Books: Letters of Horace Walpole, V4

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Letter 241 To The Rev. William Mason.
(page 307)

I have been reading a new French translation of the elder
Pliny,(469) of whom I never read but scraps before; because, in
the poetical manner in which we learn Latin at Eton, we never
become acquainted with the names of the commonest things, too
undignified to be admitted into verse; and, therefore, I never
had patience to search in a dictionary for the meaning of every
substantive. I find I shall not have a great deal less trouble
with the translation, as I am not more familiar with their common
drogues than with the Latin. However, the beginning goes off
very glibly, as I am not yet arrived below the planets: but do
you know that this study, of which I have never thought since I
learnt astronomy at Cambridge, has furnished me with some very
entertaining ideas! I have long been weary of the common jargon
of poetry. You bards have exhausted all the nature we are
acquainted with; you have treated us with the sun, moon, and
stars, the earth and the ocean, mountains and valleys, etc. etc.
under every possible aspect. In short, I have longed for some
American Poetry, in which I might find new appearances of nature,
and consequently of art. But my present excursion into the sky
has afforded me more entertaining prospects, and newer phenomena.
If I was as good a poet, as you are, I would immediately compose
an idyl, or an elegy, the scene of which should be laid in Saturn
or Jupiter: and then, instead of a niggardly soliloquy by the
light of a single moon, I would describe a night illuminated by
four or five moons at least, and they should be all in a
perpendicular or horizontal line, according as Celia's eyes (who
probably in that country has at least two pair) are disposed in
longitude or latitude. You must allow that this system would
diversify poetry amazingly.--And then Saturn's belt! which the
translator says in his notes, Is not round the planet's waist,
like the shingles; but is a globe of crystal that encloses the
whole orb, as You may have seen an enamelled watch in a case of
glass. If you do not perceive what infinitely pretty things may
be said, either in poetry or romance. on a brittle heaven of
crystal, and what furbelowed rainbows they must have in that
country, you are neither the Ovid nor natural philosopher I take
you for. Pray send me an eclogue directly upon this plan--and I
give you leave to adopt my idea of Saturnian Celias having their
every thing quadrupled--which would form a much more entertaining
rhapsody than Swift's thought of magnifying or diminishing the
species in his Gulliver. How much more execution a fine woman
would do with two pair of piercers! or four! and how much longer
the honeymoon would last, if both the sexes have (as no doubt
they have) four times the passions, and four times the means of
gratifying them!--I have opened new worlds to you--You must be
four times the poet you are, and then you will be above Milton,
and equal to Shakspeare, the only two mortals I am acquainted
with who ventured beyond the visible diurnal sphere, and
preserved their intellects. Dryden himself would have talked
nonsense, and, I fear, indecency, on my plan; but you are too
good a divine, I am sure, to treat my quadruple love but
platonically. In Saturn, notwithstanding their glass-case, they
are supposed to be very cold; but platonic love of itself
produces frigid conceits enough, and you need not augment the
dose.--But I will not dictate, The Subject is new; and you, who
have so much imagination, will shoot far beyond me. Fontenelle
would have made something of the idea, even in prose; but
Algarotti would dishearten any body from attempting to meddle
with the system of the universe a second time in a genteel
dialogue.(470) Good night! I am going to bed.--Mercy on me! if I
should dream of Celia with four times the usual attractions!

(469) By Poinsinet de Sivry, in twelve Volumes quarto.-E.

(470) A translation of Count Algarotti's "Newtonianismo per Le
Dame," by Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, under the title of "Sir Isaac
Newton'S Philosophy explained for the Use of the Ladies; in six
Dialogues of Light and Colours," appeared in 1739.-E.

Letter 242 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
February 2, 1782. (page 308)

I doubt you are again in error, my good Sir, about the letter I
in the Gentleman's Magazine against the Rowleians, unless Mr.
Malone sent it to you; for he is the author, and not Mr.
Steevens, from whom I imagine you received it.(471) There is a
report that some part of Chatterton's forgery is to be produced
by an accomplice; but this I do not answer for, nor know the
circumstances. I have scarce seen a person who is not persuaded
that the forging of the poems was Chatterton's own, though he
might have found some old stuff to work upon, which very likely
was the case; but now that the poems have been so much examined,
nobody (that has an ear) can get over the modernity of the
modulations, and the recent cast of the ideas and phraseology,
corroborated by such palpable pillage of Pope and Dryden. Still
the boy remains a prodigy, by whatever means he procured or
produced the edifice erected; and still It will be found
inexplicable how he found time or materials for operating such
miracles.

