Books: Letters of Horace Walpole, V4

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I hope you have not been untiled or unpaled by the tempest on
New-year's morning.(340) I have lost two beautiful elms in a row
before my windows here, and had the skylight demolished in town.
Lady Pomfret's Gothic house in my street lost one of the stone
towers, like those at King's Chapel, and it was beaten through
the roof The top of our cross, too, at Ampthill was thrown down,
as I hear from Lady Ossory this morning. I remember to have been
told that Bishop Kidder and his wife were killed in their bed in
the palace of Gloucester in 1709,(341) and yet his heirs were
sued for dilapidations. Lord de Ferrers,(342) who deserves his
ancient honours, is going to repair the castle at Tamworth, and
has flattered me that he will Consult me. He has a violent
passion for ancestry--and, consequently, I trust will not stake
the patrimony of the Ferrars, Townshends, and Comptons, at the
hazard-table. A little pride would not hurt our nobility, cock
and hen. Adieu, dear Sir; send me a good account of yourself
Yours ever.

(340) On the 1st of January, 1779, London was visited by one of
the most violent tempests ever known. Scarcely a public building
in the metropolis escaped without damage.-E.

(341) The memorable storm here alluded to took place in November,
1703, and Bishop Kidder and his lady perished in their bed at the
episcopal palace at Wells by the fall of a stack of chimneys.
They were privately interred in the cathedral; and one of his
daughters, dying single, directed by her will a monument to be
erected for her parents.-E.

(342) Robert, sixth Earl Ferrers. He had just succeeded to the
title, by the death of his brother Washington, vice-admiral of
the blue,; who had begun to rebuild the mansion of Stanton
Harold, in Leicestershire, according to a plan of his own, and
lived to see it nearly finished.-E.

Letter 157 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street; Jan. 9, 1779. (page 212)

Your flight to Bath would have much surprised me, if Mr.
Churchill, who, I think, heard it from Stanley, had not prepared
me for it. Since you was amused, I am glad you went, especially
as you escaped being initiated in Mrs. Miller's follies at
Batheaston,(343) which you would have mentioned. She would
certainly have sent some trapes of a Muse to press you, had she
known what good epigrams you write.

I went to Strawberry partly out of prudence, partly from ennui.
I thought it best to air myself before I go in and out of hot
rooms here, and had my house thoroughly warmed for a week
previously, and then only stirred from the red room to the blue
on the same floor. I stayed five days, and was neither the
better nor the worse for it. I was quite tired with having
neither company, books, nor amusement of any kind. Either from
the emptiness of the town, or that ten weeks of gout have worn
out the patience of all my acquaintance, but I do not see three
persons in three days. This gives me but an uncomfortable
prospect for my latter days: it is but probable that I may be a
cripple in a fit or two more, if I have strength to go through
them; and, as that will be long life, one outlives one's
acquaintance. I cannot make new acquaintance, nor interest
myself at all about the young, except those that belong to me;
nor does that go beyond contributing to their pleasures, without
having much satisfaction in their conversation-But-one must take
every thing as it comes, and make the best of it., I have had a
much happier life than I deserve, and than millions that deserve
better. I should be very weak if I could not bear the
uncomfortableness of old age, when I can afford what comforts it
is capable of. How many poor old people have none of them! I am
ashamed whenever I am peevish, and recollect that I have fire and
servants to help me.

I hear Admiral Keppel is in high spirits with the great respect
and zeal expressed for him. In my own opinion, his constitution
will not stand the struggle. I am very uneasy too for the Duke
of Richmond, who is at Portsmouth, and will be at least as much
agitated.

Sir William Meredith has written a large pamphlet, and a very
good one. It is to show, that whenever the Grecian republics
taxed their dependents, the latter resisted, and shook off the
yoke. He has printed but twelve copies: the Duke of Gloucester
sent me one of them. There is an anecdote of my father, on the
authority of old Jack White, which I doubt. It says, he would
not go on with the excise scheme, though his friends advised it,
I cannot speak to the particular event, as I was, then at school;
but it was more like him to have yielded, against his sentiments,
to Mr. Pelham and his candid--or say, plausible--and timid
friends. I have heard him say, that he never did give up his
opinion to such men but he always repented it. However, the
anecdote in the, book would be more to his honour. But what a
strange man is Sir William! I suppose, now he has written this
book, he will change his opinion, and again be for carrying on
the war--or, if he does not know his own mind for two years
together, why will he take places, to make every body doubt his
honesty?

