Books: Letters of Horace Walpole, V4

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(242) Now first collected.

(243) The first quarto volume of the History of the Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire.-E.

Letter 104 To Edward Gibbon, Esq.(244)
February 14, 1776. (page 150)

After the singular pleasure of reading you, Sir, the next
satisfaction is to declare my admiration. I have read great part
of your volume, and cannot decide to which of its various merits
I give the preference, though I have no doubt of assigning any
partiality to one virtue of the author, which, seldom as I meet
with it, always strikes me superiorly. Its quality will
naturally prevent your guessing which I mean. It is your amiable
modesty. How can you know so much, judge so well, possess your
subject, and your knowledge, and your power of judicious
reflection so thoroughly, and yet command yourself and betray no
dictatorial arrogance of decision? How unlike very ancient and
very modern authors! You have, unexpectedly, given the world a
classic history. The fame it must acquire will tend every day
to acquit this panegyric of flattery.(245) The impressions it
has made on me are very numerous. The strongest is the thirst of
being better acquainted with you--but I reflect that I have been
a trifling author, and am in no light profound enough to deserve
your intimacy, except by confessing your superiority so frankly,
that I assure you honestly, I already feel no envy, though I did
for a moment. The best proof I can give you of my sincerity, is
to exhort you, warmly and earnestly, to go on with your noble
work--the strongest, though a presumptuous mark of my friendship,
is to warn you never to let your charming modesty be corrupted by
the acclamations your talents will receive. The native qualities
of the man should never be sacrificed to those of the author,
however shining. I take this liberty as an older man, which
reminds me how little I dare promise myself that I shall see your
work completed! But I love posterity enough to contribute, if I
can, to give them pleasure through you.

I am too weak to say more, though I could talk for hours on your
history. But one feeling I cannot suppress, though it is a
sensation of vanity. I think, nay, I am sure I perceive, that
your sentiments on government agree with my own. It is the only
point on which I suspect myself of any partiality in my
admiration. It is a reflection of a far inferior vanity that
pleases me in your speaking with so much distinction of that,
alas! wonderful period, in which the world saw five good monarchs
succeed each other.(246) I have often thought of treating that
Elysian era. Happily it has fallen into better hands!

I have been able to rise to-day, for the first time, and flatter
myself that if I have no relapse, you will in two or three days
more give' me leave, Sir, to ask the honour of seeing you. In
the mean time,,be just; and do not suspect me of flattering you.
You will always hear that I say the same of you to every body. I
am, with the greatest regard, Sir, etc.

(244) now first collected.

(245) "I am at a loss," says Gibbon, in his Memoirs, "how to
describe the success of the work without betraying the vanity of
the writer. The first impression was exhausted in a few days; a
second and third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand;
and the bookseller's property was twice invaded by the pirates of
Dublin. My book was on every table, and almost on every
toilette; the historian was crowned by the taste or fashion of
the day; nor was the general voice disturbed by the barking of
any profane critic."-E.

(246) Walpole, in August 1771, had said, "The world will no more
see Athens, Rome, and the Medici again, than a succession of five
good Emperors, like Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, and the two
Antonines." See ante, p. 56-E.

Letter 105 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, March 1, 1776. (page 151)

I am sorry to tell you that the curious old painting at the
Tavern in Fleet Street is addled, by the subject turning out a
little too old. Alas! it is not the story of Francis I., but of
St. Paul. All the coats of arms that should have been French and
Austrian, and that I had a mind to convert into Palatine and
Lorrain, are the bearings of Pharisaic nobility. In short, Dr.
Percy was here yesterday, and tells me that over Mr. Gough's
imaginary Pavia is written Damascus in capital letters. Oh! our
antiquaries!

Mr. Astle has at last called on me, but I was not well enough to
see him. I shall return his visit when I can go out. I hope
this will be in a week: I have no pain left, but have a codicil
of nervous fevers, for which I am taking the bark. I have
nothing new for you in our old way, and therefore will not
unnecessarily lengthen my letter, which was only intended to
cashier the old painting, though I hear the antiquaries still go
on with having a drawing taken from it. Oh! our antiquaries!

