Books: Letters of Horace Walpole, V4

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These circumstances, which I solemnly assure you are strictly
true, prove that my father neither advised, nor was consulted;
nor is it credible that the King in one night's time should have
passed from the intention of disgracing him, to make him his
bosom Confidant on so delicate an affair.

I was once talking to the late Lady Suffolk, the former mistress,
on that extraordinary event. She said, "I cannot justify the
deed to the legatees; but towards his father, the late King was
justifiable, for George the First had burnt two wills made in
favour of George the Second." I suppose these were the
testaments of the Duke and Duchess of Zell, parents of George the
First's wife, whose treatment of her they always resented.

I said, I know the transactions of the Duke of Newcastle. The
late Lord Waldegrave showed me a letter from that Duke to The
first Earl of Waldegrave, then ambassador at Paris, with
directions about that transaction, or, at least, about payment of
the pension, I forget which.(327) I have somewhere, but cannot
turn to it now, a memorandum of that affair, and who the Prince
was, whom I may mistake in calling Duke of Wolfenbuttle. There
was a third COPY of the will, I likewise forget with whom
deposited. The newspaper says, which is true, that Lord
Chesterfield filed a bill in chancery against the late King to
oblige him to produce the will, and was silenced, I think, by
payment of twenty thousand Pounds. There was another legacy to
his own daughter, the Queen of Prussia, which has at times been,
and, I believe, is still claimed by the King of Prussia.

Do not mention any part of this story, but it is worth
preserving, I am sure you are satisfied with my scrupulous
veracity. It may Perhaps be authenticated hereafter by
collateral evidence that may come out. If ever true history does
come to light my father's character will have just honour paid to
it. Lord Chesterfield, one of his sharpest enemies, has not,
with all his
prejudices, left a very unfavourable account of him, and it would
alone be raised by a comparison of their two characters. Think
of one who calls Sir Robert the corrupter of youth, leaving a
system of education to poison them from their nursery!
Chesterfield, Pulteney, and Bolingbroke were the saints that
reviled my father! I beg your pardon, but you will allow Me to
open my heart to you when it is full. Yours ever.

(326) Malosine de Schulenbourg, a natural daughter of George I.
by Miss Schulenbourg, afterwards created Duchess of Kendal. She
was created, in 1722, Countess of Walsingham and Baroness of
Aldborough, and was the widow of Philip Dormer Stanhope, the
celebrated Earl of Chesterfield, who died in 1773-E.

(327) See Walpole's Memoires of George the second, vol. ii., p.
458-E.

Letter 149 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Oct. 23, 1778. (page 204)

* * * * * Having thus told you all I know, I shall add a few
words, to say I conclude you have known as much, by my not having
heard from you. Should the post-office or secretary's o(fice set
their wits at work to bring to light all the intelligence
contained under the above hiatus, I am confident they will
discover nothing, though it gives an exact description of all
they have been about themselves.

My personal history is very short. I have had an assembly and
the rheumatism-and am buying a house-and it rains-and I shall
plant the roses against my treillage to-morrow. Thus you know
-what I have done, suffered, am doing, and shall do. Let me know
as much of you, in quantity, not in quality. Introductions to,
and conclusions of, letters are as much out of fashion, as to at,
etc. on letters. This sublime age reduces every thing to its
quintessence: all periphrases and expletives are so much in
disuse, that I suppose soon the only way of making love will be
to say "Lie down." Luckily, the lawyers will not part with any
synonymous words, and will, consequently preserve the
redundancies of our language--Dixi.

Letter 150 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
October 26, 1778. (page 204)

I have finished the life of Mr. Baker, will have it transcribed,
and send it to you. I have omitted several little particulars
that are in your notes, for two reasons; one, because so much is
said in the Biographia; and the other, because I have rather
drawn a character of him, than meant a circumstantial life. In
the justice I have done to him, I trust I shall have pleased you.
I have much greater doubt of that effect in what I have said of
his principles and party. It is odd, perhaps, to have made use
of the life of a high churchman for expatiating on my own very
opposite principles; but it gave me SO fair an opportunity of
discussing those points, that I very naturally embraced it. I
have done due honour to his immaculate conscience, but have not
spared the cause in which he fell,-or rather rose,-for the ruin
of his fortune was the triumph of his virtue.