You are in another error about Sir Harry Englefield, who cannot
be going to marry a daughter of Lord Cadogan, unless he has a
natural one, of whom I never heard. Lord Cadogan has no daughter
by his first wife, and his oldest girl by My niece is not five
years old.(472) The act of the Emperor to which I alluded, is
the general destruction of convents in Flanders, and, I suppose,
in his German dominions too. The Pope suppressed the carnival,
as mourning and proposes a journey to Vienna to implore
mercy.(473) This is a little different from the time when the
pontiffs trampled on the necks of emperors, and called it
trampling super Aspidem et Draconent. I hope you have received
your cargo back undamaged. I was much obliged to you, and am
yours ever.

(471) It was afterwards published separately, under the title of
"Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley, a
priest of the fifteenth century."-E.

(472) Lord Cadogan married, in 1747, Frances, daughter of the
first Lord Montfort; and secondly, in 1777, Mary, daughter of
Charles Churchill, Esq. by Lady Mary, daughter of Sir Robert
Walpole.-E.

(473) The Emperor Joseph, having been restrained during the
lifetime of Maria Theresa from acting as he wished in
ecclesiastical matters, upon her death, in November, 1780, issued
two ordinances respecting religious orders: by one forbidding the
Roman Catholics to hold correspondence with their chief in
foreign parts; and by the other forbidding any bull or ordinance
of the Pope from being received in his dominions, until
sanctioned by him. In 1782, he directed the suppression of the
religious houses; upon which he was visited at Vienna by the
Pope, who was received with great respect, but was unable to
procure any intermission in the Emperor's ecclesiastical
reforms.-E.

Letter 243 To The Hon. George Hardinge.
March 8, 1782. (page 309)

It is very pleasing to receive congratulation from a friend on a
friend's success: that success, however, is not so agreeable as
the universal esteem allowed to Mr. Conway's character, which not
only accompanies his triumph,(474) but I believe contributed to
it. To-day, I suppose, all but his character will be reversed;
for there must have been a miraculous change if the Philistines
do not bear as ample a testimony to their Dagon's honour, as
conviction does to that of a virtuous man. In truth, I am far
from desiring that the Opposition should prevail yet: the nation
is not sufficiently changed, nor awakened enough, and it is sure
of having its feelings repeatedly attacked by more woes; the blow
will have more effect a little time hence: the clamour must be
loud enough to drown the huzzas of five hoarse bodies, the
Scotch, Tories, Clergy, Law, and Army, who would soon croak if
new ministers cannot do what the old have made impossible; and
therefore, till general distress involves all in complaint, and
lays the cause undeniably at the right doors, victory will be but
momentary, and the conquerors would soon be rendered more
unpopular than the vanquished; for, depend upon it, the present
ministers would not be as decent and as harmless an Opposition as
the present. Their criminality must be legally proved and
stigmatised, or the pageant itself would soon be restored to
essence. Base money will pass till cried down. I wish you may
keep your promise of calling upon me better than you have done.
Remember, that though you have time enough before you, I have
not; and, consequently, must be much more impatient for our
meeting than you are, as I am, dear Sir, yours most sincerely.

(474) General Conway had, on the 27th of February, distinguished
himself in the House of Commons by a motion, "That the farther
prosecution of offensive war on the continent of America, for the
purpose of reducing the revolted colonies to obedience by force,
will be the means of weakening the efforts of this country
against her European enemies; tend, under the present
circumstances, to increase the mutual enmity so fatal to the
interests both of Great Britain and America; and, by preventing a
happy reconciliation with that country, to frustrate the earnest
desire graciously expressed by his Majesty, to restore the
blessings of public tranquility." This motion was carried by a
majority of 234 to 213; upon which the General moved an humble
address to his Majesty thereupon, which was carried without a
division.-E.

Letter 244 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Berkeley Square, March 9, 1782. (page 310)

Though I have scarce time, I must write a line to thank you for
the print of Mr. Cowper, and to tell you how ashamed I am that
You should have so much attention to me, on the slightest wish I
express, when I fear my gratitude is not half so active, though
it ought to exceed obligations.

Dr. Farmer has been with me; and though it was but a short visit,
he pleased me so much by his easy simplicity and good sense, that
I wish for more acquaintance with him.

I do not know whether the Emperor will atone to you for
demolishing the cross, by attacking the crescent. The papers say
he has declared war with the Turks. He seems to me to be a
mountebank who professes curing all diseases. As power is his
Only panacea, the remedy methinks is worse than the disease.
Whether Christianity will be laid aside, I cannot say. As
nothing of the spirit is left, the forms, I think, signify very
little. Surely it is not an age of morality and principle; does
it import whether profligacy is baptized or not? I look to
motives, not to professions. I do not approve of convents: but,
if Caesar wants to make soldiers of monks, I detest his
reformation, and think that men had better not procreate than
commit murder; nay, I believe that monks get more children than
soldiers do; but what avail abstracted speculations? Human
passions wear the dresses of the times, and carry on the same
views, though in different habits. Ambition and interest set up
religions or pull them down, as fashion presents a handle; and
the conscientious must be content when the mode favours their
wishes, or sigh when it does not.