Letter 106 To Dr. Gem.(247)
Arlington Street, April 4, 1776 (page 151)

It is but fair, when one quits one's party, to give notice to
those one abandons--at least, modern patriots, who often imbibe
their principles of honour at Newmarket, use that civility. You
and I, dear Sir, have often agreed in our political notions; and
you, I fear, will die without changing your opinion. For my
part, I must confess I am totally altered; and, instead of being
a warm partisan of liberty, now admire nothing but despotism.
You will naturally ask what place I have gotten, or what bribe I
have taken? Those are the criterions of political changes in
England-but, as my conversion is of foreign extraction, I shall
not be the richer for it. In One word, it is the relation du lit
de justice(248) that has operated the miracle. When two
ministers(249) are found so humane, so virtuous, so excellent as
to study nothing but the welfare and deliverance of the people;
when a king listens to such excellent men; and when a parliament,
from the basest, most interested motives, interposes to intercept
the blessing, must I not change my opinions, and admire arbitrary
power? or can I retain my sentiments, without varying the object?

Yes, Sir, I am shocked at the conduct of the Parliament-- one
would think it was an English one! I am scandalized at the
speeches of the Ivocat-g`en`eral,(250) who sets up the odious
interests of the nobility and clergy against the cries and groans
of the poor; and who employs his wicked eloquence to tempt the
good young monarch, by personal views, to sacrifice the mass of
his subjects to the privileges of the few. But why do I call it
eloquence? The fumes of interest had so clouded his rhetoric,
that he falls into a downright Iricism. He tells the King, that
the intended tax on the proprietors of land will affect the
property not only of the rich, but of the poor. I should be glad
to know what is the Property of the poor? Have the poor landed
estates? Are those who have landed estates the poor? Are the
poor that will suffer by the tax, the wretched labourers who are
dragged from their famishing families to work on the roads? But
it is wicked eloquence when it finds a reason, or gives a reason
for continuing the abuse. The Advocate tells the King, those
abuses are presque consacr`es par l'anciennet`e. Indeed, he says
all that can be said for nobility, it is consacr`ee par
l'anciennet`e--and thus the length of the pedigree of abuses
renders them respectable!

His arguments are as contemptible when he tries to dazzle the
King by the great names of Henri Quatre and Sully, of Louis XIV.
and Colbert, two couple whom nothing but a mercenary orator would
have classed together. Nor, were all four equally venerable,
would it prove any thing. Even good kings and good ministers, if
such have been, may have erred; nay, may have done the best they
could. They would not have been good, if they wished their
errors should be preserved, the longer they had lasted.

In short, Sir, I think this resistance of the Parliament to the
adorable reformation planned by Messrs. de Turgot and
Malesherbes, is more phlegmatically scandalous than the wildest
tyranny of despotism. I forget what the nation was that refused
liberty when it was offered. This opposition to so noble a work
is worse. A whole people may refuse its own happiness; but these
profligate magistrates resist happiness for others, for millions,
for posterity! Nay, do they not half vindicate Maupeou, who
crushed them? And you, dear Sir, will you now chide my apostacy?
Have-I not cleared myself to your eyes? I do not see a shadow of
sound logic in all Monsieur Seguier's but in his proposing that
the soldiers should work on the roads, and that passengers should
contribute to their fabric; though, as France is not so
luxuriously mad as England, I do not believe passengers could
support the expense of the roads. That argument, therefore, is
like another that the Avocat proposes to the King, and which, he
modestly owns, he believes would be impracticable.