As you know I do not love the press, you may be sure I have no
thoughts of printing this life at present; nay, I beg you will
not only not communicate it, but take care it never should be
printed without my consent. I have written what presented
itself; I should perhaps choose to soften several passages; and I
trust to you for Your own satisfaction, not as a finished thing,
or as I am determined it should remain.

Another favour I beg of you is to criticise it as largely and
severely As you please: you have A right so to do, as it is built
with your own materials, nay, you have a right to scold if I
have, nay, since I have, employed them so differently from your
intention. All my excuse is, that you communicated them to one
who did not deceive you, and you was pretty sure would make
nearly the use of them that he has made. Was not you? did you
not suspect a little that I could not write even a Life of Mr.
Baker without talking Whiggism!--Well, if I have ill-treated the
cause, I am sure I have exalted the martyr. I have thrown new
light on his virtue from his notes on the Gazettes, and you will
admire him more, though you may love me less, for my chymistry.
I should be truly sorry if I did lose a scruple of your
friendship. You have ever been as candid to me, as Mr. Baker was
to his antagonists, and our friendship is another proof that men
of the most opposite principles can agree in every thing else,
and not quarrel about them.

As my manuscript contains above twenty pages of my writing on
larger paper than this, you cannot receive it speedily--however,
I have Performed my promise, and I hope you will not be totally
discontent, though I am not satisfied with myself. I have
executed it by snatches and by long interruptions; and not having
been eager about it, I find I wanted that ardour to inspire me;
another proof of what I told you, that my small talent is waning,
and wants provocatives. It shall be a warning to me. Adieu!

Letter 151 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, Nov. 4, 1778. (page 205)

You will see by my secretary's hand, that I am not able to write
myself; indeed, I am in bed with the gout in six places, like
Daniel in the den; but, as the lions are slumbering round me, and
leave me a moment of respite, I employ it to give you one.
You have misunderstood me, dear Sir: I have not said a word that
will lower Mr. Baker's character; on the contrary, I think he
will come out brighter from my ordeal. In truth, as I have drawn
out his life from your papers, it is a kind of Political epic, in
which his conscience is the hero that always triumphs over his
interest
upon the most opposite occasions. Shall you dislike your saint
in this light! I had transcribed about half when I fell ill last
week. If the gout does not seize my right hand, I shall Probably
have recovery full leisure to finish it during my recovery, but
shall certainly not be
able to send it to you by Mr. Lort.

Your promise fully satisfies me. My life can never extend to
twenty years.(328) Anyone that saw me this moment would not take
me for a Methusalem. I have not strength to dictate more now,
except to add, that if Mr. Nicholls has seen my narrative about
Chatterton, it can only be my letter to Mr. Barrett, of which you
have a copy; the larger one has not yet been out of my own house.
Yours most sincerely.

(328) Mr. Cole had informed Walpole that his collections were not
to be opened until twenty years after his death. See ant`e, P.
199, letter 146, note 323.

Letter 152 To Lady Browne.(329)
Arlington Street, Nov, 5, 1778. (page 206)

Your ladyship is exceedingly kind and charitable, and the least I
can do in return is to do all I can--dictate a letter to you. I
have not been out of bed longer than it was necessary to have it
made, once a day, since last Thursday. The gout is in both my
feet, both my knees, and in my left hand and elbow. Had I a mind
to brag, I could boast of a little rheumatism too, but I scorn to
set value on such a trifle; nay, I will own that I have felt but
little acute pain. My chief propensity to exaggeration would be
on the miserable nights I have passed; and yet whatever I should
say would not be beyond what I thought I suffered. I have been
constantly as broad awake as Mrs. Candour that is always gaping
for Scandal,(330) except when I have taken opiates, and then my
dreams have been as extravagant as Mrs. Candour adds to what she
hears. In short, Madam, not to tire you with more details,
though you have ordered them, I am so weak that I am able to see
nobody at all, and when I shall be recovered enough to take
possession of this new lease, as it is called, the mansion, I
believe, will be so shattered that it won't be worth repairs. Is
it not very foolish, then, to be literally buying a new house? Is
it not verifying Pope's line, when I choose a Pretty situation,

"But just to look about us and to die?"

I am sorry Lady Jane's lot is fallen in Westphalia, where so
great a hog is lord of the manor. He is like the dragon of
Wantley,

"And houses and churches
To him are geese and turkeys;"

so I don't wonder that he has gobbled her two cows.

