died in 1740. In consequence of his attainder, his son never assumed the title of Seaforth, but con- tinued to be called Lord Fortrose, the second title of the family. He was member of parliament in 1741 for the burghs of Fortrose, &c, and in 1747 and 1754, for the county of Ross. He died in 1762. His only son, Kenneth, was created Viscount Fortrose, and Earl of Seaforth in Ireland.— Dover. 14 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. in their town-book, that they shall not execute their office " till it is decided which King is to reign/ 5 The Parliament is adjourned for the Easter holidays. Princess Caroline is going to the Bath for a rheumatism. The Countess [of Orford], whose return you seem so much to dread, has entertained the town with an excellent vulgarism. She happened one night at the Opera to sit by Peggy Banks, 1 a celebrated beauty, and asked her several questions about the singers and dancers, which the other naturally answered, as one woman of fashion answers another. The next morning Sir Bourchier Wrey sent Miss Banks an opera-ticket, and my lady sent her a card, to thank her for her civilities to her the night before, and that she intended to wait on her very soon. Do but think of Sir B. Wrey's paying a woman of fashion for being civil to my Lady 0. ! Sure no apothecary's wife in a market- town could know less of the world than these two people ! The Operas flourish more than in any latter years ; the composer is Gluck, a German : he is to have a benefit, at which he is to play on a set of drinking-glasses, which he modulates with water : I think I have heard you speak of having seen some such thing. You will see in the papers long accounts of a most shocking murder, that has been committed by a lad 2 on his mistress, who was found dead in her bedchamber, with an hundred wounds ; her brains beaten out, stabbed, her face, back, and breasts slashed in twenty places — one hears of nothing else wherever one goes. But adieu ! it is time to finish a letter, when one is reduced for news to the casualties of the week. 212. TO SIR HORACE MANX. Arlington Street, April 15, 1746. Your triumphs in Italy are in high fashion : till very lately, Italy was scarce ever mentioned as part of the scene of war. The appre- hensions of your great King making his peace began to alarm us ; and when we just believed it finished, we have received nothing but torrents of good news. The King of Sardinia 3 has not only carried 1 Margaret, sister of John Hodgkinson Banks, Esq. ; married, in 1757, to the Hon. Henry Grenville (fifth son of the Countess Temple) ; appointed governor of Barba- does in 1746 ; and ambassador to the Ottoman Porte in 1761. [See p. 205.] — Dover. 2 One Henderson, hanged for murdering Mrs. Dalrymple. — Walpole. 3 Charles Emanuel the Third, an able sovereign, and the last of the House of Savoy who possessed any portion of that talent for which the race had previously been sc celebrated. — Dover. 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANJS T , 15 his own character and success to the highest pitch, but seems to have given a turn to the general face of the war, which has a much more favourable aspect than was to be expected three months ago. He has made himself as considerable in the scale as the Prussian, but with real valour, and as great abilities, and without the infamy of the other's politics. The Rebellion seems once more at its last gasp ; the Duke is marched, and the rebels fly before him, in the utmost want of money. The famous Hazard sloop is taken, with two hundred men and officers, and about eight thousand pounds in money, from France. In the midst of such good news from thence, Mr. Conway has got a regiment, for which, I am sure, you will take part in my joy. In Flanders we propose to make another great effort, with an army of above ninety thousand men; that is, forty Dutch, above thirty Austrians, eighteen Hanoverians, the Hessians, who are to return ; and we propose twelve thousand Saxons, but no English ; though, if the Rebellion is at all suppressed in any time, I imagine some of our troops will go, and the Duke command the whole : in the mean time, the army will bo under Prince Waldeck and Bathiani. You will wonder at my running so glibly over eighteen thousand Hanoverians, especially as they are all to be in our pay, but the nation's digestion has been much facilitated by the pill given to Pitt, of Vice-Treasurer of Ireland. Last Friday was the debate on this subject, when we carried these troops by 255 against 122 : Pitt, Lyttelton, three Grcnvilles, and Lord Barrington, all voting roundly for them, though the eldest Grenville, two years ago, had declared in the House, that he would seal it with his blood that he never would give his vote for a Hanoverian. Don't you shudder at such perjury ? and this in a republic, and where there is no religion that dispenses with oaths ! Pitt was the only one of this ominous band that opened his mouth, 1 and it was to add impudence to profligacy ; but no criminal at the Place de Greve was ever so racked as he was by Dr. Lee, a friend of Lord Granville, who gave him the question both ordinary and extraordinary. General Hawley has been tried (not in person, you may believe) and condemned by a Scotch jury for murder, on hanging a spy. 1 In a letter to the Duke of Cumberland, of the 17th, the Duke of Newcastle says, " Mr. Pitt spoke so well, that the Premier told me he had the dignity of Sir William Wyndhani, the wit of Mr. Pulteney, and the knowledge and judgment of Sir Robert Walpole : in short, he said all that was right for the King, kind and respectful to the old corps, and resolute and contemptuous of the Tory opposition." — Wright. 16 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. What do you say to this ? or what will you say when I tell you, that Mr. Ratcliffe, who has been so long confined in the Tower, and supposed the Pretender's youngest son, is not only suffered to return France, but was entertained at a great dinner by the Duke of Richmond as a relation ! 1 The same Duke has refused his beautiful Lady Emily [Lenox] to Lord Kildare, 2 the richest and the first peer of Ireland, on a ridiculous notion of the King's evil being in the family — but sure that ought to be no objection : a very little grain more of pride and Stuartism might persuade all the royal bastards that they have a faculty of curing that distemper. The other day, an odd accidental discovery was made ; some of the Duke's baggage, which he did not want, was sent back from Scotland, with a bill of the contents. Soon after, another large parcel, but not specified in the bill, was brought to the captain, directed like the rest. When they came to the Custom-house here, it was observed, and they sent to Mr. Poyntz, 3 to know what they should do : he bade them open it, suspecting some trick ; but when they did, they found a large crucifix, copes, rich vestments, beads, and heaps of such like trumpery, consigned from the titulary primate of Scotland, who is with the rebels : they imagine, with the privity of some of the vessels, to be conveyed to somebody here in town. Now I am telling you odd events, I must relate one of the strangest I ever heard. Last week, an elderly woman gave informa- tion against her maid for coining, and the trial came on at the Old Bailey. The mistress deposed, that having been left a widow several years ago, with four children, and no possibility of maintaining them, she had taken to coining : that she used to buy old pewter-pots, out of each of which she made as many shillings, &c. as she could put off for three pounds, and that by this practice she had bred up her children, bound them out apprentices, and set herself up in a little shop, by which she got a comfortable livelihood ; that she had now given over coining, and indicted her maid as accomplice. The maid in her defence said, " That when her mistress hired her, she told her that she did something up in a garret into which she must never 1 He was related to the Duke's mother by the Countess of Newburgh, his mother. — Walpole. 2 Lady Amelia Lenox married (1747) James Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, afterwards (1766) Duke of Leinster. The Duke died in 1776, and his widow (the Lady Emily of the letter) re-married, in 1774, William Ogilvie, Esq., and died in 1814. — Cunningham 3 Stephen Poyntz, treasurer and formerly governor to the Duke.— Walpole. 174(5.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 17 inquire : that all she knew of the matter was, that her mistress had often given her moulds to clean, which she did, as it was her duty ; that, indeed, she had sometimes seen pieces of pewter-pots cut, and did suspect her mistress of coining ; hut that she never had had, or put off, one single piece of bad money." The judge asked the mistress if this was true ; she answered, " Yes ; and that she believed her maid was as honest a creature as ever lived ; but that, knowing herself in her power, she never could be at peace ; that she knew, by informing, she should secure herself ; and not doubting but the maid's real innocence would appear, she concluded the poor girl would come to no harm." The judge flew into the greatest rage ; told her he wished he could stretch the law to hang her, and feared he could not bring off the maid for having concealed the crime ; but, however, the jury did bring her in not guilty. I think I never heard a more particular instance of parts and villainy. I inclose a letter for Stosch, which was left here with a scrap of paper, with these words ; " Mr. Natter is desired to send the letters for Baron de Stosch, in Florence, by Mr. H. W." I don't know who Mr. Natter 1 is, nor who makes him this request, but I desire Mr. Stosch will immediately put an end to this method of correspond- ence ; for I shall not risk my letters to you by containing his, nor will I be post to such a dirty fellow. Your last was of March 22nd, and you mention Madame Suares' illness ; I hope she is better, and Mr. Chute's gout better. I love to hear of my Florentine acquaintance, though they all seem to have forgot me ; especially the Princess, whom you never mention. Does she never ask after me ? Tell me a little of the state of her state, her amours, devotions, and appetite. I must transcribe a paragraph out of an old book of Letters,* printed in 1660, which I met with the other day : " My thoughts upon the reading your letter made me stop in Florence, and go no farther, than to consider the happiness of them who live in that town, where the people come so near to angels in knowledge, that they can counterfeit Heaven well enough to give their friends a taste of it in this life." I agree to the happi- ness of living in Florence, but I am pure knowledge was not one of its recommendations, which never was anywhere at a lower ebb — I had forgot ; I beg Dr. Cocchi's pardon, who is much an exception ; how does he do ? Adieu ! 1 He was an engraver of seals. — W alpole. 2 A Collection of Letters made by Sir Toby Matthews. — Walpole. Walpole has given some account of Sir Toby in his ' Anecdotes of Painting.' — Cunningham. vol. ti. c 18 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. P.S. Lord Malton, who is the nearest heir-male to the extinct earldom of Rockingham, and has succeeded to a barony belonging to it, is to have his own earldom erected into a marqnisate, with the title of Rockingham. Yernon is struck off the list of admirals. 213. TO SIR HORACE MANN". Arlington Street, April 25, 1746. You have bid me for some time send you good news — well ! I think I will. How good would you have it ? must it be a total victory over the rebels ; with not only the Boy, that is here, killed, but the other, that is not here, too ; their whole army put to the sword, besides an infinite number of prisoners ; all the Jacobite estates in England confiscated, and all those in Scotland — what would you have done with them ? — or could you be content with something much under this ? how much will you abate ? will you compound for Lord John Drummond, taken by accident ? or for three Presbyterian parsons, who have very poor livings, stoutly refusing to pay a large contribution to the rebels ? Come, I will deal as well with you as I can, and for once, but not to make a practice of it, will let you have a victory ! My friend, Lord Bury,' arrived this morning from the Duke, though the news was got here before him ; for, with all our victory, it was not thought safe to send him through the heart of Scotland ; so he was shipped at Inverness, within an hour after the Duke entered the town, kept beating at sea five days, and then put on shore at North Berwick, from whence he came post in less than three days to London ; but with a fever upon him, for which he had been twice blooded but the day before the battle ; but he is 3 r oung, and high in spirits, and I flatter myself will not suffer from this kindness of the Duke : the King has imme- diately ordered him a thousand pound, aud I hear will make him his own aide-de-camp. My dear Mr. Chute, I beg your pardon ; I had forgot you have the gout, and consequently not the same patience to wait for the battle, with which I, knowing the particulars, postpone it. On the 16th, the Duke, by forced marches, came up with the rebels, a little on this side Inverness — by the way, the battle is not 1 George Keppel, eldest son of William Anne, Earl of Albemarle, whom he su weeded in the title. — Walpole. 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 19 christened yet ; I only know that neither Prestonpans 1 nor Falkirk 2 are to be godfathers. The rebels, who fled from him after their victory, and durst not attack him, when so much exposed to them at his passage 3 of the Spey, now stood him, they seven thousand, he ten. They broke through BarriTs regiment, and killed Lord Robert Kerr, 4 a handsome young gentleman, who was cut to pieces with above thirty wounds ; but they were soon repulsed, and fled ; the whole engagement not lasting above a quarter of an hour. The young Pretender escaped ; Mr. Conway says, he hears, wounded : he certainly was in the rear. They have lost above a thousand men in the engagement and pursuit ; and six hundred were already taken ; among which latter are their French ambassador and Earl Kilmarnock. 5 The Duke of Perth and Lord Ogilvie 6 are said to be slain ; Lord Elcho 7 was in a salivation, and not there. Except Lord Robert Kerr, we lost nobody of note : Sir Robert Rich's eldest son has lost his hand, and about a hundred and thirty private men fell. The defeat is reckoned total, and the dispersion general ; and all their artillery is taken. It is a brave young Duke ! The town is all blazing round me, as I write, with fireworks and illuminations : I have some inclination to wrap up half-a-dozen skyrockets, to make you drink the Duke's health. Mr. Dodington, on the first report, came out with a very pretty illumination ; so pretty, that I believe he had it by him, ready for any occasion. I now co Die to a more melancholy theme, though your joy will still be pure, except from wha£ part you take in a private grief of mine. Tt is the death of Mr. Winnington, 8 whom you only knew as one of the first men in England, from his parts and from his employ- ment. But I was familiarly acquainted with him, loved and admired him, for he had great good-nature, and a quickness of wit most peculiar to himself : and for his public talents, he has left nobody V 2 Where the King's troops had been beaten by the rebels. This was called the oattle of Culloden. — Walpole. 3 The letter, relating that event, was one of those that were lost.— Walpole. 4 Second son of the Marquis of Lothian. — Walpole. 5 William Boyd, fourth Earl of Kilmarnock in Scotland. He was tried by the House of Lords for high treason, condemned, and beheaded on Tower Hill, August 18, 1746.— Walpole. He was the direct male ancestor of the present [1833] Earl of Erroll.— Dover. Compare vol. ii. p. 51, and p. 81.— Cunningham. R James, Lord Ogilvie, eldest son of David, third Earl of Airlie. He had been attainted for the part he took in the Rebellion of 1715. — Dover. 7 David, Lord EJcho, eldest son of James, fourth Earl of Wemyss. He was attainted in 1746 ; but the family honours were restored, as were those of Lord Airlie, by act of parliament, in 1826. — Dover. 8 Thomas Winnington, Paymaster of the Forces.— Walpole. 20 HOKACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1740. equal to him, as before, nobody was superior to him but my father. The history of his death is a cruel tragedy, but what, to indulge me who am full of it, and want to vent the narration, you must hear. He was not quite fifty, extremely temperate and regular, and of a constitution remarkably strong, hale, and healthy. A little above a fortnight ago he was seized with an inflammatory rheumatism, a common and known case, dangerous, but scarce ever remembered to be fatal. He had a strong aversion to all physicians, and lately had put himself into the hands of one Thompson, 1 a quack, whose foundation of method could not be guessed, but by a general contra- diction to all received practice. This man was the oracle of Mrs. Masham, 2 sister, and what one ought to hope she did not think of, co-heiress to Mr. Winnington : his other sister is as mad in methodism as this in physic, and never saw him. This ignorant wretch, supported by the influence of the sister, soon made such progress in fatal absurdities, as purging, bleeding, and starving him, and checking all perspiration, that his friends Mr. Fox and Sir Charles Williams* absolutely insisted on calling in a physician. Whom could they call, but Dr. Bloxholme, 4 an intimate old friend of Mr. Winnington, and to whose house he always went once a year ? This doctor, grown paralytic and indolent, gave in to everything the quack advised ; Mrs. Masham all the while ranting and raving. At last, which at last came very speedily, they had reduced him to a total dissolution, by a diabetes and a thrush ; his friends all the time distracted for him, but hindered from assisting him ; so far, that the night before he died, Thompson gave him another purge, though he could not get it all down. Mr. Fox by force brought Dr. Hulse, but it was too late ; and even then, when Thompson owned him lost, Mrs. Masham was against trying Hulse's assistance. In short, madly or wickedly, they have murdered 5 a man to whom nature would have allotted a far longer period, and had given a degree of 1 See vol. i., p. 308. Thompson was family physician to Bubb Dodington. — Cun- ningham. 2 Harriet, daughter of Salway Winnington, Esq., of Stanford Court, in the county of Worcester : married to the Hon. Samuel Masham, afterwards second Lord Masham. She died in 1761. — Dover. 3 His epitaph was written by Sir C. H. Williams : " Near his paternal seat here buried lies, The grave, the gay, the witty, and the wise," &c. — Cunningham. 4 The same, I suppose, mentioned by Lady M. W. Montagu as Dr. Broxholme. (Works by Wharncliffe, vol. ii., p. 391.) — Cunningham. fl There were several pamphlets published on this case, on both sides. — Walpolb. 1746.J TO SIR HORACE MANN. 21 abilities that were carrying that period to so great a height of lustre, as perhaps would have excelled most ministers, who in this country have owed their greatness to the greatness of their merit. Adieu ! my dear Sir ; excuse what I have written to indulge my own concern, in consideration of what I have written to give you joy. P. S. Thank you for Mr. Oxenden ; but don't put yourself to any great trouble, for I desired you before not to mind formal letters much, which I am obliged to give : I write to you separately, when I wish you to be particularly kind to my recommendations. 214. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, May 16, 1746. I have had nothing new to tell you since the victory, relative ta it, but that it has entirely put an end to the Rebellion. The num- ber slain is generally believed much greater than is given out. Old Tullybardine 1 has surrendered himself ; the Lords Kilmarnock, Balmerino,' 2 and Ogilvie, 3 are prisoners, and coming up to their trials. The Pretender is not openly taken, but many people think he is in their power ; however, I dare say he will be allowed to escape ; and some French ships are hovering about the coast to receive him. The Duke is not yet returned, but we have amply prepared for his reception, by settling on him immediately and for ever twenty- five thousand pounds a-year, besides the fifteen which he is to have on the King's death. It was imagined that the Prince would have opposed this, on the reflection that fifteen thousand was thought enough for him, though heir of the Crown, and abounding in issue : but he has wisely reflected forwards, and likes the prece- dent, as it will be easy to find victories in his sons to reward, when once they have a precedent to fight with. You must live upon domestic news, for our foreign is exceedingly unwholesome. Antwerp is gone/ and Bathiani with the allied army retired under the cannon of Breda ; the junction of the 1 Elder brother of the Duke of Athol ; he was outlawed for the former Rebellion.— Walpole. 2 Arthur Elphinstone, sixth Lord Balmerino in Scotland. He was beheaded at the same time and place with Lord Kilmarnock ; and on the scaffold distinguished himself by his boldness, fortitude, and even cheerfulness. — Dover. 3 This was a mistake ; it was not Lord Ogilvie, but Lord Cromarty. — Walpole. 4 It was taken by the French —Dover. 22 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. Hanoverians cut off, and that of the Saxons put off. We are now, I suppose, at the eve of a bad peace ; though, as Cape Breton mnst be a condition, I don't know who will dare to part with it. Little -ZEolus (the Duke of Bedford) says they shall not have it, that they shall have Woburn 1 as soon — and I suppose they will ! much such positive patriot politics have brought on all this ruin upon us ! All Flanders is gone, and all our money, and half our men, and half our navy, because we would have no search. Well ! but we ought to think on what we have got too ! — we have got Admiral Vernon's head on our signs, 2 and we are going to have Mr. Pitt at the head of our affairs. Do you remember the physician in Moliere, who wishes the man dead that he may have the greater honour from recover- ing him ? Mr. Pitt is Paymaster ; Sir W. Yonge, Yice-Treasurer of Ireland ; Mr. Fox, Secretary- at- War ; Mr. Arundel, 3 Treasurer of the Chambers, (in the room of Sir John Cotton, who is turned out ;) Mr. Campbell (one of my father's Admiralty) and Mr. Legge in the Treasury, and Lord Duncannon 4 succeeds Legge in the Admiralty. Your two last were of April 19th and 26th. I wrote one to Mr. Chute, inclosed to you, with farther particulars of the battle ; and I hope you received it. I am entirely against your sending my Eagle while there is any danger. Adieu ! my dear child ! I wrote to-day, merely because I had not written very lately ; but you see I had little to say. 215. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George: Arlington Street, May 22, 1746. After all your goodness to me, don't be angry that I am glad I am got into brave old London again : though my cats don't purr like Groldwin, yet one of them has as good a heart as old Reynolds, and the tranquillity of my own closet makes me some amends for the loss of the library and toute la belle compagnie celestine. I don't 1 The seat of the Duke of Bedford. — Walpole. 2 The Head of Admiral Vernon is still (1857) a London public-house sign. — Cunningham. 3 The Hon. Richard Arundel, youngest son of John, second Lord Arundel of Trerice. He had been Master of the Mint under Sir Robert Walpole's administration. — Dover. He married, in 1732, Lady Frances Manners, daughter of John, second Duke of Rutland. — Wright. Portraits of both at Serlby, Notts, the seat of Lord Galway. — Cunningham. 4 William Ponsonby, Viscount Duncannon, afterwards second Earl of Besborough. — Dover. 1746.] TO MK. MONTAGU. £3 know whether that expression will do for the azure ceilings ; but I found it at my fingers' ends, and so it slipped through my pen. We called at Langley, 1 but did not like it, nor the Grecian temple at all ; it is by no means gracious. I forgot to take your orders about your poultry ; the partlets have not laid since I went, for little chanticleer Is true to love, and all for recreation, And does not mind the work of propagation. But I trust you will come yourself in a few days, and then you may settle their route. I am got deep into the Sidney Papers : 2 there are old wills full of bequeathed owches and goblets with fair enamel, that will delight you ; and there is a little pamphlet of Sir Philip Sidney's in defence of his uncle Leicester, that gives me a much better opinion of his parts than his dolorous Arcadia, though it almost recommended him to the crown of Poland ; at least I have never been able to discover what other great merit he had. In this little tract he is very vehement in clearing up the honour of his lineage : I don't think he could have been warmer about his family, if he had been of the blood of the Cues. 3 I have diverted myself with reflecting how it would have entertained the town a few years ago, if my cousin Richard Hammond had wrote a treatise to clear up my father's pedigree, when the Craftsman used to treat him so roundly with being Nobody's son. Adieu ! dear George ! Yours ever, The Grandson of Nobody. 216. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George : Arlington Street, June 5, 1746. You may perhaps fancy that you are very happy in the country, and that because you commend every tiring you see, you like every thing : you may fancy that London is a desert, and that grass groivs now where Troy stood ; but it does not, except just before my Lord Bath's door, whom nobody will visit. So far from being empty, and dull, and dusty, the town is full of people, full of water, for it 1 A seat of the Duke of Marlborough. — Walpole. 2 ' Letters and Memorials of State,' &c. (better known as the 1 Sidney Papers '), published this year (1746), in two volumes folio, by Arthur Collins. See p. 56. — Cun- ningham. 3 Mr. Montagu used to call his own family the Cues. — Walpole. 24 HOKACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. has rained this week, and as gay as a new Grerman Prince must make any place. Why, it rains princes : though some people are disappointed of the arrival of the Pretender, yet the Duke is just coming, and the Prince of Hesse come. 1 He is tall, lusty, and handsome ; extremely like Lord Elcho in person, and to Mr. Hussey, 2 in what entitles him more to his freedom in Ireland, than the resemblance of the former does to Scotland. By seeing him with the Prince of Wales, people think he looks stupid ; hut I dare say in his own country he is reckoned very lively, for though he don't speak much, he opens his mouth very often. The King has given him a fine sword, and the Prince a hall. He dined with the former the first day, and since with the great officers. Monday he went to Ranelagh, and supped in the house ; Tuesday at the Opera he sat with his court in the box on the stage next the Prince, and went into theirs to see the last dance ; and after it was over to the Venetian ambassadress, who is the only woman he has yet noticed. To-night there is a masquerade at Ranelagh for him, a play at Covent Grarden on Monday, and a ridotto at the Haymarket ; and then he is to go. His amours are generally very humble, and very frequent; for he does not much affect our daughter. [The Princess Mary.] A little apt to be boisterous when he has drank. I have not heard, but I hope he was not rampant last night with Lady Middlesex or Charlotte Dives. 3 Men go to see him in the morning, before he goes to see the lions. 4 The talk of peace is blown over; nine or ten battalions were ordered for Flanders the day before yesterday, but they are again countermanded ; and the operations of this campaign again likely to be confined within the precincts of Covent Garden, where the army-surgeons give constant attendance. Major Johnston 5 commands 1 The Prince of Hesse arrived at Somerset House, from Scotland, 2nd June, 1746. CUNNINGHAM. 2 Edward Hussey, afterwards [1762] Earl of Beaulieu. — Walpole. The Irish Hussey, with whom Sir Charles Hanbury Williams made himself so merry in verse. He died in 1802. See vol. ii. p. 33. — Cunningham. 3 Charlotte Dives, afterwards married to Samuel, second and last Lord Masham, who died in 1776.— Wright. 4 In the Tower of London. — Cunningham. 5 Major James Johnston, of the 1st or Eoyal Dragoons, was the only son of Captain George Johnston (of the 33rd, or Hawley's Regiment), whose father, Sir Patrick Johnston, younger son of Archibald Johnston, of Hilton-in-the-Merse, had been four times lord provost of Edinburgh, represented that city in the last six sessions of the Scots Parliament, and in the first of the United Parliament, and was one of the Scots commissioners for the union between Scotland and England, a.d. 1707. Major Johnston obtained his first commission in the 13th Dragoons, then. 1746.] TO MR. MONTAGU. 25 (I can't call it) the corps de reserve in Grosvenor Street. I wish you had seen the goddess [Lady Caroline Fitzroy] of those purlieus with him t'other night at Ranelagh ; you would have sworn it had been the divine Cucumber 1 in person. The fame of the Violetta 2 increases daily; the sister- Countesses of Burlington and Talbot exert all their stores of sullen partiality in competition for her : the former visits her, and is having her picture, and carries her to Chiswick ; and she sups at Lady Carlisle's, and lies — indeed I have not heard where, but I know not at Leicester House, where she is in great disgrace, for not going once or twice a week to take lessons of Denoyer, 3 as he 4 bid her : you know, that is politics in a court where dancing-masters are ministers. Adieu ! dear George : my compliments to all at the farm. Your 1736, called from its Colonel, Hawley's ; and on his being appointed colonel of the Royals in 1739, he had young Johnston transferred to that regiment, and he served with it at Dettingen and Fontenoy ; and having distinguished himself in several cavalry affairs during the campaign of 1743-4-5, was, at this time, recently returned with his regiment from the continent, where he had been considered the handsomest man, and best swordsman, in the army. Colonel Johnston commanded the Royals during the seven years' war in Germany, and was particularly distinguished at the battles of Warburgh, Campen (whftre he was wounded), and many minor combats. He married in 1762 the Lady H. Cecilia West, eldest daughter of John, Earl De la Ware, and in 1763 was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Minorca, which command he retained till 1774. He died, December, 1797, General in the Army, commanding the eastern district, and Colonel of the Inniskillen Dragoons. Many stories are told of his prowess during his youth ; and in those days, when gentlemen never appeared without a sword, any little difference was instantly settled on the spot, and in these he was always victorious. He was a great favourite with the fair sex, and was indeed so handsome and fashionable at this time, that Gainsborough requested him, as a great favour, to sit to him for his portrait, in order to bring himself into vogue — which he did — and after the picture had been exhibited the usual time, the artist made Major Johnston a present of it, and it is now in the possession of Sir Alexander Johnston. Although considered a very good-natured man, yet, when all gentlemen wore swords, on the slightest difference, appeal was too frequently made to this weapon, and Major Johnston had been engaged in many encounters of this sort — indeed, was sometimes known by the name of the fighting Johnston. In later life, both he and Lady Cecilia lived in the greatest intimacy with Horace Walpole, whose print, given by himself to my grandmother, as what he considered the best likeness, and some manuscript notes are at this time in my possession. — Colonel Frederick Johnston (MS.). He was called Irish Johnston, to distinguish him from his relation of the same name, who died a General in the Army and Colonel of the Greys or N. B. Dragoons. See Letter to Montagu, April 29, 1762. — Cunningham. 1 This I cannot explain. See the " fairy Cucumber,"p. 27, and p. 163.— Cunningham. 2 Eva Maria Violette, a dancer, married, 18th May, 1749, to David Garrick.— Cunningham. 3 Monsieur Dunoyer, the dancing-master, was the Prince and Princess's constant companion was a sort of licensed spy on both sides. — Lord Herveys Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 407. He figures in one of Hogarth's prints. — Cunningham. 4 The Prince of Wales ; with Avhom the dancing-master was a great favourite. — Walpole. 26 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. cocks and hens would write to you, but they are dressing in haste for the masquerade : mind, I don't say that Ashton is doing any thing like that ; but he is putting on an odd sort of a black gown : but, as Di Bertie says on her message cards, mum for that. Yours ever. 217. TO SIR HORACE MANN". Arlington Street, June 6, 1746. It was a very unpleasant reason for my not hearing from you last post, that you was ill ; but I have had a letter from you since of May 24th, that has made me easy again for your health : if you was not losing the good Chutes, I should have been quite satisfied ; but that is a loss you will not easily repair, though I were to recommend you Hobarts 1 every day. Sure you must have had flights of strange awkward animals, if you can be so taken with him ! I shall begin to look about me, to see the merits of England : he was no curiosity here ; and yet Heaven knows there are many better, with whom I hope I shall never be acquainted. As I have cautioned you more than once against minding my recommendatory letters, (which one gives because one can't refuse them), unless I write to you separately, I have no scruple in giving them. You are extremely good to give so much credit to my bills at first sight ; but don't put down Hobart to my account ; I used to call him the Clear cake ; fat, fair, sweet, and seen through in a moment. By what you tell me, I should conclude the Countess [of Orford] was riot returning ; for Hobart is not a morsel that she can afford to lose. I am much obliged to you for the care you take in sending my Eagle by my commodore-cousin [Townshend], but I hope it will not be till after his expedition. I know the extent of his genius ; he would hoist it overboard on the prospect of an engagement, and think he could buy me another at Hyde Park Corner 2 with the prize-money ; like the Roman tar that told his crew, that if they broke the antique Corinthian statues, they should find new ones. We have been making peace lately, but I think it is off again ; there is come an unpleasant sort of a letter, transmitted from Yan 1 The Hon. John Hobart, afterwards second Earl of Buckinghamshire. Walpole had given him a letter of introduction to Sir Horace Mann. — Wright. - Then, and for fifty years later, inhabited by stonemasons and sculptors, just as the New Road in London is now (1857). — Cunningham. 1746.] TO MR. MONTAGU. 27 Hoey 1 at Paris ; it talks something of rebels not to be treated as rebels, and of a Prince Charles that is somebody's cousin and friend — but as nobody knows anything of this — why, I know nothing of it neither. There are battalions ordered for Flanders, and counter- manded, and a few less ordered again : if I knew exactly what day this would reach you, I could tell you more certainly, because the determination for or against is only of every other day. The Duke is coming : I don't find it certain, however, that the Pretender is got off. We are in the height of festivities for the Serenity of Hesse, our son-in-law, who passes a few days here on his return to Germany. If you recollect Lord Elcho, you have a perfect idea of his person and parts. The great officers banquet him at dinner ; in the evenings there are plays, operas, ridotto.s, and masquerades. You ask me to pity you for losing the Chutes : indeed I do ; and I pity them for losing you. They will often miss Florence, and its tranquillity and happy air. Adieu ! Comfort yourself with what you do not lose. 218. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. My Dear George: Arlington Street, June 12, 1746. Don't commend me : you don't know what hurt it will do me ; you will make me a pains-taking man, and I had rather be dull without any trouble. From partiality to me you won't allow my letters to be letters. If you have a mind I should write you news, don't make me think about it ; I shall be so long turning my periods, that what I tell you will cease to be news. The Prince of Hesse had a most ridiculous tumble t'other night at the Opera ; they had not pegged up his box tight after the ridotto, and down he came on all four ; George Selwyn says he carried it off with an unembarrassed countenance. He was to go this morning ; I don't know whether he did or not. The Duke is expected to-night by all the tallow candles and faggots in town. Lady Caroline Fitzroy's match 2 is settled to the content of all parties ; they are taking Lady Abergavenny's house in Brook Street. The fairy Cucumber houses all Lady Caroline's out-pensioners ; Mr. 1 The Dutch minister at Paris. — Walpole. 2 With Viscount Petersham, afterwards (1756) Earl of Harrington. Mr. Conway had been in love with her. See vol. i., p. 312. — Cunningham. 28 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. Montgomery 1 is now on half-pay with her. Her Major Johnston 2 is chosen at White's, to the great terror of the society. When he was introduced, Sir Charles Williams presented Dick Edgecumbe 3 to him, and said, " I have three favours to beg of you for Mr. Edge- cumbe : the first is that you would not lie with Mrs. Day ; 4 the second, that you would not poison his cards ; the third, that you would not kill him ; " the fool answered gravely, " Indeed I will not." The Good has borrowed old Bowman's house in Kent, and is retiring thither for six weeks : I tell her, she has lived so rakish a life, that she is obliged to go and take up. I hope you don't know any more of it, and that Major Montagu is not to cross the country to her. There — I think you can't commend me for this letter ; it shall not even have the merit of being long. My compliments to all your contented family. Yours ever. P.S. I forgot to tell you, that Lord Lonsdale had summoned the peers to-day to address the King not to send the troops abroad in the present conjuncture. I hear he made a fine speech, and the Duke of Newcastle a very long one in answer, and then they rose without a division. 5 Lord Baltimore is to bring the same motion into our House. 6 219. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George : Arlington Street, June 17, 1746. I wrote to you on Friday night as soon as I could after receiving your letter, with a list of the regiments to go abroad; 1 The Hon. Archibald Montgomery. He succeeded his brother, as eleventh Earl of Eglinton, in 1769, and died in 1796. — Wright. 2 See p. 24. — Cunningham. 3 Richard Edgecumbe, second Lord Edgecumbe. — Walpole. See vol. L, p. 156. — ■ Cunningham. 4 In March, 1761, I was appointed trustee for Mrs. Day, by Richard Lord Edge- cumbe in his will. — Walpole's Short Notes, vol. i. p. lxvii. — Cunningham. 5 " There was a debate," writes Mr. Pelham to Horatio Walpole on the 12th, " in the House of Lords this day, upon a motion of Lord Lonsdale, who would have addressed the King, to defer the sending abroad any troops till it was more clear that we are in no danger at home ; which he would by no means allow to be the case at present. The Duke of Newcastle spoke well for one that was determined to carry on the war. Granville was present, but said nothing ; flattered the Duke of Newcastle when the debate was over, and gave a strong negative to the motion." — Wright. 6 Lord Baltimore made his motion in the House of Commons, on the 18th; when it was negatived by the great majority of 103 against 12. — Wright. 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 29 one of which, I hear since, is your brother's. I am extremely sorry it is his fortune, as I know the distress it will occasion in your family. For the politics which you inquire after, and which may have given motion to this step, I can give you no satisfactory answer. I have heard that it is in consequence of an impertinent letter sent over by Van Hoey in favour of the rebels, though at the same time I hear we are making steps towards a peace. There centre all my politics, all in peace. Whatever your cousin 1 may think, I am neither busy about what does happen, nor making parties for what may. If he knew how happy I am, his intriguing nature would envy my tranquillity more than his suspicions can make him jealous of my practices. My books, my virtu, and my other follies and amusements take up too much of my time to leave me much leisure to think of other people's affairs ; and of all affairs, those of the public are least my concern. You will be sorry to hear of Augustus Townshend's 2 death. I lament it extremely, not much for his sake, for I did not honour him, but for his poor sister Molly's, 3 whose little heart, that is all tenderness, and gratitude, and friendship, will be broke with the shock. I really dread it, considering how delicate her health is. My Lady Townshend has a son with him. I went to tell it her. Instead of thinking of her child's distress, she kept me half an hour with a thousand histories of Lady Caroline Fitzroy and Major Johnston, and the new Paymaster's [Pitt's] manage, and twenty other things, nothing to me, nor to her, if she could drop the idea of the Pay- Office. The Serene Hessian is gone. Little Brooke is to be an earl.' 1 I went to bespeak him a Lilliputian coronet at Chenevix's. 5 Adieu ! dear George. 220. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Dear Sir : Arlington Street, June 20, 1746. We are impatient for letters from Italy, to confirm the news of a 1 George Dunk, Earl of Halifax. — Walpole. 2 Son of Viscount Townshend and Dorothy, sister of Sir Robert Walpole. He was a captain in the service of the East India Company, and died at Batavia, having at that time the command of the Augusta. — Wright. 3 Mary Townshend, wife of Lieutenant-General Edward Cornwallis, M.P. for West- minster, &c. — Cunningham. 4 Earl of Warwick. See vol. i., p. 154.— Cunningham. 6 A celebrated toy-shop. — Walpole. See vol. i., p. 284. — Cunningham. 30 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS, [1746. victory over the French and Spaniards. 