I beg your pardon, Sir, for giving you this long trouble; but I
could not help venting myself, when shocked to find such renegade
conduct in a Parliament that I was rejoiced had been restored.
Poor human kind! is it always to breed serpents from its own
bowels? In one country, it chooses its representatives, and they
sell it and themselves--in others, it exalts despots--in another,
it resists the despot when he consults the good of his people!
Can we -wonder mankind is wretched, when men are such beings?
Parliaments run wild with loyalty, when America is to be enslaved
or butchered. They rebel, when their country is to be set free!
I am not surprised at the idea of the devil being always at our
elbows. They who invented him, no doubt could not conceive how
men could be so atrocious to one another, without the
intervention of a fiend. Don't you think, if he had never been
heard of before, that he would have been invented on the late
partition of Poland! Adieu, dear Sir. Yours most sincerely.

(247) An English physician long settled at Paris, no less
esteemed for his professional knowledge, than for his kind
attention to the poor who applied to him for medical assistance.

(248) The first lit de justice held by Louis XVI.

(249) Messieurs de Malesherbes and Turgot. When the intrigues
which had been set on foot to overthrow the administration of
Turgot had accomplished that object, an event which took place
shortly after the date of this letter Louis XVI requested
Malesherbes to remain in office; but when he refused to do so,
seeing that his friend Turgot had been dismissed, Louis conscious
of the increased anxieties in which he should be involved,
exclaimed, with a sigh, "Que vous `etes heureux! que ne Puis-je
aussi quitter ma place."-E.

(250) Monsieur de Seguier.

Letter 107 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
April 16, 1776. (page 153)

You will be concerned, my good Sir, for what I have this minute
heard from his nephew, that poor Mr. Granger was seized at the
communion table on Sunday With an apoplexy, and died yesterday
morning at five. I have answered the letter with a word of
advice about his manuscripts, that they may not fall into the
hands of booksellers. He had been told by idle people so many
gossiping stories, that it would hurt him and living persons, to
be printed; for as he Was incapable of 1, if all his collections
were telling an untruth himself, he suspected nobody else--too
great goodness in a biographer.

P. S. The whole world is occupied with the Duchess of Kingston's
trial.(251) I don't tell you a word of it; for you will not care
about it these two hundred years.

(251) in Westminster Hall, before the House of Peers, for
intermarrying with the Duke of Kingston during the lifetime of
her first husband. She was found guilty, but, pleading her
privilege, was discharged without any punishment. Hannah More
gives the following description of the scene:--"Garrick would
have me take his ticket to go to the trial f the Duchess of
Kingston; a sight which, for beauty and magnificence, exceeded
any thing which those who were never present at a coronation or a
trial by peers can have the least notion of. Mrs. Garrick and I
were in full dress by seven. You will imagine the bustle of five
thousand people getting into one hall! yet, in all this hurry, we
walked in tranquilly. When they were all seated, and the
King-at-arms had commanded silence, on pain of imprisonment,
(which, however, was very ill observed,) the gentleman of the
black rod was commanded to bring in his prisoner. Elizabeth,
calling herself Duchess dowager of Kingston, walked in, led by
Black Rod and Mr. La Roche, courtesying profoundly to her judges.
The peers made her a slight bow. The prisoner was dressed in
deep mourning; a black hood on her head; her hair modestly
dressed and powdered; a black silk sacque, with crape trimmings;
black gauze, deep ruffles, and black gloves. The counsel spoke
about an hour and a quarter each. Dunning's manner is
insufferably bad, coughing and spitting at every three words, but
his sense and his expression pointed to the last degree: he made
her grace shed bitter tears. The fair victim had four virgins in
white behind the bar. She imitated her great predecessor, Mrs.
Rudd, and affected to write very often, though I plainly
perceived she only wrote, as they do their love epistles on the
stage, without forming a letter. The Duchess has but small
remains of that beauty of which kings and princes were once so
enamoured. She looked much like Mrs. Pritchard. She is large
and ill-shaped; there was nothing white but her face and, had it
not been for that, she would have looked like a bale of
bombazeen. There was a great deal of ceremony, a great deal of
splendour, and a great deal of nonsense: they adjourned upon the
most foolish pretences imaginable, and did nothing with such an
air of business as was truly ridiculous. I forgot to tell you
the Duchess was taken ill, but performed it badly." In a
subsequent letter, she says--"I have the great satisfaction of
telling you that Elizabeth, calling herself Duchess-dowager of
Kingston, was, this very afternoon, Undignified and unduchessed,
and very narrowly escaped being burned in the hand. If you have
been half as much interested against this unprincipled, artful,
licentious woman as I have, you will be rejoiced at it as I am.
Lord Camden breakfasted with us. He is very angry that she was
not burned in the hand. He says, as he was once a professed
lover of hers, he thought it would have looked ill-natured and
ungallant for him to propose it; but that he should have acceded
to it most heartily, though he believes he should have
recommended a cold iron." Memoirs, vol. i. Pp. 82, 85.-E.