(343) See ant`e, P. 125, letter 86.-E.

Letter 158 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
January 15, 1779. (page 213)

I sent you by Dr. Jacob, as you desired, my Life of Mr. Baker,
and with it your own materials. I beg you will communicate my
Manuscript to nobody, but if you think it worth your trouble I
will consent to your transcribing it; but on one condition, and a
silly one for Me to exact, who am as old as You, and broken to
pieces, and very unlikely to survive you; but, should so
improbable a thing happen, I must exact that you will keep your
transcript sealed up, with orders written on the cover to be
restored to me in case of an accident, for I should Certainly
dislike very much to see it printed without my consent. I should
not think of your copying it, if you did not love to transcribe,
and sometimes things of as little value as my manuscript. I
shall beg to have it returned to me by a safe hand as soon as you
can, for I have nothing but the foul copy, which nobody can read,
I believe, but I and my secretary.

I am actually printing my Justification about Chatterton, but
only two hundred copies to give away; for I hate calling in the
whole town to a fray, of which otherwise probably not one
thousand persons would ever hear. You shall have a copy as soon
as ever it is finished, which my printer says will be in three
weeks.

You know my printer is my secretary too: do not imagine I am
giving myself airs of a numerous household of officers. I shall
be glad to see the letter of Mr. Baker you mentioned. You will
perceive two or three notes in my manuscript in a different hand
from mine, or that of my amanuensis (still the same officer;)
they were added by a person I lent it to, and I have effaced part
of the last.

I must finish, lest Dr. Jacob should call, and my parcel not be
ready. I hope your sore throat is gone; my gout has returned
again a little with taking the air only, but did not stay--
however, I am still confined, and almost ready to remain so, to
prevent disappointment. Yours most sincerely.

Letter 159 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, Jan. 28, 1779. (page 214)

I write in as much hurry as you did, dear Sir, and thank you for
the motive of yours mine is to prevent your fatiguing yourself in
copying my manuscript, for which I am not in the least haste:
pray keep it till another safe conveyance presents itself. You
may bring the gout, that is, I am sorry to hear, flying about
you, into your hand by wearying it.

How can you tell me I may well be cautious about my manuscript
and yet advise me to print it?--No-I shall not provoke nests of
hornets, till I am dust, as they will be too.

If I dictated tales when ill in my bed, I must have been worse
than I thought; for, as I know nothing of it, I must have been
light-headed. Mr. Lort was certainly misinformed, though he
seems to have told you the story kindly to the honour of my
philosophy or spirits-but I had rather have no fame than what I
do not deserve.

I am fretful or low-spirited at times in the gout, like other
weak old men, and have less to boast than most men. I have some
strange things in my drawer, even wilder than the Castle of
Otranto, and called Hieroglyphic Tales; but they were not written
lately, nor in the gout, nor, whatever they may seem, written
when I was out of my senses. I showed one or two of them to a
person since my recovery, who may have mentioned them, and
occasioned Mr. Lort's misintelligence. I did not at all perceive
that the latter looked ill; and hope he is quite recovered. You
shall see Chatterton soon. Adieu!

Letter 160To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
February 4, 1779. (page 215)

I have received the manuscript, and though you forbid my naming
the subject more, I love truth, and truth in a friend so much,
that I must tell you, that so far from taking your sincerity ill,
I had much rather you should act with your native honest
sincerity than say you was pleased with my manuscript. I have
always tried as much as is in human nature to divest myself of
the self-love of an author; in the present case I had less
difficulty than ever, for I never thought my Life of Mr. Baker
one of my least indifferent works. You might, believe me, have
sent me your long letter; whatever it contained, it would not
have made a momentary cloud between us. I have not only
friendship, but great gratitude for you, for a thousand instances
of kindness; and should detest any writing of mine that made a
breach with a friend, and still more, if it could make me forget
obligations.

Letter 161 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
February 18, 1779. (page 215)

I sent you my Chattertoniad(344) last week,,in hopes it would
sweeten your pouting; but I find it has not, or has miscarried;
for You have not 'acknowledged the receipt with your usual
punctuality.

Have you seen Hasted's new History of Kent?(345) I am sailing
through it, but am stopped every minute by careless mistakes.
They tell me the author has good materials, but is very
negligent, and so I perceive, He has not even given a list of
monuments in the churches, which I do not remember in any history
of a county; but he is rich in pedigrees; though I suppose they
have many errors too, as I have found some in those I am
acquainted with- It is unpardonable to be inaccurate in a work in
which one nor expects nor demands any thing but fidelity.(346)

We have a great herald arising in a very noble race, Lord de
Ferrers. I hope to make him a Gothic architect too, for he is
going to repair Tamworth Castle and flatters me that I shall give
him sweet counseil! I enjoin him to kernellare. Adieu! Yours
ever.