1 The time is critical, and every triumph or defeat material, as they may raise or fall the terms of peace. The wonderful letters of Yan Hoey and M. d'Argenson, in favour of the rebels, but which, if the ministry have any spirit, must turn to their harm, you will see in all the papers. They have rather put off the negotiations, and caused the sending five thousand men this week to Flanders. The Duke is not yet returned from Scotland, nor is anything certainly known of the Pretender. I don't find any period fixed for the trial of the Lords ; yet the Parliament sits on, doing nothing, few days having enough to make a House. Old Marquis Tullibardine, with another set of rebels are come, amongst whom is Lord Macleod, son of Lord Cromarty, 2 already in the Tower. Lady Cromarty went down incog, to "Woolwich to see her son pass by, without the power of speaking to him : I never heard a more melancholy instance of affection ! Lord Elcho 3 has written from Paris to Lord Lincoln to solicit his pardon ; but as he has distinguished himself beyond all the rebel commanders by brutality and insults and cruelty to our prisoners, I think he is likely to remain where he is. Jack Spencer, 4 old Marlborough's grandson and heir, is just dead, at the age of six or seven and thirty, and in possession of near 30,000/. a-year, merely because he would not be abridged of those invaluable blessings of an English subject, brandy, small-beer, and tobacco. Your last letter was of May 31st. Since you have effectually lost the good Chutes, I may be permitted to lay out all my impatience for seeing them. There are no endeavours I shall not use to show how much I love them for all their friendship to you. You are very kind in telling me how much I am honoured by their Highnesses of Modena ; but how can I return it ? would it be civil to send them a compliment through a letter of yours ? Do what you think properest for me. I have nothing to say to Marquis Eiccardi about his trumpery 1 The battle of Placentia, which took place on the 15th of May.— Wright. 2 George Mackenzie, third Earl of Cromartie, and his eldest son John, Lord Macleod. They had been deeply engaged in the Rebellion, were taken prisoners at Dunrobin Castle in Sutherland, and from thence conveyed to the Tower. They were, upon trial, found guilty of high treason ; but their lives were granted to them. Lord Macleod afterwards entered the Swedish service. Lady Cromartie was Isabel, daughter of Sir William Gordon, of Invergordon, Bart. — Dover. 3 Eldest son of the Earl of Wemyss. — Walpole. 4 Brother of Charles Spencer, Earl of Sunderland and Duke of Marlborough — Walpole. See vol. i., p. 191, and p. cxxxix. — Cunningham. 1746.] TO MR. MONTAGU. 31 gems, but what I have already said ; that nobody here will buy them together; that if he will think better, and let them be sold by auction, he may do it most advantageously, for, with all our distress, we have not at all lost the rage of expense : but that for sending them to Lisbon, I will by no means do it, as his impertinent sending them to me without my leave, shall in no manner draw me into the risk of paying for them. That, in short, if he will send anybody to me with full authority to receive them, and to give me the most ample discharge for them, I will deliver them, and shall be happy so to get rid of them. There they lie in a corner of my closet, and will probably come to light at last with excellent antique mould about them ! Adieu ! 221. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George : Arlington Street, June 24. 1746. You have got a very bad person to tell you news ; for I hear nothing before all the world has talked it over, and done with it. Till twelve o'clock last night I knew nothing of all the kissing hands that had graced yesterday morning ; Arundel, for Treasurer of the Chambers ; Legge, and your friend Welsh Campbell, for the Treasury; Lord Duncannon for the Admiralty ; and your cousin Halifax (who is succeeded by his predecessor in the Buck Hounds) for Chief Justice in Eyre, in the room of Lord Jersey. They talk of new earls* Lord Chancellor, Lord Gower, Lord Brooke, and Lord Clinton ; but I don't know that this will be, because it is not past. Tidings are every minute expected of a great sea-fight ; Martin has got between the coast and the French fleet, which has sailed from Brest. The victory in Italy is extremely big ; but as none of my friends are aide-de-camps there, I know nothing of the particulars, except that the French and Spaniards have lost ten thousand men. All the inns about town are crowded with rebel prisoners, and people are making parties of pleasure, which you know is the English genius, to hear their trials. The Scotch, which you know is the Scotch genius, are loud in censuring the Duke for his severities in the Highlands. The great business of the town is Jack Spencer's will, who has left Althorp and the Sunderland estate in reversion to Pitt ; after HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. more obligations and more pretended friendship for his brother, the Duke [of Marlborough], than is conceivable. The Duke is in the utmost uneasiness about it, having left the drawing of the writings for the estate to his brother and his grandmother, and without having any idea that himself was cut out of the entail. I have heard nothing of Augustus Townshend's will : my Lady [Townshend], who you know hated him, came from the Opera t'other night, and on pulling off her gloves, and finding her hands all black, said immediately, " My hands are guilty, but my heart is free." 1 Another good thing she said to the Duchess of Bedford, 2 who told her the Duke [of Bedford] was wind-bound at Yarmouth, •'Lord ! he will hate Norfolk as much as I do." 3 I wish, my dear George, you could meet with any man that could copy the Beauties in the Castle : 4 I did not care if it were even in Indian ink. Will you inquire ? Eckardt has done your picture excellently well. What shall I do with the original ? Leave it with him till you come ? Lord Bath and Lord Sandys have had their pockets picked at Cuper's Gardens.' I fancy it was no bad scene, the avarice and jealousy of their peeresses on their return. A terrible disgrace happened to Earl Cholmondeley t'other night at Ranelagh. You know all the history of his letters to borrow money to pay for damask for his fine room at Richmond. 6 As he was going in, in the crowd, a woman offered him roses — "Right damask, my lord ! " He concluded she had been put upon it. I was told, a-propos, a ban-mot on the scene in the Opera, where there is a view of his new room, and the farmer comes dancing out and shaking his purse. Some- body said there was a tradesman had unexpectedly got his money. I think I deal in bon-mots to-day. I'll tell you now another, but don't print my letter in a new edition of Joe Miller's jests. The Duke has given Brigadier Mordaunt the Pretender's coach, on condition he rode up to London in it. " That I will, Sir," said he, " and drive till it stops of its own accord at the Cocoa Tree." 7 1 Compare p. 69. — Cunningham. 2 Daughter of John, Earl Gower. — Walpole. 3 Your grace has been wind-bound, and I have, in consequence, been ink-bound. Mr. Legge to the Dulce of Bedford, June 17, 1746.— Cunningham. 4 The Windsor beauties of Sir Peter Lely. — Cunningham. 5 On the banks of the Thames, at Lambeth. See ' Cunningham's Handbook of London,' art. Cuper's Gardens. — Cunningham. 6 Cholmondeley Walk, on the banks of the Thames at Richmond, still remains. — Cunningham. 7 A Tory chocolate-house, or Club, in St. James's-street. — Cunningham. 1740.] TO MR. MONTAGU. 33 222. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. My Dear George : Arlington Street, July 3, 1746. I wish extremely to accept your invitation, but I can't bring myself to it. If I bave tbe pleasure of meeting Lord North. 1 oftener at your bouse next winter, I do not know but another summer I may have courage enough to make him a visit ; but 1 have no notion of going to anybody's house, and have the servants look on the arms of the chaise to find out one's name, and learn one's face from the Saracen's head. You did not tell me how long you stayed at Wroxton [in Oxfordshire], and so I direct this thither. I have wrote one to Windsor since you left it. The new earls have kissed hands, and kept their own titles. The world reckon Earl Clinton obliged for his new honour to Lord Granville, though they made the Duke of Newcastle go in to ask for it. Yesterday Mr. Hussey's friends declared his marriage with her grace of Manchester, 2 and said he was gone down to Englefield Green [near Windsor] to take possession. I can tell you another wedding more certain, and fifty times more extraordinary ; it is Lord Coke 3 with Lady Mary Campbell, the Dowager of Argyll's youngest daughter. It is all agreed, and was negotiated by the Countess of Gower and Leicester. I don't know why they skipped over Lady Betty, 4 who, if there were any question of beauty, is, I think, as well as her sister. They drew the girl in to give her consent, when they first proposed it to her ; but now la Belle n'aime pas trop le Sieur Lcandrc. She cries her eyes to scarlet. He has made her four visits, and is so in love, that he writes to her every other day. 'Tis a strange match. After offering him to all the great lumps of gold in all the alleys of the city, they fish out a woman of quality at last with a mere twelve thousand pound. She objects his loving none of her sex but the four queens in a pack of 1 Francis, Lord North and Grey; in 1752 created Earl of Guilford. His lordship died in 1790, at the age of eighty-six. — Wright. 2 Isabella, eldest daughter of John, Duke of Montagu, married in 1723 to "William, second Duke of Manchester, who died in 1739. She married afterwards Edward Hussey, Esq., who was created Baron Beaulieu in 1762, and Earl Beaulicu in 1784. — Walpole. See vol. ii., p. 24. — Cunningham. 3 See vol. i., p. 57, 102, and 347. — Cunningham. 4 Lady Elizabeth Campbell, afterwards married to Mr. Mackenzie, brother of the minister Earl of Bute. (See vol. i. p. 347.)— Cunningham. vol. II. o 34 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. cards, but he promises to abandon White's and both clubs for her sake. A-propos to White's and cards, Dick Edgecumbe is shut up with the itch. The ungenerous world ascribe it to Mrs. Day: 1 but he denies it ; owning, however, that he is very well contented to have it, as nobody will venture on her. Don't you like being pleased to have the itch, as a new way to keep one's mistress to one's self ? You will be in town to be sure for the eight-and-twentieth. London will be as full as at a Coronation. The whole form is settled for the trials, and they are actually building scaffolds in Westminster-hall. I have not seen poor Miss Townshend 2 yet ; she is in town, and better, but most unhappy. 223. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, July 7, 1746. I have been looking at the dates of my letters, and find that I have not written to you since the 20th of last month. As long as it seems, I am not in fault ; I now write merely lest you should think me forgetful of you, and not because I have anything to say. Nothing great has happened ; and for little politics, I live a good deal out of the way of them. I have no manner of connection with any ministry, or opposition to ministry ; and their merits and their faults are equally a secret to me. The Parliament sitting so long has worn itself to a skeleton ; and almost everybody takes the opportunity of shortening their stay in the country, which I believe in their hearts most are glad to do, by going down, and returning for the Trials, which are to be on the 28th of this month. I am of the number; so don't expect to hear from me again till that sera. The Duke is still in Scotland, doing his family the only service that has been done for them there since their accession. He daily picks up notable prisoners, and has lately taken Lord Lovat, and Murray the secretary. There are flying reports of the Boy being killed, but I think not certain enough for the father [the Old Pretender] to faint away again — I blame myself for speaking lightly 1 See vol. ii., p. 28. — Cunningham. 2 See vol. ii., p. 29. — Cunningham. 1/46.] TO GENERAL CONWAY. 35 of the old man's distress ; but a swoon is so natural to his character, that one smiles at it at first, without considering when it proceeds from cowardice, and when from misery. I heard yesterday that we -are to expect a battle in Flanders soon : I expect it with all the tranquillity that the love of one's country admits, when one's heart is entirely out of the question, as, thank God ! mine is : not one of my friends will be in it. I wish it may be as magnificent a victory for us, as your giornata di San Lazaro ! I am in great pain for my Eagle, now the Brest fleet is thought to be upon the coast of Spain : but what do you mean by him and his pedestal filling three cases ? is he like the Irishman's bird, in two places at once ? Adieu ! my dear child ; don't believe my love for you in the least abridged, whenever my letters are scarce or short. I never loved you better, and never had less to say, both which I beg you will believe by my concluding. Yours, &c. P.S. Since I finished my letter, we hear that the French and Spaniards have escaped from Placentia, not without some connivance of your hero-King [of Sardinia]. Mons is taken. 224. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. 1 Dear Hakrt : MUthy,- July 19, 1746. When I left London, I piqued myself upon paying my court to Lady Caroline [Fitzroy] 3 by some present that should make her think me a reasonable creature, and capable of entertaining myself without music, which I don't love, and without seeing a thousand people for whom I don't care a straw ; but having been so unfortunate as neither to kill a brace of partridges, nor hook a dish of whitings, I am reduced to flatter her in a way as extraordinary as the other of recommending one's self by being natural and unaffected, to a woman who has been bred up in the kingdom of Herveys, Diveses, and Queensburys. Lady Caroline will give me leave to wonder at her being so awkward as to like to hear Lady Emily [Lenox] commended rather than herself ; and even you who are so fond of that uncouth sense of hers, may be amazed that she thinks her sister handsomer than 1 Now first published. — Cunningham. 2 The seat in Essex of Richard Rigby, Esq. — Cunningham. 3 Conway had been in love with her. (See vol. L, p. 312.) — Cunningham. 3G HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. herself: but since she is so ungenteel, and has so many of those strange properties called good qualities, which being out of fashion and out of character, I can't help reckoning a want of knowing the world, I have e'en humoured her in her own way, and said of her sister what, if she had been like other people, I should naturally have said of herself. I wish my dear Harry you loved Lady Emily as well as your wife does, 1 and then I should have no excuses to make for sending you the enclosed lines, 2 which I command Lady Caroline to like on pain of Dayrolles's 3 eternal displeasure, but as a fit of poetry is a distemper which I am never troubled with but in the country, you will have no reason to apprehend much trouble of this sort : the trees at Yauxhall and purling basons of gold fish never inspire me. I can fairly say at least that Bigby makes me send you these verses, which I have compounded to do, upon condition he lets the names stand as they are ; tho' he contended a great while for a set of beauties of his own, who he swears by God are handsomer than any one (except Lady Emily) that I have mentioned. But as neither Mr. Peachey nor Mr. Briton would reckon his ladies good company, I have fought them all off but Eanny Murray, 4 for whose sake he insists the description of Flora shall at least be left doubtful by the letters F. M. in the margin, and may be wrote at length in the Covent Garden editions. 5 I have done with excuses, and give up any merit in the lines, and will only add that Lady Caroline must forgive any private partialities in the last line. As to any omission of divinities, I can only say that I intended merely to mention those I think beauties, not all who are reckoned so by themselves or their court : I am no such Herculean labourer as Tom Hervey says. Adieu, dear Sir. Yours most sincerely, Horace \Yalpole. 1 Caroline Campbell, Countess of Aylesbury, married to Conway in 1747. — Cunningham. 2 ' The Beauties,' an epistle to Eckardt, the painter, printed in Walpole's Works, vol. i., p. 19. It is founded on Addison's epistle to Kneller. — Cunningham. 3 Solomon Dayrolles, Esq., the friend and correspondent of Lord Chesterfield. Walpole describes him to Mann (vol. ii. p. 84) as " a led captain to the Dukes of Grafton and Eichmond ; used to be sent to auctions for them, and to walk in the park with their daughters, and once went dry-nurse to Holland with them." — Cunningham. 4 In the notes to the printed poem in Walpole's Works, Fanny, or Flora, is said to be " Miss Fanny Macartney, married to Mr. Greville." (See vol. ii. p. 157.) — Cunningham. 5 In July of the same year [1746] I wrote ' The Beauties,' which was handed about 174t5.J TO GENERAL CONWAY. 37 225. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. 1 Dear Sir : Mistley, July 24, 1746. You frighten me out of my wits, which is indeed a fair step towards making me in earnest a poet, a title I should dread more than that of patriot, and which I should certainly get into no wills by. I will be so honest as to own that the obliging things you say to me please me vastly. I find I have enough of the author in me to be extremely sensible to flattery, and were I far enough gone to publish a miscellany, there would certainly be one copy to my honoured friend Henry Fox on his commending my verses. But seriously, my dear sir, you alarm me, with talking of making those I sent you public. I never thought poetry excusable but in the manner I sent you mine, just to divert anybody one loves for half an hour — and I know I must love anybody, to put myself so much in their power for their diversion. But to make anything one writes, especially poetry, public, is giving everybody leave under one's own hand to call one fool. You think me modest, but all my modesty is pride ; while I am unknown, I am as great as my own imagination pleases to make me, the instant I get into that dreadful Court of Requests you talk of, I am as silly a fellow as Thomson or Glover, — you even reduce me to plead that foolish excuse against being published, which authors make to excuse themselves when they have published, — that their compositions were made in a hurry or extempore. Bigby will assure you that what I sent you was literally wrote in less than three hours ; and, my dear Harry, I am not vain enough to think that I can write in three hours what would deserve to live three days. I will give you two more very material reasons for your suppressing my verses, and have done : one is, I don't care to make all the women in England my enemies, but sixteen, as their resentments would probably hurt me more than the gratitude of my goddesses would do me good, with all their charms ; and the other reason is, that the conclusion of the poem is more particular than I would choose publicly to subscribe to. I am content with your approbation and Lady Caroline's : pray tell her the reason I said so little of Lady Emily in detail was what the critics, a set of gentlemen she is happily not acquainted till it got into print very incorrectly. — Walpoles Short Notes. (See vol. i., p. lxi) The poem was published in September, 1746, price sixpence. — Cunningham. 1 Now first published. — Cunningham. 3S HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. with, say in excuse for the heroes of the Epic poems, who are very little talked of in comparison with their rivals, but who are supposed to be celebrated enough, by surpassing those who are more amply commended ; or you may tell her what will be more familiar to her than Homer and Virgil, that if I had said Mrs. Bethel 1 was the ugliest woman in the world, I should not have specified her nose, her mouth, or her complexion. For the last line on Lady Emily, which you don't understand, it only means that it is a pity she is not as like Yenus in being a mother, as she is in the rest of her merits. I beg your pardon for troubling you with a second letter so long, when I shall be in town the day after it, but I was so anxious about your talking of making my verses public, that I could not refrain a moment from begging you not. Rigby has left his kindest love for you : he is gone to a cricket match, from which your letter has saved me. You have commended me so much, he begins to look on me in a higher light, and even deigns to treat my leisure as sacred. I am, my dear Sir, and always shall be, if you will suppress my verses, Your most obliged humble servant, Horace "Walpole* 226. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Aug. 1, 1746. I am this moment come from the conclusion of the greatest and most melancholy scene I ever yet saw ! you will easily guess it was the Trials of the rebel Lords. As it was the most interesting sight, it was the most solemn and fine : a coronation is a puppet-show, and all the splendour of it idle ; but this sight at once feasted one's eyes and engaged all one's passions. It began last Monday ; three parts of "Westminster-hall were inclosed with galleries, and hung with scarlet ; and the whole ceremony was conducted with the most awful solemnity and decency, except in the one point of leaving the prisoners at the bar, amidst the idle curiosity of some crowd, and even with the witnesses who had sworn against them, while the Lords adjourned to their own House to consult. No part of the royal family was there, which was a proper regard to the unhappy men, who were become their victims. One hundred and thirty-nine Lords were present, and made a noble sight on their benches frequent and 1 Anne, daughter of the first Lord Sandys, and wife of Christopher Bethel, Esq. (See vol. ii p. 46.) — Cunningham. 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 39 full ! The Chancellor [Hardwicke] was Lord High Steward ; but though a most comely personage with a fine voice, his behaviour was mean, curiously searching for occasion to bow to the minister [Mr. Pelham] that is no peer, and consequently applying to the other ministers, in a manner, for their orders ; and not even ready at the ceremonial. To the prisoners he was peevish ; and instead of keep- ing up to the humane dignity of the law of England, whose character it is to point out favour to the criminal, he crossed them, and almost scolded at any offer they made towards defence. I had armed myself with all the resolution I could, with the thought of their crimes and of the danger past, and was assisted by the sight of the Marquis of Lothian 1 in weepers for his son who fell at Culloden — but the first appearance of the prisoners shocked me ! their behaviour melted me ! Lord Kilmarnock and Lord Cromartie are both past forty, but look younger. Lord Kilmarnock is tall and slender, with an extreme fine person : his behaviour a most just mixture between dignity and submission ; if in anything to be reprehended, a little affected, and his hair too exactly dressed for a man in his situation ; but when I say this, it is not to find fault with him, but to show how little fault there was to be found. Lord Cromartie is an indifferent figure, appeared much dejected, and rather sullen : he dropped a few tears the first day, and swooned as soon as he got back to his cell. For Lord Balmerino, he is the most natural brave old fellow I ever saw : the highest intrepidity, even to indifference. At the bar he behaved like a soldier and a man ; in the intervals of form, with carelessness and humour. He pressed extremely to have his wife, his pretty Peggy, 2 with him in the Tower. Lady Cromartie only sees her husband through the grate, not choosing to be shut up with him, as she thinks she can serve him better by her intercession without : she is big with child and very handsome : so are their daughters. When they were to be brought from the Tower in separate coaches, there was some dispute in which the axe must go — old Balmerino cried, " Come, come, put it with me." At the bar, he plays with his fingers upon the axe, while he talks to the gentle- man-gaoler ; and one day somebody coming up to listen, he took the blade and held it like a fan between their faces. During the trial, a little boy was near him, but not tall enough to see ; he made room for the child and placed him near himself. 1 William Ker, third Marquis of Lothian. Lord Robert Ker, who was killed at Culloden, was his second son. — Dover. 2 Margaret, Lady Balmerino, daughter of Captain Chalmers. — Dover. 40 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. When the trial began, the two Earls pleaded guilty ; Balmerino not guilty, saying he could prove his not being at the taking of the castle of Carlisle, as was laid in the indictment. Then the King's counsel opened, and Serjeant Skinner pronounced the most absurd speech imaginable ; and mentioned the Duke of Perth, " who," said he, "I see by the papers is dead." 1 Then some witnesses were examined, whom afterwards the old hero shook cordially by the hand. The Lords withdrew to their House, and returning, demanded of the judges, whether one point not being proved, though all the rest were, the indictment was false ? to which they unanimously answered in the negative. Then the Lord High Steward asked the Peers severally, whether Lord Balmerino was guilty ! All said, "guilty upon honour," and then adjourned, the prisoner having begged pardon for giving them so much trouble. While the Lords were withdrawn, the Solicitor- General Murray (brother of the Pretender's minister) 2 officiously and insolently went up to Lord Balmerino, and asked him, how he could give the Lords so much trouble, when his solicitor had informed him that his plea could be of no use to him ? Balmerino asked the bystanders who this person was ? and being told, he said, " Oh, Mr. Murray ! I am extremely glad to see you ; I have been with several of your relations ; the good lady, your mother, was of great use to us at Perth." Are not you charmed with this speech? how just it was ! As he went away, he said, " They call me Jacobite ; I am no more a Jacobite than any that tried me : but if the Great Mogul had set up his standard, I should have followed it, for I could not starve." The worst of his case is, that after the battle of Dumblain, having a company in the Duke of Argyll's regiment, he deserted with it to the rebels, and has since been pardoned. Lord Kilmarnock is a presbyterian, with four earldoms 3 in him, but so poor since Lord Wilmington's stopping a pension that my father had given him, that he often wanted a dinner. Lord Cromartie was receiver of the rents of the King's second son in Scotland, which, it was understood, he should not account for ; and by that means had six hundred a-year from the Government : Lord Elibank, 4 a very prating, impertinent Jacobite, was bound for him in nine thousand pounds, for which the Duke is determined to sue him. 1 The Duke of Perth, a young man of a delicate frame, expired on his passage to France. — Wright. 2 Lord Dunbar. — Walpole. 3 Kilmarnock, Erroll, Linlithgow, and Calendar. — Dover. 4 Patrick Murray, fifth Lord Elibank.- -Dover. 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 41 When the Peers were going to vote, Lord Foley 1 withdrew, as too well a wisher ; Lord Moray, 2 as nephew of Lord Balmerino — and Lord Stair, — as, I believe, uncle to his great-grandfather. Lord Windsor, 3 very affectedly, said, " I am sorry I must say, guilty upon my honour." Lord Stamford 4 would not answer to the name of Henry, having been christened Harry — what a great way of thinking on such an occasion ! I was diverted too with old Norsa, 5 the father of my brother's concubine, an old Jew that kept a tavern ; my brother [Orford], as Auditor of the Exchequer, has a gallery along one whole side of the court ; I said, " I really feel for the prisoners \" old Issachar replied, " Feel for them ! pray, if they had succeeded, what would have become of all us ? " When my Lady Townshend heard her husband vote, she said, "I always knew my Lord Avas guilty, but I never thought he would own it upon his honour" Lord Balmerino said, that one of his reasons for pleading not guilty, was, that so many ladies might not be disappointed of their show. On Wednesday they were again brought to Westminster-hall, to receive sentence; and being asked what they had to say, Lord Kilmarnock, with a very fine voice, read a very fine speech, confessing the extent of his crime, but offering his principles as some alleviation, having his eldest son (his second unluckily was with him), in the Duke's army, fighting for the liberties of Ins country at Culloden, where his unhappy father was in arms to destroy them. He insisted much on his tenderness to the English prisoners, which some deny, and say that he was the man who proposed their being put to death, when General Stapleton urged that he was come to fight, and not to butcher ; and that if they acted any such barbarity, he would leave them with all his men. He very artfully mentioned Van Hoey's letter, and said how much he should scorn to owe his life to such intercession. Lord Cromartie spoke much shorter, and so low, that he was not heard but by those who sat very near him ; but they prefer his speech to the other. He mentioned his misfortune in haviug drawn in his eldest son, who is prisoner with him ; and con- cluded with saying, " If no part of this bitter cup must pass from 1 Thomas, second Lord Foley, of the first creation.— Dover. 2 James Stewart, ninth Earl of Moray. His mother was Jean Elphinstone, daughter of John, fourth Lord Balmerino. — Dover. 3 Herbert Windsor, second Viscount Windsor in Ireland. He sat in Parliament as Lord Montjoy of the Isle of Wight : died in 1758. — Dover. 4 Harry Grey, fourth Earl of Stamford : died in 1768. — Dover. 6 See vol. i., p. 250. — Cunningham. 42 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. me, not mine, 0 God, but thy will be done ! " If lie had pleaded not guilty, there was ready to be produced against him a paper signed with Iris own hand, for putting the English prisoners to death. Lord Leicester went up to the Duke of Newcastle, and said, " I never heard so great an orator as Lord Kilmarnock ? if I was your grace, I would pardon him, and make him paymaster." 1 That morning a paper had been sent to the lieutenant of the Tower for the prisoners ; he gave it to Lord Cornwallis, 2 the governor, who carried it to the House of Lords. It was a plea for the prisoners, objecting that the late act for regulating the trials of rebels did not take place till after their crime was committed. The Lords very tenderly and rightly sent this plea to them, of which, as you have seen, the two Earls did not make use ; but old Balmerino did, and demanded council on it. The High Steward, almost in a passion, told him, that when he had been offered council, he did not accept it. Do but think on the ridicule of sending them the plea, and then denying them council on it ! TJie Duke of Newcastle, who never let slip an opportunity of being absurd, took it up as a ministerial point, in defence of his creature the Chancellor [Hard- wicke] ; but Lord Granville moved, according to order, to adjourn to debate in the chamber of Parliament, where the Duke of Bedford and many others spoke warmly for their having council ; and it was granted. I said their, because the plea would have saved them all, and affected nine rebels who had been hanged that very morning ; particularly one Morgan, a poetical lawyer. Lord Balmerino asked for Forester and Wilbraham ; the latter a very able lawyer in the House of Commons, who, the Chancellor said privately, he was sure would as soon be hanged as plead such a cause. But he came as council to-day (the third day), when Lord Balmerino gave up his plea as invalid, and submitted, without any speech. The High Steward [Hardwicke] then made his, very long and very poor, with only one or two good passages ; and then pronounced sentence ! Great intercession is made for the two Earls : Duke Hamilton, 5 who has never been at Court, designs to kiss the King's hand, and ask Lord Kilmarnock's life. The King is much inclined to some 1 Alluding to Mr. Pitt, who had lately been preferred to that post, from the fear the ministry had of his abusive eloquence. — Walpole. 2 Charles, fifth Lord Cornwallis. He was created an Earl in 1753, and died in 1762.— Dover. 3 James, sixth Duke of Hamilton 3 died in 1758. — Dover. 1746.] TO MR. MONTAGU. 43 mercy ; but the Duke, who has not so much of Caesar after a victory, as in gaining it, is for the utmost severity. It was lately proposed in the city to present him with the freedom of some company ; one of the aldermen said aloud, " Then let it be of the Butchers ! The Scotch and his Royal Highness are not at all guarded in their expressions of each other. When he went to Edinburgh, in his pursuit of the rebels, they would not admit his guards, alleging that it was contrary to their privileges ; but they rode in, sword in hand ; and the Duke, very justly incensed, refused to see any of the magistrates. He came with the utmost expedition to town, in order for Flanders ; but found that the Court of Vienna had already sent Prince Charles thither, without the least notification, at which both King and Duke are greatly offended. When the latter waited on his brother, the Prince carried him into a room that hangs over the wall of St. James's Park, and stood there with his arm about his neck, to charm the gazing mob. Murray, the Pretender's secretary, has made ample confessions : the Earl of Traquair' and Mr. Barry, a physician, are apprehended, and more warrants are out ; so much for rebels ! Your friend, Lord Sandwich, is instantly going ambassador to Holland, to pray the Dutch to build more ships. I have received yours of July 19 th, but you see have no more room left, only to say, that I conceive a good idea of my eagle, though the seal is a bad one. Adieu ! P.S. I have not room to say anything to the Tesi till next post ; but, unless she will sing gratis, would advise her to drop this thought. 227. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George : Arlington Street, Aug. 2, 1746. You have lost nothing by missing yesterday at the trials, but a little additional contempt for the High Steward ; and even that is recoverable, as his long paltry speech is to be printed ; for which, and for thanks for it, Lord Lincoln moved the House of Lords. Somebody said to Sir Charles Windham, "Oh! you don't think 1 " The Duke," says Sir Walter Scott, " was received with all the honours due to conquest; and all the incorporated bodies of the capital, from the Guild brethren to the Butchers, desired his acceptance of the freedom of their craft, or corporation." Billy the Butcher was one of his by-names. — Wright. 2 Charles Stuart, fifth Earl of Traquair.— Dover. 44 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. Lord Harwicke's speech good, because you have read Lord Cowper's." — "No," replied he; "but I do think it tolerable, because 1 heard Serjeant Skinner's." 2 Poor brave old Balmerino retracted his plea, asked pardon, and desired the Lords to intercede for mercy. As he returned to the Tower, he stopped the coach at Charing-cross to buy honey-blobs, as the Scotch call gooseberries. He says he is extremely afraid Lord Kilmarnock will not behave well. The Duke said publicly at his levee, that the latter proposed murdering the English prisoners. His Highness was to have given Peggy Banks a ball last night ; but was persuaded to defer it, as it would have rather looked like an insult on the prisoners, the very day their sentence was passed. George Selwyn says that he had begged Sir William Saunderson to get him the High Steward's wand, after it was broke, as a curiosity ; but that he behaved so like an attorney the first day, and so like a pettifogger the second, that he would not take it to light his fire with : I don't believe my Lady Harwicke is so high-minded. Your cousin Sandwich 3 is certainly going on an embassy to Holland. I don't know whether it is to qualify him, by new dignity, for the head of the Admiralty, or whether (which is more agreeable to present policy) to satisfy him instead of it. I know when Lord Malton, 4 who was a young earl, asked for the garter, to stop his pretensions, they made him a marquis. When Lord Brooke, who is likely to have ten sons, though he has none yet, asked to have his barony settled on his daughters, they refused him with an earldom ; and they professed making Pitt paymaster, in order to silence the avidity of his faction. Dear George, I am afraid I shall not be in your neighbourhood, as I promised myself. Sir Charles Williams has let his house. I wish you would one day, whisk over and look at Harley House. The enclosed advertisement makes it sound pretty, though I am afraid too large for me. Do look at it impartially : don't be struck at first sight with any brave old windows; but be so good to inquire the rent, and if I can have it for a year, and with any furniture. I have not had time to copy out the verses, but you 1 Lord Chancellor Cowper was Lord High Steward at the trial of the Rebels in 1715. — Cunningham. 2 Matthew Skinner, afterwards a Welsh judge. — Wright. 3 John, the fourth Earl of Sandwich ; son of Edward Richard, Viscount Hinchin- brooke. He signed the treaty of peace at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. — Walpole. 4 Thomas Watson Wentworth, Earl of Malton created Marquis of Rockingham, in 1746. — Walpole. 1746.] TO ME. MONTAGU. 45 shall have them soon. Adieu, with my compliments to your sisters. 228. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George : Arlington Street, Aug. 5, 1746. Though I can't this week accept your invitation, I can prove to you that I am most desirous of passing my time with you, and there- fore en attendant Harley House, if you can find me out any clean, small house in Windsor, ready furnished, that is not absolutely in the middle of the town, but near you, I should be glad to take it for three or four months. 1 I have been about Sir Robert Rich's, but they will only sell it. I am as far from guessing why they send Sandwich in embassy, as you are ; and, when I recollect of what various materials our late ambassadors have been composed, I can only say, " ex quovis ligno fit Mercurius." Murray 2 has certainly been discovering, and warrants are out ; but I don't yet know who are to be their prize. I begin to think that the ministry had really no intelligence till now. I before thought they had, but durst not use it. A-propos to not daring ; I went t'other night to look at my poor favourite Chelsea, 3 for the little Newcastle is gone to be dipped in the sea. In one of the rooms is a bed for her Duke, and a press- bed for his footman ; for he never dares lie alone, and, till he was married, had always a servant to sit up with him. Lady Cromartie presented her petition to the King last Sunday. He was very civil to her, but would not at all give her any hopes. She swooned away as soon as he was gone." Lord Cornwallis told me that her lord weeps every time any thing of his fate is mentioned to him. Old Balmerino keeps up his spirits to the same pitch of gaiety. In the cell at Westminster he showed Lord Kilmarnock how he must lay 1 Gray, in a letter to Wharton of the 15th, says, " Mr. Walpole 1 have seen a good deal, and shall do a great deal more, I suppose ; for he is looking for a house some- where about Windsor during the summer. All is mighty free, and even friendly, more than one could expect." — Works by Mi/ford, vol. iii., p. 7. — Wright. 2 John Murray, of Broughton, the Pretender s secretary, who purchased his own safety by betraying his former friends. — Wright. 3 Where his father had, for several years, what was then (1730-1742) a country- house. — Cunningham. 4 " Lady Cromartie, who is said to have drawn her husband into these circumstances, was at Leicester House on Wednesday, with four of her children. The Princess saw her, and made no other answer than by bringing in her own children, and placing them by her ; which, if true, is one of the prettiest things I ever heard." — Gray to Wharton, Works by Mitford, vol. iii., p. 4. — Wright. .45 HORACE WALPOLES LETTERS. [1746. his liead ; bid him not wince, lest the stroke should cut his skull or his shoulders, and advised him to bite his lips. As they were to return, he begged they might have another bottle together, as they should never meet any more till ■ — , and then pointed to his neck. At getting into the coach, he said to the gaoler, " Take care, or you will break my shins with this damned axe." 1 I must tell you a bon-mot of George Selwyn's at the trial. He saw Bethel's 2 sharp visage looking wistfully at the rebel lords; he said, " What a shame it is to turn her face to the prisoners till they are condemned." If you have a mind for a true foreign idea, one of the foreign ministers said at the trial to another, " Vraiment cela est auguste." " Oui," replied the other, " cela est vrai, mais cela n'est pas royale." I am assured that the old Countess of Errol made her son Lord Kilmarnock 3 go into the rebellion on pain of disinheriting him. I don't know whether I told you that the man at the tennis-court pro- tests that he has known him dine with the man that sells pamphlets at Storey's Gate ; * " and," says he, " he would often have been glad if I would have taken him home to dinner." He was certainly so poor, that in one of his wife's intercepted letters she tells him she has plagued their steward for a fortnight for money, and can get but three shillings. Can anyone help pitying such distress? 5 I am vastly softened, too, about Balmerino's relapse, for his pardon was ■ only granted him to engage his brother's vote at the election of , Scotch peers. My Lord Chancellor [Hardwicke] has had a thousand pounds in present for his High Stewardship, and has got the reversion of clerk of the crown (twelve hundred a year) for his second son. "What a long time it will be before his posterity are drove into rebellion for want, like Lord Kilmarnock ! 1 " The first day, while the Peers were adjourned to consider of his plea, Balmerino diverted himself with the axe that stood by him, played with its tassels, and tried the edge with his finger." — Gray, Works by Mitford, vol. iii., p. 5. — Wright. 2 See note, vol. ii., p. 38. — Cunningham. 3 The Earl of Kilmarnock was not the son of the Countess of Errol. His wife, the Lady Anne Livingstone, daughter of the Earl of Linlithgow, was her niece, and, eventually, her heiress. — Wright. 4 At the upper end of Birdcage Walk, in St. James's Park.— Cunningham. 5 " The Duke of Argyle, telling him how sorry he was to see him engaged in such a cause, ' My Lord/ says he, ' for the two Kings and their rights, 1 cared not a farthing which prevailed ; but I was starving, and by God, if Mahomet had set up his standard in the Highlands, I had been a good Mussulman for bread, and stuck close to the party, for I must eat.' " — Gray, Works by Mitford, vol. iii., p. 5. — Wright. 174 6. J TO MR. MONTAGU. 47 The Duke gave his ball last night to Peggy Banks at Vauxhall. It was to pique my Lady Rochford, in return for the Prince of Hesse. I saw the company get into their barges at Whitehall stairs, as I was going myself, and just then passed by two City Companies in their great barges, who had been a swan-hopping. 