Letter 108 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Strawberry Hill, June 1, 1776. (page 154)

Mr. Granger's papers have been purchased by Lord Mount
Stewart,(252) who has the frenzy of portraits as well as I; and,
though I am at the head of the sect, I have no longer the rage of
propagating it, nor would I on any account take the trouble of
revising and publishing the manuscripts. Mr. Granger had drowned
his taste for portraits in the ocean of biography; and, though he
began with elucidating prints, he at last only sought prints that
he might write the lives of those they represented. His work was
grown and growing so voluminous, that an abridgment only could
have made it useful to collectors. I am not surprised that you
wilt not assist Kippis;(253) Bishop Laud and William Prynne could
never agree. You are very justly more averse to Mr. Masters who
is a pragmatic fellow, and at best troublesome.

If the agate knives you are so good as to recommend to me can be
tolerably authenticated, have any royal marks, or, at least, old
setting of the time, and will be sold for two guineas, I should
not dislike having them - though I have scarce room to stick a
knife and fork. But if I trouble you to pay for them, you must
let me know all I owe you already, for I know I am in your debt
for prints and pamphlets, and this new debt will make the whole
considerable enough to be remitted. I have lately purchased
three apostle-spoons to add to the one you was so kind as to give
me. What is become of Mr. Essex? does he never visit London? I
wish I could tempt him thither or hither. I am not only thinking
of building my offices in a collegiate style, for which I have a
good design and wish to consult him, but am actually wanting
assistance at this very moment, about a smaller gallery that I
wish to add' this summer; and which, if Mr. Essex was here, he
should build directly.

It is scarce worth asking him to take the journey on purpose,
though I would pay for his journey hither and back, and would
lodge him here for the necessary time. I can only beg you to
mention it to him as an idle jaunt, the object is so trifling. I
wish more that YOU Could come with him: do you leave your poor
parishioners and their souls to themselves? if you do, I hope
Dr. Kippis will seduce them. Yours ever.

(252) John Lord Mountstuart; in March 1796, created Marquis of
Bute. He died in Geneva in November 1814, when the marquisate
descended to his grandson.-E.

(253) Dr. Andrew Kippis, well-known for the active part he took
in producing the second edition of the" Biographia Britannnica,
of which he was the editor, and in a great measure the writer.
He had applied to 'Mr. Cole for assistance; and Walpole's
satisfaction at Cole's refusal is to be accounted for by the fact
of Kippis having threatened to expose Sir Robert Walpole in the
course of that work. Walpole had called the " Biographia
Britannica" an apology for every body. This Kippis happened to
hear of; upon which he is said to have retorted, "that the Life
of Sir Robert Walpole should prove that the Biographia was not an
apology for every body.'-E.

Letter 109 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, June 11, 1776. (page 155)

I am grieved, and feel for your gout; I know the vexations and
disappointments it occasions, and how often it will return when
one thinks it going or gone: it represents life and its
vicissitudes. At last I know it makes me content when one does
not feel actual pain,--and what contents may be called a
blessing; but it is a sort of blessing that extinguishes hopes
and views, and is not so luxurious but one can bear to relinquish
it. I seek amusements now to amuse me; I used to rush into them,
because I had an impulse and wished for what I sought. My want
of Mr. Essex has a little of both kinds, as it is for an addition
to this place, for which my fondness is not worn out. I shall be
very glad to see him here either on the 20th or 21st of this
month, and shall have no engagement till the 23d, and will gladly
pay his journey. I am sorry I must not hope that you will
accompany him.