Lady Blandford is delightful in congratulating me upon having the
gout in town, and staying in the country herself. Nay, she is
very insolent in presuming to be the only person invulnerable.
If I could wish her any, harm, it should be that she might feel
for one quarter of an hour a taste of the mortifications that I
suffered from eleven last night till four this morning, and I am
sure she would never dare to have a spark of courage again. I
can only wish her in Grosvenor-square, where she would run no
risks. Her reputation for obstinacy is so well established, that
she might take advice from her true friends for a twelvemonth,
before we should believe our own ears. However, as every body
has some weak part, I know she will do for others more than for
herself; and, therefore, pray Madam, tell her, that I am sure it
is bad for Your ladyship to stay in the country at this time of
year, and that reason, I am sure will bring you both. I really
must rest.

(329) Now first printed. See vol. iii., letter to George
Montagu, Esq., Nov. 1, 1767, letter 332.

(330) Sheridan's popular comedy of the "School for Scandal" which
came out at Drury-lane theatre in May 1777, was at this time as
much the favourite of the town as ever.-E.

Letter 153 To Lady Browne.(331)
Arlington Street, Dec. 18, 1778. (page 207)

My not writing with my own hand, to thank Your ladyship for your
very obliging letter, is the worst symptom that remains with me,
Madam: all pain and swelling are gone; and I hope in a day or two
to get a glove even on my right hand, and to walk with help into
the room by the end of next week. I did I confess, see a great
deal too much company too early; and was such an old child as to
prattle abundantly, till I was forced to shut myself up for a
week and see nobody; but I am quite recovered, and the emptiness
of the town will soon preserve me from any excesses.

I am exceedingly glad to hear your ladyship finds so much benefit
from the air: I own I thought you looked ill the last time I had
the honour of seeing you; and though I am sorry to hear you talk
with so much satisfaction of a country life, I am not selfish
enough to wish you to leave Tusmore(332) a day before your health
is quite re-established, nor to envy Mr. Fermor so agreeable an
addition to his society and charming seat.

Poor Lady Albemarle is indeed very miserable and full of
apprehensions; though the incredible zeal. of the navy for
Admiral Keppel crowns him with glory, and the indignation of and
the indignation of mankind, and the execration of Sir Hugh, add
to the triumph. Indeed, I still think Lady A.'s fears may be
well founded: some slur may be Procured on her son; and his own
bad nerves, and worse constitution, may not be able to stand
agitation and suspense.(333)

Lady Blandford has had a cold, but I hear is well again, and has
generally two tables. She will be a loss indeed to all her
friends, and to hundreds more; but she cannot be immortal, nor
would be, if she could.

The writings are not yet signed, Madam, for my house, but I am in
no doubt of having it; yet I shall not think of going into it
till the spring, as I cannot enjoy this year's gout in it, and
will not venture catching a codicil, by going backwards and
forwards to it before it is aired.

I know no particular news, but that Lord Bute was thought in
great danger yesterday; I have heard nothing of him to-day. I do
not know even a match, but of some that are going to be divorced;
the fate of one of the latter is to be turned into an exaltation,
and is treated by her family and friends in quite a new style, to
the discomfit of all prudery. It puts me in mind of Lord
Lansdowne's lines in the room in the Tower where my father had
been confined,

"Some fall so hard, they bound and rise again."

Methinks, however, it is a little hard on Lord George Germaine,
that in four months after seeing a Duchess of Dorset, he may see
a Lord Middlesex too; for so old the egg is said to be, that is
already prepared. If this trade goes on, half the peeresses will
have two eldest sons with both fathers alive at the same time.
Lady Holderness expresses nothing but grief and willingness to
receive her daughter(334) again on any terms, which probably will
happen; for the daughter has already opened her eyes, is sensible
of her utter ruin, and has written to Lord Carmarthen and Madam
Cordon, acknowledging her guilt, and begging to be remembered
only with pity, which is sufficient to make one pity her.

I would beg pardon for so long a letter, but your ladyship
desired THE intelligence, and I know a long letter from London is
not uncomfortable at Christmas, even. in the most comfortable
house in the country. Perhaps my own forced idleness has a
little contributed to lengthen it; still I hope it implies great
readiness to obey your ladyship's commands, in your most obedient
humble servant.

(331) Now first printed.

