Books: Letters of Horace Walpole, V4

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They talk of great disssatisfactions in the fleet. Geary and
Barrington are certainly retired. It looks, if this deplorable
war should continue, as if all our commanders by sea and land
were to be disgraced or disgusted.

The people here have christened Mr. Shirley's new house,
Spite-hall.(398) It is dismal to think that one may live to
seventy-seven, and go out of the world doing as ill-natured an
act as possible! When I am reduced to detail the gazette of
Twickenham, I had better release your lordship; but either way it
is from the utmost attention and respect for your lordship and
Lady Strafford, as I am ever most devotedly and gratefully yours.

(395) In the following November, Lord Duncannon married
Henrietta-Frances, second daughter of John first Earl Spencer.-E.

(396) Georgiana, eldest daughter of John first Earl Spencer;
married, in 1774, to the Duke of Devonshire.-E.

(397) Margaret-Georgiana, daughter of the Right Hon. Stephen
Poyntz; married, in 1755, to John first Earl Spencer.-E.

(398) Because built, it was said, on purpose to intercept a view
of the Thames from his opposite neighbour.

letter 199 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 27, 1780. (page 256)

Dear Sir,
I MUST inquire how you do after all your election agitations,
which have growled even around your hermitage. Candidates and
their emissaries are like Pope's authors,

"They pierce our thickets, through our groves they glide."

However, I have barred my doors; and when I would not go to an
election for myself, I would not for any one else.

Has not a third real summer, and so very dry one, assisted your
complaints? I have been remarkably well, and better than for
these five years. Would I could say the same of all my friends--
but, alas! I expect every day to hear that I have lost my dear
old friend Madame du Deffand.(399) She was indeed near
eighty-four, but retained all her interior faculties--two days
ago the letters from Paris forbade all hopes. So I reckon myself
dead as to France, where I have kept up no other connexion.

I am going at last to publish my fourth volume of Painters,
which, though printed so long, I have literally treated by
Horace's rule, "Nonumque prematur in nonum." Tell me how I shall
send it to you. Yours ever.

(399) In the last letter Madame du Deffand ever wrote to Walpole,
dated the 22d of August, she thus describes her situation:--"Je
vous mandai dans ma derni`ere que je ne me portais pas bien;
c'cst encore pis aujourd'hui. Je suis d'une faiblesse et d'un
abattement excessifs; Ma voix est `eteinte, je ne puis me
soutenir sur mes jambes, je ne puis me donner aucun mouvement,
j'ai le coeur envolopp`e; j'ai de la peine `a croire que cet
`etat ne m'annonce une fin prochaine. Je n'ai pas la force d'en
`etre effray`ee; et, ne vous devant revoir de ma vie, je n'a rien
`a regretter. Divertissez-vous, mon ami, le plus que vous
pourrez; ne vous affligez point de mon `etat; nous `etions
presque perdus l'un pour l'autre; nous ne nous devions jamais
revoir! vous me regretterez, parce qu'on est bien-aise de se
savoir aim`e. Peut-`etre que par la suite Wiart vous mandera de
mes nouvelles; c'est une fatigue pour moi de dicter." From this
day she kept her bed. On the 8th of September Mr. Walpole had
written to her, expressing his great anxiety for her. To his
inquiries she was unable to dictate an answer. Her anteroom
continued every day crowded with the persons who had before
surrounded her supper-table. Her weakness became excessive; but
she suffered no pain, and possessed her memory, understanding,
and ideas till within the last eight days of her existence, when
a lethargic insensibility took which terminated in death, without
effort or struggle, on the 24th of September. She was buried,
according to her own direction, in the plainest manner, in her
parish church of St. Sulpice. To Mr. Walpole she bequeathed the
whole of her manuscripts, papers, letters, and books, of every
description; with a permission to the Prince of Beauvau to take a
copy of any of the papers he might desire.-E.

Letter 200 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Berkeley Square, Oct. 3, 1780. (page 256)

I did not go to Malvern, and therefore cannot certify you, my
good Sir, whether Tom Hearne mistook stone for brass or not,
though I dare to say your criticism is just.

My book, if I can possibly, shall go to the inn to-morrow, or
next day at least. You will find a great deal of rubbish in it,
with all your partiality--but I shall have done with it.

I cannot thank you enough for your goodness about your notes that
you promised Mr. Grose; but I cannot possibly be less generous
and less disinterested, nor can by any means be the cause of your
breaking your word. In short, I insist on your sending your
notes to him--and as to my Life of Mr. Baker, if it is known to
exist, nobody can make me produce it sooner than I please, nor at
all if I do not please; so pray send your accounts, and leave me
to be stout with our antiquaries, or curious. I shall not
satisfy the latter, and don't care a straw for the former.