Letter 110 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, June 30, 1776. (page 156)

I was very glad to receive your letter, not only because always
most glad to hear of you, but because I wished to write to you,
and had absolutely nothing to say till I had something to answer.
I have lain but two nights in town since I saw you; have been,
else, Constantly here, very much employed, though doing, hearing.
knowing exactly nothing. I have had a Gothic architect from
Cambridge to design me a gallery, Which will end in a mouse, that
is, in an hexagon closet, of seven feet diameter. I have been
making a beauty-room, which was effected by buying two dozen of
small copies of Sir Peter Lely, and hanging them up; and I have
been making hay, which is not made, because I put it off for
three days, as I chose it should adorn the landscape when I was
to have company; and so the rain is come, and has drowned it.
However, as I can even turn calculator when it is to comfort me
for not minding my interest, I have discovered that it is five to
one better for me that my hay should be spoiled than not-, for,
as the cows will eat it if it is damaged, which horses will not,
and as I have five cows and but one horse, is not it plain that
the worse my hay is the better? Do not you with your refining
head go, and, out of excessive friendship, find out something to
destroy my system. I had rather be a philosopher than a rich
man; and yet have so little philosophy, that I had much rather be
content than be in the right.

Mr. Beauclerk and Lady Di.(254) have been here four or five days
-so I had both content and exercise for my philosophy. I wish
Lady Ailesbury was as fortunate! The Pembrokes, Churchills, Le
Texier, as you will have heard, and the Garricks have been with
us. Perhaps, if alone, I might have come to you--but you are all
too healthy and harmonious. I can neither walk nor sing -nor,
indeed, am fit for any thing but to amuse myself in a sedentary
trifling way. What I have most certainly not been doing, is
writing any thing: a truth I say to you, but do not desire you to
repeat. I deign to satisfy scarce any body else. Whoever
reported that I was writing any thing, must have been so totally
unfounded, that they either blundered by guessing without reason,
or knew they lied-and that could not be with any kind intention;
though saying I am going to do what I am not going to do, is
wretched enough. Whatever is said of me without truth, any body
is welcome to believe that pleases. In fact, though I have
scarce a settled purpose about any thing, I think I shall never
write any more. I have written a great deal too much, unless I
had written better, and I know I should now only write still
worse. One's talent, whatever it is, does not improve at
sixty-yet, if I liked it, I dare say a good reason would not stop
my inclination;--but I am grown most indolent in that respect,
and most absolutely indifferent to every purpose of vanity. Yet
without vanity I am become still prouder and more contemptuous.
I have a contempt for my countrymen that makes me despise their
approbation. The applause of slaves and of the foolish mad is
below ambition. Mine is the haughtiness of an ancient Briton,
that cannot write what would please this age, and would not, if
he could. Whatever happens in America this country is undone. I
desire to be reckoned of the last age, and to be thought to have
lived to be superannuated, preserving my senses only for myself
and for the few I value. I cannot aspire to be traduced like
Algernon Sydney, and content myself with sacrificing to him
amongst my lares. Unalterable in my principles, careless about
most things below essentials, indulging myself in trifles by
system, annihilating myself by choice, but dreading folly at an
unseemly age, I contrive to pass my time agreeably enough, yet
see its termination approach without anxiety. This is a true
picture of my mind; and it must be true, because drawn for you,
whom I would not deceive, and could not, if I would. Your
question on my being writing drew it forth, though with more
seriousness than the report deserved--yet talking to one's
dearest friend is neither wrong nor out of season. Nay, you are
my best apology. I have always contented myself with your being
perfect, or, if your modesty demands a mitigated term, I will
say, unexceptionable. It is comical, to be sure, to have always
been more solicitous about the virtue of one's friend than about
one's own-yet, I repeat it, you are my apology -though I never
was so unreasonable as to make you answerable for my faults in
return; I take them wholly to myself. But enough of this. When
I know my own mind, for hitherto I have settled no plan ,for my
summer, I will come to you. Adieu!