(344) "A Letter to the Editor of the Miscellanies of Thomas
Chatterton." Strawberry Hill, 1779, 8vo.-E.

(345) "The History and Topographical Survey of the County of
Kent; by Edward Hasted," four volumes, folio, 1778-1799. A
second and improved edition, in twelve volumes, octavo, appeared
in 1797-1801. Mr. Hasted died in 1812 at the age of eighty.-E.

(346) in a memoir of himself, which, he drew up for the
Gentleman's Magazein, to be published after his death, he says,
"his laborious History of Kent took him more than forty years;
during the whole series of which
he spared neither pains nor expense to bring it to maturity."-E.

Letter 162 To Sir David Dalrymple.(347)
Arlington Street, March 12, 1779. (page 216)

I have received this moment from your bookseller, Sir, the
valuable present of the second volume of your "Annals," and beg
leave to return you my grateful thanks for so agreeable a gift,
of which I can only have taken a look enough to lament that you
do not intend to continue the work. Repeated and severe attacks
of the gout forbid my entertaining- visions of pleasures to come;
but though I might not have the advantage of your labours, Sir, I
wish too well to posterity not to be sorry that you check your
hand.

Lord Buchan did me the honour lately of consulting me on
portraits of illustrious Scots. I recollect that there is at
Windsor a very good portrait of your countryman Duns Scotus,(348)
whose name struck me on just turning over your volume. A good
print was made from that picture some years ago, but I believe it
is not very scarce: as it is not worth while to trouble his
lordship with another letter for that purpose only, may I take
the liberty, Sir, of begging you to mention it to his lordship?

(347) Now first collected.

(348) Granger considers the portrait of Windsor not to be
genuine. Of Duns Scotus, he says, "It requires one half of a
man's life to read the works of this profound doctor, and the ,
other to understand his subtleties. His printed works are in
twelve volumes in folio! His manuscripts are sleeping in Merton
College, Oxford. Voluminous works frequently arise from the
ignorance and confused ideas of the authors: if angels, says Mr.
Norris, were writers, we should have few folios. He was the head
of the sect of schoolmen called scotists. He died in 1308."-E.

Letter 163 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, March 28, 1779. (page 216)

Your last called for no answer; and I have so little to tell you,
that I only write to-day to avoid the air of remissness. I came
hither on Friday, for this last week has been too hot to stay in
London; but March is arrived this morning with his northeasterly
malice, and I suppose will assert his old-style claim to the
third of April. The poor infant apricots will be the victims to
that Herod of the almanack. I have been much amused with new
travels through Spain by a Mr. Swinburne(349)--at least with the
Alhambra, of the inner parts of which there are two beautiful
prints. The Moors were the most polished, and had the most taste
of any people in the Gothic ages; and I hate the knave Ferdinand
and his bigoted Queen for destroying them. These new travels are
simple, and do tell you a little more than late voyagers, by
whose accounts one would think there was nothing in Spain but
muleteers and fandangos. In truth, there does not seem to be
much worth seeing but prospects; and those, unless I were a bird,
I would never visit, when the accommodations are so wretched.

Mr. Cumberland has given the town a masque, called Calypso,(350)
which is a prodigy of dulness. Would you believe, that such a
sentimental Writer would be so gross as to make cantharides one
of the ingredients of a love-potion, for enamouring Telemachus?
If you think I exaggerate, here are the lines:

"To these, the hot Hispanian fly
Shall bid his languid pulse beat high."

Proteus and Antiope are Minerva's missioners for securing the
prince's virtue, and in recompense they are married and crowned
king and queen!