1 They laid by and played " God save our noble King," and altogether it was a mighty pretty show. When they came to Yauxhall, there were assembled about five-and-twenty hundred people, besides crowds without. They huzzaed, and surrounded him so, that he was forced to retreat into the ball-room. He was very near being drowned t'other night going from Ranelagh to Yauxhall, and politeness of Lord Cathcart's, who, stepping on the side of the boat to lend his arm, overset it, and both fell into the water up to their chins. I have not yet got Sir Charles's ode ; 2 when I have, you shall see it : here are my own lines. Good night ! 229. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear Geoege : Arlington Street, Aug. 11, 1746. I have seen Mr. Jordan, and have taken his house 3 at forty guineas a-year, but I am to pay taxes. Shall I now accept your offer of being at the trouble of giving orders for the airing of it ? I have desired the landlord will order the key to be delivered to you, and Ashton will assist you. Furniture, I find, I have in abundance, which I shall send down immediately ; but shall not be able to be at Windsor at the quivering dame's before to-morrow se'nnight, as the rebel Lords are not to be executed till Monday. I shall stay till that is over, though I don't believe I shall see it. Lord Cromartie is reprieved for a pardon. If wives and children become an argu- ment for saving rebels, there will cease to be a reason against their going into rebellion. Lady Caroline Fitzroy's execution is certainly to-night. 4 I dare say she will follow Lord Balmerino's advice to Lord Kilmarnock, and not winch. 1 That is, swan-upping — going up the Thames as far as Staines, to look after the swans on the river, the property of the Corporation of London. — Cunningham. 2 I do not know to which particular ode Walpole alludes. My predecessor (Mr. Wright) says it was ' Isabella, or the Morning; ' but that delightful poem is not an ode. — Cunningham. 3 In August, 1746, I took a house within the precincts of the castle at Windsor. — Walpole's Short Notes, vol. i., p. lxi. — Cunningham. 4 Lady Caroline Fitzroy (youngest daughter of the Duke of Grafton) was married 48 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1745 Lord Sandwich has made Mr. Keith his secretary. I don't believe the founder of your race, the great Quu, of Habiculeo, would have chosen his secretary from California. I would willingly return the civilities you laid upon me at Windsor. Do command me ; in what can I serve you ? Shall I get you an earldom ? Don't think it will be any trouble ; there is nothing easier or cheaper. Lord Hobart and Lord Fitzwilliam are both to be Earls to-morrow : the former, of Buckingham ; the latter, by his already title. I suppose Lord Malton will be a Duke ; he has had no new peerage this fortnight. Adieu ! my compliments to the virtuous ladies, Arabella and Hounsibella Quus. P.S. Here is an order for the key. 230. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Aug. 12, 1746. To begin with the Tesi ; she is mad if she desires to come hither. I hate long histories, and so will only tell you in a few words, that Lord Middlesex took the opportunity of a rivalship between his own mistress, the Nardi, and the Yiolette, the finest and most admired dancer in the world, to involve the whole menage of the Opera in the quarrel, and has paid nobody ; but, like a true lord of the Treasury, has shut up his own exchequer. The principal man- dancer was arrested for debt ; to the composer his Lordship gave a bad note, not payable in two years, besides amercing him entirely three hundred pounds, on pretence of his siding with the Yiolette. If the Tesi likes this account — venga ! venga ! Did I tell you that your friend Lord Sandwich was sent ambassador to Holland? He is : and that Lady Charlotte Fermor 1 was to be married to Mr. Finch, 2 the Yice-chamberlain ? She is. Mr. Finch is a comely black widower, without children, and heir to his brother Winchelsea, who has no sons. The Countess-mother [Pomfret] has been in an embroil, (as we have often known her,) about carrying Miss Shelley, a bosom-friend, into the Peeresses' place at the Trials. llth August, 1746, to Lord Petersham, eldest son of the Earl of Harrington.— Cunningham. 1 Second daughter of Thomas, Earl of Pomfret, and sister of Lady Granville. — Walpole. See vol. i., p. 52 — Cunningham. ' ? William Finch, brother of the Eari of Winchelsea, had been ambassador in Holland. — Walpole. He died 25th December, 1766. — Cunningham. 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 49 Lord Granville, who is extremely fond of Lady Charlotte, has given her all her sister's [Sophia's] jewels, to the great discontent of his own daughters. She has five thousand pounds, and Mr. Finch settles fifteen thousand pounds more upon her. Now we are upon the chapter of marriages, Lord Petersham was last night married to one of our first beauties, Lady Caroline Fitzroy ; and Lord Coke is to have the youngest of the late Duke of Argyll's daughters, 1 who is none of our beauties at all. Princess Louisa has already reached the object of her wish ever since she could speak, and is Queen of Denmark. We have been a little lucky lately in the deaths of Kings, and promise ourselves great matters from the new monarch in Spain. 2 Princess Mary is coming over from Hesse to drink the Bath waters ; that is the pre- tence for leaving her brutal husband, and for visiting the Duke and Princess Caroline, who love her extremely. She is of the softest, mildest temper in the world. We know nothing certainly of the young Pretender, but that he is concealed in Scotland, and devoured with distempers : I really wonder how an Italian constitution can have supported such rigours ! He has said, that " he did not see what he had to be ashamed of; and that if he had lost one battle, he had gained two." Old Lovat curses Cope and Hawley for the loss of those two, and says, if they had done their duty, he had never been in this scrape. Cope is actually going to be tried ; but Hawley, who is fifty times more cul- pable, is saved by partiality : Cope miscarried by incapacity; Hawley, by insolence and carelessness. Lord Cromartie is reprieved : the Prince [of Wales] asked his life, and his wife made great intercession. Duke Hamilton's inter- cession for Lord Kilmarnock has rather hurried him to the block : he and Lord Balmerino are to die next Monday. Lord Kilmarnock, with the greatest nobleness of soul, desired to have Lord Cromartie preferred to himself for pardon, if there could be but one saved ; and Lord Balmerino laments that himself and Lord Lovat were not taken at the same time ; " for then," says he, " we might have been sacrificed, and those other two brave men escaped." Indeed Lord Cromartie does not much deserve the epithet ; for he wept whenever his execution was mentioned. Balmerino is jolly with his pretty Peggy. There is a remarkable story of him at the battle of Dun- 1 Lady Mary Campbell. See vol. i., p. 347, and vol. ii., p. 33. — Cunningham. 2 Philip the Fifth, the mad and imbecile King of Spain, was just dead. He was succeeded by his son Ferdinand the Sixth, who died in 1759.— Dover. vol. II. e 50 HOEACE WALPOLE'S LETTEKS. [1746. blain, where the Duke of Argyll, his colonel, answered for him, on his being suspected. He behaved well; but as soon as we had gained the victory, went off with his troop to the Pretender ; pro- testing that he had never feared death but that day, as he had been fighting against his conscience. Popularity has changed sides since the year '15, for now the City and the generality are very angry that so many rebels have been pardoned. Some of those taken at Carlisle dispersed papers at their execution, saying they forgave all men but three, the Elector of Hanover, the pretended Duke of Cumber- land, and the Duke of Richmond, who signed the capitulation at Carlisle. Wish Mr. Hobart joy of his new lordship ; his father took his seat to-day as Earl of Buckingham : Lord Fitzwilliam is made an English earl with him, by his old title. Lord Tankerville 1 goes governor to Jamaica : a cruel method of recruiting a prodigal nobleman's broken fortune, by sending him to pillage a province ! Adieu ! P.S. I have taken a pretty house at "Windsor, and am going thither for the remainder of the summer. 231. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George : Arlington Street, Aug. 16, 1746. I shall be with you on Tuesday night, and since you are so good as to be my Rowland White/ must beg my apartment at the quiver- ing dame's may be aired for me. My caravan sets out with all my household stuff on Monday ; but I have heard nothing of your sister's hamper, nor do I know how to send the bantams by it, but will leave them here till I am more settled under the shade of my own mulberry-tree. I have been this morning at the Tower, and passed under the new heads at Temple Bar, 3 where people make a trade of letting spying- glasses at a half-penny a look. Old Lovat arrived last night. I 1 Charles Bennet, second Earl of Tankerville. The appointment did not take place. He died in 1753. His wife, Camilla, daughter of Edward Colville, of White- house, in the bishopric of Durham, Esq., survived till 1775, aged one hundred and five. — Wright. 2 Walpole had been reading (see p. 23) the newly published Sidney Papers. The letters of Eowland White, the gossiping correspondent of the family, are among the very best in the collection. — Cunningham. 3 Of Townley, Fletcher, and others. " Yesterday," says a news-writer of the 1st 1746.] TO MR. MONTAGU. 51 saw Murray, Lord Derwentwater, Lord Traquair, Lord Cromartie and his son, and the Lord Provost at their respective windows. The other two wretched Lords are in dismal towers, and they have stopped up one of old Balmerino's windows because he talked to the popu- lace ; and now he has only one, which looks directly upon all the scaffolding. They brought in the death-warrant at his dinner. His wife fainted. He said, " Lieutenant, with your damned warrant you have spoiled my lady's stomach." He has written a sensible letter to the Duke to beg his intercession, and the Duke has given it to the King ; but gave a much colder answer to Duke Hamilton, who went to beg it for Lord Kilmarnock : he told him the affair was in the King's hands, and that he had nothing to do with it. Lord Kilmar- nock, who has hitherto kept up his spirits, grows extremely terrified. It will be difficult to make you believe to what heights of affectation or extravagance my Lady Townshend 1 carries her passion for my Lord Kilmarnock, 2 whom she never saw but at the bar of his trial, and was smitten with his falling shoulders. She has been under his windows ; sends messages to him ; has got his dog and his snuff-box ; has taken lodgings out of town for to-morrow and Monday night, .and then goes to Greenwich ; forswears conversing with the bloody English, and has taken a French master. She insisted on Lord Hervey's 3 promising her he would not sleep a whole night for my Lord Kilmarnock, " and in return," says she, " never trust me more if I am not as yellow as a jonquil for him." She said gravely t'other day, " Since I saw my Lord Kilmarnock, I really think no more of Sir Harry Nisbett than if there was no such man in the world." But of all her flights, yesterday was the strongest. George Selwyn dined with her, and not thinking her affliction so serious as she pre- tends, talked rather jokingly of the execution. She burst into a flood of tears and rage ; told him she now believed all his father and mother had said of him ; and with a thousand other reproaches flung upstairs. George coolly took Mrs. Dorcas, her of April, 1772, " one of the rebels' heads on Temple Bar fell down. There is only one head now remaining." — Cunningham. 1 When I read the account of old Balmerino's behaviour, I was moved with com- passion for him, and think it a pity so brave a fellow should meet with so hard a fate. As for Lady Townshend's attachment, I am well convinced he was a coward ; a sort of people who, for the most part, are not to be trusted ; therefore I have no yearnings for him. I imagine her ladyship is as yellow as a jonquil. — Sir William Muynard to George Selwyn, Aug. 22, 1746— Cunningham. 3 Pitied by gentle minds, Kilmarnock died. — Johnson. — Cunningham. 3 Not Pope's Lord Hervey, but his son, the second Earl of Bristol. See p. 75.— Cunningham. 52 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746, woman, and made her sit down to finish the bottle : " And pray, sir," said Dorcas, " do you think my lady will be prevailed upon to let me go see the execution ? I have a friend that has promised to take care of me, and I can lie in the Tower the night before." My lady has quarrelled with Sir Charles Windham for calling the two Lords malefactors. The idea seems to be general ; for 'tis said Lord Cromartie is to be transported, which diverts me for the dignity of the peerage. The Ministry really gave it as a reason against their casting lots for pardon, that it was below their dignity. I did not know but that might proceed from Balmerino's not being an earl ; and therefore, now their hand is in, would have them make him one. You will see in the papers the second great victory at Placentia. There are papers pasted in several parts of the town, threatening your cousin Sandwich's head if he makes a dishonourable peace. I will bring you down Sir Charles Williams's new Ode on the Man- chester. 1 Adieu ! 232. TO SIR HORACE MANX. Windsor, Aug. 21, 1746. You will perceive by my date that I am got into a new scene, and that I am retired hither like an old summer dowager ; only that I have no toad-eater to take the air with me in the back part of my lozenge- coach, 2 and to be scolded. I have taken a small house here within the castle, and propose spending the greatest part of every week here till the Parliament meets ; but my jaunts to town will prevent my news from being quite provincial and marvellous. Then I promise you, I will go to no races nor assemblies, nor make comments upon couples that come in chaises to the White Hart. I came from town (for take notice, I put this place upon myself for the country) the day after the execution of the rebel Lords : I was not at it, but had two persons come to me directly who were at the next house to the scaffold : and I saw another who was upon it, so that you may depend upon my accounts. Just before they came out of the Tower, Lord Balmerino drank a bumper to King James's health. As the clock struck ten, they came 1 See vol. ii., p. 47, note 2. — Cunningham - . 2 A widow's heraldic shield is lozenge-shaped. — Cunningham. 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 53 forth on foot, Lord Kilmarnock all in black, his hair unpowdered in a bag, supported by Forster, the great Presbyterian, and by Mr. Home, a young clergyman, his friend. Lord Balmerino followed, alone, in a blue coat, turned up with red, (his rebellious regi- mentals,) a flannel waistcoat, and his shroud beneath ; their hearses following. They were conducted to a house near the scaffold : the room forwards had benches for spectators, in the second Lord Kilmarnock was put, and in the third backwards Lord Balmerino : all three chambers hung with black. Here they parted ! Balmerino embraced the other, and said, " My lord, I wish I could suffer for both ! " He had scarce left him, before he desired again to see him, and then asked him, " My Lord Kilmarnock, do you know anything of the resolution taken in our army, the day before the battle of Culloden, to put the English prisoners to death P " He replied, " My lord, I was not present ; but since I came hither, I have had all the reason in the world to believe that there was such order taken ; and I hear the Duke has the pocket-book with the order." Balmerino answered, " It was a lie raised to excuse their barbarity to us." — Take notice, that the Duke's charging this on Lord Kilmarnock (certainly on misinformation) decided this unhappy man's fate ! The most now pretended is, that it would have come to Lord Kilmarnock's turn to have given the word for the slaughter, as lieutenant-general* with the patent for Avhich he was immediately drawn into the rebellion, after having been staggered by his wife, her mother, his own poverty, and the defeat of Cope. He remained an hour and a half in the house, and shed tears. At last he came to the scaffold, certainly much ter- rified, but with a resolution that prevented his behaving in the least meanly or unlike a gentleman. 1 He took no notice of the crowd, only to desire that the baize might be lifted up from the rails, that the mob might see the spectacle. He stood and prayed some time with Forster, who wept over him, exhorted and encouraged him. He delivered a long speech to the Sheriff, and with a noble manli- ness stuck to the recantation he had made at his trial ; declaring he wished that all who embarked in the same cause might meet the 1 When he [Kilmarnock] beheld the fatal scaffold covered with black cloth ; the executioner, with his axe and his assistants ; the saw-dust, which was soon to be drenched with his blood ; the coffin, prepared to receive the limbs which were yet warm with life ; above all, the immense display of human countenances which sur- rounded the scaffold like a sea, all eyes being bent on the sad object of the preparation, — his natural feelings broke forth in a whisper to the friend on whose arm he leaned, " Home, this is terrible ! " No sign of indecent timidity, however, affected his behaviour.— Sir Walter Scott's Tales of my Grandfather. — Wright. HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. same fate. He then took off his bag, coat and waistcoat, with great composure, and after some trouble put on a napkin-cap, and then several times tried the block ; the executioner, who was in white, with a white apron, out of tenderness concealing the axe behind himself. At last the Earl knelt down, with a visible unwillingness to depart, and after five minutes dropped his handkerchief, the signal, and his head was cut off at once, only hanging by a bit of skin, and was received in a scarlet cloth by four of the undertaker's men kneeling, who wrapped it up and put it into the coffin with the body ; orders having been given not to expose the heads, as used to be the custom. The scaffold was immediately new-strewed with saw-dust, the block new-covered, the executioner new-dressed, and a new axe brought. Then came old Balmerino, treading with the air of a general. As soon as he mounted the scaffold, he read the inscrip- tion on his coffin, as he did again afterwards : he then surveyed the spectators, who were in amazing numbers, even upon masts of ships in the river ; and pulling out his spectacles read a treasonable speech, 1 which he delivered to the Sheriff, and said, the young Pre- tender was so sweet a Prince, that flesh and blood could not resist following him ; and lying down to try the block, he said, "If I had a thousand lives, I would lay them all down here in the same cause." He said, if he had not taken the sacrament the day before, he would have knocked down Williamson, the lieutenant of the Tower, for his ill usage of him. He took the axe and felt it, and asked the heads- man how many blows he had given Lord Kilmarnock ; and gave him three guineas. Two clergymen, who attended him, coming up, he said, " No, gentlemen, I believe you have already done me all the service you can." Then he went to the corner of the scaffold, and called very loud for the warder, to give him his perriwig, which he took off, and put on a night- cap of Scotch plaid, and then pulled off his coat and waistcoat and lay down ; but being told he was on the wrong side, vaulted round, and immediately gave the sign by tossing up his arm, as if he were giving the signal for battle. He received three blows, but the first certainly took away all sensation. He was not a quarter of an hour on the scaffold ; Lord Kilmarnock above half a one. Balmerino certainly died with the intrepidity of 1 Ford, in his account, states that " so far was this speech from being filled with passionate invective, that it mentioned his Majesty as a Prince of the greatest magna- nimity and mercy, at the same time that, through erroneous political principles, it denied him a right to the allegiance of his people." — Wright. 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 55 a hero, but with the insensibility of one too. As he walked from his prison to execution, seeing every window and top of house filled with spectators, he cried out, " Look, look, how they are all piled up like rotten oranges ! " My Lady Townshend, who fell in love with Lord Kilmarnock at his trial, will go nowhere to dinner, for fear of meeting with a rebel- pie ; she says, everybody is so bloody-minded, that they eat rebels ! The Prince of Wales, whose intercession saved Lord Cromartie, says he did it in return for old Sir William Gordon (Lady Cromartie 's father), coming down out of his death-bed to vote against my father in the Chippenham election. If his Royal Highness had not countenanced inveteracy like that of Sir Gordon, he would have no occasion to exert his gratitude now in favour of rebels. His brother [the Duke of Cumberland] has plucked a very useful feather out of the cap of the Ministry, by forbidding any application for posts in the army to be made to anybody but himself : a resolution, I dare say, he will keep as strictly and minutely as he does the discipline and dress of the army. Adieu ! P.S. I have just received yours of Aug. 9th. You had not then heard of the second great battle of Placcntia, which has already occasioned new instructions, or in effect, a recall being sent after Lord Sandwich. 233. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Windsor, Sept. 15, 1746. You have sent me Marquis Rinuncini 1 with as much secrecy as if you had sent me a present. I was here : there came an exceedingly fair written and civil letter from you, dated last May : I compre- hended by the formality of it, that it was written for the person who brought it, not for the person it was sent to. I have been to town on purpose to wait on him, and though you know he was not of my set, yet being of Florence, and recommended by you, and recollecting how you used to cuttle over a bit of politics with the old Marquis, 2 1 1 Gray, in a letter to Wharton of the 11th, says, " Mr. Walpole has taken a house in Windsor, and I see him usually once a week. He is at present gone to town, to perform the disagreeable task of presenting and introducing about a young Florentine, the Marquis Rinuncini, who comes recommended to him." — Grays Works by Mitford, vol. iii., p. 9. — Wright. 2 Marquis Rinuncini, the elder, had been envoy in England, and prime minister to John Gaston, the last Great Duke. — Walpole. 56 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. set myself to be wondrous civil to Marquis Folco ; pray, faites valoir ma politesse ! You have no occasion to let people know exactly the situation of my villa ; but talk of my standing in campagna, and coming directly in sedia di posta, to far mio dovere al Signor Mar- chesino. I stayed literally an entire week with him, carried him to see palaces and Richmond gardens and park, and Chenevix's shop, and talked a great deal to him alle conversazioni. It is a wretched time for him ; there is not a soul in town ; no plays ; and Ranelagh shut up. You may say I should have stayed longer with him, but I was obliged to return for fear of losing my vintage. I shall be in London again in a fortnight, and then I shall do more mille genti- lezze. Seriously, I was glad to see him — after I had got over being sorry to see him, (for with all the goodness of one's Soquxkin soqubut, as the J apanese call the heart, you must own it is a little trouble- some to be showing the tombs, 1 ) I asked him a thousand questions, rubbed up my old tarnished Italian, and inquired about fifty people that I had entirely forgot till his arrival. He told me some passages, that I don't forgive you for not mentioning ; your Cicisbeatura, Sir, with the Antinora ; 2 and Manelli's 3 marriage and jealousy : who consoles my illustrious mistress? 4 Rinuncini has announced the future arrival of the Abbate Mccolini, the elder Pandolfini, and the younger Panciatici ; these two last, you know, were friends of mine ; I shall be extremely glad to see them. Your two last were of Aug. 23rd and 30th. In the latter you talk of the execution of the rebel Lords, but don't tell me whether you received my long history of their trials. Your Florentines guessed very rightly about my Lady 0[rford]'s reasons for not returning amongst you : she has picked up a Mr. Shirley, 9 no great genius — 1 The tombs in Westminster Abbey. Oh ! 'tis the sweetest of all earthly things, To gaze on Princes and to talk of Kings ! Then, happy man who shows the tombs ! said I ; He dwells amidst the Royal Family. — Pope : Imitation of Donne. Cunningham. 2 Sister of Madame Grifoni. — Walpole. 3 Signor Ottavio Manelli had been cicisbeo of Madame Grifoni. — Walpole. 4 Madame Grifoni. — Walpole. 5 Hon. Sewallis Shirley, son of Robert, first Earl Ferrers. He married Lady Orford, at May Fair Chapel, and died 31st October, 1765. " Mr. Shirley has had uncommon fortune in making the conquest of two such extraordinary ladies [Lady Vane and Lady Orford], equal in their heroic contempt of shame, and eminent above their sex, — the one for beauty and the other wealth ; both which attract the pursuit of all mankind, and have been thrown into his arms with the same unlimited fondness. He appeared to me gentle, well-bred, well-shaped, and sensible ; but the charms of his face and eyes, which Lady Vane describes with 1746.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 57 but with all her affectation of parts, you know she never was delicate about the capacity of her lovers. This swain has so little preten- sions to any kind of genius, that two years ago being to act in the Duke of Bedford's company, 1 he kept back the play three weeks, be- cause he could not get his part by heart, though it consisted but of seventeen lines and a half. With him she has retired to a villa near Newpark [Richmond], and lets her house in town. Your last letter only mentions the progress of the King of Sardinia towards Genoa : but there is an account actually arrived of his being master of it. It is very big news, and I hope will make us look a little haughty again : we are giving ourselves airs, and sending a secret expedition against France : we don't indeed own that it is in favour of the Chevalier William Courtenay, 2 who, you know, claims the crown of France, and whom King William threatened them to proclaim, when they proclaimed the Pretender ; but I believe the Protestant Highlanders in the south of France are ready to join him the moment he lands. There is one Sir Watkyn Williams, a great Baron in Languedoc, and a Sir John Cotton, a Marquis of Dauphine, 3 who have engaged to raise a great number of men, on the first debarkation that we make. I think it begins to be believed that the Pretender's son is got to France : pray, if he passes through Florence, make it as agreeable to him as you can, and introduce him to all my acquaintance. I don't indeed know him myself, but he is a particular friend of my cousin Sir John Philipps, 4 and of my sister-in-law Lady 0[rford], who will both take it extremely kindly — besides, do, for your own sake ; you may make your peace with her this way ; and if ever Lord Bath comes into power, she will secure your remaining at Florence. Adieu ! so much warmth, were, I confess, always invisible to me, and the artificial part of his character very glaring ; which, I think, her story shows in a strong light." — Lady M. Worthy Montagu to her daughter, 17 52 : Works by Wharncliffe, vol. iii., p. 6 — Cunningham. 1 The Duke of Bedford and his friends [Lord Sandwich, Mr. Rigby, &c] acted several plays at Woburn. — Walpole. 2 Sir William Courtenay, said to be the right heir of Louis le Gros. There is a notion that, at the coronation of a new King of France, the Courtenays assert their pretensions, and that the King of France says to them, " Apres Nous, Vous"— Walpole. 3 Two Jacobite Knights of Wales and Cambridgeshire. — Walpole. 4 Sir John Philipps, of Picton Castle, in Pembrokeshire ; a noted Jacobite. He was first cousin of Catherine Shorter, first wife of Sir Robert Walpole.— Walpole. 53 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. 234. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Windsor, Oct 2, 1746. By your own loss you may measure my joy at the receipt of the dear Chutes. 1 I strolled to town one day last week, and there I found them ! Poor creatures ! there they were ! wondering at everything they saw, but with the difference from Englishmen that go abroad, of keeping their amazement to themselves. They will tell you of wild dukes in the playhouse, of streets dirtier than forests, and of women more uncouth than the streets. I found them extremely surprised at not finding any ready-furnished palace built round two courts. I do all I can to reconcile their country to them ; though seriously they have no affectation, and have nothing particular in them, but that they have nothing particular : a fault, which the climate and their neighbours will soon correct. You may imagine how we have talked you over, and how I have inquired after the state of your Wetbrownpaperhood. Mr. Chute adores you : do you know, that as well as I love you, I never found all those charms in you that he does ! I own this to you out of pure honesty, that you may love him as much as he deserves. I don't know how he will succeed here, but to me he has more wit than anybody I know : he is altered, and I think, broken : Whitened is grown leaner con- siderably, and is a very pretty gentleman. 2 He did not reply to me as the Turcotti 3 did bonnement to you, when you told her she was a little thinner : do you remember how she puffed and chuckled, and said, " And indeed I think you are too." Mr. Whitened was not so sensible of the blessing of decrease, as to conclude that it would be acceptable news even to shadows : he thinks me plumped out. I would fain have enticed them down hither, and promised we would live just as if we were at the King's Arms in via di Santo Spirito : 4 1 John Chute and Francis Whitened [of Southwick, near Farnham, Hampshire} had been several years in Italy, chiefly at Florence. — Walpole. 2 Gray, in a letter to Mr. Chute, written at this time, thus describes Mr. White- head : " He is a fine young personage in a coat all over spangles, just come over from the tour in Europe to take possession, and be married [to Miss Niccol, see post, p. 245] ... I desire my hearty congratulations to him, and say I wish him more spangles, and more estates, and more wives." — Gray's Works by Mitford, vol. iii., p. 20. — Wright. 3 A fine singer. — Walpole. 4 Mr. Mann hired a large palace of the Manetti family at Florence, in via di Santo Spirito : foreign ministers in Italy affix large shields with the arms of their sovereign over their door. — Walpole. 1746.] TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. 59 but they were obliged to go chez em, not pour se decrasser, but pour se crasser. I shall introduce them a tutte le mie conoscenze, and shall try to make questo paese as agreeable to them as possible ; except in one point, for I have sworn never to tell Mr. Chute a word of news, for then he will be writing it to you, and I shall have nothing to say. This is a lucky resolution for you, my dear child, for between two friends one generally hears nothing ; the one concludes that the other has told all. I have had two or three letters from you since I wrote. The young Pretender is generally believed to have got off the 16th of last month : if he were not, with the zeal of the Chutes, I believe they would go to Scotland to hunt him, and would be impatient to send a limb to Cardinal Acquaviva and Monsignor Piccolomini. I quite gain a winter with them, having had no expectation of them till spring. Adieu ! 235. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. My Dear Harry : Windsor still, Oct. 3, 1746. You ask me if I am really grown a philosopher. Really I be- lieve not ; for I shall refer you to my practice rather than to my doctrine, and have really acquired what they only pretend to seek, content. So far, indeed, I was a philosopher even when I lived in town, for then I was content too ; and all the difference I can con- ceive between those two opposite doctors was, that Aristippus loved London, and Diogenes Windsor : and if your master the Duke, whom I sincerely prefer to Alexander, and who certainly can inter- cept more sunshine, would but stand out of my way, which he is extremely in, while he lives in the Park here, 1 1 should love my little tub of forty pounds a year, more than my palace dans la rue des ministres, with all my pictures and bronzes, which you ridiculously imagine I have encumbered myself with in my solitude. Solitude it is, as to the tub itself, for no soul lives in it with me ; though I could easily give you room at the butt- end of it, and with vast pleasure ; but George Montagu, who perhaps is a philosopher too, though I am sure not of Pythagoras's silent sect, lives but two barrels 1 The Duke of Cumberland is here at his Lodge with three women, and three aide-de-camps ; and the country swarms with people. He goes to races, and they make a ring about him, as at a bear-baiting. — Gray to Wharton, Sept. 11 : Works, vol. iii. p. 10. — Wright. 60 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. off ; and Ashton, a Christian philosopher of our acquaintance, lives at the foot of that hill which you mention with a melancholy satisfaction that always attends the reflection. A-propos, here is an Ode on the very subject, which I desire you will please to like excessively : 1 ***** You will immediately conclude, out of good breeding, that it is mine, and that it is charming. I shall be much obliged to you for the first thought, but desire you will retain only the second ; for it is Mr. Gray's, and not your humble servant's. 236. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Oct. 14, 1746. You will have been alarmed with the news of another battle 2 lost in Flanders, where we have no Kings of Sardinia. "We make light of it ; do not allow it to be a battle, but call it " the action near Liege." Then we have whittled down our loss extremely, and will not allow a man more than three hundred and fifty English slain out of the four thousand. The whole of it, as it appears to me, is, that we gave up eight battalions to avoid fighting ; as at Newmarket people pay their forfeit when they foresee they should lose the race ; though, if the whole army had fought, and we had lost the day, one might have hoped to have come off for eight battalions. Then they tell you that the French had four- and- twenty-pounders, and that they must beat us by the superiority of their cannon ; so that to me it is grown a paradox, to war with a nation who have a mathe- matical certainty of beating you; or else it is still a stranger paradox, why you cannot have as large cannon as the French. This loss was balanced by a pompous account of the triumphs of our invasion of Bretagne ; which, in plain terms, I think, is reduced to burning two or three villages and reimbarking : at least, two or three of the transports are returned with this history, and know not what is become of Lestock and the rest of the invasion. The young Pretender is landed in France, with thirty Scotch, but in such a wretched condition that his highland Highness had no breeches. 1 Here follows in the original Mr. Gray's Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College. — Walpole. 2 The battle of Rocoux j lost by the allies on the 11th of October.— Weight. 1746.] TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. 01 I have received yours of the 27th of last month, with the capitu- lation of Genoa, and the kind conduct of the Austrians to us their allies, so extremely like their behaviour whenever they are fortu- nate. Pray, by the way, has there been any talk of my cousin, 1 the Commodore, being blameable in letting slip some Spanish ships ? — don't mention it as from me, but there are whispers of court-martial on him. They are all the fashion now ; if you miss a post to me, I will have you tried by a court-martial. Cope is come off most gloriously, his courage ascertained, and even his conduct, whicli everybody had given up, justified. Folkes and Lascelles, two of his generals, are come off too ; but not so happily in the opinion of the world. Oglethorpe's sentence is not yet public, but it is believed not to be favourable. He was always a bully, and is now tried for cowardice. Some little dash of the same sort is likely to mingle with the judgment on il furibondo Matthews ; though his party rises again a little, and Lestock's acquittal begins to pass for a party affair. In short, we are a wretched people, and have seen our best days ! I must have lost a letter, if you really told me of the sale of the Duke of Modena's pictures, 2 as you think you did ; for when Mr. Chute told it me, it struck me as quite new. They are out of town, good souls ; and I shall not see them this fortnight ; for I am here only for two or three days, to inquire after the battle, in which not one of my friends were. Adieu ! 237. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Windsor, Oct. 24, 1746. Well, Harry, Scotland is the last place on earth I should have thought of for turning anybody poet : but I begin to forgive it half its treasons in favour of your verses, for I suppose you don't think I am the dupe of the highland story that you tell me : the only use I shall make of it is to commend the lines to you, as if they really were a Scotchman's. There is a melancholy harmony in them that is charming, and a delicacy in the thoughts that no Scotchman is 1 George Townshend, eldest son of Charles, Lord Viscount Townshend, by Dorothy, his second wife, sister of Sir Kobert Walpole. — Walpole. He was subsequently tried by a court-martial for his conduct upon this occasion, and honourably acquitted. — Dover. 2 To the King of Poland. — Walpole. HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1746. capable of, though, a ScGtchivoman 1 might inspire it. I beg, both for Cynthia's sake and my own, that you would continue your De Tristibus till I have an opportunity of seeing your muse, and she of rewarding her : JReprens ta musette, berger amoureux ! If Cynthia has ever travelled ten miles in fairy-land, she must be wondrous content with the person and qualifications of her knight, who in future story will be read of thus : Elmedorus was tall and perfectly well made, his face oval, and features regularly handsome, but not effeminate ; his complexion sentimentally brown, with not much colour ; his teeth fine, and forehead agreeably low, round which his black hair curled naturally and beautifully. His eyes were black too, but had nothing of fierce or insolent ; on the contrary, a certain melancholy swimmingness, that described hopeless love rather than a natural amorous languish. His exploits in war, where he always fought by the side of the renowned Paladine William of England, have endeared his memory to all admirers of true chivalry, as the mournful elegies which he poured out among the desert rocks of Caledonia 2 in honour of the peerless lady and his heart's idol, the incomparable Cynthia, will for ever preserve his name in the flowery annals of poesy. What a pity it is I was not born in the golden age of Louis the Fourteenth, when it was not only the fashion to write folios, but to read them too ! or rather, it is a pity the same fashion don't subsist now, when one need not be at the trouble of invention, nor of turn- ing the whole Roman history into romance for want of proper heroes. Your campaign in Scotland, rolled out and well be-epitheted, would make a pompous work, and make one's fortune ; at sixpence a number, one should have all the damsels within the liberties for subscribers : whereas now, if one has a niind to be read, one must write metaphysical poems in blank verse, which, though I own to be still easier, have not half the imagination of romances, and are dull without any agreeable absurdity. Only think of the gravity of this wise age, that have exploded " Cleopatra and Pharamond," and approve " The Pleasures of the Imagination," " The Art of Preserv- ing Health," and " Leonidas ! " I beg the age's pardon : it has done approving these poems, and has forgot them. 1 Caroline Campbell, daughter of (every reader's) Mary Bellenden, and the third wife of Charles, third Earl of Aylesbury. Lord Aylesbury died 10th February, 1746-7, and on the 19th December, 1747, the charming Scotchwoman of this letter w ?.747.j TO SIR HORACE MANN. 83 Mr. Fox gave a great ball last week at Holland House, which he lias taken for a long term, and where he is making great improve- ments. It is a brave old house, 1 and belonged to the gallant Earl of Holland, the lover of Charles the First's Queen. His motto has puzzled everybody ; it is Ditior est qui se. I was allowed to hit off an interpretation, which yet one can hardly reconcile to his gallantry, nor can I decently repeat it to you. While I am writing, the Prince is going over the way to Lord Middlesex's, where there is a ball in mask to-night for the royal children. The two Lords have seen and refused Marquis Eiccardi's gems : I shall deliver them to Pucci ; but am so simple (you will laugh at me) as to keep the four I liked : that is, I will submit to give him fifty pounds for them, if he will let me choose one ring more ; for I will at least have it to call them at ten guineas a-piece. If he consents, I will remit the money to you, or pay it to Pucci, as he likes. If not, I return them with the rest of the cargo. I can choose no ring for which I would give five guineas. I have received yours of April 25th, since I came home. You will scold me for being so careless about the Pretender's son ; but I am determined not to take up his idea again, till he is at least on this side Derby. Do excuse me; but when he could not get to London, with all the advantages which the ministry had smoothed for him, how can he ever meet more concurring circumstances ? If my lady's [Orford's] return has no better foundation than Niccolini's authority, I assure you you may believe as little of it as you please. If he knows no more of her than he does of everything else that he pretends to know, as I am persuaded he does not, knowledge cannot possibly be thinner spread. He has been a progress to add more matter to the mass, that he already don't understand. Adieu ! 1 " It will be a great pity when this ancient house must come down, and give way to rows and crescents. It is not that Holland House is fine as a building — on the contrary, it has a tumble-down look ; and although decorated with the bastard-gothic of James I.'s time, the front is heavy. But it resembles many respectable matrons, who, having been absolutely ugly during youth, acquire by age an air of dignity. But one is chiefly affected by the air of deep seclusion which is spread around the domain." — Sir Walter Scott's Diary. — Cunningham. 6i HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. r l747* 249. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, May 19, 1747. As you will receive the Gazette at the same time with this letter, I shall leave you to that for the particulars of the great naval victory that Anson has gained over the French off Cape Finisterre. 1 It is a very big event, and by far one of the most considerable that has happened during this war. By it he has defeated two expeditions at once : for the fleet that he has demolished was to have split, part for the recovery of Cape Breton, part for the East Indies. He has always been most remarkably fortunate : Captain Grenville, the youngest of the brothers, was as unlucky ; he was killed by the cannon that was fired as a signal for their striking. 2 He is extremely commended : I am not partial to the family ; but it is but justice to mention, that when he took a great prize some time ago, after a thousand actions of generosity to his officers and crew, he cleared sixteen thousand pounds, of which he gave his sister ten. The King is in great spirits. The French fought exceedingly well. I have no other event to tell you, but the promotion of a new brother of yours. I condole with you, for they have literally sent one Dayrolles 3 resident to Holland, under Lord Sandwich, Mimum partes tractare secundas. This curious minister has always been a led- captain to the Dukes of Grafton and Eichmond ; used to be sent to auctions for them, and to walk in the Park with their daughters, and once went dry-nurse to Holland with them. He has belonged, too, a good deal to my Lord Chesterfield, to whom, I believe, he owes this new honour ; as he had before made him black-rod in Ireland, and gave the ingenious reason, that he had a black face. I believe he has made him a minister, as one year, at Tunbridge, he had a mind to make a wit of Jacky Barnard, and had the impertinent vanity to imagine that his authority was sufficient. 1 Upon this occasion Admiral Anson took six French men-of-war and four of their East Indiamen, and sunk or destroyed the rest of their fleet. — Dover. 2 Thomas Grenville, youngest brother of Richard, Earl Temple. As soon as he was struck by the cannon-ball, he exclaimed, gallantly, " Well ! it is better to die thus, than to be tried by a court-martial!" — Walpole. His uncle, Lord Cobham, erected a column to his memory in the gardens at Stowe. — Wright. 3 See vol. ii., p. 36 — Cunningham. 1747.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 85 Your brother has gone over the way with Mr. Whithed, to choose some of Lord Cholmondeley's pictures for his debt ; they are all given up to the creditors, who yet scarce receive forty per cent, of their money. It is wrong to send so short a letter as this so far, I know ; but what can one do ? After the first fine shower, I will send you a much longer. Adieu ! 250. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, June 5, 1747. Don't be more frightened at hearing the Parliament is to be dissolved in a fortnight, than you are obliged to be as a good minister. Since this Parliament has not brought over the Pretender, I trust the death of it will not. You will want to know the reason of this sudden step : several are given, as the impossibility of making either peace or war, till they are secure of a new majority : but I believe the true motive is to disappoint the Prince, who was not ready with his elections. In general, people seem to like the measure, except the Speaker, who is very pompous about it, and speaks con- stitutional paragraphs. There are rumours of changes to attend its exit. People imagine Lord Chesterfield 1 is to quit, but I know no other grounds for this belief, than that they conclude the Duke of Newcastle must be jealous of him by this time. Lord Sandwich is looked upon as his successor, whenever it shall happen. He is now here, to look after his Huntingdonshire boroughs. We talk nothing but elections — however, it is better than talking them for a year together. Mine for Callington (for I would not come in for Lynn, which I have left to Prince Pigwiggin 2 ) is so easy, that I shall have no trouble, not even the dignity of being carried in triumph, like the lost sheep, on a porter's shoulders : but may retire to a little new farm [Strawberry Hill] that I have taken just out of Twickenham. The house is so small, that I can send it you in a letter to look at : the prospect is as delightful as possible, commanding the river, the town, and Richmond Park ; and being situated on a hill descends to the Thames through two or three little meadows, where I have some Turkish sheep and two cows, all studied in their colours for becoming 1 He was now secretary of state, which office he did not resign till Feb. 1748. — Dover. 2 Eldest son of Horatio, brother of Sir Robert Walpole. — Walpole. HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1747. the view. This little rural bijou was Mrs. Chenevix's, the toy -woman a la mode, who in every dry season is to furnish me with the best rain water from Paris, and now and then with some Dresden-china cows, who are to figure like wooden classics in a library : so I shall grow as much a shepherd as any swain in the Astrsea. Admiral Anson 1 is made a baron, and Admiral Warren 2 Knight of the Bath — so is Mccolini to be — when the King dies. 3 His Majesty and his son were last night at the masquerade at Eanelagh, where there was so little company, that I was afraid they would be forced to walk about together. I have been desired to write to you for two scagliola tables ; will you get them ? I will thank you, and pay you too. You will hardly believe that I intend to send you this for a letter, but I do. Mr. Chute said he would write to you to-day, so mine goes as page to his. Adieu ! 251. TO THE HOK H. S. CONWAY. Twickenham, June 8, 1747. You perceive by my elate that I am got into a new camp, and have left my tub at Windsor. It is a little play-thing-house that I got out of Mrs. Chenevix's shop, and is the prettiest bauble you ever saw. It is set in enamelled meadows, with filigree hedges : A small Euphrates through the piece is roll'd, And little finches wave their wings in gold. 4 Two delightful roads, that you would call dusty, supply me con- tinually with coaches and chaises : barges as solemn as Barons of the Exchequer move under my window ; Richmond Hill and Hani walks bound my prospect ; but, thank God ! the Thames is between me and the Duchess of Queensberry. Dowagers as plenty as 1 George Anson, created [1747] Lord Anson of Soberton. He is well known for his voyages round the world, as well as for his naval successes. He was long first lord of the Admiralty ; but did not distinguish himself as a statesman. He died suddenly while walking in his garden at Moor Park in Hertfordshire, June 6th, 1762. — Dover. 2 Sir Peter Warren [died 1752] was the second in command in the victory off Cape Finisterre. — Dover. 3 The Abbe Niccolini was in much favour with the Prince of Wales. — Dover. A small Euphrates through the piece is roll'd, And little eagles wave their wings in gold. — Pope, to Mr. Addison, occasioned by his Dialogues on Medals. — Cunningham. 1747.] TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. 87 flounders inhabit all around, and Pope's ghost is just now skimming under my window by a most poetical moonlight. I have about land enough to keep such a farm as Noah's, when he set up in the ark with a pair of each kind ; but my cottage is rather cleaner than I believe his was after they had been cooped up together forty days. The Chcnevixcs had tricked it out for themselves : up two pair of stairs is what they call Mr. Chenevix's library, furnished with three maps, one shelf, a bust of Sir Isaac Newton, and a lame telescope without any glasses. Lord John Sackville predecesscd me here, and instituted certain games called cricketalia, which have been celebrated this very evening in honour of him in a neighbouring meadow. You will think I have removed my philosophy from Windsor with my tea-things hither ; for I am writing to you in all this tranquillity, while a Parliament is bursting about my ears. You know it is going to be dissolved : I am told, you are taken care of, though I don't know where, nor whether anybody that chooses you will quarrel with me because he does choose you, as that little bug the Marquis of llockingham did; one of the calamities of my lite which I have bore as abominably well as I do most about which I don't care. They say the Prince has taken up two hundred thousand pounds, to carry elections which he won't cany : — lie had much better have saved it to buy the Parliament after it is chosen. A new set of peers are in embryo, to add more dignity to the silence of the House of Lords. I make no remarks on your campaign, 1 because, as you say, you do nothing at all ; which, though very proper nutriment for a thinking head, does not do quite so well to write upon. If any one of you can but contrive to be shot upon your post, it is all we desire, shall look upon it as a great curiosity, and will take care to set up a monument to the person so slain ; as we are doing by vote to Captain Cornewall, who was killed at the beginning of the action in the Mediterranean four years ago. 2 In the present dearth of glory, he is canonized ; though, poor man ! he had been tried twice the year before for cowardice. 3 I could tell you much election news, none else ; though not being 1 Mr. Conway was in Flanders with the Duke of Cumberland. — Walpolb. 2 The House of Commons, on the 28th of May, had agreed to erect a monument in Westminster Abbey to the memory of Captain Cornewall, of the Marlborough, who was slain while bravely defending his ship. The monument, designed and executed by Taylor, was completed in 1755. — Wright. Cornewall's was the first monument voted by Parliament in commemoration of naval heroism. — Cunningham. 3 And honourably acquitted on both occasions. — Wkight. 88 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1747. thoroughly attentive to so important a subject, as to be sure one ought to be, I might now and then mistake, and give you a candidate for Durham in place of one for Southampton, or name the returning officer instead of the candidate. In general, I believe, it is much as usual — those sold in detail that afterwards will be sold in the repre- sentation — the ministers bribing Jacobites to choose friends of their own — the name of well-wishers to the present establishment, and patriots outbidding ministers that they may make the better market of their own patriotism : — in short, all England, under some name or other, is just now to be bought and sold ; though, whenever we become posterity and forefathers, we shall be in high repute for wisdom and virtue. My great great-grandchildren will figure me with a white beard down to my girdle ; and Mr. Pitt's will believe him unspotted enough to have walked over nine hundred hot plough- shares, without hurting the sole of his foot. How merry my ghost will be, and shake its ears to hear itself quoted as a person of consummate prudence ! Adieu, dear Harry ! Yours ever. 252. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, June 26, 1747. You can have no idea of the emptiness of London, and of the tumult everywhere else. To-day many elections begin. The sums of money disbursed within this month would give anybody a very faint idea of the poverty of this undone country ! I think the expense and contest is greater now we are said to be all of a mind, than when parties ran highest. Indeed, I ascribe part of the solitude in town to privilege being at an end ; though many of us can afford to bribe so high, it is not so easy to pay debts. Here am I, as Lord Cornbury 1 says, sitting for a borough, while everybody else stands for one. He diverted me extremely the other day with the application of a story to the King's speech. It says, the reason for dissolving the Parliament is its being so near dissolution : 2 Lord Cornbury said it put him in mind of a gaoler in Oxfordshire who was remarkably humane to his prisoners ; one day he said to one of them, " My good friend, you know you are to be hanged on Friday 1 Henry Hyde, only son of the last Earl of Clarendon. He died before his father. [See vol. L, p. 412.] — Walpole. 2 The King's words are, "As this Parliament would necessarily determine in a short time, I have judged it expedient speedily to call a new one." — Wright. 1747.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 89 se'nnight ; 1 want extremely to go to London ; would you be so kind as to be hanged next Friday ? " Pigwiggin [his cousin, Mr. Walpole] is come over, more Pigwiggin than ever ! He entertained me with the horrid ugly figures that he saw at the Prince of Orange's court ; think of his saying ugly figures ! He is to be chosen for Lynn, whither I would not go, Decause I must have gone ; I go to Callington again, whither I don't go. My brother [Orford] chooses Lord Luxborough, 1 for Castle- rising. Would you know the connection ? This Lord keeps Mrs. Horton the player : 2 we keep Miss Norsa the player : 3 Kich the harlequin is an intimate of all ; and to cement the harlequinity, somebody's brother (excuse me if I am not perfect in such genealogy) is to marry the Jewess's sister. This coup de theatre procured Knight his Irish coronet, and has now stuffed him into Castlerising, about which my brother had quarrelled with me, for not looking upon it as what he called a family-borough." Excuse this ridicu- lous detail ; it serves to introduce the account of the new peers, for Sir Jacob Bouverie, a considerable Jacobite, who is made Viscount Folkestone, bought his ermine at twelve thousand pounds a-yard of the Diichess of Kendal' 0 oVaujourcVliui. Sir Harry Liddel is Baron Ravensworth, and Duncombe Baron Fevcrsham ; Archer and Polle have only changed their Mr. -ships for Lordships. Lord Middlesex has lost one of his Lordships, that of the Treasury ; is succeeded by the second Grenville, and he by Ellis 8 at the Admiralty. Lord Ashburnham had made a magnificent summer suit to wait, but Lord Cowper at last does not resign the bedchamber. I intend to laugh over this disgrazia with the Chuteheds, when they return triumphant from Hampshire, where Whitened has no enemy. Apropos to enemies ! I believe the battle in Flanders is compromised, for one never hears of it. The Duchess of Queensbcrry 7 has at last been at court, a point she has been intriguing these two years. Nobody gave in to it. At 1 Robert Knight, eldest son of the famous cashier of the South Sea Company. — Walpole. Created Lord Luxborough in Ireland 1746, and Earl of Catherlough in 1763. He died in 1772. — Dover. Compare Walpole to Ossory Aug. 3, 1775; to Mason, Nov. 27, 1775 ; and to Miss Berry, Sept. 4, 1789. — Cunningham. 2 Mrs. Christiana Horton, the successor of Mrs. Oldfield. — Cunningham. '•■ For Miss Norsa, see vol. i., p. 250, and vol. ii., p. 41.— Cunningham. 4 See vol. i., p. 356. — Cunningham. 5 Lady Yarmouth, the mistress of George II. — Dover. 6 Right Honourable Welbore Ellis, see p. 113. — Dover. 7 The Duchess had quarrelled with the court, in consequence of the refusal to permit Gay's sequel to the Beggar's Opera, called " Polly," to be acted. — Dover. 90 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1747 last she snatched at the opportunity of her son "being obliged to the King for a regiment in the Dutch service, and would not let him go to thank, till they sent for her too. Mccolini, who is next to her in absurdity and importance, is gone electioneering with Dodington. I expect Pucci every day to finish my trouble with Biccardi ; I shall take any ring, though he has taken care I should not take another tolerable one. If you will pay him, which I fancy will be the shortest way to prevent any fripponnerie, I will put the money into your brother's hands. My Eagle is arrived — my eagle tout court, for I hear nothing of the pedestal : the bird itself was sent home in a store-ship ; I was happy that they did not reserve the statue, and send its footstool. It is a glorious fowl ! I admire it, and every body admires it as much as it deserves. There never was so much spirit and fire pre- served, with so much labour and finishing. It stands fronting the "Vespasian : there are no two such morsels in England ! Have you a mind for an example of English hizarrcrie ? there is a Fleming here, who carves exquisitely in ivory, one Yerskovis ; x he has done much for me, and where I have recommended him ; but he is starving, and returning to Rome, to carve for — the English, for whom, when he was there before, he could not work fast enough. I know nothing, nor ever heard of the Mills's and Davisons ; and know less than nothing of whether they are employed from hence. There is nobody in town of whom to inquire ; if there were, they would ask me for what borough these men were to stand, and wonder that I could name people from any other motive. Adieu ! 253. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George: Arlington Street, July 2, 1747. Though we have no great reason to triumph, as we have cer- tainly been defeated, 2 yet the French have as certainly bought their victory dear : indeed, what would be very dear to us is not so much to them. However, their least loss is twelve thousand men ; as our 1 James Francis Verskovis, an excellent carver in ivory, born in Flanders, but settled at Rome, where he was so much employed by English travellers, that he con- cluded he should make a fortune in England : — he came over and starved. — Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting. — Cunningham. 2 The Battle of Laffelt, in which the Duke of Cumberland was defeated. — Wright. 1747.] TO MR. MONTAGU. 91 least loss is five thousand. The truth of the whole is, that the Duke was determined to fight at all events, which the French, who deter- mined not to fight but at great odds, took advantage of. His Royal Highness's valour has shone extremely, hut at the expense of his judgment. Harry Conway, whom nature always designed for a hero of romance, and who is deplace in ordinary life, did wonders ; hut was overpowered and flung down, when one French hussar held him by the hair, while another was going to stab him : at that instant, an English serjeant with a soldier came up, and killed the latter ; but was instantly killed himself ; the soldier attacked the other, and Mr. Conway escaped ; but was afterwards taken prisoner ; is since released on parole, and may come home to console his fair widow, 1 whose brother, Harry Campbell, is certainly killed, to the great concern of all widows who want consolation. The French have lost the Prince of Monaco, the Comte de Bavierc, natural brother to the last Emperor, and many officers of great rank. The French King saw the whole through a spying-glass, from a Hampstead Hill, environed with twenty thousand men. 2 Our Guards did shamefully, and many officers. The King had a line from Huske in Zealand on the Friday night, to tell him we were defeated ; of his son not a word : judge of his anxiety till three o'clock on Saturday ! Lord Sandwich had a letter in his pocket all the while, and kept it there, which said the Duke was well. We flourish at sea, have taken great part of the Domingo fleet, and I suppose shall have more lords. The Countess [of Yarmouth] touched twelve thousand for Sir Jacob Bouverie's 3 coronet. I know nothing of my own election [for Callington], but suppose it is over ; as little of Bigby's/ and conclude it lost. For franks, I suppose they don't begin till the whole is complete. My com- pliments to your brothers and sisters. 1 The Countess of Ailesbury, to whom Mr. Conway was married in the December of this year. — Cunningham. 2 The King of Prance, in allusion to the engagement, is said to have observed, that " the British not only paid all, but fought all." In his letter to the Queen, he also characterised the Austrians as " benevolent " spectators of the battle. See Memoires de Richelieu, t. vii., p. 111. — Wright. 3 Sir Jacob Bouverie, third Baronet; created 29 June, 1747, Baron of Longford, county of Wilts, and Viscount Folkestone, county of Kent. Died 1761. — Cunningham. 4 Rigby was returned for his former seat, Sudbury, in Suffolk.— Cunningham. 92 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. fl747. 254. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, July 3, 1747. You would think it strange not to hear from me after a battle ; though the printed relation is so particular, that I could only repeat what that contains. The sum total is, that we would fight, which the French did not intend; we gave them, or did not take, the advantage of situation ; they attacked : what part of our army was engaged did wonders, for the Dutch ran away, and we had contrived to post the Austrians in such a manner that they could not assist us :* we were overpowered by numbers, though the centre was first broke by the retreating Dutch ; and though we retired, we killed twelve thousand of the enemy, and lost six ourselves. The Duke was very near taken, having, through his short sight, mistaken a body of French for his own people. He behaved as bravely as usual ; but his prowess is so well established, that it grows time for him to exert other qualities of a general. We shine at sea ; two-and-forty sail of the Domingo fleet have fallen into our hands, and we expect more. The ministry are as suc- cessful in their elections : both Westminster and Middlesex have elected court candidates, and the city of London is taking the same step, the first time of many years that the two latter have been Whig ; but the non-subscribing at the time of the Rebellion, has been most successfully played off upon the Jacobites; of which stamp great part of England was till — the Pretender came. This would seem a paradox in any other country, but contradictions are here the only rule of action. Adieu ! 255. TO SIR HORACE MANN". Arlington Street, July 28, 1747. This is merely one of my letters of course, for I have nothing to tell you. You will hear that Bergen-op-zoom still holds out, and is the first place that has not said yes, the moment the French asked 1 The Duke of Cumberland, in a letter to Lord Chesterfield of the 3rd of July, says, " The great misfortune of our position was, that our right wing was so strongly posted, that they could neither be attacked nor make a diversion ; for I am assured that Marshal Bathiani would have done all in his power to sustain me, or attack the enemy." — Wright. 1747.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 93 it the question. The Prince of Waldeck has resigned, on some private disgust with the Duke. Mr. Chute received a letter from you yesterday, with the account of the deliverance of Genoa, which had reached us before, and had surprised nobody. But when you wrote, you did not know of the great victory obtained by eleven battalions of Piemontese over six-and-forty of the French, and of the lucky but brave death of their commander, the Chevalier de Belleisle. He is a great loss to the French, none to Count Saxe ; an irreparable one to his own brother, whom, by the force of his parts, he had pushed so high, at the same time always declining to raise himself, lest he should eclipse the Marshal, who seems now to have missed the ministry by his Italian scheme, as he did before by his ill success in Germany. We talk of nothing but peace : I hope we shall not make as bad an one as we have made a war, though one is the natural consequence of the other. We have at last discovered the pedestal for my glorious Eagle, at the bottom of the store-ship ; but I shall not have it out of the Custom-house till the end of this week. The lower part of the Eagle's beak 1 has been broke off and lost. I wish you would have the head only of your Gesse cast, and send it me, to have the original restored from it. The commission for the scagliola tables was given me without any dimensions ; I suppose there is a common size. If the original friar 2 can make them, I shall be glad : if not, I fancy the person would not care to wait so long as you mention, for what would be less handsome than mine. I am almost ashamed to send you this summer-letter ; but nobody is in town ; even election news are all over. Adieu ! 256. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Sept. 1, 1747. Your two last are of August 1st and 22nd. I fear my last to you was of July 28th. I have no excuse, but having nothing to tell you, and having been in the country. Bergen-op-zoom still holds out ; the French have lost great numbers before it, though at first, at 1 " Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie The terror of his beak, aud lightnings of his eye." — Gray. — Wright. 2 Scagliola is a composition, which was made only at Florence by Father Hugford, an Irish friar. — Walpole. 94 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1747. least, it was not at all well- defended. Nothing else is talked of, and opinions differ so much about the event, that I don't pretend to guess what it will be. It appears now that if the Dutch had made but decent defences of all the other towns, France would have made but slow progress in the conquest of Flanders, and wanted many thousand men that now threaten Europe. There are not ten people in London besides the Chuteheds and me ; the White one is going into Hampshire ; I hope to have the other a little with me at Twickenham, whither I go to-morrow for the rest of the season. I don't know what to say to you about Mr. Mill ; I can learn nothing about him : my connections with anything ministerial are as little as possible ; and were they bigger, the very commission, that you apprehend, would be a reason to make them keep it secret from you, on whose account alone they would know I inquired. I cannot bring myself to believe that he is employed from hence ; and I am always so cautious of meddling about you, for fear of risking you in any light, that I am the unfittest person in the world to give you any satisfaction on this head : however, I shall continue to try. I never heard anything so unreasonable as the Pope's request to that Cardinal Gfuadagni ; 1 but I suppose they wil] make him comply. You will, I think, like Sir James Grey ; 2 he is very civil and good-humoured, and sensible. Lord 3 is the two former ; but alas ! he is returned little wiser than he went. Is there a bill of exchange sent to your brother ? or may not I pay him without ? it is fifty pounds and three zechins, is it not ? Thank you. Pandolfini is gone with Count Harrache ; Panciatici goes next week : I believe he intended staying longer ; but either the finances fail, or he does not know how to dispose of these two empty months alone ; for Niccolini is gone with the Prince [of Wales] to Chef den. I have a notion the latter would never leave England, if he could but bring himself to change his religion ; or, which he would like as well, if he could persuade the Prince to change his. Good night ! 1 This relates to a request made by the Pope to Cardinal Guadagni, to resign a piece of preferment which he was in possession of.— Dover. 2 Sir James Grey was, as I am told, universally esteemed during his residence here. —Lady M. Wortley Montagu to her daughter, Venice, April 3, 1758. — Cunningham. 3 So in the MS— Dover. 1747.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 95 257. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George : Arlington Street, Oct. 1, 1747. I wish I could have answered your invitation from the Tigress's with my own person, but it was impossible. I wish your farmer would answer invitations with the persons of more hens and fewer cocks ; for I am raising a breed, and not recruits. The time before he sent two to one, and he has done so again. I had a letter from Mr. Conway, who is piteously going into prison again : our great secretary has let the time slip for executing the cartel, and the French have reclaimed their prisoners. The Duke is coming back. I fear his candles are gone to bed to Admiral Vernon's ! He has been ill ; they say his head has been more affected than his body. Marshal Saxe sent him Cardinal Polignac's Anti-Lucretius 1 to send to Lord Chesterfield. If he won't let him be a general, at least 'tis hard to reduce him to a courier. When I saw you at Kyk in de Pot, I forgot to tell you that seven more volumes of the J ournals are delivering : there's employment for Moreland. I go back to Kyk in de Pot to-morrow. Did you dislike it so much that you could not bring yourself to persuade your brother to try it with you for a day or two ? I shall be there till the birthday, if you will come. George Selwyn says, people send to Lord Pembroke to know how the bridge rested. You know George never thinks but a la tete tranchee : he came to town t'other day to have a tooth drawn, and told the man that he would drop his handkerchief for the signal. My compliments to your family. 258. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Oct. 2, 1747, I am glad the Chuteheds are as idle as I am, for then you will believe it is nothing but idleness. I don't know that it is absolutely 1 In 1757, Anti-Lucretius was rendered into English by Dobson; for whose trans- lation of Paradise Lost into Latin verse, Auditor Benson, who erected a monument to Milton in Westminster Abbey, gave him one thousand pounds. In 1767, a trans- lation of the first book of the Cardinal's poem was published by the father of the Right Honourable George Canning. — Wright. 96 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1747. so ; I rather flatter myself that it is want of materials that has made me silent, I fear, ahove these five weeks. Literally nothing has happened but the treachery at Bergen-op-zoom, 1 and of that all the world knows at least as much as I do. The Duke is coming home, and both armies are going into quarters, at least for the present : the French, I suppose, will be in motion again with the first frosts. Holland seems gone ! — how long England will remain after it, Providence and the French must determine ! This is too ample a subject to write but little upon, and too obvious to require much. The Chuteheds have been extremely good, and visited and stayed with me at Twickenham — I am sorry I must, at your expense be so happy. If I were to say all I think of Mr. Chute's immense honesty, his sense, his wit, his knowledge, and his humanity, you would think I was writing a dedication. I am happy in him : I don't make up to him for you, for he loves nothing a quarter so well; but I try to make him regret you less — do you forgive me ? Now I am commending your friends, I reproach myself with never having told you how much I love your brother Gal 2 - — you yourself have not more constant good-humour — indeed he has not such trials with illness as you have, you patient soul ! but he is like you, and much to my fancy. Now I live a good deal at Twickenham I see more of him, and like to see more of him : you know I don't throw my liking about the street. Your Opera must be fine, and that at Naples glorious : they say we are to have one, but I doubt it. Lady Middlesex is breeding — the child will be well-born ; the Sackville is the worst blood it is supposed to swell with. Lord Holdernesse has lost his son. Lady Charlotte Finch, when she saw company on her lying-in, 3 had two toilets spread in her bedchamber with her own and Mr. Finch's dressing plate. This was certainly a stroke of vulgarity, that my Lady Pomfret copied from some festino in Italy. Lord Bath and his Countess and his son 4 have been making a tour : at Lord Leicester's [Holkham] they forgot to give anything 1 In a letter to Sir Thomas Robinson of the 7th of November, Sir Everard Palkener says, " The capture of Bergen-op-zoom is a subject to make one mad, if anything had been done : but the ordinary forms of duty, which never fail in times of the greatest security, were now, in this critical time, neglected in the most scan- dalous manner." Hence it was surmised that the place was surrendered through treachery. See Coxes Pelham, vol. i., p. 361. — Walpole. 2 Galfridus Mann, twin brother of Horace Mann. — Walpole. 3 Of a daughter. See vol. ii., p. 79. — Cunningham. 4 William, Viscount Pulteney, only son of Lord Bath. He died in his father's lifetime.— Dover. 1747.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 97 to the servants that showed the house ; upon recollection — and deliberation, they sent back a man and horse six miles with — half a crown ! What loads of money they are saving for the French ! Adieu ! my dear child — perhaps you don't know that I " cast many a Southern look" 1 towards Florence — I think within this half-year I have thought more of making you a visit, than in any half-year since I left you. I don't know whether the difficulties will ever be surmounted, but you cannot imagine how few they are ; I scarce think they are in the plural number. 259. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Nov. 10, 1747. I came to town but last week ; but on looking over the dates of my letters, I find I am six weeks in arrear to you. This is a period that ought to make me blush, and beyond what I think I was ever guilty ; but I have not a tittle to tell you ; that is, nothing little enough has happened, nor big enough, except Admiral Hawke's 2 great victory ; and for that I must have transcribed the gazettes. The parliament met this morning, the House extremely full, and many new faces. We have done nothing but choose a speaker, and, in choosing him, flattered Mr. Onslow, who is re-chosen. In about ten days one shall be able to judge of the complexion of the winter ; but there is not likely to be much opposition. The Duke was coming, but is gone back to Breda for a few days. When he does return, it will be only for three weeks. He is to watch the French and the negociations for peace, which are to be opened — I believe not in earnest. Whithed has made his entrance into Parliament ; 3 I don't expect he will like it. The first session is very tiresome with elections, and without opposition there will be little spirit. Lady Middlesex has popped out her child before its time ; it is 1 Shakspeare, Henry IV. — " Cast many a northern look to see his fathei bring up his powers." — Walpole. 2 Admiral Edward Hawke, afterwards created Lord Hawke, for his eminent naval services. On the 15th July, 1747, he met a large fleet of French merchant-vessels going from the ports of France to the West Indies, and guarded by a strong force of ships of war. He completely routed them, and took six of the ships of war. It was in his dispatch to the Admiralty on this occasion, that he made use of the following remarkable expression : " As the enemy's ships were large, they took a great deal of drubbing." — Dover. 8 As M.P. for Southampton. — Cunningham, vol. ii. n 98 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1747. put into spirits, and my Lord, very loyally, cries over it. Lady Gower carried a niece to Leicester-fields 1 the other day, to present her : the girl trembled — she pushed her : " What are you so afraid of? Don't you see that musical clock ? Can you be afraid of a man that has a musical clock ? " Don't call this a letter ; I don't call it one ; it only comes to make my letter's excuses. Adieu ! i 260. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Nov. 24, 1747. You say so many kind things to me in your letter of Nov. 7th, on my talking of a journey to Florence, that I am sorry I mentioned it to you. I did it to show you that my silence is far from proceeding from any forgetfulness of you ; and as I really think continually of such a journey, I name it now and then ; though I don't find how to accomplish it. In short, my affairs are not so independent of every- body, but that they require my attending to them to make them go smoothly : and unless I could get them into another situation, it is not possible for me to leave them. Some part of my fortune is in my Lord 0[rford]'s hands ; and if I were out of the way of giving him trouble, he has not generosity enough to do anything that would be convenient to me. I will say no more on this subject, because it is not a pleasant one ; nor would I have said this, but to convince you that I did not mention returning to Florence out of gaiete de cceur, I never was happy but there ; have a million of times repented returning to England, where I never was happy, nor expect to be. For Mr. Chute's silence, next to myself, I can answer for him : he always loves you, and I am persuaded wishes nothing more than himself at Florence. I did hint to him your kind thought about Venice, because, as I saw no daylight to it, it could not disappoint him ; and because I knew how sensible he would be to this mark of your friendship. There is not a glimmering prospect of our sending a minister to Berlin ; if we did, it would be a person of far greater consideration than Sir James Grey ; and even if he went thither, there are no means of procuring his succession for Mr. Chute. My 1 Where the Prince of Wales held his court. Lady Gower was Mary Tufton, daughter of Thomas, Earl of Thanet, and widow of Anthony Grey, Earl of Harold, who became, in 1736, the third wife of John, second Lord Gawer. — Dover. 1747.] TO SIR HORACE MA.NN. 99 dear child, you know little of England, if you think such and so quiet merit as his likely to meet friends here. Great assurance or great quality, are the only recommendations. My father was ahused for employing low people with parts — that complaint is totally removed. You reproach me with, telling you nothing of Bergen-op-zoom : seriously, I know nothing but what was in the papers : and in general, on those great public events, I must transcribe the gazette, if you will have me talk to you. You will have seen by the King's speech that a congress is appointed at Aix-la-Chapelle, but nobody expects any effect from it. Except Mr. Pelham, the ministry in general are for the war ; and, what is comical, the Prince and the Opposition are so too. We have had but one division yet in the House, which was on the Duke of Newcastle's interfering in the Seaford election. The numbers were, 247 for the court, against 96. But I think it very probable that, in a little time, a stronger opposi- tion will be formed, for the Prince has got some new and very able speakers ; particularly a young Mr. Potter, 1 son of the last Arch- bishop, who promises very greatly ; the world is already matching him against Mr. Pitt. I sent Niccolini the letter ; and here is another from him. I have not seen him this winter, nor heard of him : he is of very little consequence, when there is anything else that is. I have lately had Lady Mary Wortley's Eclogues' published; but they don't please, though so excessively good. I say so con- fidently, for Mr. Chute agrees with me : he says, for the Epistle from Arthur Grey, scarce any woman could have written it, and no man; for a man who had had experience enough to paint such sentiments so well, would not have had warmth enough left. Do you know anything of Lady Mary ? her adventurous son 3 is come 1 Thomas [died 1759], second son of Dr. Potter, Archbishop of Canterbury, was appointed secretary to the Princess of Wales, in which post he remained till t he death of the Prince : he made two celebrated speeches on the Seaford election, and on the contest between Aylesbury and Buckingham for the summer assizes ; but did not long support the character here given of him. — Walpole. 2 Some of these Eclogues had been printed long before : they were now published, with other of her poems, by Dodsley, in quarto, and soon after, with others, reprinted in his Miscellany. — Walpole. 3 Edward Wortley Montagu, after a variety of adventures in various characters, was taken up at Paris with Mr. Taaffe, another Member of Parliament, and imprisoned in Fort Leveque, for cheating and robbing a Jew. — Walpole. Mr. Montagu was confined in the Grand Chatelet from the 31st of October ti.ll the 2nd of November. For his own account of the affair, see ' Nichols's Literary Anecdotes,' vol. iv., p. 629. —Wright. See vol. ii. p. 273.— Cunningham. 100 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1718. into Parliament, but has not opened. Adieu ! my dear child : nous nous reverrons tin jour f 261. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Jan. 12, 1748. I have just received a letter from you of the 19th of last month, in which you tell me you was just going to complain of me, when you received one from me : I fear I am again as much to blame, as far as not having written ; but if I had, it could only be to repeat what you say would be sufficient, but what I flatter myself I need not repeat. The town has been quite empty ; and the Parliament, which met but yesterday, has been adjourned these three weeks. Except elections, and such tiresome squabbles, I don't believe it will produce anything : it is all harmony. From Holland we every day hear bad news, which, though we don't believe at the present, we agree it is always likely to be true by to-morrow. Yet, with no prospect of success, and scarce with a possibility of beginning another campaign, we are as martial as ever : I don't know whether it is, because we think a bad peace worse than a bad war, or that we don't look upon misfortunes and defeats abroad as enough our own, and are willing to taste of both at home. We are in no present apprehension from domestic disturbances, nor, in my private opinion, do I believe the French will attempt us, till it is for themselves. They need not be at the trouble of sending us Stuarts ; that ingeni- ous house could not have done the work of France more effectually |;han the Pelhams and the patriots have. I will tell you a secret : there is a transaction going on to send Sir Charles Williams to Turin ; he has asked it, and it is pushed. In my private opinion, I don't believe Villettes 1 will be easily over- powered ; though I wish it, from loving Sir Charles and from think- ing meanly of the other ; but talents are no passports. Sir Everard Falkener 2 is going to Berlin. General Sinclair is presently to succeed Wentworth : he is Scotchissime, in all the latitude of the word, and not very able ; he made a poor business of it at Port FOrient. Lord Coke has demolished himself very fast; I mean his 1 Minister at Turin, and afterwards in Switzerland. — Walpole. 2 He had been ambassador at Constantinople : he was not sent to Berlin, but was secretary to the Duke, and one of the general postmaster. — Walpole. 1748.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 101 character : you know he was married but last spring ; he is always drunk, has lost immense sums at play, and seldom goes home to his wife till eight in the morning. The world is vehement on her side ; and not only her family, hut his own, give him up. At present, matters are patching 1 up by the mediation of my brother, but I think can never go on : she married him extremely against her will, and he is at least an out-pensioner of Bedlam : his mother's family have many of them been mad. I thank you, I have received the Eagle's head : the bill is broken off individually in the same spot with the original ; but, as the piece is not lost, I believe it will serve. I should never have expected you to turn Lorrain : 1 is your Madame de Givrecourt a successor s of my sister ? I think you hint so. Where is the Princess, that you are so reduced ? Adieu ! my dear child. I don't say a kind word to you, because you seem to think it necessary, for assuring you of the impossibility of my ever forgetting, or loving you less. 262. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Jan. 26, 1748. I have again talked over with our Chute the affair of Venice ; but, besides seeing no practicability in it, we think you will not believe that Sir James Grey will be so simple as to leave Venice, whither with difficulty he obtained to be sent, when you hear that Mr. Legge 4 has actually kissed hands, and sets out on Friday for 1 "I am told Lord Coke is married to Lady M. Campbell : I knew him when he was at Venice, and believe her economy will be a very necessary allay to the expensive- ness of his temper." — Lady Mary W. Montagu to Lady Oxford, July 1, 1747. " The news wrote me of Lord Coke and Lady Mary was very near being quite true ; but things are patched up, for the present, at least ; though, in my opinion, whenever they want so much darning, they seldom last long. Lord Leicester has once more paid his son's play-debts., which are very considerable ; and has made up the differences between the Lady Mary and him, which, I believe, was rather a more difficult affair ; and he has, in return, got a promise that Lord Coke will, for the future, be fonder both of his money and his lady ; and, in short, reform his whole conduct, which, by what I have heard, very much wanted it in every respect." — Lady Hervey, January 25, 1748. " Poor Lady Mary finding it was necessary for her to see Lord C[oke] determined to put a conclusion to this affair by returning home, and in pursuance of this resolution she is to go home this evening ; she is certainly in the right, but I own I tremble for the event." — Lady Dorothy Hobart to Geo. Grenville, May 12, 1748. — Cunningham. 2 The Emperor kept a Lorrain regiment at Florence ; but there was little inter- course between the two nations. — Walpole. :t With Count Richcourt. — Walpole. 4 Henry Bilson Legge [died 1764], fourth son of William first Earl of Dartmouth. 102 HORACE WALPOLES LETTERS. [1748. Berlin, as envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary. We thought Sir Everard Falkener sure ; but this has come forth very unex- pectedly. Legge is certainly a wiser choice; nobody has better parts ; and if art and industry can obtain success, I know no one would use more : but I don't think that the King of Prussia,' with half parts and much cunning, is so likely to be the dupe of more parts and as much cunning, as the people with whom Legge has so prosperously pushed his fortune. My father was fond of him to the greatest degree of partiality, till he endeavoured to have a nearer tie than flattery gave him, by trying to marry Lady Mary : after that my lord could never bear his name. Since that, he has wriggled himself in with the Pelhams, by being the warmest friend and servant of their new allies, and is the first favourite of the little Duke of Bedford. Mr. Villiers 2 was desired to go to Berlin, but refused, and proposed himself for the Treasury, till they could find something else for him. They laughed at this ; but he is as fit for one employment as the other. We have a stronger reason than any I have mentioned against going to Venice ; which is, the excuse it might give to the Vine 3 to forget we were in being ; an excuse which his hatred of our preferment would easily make him embrace, as more becoming a good Christian brother ! The Ministry are triumphant in their Parliament: there have been great debates on the new taxes, but no division : the House is now sitting on the Wareham election, espousing George Pitt's uncle, 4 one of the most active Jacobites, but of the coalition and in place, against Drax, 5 a great favourite of the Prince, but who has already lost one question on this election by a hundred. He was made secretary of the treasury by Sir Robert Walpole, and was afterwards surveyor of the roads, a lord of the admiralty, a lord of the treasury, treasurer of the navy, and chancellor of the exchequer. He had been bred to the sea. The Duke of Newcastle, in a letter to Mr. Pitt, of the 19th of January, says, " I have thought of a person, to whom the King has this day readily agreed. It is Mr. Harry Legge. There is capacity, integrity, quality, rank, and address." — See Chatham Corre- spondence, vol. i., p. 27. — Wright. See in the 'Bedford Correspondenoe' his letter of the 29th June, 1742, about his old patron Sir Robert Walpole.— Cunningham. 1 Coxe, in his Memoirs of Lord Walpole, says, that Mr. Legge, though a man of great talents for business, " was unfit for a foreign mission, and of a character ill- suited to the temper of that powerful casuist, whose extraordinary dogmas were supported by 140,000 of the most effectual but convincing arguments in the world. " — Vol. ii., p. 304. — Wright. 2 Thomas Villiers, brother of the Earl of Jersey, had been minister at Dresden, and was afterwards a lord of the admiralty. — Walpole. 3 Anthony Chute, of the Vine, in Hampshire, elder brother of J. Chute ; died in 1754. — Walpole. 4 John Pitt, one of the lords of trade. — Walpole. 5 Henry Drax, the Prince's secretary. He died in 1755. — Walpole. 1748.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 103 Admiral Vernon has just published a series of Letters to himself, 1 among which are several of Lord Bath, written in the height of his opposition : there is one in particular, to congratulate Yernon on taking Portobello, wherein this great virtuous patriot advises him to do nothing more 1 assuring him that his inactivity would all be imputed to my father. One does not hear that Lord Bath has called him to any account for this publication, though as villainous to these correspondents as one of them was in writing such a letter ; or as the Admiral himself was, who used to betray all his instruc- tions to this enemy of the government. Nobody can tell why he has published these letters now, unless to get money. What ample revenge every year gives my father against his patriot enemies ! Had he never deserved well himself, posterity must still have the greatest opinion of him, when they see on what rascal foundations were built all the pretences to virtue which were set up in opposi- tion to him ! Pulteney counselling the Admiral who was entrusted with the war not to pursue it, that its mismanagement might be imputed to the minister ; the Admiral communicating his orders to such an enemy of his country ! This enemy triumphant, seizing- honours and employments for himself and friends, which he had bo avowedly disclaimed ; other friends, whom he had neglected, pur- suing him for gratifying his ambition — accomplishing his ruin, and prostituting themselves even more than he had done ! all of them blowing up a Rebellion, by every art that could blacken the King in the eyes of the nation, and some of them promoting the trials and sitting in judgment on the wretches whom they had misled and deserted ! How black a picture ! what odious portraits, when time shall write the proper names under them ! As famous as you think your Mr. Mill, I can find nobody who ever heard his name. Projectors make little noise here ; and even any one who only has made a noise, is forgotten as soon as out of sight. The knaves and fools of the day are too numerous to leave room to talk of yesterday. The pains that people, who have a m ind to be named, are forced to take to be very particular, would convince you how difficult it is to make a lasting impression on such a town 1 The publication was entitled, ' Letters to an Honest Sailor.' — Walpolk. 2 Walpole's inference is not borne out by the letter itself. Pultcncy's words are " Pursue your stroke, but venture not losing the honour of it by too much intrepidity. Should you make no more progress than you have done, no one could blanve you but those persons only who ought to have sent some land-forces with you, and did not. To their slackness it will be very justly imputed by all mankind, should you make no further progress till Lord Cathcart joins you." — Wright. 104 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1748. as this. Ministers, authors, wits, fools, patriots, prostitutes, scarce bear a second edition. Lord Bolingbroke, Sarah Malcolm, 1 and old Marlborough, are never mentioned but by elderly folks to their grandchildren, who had never heard of them. What would last Pannoni's 2 a twelvemonth is forgotten here in twelve hours. Good night ! 263. TO SIR HORACE MANN". Arlington Street, Feb. 16, 1748. I am going to tell you nothing but what Mr. Chute has told you already — that my Lord Chesterfield has resigned the seals, that the Duke of Newcastle has changed his province, and that the Duke of Bedford is the new Secretary of State. I think you need be under no apprehension from this change ; I should be frightened enough if you had the least reason, but I am quite at ease. Lord Chester- field, who I believe had no quarrel but with his partner, is gone to Bath ; and his youngest brother, John Stanhope, 3 comes into the admiralty, where Sandwich is now first Lord. There seems to be some hitch in Legge's embassy ; I believe we were overhasty. Proposals of peace were expected to be laid before Parliament, but that talk is vanished. The Duke of Newcastle, who is going greater lengths in everything for which he overturned Lord Granville, is all military ; and makes more courts than one by this disposition. The Duke goes to Holland this week, and I hear we are going to raise another million. There are prodigious discontents in the army : the town had got a list of a hundred and fifty officers who desired at once to resign, but I believe this was exaggerated. We are great and very exact disciplinarians ; our partialities are very strong, especially on the side of aversions, and none of these articles tally exactly with English tempers. Lord Robert Bertie* received a 1 A washerwoman at the Temple, executed [in 1733] for three murders. — Walpole. Her portrait, drawn by Hogarth the day before her execution, was in the Green Closet at Strawberry Hill. When she sat to Hogarth " she had put on red to look the better." — Cunningham. 2 The coffee-house at Florence. — Walpole. 3 John Stanhope, third son of Philip, third Earl of Chesterfield, successively M.P. for Nottingham and Derby. He died in 1748. — Dover. 4 Lord Robert Bertie was third son of Robert, first Duke of Ancaster, by his second wife. He became a general in the army, and colonel of the second regiment of Guards, and was also a lord of the bedchamber and a member of parliament. He died in 1782.— Dover. 1748.] TO SIR HORACE MANX. 105 reprimand the other day by an aide-de-camp, for blowing his nose as he relieved the guard under a window ; 1 where very exact notice is constantly taken of very small circumstances. We divert ourselves extremely this winter ; plays, balls, masque- rades, and pharaoh are all in fashion. The Duchess of Bedford has given a great ball, to which the King came with thirty masks. The Duchess of Queensberry is to give him a masquerade. Operas are the only consumptive entertainment. There was a new comedy last Saturday, which succeeds, called " The Foundling." 3 I like the old " Conscious Lovers " better, and that not much. The story is the same, only that the Bevil of the new piece is in more hurry, and conse- quently more natural. It is extremely well acted by Garrick and Barry, Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. Woffington. My sister was brought to-bed last night of another boy. Sir C. Williams, I hear, grows more likely to go to Turin : you will have a more agreeable correspondent than your present voluminous brother. 3 Adieu ! 264. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, March 11, 1748. I have had nothing lately to tell you but illnesses and distempers : there is what they call a miliary fever raging, which has taken off a great many people. It was scarce known till within these seven or eight years, but apparently increases every spring and autumn. They don't know how to treat it, but think they have discovered that bleeding is bad for it. The young Duke of Bridgewater 4 is dead of it. The Marquis of Powis 6 is dead too, I don't know of what ; but though a Roman Catholic, he has left his whole fortune to Lord Herbert, the next male of his family, but a very distant relation. It is twelve thousand pounds a year, with a very rich 1 The Duke's. — Walpole. 2 The ' Foundling,' a comedy, by Edward Moore, produced at Drury Lane, 13th Feb., 1747-8. Garrick played young Belmont. — Cunningham. 3 Mr. Villettes. — Walpole. 4 John Egerton, second Duke of Bridgewater, eldest surviving son of Scroop, the first Duke, by his second wife, Lady Rachel Russell. He was succeeded by his younger brother Francis ; upon whose death, in 1803, the Dukedom of Bridgewater became extinct. — Dover. 5 William Herbert, second Marquis of Powis, upon whose death the title became extinct. His father, William, the first Marquis, was created Duke of Powis and Marquis of Montgomery, by James the Second, after his abdication, which titlea were in consequence never allowed. — Dover. 106 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1718. mine upon it ; there is a debt, but the money and personal estate will pay it. After Lord Herbert 1 and his brother, who are both unmarried, the estate is to go to the daughter of Lord "Waldegrave's sister, by her first husband, who was the Marquis's brother. In defiance of all these deaths, we are all diversions; Lady Dalkeith 2 and a company of Scotch nobility have formed a theatre, and have acted " The Revenge " several times ; I can't say excellently : the Prince and Princess were at it last night. The Duchess of Queensberry gives a masquerade to-night, in hopes of drawing the King to it : but he will not go. I do ; but must own it is wondrous foolish to dress one's self out in a becoming dress in cold blood. There has been a new comedy, called " The Foundling ;" far from good, but it took. Lord Hobart and some more young men made a party to damn it, merely for the love of damnation. The Templars espoused the play, and went armed with syringes charged with stinking oil, and with sticking plaisters ; but it did not come to action. Garrick was impertinent, and the pretty men gave over their plot the moment they grew to be in the right. I must now notify to you the approaching espousals of the most illustrious Prince Pigwiggin [his cousin, Mr. Walpole] with Lady Rachel Cavendish, third daughter of the Duke of Devonshire : the victim does not dislike it ! my uncle makes great settlements ; and the Duke is to get a peerage for Pigwiggin, upon the foot that the father cannot be spared out of the House of Commons ! Can you bear this old buffoon making himself of consequence, and imitating my father ! The Princess of Orange has got a son, and we have taken a convoy that was going to Bergen-op-zoom ; two trifling occurrences that are most pompously exaggerated, when the whole of both is, that the Dutch, who before sold themselves to France, will now grow excellent patriots when they have a master entailed upon them \ and we shall run ourselves more into danger, on having got an advantage which the French don't feel. Violent animosities are sprung up in the House of Commons upon a sort of private affair between the Chief Justice "Willes and the 1 Henry Arthur Herbert, Lord Herbert, afterwards created Earl of Powis, married the young lady on whom the estate was entailed : his brother died unmarried. — Walpole. 2 Caroline, eldest daughter of John, Duke of Argyll, married the eldest son of the Duke of Buccleuch, who, dying before his father, she afterwards married Charles Townshend, second son of the Lord Viscount Townshend. — Walpole. She was created Baroness Greenwich in 1767.— Dover. 1748.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 107 Grenvilles, who have engaged the Ministry in an extraordinary step, of fixing the assizes at Buckingham by Act of Parliament in their favour. We have had three long days upon it in our House, and it is not yet over ; hut though they will carry it both there and in the Lords, it is by a far smaller majority than any they have had in this Parliament. 1 The other day, Dr. Lee and Mr. Potter had made two very strong speeches against Mr. Pelham on this subject ; he rose with the greatest emotion, fell into the most ridiculous passion, was near crying, and not knowing how to return it on the two, fell upon the Chief Justice (who was not present), and accused him of ingratitude. The eldest Willes got up extremely moved, but with great propriety and cleverness " told Mr. Pelham that his father had no obligation to any man now in the Ministry ; that he had been obliged to one of the greatest Ministers that ever was, who is now no more ; that the person who accused his father of ingra- titude was now leagued with the very men who had ruined that Minister, to whom he (Mr. Pelham) owed his advancement, and without whom he would have been nothing ! " This was daggers ! not a word of reply. I had begun my letter before the masquerade, but had not time to finish it : there were not above one hundred persons ; the dresses pretty ; the Duchess [of Queensberry] as mad as you remember her. She had stuck up orders about dancing, as you see at public bowling- greens ; turned half the company out at twelve ; kept those she liked to supper ; and, in short, contrived to do an agreeable thing in the rudest manner imaginable ; besides having dressed her husband in a Scotch plaid, which just now is one of the things in the world that is reckoned most offensive ; but you know we are all mad, so good night ! 265. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, April 29, 1748. I know I have not writ to you the Lord knows when, but I waited for something to tell you, and I have now what there was not much reason to expect. The preKminaries to the peace are actually signed 1 by the English, Dutch, and French : the Queen [of Hun- gary], who would remain the only sufferer, though vastly less than 1 The bill passed the Commons on the 15th of March, by 155 to 108. For the debates thereon, see ' Parliamentary History/ vol. xiv., p. 206. — Wright. 8 The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. — Dover. 10S HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1748. she could expect, protests against this treaty, and the Sardinian Minister has refused to sign too, till further orders Spain is not mentioned, but France answers for them, and that they shall give us a new assiento. The armistice is for six weeks, with an exception to Maestricht ; upon which the Duke sent Lord George Sackville to Marshal Saxe, to tell him that, as they are so near being friends, he shall not endeavour to raise the siege and spill more blood, but hopes the Marshal will give the garrison good terms, as they have behaved so bravely. The conditions settled are a general restitution on all sides, as Modena to its Duke, Flanders to the Queen, the Dutch towns to the Dutch, Cape Breton to France, and Final to the Genoese ; but the Sardinian to have the cessions made to him by the Queen, who, you see, is to be made observe the treaty of Worms, though we do not. Parma and Placentia are to be given to Don Philip ; Dunkirk to remain as it is, on the land-side ; but to be Utrecht 'd 1 again to the sea. The Pretender to be renounced with all his descendants, male and female, even in stronger terms than by the quadruple alliance ; and the cessation of arms to take place in all other parts of the world, as in the year 1712. The contracting powers agree to think of means of making the other powers come into this treaty, in case they refuse. This is the substance ; and wonderful it is what can make the French give us such terms, or why they have lost so much blood and treasure to so little purpose ! for they have destroyed very little of the fortifications in Flanders. Monsieur de St. Severin told Lord Sandwich, that he had full powers to sign now, but that the same courier that should carry our refusal, was to call at Namur and Bergen-op-zoom, where are mines under all the works, which were immediately to be blown up. There is no accounting for this, but from the King's aversion to go to the army, and to Marshal Saxs's fear of losing his power with the loss of a battle. He told Co ant Flemming, the Saxon Minister, who asked him if the French wore in earnest in their offer of peace, " II est vrai, nous demandons la paix comme des laches, et ne pouvons pas l'obtenir." Stocks rise ; the Ministry are in high spirits, and pen s'en faut but we shall admire this peace as our own doing ! I believe two reasons that greatly advanced it are, the King's wanting to go to Hanover, and the Duke's wanting to go into a salivation. We had last night the most magnificent masquerade that ever 1 That is, the works destroyed, as they were after the treaty of Utrecht. — Dovlk. 1748.] TO MR. MONTAGU. 109 was seen : it was by subscription at the Haymarket : every body who subscribed five guineas had four tickets. There were about seven hundred people, all in chosen and very fine dresses. The supper was in two rooms, besides those for the King and Prince, who, with the foreign ministers, had tickets given them. You don't tell me whether the seal of which you sent me the impression, is to be sold : I think it fine, but not equal to the price which you say was paid for it. What is it ? Homer or Pindar ? I am very miserable at the little prospect you have of success in your own affair : I think the person 1 you employed has used you scandalously. I would have you write to my uncle ; but my apply- ing to him would be very far from doing you service. Poor Mr. Chute has got so bad a cold that he could not go last night to the masquerade. Adieu ! my dear child ! there is nothing well that I don't wish you, but my wishes are very ineffectual ! 266. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. May 18, 1748. Here I am with the poor Chutehed,' who has put on a shoe but to-day for the first time. He sits at the receipt of custom, and one passes most part of the day here ; the other part I have the mis- fortune to pass en Pigwiggin. The ceremony of dining is not over yet : I cannot say that either the Prince or the Princess look the comelier for what has happened. The town says, my Lady Anson 2 has no chance for looking different from what she did before she was married : and they have a story of a gentleman going to the Chan- cellor [Hardwicke] to assure him, that if he gave his daughter to the Admiral, he would be obliged hereafter to pronounce a sentence of dissolution of the marriage. The Chancellor replied, that his daughter had been taught to think of the union of the soul, not of the body : the gentleman then made the same confidence to the Chancelloress, and received much such an answer : that her daughter had been bred to submit herself to the will of God. I don't at all give you all this for true ; but there is an ugly circumstance in his 1 Mr. Stone, the Duke of Newcastle's private secretary. — Wright. 2 John Chute, Esq., of the Vine, in Hampshire. — Walpole. 3 Lord Anson had married, on the 25th of April, Lady Elizabeth Yorke, Lord Chancellor Hardwicke's eldest daughter, an ingenious woman, and a poetess. She died without issue in 1760. — Wriqht. 110 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1748. Voyages of his not having the curiosity to see a beautiful captive,^ that he took on board a Spanish ship. There is no record of Scipio's having been in Doctors' Commons. I have been reading these Voyages, and find them very silly and contradictory. He sets out with telling you, that he had no soldiers sent with him but old invalids without legs or arms ; and then in the middle of the book there is a whole chapter to tell you what they would have done if they had set out two months sooner, and that was no less than con- quering Peru and Mexico with this disabled army. At the end there is an account of the neglect he received from the Viceroy of Canton, till he and forty of his sailors put out a great fire in that city, which the Chinese and five hundred firemen could not do, which he says proceeded from their awkwardness ; a new character of the Chinese ! He was then admitted to an audience, and found two hundred men at the gate of the city, and ten thousand in the square before the palace, all new dressed for the purpose. This is about as true as his predecessor Gulliver p g out the fire at Lilliput. The King is still wind-bound ; the fashionable bon mot is, that the Duke of Newcastle has tied a stone about his neck and sent him to sea. The city grows furious about the peace ; there is one or two very uncouth Hanover articles, besides a persuasion of a pension to the Pretender, which is so very ignominious, that I don't know how to persuade myself it is true. The Duke of Argyle has made them give him three places for life of a thousand and twelve hundred a-year for three of his court, to compensate for their making a man President of the Session against his inclination. The Princess of Wales has got a confirmed jaundice, but they reckon her much better. Sir Harry Calthrop is gone mad : he walked down Pall Mall t'other day with his red riband tied about his hair ; said he was going to the King, and would not submit to be blooded till they told him the King commanded it. I went yesterday to see Marshal Wade's house, 1 which is selling by auction : it is worse contrived on the inside than is conceivable, all to humour the beauty of the front. My Lord Chesterfield said, that to be sure he could not live in it, but intended to take the house over against it to look at it. It is literally true, that all the direction he gave my Lord Burlington was to have a place for a large cartoon of Rubens that he had bought in Flanders ; but my 1 In Cork Street, Burlington Gardens. There is a view of the house in the 4 Vitruvius Britannicus/ Lord Burlington was the architect. — Cunningham. 1748.] TO MR. MONTAGU. Ill lord found it necessary to have so many correspondent doors, that there was no room at last for the picture ; and the Marshal was forced to sell the picture to my father : it is now at Houghton. 1 As Windsor is so charming, and particularly, as you have got so agreeable a new neighbour at Frogmore, to be sure you cannot wish to have the prohibition taken off of your coming to Strawberry Hill. However, as I am an admirable Christian, and as I think you seem to repent of your errors, I will give you leave to be so happy as to come to me when you like, though I would advise it to be after you have been at Roel, 2 which you would not be able to bear after my paradise. I have told you a vast deal of something or other, which you will scarce be able to read ; for now Mr. Chute has the gout, he keeps himself very low and lives upon very thin ink. My compliments to all your people. Yours ever. 267. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Arlington Street, May 26, 1748. Good b'ye to you ! I am going to my Roel too. I was there yesterday to dine, and it looked so delightful, think what you will, that I shall go there to-morrow to settle, and shall leave this odious town to the * * *, to the regency, and the dowagers ; to my Lady Townshend, who is not going to Windsor, to old Cobham, who is not going out of the world yet, and to the Duchess of Richmond, who does not go out with her twenty-fifth pregnancy : I shall leave too more disagreeable Ranelagh, which is so crowded, that going there t'other night in a string of coaches we had a stop of six- and-thirty minutes. Princess Emily, finding no marriage articles for her settled at the congress, has at last determined to be old and out of danger : and has accordingly ventured to Ranelagh, to the great improvement of the pleasures of the place. The Prince [of Wales] has given a silver cup to be rowed for, which carried every body upon the Thames ; and afterwards there was a great ball at Carlton House. There have two good events happened at 1 Walpole gives the following account of this picture, in his description of Houghton : " Meleager and Atalanta, a cartoon, by Rubens, larger than life ; brought out of Flanders by General Wade : it being designed for tapestry, all the weapons are in the left hand of the figure. For the story, see ' Ovid's Metamorphoses,' lib. 3." — Wright. 2 A house of Mr. Montagu's in Gloucestershire. — Cunningham. HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1748. that court : the town was alarmed t'other morning hy the firing of guns, which proved to be only from a large merchantman come into the river. The city construed it into the King's return, and the peace broke ; but Chancellor Bootle and the Bishop of Oxford, who loves a labour next to promoting the cause of it, concluded the Princess was brought to bed, and went to court upon it. Bootle, finding the Princess dressed, said, " I have always heard, Madam, that women in your country have very easy labours ; but I could not have believed it was so well as I see." The other story is of Prince Edward. 1 The King, before he went away, sent Stainberg to examine the Prince's children in their learning. The Baron told Prince Edward, that he should tell the King what great proficiency his Highness had made in his Latin, but that he wished he would be a little more perfect in his German grammar, and that would be of signal use to him. The child squinted at him, and said, " German grammar ! why any dull child can learn that." There, I have told you royalties enough ! My Pigwiggin dinners are all over, for which I truly say grace. I have had difficulties to keep my countenance at the wonderful clumsiness and uncouth nicknames that the Duke [of Devonshire] has for all his offspring : Mrs. Hopeful, Mrs. Tiddle, Puss, Cat, and Toe, sound so strange in the middle of a most formal banquet ! The day the peace was signed, his grace could find nobody to communicate joy with him : he drove home, and bawled out of the chariot to Lady Pachael, " Cat ! Cat ! " She ran down, staring over the balustrade ; he cried " Cat ! Cat ! the peace is made, and you must be very glad, for I am very glad." I send you the only new pamphlet worth reading, and this is more the matter than the manner. My compliments to all your tribe. Adieu ! P.S. The divine Ashton has got an ague, which he says prevents his coming amongst us. 268. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, June 7, 1748. Don't reproach me in your own mind for not writing, but reproach 1 Afterwards Duke of York; died 1767. — Cunningham. 1748." TO SIR HORACE MANN. 113 the -world for doing nothing ; for making peace as slowly as they made war. When anybody commits an event, I am ready enough to tell it you ; but I have always declared against inventing news ; when I do, I will set up a newspaper. The Duke of Newcastle is not gone ; he has kissed hands, and talks of going this week : the time presses, and he has not above three days left to fall dangerously ill. There are a thousand wagers laid against his going : he has hired a transport, for the yacht is not big enough to convey all the tables and chairs and conveniences that he trails along with him, and which he seems to think don't grow out of England. I don't know how he proposes to lug them through Holland and Germany, though any objections that the map can make to his progress don't count, for he is literally so ignorant, that when one goes to take leave of ' him, he asks your commands into the north, concluding that Hanover is north of Great Britain, because it is in the Northern Province, which he has just taken : you will scarce believe this, but upon my honour it is true. The preliminaries wait the accession of Spain, before they can ripen into peace. Niccolini goes to Aix-la-Chapelle, and will be much disappointed if his advice is not asked there : he talks of being at Florence in October. Sir William Stanhope has just given a great ball to Lady Caroline Petersham, to whom he takes extremely, since his daughter married herself to Mr. Ellis and as the Petershams are relations, they pro- pose to be his heirs. The Chuteheds agreed with me, that the house, which is most magnificently furnished, all the ornaments designed by Kent, and the whole festino, puts us more in mind of Florence, than anything we had seen here. There were silver pharaoh and whist for the ladies that did not dance, deep basset and quinze for the men ; the supper very fine. I am now returning to my villa, where I have been making some alterations: you shall hear from me from Strawberry Hill, which I have found out in my lease is the old name of my house ; so pray, never call it Twickenham again. I like to be there better than I have liked being anywhere since I came to England. I sigh after Florence, and wind up all my prospects with the thought of return- ing there. I have days when I even set about contriving a scheme for going to you, and though I don't love to put you upon expecting 1 The Right Hon. Welbore Ellis, afterwards created [1794] Lord Mendip [died 1802]. His first wife was Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir William Stanhope, K.B. She died in 1761. — Dover. vol. II. 114 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. .1748. me, I cannot help telling you, that I wish more than ever to he with you again. I can truly say, that I never was happy but at Florence, and you must allow that it is very natural to wish to he happy once more. Adieu ! 269. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Dear Harry : Strawberry Hill, June 27, 1748. I have full as little matter for writing as you can find in a camp. I do not call myself farmer or country gentleman ; for though I have all the ingredients to compose those characters, yet, like the ten pieces of card in the trick you found out, I don't know how to put them together. But, in short, planting and fowls and cows and sheep are my whole business, and as little amusing to relate to any- body else as the events of a still-born campaign. If I write to any body, I am forced to live upon what news I hoarded before I came out of town ; and the first article of that, as I believe it is in every body's gazette, must be about my Lord Coke. They say, that since he has been at Sunning Hill with Lady Mary, she has made him a declaration in form, that she hates him, that she always did, and that she always will. This seems to have been a very unnecessary notification. However, as you know his part is to be extremely in love, he is very miserable upon it ; and relating his woes at White's, probably at seven in the morning, he was advised to put an end to all this history and shoot himself — an advice they would not have given him if he were not insolvent. He has promised to consider of it. The night before I left London, I called at the Duchess of Richmond's who has stayed at home with the apprehension of a miscarriage. The porter told me there was no drawing-room till Thursday. In short, he did tell me what amounted to as much, that her grace did not see company till Thursday, then she should see every body : no excuse, that she was gone out or not well. I did not stay till Thursday to kiss hands, but went away to Vauxhall : as I was coming out, I was overtaken by a great light, and retired under the trees of Marble Hill 1 to see what it should be. There came a long procession of Prince Lobkowitz's footmen in very rich new liveries, the two last bearing torches; and after them the Prince 1 The seat at Twickenham of the Countess of Suffolk, better known as Mrs. Howard. — CUNNINOHAM. 1748.J TO SIR HORACE MANN. 115 [of Wales] himself, in a new sky-blue watered tabby coat, with gold button-boles, and a magnificent gold waistcoat fringed, leading Madame l'Ambassadrice de Venise in a green sack with a straw hat, attended by my Lady Tyrawley, Wall, the private Spanish agent, the two Miss Molyneux's, and some other men. They went into one of the Prince of Wales's barges, had another barge filled with violins and hautboys, and an open boat with drums and trumpets. This was one of the fetes des adieux. The nymph weeps all the morning, and says she is sure she shall be poisoned by her husband's relations when she returns, for her behaviour with this Prince. I have no other news, but that Mr. Fitzpatrick has married his Sukey Young, and is very impatient to have the Duchess of Bedford come to town to visit her new relation. Is not my Lady Ailesbury weary of her travels ? Pray make her my compliments, — unless she has made you any such declaration as Lady Mary Coke's. I am delighted with your description of the bed-chamber of the House of Orange, as I did not see it ; but the sight itself must have been very odious, as the hero and heroine are so extremely ugly. I shall give it my Lady Townshend as a new topic of matrimonial satire. Mr. Churchill and Lady Mary have been with me two or three days, and are now gone to Sunning. I only tell you this, to hint that my house will hold a married pair : indeed, it is not quite large enough for people who lie, like the patriarchs, with their whole genealogy and men-servants, and maid-servants, and oxes, and asses, in the same chamber with them. Adieu ! do let this be the last letter, and come home. 270. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Mistley, 1 July 14, 1748. I would by no means resent your silence while you was at Pisa, if it were not very convenient ; but I cannot resist the opportunity of taking it ill, when it serves to excuse my being much more to blame ; and therefore, pray mind, I am very angry, and have not written, because you had quite left me off — and if I say nothing from hence, do not imagine it is because I am at a gentleman's house whom you don't know, and threescore miles from London, and 1 Mistley, near Manningtree, in Essex, the seat of Richard Rigby, Esq. — Walpole. 116 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. 11748. because I have been but three, days in London for above this month : I could say a great deal if I pleased, but I am very angry, and will not. I know several pieces of politics from Ipswich that would let you into the whole secret of the peace ; and a quarrel at Dedham assembly, that is capable of involving all Europe in a new war — nay, I know what Admiral Yernon 1 knows of what you say has happened in the West Indies, and of which nobody else in England knows a word — but please to remember that you have been at the baths, and don't deserve that I should tell you a tittle — nor will I. In revenge, I will tell you something that happened to me four months ago, and which I would not tell you now, if I had not forgot to tell it you when it happened — nay, I don't tell it you now for yourself, only that you may tell it the Princess : I truly and seriously this winter won and was paid a milleleva at pharaoh ; literally received a thousand and twenty-three sixpences for one : an event that never happened in the annals of pharaoh, but to Charles II.'s Queen Dowager, as the Princess herself informed me : ever since I have treated myself as Queen Dowager, and have some thoughts of being drawn so. There are no good anecdotes yet arrived of the Duke of New- castle's travels, except that at a review which the Duke made for him, as he passed through the army, he hurried about with his glass up to his eye, crying, " Finest troops ! finest troops ! greatest General ! " then broke through the ranks when he spied any Sussex man, kissed him in all his accoutrements, — my dear Tom such an one ! chattered of Lewes races ; then back to the Duke with " Finest troops ! greatest General ! " — and in short was a much better show than any review. The Duke is expected over immediately ; I don't know if to stay, or why he comes — I mean, I do know, but am angry, and will not* tell. I have seen Sir James Grey, who speaks of you with great affection, and recommends himself extremely to me by it, when I am not angry with you ; but I cannot possibly be reconciled till I have finished this letter, for I have nothing but this quarrel to talk of, and I think I have worn that out — so adieu ! you odious, shocking, abominable monster ! 1 He lived near Ipswich. — Walpole. I748.J TO SIR HORACE MANN. 117 271. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Strawberry Hill, . I beg you will let me know whether the peace is arrived in Italy, or if you have heard anything of it ; for in this part of the world nobody can tell what is become of it. They say, the Empress Queen has stopped it ; that she will not take back the towns in Flanders, which she says she knows are very convenient for us, but of no kind of use to her, and that she chooses to keep what she has got in Italy. However, we are determined to have peace at any rate, and the conditions must jumble themselves together as they can. These are the politics of Twickenham, my metropolis ; and, to tell you the truth, I believe pretty near as good as you can have 'anywhere. As to my own history, the scene is at present a little gloomy : my Lord Orford is in an extreme bad state of health, not to say a dangerous state : my uncle 1 is going off in the same way my father did. I don't pretend to any great feelings of affection for two men because they are dying, for whom it is known I had little before, mj brother especially having been as much my enemy as it was in his power to be ; but I cannot with indifference see the family torn to pieces, and failing into such ruin as I foresee ; for should my brother die soon, leaving so great a debt, so small an estate to pay it off, two great places' 2 sinking, and a wild boy of nineteen to succeed, there would soon be an end of the glory of Houghton, which had my father pro- portioned more to his fortune, would probably have a longer duration. This is an unpleasant topic to you who feel for us — however, I should not talk of it to one who would not feel. Your brother Gal. and I had a very grave conversation yesterday morning on this head ; he thinks so like you, so reasonably and with so much good nature, that I seem to be only finishing a discourse that I have already had with you. As my fears about Houghton are great, I am a little pleased to have finished a slight memorial 3 of it, a description of the pictures, of which I have just printed an hundred, to give to particular people : I will send you one, and shall beg Dr. Cocchi to accept another. 1 Lord Orford did not die till 1751, and old Horace Walpole not till 1757.— Dover. 2 Auditor of the exchequer, and master of the buck-hounds. — Walpole. 3 " iEdes Walpolianae, or a Description of the Pictures at Houghton Hall, in Norfolk," first printed in 1747, and again in 1752. — Walpole. 118 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [174S. If I could let myself wish to see you in England, it would be to see you here : the little improvements I am making have really turned Strawberry Hill into a charming villa : Mr. Chute, I hope, will tell you how pleasant it is : I mean literally tell you, for we have a glimmering of a Venetian prospect : he is just going from hence to town by water, down our Brenta. You never say a word to me from the Princess, nor any of my old friends : I keep up our intimacy in my own mind ; for I will not part with the idea of seeing Florence again. Whenever I am dis- pleased here, the thoughts of that journey are my resource ; just as cross would-be devout people, when they have quarrelled with this world, begin packing up for the other. Adieu ! 272. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Dear George : Mistley, July 25, 1748. I have wished you with me extremely ; you would have liked what I have seen. I have been to make a visit of two or three days to Nugent, 1 and was carried to see the last remains of the glory of old Aubrey de Veres, Earls of Oxford. They were once masters of almost this entire county, but quite reduced even before the extinction of their house : the last Earl's son died at a miserable cottage, that I was shown at a distance ; and I think another of the sisters, besides Lady Mary Vere, was forced to live upon her beauty. Henningham Castle, where Harry the Seventh was so sumptuously banquetted, and imposed that villainous fine for his entertainment, is now shrunk to one vast curious tower, that stands on a spacious mount raised on a high hill with a large fosse. It commands a fine prospect, and belongs to Mr. Ashurst, a rich citizen, who has built a trumpery new house close to it. In the parish church is a fine square monument of black marble of one of the Earls ; a and there are three more tombs of the family at Earl's Colne, some miles from the castle. I could see but little of them, as it was very late, except that one of the Countesses has a head-dress exactly like the description of Mount Parnassus, with two tops. I suppose you have heard much of Grosfield, Nugent' s seat. It is extremely in fashion, 1 At Gosfield, in Essex. — Cunningham. 3 John, sixteenth Earl of Oxford; died 1562. — Cunningham. 1748.] TO MR. MONTAGU. 119 but did not answer to me, though there are fine things about it ; but being situated in a country that is quite blocked up with hills upon hills, and even too much wood, it has not an inch of prospect. The park is to be sixteen hundred acres, and is bounded with a wood of five miles round ; and the lake, which is very beautiful, is of seventy acres, directly in a line with the house, at the bottom of a fine lawn, and broke with very pretty groves, that fall down a slope into it. The house is vast, built round a very old court that has never been fine ; the old windows and gateway left, and the old gallery, which is a bad narrow room, and hung with all the late patriots, but so ill done, that they look like caricatures done to expose them, since they have so much disgraced the virtues they pretended to. The rest of the house is all modernised, but in patches, and in the bad taste that came between the charming venerable Gothic and pure architecture. There is a great deal of good furniture, but no one room very fine : no tolerable pictures. Her dressing-room is very pretty, and furnished with white damask, china, japan, loads of easy chairs, bad pictures, and some pretty enamels. But what charmed me more than all I had seen, is the library chimney, which has existed from the foundation of the house ; over it is an alto-relievo in wood, far from being ill done, of the battle of Bosworth Field. It is all white, except the helmets and trappings, which are gilt, and the shields, which are properly blazoned with the arms of all the chiefs engaged. You would adore it. We passed our time very agreeably ; both Nugent and his wife are very good-humoured, and easy in their house to a degree. There was nobody else but the Marquis of Tweedale ; his new Marchioness, 1 who is infinitely good-humoured and good company, and sang a thousand French songs mighty prettily; a sister of Nugent's, who does not figure ; and a Mrs. Eliot, 2 sister to Mrs. Nugent, who crossed over and figured in with Nugent : I mean she has turned Catholic, as he has Protestant. She has built herself a very pretty small house in the park, and is only a daily visitor. Nugent was extremely communicative of his own labours ; repeated us an ode of ten thousand stanzas to abuse Messieurs de la Gallerie, 1 Daughter of Earl Granville. — Walpole. 2 Harriot, wife of Richard Eliot, Esq,, father of the first Lord St. Germains, ?vnd tt daughter of Mr. Secretary Craggs [by Miss Santlow the actress, afterwards Mrs. Barton Booth]. For a copy of verses addressed by Mr. Pitt to this lady, see the Chatham Correspondence, vol. iv., p. 373. — Wright. 120 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743. and read me a whole tragedy, which has really a great many pretty things in it ; not indeed equal to his glorious Ode 1 on religion and liberty, but with many of those absurdities which are so blended with his parts. "We were overturned coming back, but, thank you, we were not at all hurt, and have been to-day to see a large house and a pretty park belonging to a Mr. "Williams ; it is to be sold. You have seen in the papers that Dr. Broxholme is dead. He cut his throat. He always was nervous and vapoured ; and so good- natured, that he left off his practice from not being able to bear seeing so many melancholy objects. I remember him with as much wit as ever I knew; there was a pretty correspondence of Latin odes that passed between him and Hodges. You will be diverted to hear that the Duchess of Newcastle was received at Calais by Locheil's regiment under arms, who did duty himself while she stayed. The Duke of Grafton is going to Scar- borough ; don't you love that endless back-stairs policy ? and at his time of life ! This fit of ill health is arrived on the Prince's going to shoot for a fortnight at Thetford, and his grace is afraid of not being civil enough or too civil. Since I wrote my letter I have been fishing in Papin for any particulars relating to the Teres, and have already found that Robert de Yere, the great Duke of Ireland, and favourite of Richard the Second, is buried at Earl's Colne, and probably under one of the tombs I saw there ; I long to be certain that the lady with the strange coiffure is Lancerona, the joiner's daughter, that he married after divorcing a princess of the blood for her. I have found, too, that King Stephen's Queen died at Henningham, a castle belonging to Alberic de Yere : in short, I am just now Yere mad, and extremely mortified to have Lancerona and Lady Yere Beau- clerk's 2 Portuguese grandmother blended with this brave old blood. Adieu ! I go to town, the day after to-morrow, and immediately from thence to Strawberry Hill. Yours ever 1 This ' Ode to William Pulteney, Esq./ contains the noble lines quoted by Gibbon in his character of Brutus. — Cunningham. 2 Mary, eldest daughter and coheir of Thomas Chamber, of Hanworth, and wife of Lord Vere Beauclerk, son of the first Duke of St. Albans, by the daughter of Aubrey de Vere, twentieth and last Earl of Oxford of the Vere family. — Cunningham. 1748.J TO MR. MONTAGU. \2l 273. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Strawberry Hill, Aug. 11, 1748. I am arrived at great knowledge in the annals of the house of Vere, hut though I have twisted and twined their genealogy and my own a thousand ways, I cannot discover, as I wished to do, that I am descended from them any how hut from one of their Christian names ; the name of Horace having travelled from them into Norfolk "by the marriage of a daughter of Horace Lord Yere of Tilbury with a Sir Ptoger Townshend, whose family baptised some of us with it. 1 But I have made a really curious discovery ! the lady with the strange dress at Earl's Colne, which I mentioned to you, is certainly Lancerona, the Portuguese ; for I have found in Papin, from one of the old chronicles, that Anne of Bohemia, to whom she had been Maid of Honour, introduced the fashion of piked Jtorns, or high heads, which is the very attire on this tomb, and ascertains it to belong to Kobert de Yere, the great Earl of Oxford, made Duke of Ireland by Pichard II., who, after the banishment of this Minister, and his death at Louvain, occasioned by a boar at a hunting match, caused the body to be brought over, would have the coffin opened once more to see his favourite, and attended it himself in high procession to its interment at Earl's Colne. I don't know whether the " Craftsman " some years ago would not have found out that we were descended from this Yere, at least from Ins name and ministry : my comfort is, that Lancerona was Earl Robert's second wife. But in this search I have crossed upon another descent, which I am taking great pains to verify (I don't mean a pun), and that is a probability of my being descended from Chaucer, whose daughter, the Lady Alice, before her espousals with Thomas Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, and afterwards with William de la Pole, the great Duke of Suffolk (another famous favourite), was married to a Sir John Philips, who I hope to find was of Picton Castle, and had children by her ; but I have not yet brought these matters to a consistency : Mr. Chute is persuaded I shall, for he says any body with two or three hundred years of pedigree may find themselves descended from whom they please; and thank my stars and my good 1 By this marriage the very curious collection of full-length portraits, now at Rainham. of the soldiers who had served under Sir Horace Vere, passed to the Townshend family. — Cunningham. 122 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1748. cousin, the present Sir J[ohn] Philips, 1 1 have a sufficient pedigree to work upon ; for he drew us up one by which Ego et rex meus are derived hand in hand from Cadwallader, and the English Baronetage says from the Emperor Maximus (by the Philips's, who are Welsh, s'entend). These Yeres have thrown me into a deal of this old study : t'other night I was reading to Mrs. Leneve and Mrs. Pigot, 2 who has been here a few days, the description in Hall's Chronicle of the meeting of Harry VIII. and Francis I. which is so delight- fully painted in your Windsor. 3 We came to a paragraph, which I must transcribe ; for though it means nothing in the world, it is so ridiculously worded in the old English that it made us laugh for three days. <&nts tfjp fcoer ttooo tyriQtg Stxuzts fottrj a fianfcet antr after mtrtlje, IjaU cnmmumratton tu t!je fcanfcet ttme, antr tfjm jSfjefoctt tt)t am tlje afytv fi)tix jrteatfure. Would not one swear that old Hal showed all that is showed in the Tower? I am now in the act of expecting the house of Pritchard, Dame Clive, and Mrs. Metheglin to dinner. I promise you the Clive and I will not show one another our pleasure during the banket time nor afterwards. In the evening, we go to a play at Kingston, where the places are two pence a head. Our great company at Eichmond and Twickenham has been torn to pieces by civil dissensions, but they continue acting. Mr. Lee, the ape of Garrick, not liking his part, refused to play it, and had the con- fidence to go into the pit as spectator. The actress, whose benefit was in agitation, made her complaints to the audience, who obliged him to mount the stage ; but since that he has retired from the company. I am sorry he was such a coxcomb, for he was the best. You say, why won't I go to Lady Mary's ? [Churchill's.] I say, why won't you go to the Talbots? Mary is busied about many things, is dancing the hays between three houses ; but I will go with you for a day or two to the Talbots if you like it, and you shall come hither to fetch me. I have been to see Mr. Hamilton's, near Cobham, 4 where he has really made a fine place out of a most cursed hill. Esher 5 I have seen again twice, and prefer it to all 1 Sir John Philipps, of Picton Castle in Pembrokeshire, died 23rd June, 1764. — Cunningham. 9 - Niece of Mrs. Leneve [vol. i. p. 199], and first wife of Admiral Pigot. — Weight. 3 The picture now (1857) at Hampton Court.— Cunningham. 4 Painshill, in Surrey. — Cunningham. 5 Esher, near Claremont, in Surrey. The seat of the Right Hon. Henry Pelham. 1748.] TO MR. MONTAGU. 12a villas, even to Southcote's 1 — Kent is Kentissime there. I have been laughing too at Claremont house ; the gardens are improved since I saw them : do you know that the pine-apples are literally sent to Hanover by couriers ? I am serious. Since the Duke of Newcastle went, and upon the news of the Duke of Somerset's illness, he has transmitted his commands through the King, and by him through the Bedford to the University of Cambridge to forbid their electing any body, but the most ridiculous person they could elect, his grace of Newcastle. 2 The Prince hearing this, has written to them, that having heard his Majesty's commands, he should by no means oppose them. This is sensible ; but how do the two secretaries answer such a violent act of authority ? Nolke- jumskoi 3 has let down his dignity and his discipline, and invites continually all officers that are members of parliament. Doding- ton's sentence of expulsion is sealed ; Lyttelton is to have his place (the second time he has tripped up his heels) ; Lord Barrington is to go to the Treasury, and Dick Edgecumbc into the Admiralty. Bigby is gone from hence to Sir William Stanhope's to the Aylesbury races, where the Grenvilles and Peggy Banks design to appear and avow their triumph. Gray has been here a few days, and is transported with your story of Madame Bentlcy's diving, and her white man, and in short with all your stories. 1 Boom for cuckolds ' — here comes my company — Aug. 12. I had not time to finish my letter last night, for we did not return from the dismal play, which was in a barn at Kingston, till twelve o'clock at night. Our dinner passed off very well ; the Clive was very good company ; you know how much she admires Ashton's preaching. She says, she is always vastly good for two or three days after his sermons ; but by the time that Thursday comes, " Esher's peaceful grove, Where Kent and Nature vie for Pelham's love." — Pope. " Esher's groves, Where, in the sweetest solitude, embrae'd By the soft windings of the silent Mole, From courts and senates Pelham finds repose." — Thomson. Cunningham. 1 Woburn Farm, " a dainty whim," as Lord Bath calls it, near Chertsey, in Surrey, the beautiful seat of Philip Southcote, Esq. Mr. Southcote died 25th September, 1758. — Cunningham. 3 Compare Duke of Newcastle to Duke of Bedford, 31st July, 1748 (' Bedford Cor- respondence,' vol. i., p. 439). — Cunningham. 3 A cant name for the Duke of Cumberland. — Cunningham. 124 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1748. all their effect is worn out. I never saw more proper decent behaviour than Mrs. Pritchard's, and I assure you even Mr. Treasurer Pritchard 1 was far better than I expected. Yours ever, Chaucerides. 274. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Dear Harry : Strawberry Hill, Aug. 29, 1748. Whatever you may think, a campaign at Twickenham furnishes as little matter for a letter as an abortive one in Flanders. I can't say indeed that my generals wear black wigs, but they have long full- bottomed hoods which cover as little entertainment to the full. There's General my Lady Castlecomer, and General my Lady Dowager Ferrers ! Why, do you think I can extract more out of them than you can out of Hawley or Honeywood? 2 Your old women dress, go to the Duke's levee, see that the soldiers cock their hats right, sleep after dinner, and soak with their led-captains till bed-time, and tell a thousand lies of what they never did in their youth. Change hats for head-clothes, the rounds for visits, and led-captains for toad-eaters, and the life is the very same. In short, these are the people I live in the midst of, though not with ; and it is for want of more important histories that I have wrote to you seldom ; not, I give you my word, from the least negligence. My present and sole occupation is planting, in which I have made great progress, and talk very learnedly with the nurserymen, except that now and then a lettuce run to seed overturns all my botany, as I have more than once taken it for a curious West-Indian flowering shrub. Then the deliberation with which trees grow, is extremely inconvenient to my natural impatience. I lament living in so barbarous an age, when we are come to so little perfection in gardening. I am persuaded that a hundred and fifty years hence it will be as common to remove oaks a hundred and fifty years old, as it is now to transplant tulip-roots. I have even begun a treatise or panegyric on the great discoveries made by posterity in all arts and sciences, wherein I shall particularly descant on the great and cheap convenience of making trout-rivers — one of the improve- ments which Mrs. Kerwood wondered Mr. Hedges would not make at his country-house, but which was not then quite so common as it 1 Mrs. Pritchard's son was Treasurer of Drury Lane Theatre. — Cunningham. 2 General Honeywood, governor of Portsmouth. — Walpole. 1748.1 TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. 125 will be. I shall talk of a secret for roasting a wild boar and a whole pack of hounds alive, without hurting them, so that the wdiole chase may be brought up to table ; and for this secret, the Duke of Newcastle's grandson, if he can ever get a son, is to give a hundred thousand pounds. Then the delightfulness of having whole groves of humming-birds, tame tigers taught to fetch and carry, pocket spying-giasses to see all that is doing in China, with a thousand other toys, which we now look upon as impracticable, and winch pert posterity would laugh in one's face for staring at, while they are offering rewards for perfecting discoveries, of the principles of which we have not the least conception ! If ever this book should come forth, I must expect to have all the learned in arms against me, who measure all knowledge backward : some of them have discovered symptoms of all arts in Homer; and Pineda, 1 had so much faith in the accomplishments of his ancestors, that he believed Adam understood all sciences but politics. But as these great champions for our forefathers are dead, and Boileau not alive to hitch me into a verse with Pcrrault, I am determined to admire the learning of posterity, especially being convinced that half our present knowledge sprung from discovering the errors of what had formerly been called so. I don't think I shall ever make any great discoveries myself, and therefore shall be content to propose them to my descendants, like my Lord Bacon, who, as Dr. Shaw says very prettily in his preface to Boyle, " had the art of inventing arts :" or rather like a Marquis of Worcester, of whom I have seen a little book which, he calls ' A Century of Inventions,' 2 where he has set down a hundred machines to do impossibilities with, and not a single direction how to make the machines themselves. If I happen to be less punctual in my correspondence than I intend to be, you must conclude I am writing my book, which being designed for a panegyric, will cost me a great deal of trouble. The dedication, with your leave, shall be addressed to your son that is coming, or, with my Lady Ailesbury's leave, to your ninth son, who will be unborn nearer to the time I am writing of; always provided that she does not bring three at once, like my Lady Berkeley. 3 1 Pineda was a Spanish Jesuit, and a professor of theolog3 r . He died in 1637, after writing voluminous commentaries upon several books of the Holy Scriptures, besides an universal history of the church. — Walpole. 2 Compare article ' Worcester,' in Walpole's ' Royal and Noble Authors.' — Cunningham. 3 On the 22nd July, 1748, the Countess of Berkeley was delivered of three daugh- ters who died the same day. — Cunningham. 126 HOKACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1748. Well ! I have here set you the example of writing nonsense when one has nothing to say, and shall take it ill if you don't keep up the correspondence on the same foot. Adieu ! 275. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Strawberry Hill, Saturday-night, Sept. 3, 1748. All my sins to Mrs. Talbot you are to expiate ; I am here quite alone, and want nothing but your fetching to go to her. I have been in town for a day, just to see Lord Bury, who is come over with the Duke ; they return next Thursday. The Duke is fatter, and it is now not denied that he has entirely lost the sight of one eye. This did not surprise me so much as a bon mot of his. Gumley, who you know is grown Methodist, came to tell him, that as he was on duty, a tree in Hyde Park, near the powder magazine, had been set on fire ; the Duke replied, he hoped it was not by the new light. This nonsensical neiv light is extremely in fashion, and I shall not be surprised if we see a revival of all the folly and cant of the last age. Whitfield preaches continually at my Lady Huntingdon's, 1 at Chelsea ; my Lord Chesterfield, my Lord Bath, my Lady Townshend, my Lady Thanet, and others, have been to Tiear him. 2 What will you lay that, next winter, he is not run after, instead of Garrick ? I am just come from the play at Richmond, where I found the Duchess of Argyle and Lady Betty Campbell, and their court. We had a new actress, a Miss Clough ; an extremely fine tall figure, and very handsome : she spoke very justly, and with spirit. Grarrick is to produce her next winter ; and a Miss Charlotte Ramsay, 3 a poetess and deplorable actress. Garrick, Barry, and some more of the players, were there to see these new comedians ; it is to be their seminary. 1 Lady Selina Shirley (the Queen of the Methodists), daughter of Earl Ferrers and wife of Theophilus Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon. At her death, in 179], the number of her chapels was said to be sixty-four. — Cunningham. 2 Lord Bolingbroke, in a letter to the Earl of Marchmont of the 1st of Novem- ber, says, " I hope you heard from me by myself, as well as of me by Mr. Whitfield. This apostolical person preached some time ago at Lady Huntingdon's, and I should have been curious to hear him. Nothing kept me from going, but an imagination that there was to be a select auditory. That saint, our friend Chesterfield, was there ; and I heard from him an extreme good account of the sermon." — Marchmont Papers, vol. ii. p. 377. — Wright. 3 Better known as Mrs. Charlotte Lenox, and as the author of 'The Female Quixote.' She died in 1804. — Cunningham. 1748.] TO MR. MONTAGU. 127 Since I came home I have been disturbed with a strange, foolish woman, that lives at the great corner house yonder; she is an attorney's wife, and much given to the bottle. By the time she has finished that and daylight, she grows afraid of thieves, and makes the servants fire minute guns out of the garret windows. I remember persuading Mrs. Kerwood that there was a great smell of thieves, and this drunken dame seems literally to smell it. The divine Ashton, whom I suppose you will have seen when you receive this, will give you an account of the astonishment we were in last night at hearing guns ; I began to think that the Duke had brought some of his defeats from Flanders. I am going to tell you a long story, but you will please to remember that I don't intend to tell it well ; therefore, if you discover any beauties in the relation where I never intended them, don't conclude, as you did in your last, that I know they are there. If I had not a great command of my pen, and coidd not force it to write whatever nonsense I had heard last, you would be enough to pervert all one's letters, and put one upon keeping up one's character ; but as I write merely to satisfy you, I shall take no care but not to write well : I hate letters that are called good letters. You must know then, — but did you know a young fellow that was called Handsome Tracy ? He was walking in the Park with some of his acquaintance, and overtook three girls ; one was very pretty ; they followed them ; but the girls ran away, and the company grew tired of pursuing them, all but Tracy. (There are now three more guns gone off; she must be very drunk.) He followed to Whitehall gate, where he gave a porter a crown to dog them : the porter hunted them — he the porter. The girls ran all round Westminster, and back to the Haymarket, where the porter came up with them. He told the pretty one she must go with him, and kept her talking till Tracy arrived, quite out of breath, and exceedingly in love. He insisted on knowing where she lived, which she refused to tell him ; and after much disputing, went to the house of one of her companions, and Tracy with them. He there made her discover her family, a butterwoman in Craven Street, and engaged her to meet liini the next morning in the Park ; but before night he wrote her four love- letters ; and in the last offered two hundred pounds a-year to her, and a hundred a-year to Signora la Madre. Griselda made a confidence to a staymaker's wife, who told her that the swain was certainly in love enough to marry her, if she could determine to be virtuous and refuse his offers. " Ay," says she, " but if I should, and should lose 128 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1748. him by it." However, the measures of the cabinet council were decided for virtue ; and when she met Tracy the next morning in the Park, she was convoyed by her sister and brother-in-law, and stuck close to the letter of her reputation. She would do nothing ; she would go nowhere. At last, as an instance of prodigious compliance, she told him, that if he would accept such a dinner as a butter- woman's daughter could give him, he should be welcome. Away they walked to Craven Street : the mother borrowed some silver to buy a leg of mutton, and they kept the eager lover drinking till twelve at night, when a chosen committee waited on the faithful pair to the minister of May-fair. 1 The doctor was in bed, and swore he would not get up to marry the King, but that he had a brother over the way who perhaps would, and who did. The mother borrowed a pair of sheets, and they consummated at her house ; and the next day they went to their own palace. In two or three days the scene grew gloomy ; and the husband coming home one night, swore he could bear it no longer. " Bear ! bear what ? " — " Why, to be teased by all my acquaintance for marrying a butterwoinan's daughter. I am determined to go to France, and will leave you a handsome allowance/' — " Leave me ! why you don't fancy you shall leave me ? I will go with you." — " What, you love me then ? " — " JSTo matter whether I love you or not, but you shan't go without me." And they are gone ! If you know anybody that proposes marrying and travelling, I think they cannot do it in a more commodious method. I agree with you most absolutely in your opinion about Gray : he is the worst company in the world. From a melancholy turn, from living reclusely, and from a little too much dignity, he never converses easily; all his words are measured and chosen, and formed into sentences ; his writings are admirable ; he himself is not agreeable. 2 There are still two months to London : if you could discover your own mind for any three or four days of that space, I will either go with you to the Tigers or be glad to see you here ; but I positively 1 The Rev. Alexander Keith. In Keith's chapel the Countess of Orford was married to Mr. Shirley, and the youngest of the Gunnings to the Duke of Hamilton. — Cunningham. 3 Dr. Beattie says, in a letter to Sir W. Forbes, " Gray's letters very much resemble what his conversation was : he had none of the airs of either a scholar or a poet ; and though on those and all other subjects he spoke to me with the utmost freedom, and without any reserve, he was in general company much more silent than one could have wished." — Wright. 1748.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 129 will ask you neither one nor t'other any more. I have raised seven-and-twenty bantams from the patriarchs you sent me. Adieu ! 276. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Strawberry Hill, Sept. 18, 1748. I have two letters of yours to account for, and nothing to plead but my old insolvency. Oh ! yes, I have to scold you, which you find is an inexhaustible fund with me. You sent me your demele 1 with the whole city of Florence, and charged me to keep it secret — and the first person I saw was my Lord Hobart, who was full of the account he had received from you. You might as well have told a woman an improper secret, and expected to have it kept ! but you may be very easy, for unless it reaches my Lady Pomfret or my Lady Orford, I dare say it will never get back to Florence ; and for those two ladies, I don't think it likely that they should hear it, for the first is in a manner retired from the world, and the world is retired from the second. Now I have vented my anger, I am seriously sorry for you, to be exjiosed to the impertinence of those silly Florentine women : they deserve a worse term than silly, since they pretend to any characters. How could you act with so much temper ? If they had treated me in this manner, I should have avowed ten times more than they pretended you had done : but you are an absolute minister ! I am much obliged to Prince Beauvau for remembering me, and should be extremely pleased to show him all manner of attentions here : you know I profess great attachment to that family for their civilities to me. But how gracious the Princess has been to you ! I am quite jealous of her dining with you : I remember what a rout there w r as to get her for half of half a quarter of an hour to your assembly. The Bishop of London [Gibson] is dead ; having, luckily for his family, as it proves, refused the archbishopric. 2 We owe him the 1 A Madame Ubaldini having raised a scandalous story of two persons whom she saw together in Mr. Mann's garden at one of his assemblies, and a scurrilous sonnet having been made upon the occasion, the Florentine ladies for some time pretended that it would hurt their characters to come any more to his assembly. — Walpole. 2 Dr. Edmund Gibson had been very intimate with Sir Robert Walpole, and was designed by him for archbishop after the death of Wake [1737] ; but setting himself at the head of the clergy against the Quaker bill, he broke with Sir Robert and lost the archbishopric, which was given to Potter; but on his death [1747], the suc- ceeding ministry offered it to Dr. Gibson. — Walpole. Compare Lord Hervey'a Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 108. — Cunningham. vol. II. K 180 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1748. justice to say, that though, he had broke with ray father, he always expressed himself most handsomely about him, and without any resentment or ingratitude. Your brothers are coming to dine with me ; your brother Gal. is extremely a favourite with me : I took to him for his resemblance to von, but am grown to love him upon his own fund. The peace is still in a cloud : according to custom, we have harried on our complaisance before our new friends were at all ready with theirs. There was a great Regency 1 kept in town, to take off the prohibition of commerce with Spain : when they were met, somebody asked if Spain was ready to take off theirs ? — " Oh, Lord ! we never thought of that ! " They sent for Wall, 2 and asked him if his court would take the same step with us ? He said, " he believed they might, but he had no orders about it." However, we proceeded, and hitherto are bit. Adieu ! by the first opportunity I shall send you the two books of Houghton, for yourself and Dr. Cocchi. My Lord Orford is much mended: my uncle has no prospect of ever removing from his couch. 277. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Strawberry Hill, Sept. 25, 1748. I shall write you a very short letter, for I don't know what business we have to be corresponding when we might be together. I really wish to see you, for you know I am convinced of what you say to me. It is few people I ask to come hither, and if possible, still fewer that I wish to see here. The disinterestedness of your friendship for me has always appeared, and is the only sort that for the future I will ever accept, and consequently I never expect any more friends. As to trying to make any by obligations, I have had such woful success, that, for fear of thinking still worse than I do of the world, I will never try more. But you are abominable to reproach me with not letting you go to Houghton : have not I offered a thousand times to carry you there ? I mean, since it was my brother's : I did not expect to prevail with you before ; for you are so unaccountable, that you not only will never do a dirty thing, bat you won't even venture the appearance of it. I have often 1 This means a meeting of the persons composing the Regency during the Kings absence in Hanover. — Dover. 2 General Wall, the Spanish ambassador. — Walpole. 1748.] TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. 131 applied to you in my own mind a very pretty passage that I remem- ber in a letter of Chillingworth ; " you would not do that for pre- ferment that you would not do but for preferment." You oblige me much in what you say about my nephews, and make me happy in the character you have heard of Lord Malpas ; I am extremely inclined to believe he deserves it. I am as sorry to hear what a companion Lord Walpole has got : there has been a good deal of noise about him, but I had laughed at it, having traced the worst reports to his gracious mother [Orford], who is now sacrificing the character of her son to her aversion for her husband. If we lived under the Jewish dispensation, how I should tremble at my brother's leaving no children by her, and its coming to my turn to raise him up issue ! Since I gave you the account of the Duchess of Ireland's piked horns among the tombs of Veres, I have found a long account in Bayle of the friar, who, as I remember to have read somewhere, preached so vehemently against that fashion : it was called Hennin, and the monk's name was Thomas Conecte. He was afterwards burnt at Home for censuring the lives of the clergy. As our his- tories say that Anne of Bohemia introduced the fashion here, it is probable that the French learnt it from us, and were either long before they caught it, or long in retaining the mode ; for the Duke of Ireland died in 1389, and Conecte was burnt at Home in 1434. There were, indeed, several years between his preaching down Hennins and his death, but probably not near five-and-forty years, and half that term was a long duration for so outrageous a fashion. But I have found a still more entertaining fashion in another place in Bayle, which was, the women wearing looking-glasses upon their bellies : I don't conceive for what use. Adieu ! don't write any more, but come. 278. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Dear Harry : Strawberry Hill, Oct. 6, 1748. I am sorry our wishes clash so much. Besides that I hare no natural inclination for the Parliament, it will particularly disturb me now in the middle of all my planting ; for which reason I have never inquired when it will meet, and cannot help you to guess — but I should think not hastily — for I believe the peace, at least the evacuations, are not in so prosperous a way as to be ready to make 132 HOEACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1743. any figure in the King's speech. But I speak from a distance ; it may all be very toward : our ministers enjoy the consciousness of their wisdom, as the good do of their virtue, and take no pains to make it shine before men. In the mean time, we have several collateral emoluments from the pacification : all our milliners, tailors, tavern-keepers, and young gentlemen are tiding to France for our improvement in luxury ; and as I foresee we shall be told on their return that we have lived in a total state of blindness for these six years, and gone absolutely retrograde to all true taste in every particular, I have already begun to practise walking on my head, and doing every thing the wrong way. Then Charles Frederick has turned all his virtu into fireworks, and, by his influence at the ordnance, has prepared such a spectacle for the proclamation of the peace as is to surpass all its predecessors of bouncing memory. It is to open with a concert of fifteen hundred hands, and conclude with so many hundred thousand crackers all set to music, that all the men killed in the war are to be wakened with the crash, as if it was the day of judgment, and fall a dancing, like the troops in the ' Rehearsal.' I wish you could see him making squibs of his papil- lotes, and bronzed over Avith a patina of gunpowder, and talking himself still hoarser on the superiority that his firework will have over the Roman naumachia. I am going to dinner with Lady Sophia Thomas 1 at Hampton Court, where I was to meet the Cardigans ; but I this minute receive a message that the Duchess of Montagu 2 is extremely ill, which I am much concerned for on Lady Cardigan's 3 account, whom I grow every day more in love with ; you may imagine, not her person, which is far from improved lately ; but, since I have been here, I have lived much with them, and, as George Montagu says, in all my practice I never met a better understanding, nor more really estimable qualities : such a dignity in her way of thinking ; so little idea of anything mean or ridiculous, and such proper contempt for both ! Adieu ! I must go dress for dinner, and you perceive that I wish I had, but have nothing to tell you. 1 Lady Sophia Keppel, daughter of the first Earl of Albemarle, and wife of General Thomas. — Cunningham. 2 She was mother to Lady Cardigan, and daughter to the great Duke of Marl- borough. — Walpole. 3 Lady Mary Montagu, third daughter of John, Duke of Montagu, and wife of George Brudenell Earl of Cardigan, afterwards created Duke of Montagu.— Walpole. 1748.1 TO SIR HORACE MANN. 133 279. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Strawberry Hill, Oct. 20, 1748. You are very formal to send me a ceremonious letter of thanks ; you see I am less punctilious, for having nothing to tell you, I did not answer your letter. I have been in the empty town for a day : Mrs. Muscovy and I cannot devise where you have planted jasmine ; I am all plantation, and sprout away like any chaste nymph in the Metamorphosis. They say the old monarch at Hanover has got a new mistress ; I I fear he ought to have got a new Now I talk of getting, Mr. Fox has got the ten thousand pound prize ; and the Violette, as it is said, Coventry 1 for a husband. It is certain that at the fine masquerade he was following her, as she was under the Countess's arm, 2 who, pulling off her glove, moved her wedding ring up and down her finger, which it seems was to signify that no other terms would be accepted. It is the year for contra- band marriages, though I do not find Fanny Murray's is certain. I liked her spirit in an instance I heard t'other night : she was com- plaining of want of money : Sir Robert Atkins immediately gave her a twenty pound note ; she said " D — n your twenty pound ! what does it signify ? " clapped it between two pieces of bread and butter, and ate it. Adieu ! nothing should make me leave off so shortly but that my gardener waits for me, and you must allow that he is to be preferred to all the world. 280. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Strawbeny Hill, Oct. 24, 1748. I have laughed heartily at your adventure of Milord Richard Onslow ; 3 it is an admirable adventure ! I am not sure that Ric- cardi's absurdity was not the best part of it. AVhere were the 1 William, fifth Earl of Coventry; died 1751. — Cunningham. 2 The Countess of Burlington. — Cunningham. s One Daniel Bets, a Dutchman or Fleming, who called himself my Lord Richard Onslow, and pretended to be the Speaker's son, having forged letters of credit and drawn money from several bankers, came to Florence, and was received as an English- man of quality by Marquis Riccardi, who could not be convinced by Mr. Mann of the imposture till the adventurer ran away on foot to Rome in the night. — Walpolr. 134 HORACE WALPOLES LETTERS. [1748. Binuncinis, the Panciaticis, and Pandolfinis ? were tliey as ignorant too ? What a hrave topic it would have been for Mccolini, if he had been returned, to display all his knowledge of England ! Your brothers are just returned from Houghton, where they found my brother extremely recovered : my uncle too, I hear, is better ; but I think that an impossible recovery. 1 Lord Walpole is setting out on his travels : I shall be impatient to have him at Florence ; I natter myself you will like him : I, who am not troubled with par- tiality to my family, admire him much. Your brother has got the two books of Houghton, and will send them by the first opportunity : I am by no means satisfied with them ; they are full of faults, and the two portraits wretchedly unlike. The peace is signed between us, France, and Holland, but does not give the least joy ; the stocks do not rise, and the merchants are unsatisfied ; they say France will sacrifice us to Spain, which has not yet signed : in short, there has not been the least symptom of public rejoicing ; but the government is to give a magnificent firework. I believe there are no news, but I am here all alone, planting. The Parliament does not meet till the 29th of next month : I shall go to town but two or three days before that. The Bishop of Salis- bury [Sherlock], who refused Canterbury, accepts London, upon a near prospect of some fat fines. Old Tom Walker 2 is dead, and has left vast wealth and good places ; but I have not heard where either are to go. Adieu ! I am very paragraphical, and you see have nothing to say. 281. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Dec. 2, 1748. Our King is returned and our Parliament met : we expected no- thing but harmony and tranquillity, and love of the peace ; but the very first day opened with a black cloud, that threatens a stormy session. To the great surprise of the ministry, the Tories appear in intimate league with the Prince's party, and both agreed in warm and passionate expressions on the treaty : we shall not have the 1 Yet he did in great measure recover by the use of soap and limewater.— Walpole. 2 He was Surveyor of the Roads ; had been a kind of toad-eater to Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Godolphin ; was a great frequenter of Newmarket, and a notorious usurer. — Walpole. 1748.