The Master of Pembroke (who he is, I don't know(400)) is like the
lover who said,

"Have I not seen thee where thou hast not been?"

I have been in Kent with Mr. Barrett, but was not at Ramsgate;
the Master, going thither, perhaps saw me. It is a mistake not
worth rectifying. I have no time for more, being in the midst of
the delivery of my books. Yours ever.

(400) Dr. James Brown; see ante, p. 62, letter 36.-E.

Letter 201 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Berkeley Square, Nov. 11, 1780. (page 257)

I am afraid you are not well, my good Sir; for you are so
obligingly punctual, that I think you would have acknowledged the
receipt of my last volume, if you were not out of order.

Lord Dacre lent me the new edition of Mr. Gough's Topography, and
the ancient maps and quantity of additions tempted me to buy it.
I have not gone through much above the half of the first volume,
and find it more entertaining than the first edition. This is no
partiality; for I think he seems rather disposed, though civilly,
to find cavils with me. Indeed, in the passage in which I am
most mentioned, he not only gives a very confused, but quite a
wrong account: as in other places, he records some trifles in my
possession not worth recording--but I know that we antiquaries
are but too apt to think, that whatever has had the honour of
entering our ears, is worthy of being laid before the eyes of
every body else. The story I mean is P. ix. of the preface. Now
the three volumes of drawings and tombs, by Mr. Lethueillier and
Sir Charles Frederick, for which Mr. Gough says I refused two
hundred pounds, are now Lord Bute's, are not Lord Bute's, but
mine, and for which I never was offered two hundred pounds, and
for which I gave sixty pounds--full enough. The circumstances
were much more entertaining than Mr. G.'s perplexed account.
Bishop Lyttelton told me Sir Charles Frederick complained of Mr.
L.'s not bequeathing them to him, as he had been a joint labourer
with him; and that Sir Charles wished I Would not bid against him
for them, as they were to be sold by auction. I said this was a
very reasonable request, and that I was ready to oblige Sir
Charles; but as I heard others meant to bid high for the books, I
should wish to know how far he would go, and that I would not
oppose him; but should the books exceed the price Sir Charles was
willing to give, I should like to be at liberty to bid for them
against others. However, added I, as Sir Charles (who lived then
in Berkelyey-square, as I did then in Arlington-street,) passes
by my door every time he goes to the House of Commons, if he will
call on me, We will make such agreement. You will scarce believe
the sequel. The dignity of Sir Charles Frederick was hurt that I
should propose his making me the first visit, though to serve
himself--nothing could be more out of my imagination than the
ceremonial of visits; though when he was so simple as to make a
point of it, I could not see how in any light I was called on to
make the first visit--and so the treaty ended; and so I bought
the books. There was another work, I think in two volumes, which
was their Diary of Their Tour, with a few slight views. Bishop
Lyttelton proposed them to me, and engaged to get them for me
from Mr. Lethueillier's sister for ten guineas. She hesitated,
the Bishop died, I thought no more of them, and they may be what
Lord Bute has. There is another assertion in Mr. Gough, which I
can authentically Contradict. He says Sir Matthew Decker first
introduced ananas, p. 134. My very curious picture of Rose, the
royal gardener, presenting the first ananas to Charles II. proves
the culture here earlier by several years.

At page 373, he seems to doubt my assertion of Gravelot's making
drawings of tombs in Gloucestershire, because he never met with
any engravings from them. I took my account from Vertue, who
certainly knew what he said. I bought at Vertue's own sale some
of Gravelot's drawings of our regal monuments, which Vertue
engraved: but, which is stronger, Mr. Gough himself a few pages
after, viz. in p. 387, mentions Gravelot's drawing of Tewkesbury
church; which being in Gloucestershire, Mr. G. might have
believed me that Gravelot did draw in that county. This is a
little like Mr. Masters's being angry with me for taking
liberties with bishops and chancellors, and then abusing grossly
one who had been both bishop and chancellor. I forgot that in
the note on Sir Charles Frederick, Mr. Gough calls Mr. Worseley,
Wortley. In page 354, he says Rooker exhibited a drawing of
Waltham-cross to the Royal Academy of Sciences--pray where is
that academy? I suppose he means that of painting. I find a few
omissions; one very comical; he says Penshurst was celebrated by
Ben Jonson, and seems Perfectly in the dark as to how much more
fame it owes to Waller. We antiquaries are a little apt to get
laughed at for knowing what every body has forgotten, and for
being ignorant of what every child knows. Do not tell him of
these things, for I do not wish to vex him. I hope I was
mistaken, and shall hear that you are well. Yours ever.