I have bought at Hudson's sale a fine design of a chimney-piece,
by Holbein, for Henry VIII. If I had a room left I would erect.
It is certainly not so Gothic as that in my Holbein room; but
there is a great deal of taste for that bastard style; perhaps it
was executed at Nonsuch. I do intend, under Mr. Essex's
inspection, to begin my offices next spring. It is late in my
day, I confess, to return to brick and mortar but I shall be glad
to perfect my plan, or the' next possessor will marry my castle
to a Doric stable. There is a perspective through two or three
rooms in the Alhambra, that might easily be improved into Gothic,
though there seems but small affinity between them; and they
might be finished within with Dutch tiles, and painting, or bits
of ordinary marble, as there must be gilding. Mosaic seems to be
their chief ornaments, for walls, ceilings, and floors. Fancy
must sport in the furniture, and mottos might be gallant, and
would be very Arabesque. I would have a mixture of colours, but
with a strict attention to harmony and taste; and some one should
predominate, as supposing it the favourite colour of the lady who
was sovereign of the knight's affections who built the house.
Carpets are classically Mahometans, and fountains--but, alas! our
climate till last summer was never romantic! Were I not so old, I
would at least build a Moorish novel-for you see my head Turns on
Granada-and by taking the most picturesque parts of the Mahometan
and Catholic religions, and with the mixture of African and
Spanish names, one might make something very agreeable--at least
I will not give the hint to Mr. Cumberland. Adieu! Yours ever.

(349) "Travels through Spain in the Years 1775 and 1776; in which
several Monuments of Roman and Moorish Architecture are
illustrated by accurate Drawings taken on the spot. By Henry
Swinburne." London, 1779, 4to. Mr. Swinburne also published, in
1783-5 his "Travels in the Two Sicilies during the Years
1777-8-9, and 1780." This celebrated traveller was the youngest
son of Sir John Swinburne, of Capheaton, Northumberland; the
long-established seat of that ancient Roman Catholic family.
Pecuniary embarrassments, arising from the marriage of his
daughter to Paul Benfield, Esq. and consequent involvement in
the misfortunes of that adventurer, induced him to obtain a Place
in the newly-ceded settlement of Trinidad, where he died in
1803.-E.

(350) "Calypso" was brought out at Covent-Garden theatre, but was
performed only a few nights. \ It was imprudently ushered in by
a prelude, in which the author treated the newspaper editors as a
set of unprincipled fellows.-E.

Letter 164 To Edward Gibbon, Esq.(351)
(1779.] (page 218)

The penetration, solidity, and taste, that made you the first of
historians, dear Sir, prevent my being surprised at your being
the best writer of controversial pamphlets too.(352) I have read
you with more precipitation than such a work deserved, but I
could not disobey you and detain it. Yet even in that hurry I
could discern, besides a thousand beauties and strokes of wit,
the inimitable eighty-third page, and the conscious dignity that
you maintain throughout, over your monkish antagonists. When you
are so superior in argument, it would look like insensibility to
the power of your reasoning, to select transient passages for
commendation; and yet I must mention one that pleased me
particularly, from the delicacy of the severity, and from its
novelty too; it is, bold is not the word. This is the feathered
arrow of Cupid, that is more formidable than the club of
Hercules. I need not specify thanks, when I prove how much I
have been pleased. Your most obliged.

(351) Now first collected.

(352) Gibbon's celebrated "Vindication" of the Fifteenth and
Sixteenth Chapters of his History appeared early in the year
1779. "I adhered," he says in his Memoirs, "to the wise
resolution of trusting myself and my writing to the candour of
the public, till Mr. Davis of Oxford presumed to attack, not the
faith but the fidelity of the historian. My Vindication,
expressive of less anger than contempt, amused for a moment the
busy and idle metropolis; and the most rational Part of the
laity, and even of the clergy, appear to have been satisfied of
my innocence and accuracy I would not print it in quarto, lest it
should be bound and preserved with the history itself At the
distance of twelve years, I calmly affirm my judgment of Davis,
Chelsum, etc. A victory over such antagonists was a sufficient
humiliation. They, however were rewarded in this world, Poor
Chelsum was, indeed, neglected; and I dare not boast the making
Dr. Watson a bishop: he is a prelate of a large mind and a
liberal spirit: but I enjoyed the pleasure of giving a royal
pension to Mr. Davis, and of collating Dr. Althorpe to an
archiepiscopal living."-E.

Letter 165 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, April 12, 1779. (page 218)

As your gout was so concise, I will not condole on it, but I am
sorry you are liable to it if you do but take the air. Thank you
for telling me of the vendible curiosities at the Alderman's.
For St. Peter's portrait to hang to a fairie's watch, I shall not
think of it, both as I do not believe it very like, and as it is
composed of invisible Writing, for which my eyes are not young
enough. In truth, I have almost left off making purchases: I
have neither room for any thing more, nor inclination for them,
as I reckon every thing very dear when One has so little time to
enjoy it. However, I cannot say but the plates by Rubens do
tempt me a little--yet, as I do not care to, buy even Rubens in a
poke, I should wish to know if the Alderman would let me see. if
it were but one. Would he be persuaded? I would pay for the
carriage, though I should not buy them.