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 135 discussion till after Christmas. My uncle [old Horace], who is extremely mended by soap, and the hopes of a peerage, is come up, and the very first day broke out in a volley of treaties : though he is altered, you would be astonished at his spirits. We talk much of the Chancellor's [Hardwicke's] resigning the seals, from weariness of the fatigue, and being made President of the Council, with other consequent changes, which I will write you if they happen ; but as this has already been a discourse of six months, I don't give it you for certain. Mr. Chute, to whom alone I communicated Niccolini's banish- ment, though it is now talked of from the Duke of Bedford's office, says " he is sorry the Abbe is banished for the only thing winch he ever saw to commend in him, — his abusing the Tuscan ministry." I must tell you another admirable bon mot of Mr. Chute, now I am mentioning him. Passing by the door of Mrs. Edwards, who died of drams, he saw the motto which the undertakers had placed to her escutcheon, Mors janua vital, he said " it ought to have been Mors aqua vitce." The burlettas are begun ; I think, not decisively liked or con- demned yet : their success is certainly not rapid, though Pertici is excessively admired. Garrick says he is the best comedian he ever saw : but the women are execrable, not a pleasing note amongst them. Lord Middlesex has stood a trial with Monticelli for arrears of salary, in Westminster-hall, and even let his own hand- writing be proved against him ! You may imagine he was cast. Hume Campbell, Lord Marchmont's brother, a favourite advocate, and whom the ministry have pensioned out of the Opposition into silence, was his counsel, and protested, striking his breast, that he had never set his foot but once into an opera-house in his life. This affectation of British patriotism is excellently ridiculous in a man so known : I have often heard my father say, that of all the men he ever knew, Lord Marchmont and Hume Campbell were the most abandoned in their professions to him on their coming into the world : he was hindered from accepting their services by the present Duke of Argyll, of whose faction they were not. They then flung themselves into the Opposition, where they both have made great figures, till the elder was shut out of Parliament by his father's death, and the younger, being very foolishly dismissed from being Solicitor to the Prince, in favour of Mr. Bathurst, 1 accepted a pension from the 1 The Hon. Henry Bathurst, second son of Allen, first Lord Bathurst. He became 136 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1748. Court, and seldom comes into the House, and has lately taken to live on roots and to study astronomy. 1 Lord Marchmont, you know, was one of Pope's heroes, had a place in Scotland on Lord Chesterfield's coming into the ministry, though he had not power to bring him into the sixteen ; and was very near losing his place last winter, on being supposed the author of the famous apology for Lord Chester- field's resignation. This is the history of these Scotch brothers, which I have told you for want of news. Two Oxford scholars are condemned to two years' imprisonment for treason ; 2 and their Vice- Chancellor, for winking at it, is soon to be tried. What do you say to the young Pretender persisting to stay in France ? It will not be easy to persuade me that it is without the approbation of that court. Adieu ! 282. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Dec. 15, 1748. I conclude your Italy talks of nothing but the young Pretender's imprisonment at Vincennes. I don't know whether he be a Stuart, but I am sure by his extravagance he has proved himself of English extraction ! What a mercy that we had not him here ! with a temper so impetuous and obstinate, as to provoke a French govern- ment when in their power, what would he have done with an English heir to the title upon the death, without issue, of his elder brother, the Hon. Benjamin Bathurst, in 1761. In 1746 he was appointed Attorney-General to Frederick, Prince of Wales; in 1754, one of the puisne judges of the court of Common Pleas, and in 1771, Lord Chancellor. He was, upon this occasion, created a peer, by the title of Lord Apsley. He succeeded his father as second Earl Bathurst in 1775, and died in 1794. — Dover. 1 In the preceding March, Lord Marchmont had married a second wife, Miss Crampton. The circumstances attending this marriage are thus related by David Hume, in a letter to Mr. Oswald, dated January 29, 1748 ; — "Lord Marchmont has had the most extraordinary adventure in the world. About three weeks ago he was at the play, when he espied in one of the boxes a fair virgin, whose looks, airs, and manners had such a wonderful effect upon him, as was visible by every bystander. His raptures were so undisguised, his looks so expressive of passion, his inquiries so earnest, that every person took notice of it. He soon was told that her name was Crampton, a linendraper's daughter, who had been bankrupt last year. He wrote next morning to her father, desiring to visit his daughter on honourable terms, and in a few days she will be the Countess of Marchmont. Could you ever suspect the ambitious, the severe, the bustling, the impetuous, the violent Marchmont, of becoming so tender and gentle a swain — an Orondates ! " — Wright. 2 In drinking the Pretender's health, and using seditious expressions against the King. They were also sentenced " to walk round Westminster Hall, with a label affixed to their foreheads, denoting their crime and sentence, and to ask pardon of the several courts ; " which they accordingly performed. — Wright. 1748.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 137 government in his power ? An account came yesterday that he, with his Sheridan and a Mr. Stafford (who was a creature of my Lord Bath), are transmitted to Pont deJBeauvoisin, under a solemn promise never to return into France (I suppose, unless they send for him). It is said that a Mr. Dun, who married Alderman Parsons's eldest daughter, is in the Bastile for having struck the officer when the young man was arrested. Old Somerset [the proud Duke] is at last dead, and the Duke of Newcastle Chancellor of Cambridge, to his heart's content. Somerset tendered his pride even beyond his hate ; for he has left the present Duke all the furniture of his palaces, and forbore to charge the estate, according to a power he had, with five-and-thirty thousand pounds. To his Duchess, 1 who has endured such a long slavery with him, he has left nothing but one thousand pounds and a small farm, besides her jointure ; giving the whole of his unsettled estate, which is about six thousand pounds a year, equally between his two daughters, and leaving it absolutely in their own powers now, though neither are of age ; and to Lady Frances, the eldest, he has additionally given the fine house built by Inigo Jones, in Lincoln's-inn-fields, (which he had bought of the Duke of Ancaster for the Duchess,) hoping that his daughter will let her mother live with her. To Sir Thomas Bootle he has given half a borough, and a whole one [Mid- hurst] to Iris grandson Sir Charles Windham, 2 with an estate that cost him fourteen thousand pounds. To Mr. Obrien, 3 Sir Charles Windham's brother, a single thousand ; and to Miss Windham an hundred a-year, which he gave her annually at Christmas, and is just such a legacy as you would give to a housekeeper to prevent her from going to service again. She is to be married immediately to the second Grenville ; 4 they have waited for a larger legacy. The famous settlement 5 is found, which gives Sir Charles Windham 1 Charlotte Finch, sister of the Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham, second wife of Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset ; by whom she had two daughters, Lady Frances, married to the Marquis of Granby, and Lady Charlotte to Lord Guernsey, eldest son of the Earl of Aylesford. — Walpole. ~ Afterwards Earl of Egremont. — Dover. 3 Afterwards created Earl of Thomond, in Ireland. — Dover. 4 George Grenville. The issue of this marriage were the late Marquis of Bucking- ham [died 1813], the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville [famed for his Library], and Lord Grenville [died 1834] ; besides several daughters. — Dover. 5 The Duke's first wife was the heiress of the house of Northumberland ; she made a settlement of her estate, in case her sons died without heirs-male, on the children of her daughters. Her eldest daughter, Catherine, married Sir William Wyndham, whose son, Sir Charles, by the death of Lord Beauchamp, only son of Algernon, Earl of Hertford, and afterwards Duke of Somerset, succeeded to the greatest part of the 138 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1748. about twelve thousand pounds a-year of the Percy estate after the present Duke's death ; the other five, with the barony of Percy, must go to Lady Betty Smithson. 1 I don't know whether you ever heard that, in Lord Granville's administration, he had prevailed with the King to grant the earldom of Northumberland to Sir Charles ; Lord Hertford represented against it ; at last the King- said he would give it to whoever they would make it appear was to have the Percy estate ; but old Somerset refused to let anybody see his writings, and so the affair dropped, everybody believing there was no such settlement. John Stanhope 2 of the Admiralty is dead, and Lord Chesterfield gets thirty thousand pounds for his life : I hear Mr. Villiers is most likely to succeed to that board. You know all the Stanhopes are a family aux bon-mots : I must tell you one of this John. He was sitting by an old Mr. Curzon, a nasty wretch, and very covetous : his nose wanted blowing, and continued to want it : at last Mr. Stanhope, with the greatest good-breeding, said, " Indeed, Sir, if you don't wipe your nose, you will lose that drop." I am extremely pleased with Monsieur de Mirepoix's 3 being named for this embassy ; and I beg you will desire Princesse Craon to recommend me to Madame, for I would be particularly acquainted with her as she is their daughter. Hogarth has run a great risk since the peace ; he went to France, and was so imprudent as to be taking a sketch of the drawbridge at Calais. He was seized and carried to the governor, where he was forced to prove his vocation by producing several caricaturas of the French ; particularly a scene 4 of the shore, with an immense piece of beef landing for the Lion- d' argent, the English inn at Calais, and several hungry friars following it. They were much diverted with his drawings, and dismissed him. Percy estate, preferably to Elizabeth, daughter of the same Algernon, who was mar- ried to Sir Hugh Smithson. — Walpole. 1 Elizabeth, daughter of Algernon, last Duke of Somerset of the younger branch. She was married to Sir Hugh Smithson, Bart., who became successively Earl and Duke of Northumberland. — Dover. 2 The Hon. John Stanhope, youngest brother of the famous Earl of Chesterfield. — Cunningham. 3 The Marquis de Mirepoix, marshal of France, and ambassador to England. His wife was a woman of ability, and was long in great favour with Louis the Fifteenth and his successive mistresses. — Dover. 4 He engraved and published it on his return. — Walpole. The " Gate of Calais." Pine the Engraver as the Friar. The original picture is in the possession of the Earl of Charlemont. — Cunningham. 1748.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 139 Mr. Chute lives at the Heralds' office in your service, and yester- day got particularly acquainted with your great-great-grandmother. He says, by her character, she would be extremely shocked at your wet-broivn-paperness, and that she was particularly famous for breaking her own pads. Adieu ! 283. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Strawbemj Hill, Dec. 26, 1748. Did you ever know a more absolute country-gentleman ? Here am I come down to what you call keep my Christmas ! indeed it is not in all the forms ; I have stuck no laurel and holly in my windows, I eat no turkey and chine, I have no tenants to invite, I have not brought a single soul with me. The weather is excessively stormy, but has been so warm, and so entirely free from frosts the whole winter, that not only several of my honeysuckles arc come out, but I have literally a blossom upon a nectarine-tree, which I believe was never seen in this climate before on the 2Gth of December. I am extremely busy here planting; I have got four more acres, which makes my territory prodigious in a situation where land is so scarce, and villas as abundant as fomerly at Tivoli and Baiae. I have now about fourteen acres, and am making a terrace the whole breadth of my garden on the brow of a natural hill, with meadows at the foot, and commanding the river, the village 1 , Richmond-hill, and the park, and part of Kingston — but I hope never to show it you. What you hint at in your last, increase of character, I should be extremely against your stirring in now: the whole system of embassies is in confusion, and more candidates than employments. I would have yours pass, as it is, for settled. If you were to be talked of, especially for a higher character at Florence, one don't know whom the additional dignity might tempt. Hereafter, perhaps, it might be practicable for you, but I would by no means advise your soliciting it at present. Sir Charles Williams is the great obstacle to all arrangement : Mr. Fox makes a point of his going to Turin ; the ministry, who do not love him, are not for his going anywhere. Mr. Yilliers is talked of for Vienna, though just made a lord of the Admiralty. There were so many competitors, that at last Mr. Pelham said he would carry in two names to the King, and he should choose (a great indulgence !). Sir Peter Warren and Yilliers were carried in ; the King chose the latter. I believe there 140 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1748. is a little of Lord Granville in this, and in a Mr. Hooper, who was turned out with the last ministry, and is now made a Commissioner of the Customs : the pretence is, to vacate a seat in Parliament for Sir Thomas Eobinson, who is made a Lord of Trade ; a scurvy reward after making the peace. Mr. Villiers, you know, has been much gazetted, and had his letters to the King of Prussia printed ; but he is a very silly fellow. I met him the other day at Lord Granville's, where, on the subject of a new play, 1 he began to give the Earl an account of Coriolanus, with reflections on his history. Lord Granville at last grew impatient, and said, " Well ! well ! it is an old story ; it may not be true." As we went out together, I said, " I like the approach to this house." 2 — " Yes," said Villiers, " and I love to be in it ; for I never come here but I hear something I did not know before." Last year, I asked him to attend a controverted election in which I was interested ; he told me he would with all his heart, but that he had resolved not to vote in elections for the first session, for that he owned he could not understand them — not understand them ! Lord St. John 3 is dead ; he had a place in the Custom- House of 1200/. a year, which his father had bought of the Duchess of Kendal for two lives, for 4000/. Mr. Pelham has got it for Lord Lincoln and his child. I told you in my last a great deal about old Somerset's will : they have since found 150,000/. which goes, too, between the two daughters. It had been feared that he would leave nothing to the youngest ; two or three years ago, he waked after dinner and found himself upon the floor ; she used to watch him, had left him, and he had fallen from his couch. He forbade every body to speak to her ; but yet to treat her with respect as his daughter. She went about the house for a year, without anybody daring openly to utter a syllable to her ; and it was never known that he had forgiven her. His whole stupid life was a series of pride and tyranny. There have been great contests in the Privy Council about the trial of the Vice- Chancellor of Oxford : the Duke of Bedford and Lord Gower pressed it extremely. The latter asked the Attorney- General [Byder] his opinion, who told him the evidence did not appear strong enough : Lord Gower said, " Mr. Attorney, you seem 1 Thomson's ' Coriolanus.' — Cunningham. 2 Lord Granville's house, in Arlington Street, was the lowest in the street on the side of the Green Park. — Dover. 3 Half-brother of the celebrated Viscount Bolingbroke.— Cunningham 1748.] TO SIR HORACE MAls T N. 141 to be very lukewarm for your party." He replied, " My lord, I never was lukewarm for my party, nor ever was but of one party." 1 There is a scheme for vesting in the King the nomination of the Chancellor of that University, 2 who has much power — and much noise it would make ! The Lord Chancellor is to be High Steward of Cambridge, in succession to the Duke of Newcastle. The families of Devonshire and Chesterfield have received a great blow at Derby, where, on the death of John Stanhope, they set up another of the name. One Mr. Eivett, the Duke's chief friend and manager, stood himself, and carried it by a majority of seventy-one. Lord Chesterfield had sent down credit for ten thousand pounds. The Cavendish's, however, are very happy, for Lady Hartington 3 has produced a son. 4 I asked a very intelligent person if there could be any foundation for the story of Niccolini's banishment taking its rise from com- plaints of our court : he answered very sensibly, that even if our court had complained, which was most unlikely, it was not at all probable that the court of Yienna would have paid any regard to it. There is another paragragh in your same letter in which I must set you right : you talk of the sudden change of my opinion about Lord Walpole : * I never had but one opinion about him, and that was always most favourable : nor can I imagine what occasioned your mistake, unless my calling him a wild boy, where I talked of the consequences of his father's death. I meant nothing in the world by wild, but the thoughtlessness of a boy of nineteen, who comes to the possession of a peerage and an estate. My partiality, I am sure, could never let me say anything else of him. Mr. Chute's sister is dead. When I came from town Mr. Whithed had heard nothing of her will : she had about four thou- sand pounds. The brother is so capricious a monster, that we almost hope she has not given the whole to our friend. You will be diverted with a story I am going to tell you ; it is very long, and so is my letter already ; but you perceive I am in the country and have nothing to hurry me. There is about town a 1 Lord Gower had been a Jacobite. (See vol. i, p. 176.) — Cunningham. 2 In consequence of the University's always electing Jacobites to that office. — Dover. 3 Lady Charlotte Boyle, second daughter of Richard, Earl of Burlington and Cork, and wife of William, Marquis of Hartington. — Walpole. 4 William Cavendish, afterwards fifth Duke of Devonshire, and K.G. He died ic 1811.— Dover. * George, third Earl of Orford. — Dover. 142 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1748. Sir William Burdett, 1 a man of a very good family, but most infamous character. He formerly was at Paris with a Mrs. Penn, a Quaker's wife, whom he there bequeathed to the public, and was afterwards a sharper at Brussels, and lately came to England to discover a plot for poisoning the Prince of Orange, in which I believe he was poisoner, poison, and informer all himself. In short, to give you his character at once, there is a wager entered in the bet-book at White's (a MS. 2 of which I may one day or other give you an account), that the first baronet that will be hanged is this Sir William Burdett. About two months ago he met at St. James's a Lord Castledurrow/ a young Irishman, and no genius as you will find, and entered into conversation with him : the Lord, seeing a gentleman, fine, polite, and acquainted with everybody, invited him to dinner for next day, and a Captain Rodney, 4 a young seaman, who has made a fortune by very gallant behaviour during the war. At dinner it came out, that neither the Lord nor the Captain had ever been at any Pelham-levees. " Good God ! " said Sir William, " that must not be so any longer ; I beg I may carry you to both the. Duke and Mr. Pelham: I flatter myself I am very well with both." The appointment was made for the next Wednesday and Friday : in the mean time, he invited the two young men to dine with him the next day. When they came, he presented them to a lady, dressed foreign, as a princess of the house of Brandenburg : she had a toad-eater, and there was another man, who gave himself for a count. After dinner Sir William looked at his watch, and said, " J" — s ! it is not so late as I thought by an hour ; Princess, will your Highness say how we shall divert ourselves till it is time to go to the play ! " " Oh ! " said she, "for my part you know I abominate everything but pharaoh." " I am very sorry, Madam," replied he, very gravely, " but I don't know whom your Highness will get to tally to you ; you know I am ruined by dealing." " Oh! " 1 Sir William Vigors Burdett, of Dunmore, in the county of Carlow. — Wright. 2 See some extracts from this book in Cunningham's Handbook of London, Past and Present. Second Edition. 1850. — Cunningham. 8 Henry Flower, Lord Castledurrow, and afterwards created Viscount Ashbrook. — Walpole. 4 George Brydges Eodne}\ He had distinguished himself in Lord Hawke's victory. In 1761 he took the French island of Martinique. In 1779 he met and defeated the Spanish fleet commanded by Don Juan de Langara, and relieved the garrison of Gibraltar, which was closely besieged; and in 1782, he obtained his celebrated victory over the French fleet commanded by Count de Grasse. For this latter service he was created a peer, by the title of Baron Rodney, of Rodney Stoke, in the county of Somerset. He died May 24, 1792. — Dover. 1749.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 143 says she, " the Count will deal to us." " I would with all my soul," said the Count, " but I protest I have no money about me." She insisted : at last the Count said, " Since your Highness com- mands us peremptorily, I believe Sir William has four or five hundred pounds of mine, that I am to pay away in the city to- morrow ; if he will be so good as to step to his bureau for that sum, I will make a bank of it." Mr. Rodney owns he was a little astonished at seeing the Count shuffle with the faces of the cards upwards ; but concluding that Sir William Burdett, at whose house he was, was a relation or particular friend of Lord Castledurrow, he was unwilling to affront my lord. In short, my lord and he lost about a hundred and fifty a-piece, and it was settled that they should meet for payment the next morning at breakfast at Ranelagh. In the mean time Lord C. had the curiosity to inquire a little into the character of his new friend the Baronet; and being au fait, he went up to him at Ranelagh and apostrophised him ; " Sir William, here is the sum I think I lost last night ; since that I have heard that you are a professed pickpocket, and therefore desire to have no farther acquaintance with you." Sir William bowed, took the money and no notice ; but as they were going away, he followed Lord Castledurrow and said, " Good God, my lord, my equipage is not come ; will you be so good as to set me down at Buckingham- gate?" and without staying for an answer, whipped into the chariot, and came to town with him. If you don't admire the coolness of this impudence, I shall wonder. Adieu ! I have written till I can scarce write my name. 1 284. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Strawberry Hill, March 4, 1749. I have been so shut up in the House of Commons for this last fortnight or three weeks, that I have not had time to write you a line : we have not had such a session since the famous beginning of last Parliament. I am come hither for a day or two of rest and air, and find the additional pleasure of great beauty in my improve- ments : I could talk to you through the whole sheet, and with much more satisfaction, upon this head ; but I shall postpone my own amusement to yours, for I am sure you want much more to know what has been doing in Parliament than at Strawberry Hill. You 1 The letter which immediately followed this miscarried. — Walpole. 144 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1749. will conclude that we have been fighting over the peace ; but we have not. It is laid before Parliament, but will not be taken up ; the Opposition foresee that a vote of approbation would pass, and therefore will not begin upon it, as they wish to reserve it for cen- sure in the next reign — or perhaps the next reign does not care to censure now what he must hereafter maintain — and the ministry do not seem to think their treaty so perfect as not to be liable to blame, should it come to be canvassed. We have been then upon several other matters : but first I should tell you, that from the utmost tranquillity and impotence of a minority, there is afr once started up so formidable an Opposition as to divide 137 against 203. 1 The minority is headed by the Prince, who has continued opposing, though very unsuccessfully, ever since the removal of Lord Granville, and the desertion of the patriots. He stayed till the Pelhams had bought off every man of parts in his train, and then began to form his party. Lord Granville has never come into it, for fear of breaking with the King ; and seems now to be patching up again with his old enemies. If Lord Bath has dealt with the Prince, it has been underhand. His ministry has had at the head of it poor Lord Baltimore, a very good-natured, weak, honest man; and Dr. Lee, a civilian, who was of Lord Granville's Admiralty, and is still much attached to him. He is a grave man, and a good speaker, but of no very bright parts, and, from his way of life and profession, much ignorant of, and unfit for, a ministry. You will wonder what new resources the Prince has discovered — why, he has found them all in Lord Egmont, whom you have heard of under the name of Lord Perceval ; but his father, an Irish Earl, is lately dead. As he is likely to make a very considerable figure in our history, I shall give you a more particular account of him. He has always earnestly studied our history and constitution and antiquities, with very ambitious views ; and practised speaking early in the Irish Parliament. Indeed, this turn is his whole fund, for though he is between thirty and forty, he knows nothing of the world, and is always unpleasantly dragging the conversation to political dis- sertations. When very young, as he has told me himself, he dabbled in writing Craftsmen and party-papers ; but the first event that made him known, was his carrying the Westminster 1 Upon the last clause of the Mutiny Bill, an amendment to render half-pay officers subject to the act, only in case of actual war, insurrection, rebellion or invasion, was rejected by 203 to 137. — Wright. 1749] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 145 election at the end of my father's ministry, which he amply described in the history of his own family, a genealogical work called "The History of the House of Yvery," 1 a work which < st him three thousand pounds, as the Heralds informed Mr. Chute and me, when we went to their office on your business ; and which was so ridiculous, that he has since tried to suppress all the copies. It concluded with the description of the Westminster election, in these or some such words, " And here let us leave this young nobleman struggling for the dying liberties of his country ! " When the change in the ministry happened, and Lord Bath was so abused by the remnant of the patriots, Lord Egmont published his celebrated pamphlet, called " Faction Detected/' a work which the Pitts and Lytteltons have never forgiven him ; and which, though he continued voting and sometimes speaking with the Pelhams, made him quite unpopular during all the last Parliament. When the new elections approached, he stood on his own bottom at Weobly in Herefordshire ; but his election being contested, he applied for Mr. Pelham's sup- port, who carried it for him in the House of Commons. This will always be a material blot in his life : for he had no sooner secured his seat, than he openly attached himself to the Prince, and has since been made a Lord of his Bedchamber. At the opening of this session, he published an extreme good pamphlet, which has made infinite noise, called "An Examination of the Principles and Conduct of the two Brothers," (the Pelhams,) and as Dr. Lee has been laid up with the gout, Egmont has taken the lead in the Opposition, and has made as great a figure as perhaps was ever made in so short a time. He is very bold and resolved, master of vast knowledge, and speaks at once with fire and method. His words are not picked and chosen like Pitt's, but his language is useful, clear, and strong. He has already by his parts and resolution mastered his great unpopularity, so far as to be heard with the utmost attention, though I believe nobody had ever more various difficulties to combat. All the old corps hate him, on my father and Mr. Pelham's account ; the new part of the Ministry on their own. The Tories have not quite forgiven his having left them in the last Parliament : besides that, they are now governed by one Prowse, 2 a cold plausible fellow, and a great well-wisher to Mr. Pelham. Lord Strange, 3 a busy Lord of a party by himself, yet voting generally 1 See vol. i. p. 107. — Cunningham. 2 Thomas Prowse, Esq., M.P.for Somersetshire, died 1767, aged 59. — Cunningham 3 James, Lord Strange, eldest son of Edward Stanley, eleventh Earl of Derby. In "OL. IL L 1-10 HOE ACE WALPOLE'S LETTEES. with the Tories, continually clashes with Lord Egniont ; and besides all this, there is a faction in the Prince's family, headed by Nugent, who are for moderate measures. Nugent is most affectedly an humble servant of Mr. Pelham, and seems only to have attached himself to the Prince, in order to make the better bargain with the Ministry : he has great parts, but they never know how to disentangle themselves from bombast and absurdities. Besides these, there are two young men who make some figure in the rising Opposition, Bathurst, attorney to the Prince ; and Potter, whom I believe you have had mentioned in my letters of last year; but he has a bad constitution, and is seldom able to be in town. Neither of these are in the scale of moderation. The Opposition set out this winter with trying to call for several negotiations during the war ; but the great storm which has so much employed us of late, was stirred up by Colonel Lyttelton ; 1 who, having been ill-treated by the Duke, has been dealing with the Prince. He discovered to the House some innovations in the Mutiny-bill, of which, though he could not make much, the Oppo- sition have, and fought the bill for a whole fortnight ; during the course of which the world has got much light into many very arbitrary proceedings of the Commander-in- Chief, 2 which have been the more believed too by the defection of my Lord Townshend's 5 eldest son, who is one of his aide-de-camps. Though the Ministry, by the weight of numbers, have carried their point in a great measure, yet you may be sure great heats have been raised ; and those have been still more inflamed by a correspondent practice in a new Navy-bill, brought in by the direction of Lord Sandwich and Lord Anson, but vehemently opposed by half the fleet, headed by Sir Peter Warren, the conqueror of Cape Breton, richer than Anson, and absurd as Vernon. The bill has ever been petitioned against, and the mutinous were likely to go great lengths, if the Admiralty 1762 he was made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and died, during his father's life-time, in 1771. He always called himself Lord Strange; though the title, which was a barony in fee, had in fact descended to the Duke of Atholl, as heir-general ot James, seventh Earl of Derby. — Dover. 1 Eichard, third son of Sir Thomas, and brother of Sir George Lyttelton : he mar- ried the Duchess-dowager of Bridgewater, and was afterwards made a knight of the Bath. — Walpole. 2 William, Duke of Cumberland. He was " Captain-general of the Forces," having been so created in 1745. — Dover. ' George Townahend, afterwards the first Marquis of that name and title — T)0VKR. 1749. TO SIR HORACE MANN. 147 had not bought off some by money, and others by relaxing in the material points. We began upon it yesterday, and are still likely to have a long affair of it — so much for politics ; and as for any thing else, I scarce know any thing else. My Lady Huntingdon, 1 the Queen of the Methodists, has got her daughter named for Lady of the Bedchamber to the Princesses ; but it is all off again, as she will not let her play at cards on Sundays. It is equally absurd on both sides, to refuse it, or to insist upon it. Pray tell Dr. Cocchi that I shall be extremely ready to do him any service in his intended edition of the old Physicians, 2 but that I fear it is a kind of work that will lie very little within my sphere to promote. Learning is confined to very narrow bounds at present, and those seldom within the circle in which I necessarily live ; but my regard for him and for you would make me take any pains. You see, I believe, that I do take pains for you — I have not writ such a letter to any body these three years. Adieu ! P.S. I am very sorry for your sake that the Prince and Princess [Craon] are leaving Florence : if ever I return thither, as I always natter myself I shall, I should miss them extremely. Lord Albemarle goes ambassador to Paris. 285. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, March 23, 1749. Our debates on the two military bills, the naval one of which is not yet finished, have been so tedious, that they have rather whittled down the Opposition than increased it. In the Lords, the Mutiny- bill passed pretty easily, there happening a quarrel between Lord Bathurst and Lord Bath on the method of their measures ; so there never divided above sixteen in the minority, and those scarce any of the Prince's Lords. Duke William was there and voted, which was too indecent in a rigorous bill calculated for his own power. There is great disunion among the ministers on the Naval bill: Mr. Pelham and Pitt (the latter out of hatred and jealousy of Lord Sandwich) gave up the Admiralty in a material point, but the 1 Selina, daughter of Washington, Earl Ferrers, and widow of Theophilus, Earl of Huntingdon. — Walpole. 2 In 1754, Dr. Cocchi published his " Chirurgici Veteres," a very curious work, containing numerous valuable extracts from the Greek physicians. — Wright. 148 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1749 paramount little Duke of Bedford has sworn that they shall recant on the report — what a figure they will make ! This bill was chiefly of Anson's projecting, who grows every day into new unpopularity. 1 He has lately had a sea-piece drawn of the victory for which he was lorded, in which his own ship in a cloud of cannon was hoarding the French Admiral. This circumstance, which was as true as if Mademoiselle Scudery had written his life (for he was scarce in sight when the Frenchman struck to Boscawen 2 ), has been so ridiculed by the whole tar-hood, that the romantic part has been forced to be cancelled, and one only gun remains firing at Anson's ship. The two Secretaries of State [Newcastle and Bedford] grow every day nearer to a breach : the King's going abroad is to decide the contest. Newcastle, who Hanoverises more and more every day, pushes on the journey, as he is to be the attendant minister : his lamentable brother [Mr. Pelham] is the constant sacrifice of all these embroils. At Leicester-house the jars are as great : Dodington, who has just resigned the Treasuryship of the Navy, in hopes of once more governing that court (and there is no court where he has not once or twice tried the same scheme!) does not succeed: Sir Francis Dashwood and Lord Talbot are strongly for him — could one conceive that he could still find a dupe ? Mr. Fox had a mind to succeed him, but both King and Duke have so earnestly pressed him to remain Secretary at War, that he could not refuse. The King would not hear of any of the newer court ; and Legge, who of the old was next oars, has managed the Prussian business so clumsily, that the King would not bear him in his closet : but he has got the Navy- Office, which Lyttelton would have had, but could not be rechosen at his borough, which he had stolen by surprise from his old friend and brother Tom Pitt. 3 The Treasury is to be 1 It was entitled, ' A bill for amending, explaining, and reducing into one act, the laws relating to the Navy.' " It was," says Sir John Barrow, " a most desirable and highly useful measure. The principal and, indeed, the only novelties attempted to be introduced, were, first, that of subjecting half-pay officers to courts-martial, which after much opposition was thrown out ; the second was the administration of an oath of secrecy to the members, which was carried, and continues to the present time." See Life of Lord Anson, p. 218. — Wright. 2 The Hon. Edward Boscawen, third son of Hugh, first Viscount Falmouth. He was a distinguished naval commander, and had had a large share in the success of Lord Anson's engagement with the French fleet off Cape Finisterre in 1747. He died in 1761. — Dover. 3 Thomas Pitt, Esq., of Boconnock, in Cornwall, warden of the Stannaries. He married the sister of George, Lord Lyttelton, and was the father of the first Lord Camelford. —Dover. 1749.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 149 filled up with that toad-eater and spy to all parties, Harry Vane : J there is no enumerating all the circumstances that make hjs nomination scandalous and ridiculous ! — hut such is our world ! General Charles Howard and a Mr. Saville are named to the red riband. My friend the Duke of Modena is again coming hither, which astonishes me, considering how little reason he had to be satisfied with his first visit ; and sure he will have less now ! I believe I told you that King Theodore [of Corsica] is here : I am to drink coffee with him to-morrow at Lady SchauVs. I have curiosity to see him, though I am not commonly fond of sights, but content myself with the oil-cloth picture of them that is hung out, and to which they seldom come up. There are two black Princes of Anamaboe here, who are in fashion at all the assemblies, of whom I scarce know any particulars, though their story' is very like Oroonoko's : all the women know it — and ten times more than belongs to it. Apropos to Indian histories, half our thoughts are taken up — that is, my Lord Halifax's are — with colonising in Nova Scotia : my friend Colonel Cornwallis is going thither commander- in-chief. The Methodists will scarce follow him as they did Ogle- thorpe ; 3 since the period of his expedition their lot is fallen in a better land. Methodism is more fashionable than anything but brag; the women play very deep at both — as deep, it is much suspected, as the matrons of Rome did at the mysteries of the Bona Dea. If gracious Anne was alive, she would make an admirable 1 Eldest sou of Lord Barnard, and afterwards first Earl of Darlington. He died in 1758. — Wright. 2 Their story is briefly this : A Moorish king, who had entertained with great hospitality a British captain trafficking on the coast of Africa, reposed such confidence in him, as to intrust him with his son, about eighteen years of age, and another sprightly youth, to be brought to England, and educated in the European manners. The captain received them, and basely sold them for slaves. He shortly after died ; and, the ship coming to England, the officers related the whole affair ; upon which the government sent to pay their ransom, and they were brought to England, and put under the care of the Earl of Halifax, then at the head of the board of trade, who had them clothed and educated in a suitable manner. They were afterwards received in the higher circles, and introduced to the King. On the first of February in this year, they appeared at Covent Garden theatre, to see the tragedy of Oroonoko; where they were received with a loud clap of applause, which they returned with a genteel bow. The tender interview between Imoinda and Oroonoko so affected the Prince, that he was obliged to retire at the end of the fourth act. His companion remained, but wept all the time so bitterly, that it affected the audience more than the play. — Wright. 3 See vol. i., p. 2S?>. Oglethorpe war. *he founder of the colony of Georgia, whither lie was accompanied by the brothers John and Samuel Wesley. — Cunningham. 150 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1749. defendress of the new faith, and build fifty more churches 1 for female proselytes. If I had more paper or time, I could tell you an excellent long history of my brother Ned's [Sir Edward's] envy, 3 which was always up at high-water-mark, but since the publication of my book of Houghton (one should have thought a very harmless performance), has overflowed on a thousand ridiculous occasions. Another great object of his jealousy is my friendship with Mr. Fox : my brother made him a formal visit at nine o'clock the other morning, and in a set speech of three quarters of an hour, begged his pardon for not attending the last day of the Mutiny-bill, which, he said, was so particularly brought in by him, though Mr. Fox assured him that he had no farther hand in it than from his office. Another instance : when my brother went to live at Frogmore, Mr. Fox desired him to employ his tradesmen at Windsor, by way of supporting his interest in that borough. My brother immediately went to the Duke of St. Albans, to whom he had never spoke (nor indeed was his acquaintance with Mr. Fox much greater), and notified to him, that if seven years hence his grace should have any contest with Mr. Fox about that borough, he should certainly espouse the latter. Guess how the Duke stared at so strange and unnecessary a declaration ! Pigwiggin's Princess [Lady Eachel Cavendish] has mis-piged, to the great — joy, I believe, of that family, for you know a child must have eaten. Adieu ! 286. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Strawberry Hill, May 3, 1749. I am come hither for a few days, to repose myself after a torrent of diversions, and am writing to you in my charming bow- window with a tranquillity and satisfaction which, I fear, I am grown old enough to prefer to the hurry of amusements, in which the whole world has lived for this last week. We have at last celebrated the Peace, and that as much in extremes as we generally do everything, whether we have reason to be glad or sorry, pleased or angry. Last Tuesday it was proclaimed : the King did not go to St Paul's, but at 1 An Act was passed in Qneen Anne's reign for the erection of fifty new churche* In London. —Cunningham. 2 See vol. i., p. 35o. — Cunninqham. ETHELRED.A IIAKKISOX VISCOUNTESS TOWSTSHEOTD FKOM THK OUIGIKAI. FORMKR1T AT ST.RAW.lij Richard BunTjev & Son Iff 91 1749.] TO SIR HORACE MAffN. 