(332) Lady Browne's first husband was Henry Fermor Esq.,
grandfather of Mr. Fermor of Tusmore House. She was Miss
Sheldon.-E.

(333) Some charges having been brought against Admiral Keppel for
his conduct at the battle of Ushant,
by Sir Hugh Palliser, his vice-admiral, he was tried for the
same, and not only unanimously acquitted, but the prosecution
declared malicious. This verdict gave such general satisfaction,
that London was illuminated for two nights; upon one,
of which a mob, consisting in great part of sailors who had
served under Keppel, broke all the windows in the house of his
accuser. The city of London voted the Admiral the freedom of the
corporation. In 1782, he was Created Viscount Keppel, and
appointed first lord of the admiralty. He died unmarried, in
October 1786. The following is a part of Mr. Burke's beautiful
panegyric on him, at the conclusion of his letter to a noble
Lord:--"I ever looked on Lord Keppel as one of the greatest and
best men of his age, and I loved and cultivated him accordingly.
It was at his trial that he gave me this picture. With what zeal
and anxious affection I attended him through that his agony of
glory; what part my son took in the early flush and enthusiasm of
his virtue, and the pious passion with which he attached himself
to all my connexions; with what prodigality we both squandered
ourselves in courting almost every sort of enmity for his sake, I
believe he felt, just as I should have felt such friendship on
such an occasion. I partook, indeed, of this honour with several
of the first, and best, and ablest in the kingdom; but I was
behind with none of them - and I am sure that if, to the eternal
disgrace of this nation, and to the total annihilation of every
trace of honour and virtue in it, things had taken a different
turn from what they did, I should have attended him to the
quarterdeck with no less good-will and more pride, though with
far other feelings, than I partook of the general flow of
national joy that attended the justice that was done to his
virtue."-E.

(335) Amelia D'Arcy, Baroness Conyers, daughter of Robert, fourth
Earl of Holderness, Married to Lord Carmarthen; who had eloped
with Captain John Byron, father of the great poet.-E.

Letter 154 To The Earl Of Buchan.(336)
Arlington Street, Dec. 24, 1778. (page 209)

It was an additional mortification to my illness, my lord, that I
was nut able to thank your lordship with my own hand for the
honour of your letter, and for your goodness in remembering an
old man, who must with reason consider himself as forgotten, when
he never was of importance, and is now almost useless to himself.
Frequent severe fits of the gout have a good deal disabled me
from pursuing the trifling studies in which I could pretend to
know any thing; or at least has given me an indifference, that
makes me less ready in answering questions than I may have been
formerly; and as my papers are in the country, whither at present
I am not able to go, I fear I can give but unsatisfactory replies
to your lordship's queries.

The two very curious pictures of King James and his Queen (I
cannot recollect whether the third or fourth of the name, but I
know that she was a princess of Sweden or Denmark,(337) and that
her arms are on her portrait,) were at the palace at Kensington,
and I imagine are there still. I had obtained leave from the
Lord Chamberlain to have drawings made of them, and Mr. Wale
actually
began them for me, but made such slow progress, and I was so
called off from the thought of them by indispositions and other
avocations, that they were never finished; and Mr.. Wale may,
perhaps, still have the beginnings he made.

At the Duke of Devonshire's at Hardwicke, there is a valuable
though poorly painted picture of James V. and Mary of Guise, his
second queen: it is remarkable from the great resemblance of Mary
Queen of Scots to her father; I mean in Lord Morton's picture of
her, and in the image of her on her tomb at Westminster, which
agree together, and which I take to be the genuine likeness. I
have doubts on Lord Burlington's picture, and on Dr. Mead's. The
nose in both is thicker, and also fuller at bottom than on the
tomb; though it is a little supported by her coins.

There is a much finer portrait,--indeed, an excellent head,--of
the Lady Margaret Douglas at Mr. Carteret's at Hawnes in
Bedfordshire, the late Lord Granville's. It is a shrewd
countenance, and at the same time with great goodness of
character. Lord Scarborough has a good picture, in the style of
Holbein at least, of Queen Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry
VII., and of her second or third husband (for, if I don't
mistake, she had three); but indeed, my lord, these things are so
much out of my memory at present, that I speak with great
diffidence. I cannot even recollect any thing else to your
lordship's purpose; but I flatter myself, that these imperfect
notices will at least be a testimony of my readiness to obey your
lordship's commands, as that I am, with great respect, my lord,
your lordship's obedient humble servant.