Letter 202 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Berkeley Square, Nov. 24, 1780. (page 259)

I am sorry I was so much in the right in guessing you had been
ill, but at our age there is little sagacity in such divination.
In my present holidays from the gout, I have a little rheumatism,
or some of those accompaniments.

I have made several more notes to the new Topography, but none of
consequence enough to transcribe. It is well it is a book only
for the adept, or the scorners would often laugh. Mr. Gough
speaking of some cross that has been removed, says, there is now
an unmeaning market-house in its place. Saving his reverence and
our prejudices, I doubt there is a good deal more meaning in a
market-house than in a cross. They tell me that there are
numberless mistakes. Mr. Pennant, whom I saw yesterday, says so.
He is not one of our plodders; rather the other extreme. His
corporal spirits (for I cannot call them animal) do not allow him
time to digest any thing. He gave a round jump from ornithology
to antiquity; and, as if they had any relation, thought he
understood every thing between them. These adventures divert me
who am got on shore, and find how sweet it is to look back on
those who are toiling in deep waters, whether in ships, or
cock-boats, or on old rotten planks. I am sorry for the Dean of
Exeter; if he dies, I conclude the leaden mace of the Antiquarian
Society will be given to Judge Barrington,(401)

Et simili frondescet Virga metallo."

I endeavoured to give our antiquaries a little wrench towards
taste--but it was in vain. Sandby and our engravers have lent
them a great deal--but there it stops. Captain Grose's
dissertations are as dull and silly as if they were written for
the Ostrogoth maps of the beginning of the new Topography: and
which are so square and incomprehensible, that they look as if
they were ichnographics of the New Jerusalem. I am delighted
with having done with the professions of author and printer, and
intend to be most comfortably lazy, I was going to say idle (but
that would not be new) for the rest of my days.

If there was a peace, I would build my offices--if there is not
soon, we shall be bankrupt--nay, I do not know what may happen as
it is. Well! Mr. Grose will have plenty of ruins to engrave!
The Royal Academy will make a fine mass, with what remains of old
Somerset-house.

Adieu! my good Sir. Let me know you are well. You want nothing
else, for you can always amuse Yourself, and do not let the
foolish world disturb you. Yours most sincerely.

(401) The Hon. Daines Barrington, fourth son of John first
Viscount Barrington, second Justice of Chester, and author of
"Observations on the Statutes," etc. He was eminent in natural
history, and in several branches of literature; and died in
1800.-E.

Letter 203 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Berkeley Square, Nov. 30, 1780. (page 260)

I am sorry, my dear Sir, that you should be so humble with me,
your ancient friend, and to whom you have ever been so liberal,
as to make an apology for desiring me to grant the request of
another person. I am not less sorry that I shall not, I fear, be
able to comply with it; and you must have the patience to hear my
reason,,-,. The first edition of the Anecdotes was of three
hundred, of the two first volumes; and of as many of the third
volume, and of the volume of Engravers. Then there was an
edition of three hundred of all four. Unluckily, I did not keep
any number back of the two first volumes, and literally have none
but those I reserved for myself. Of the other two I have two or
three: and, I believe, I have a first, but without the cuts. If
I can,.with some odd volumes that I kept for corrections, make
out a decent set, the library of the University shall have them;
but you must not promise them, lest I should not be able to
perform.

Of my new fourth volume I printed six hundred; but as they can be
had, I believe not a third part is sold. This is a very plain
lesson to me, that my editions sell for their curiosity, and not
for any merit in them: and so they would if I printed Mother
Goose's Tales, and but a few. As my Anecdotes of Painting have
been published at such distant periods, and in three divisions,
complete sets will be seldom seen; so, If I am humbled as an
author, I may be vain as a printer; and, when one has nothing
else to be vain of, it is certainly very little worth while to be
proud of that.

I will now trust you with a secret, but beg Mr. Gough may not
know it, for he will print it directly. Though I forgot Alma
Mater, I have not forgotten my Alma Nutrices, wet or dry, I mean
Eton and King's. I have laid aside for them, and left them in my
will, as complete a set as I could, of all I have printed. A few
I did give them at first; but I have for neither a perfect set of
the Anecdotes, I mean not the two first volumes. I should be
much obliged to you, if, without naming me, you could inform
yourself if I did send to King'S those two first volumes--I
believe not. '

I will now explain what I said above of Mr. Gough. He has
learnt, I suppose from my engravers, that I have had some views
of Strawberry-hill engraved. Slap-dash, down it went, and he has
even specified each view in his second volume. This curiosity is
a little impertinent; but he has made me some amends by a new
blunder, for he says they are engraved for a second edition of my
Catalogue. Now I have certainly printed but one edition, for
which the prints are designed. He says truly, that I printed but
a few for use; consequently, I by no means wished the whole world
should know it; but he is silly, and so I will say no more about
him. Dr. Lort called yesterday, and asked if I had any message
for you; but I had written too lately.