151 night the whole town was illuminated. The next day was what was called " a jubilee-masquerade in the Venetian manner " at Ranelagh: it had nothing Venetian in it, but was by far the best understood and the prettiest spectacle I ever saw : nothing in a fairy tale ever sur- passed it. One of the proprietors, who is a German, and belongs to court, had got my Lady Yarmouth to persuade the King to order it. It began at three o'clock, and, about five, people of fashion began to go. When you entered, you found the whole garden filled with masks and spread with tents, which remained all night very commodely. In one quarter was a May-pole dressed with garlands, and people dancing round it to a tabor and pipe and rustic music, all masqued, as were all the various bands of music that were disposed in different parts of the garden ; some like huntsmen with French-horns, some like peasants, and a troop of harlequins and scaramouches in the little open temple on the mount. On the canal was a sort of gondola, adorned with flags and streamers, and filled with music, rowing about. All round the outside of the amphitheatre were shops, filled with Dresden china, japan, &c. and all the shopkeepers in mask. The amphitheatre was illuminated ; and in the middle was a circular bower, composed of all kinds of firs in tubs, from twenty to thirty feet high : under them orange-trees, with small lamps in each orange, and below them all sorts of the finest auriculas in pots ; and festoons of natural flowers hanging from tree to tree. Between the arches too were firs, and smaller ones in the balconies above. There were booths for tea and wine, gaming-tables and dancing, and about two thousand persons. In short, it pleased me more than anything I ever saw. It is to be once more, and probably finer as to dresses, as there has since been a subscription-masquerade, and people will go in their rich habits. The next day were the fireworks, which by no means answered the expense, the length of preparation, and the expectation that had been raised : indeed, for a week before, the town was like a country fair, the streets filled from morning to night, scaffolds building wherever you could or could not see, and coaches arriving from every comer of the kingdom. This hurry and lively scene, with the sight of the immense crowd in the Park and on every house, the guards, and the machine itself, which was very beautiful, was all that was worth seeing. The rockets, and whatever was thrown up into the air, succeeded mighty well ; but the wheels, and all that was to com- pose the principal part, were pitiful and ill- conducted, with no changes of coloured fires and shapes: the illumination was mean, and lighted so slowly that scarce any body had patience to wait the finishing ; 152 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. L1749. and then, what contributed to the awkwardness of the whole, was the right pavilion catching fire, and being burnt down in the middle of the show. The King, the Bake, and Princess Emily saw it from the Library, 1 with their courts : the Prince and Princess, with their children, from Lady Middlesex's ; no place being provided for them, nor any invitation given to the library. The Lords and Com- mons had galleries built for them and the chief citizens along the rails of the Mall : the Lords had four tickets a-piece, and each Com- moner, at first, but two, till the Speaker bounced and obtained a third. Very little mischief was done, and but two persons killed : at Paris, there were forty killed and near three hundred wounded, by a dispute between the French and Italians in the management, who, quarrelling for precedence in lighting the fires, both lighted at once and blew up the whole. Our mob was extremely tranquil, and very unlike those I remember in my father's time, when it was a measure in the Opposition to work up everything to mischief, the Excise and the French players, the Convention and the Gin- Act. We are as much now in the opposite extreme, and in general so pleased with the peace, that I could not help being struck with a passage I read lately in Pasquier, an old French author, who says, " that in the time of Francis I. the French used to call their creditors ' Des Anglois,' from the facility with which the English gave credit to them in all treaties, though they had broken so many." On Satur- day we had a serenata at the Opera-house, called Peace in Europe, but it was a wretched performance. On Monday there was a sub- scription-masquerade, much fuller than that of last year, but not so agreeable or so various in dresses. The King was well disguised in an old-fashioned English habit, and much pleased with somebody who desired him to hold their cup as they were drinking tea. The Duke had a dress of the same kind, but was so immensely corpulent that he looked like Cacofogo, the drunken captain, in " Rule a Wife and have a Wife." The Duchess of Richmond was a Lady Mayor- ess in the time of James I ; and Lord Delawarr, 2 Queen Elizabeth's porter, from a picture in the guard-chamber at Kensington : 3 thev were admirable masks. Lord Pochford, Miss Evelyn, Miss Bishop, 1 " The Queen's Library," so called after Queen Caroline, by whom it was built. It was pulled down by Frederic Duke of York (second son of George III.) when he built his new house (now Stafford House) in the Stable-yard, St. James's. — Cunningham. 2 John West, seventh Lord Delawarr, created Earl Delawarr in 1761. — Dotbe. 3 Now (1857) at Hampton Court. Walpole describes a subsequent appearance of Lord Delawarr in this dress. — Cunmngham. 1749.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 153 Lady Stafford/ and Mrs. Pitt, 2 were in vast beauty ; particularly the last, who had a red veil, which made her look gloriously handsome. I forgot Lady Kildare. Mr. Conway was the Duke in Don Quixote, and the finest figure I ever saw. Miss Chudleigh 3 was Iphigenia, but so naked that you would have taken her for Andromeda ; and Lady Betty Smithson [Seymour] had such a pyramid of baubles upon her head, that she was exactly the Princess of Babylon in Grammont. You will conclude that, after all these diversions, people begin to think of going out of town — no such matter : the Parliament continues sitting, and will till the middle of June ; Lord Egmont told us we shoidd sit till Michaelmas. There are many private bills, no public ones of any fame. We were to have had some chastisement for Oxford, where, besides the late riots, the famous Dr. King, 4 the Pretender's great agent, made a most violent speech at the opening of the Ratcliffe Library. The ministry denounced judgment, but, in their old style, have grown frightened, and dropped it. However, this menace gave occasion to a meeting and union between the Prince's party and the Jacobites, which Lord Egmont has been labouring all the winter. They met at the St. Alban's tavern, near Pall-mall, last Monday morning, an hundred and twelve Lords and Commoners. The Duke of Beaufort 3 opened the assembly with a panegyric on the stand that had been made this winter against so corrupt an administration, and hoped it would continue, and desired harmony. Lord Egmont seconded this strongly, and begged they would come up to Parliament early next winter. Lord Oxford 6 spoke next ; and then Potter with great humour, and to the great abashment of the J acobites, said he was very glad to see this union, and from thence hoped, that if 1 Henrietta Cantillon, wife of Matthias Howard, third Earl of Stafford. — Dover. 2 Penelope Atkins, daughter of Sir Henry Atkins of Clapham, married January 4, 1745-6, to George Pitt, Esq., of Strathfieldsaye, created, in 1776, Baron Rivers of Strathfieldsaye. (See vol. i. p. 179.) She was a celebrated beauty. — Cunningham. 3 Miss Chudleigh's dress, or rather ud dress, was remarkable ; she was Iphigenia for the sacrifice, but so naked, the high-priest might easily inspect the entrails of the victim. The Maids of Honour (not of maids the strictest) were so offended they would not speak to her. Pretty Mrs. Pitt looked as if she came from heaven, but was only on her road thither in the habit of a chanoiness. Mrs. Montagu to her sister, May 8, 1751 [1749].— Cunningham. 4 Dr. William King, the last conspicuous Jacobite at Oxford. He was public orator of that University and principal of St. Mary Hall. He died Dec. 30, 1763. His volume of ' Anecdotes ' deserves perusal. — Cunningham. 5 Lord Noel Somerset, who, in 1746, succeeded his brother in the dukedom. — Walpole. fi Edward Harley, of Eywood, in the county of Hereford, to whom, pursuant to the limitations of the patent, the earldoms of Oxford and Mortimer descended, upon the death, without male issue, of the Lord Treasurer's only son, Edward the second Earl. Lord Oxford was of the Jacobite party. He died in 1755. — Dover. 154 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1749. another attack like the last Rebellion should be made on the Royal Family, they would all stand by them. No reply was made to this. Then Sir Watkyn Williams spoke, Sir Francis Dash wood, and Tom Pitt, and the meeting broke up. I don't know what this coalition may produce : it will require time with no better heads than compose it at present, though the great Mr. Dodington had carried to the con- ference the assistance of his. In France a very favourable event has happened for us, the disgrace of Maurepas, 1 one of our bitterest enemies, and the greatest promoter of their marine. Just at the beginning of the war, in a very critical period, he had obtained a very large sum for that service, but which one of the other factions, lest he should gain glory and credit by it, got to be suddenly given away to the King of Prussia. Sir Charles Williams is appointed envoy to this last King : here is an epigram which he has just sent over on Lord Egmont's oppo- sition to the Mutiny-bill : " Why has Lord Egmont 'gainst this bill So much declamatory skill So tediously exerted 1 The reason's plain : but t'other day He mutinied himself for pay, And he has twice deserted." I must tell you a lon-mot that was made the other night at the serenata of " Peace in Europe " by Wall, 2 who is much in fashion, and a kind of Gondomar. Grossatesta, the Modenese minister, a very low fellow, with all the jackpuddinghood of an Italian, asked, u Mais qui est ce qui represente mon maitre ? " Wall replied, " Mais, mon Dieu ! L'abb£, ne scavez vous pas que ce n'est pas un opera boufon ? " and here is another bon-mot of my Lady Town- shend : we were talking of the Methodists ; somebody said, " Pray, Madam, is it true that Whitfield has recanted ?" " No, Sir, he has only canted" If you ever think of returning to England, as I hope it will be long first, you must prepare yourself with Methodism. I really be- lieve that by that time it will be necessary : this sect increases as fast as almost ever any religious nonsense did. Lady Fanny Shirley 3 has 1 Phelypeaux, Count de Maurepas, son of the Chancellor de Pontchartrain. He was disgraced in consecpience of some quarrel with the King's mistress. He returned to office, unhappily for France, in the commencement of the reign of Louis the Sixteenth. — Dover. 2 General Wall, the Spanish ambassador. Gondomar was the able Spanish ambas- sador in England in the reign of James the First. -Dover. 3 Lady Frances Shirley, " the Fanny, blooming fair," of Chesterfield and Sir Charles 1749.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. chosen this way of bestowing the dregs of her beauty ; and Mr. Lyttelton is very near making the same sacrifice of the dregs of all those various characters that he has worn. The Methodists love your big sinners, as proper subjects to work upon — and indeed they have a plentiful harvest — I think what you call flagrancy was never more in fashion. Drinking is at the highest wine-mark ; and gaming joined with it so violent, that at the last Newmarket meeting, in the rapidity of both, a bank-bill was thrown down, and nobody immediately claiming it, they agreed to give it to a man that was standing by. I must tell you of Stosch's letter, which he had the impertinence to give you without telling the contents. It was to solicit the arrears of his pension, which I beg you will tell him I have no manner of interest to procure : and to tell me of a Galla Placidia, a gold medal lately found. It is not for myself, but I wish you would ask him the price for a friend of mine who would like to buy it. Adieu ! my dear child ; I have been long in arrears to you, but I trust you will take this huge letter as an acquittal. You see my villa makes me a good correspondent ; how happy I should be to show it you, if I could, with no mixture of disagreeable circumstances to you. I have made a vast plantation ! Lord Leicester told me the other day that he heard I would not buy some old china, because I was laying out all my money in trees : " Yes," said I, " my lord, I used to love blue trees, but now I like green ones." 287. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, May 17, 1749. We have not yet done diverting ourselves : the night before last the Duke of Richmond gave a firework ; a codicil to the Peace. He bought the rockets and wheels that remained in the pavilion which miscarried, and took the pretence of the Duke of Modena being here to give a charming entertainment. The garden 1 lies with a slope down to the Thames, on which were lighters, from whence were Williams, and the Lady Frances Shirley, to whom Pope addressed a copy of verses on receiving from her a standish and two pens. She died unmarried on the 1 5th July, 1778, aged seventy-two, and was buried in Lady Huntingdon's chapel at Bath. See Walpole's account of her death, in a letter to Mason of July 16, 1778. — Cunningham. 1 At Whitehall. — Walpole. On the site of what is now (1857) Richmond Terrace. — Cunningham. 156 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1749. thrown up, after a concert of water-music, a great number of rockets. Then from boats on every side were discharged water-rockets and fires of that kind ; and then the wheels which were ranged along the rails of the terrace were played off ; and the whole concluded with the illumination of a pavilion on the top of the slope, of two pyramids on each side, and of the whole length of the balustrade to the water. You can't conceive a prettier sight ; the garden filled with everybody of fashion, the Duke, the Duke of Modena, and the two black Princes. The King and Princess Emily were in their barge under the terrace ; the river was covered with boats, and the shores and adjacent houses with crowds. The Duke of Modena played afterwards at brag, and there was a fine supper for him and the foreigners, of whom there are numbers here ; it is grown as much the fashion to travel hither as to France or Italy. Last week there was a vast assembly and music at Bedford House 1 for this Modenese ; and to-day he is set out to receive his doctor's degree at the two Universities. His appearance is rather better than it used to be, for, instead of wearing his wig down to his nose to hide the humour in his face, he has taken to paint his forehead white, which, however, with the large quantity of red that he always wears on the rest of his face, makes him ridiculous enough. I cannot say his manner is more polished : Princess Emily asked him if he did not find the Duke much fatter than when he was here before ? He replied " En verite il n'est pas si effroiable qu'on m'avoit dit." She commended his diamonds; he said, "Lesvotres sont bien petits." As I had been so graciously received at his court, I went into his box the first night at the Opera : the first thing he did was to fall asleep ; but as I did not choose to sit waiting his reveil in the face of the whole theatre, I waked him, and would discourse him : but here I was very unlucky, for of the only two persons I could recollect at his court to inquire after, one has been dead these four years, and the other, he could not remember any such man. However, Sab- batini, his secretary of state, flattered me extremely ; told me he found me lemooup mieux, and that I was grown very fat — I fear, I fear it was rlattery ! Eight years don't improve one, — and for my corpulence, if I au. grown fat, what must I have been in my Mo- denese day2 ! I told yoa we were to have another jubilee masquerade : there was one by the King's command for Miss Chudleigh, the maid of 1 On the north side of Bloomsbury Square, pulled down in 1800. — Cunningham. 1749.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 157 honour, with whom our gracious monarch has a mind to believe himself in love, — so much in love, that at one of the booths he gave her a fairing for her watch, which cost him five- and- thirty guineas, — actually disbursed out of his privy purse, and not charged on the civil list. Whatever you may think of it, this is a more magnificent present than the cabinet which the late King of Poland sent to the fair Countess Konigsmark, replete with all kinds of baubles and orna- ments, and ten thousand ducats in one of the drawers. I hope some future Holinshed or Stow will acquaint posterity "that five-and- thirty guineas were an immense sum in those days ! " You are going to see one of our court-beauties in Italy, my Lady Rochford : 1 they are setting out on their embassy to Turin. She is large, but very handsome, with great delicacy and address. All the Royals have been in love with her ; but the Duke [of Cumberland] was so in all the forms, till she was a little too much pleased with her conquest of his brother-in-law the Prince of Hesse. You will not find much in the correspondence of her husband : his person is good, and he will figure well enough as an ambassador ; better as a husband where cicisbes don't expect to be molested. The Duke is not likely to be so happy with his new passion, Mrs. Pitt, 2 who, besides being in love with her husband, whom you remember (Lady Mary Wortley's George Pitt 3 ), is going to Italy with him. I think you will find her one of the most glorious beauties you ever saw. You are to have another pair of our beauties, the Princess Borghese's Mr. Greville 4 and his wife, who was the pretty Fanny M'Cartney. Now I am talking scandal to you, and court-scandal, I must tell you that Lord Conway's sister, Miss Jenny, is dead suddenly with eating lemonade at the last subscription masquerade. 5 It is not quite unlucky for her : she had outlived the Prince's love and her 1 Daughter of Edward Young, Esq. [of Dunford, in Wilts], and wife [1740] of William, Earl of Rochford. She had been maid of honour to the Princess of Wales. — Walpole. She died January 9, 1773, in the fiftieth year of her age, and was buried at St. Osyth's in Essex. — Cunningham. 2 Penelope, sister of Sir Richard Atkins. — Walpole. See note, p. 153. — Cun- ningham. 3 See vol. i., p. 179. — Cunningham. 4 Fulke Greville, Esq., son of the Hon. Algernon Greville, second son of Fulke, fifth Lord Brooke. His wife [Frances, daughter of James Macartney, Esq., see vol. ii. p. 36.1 waB the authoress of the pretty poem, entitled a ' Prayer for Indifference.' — Dover. 5 This event was commemorated in the following doggrel lines : — " Poor Jenny Conway, She drank lemonade At a masquerade ; So now she's dead and gone away." — Dover. See vol. i., p. 53. — Cunningham. 158 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1749. own face, and nothing remained but her love and her person, which was exceedingly bad. The graver part of the world, who have not been quite so much given up to rockets and masquing, are amused with a book of Lord Bolingbroke's, just published, but written long ago. It is composed of three letters, the first to Lord Cornbury on the Spirit of Patriotism ; and two others to Mr. Lyttelton, (but with neither of their names,) on the Idea of a patriot King, and the State of Parties on the late King's accession. Mr. Lyttelton had sent him word that he begged nothing might be inscribed to him that was to reflect on Lord Orford, for that he was now leagued with all Lord Orford's friends : a mes- sage as abandoned as the book itself : but indeed there is no describ- ing the impudence with which that set of people unsay what they have been saying all their lives, — I beg their pardons, I mean the honesty with which they recant ! Pitt told me coolly, that he had read this book formerly, when he admired Lord Bolingbroke more than he does now. The book by no means answered my expectation : the style, which is his forte, is very fine : the deduction and impossi- bility of drawing a consequence from what he is saying, as bad and obscure as in his famous Dissertation on Parties : you must know the man, to guess his meaning. Not to mention the absurdity and impracticability of this kind of system, there is a long speculative dissertation on the origin of government, and even that greatly stolen from other writers, and that all on a sudden dropped, while he hurries into his own times, and then preaches (he, of all men !) on the duty of preserving decency ! The last treatise would not impose upon an historian of five years old : he tells Mr. Lyttelton, that he may take it from him, that there was no settled scheme at the end of the Queen's reign to introduce the Pretender ; and he gives this excellent reason ; because, if there had been, he must have known it ; and another reason as ridiculous, that no traces of such a scheme have since come to light. What, no traces in all the cases of himself, Atterbury, the Duke of Ormond, Sir William Windham, and others ! and is it not known that the moment the Queen was expired, Atterbury proposed to go in his lawn sleeves and proclaim the Pretender at Charing- cross, but Bolingbroke's heart failing him, Atterbury swore, " There was the best cause in Europe lost for want of spirit ! " He imputes Jacobitism singly to Lord Oxford, whom he exceedingly abuses ; and who, so far from being suspected, was thought to have fallen into disgrace with that faction for refusing to concur with them. On my father he is much less severe than I 1749.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 159 expected ; and in general, so obliquely, that hereafter he will not be perceived to aim at him, though at this time one knows so much what was at his heart, that it directs one to his meaning. But there is a Preface to this famous book, which makes much more noise than the work itself. It seems, Lord Bolingbroke had originally trusted Pope with the copy, to have half-a-dozen printed for particular friends. Pope, who loved money infinitely beyond any friend, got fifteen hundred copies printed privately, intending to outlive Bolingbroke, and make great advantage of them : and not only did this, but altered the copy at his pleasure, and even made different alterations in different copies. Where Lord Bolingbroke had strongly flattered their common friend Lyttelton, Pope sup- pressed the panegyric : where, in compliment to Pope, he had softened the satire on Pope's great friend, Lord Oxford, Pope reinstated the abuse. The first part of this transaction is recorded in the Preface ; the two latter facts are reported by Lord Chester- field and Lyttelton, the latter of whom went to Bolingbroke to ask how he had forfeited his good opinion. In short, it is comfortable to us people of moderate virtue to hear these demigods, and patriots, and philosophers, inform the world of each other's •villainies.' What seems to make Lord Bolingbroke most angry, and I suppose does, is Pope's having presumed to correct his work. As to his printing so many copies, it certainly was a compliment, and the more profit (which however could not be immense), he expected to make, the greater opinion he must have conceived of the merit of the work : if one had a mind to defend Pope, should not one ask 3 if any body ever blamed Virgil's executors for not burning the .ZEneid, as he ordered them ? 3 Warburton, I hear, does design to defend Pope ; 1 " The publication you mention has brought no trouble upon me, though it has given occasion to many libels upon me. They are of the lowest form, and seem to be held in the contempt they deserve. There I shall leave them, nor suffer a nest of hornets to disturb the quiet of my retreat. If these letters of mine come to your hands, your lordship will find that I have left out all that was said of our friend Lord Lyttelton in one of them. He desired that it might be so ; and I had at once the double mortification of concealing the good I had said of one friend, and of revealing the turpitude of another. I hope you will never have the same treatment that I have met with ; neither will you. I am single in my circumstances — a species apart in the political society ; and they, who dare to attack no one else, may attack me. Chester- field says, I have made a coalition of Whig, Tory, Trimmer, and Jacobite against mybeif. Be it so. I have Truth, that is stronger than all of them, on my side ; and, in her company, and avowed by her, I have more satisfaction than their applause and their favour could give me." — Bulingbroke to Marchmont, 7th June, 1749. — Wright. 2 This thought was borrowed by Mr. Spence, in a pamphlet published on this occasion in defence of Pope. — Walpole. 3 What aggravated Lord Bolingbroke's exposing his friend was, that, after his owu 160 HOKACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1749. and my uncle Horace to answer the book : his style, which is the worst in the world, must be curious, in opposition to the other. But here comes full as bad a part of the story as any : Lord Bolingbroke, to buy himself out of the abuse in the Duke of Marlborough's Life, or to buy himself into the supervisal of it, gave these Letters to Mallet, who is writing this Life for a legacy in the old Duchess's Will, (and which, with much humour, she gave, desiring it might not be written in verse,) and Mallet sold them to the bookseller for a hundred and fifty pounds. Mallet had many obligations to Pope, no disobligations to him, and was one of his grossest flatterers ; witness the sonnet on his supposed death, printed in the notes to the Dunciad.'* I was this morning told an anecdote from the Dorset family that is no bad collateral evidence of the Jacobitism of the Queen's four last years. They wanted to get Dover Castle into their hands, and sent down Prior to the present Duke of Dorset, who loved him, and probably was his brother, 2 to persuade him to give it up. He sent Prior back with great anger, and in three weeks was turned out of the government himself — but it is idle to produce proofs ; as idle as to deny the scheme. I have just been with your brother Gal. who has been laid up these two days with the gout in his ankle ; an absolute professed gout in all the forms, and with much pain. Mr. Chute is out of town ; when he returns, I shall set him upon your brother to reduce him to abstinence and health. Adieu ! 288. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Bear George : Arlington Street, May 18, 1749. Whatever you hear of the Richmond fireworks, that is short of the prettiest entertainment in the world, don't believe it ; I really never passed a more agreeable evening. Every thing succeeded ; all the wheels played in time ; Frederick was fortunate, and all the world in good humour. Then for royalty — Mr. Anstis 3 himself death, it was discovered that he had secretly preserved a copy of Dr. Middleton's Essay on Prayer, which his lordship had persuaded the doctor's executors to burn. — iVulpole's Memoirs of George II., 2 vols. 4to, vol. i., p. 195. — Cunningham. 1 The sonnet attributed by Dr. Johnson to one Leivis. See Boswell. — Cunningham. 8 There is no evidence to support Walpole's 2^'obability that Prior "was the brother of the first Duke of Dorset. — Cunningham. ' See vol. i. p. 234, and vol. ii. p. 184. " There other trophies deck the truly brave, Than such as Anstis casts into the grave." — Pope. — Cunningham 1749.] TO MR. MONTAGU. 161 would have been glutted; there were all the Fitzes upon earth, the whole court of St. Germain's, the Duke [of Cumberland], the Duke of Modena, and two Anamaboes. The King and Princess Emily bestowed themselves upon the mob on the river ; and as soon as they were gone, the Duke had the music into the garden, and him- self, with my Lady Lincoln, Mrs. Pitt, Peggy Banks, and Lord Holdernesse, entertained the good subjects with singing " God save the King " to them over the rails of the terrace. The Duke of Modena supped there, and the Duke was asked, but he answered, it was impossible : in short, he could not adjust his dignity to a mortal banquet. There was an admirable scene : Lady Burlington brought the Violette, and the Richmonds had asked Garrick, who stood ogling and sighing the whole time, while my lady kept a most fierce look-out. Sabbatini, one of the Duke of Modena's court, was asking me, who all the people were ? and who is that ? " C'est miladi Hartington, la belle fille du Due de Devonshire." "Et qui estcette autre dame ? " It was a distressing question ; after a little hesita- tion, I replied, " Mais e'est Mademoiselle Violette ? " " Et comment Mademoiselle Violette ! j'ai connu une Mademoiselle Violette par cxemple." 1 — I begged him to look at Miss Bishop. 2 In the middle of all these principalities and powers was the Duchess of Queensbury, in her forlorn trim, a white apron and white hood, and would make the Duke swallow all her undress. T'other day she drove post to Lady Sophia Thomas, at Parsons- green, and told her that she was come to tell her something of importance. " What is it ? " — " Why, take a couple of beef-steaks, clap them together as if they were for a dumpling, and eat them with pepper and salt ; it is the best thing you ever tasted : I could not help coming to tell you this : " and away she drove back to town. Don't a course of folly for forty years make one very sick ? The weather is so hot, and the roads so dusty, that I can't get to Strawberry ; but I shall begin negotiating with you now about your coming. You must not expect to find it in beauty. I hope to get my bill 3 finished in ten days ; I have scrambled it through the Lords ; but altogether, with the many difficulties and plagues, I am 1 Garrick's marriage with Mademoiselle Eva Maria Violette took place four days after the date of this letter. — Wright. 2 Daughter of Sir Cecil Bishop, Bart., of Parham in Sussex, and a great beauty. See Letter to Montagu, July 20, 1752. The " pretty Bishops " are frequently referred to in Walpole's letters.— Cunningham. 3 An Act for the sale of certain land3 at Twickenham, See vol. i. p. tev.— Cunningham. vol. ii. n 162 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1749. a good deal out of humour ; my purchases hitch, and new proprietors start out of the ground, like the crop of soldiers in the Metamor- phoses. I expect but an unpleasant summer ; my indolence and inattention are not made to wade through leases and deeds. Mrs. Chenevix brought me one yesterday to sign, and her sister Bertrand, 1 the toy- woman of Bath, for a witness. I showed them my cabinet of enamels instead of treating them with white wine. The Bertrand said, " Sir, I hope you don't trust all sorts of ladies with this cabinet ! " What an entertaining assumption of dignity ! I must tell you an anecdote that I found t'other day in an old French author, which is a great drawback on beaux sentiments and romantic ideas. Pasquier, in his "Recherches de la France," is giving an account of the Queen of Scots' execution ; he says, the night before, knowing her body must be stripped for her shroud, she would have her feet washed, because she used ointment to one of them which was sore. I believe I have told you, that in a very old trial of her, which I bought from Lord Oxford's collection, it is said that she was a large lame woman. Take sentiments out of their pantoufles, and reduce them to the infirmities of mortality, what a falling off there is! I could not help laughing in myself t'other day, as I went through Holborn in a very hot day, at the dignity of human nature ; all those foul old-clothes women panting without handkerchiefs, and mopping themselves all the way down within their loose jumps. Rigby gave me as strong a picture of nature : he and Peter Bathurst 2 t'other night carried a servant of the latter's, who had attempted to shoot him, before Fielding ; who, to all his other vocations, has, by the grace of Mr. Lyttelton, added that of Middlesex justice. He sent them word he was at supper, that they must come next morning. They did not understand that freedom, and ran up, where they found him banqueting with a blind man, 3 a whore, and three Irishmen, on some cold mutton and a bone of ham, both in one dish, and the dirtiest cloth. He never stirred nor asked them to sit. Rigby, who had seen him so often come to beg a guinea of Sir C. Williams, and Bathurst, at whose father's he had 1 What well? what weapon ? (Flavia cries,) A standish, steel, and golden pen ! It came from Bertrand's, not the skie3. — Pope. Bertrand, a fashionable toyman at Bath, died in 1755. — Cunningham. 2 Peter Bathurst, Esq., M.P. for New Sarum, and brother of Allen, Lord Batburst, the friend of Pope and Swift. — Cunningham. 3 Sir Walter Scott suggests, that this blind man was probably Fielding's [half] brother. — Wright. TO MS. MONTAGU. 168 lived for victuals, understood that dignity as little, and pulled them- selves chairs ; on which he civilised. 1 Millar the "bookseller has done very generously by him : finding Tom Jones, for which he had given him six hundred pounds, sell so greatly, he has since given him another hundred. Now I talk to you of authors, Lord Cobham's West 2 has published his translation of Pindar ; the poetry is very stiff, but prefixed to it there is a very entertaining account of the Olympic games, and that preceded by an affected inscription to Pitt and Lyttelton. The latter has declared his future match with Miss Rich. George Grenville has been married these two days to Miss Windham. Your friend Lord North is, I suppose you know, on the brink with the Countess of Rockingham ; 3 and I think your cousin Rice is mucn inclined to double the family alliance with her sister Furnese. It went on very currently for two or three days, but last night at Vauxhall his minionette face seemed to be sent to languish with Lord R. Bertie's. Was not you sorry for poor Cucumber ?* I do assure you I was ; it was shocking to be hurried away so suddenly, and in so much torment. You have heard I suppose of Lord Harry Beauclerc's resignation, on his not being able to obtain a respite till November, though the lowest officer in his regiment has got much longer leave. It is incredible how Nolkejumskoi [Cumberland] has persecuted this poor man for these four years, since he could not be persuaded to alter his vote at a court-martial for the acquittal of a man whom the Duke would have had condemned. Lord Ossulston, too, has resigned his commission. I must tell you a good story of Charles Townshend : you know his political propensity and importance ; his brother George was at supper at the King's Arms with some more young men. The conversation somehow or other rambled into politics, and it was started that the national debt was a benefit. " I am sure it is not," said Mr. Townshend ; " I can't tell why, but my brother Charles can, and I will send to him for arguments." Charles was at supper 1 This is a humiliating anecdote, even after we have made allowance for the aris- tocratic exaggeration of Walpole ; who, in noticing Fielding's talents elsewhere [the Parish Register of Twickenham] has not failed to stigmatise the lowness of his society and habits. Sir Walter Scott's Life of Fielding. — Cunningham. 2 Gilbert West, the poet, died 1756. — See Walpole's Memoirs of George III. vol. i. p. 296.— Cunningham. 3 Katherine, daughter and co-heir of Sir Robert Furnese, Bart., and widow of Lewis AVatson, Earl of Rockingham. This marriage was further from consummation than Walpole thought. It did not take place till 1751. — Cunningham. * See vol. ii. p. 25. — Cunningham. 164 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1749. at another tavern, but so much the dupe of this message, that he literally called for ink and paper, wrote four long sides of arguments, and sent word that, when his company broke up, he would come and give them more, which he did at one o'clock in the morning. I don't think you will laugh much less at what happened to me : I wanted a print out of a booth, which I did not care to buy at Osborn's shop : the next day he sent me the print, and begged that when I had anything to publish, I would employ him. I will now tell you, and finish this long letter, how I shocked Mr. Mackenzie inadvertently at Yauxhall : we had supped there a great party, and coming out, Mrs. More, who waits at the gate, said, " Gentlemen and ladies, will you walk in and hear the surprising alteration of voice ? " I forgetting Mackenzie's connexions, and that he was formerly of the band, replied, " No, I have seen patriots enough." I intend this letter shall last you till you come to Strawberry Hill ; one might have rolled it out into half-a-dozen. My best compli- ments to your sisters. 289. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Strawberry Hill, June 4, 1749. As summerly as June and Strawberry Hill may sound, I assure you I am writing to you by the fire-side : English weather will give vent to its temper, and whenever it is out of humour it will blow east and north and all kinds of cold. Your brothers Ned and Gal. dined with me to-day, and I carried the latter back to Richmond : as I passed over the green, I saw Lord Bath, Lord Lonsdale,' and half-a-dozen more of the White's Club sauntering at the door of a house which they have taken there, and come to every Saturday and Sunday to play at whist. You will naturally ask why they can't play at whist in London on these two days as well as on the othci- five ; indeed I can't tell you, except that it is so established a fashion to go out of town at the end of the week, that people do go, though it be only into another town. It made me smile to see Lord Bath sitting there, like a citizen that has left off trade ! Your brother Ned has not seen Strawberry Hill since my great 1 Henry Lowther, third Viscount Lonsdale, of the first creation. He was the second son of John, the first Viscount, and succeeded his elder brother Richard in the title in 1713. He was a lord of the bedchamber, and at one period of his life was privy seal. — Dovee. 1749.] TO SIR HORACE MAXX. 1G5 improvements ; he was astonished : it is pretty : you never saw so tranquil a scene, without the least air of melancholy : I should hate it, if it was dashed with that. I forgot to ask Gal. what is hecome of the hooks of Houghton which I gave him six months ago for you and Dr. Cocchi. You perceive I have got your letter of May 23rd, and with it Prince Craon's simple epistle to his daughter : 1 I have no mind to deliver it : it would be a proper recommendation of a staring hoy on his travels, and is consequently very suitable to my colleague, Master St. Leger ; but one hates to be coupled with a romping greyhound puppy, " qui est moins prudent que Monsieur Yalpol ! " I did not want to be introduced to Madame de Mirepoix's assemblies, but to be acquainted with her, as I like her family : I concluded, simple as he is, that an old Frenchman knew how to make these distinctions. By thrusting St. Leger into the letter with me, and talking of my prudence, I shall not wonder if she takes me for his bear-leader, his travelling governor ! Mr. Chute, who went from hence this morning, and is always thinking of blazoning your pedigree* in the noblest colours, has turned over all my library, till he has tapped a new and very great family for you : in short, by your mother it is very clear that you are descended from Hubert de Burgh, Grand Justiciary to Richard the Second : indeed I think he was hanged ; but that is a misfortune that will attend very illustrious genealogies ; it is as common to them as to the pedigrees about Paddington and Blackhcath. I have had at least a dozen great-great-grandfathers that came to untimely ends. All your virtuosos in heraldry are content to know that they had ancestors who lived five hundred years ago, no matter how they died. A match with a low woman corrupts a stream of blood as long as the Danube, — tyranny, villainy, and executions are mere Heabites, and leave no stain. The good Lord of Bath, whom I saw on Bichmond-green this evening, did intend, I believe, to ennoble my genealogy with another execution : how low is he sunk now from those views ! and how entertaining to have lived to see all those virtuous patriots proclaiming their mutual iniquities ! Your friend Mr. Dodington, it seems, is so reduced as to be relapsing into virtue. In my last I told you some curious anecdotes of another 1 Madame de Mirepoix, French ambassadress in England, to whom her lather, Trince Craon, had written a letter of introduction for Horace Walpole. — Dover. 2 Count Uichcourt, and some Florentines, his creatures, had been very impertinent about Mr. Mann's family, which was very good, and which made it necessary to have his pedigree drawn out, and sent over to Florence. — Wali>ole. 166 HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS. [1749. part of the band, of Pope and Bolingbroke. The friends of the former have published twenty pamphlets against the latter ; I say against the latter, for, as there is no defending Pope, they are reduced to satirise Bolingbroke. One of them 1 tells him how little he would be known himself from his own writings, if he were not immortalised in Pope's ; and still more justly, that if he destroys Pope's moral character, what will become of his own, which has been retrieved and sanctified by the embalming art of his friend ? However, there are still new discoveries made every day of Pope's dirty selfishness. Not content with the great profits which he pro- posed to make of the work in question, he could not bear that the interest of his money should be lost till Bolingbroke's death ; and therefore told him that it would cost very near as much to have the press set for half-a-dozen copies as it would for a complete edition, and by this means made Lord Bolingbroke pay very near the whole expense of the fifteen hundred. Another story I have been told on this occasion, was of a gentleman who, making a visit to Bishop Atterbury in France, thought to make his court by commending Pope. The Bishop replied not : the gentleman doubled the dose : at last the Bishop shook his head, and said, " Mens curva in corpore curvo ! " The world will now think justly of these men : that Pope was the greatest poet, but not the most disinterested man in the world ; and that Bolingbroke had not all those virtues and not all those talents which the other so proclaimed ; and that he did not even deserve the friendship which lent him so much merit ; and for the mere loan of which he dissembled attachment to Pope, to whom in his heart he was as perfidious and as false as he has been to the rest of the world. The Duke of Devonshire has at last resigned, 2 for the unaccountable and unenvied pleasure of shutting himself up at Chatsworth with his ugly mad Duchess ; 3 the more extraordinary sacrifice, as he turned her head, rather than give up a favourite match for his son. She has consented to live with him there, and has even been with him in town for a few days, but did not see either her son or Lady 1 Warburton. — Cunningham. 2 Coxe, in his Memoirs of Lord Walpole, vol. ii. p. 264, says that the Duke of Devonshire resigned, because he was disgusted with the feuds in the cabinet, and perplexed with the jealous disposition of .Newcastle and the desponding spirit of Pelham. — Wright. 3 Katherine, daughter and heir of John Hoskins, Co. Middlesex, Esq. — Cunningham. 1749.] TO SIR HORACE MANN. 167 Hartington. On his resignation he asked and obtained an English barony for Lord Besborough, whose son Lord Duncannon, you know, married the Duke's eldest daughter. I believe this is a great dis- appointment to my uncle, who hoped he would ask the peerage for him or Pigwiggin. The Duke of Marlborough succeeds as Lord Steward. Adieu. 290. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, June 25, 1749. Don't flatter yourself with your approaching year of jubilee ; its pomps and vanities will be nothing to the shows and triumphs we have had, and are having. I talk like an Englishman : here you kn