(336) Now first printed. David Stewart Erskine, eleventh Earl of
Buchan. He was intended for public life, but shortly after
succeeding to the family honours, in 1767, he retired to
Scotland, and devoted himself to literature. His principal works
were, an Essay on the lives of Fletcher of Saltoun and the Poet
Thomson, and a Life of Napier of Merchiston. He died at Dryburgh
Abbey in 1829 at the age of eighty-seven.-E.

(337) James the First married, in 1590, Anne, daughter of
Frederick King of Denmark.-E.

Letter 155 To Edward Gibbon, Esq.(338)
[1778.] (page 210)

Dear Sir,
I have gone through your Inquisitor's attack(339) and am far from
being clear that it deserves your giving yourself the trouble of
an answer, as neither the detail nor the result affects your
argument. So far from it, many of his reproofs are levelled at
your having quoted a wrong page; he confessing often that what
you have cited is in the author, referred to, but not precisely
in the individual spot. If St. Peter is attended by a corrector
of the press, you will certainly never be admitted where he is a
porter. I send you my copy, because I scribbled my remarks. I
do not send them with the impertinent presumption of suggesting a
hint to you, but to prove I did not grudge the trouble of going
through such a book when you desired it, and to show how little
struck me as of any weight.

I have set down nothing on your imputed plagiarisms; for, if they
are so, no argument that has ever been employed must be used
again, even where the passage necessary is applied to a different
purpose. An author is not allowed to be master of his own works;
but, by Davis's new law, the first person that cites him would be
so. You probably looked into Middleton, Dodwell, etc.; had the
same reflections on the same circumstances, or conceived them so
as to recollect them, without remembering what suggested them.
Is this plagiarism? If it is, Davis and such cavillers might go a
short step further, and insist that an author should peruse every
work antecedently written on every subject at all collateral to
his own.-not to assist him, but to be sure to avoid every
material touched by his predecessors. I will make but one remark
on such divine champions. Davis and his prototypes tell you
Middleton, etc. have used the same objections, and they have
been confuted: answering, in the theologic dictionary, signifying
confuting; no matter whether there is sense, argument, truth, in
the answer or not.

Upon the whole I think ridicule is the only answer such a work is
entitled to.' The ablest, answer which you can make (which would
be the ablest answer that could be made) would never have any
authority with the cabal, yet would allow a sort of dignity to
the author. His patrons will always maintain that he vanquished
you, unless u made him too ridiculous for them to dare to revive
his name. You might divert yourself, too, with Alma Mater, the
church, employing a goviat to defend the citadel, while the
generals repose in their tents. If irenaeus, St. Augustine, etc.
did not set apprentices and proselytes to combat Celsus and the
adversaries of the new religion---but early bishops had not five
or six thousand pounds a-year.

In short, dear Sir, I wish you not to lose your time; that is,
either ,not reply, or set your mark on your answer, that it may
always be read with the rest of your works.

(338) Now first collected.

(339) "An Examination of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters of
Mr. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
By Henry Edward Davis, B.A. of Baliol College, Oxford." He was
born in 1756 and died in 1784, at the early age of twenty-seven.
He was a native of Windsor, and is believed to have received a
present from George the Third for this production.-E.

Letter 156 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Jan. 3, 1779. (page 211)

At last, after ten weeks I have been able to remove hither, in
hopes change of air and the frost will assist my recovery; though
I am not one of those ancients that forget the register, and
think they are to be as well as ever after every fit of illness.
As yet I can barely creep about the room in the middle of the
day.

I have made my printer (now my secretary) copy out the rest of
Mr. Baker's Life; for my own hand will barely serve to write
necessary letters, and complains even of them. If you know of
any very trusty person passing between London and Cambridge, I
would send it to you, but should not care to trust it by the
coach, nor to any giddy undergraduate that comes to town to see a
play; and, besides, I mean to return you your own notes. I Will
Say no more than I have said in my apology to you for the manner
in which I have written this life. With regard to Mr. Baker
himself, I am confident you will find that I have done full
justice to his work and character. i
do not expect You to approve the inferences I draw against some
other persons; and yet, if his conduct was meritorious, it would
not be easy to excuse those who -were active after doing what he
would not do. You will not understand this sentence till you
have seen the Life.