Mr. Pennant has been, as I think I told you, in town: by this
time I conclude he is, as Lady Townley says of fifty pounds, all
over the kingdom. When Dr. Lort returns, I shall be very glad to
read your transcript of Wolsey's Letters; for, in your hand, I
can read them. I will not have them but by some very safe
conveyance, and will return them with equal care.

I can have no objection to Robin Masters being wooden-head of the
Antiquarian Society; but, I suppose, he is not dignified enough
for them. I should prefer the Judge too, because a coif makes
him more like an old woman, and I reckon that Society the
midwives of superannuated miscarriages. I am grieved for the
return of your headaches--I doubt you write too much. Yours most
sincerely.

P. S. It will be civil to tell Dr. Farmer that I do not know
whether I can obey his commands , but that I will if I can. As
to a distinguished place, I beg not to be preferred to much
better authors; nay, the more conspicuous, the more likely to be
stolen for the reasons I have given you, of there being few
complete sets, and true collectors are mighty apt to steal.

Letter 204 To Sir David Dalrymple.(402)
Dec. 11, 1780. (page 261)

I should have been shamefully ungrateful, Sir, if I could ever
forget all the favours I have received from you, and had omitted
any mark of respect to you that it was in my power to show.
Indeed, what you are so good as to thank me for was a poor
trifle, but it was all I had or shall have of the kind. It was
imperfect too, as some painters Of name have died since it was
printed, which was nine years ago. They will be added with your
kind notices, should I live, which is not probable, to see a new
edition wanted. Sixty-three years, and a great deal of illness,
are too speaking mementos not to be attended to; and when the
public has been more indulgent than one had any right to expect,
it is not decent to load it with one's dotage.

I believe, Sir, that I may have been over-candid to Hogarth, and
fail his spirit and youth and talent may have hurried him into
more real caricatures than I specified . yet he certainly
restrained his bent that way pretty early. Charteris(403) I have
seen; but though Some years older than you, Sir, I cannot say I
have at all a perfect idea of him: nor did I ever hear the
curious anecdote you tell me of ' the banker and my father. I
was much better acquainted with bishop Blackbourne. He lived
within two doors of my father in Downing Street, and took much
notice of me when I was near man. It is not to be ungrateful and
asperse him, but to amuse you, if I give you some account of him
from what I remember.(404) He was perfectly a fine gentleman to
the last, to eighty-four; his favourite author was Waller, whom
he frequently quoted. In point of decorum, he was not quite so
exact as you have been told, Sir. I often dined with him, his
mistress, Mrs. Conwys, sat at the head of the table, and
Hayter,(405) his natural son by another woman, and very like him,
at the bottom, as chaplain: he was afterwards Bishop of London.
I have heard, but do not affirm it, that Mrs. Blackbourne, before
she died, complained of Mrs. Conwys being brought under the same
roof. To his clergy he was, I have heard, very imperious. One
story I recollect, which showed how much he was a man of this
world: and which the Queen herself repeated to my father. On the
King's last journey to Hanover, before Lady Yarmouth came over,
the Archbishop being With her Majesty, said to her, "Madam, I
have been with your minister Walpole, and he tells me that you
are a wise woman, and do not mind your husband's having a
mistress." He was a little hurt at not being raised to
Canterbury on Wake's death, and said to my father, "You did not
think on me: but it is true, I am too old, I am too old."
Perhaps, Sir, these are gossiping stories, but at least they hurt
nobody now.

I can say little, Sir, for my stupidity or forgetfulness about
Hogarth's poetry, which I still am not sure I ever heard, though
I knew him so well; but it is an additional argument for my
distrusting myself, if my memory fails, which is very possible.
A whole volume of Richardson's poetry has been published since my
volume was printed, not much to the honour of his muse, but
exceedingly so to that of his piety and amiable heart. You will
be pleased, too, Sir, with a story Lord Chesterfield told me (too
late too) of Jervas, who piqued himself on the reverse, on total
infidelity. One day that he had talked very indecently in that
strain, Dr. Arbuthnot, who was as devout as Richardson, said to
him, "Come, Jervas, this is all an air and affectation; nobody is
a sounder believer than you." "I!" said Jervase, "I believe
nothing." "Yes, but you do," replied the Doctor; "nay, you not
only believe, but practise: you are so scrupulous an observer of
the commandments, that you never make the likeness of any thing
that is in heaven, or on the earth beneath, or," etc.