Lord de Ferrers will be infinitely happy with the sight of the
pedigree, and I will certainly tell him of it, and how kind you
are.

Strype's account, or rather Stow's, of Richard's person is very
remarkable--but I have done with endeavouring at truth. Weeds
grow more naturally than what one plants. I hear your
Cantabrigians are still unshaken Chattertonians. Many men are
about falsehood like girls about the first man that makes love to
them: a handsomer, a richer, or even a sincerer lover cannot
eradicate the first impression--but a sillier swain, or a sillier
legend, sometimes gets into the head of a miss or the learned
man, and displaces the antecedent folly. Truth's kingdom is not
of this world.

I do not know whether our clergy are growing Mahometans or not:
they certainly are not what they profess themselves--but as you
and I should not agree perhaps in assigning the same defects to
them, I will not enter on a subject which I have promised you to
drop. All I allude to now is, the shocking murder of Miss
Ray(353) by a divine. In my own opinion we are growing more fit
for Bedlam, than for Mahomet's paradise. The poor criminal in
question, I am persuaded, is mad--and the misfortune is, the law
does not know how to define the shades of madness; and thus there
-are twenty outpensioners of Bedlam, for the one that is
confined. You, dear Sir, have chosen a wiser path to happiness
by depending on yourself for amusement. Books and past ages draw
one into no scrapes, and perhaps it is best not to know much of
men till they are dead. I wish you health -,You want nothing
else. I am, dear Sir, yours most truly.

(353) On the 7th of April, Miss Reay, who had been the mistress
of Lord Sandwich for twenty years, by whom she was the mother of
many children, was shot, on her leaving Covent-Garden theatre, by
the Rev. James Hackman, who had the living of Wiverton, in
Norfolk, a young man not half her age, who had imbibed a violent
passion for her, whom he first met at Lord Sandwich's seat at
Hinchinbroke, where he had been frequently invited to dine while
commanding a recruiting party at Huntingdon; he being, previously
to his entering the church, a lieutenant in the 68th regiment of
foot. Having shot Miss Reay, he fired a pistol at himself; but,
being only wounded by it, he was tried at the Old Bailey,
convicted, and executed.-E.

Letter 166 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, April 20, 1779. (page 219)

Dear Sir,
I have received the plates very safely, but hope You nor the
Alderman,(354) will take it ill that I return them. They are
extremely pretty, and uncommonly well preserved; but I am sure
they are not by Rubens, nor I believe after his designs, for I am
persuaded they are older than his time. In truth, I have a great
many Of the same sort, and do not wish for more. I shall send
them back on Thursday by the Fly, and will beg you to inquire
after them; and I trust they will arrive as safely as they did to
Yours ever.

(354) Alderman John Boydell, an English engraver; distinguished
as an encourager of the fine arts. In 1790 he held the office of
Lord Mayor of London, and died in 1804.-E.

Letter 167 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
April 23, 1779. (page 220)

I ought not to trouble you so often when you are not well; but
that is the very cause of my writing now. You left off abruptly
from disorder, and therefore I wish to know it is gone. The
plates I hope got home safe. They are pretty, especially the
reverses; but the drawing in general is bad.

Pray tell me what you mean by a priced catalogue of the pictures
at Houghton. Is it a printed one? if it is, where is it to be
had?--odd questions from me, and which I should not wish to have
mentioned as coming from me. I have been told to-day that they
are actually sold to the Czarina--sic transit! mortifying enough,
were not every thing transitory! we must recollect that our
griefs and pains are so, as well as our joys and glories; and, by
balancing the account, a grain of comfort is to be extracted!
Adieu! I shall be heartily glad to receive a better account of
you.

Letter 168 To Mrs. Abington.(355)
(1779.] (page 220)

Mr. Walpole cannot express how much he is mortified that he
cannot accept of Mrs. Abington's obliging invitation, as he had
engaged company to dine with him on Sunday at Strawberry-hill;
whom he would put off, if not foreigners who are leaving England.
Mr. Walpole hopes, however, that this accident will not prevent
an acquaintance, which his admiration of Mrs. Abington'S genius
has made him long desire; and which he hopes to cultivate at
Strawberry Bill, when her leisure will give him leave to trouble
her with an invitation.