(254) Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of Charles, Duke of
Marlborough; born in 1734; married, in 1757, to Viscount
Bolingbroke; from whom she was divorced in 1768, and married
immediately after to Mr. Topham Beauclerk.-E.

Letter 111 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
July 23, 1776. (page 157)

You are so good to me, my dear Sir, that I am quite ashamed. I
must not send back your charming present, but wish you would give
me leave to pay for it, and I shall have the same obligation to
you, and still more. It is beautiful in form and colours, and
pleases me excessively. In the mean time, I have in a great
hurry (for I came home but at noon to meet Mr. Essex) chosen out
a few prints for you, Such as I think you will like, and beg you
to accept them: they enter Into no one of my sets. I am heartily
grieved at your account of yourself, and know no comfort but
submission. I was absent to 'General Conway, who is far from
well. We must take our lot as it falls! joy and 'sorrow is mixed
till the scene closes. I am out of spirits, and shall not mend
yours. Mr. Essex is just setting out, and I write in great
haste, but am, as I have so long been, most truly yours.

Letter 112To The Rev. Mr. Cole
Strawberry Hill, July 24, 1776. (page 158)

I wrote to you yesterday, dear Sir, not only in great haste, but
in great confusion, and did not say half I ought to have done for
the pretty vase you sent me, and for your constant obliging
attention to me. All I can say is, that gratitude attempted even
in my haste and concern to put in its word: and I did not mean to
pay you, (which I hope you will really allow me to do) but to
express my sensibility of your kindness. The fact was, that to
avoid disappointing Mr. Essex, when I had dragged him hither from
Cambridge, I had returned hither precipitately, and yet late,
from Park-place whither I went the day before to see General
Conway, who has had a little attack of the paralytic kind. You,
who can remember how very long and dearly I have loved so near a
relation and particular friend, and who are full of nothing but
friendly sensations, can judge how shocked I was to find him more
changed than I expected. I suffered so much in constraining and
commanding myself, that I was not sorry, as the house was full of
relations, to have the plea of Mr. Essex, to get away, and came
to sigh here by myself. It is, perhaps, to prevent my concern
that I write now. Mr. Conway is in no manner of danger, is
better, his head nor speech are affected, and the physicians, who
barely allow the attack to be of the paralytic nature, are clear
it is local, in the muscles of the face. Still has it operated
such a revolution in my mind, as no time, at my age, can efface.
It has at once damped every pursuit which my spirits had even now
prevented me from being weaned from, I mean a Virt`u. It is like
a mortal distemper in myself; for can amusements amuse, if there
is but a glimpse, a vision, of outliving one's friends? I have
had dreams in which I thought I wished for fame--it was not
certainly posthumous fame at any distance: I feel, I feel, it was
confined to the memory of those I love. It seems to me
impossible for a man who has no friends to do any Thing for
fame--and to me the first position in friendship is, to intend
one's friends should survive one-but it is not reasonable to
oppress you, who are suffering gout, with my melancholy ideas.
Let me know as you mend. What I have said, will tell you, what I
hope so many years have told you, that I am very constant and
sincere to friends of above forty years. I doubt Mr. Essex
perceived that my mind was greatly bewildered- He gave me a
direction to Mr. Penticross, who I recollect, Mr. Gray, not you,
told me was turned a Methodist teacher. He was a blue-coat boy,
and came hither then to some of my servants, having at that age a
poetic turn. As he has reverted to it, I hope the enthusiasm
will take a more agreeable plea. I have not heard of him for
many Years, and thought he was settled somewhere near Cambridge:
I find it is at Wallingford. I wonder those madmen and knaves do
not begin to wear out, as their folly is no longer new, and as
knavery can turn its hand to any trade according to the humour of
the age, which in countries like this is seldom constant. Yours
most faithfully.