I fear, Sir, this letter is too long for thanks, and that I have
been proving what I have said, of my growing superannuated; but,
having made my will in my last volume, you may look on this as a
codicil.

P. S. I had sealed my letter, Sir, but break it open, lest you
should think soon, that I do not know what I say, or break my
resolution lightly. I shall be able to send you in about two
months a very curious work that I am going to print, and is
actually in the press; but there is not a syllable of my writing
in it. It is a discovery just made of two very ancient
manuscripts, copies of which were found in two or three libraries
in Germany, and of which there are more complete manuscripts at
Cambridge. They are of the eleventh century at longest, and
prove that painting in oil was then known, above three hundred
years before the pretended invention of Van Dyck. The
manuscripts themselves will be printed, with a full introductory
Dissertation by the discoverer, Mr. Raspe, a very learned German.
formerly librarian to the Landgrave of Hesse, and who writes
English surprisingly well. The manuscripts are in the most
barbarous monkish Latin, and are much such works as our
booksellers publish of receipts for mixing colours, varnishes,
etc. One of the authors, who calls himself Theophilus, was a
monk; the other, Heraclitis, is totally unknown; but the proofs
are Unquestionable. As my press is out of order, and that
besides it would take up too much time to print them there, they
will be printed here at my expense, and if there is any surplus,
it will be for Raspe's benefit.

(402) Now first collected.

(403) The notorious Colonel Francis Charteris, to whom Hogarth
has accorded a conspicuous place in the first plate of his
Harlot's Progress. Pope describes him as "a man infamous for all
manner of vices," and thus introduces him into his third Moral
Essay:--

"Riches in effect,
No grace of Heaven, or token of th' Elect;
Given to the fool, the mad, the vain, the evil,
To Ward, to Waters, Chartres, and the devil!"

He died in Scotland, in 1731, at the age of sixty-two. The
populace, at his funeral, raised a great riot, almost tore the
body out of the coffin, and cast dead dogs, etc. into the grave
along with it.-E.

(404) See the note to vol. i. p. 314, letter 101.-E.

(405) For a refutation of Walpole's assertion, that Bishop Hayter
was a natural son of bishop Blackbourn's, see vol. ii. p. 100,
letter 39.-E.

Letter 205 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Berkeley Square, Dec. 19, 1780. (page 263)

I cannot leave you for a moment in error, my good Sir, when you
transfer a compliment to me, to which I have not the most slender
claim, and defraud another of it to whom it is due.

The friend of Mr. Gray, in whom authorship caused no jealousy or
variance, as Mr. Mainwaring says truly, is Mr. Mason. I
certainly never excelled in poetry, and never attempted the
species of poetry alluded to, odes. Dr. Lort, I suppose, is
removing to a living or a prebend, at least; I hope so. He may
run a risk if he carries his book to Lambeth. "Sono sonate venti
tre ore e mezza," as Alexander VIII. said to his nephew, when he
was chosen pope in extreme old age. My Lord of Canterbury's is
not extreme, but very tottering. I found in Mr. Gough's new
edition, that in the Pepysian library is a view of the theatre in
Dorset Gardens, and views of four or five other ancient great
mansions. Do the folk of Magdalen ever suffer copies of such
things to be taken? If they would, is there any body at
Cambridge that could execute them, and reasonably? Answer me
quite at your leisure; and, also, what and by whom is the altar-
piece that Lord Carlisle has given to King's. I did not know he
had been of our college. I have two or three plates of
Strawberry more than those you mention; but my collections are so
numerous, and from various causes my prints have been in such
confusion, that at present I neither know where the plates or
proofs are. I intend next summer to set about completing my plan
of the Catalogue and its prints; and when I have found any of the
plates or proofs, you shall certainly have those you want. There
are two large views of the house, one of the cottage, one of the
library, one of the front to the road, and the chimney-piece in
the Holbein room. I think these are all that are finished--oh!
yes, I believe the prior's garden; but I have not seen them these
two years. I was so ill the summer before last, that I attended
to nothing; the little I thought of in that way last summer, was
to get out my last volume of the Anecdotes; now I have nothing to
trouble myself about as an editor, and that not publicly, but to
finish my Catalogue--and that will be awkwardly enough; for so
many articles have been added to my collection since the
description was made, that I must add them in the appendix or
reprint it: and, what is more inconvenient, the positions of many
of the pictures have been changed; and so it will be a lame piece
of work. Adieu, my dear Sir! Yours most cordially.