Letter 245 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
April 13, 1782. (page 310)

Your partiality to me, my good Sir, is much overseen, if you
think me fit to correct your Latin. Alas! I have not skimmed ten
pages of Latin these dozen years. I have dealt in nothing but
English, French, and a little Italian; and do not think. if my
life depended on it, I could write four lines of pure Latin. I
have had occasion, once or twice to speak the language, and soon
found that all my verbs were Italian with Roman terminations. I
would not on any account draw you into a scrape, by depending on
my skill in what I have half forgotten. But you are in the
metropolis of Latium. If you distrust your own knowledge, which
I do not, especially from the specimen you have sent me, surely
you must have good critics at your elbow to consult.

In truth, I do not love Roman inscriptions in lieu of our own
language, though, if any where, proper in an university; neither
can I approve writing what the Romans themselves would not
understand. What does it avail to give a Latin tail to a
Guildhall? Though the word used by moderns, would mayor convey
to Cicero the idea of a mayor? Architectus, I believe, is the
right word; but I doubt whether veteris jam perantiquae is
classic for a dilapidated building--but do not depend on me;
consult some better judges.

Though I am glad of the late revolution,(475) a word for which I
have great reverence, I shall certainly not dispute with you
thereon. I abhor exultation. If the change produces peace, I
shall make a bonfire in my heart. Personal interest I have none;
you and I shall certainly never profit by the politics to which
we are attached. The Archaeologic Epistle I admire exceedingly,
though I am sorry it attacks Mr. Bryant, whom I love and respect.
The Dean is so absurd an oaf, that he deserves to be ridiculed.
Is any thing more hyperbolic than his preference of Rowley to
Homer, Shakspeare, and Milton. Whether Rowley or Chatterton was
the author, are the poems in any degree comparable to those
authors? is not a ridiculous author an object of ridicule? I do
not even guess at your meaning in your conclusive paragraph on
that subject. Dictionary writer I suppose alludes to Johnson;
but surely you do not equal the compiler of a dictionary to a
genuine poet? Is a brickmaker on a level with Mr. Essex? Nor
can I hold that exquisite wit and satire are Billingsgate; if
they were, Milles and Johnson would be able to write an answer to
the epistle. I do as little guess whom you mean that got a
pension by Toryism: if Johnson too, he got a pension for having
abused pensioners, and yet took one himself, which was
contemptible enough. Still less know I who preferred opposition
to principles, which is not a very common case; whoever it was,
as Pope says,

"The way he took was strangely round about."

With Mr. Chamberlayne I was very little acquainted, nor ever saw
him six times in my life. It was with Lord Walpole's branch he
was intimate, and to whose eldest son Mr. Chamberlayne had been
tutor. This poor gentleman had a most excellent character
universally, and has been more feelingly regretted than almost
any man I ever knew.(476) This is all I am able to tell you. I
forgot to say, I am also in the, dark as to the person you guess
for the author of the Epistle. it cannot be the same person to
whom it is generally attributed; who certainly neither has a
pension nor has deserted his principles, nor has reason to be
jealous of those he laughed at; for their abilities are far below
his. I do not mean that it is his, but is attributed to him. It
was sent to me; nor did I ever see a line of it till I read it in
print. In one respect it is most credible to be his; for there
are not two such inimitable poets in England.(477) I smiled on
reading it, and said to myself, "Dr. Glynn is well off to have
escaped!" His language Indeed about me has been Billingsgate;
but peace be to his and the manes of Rowley, if they have ghosts
who never existed. The Epistle has not put an end to that
controversy, which was grown so tiresome. I rejoice at having
kept my resolution of not writing a word more on that subject.
The Dean had swollen it to an enormous bladder; the Archaeologic
poet pricked it with a pin; a sharp one indeed, and it burst.
Pray send me a better account of yourself if you can.

(475) The resignation of Lord North, and the formation of the
Rockingham administration.-E.

(476) Edward Chamberlayne, Esq. recently appointed secretary of
the treasury. He was so overcome by a nervous terror of the
responsibility of the office, that he committed suicide, by
throwing himself out of a window on the 6th of April. On the
following day, Hannah More sent the subjoined account of this
melancholy event to her sister:--"Chamberlayne! the amiable, the
accomplished, the virtuous, the religious Chamberlayne! in the
full vigour of his age, high in reputation, happy in his
prospects, threw him self out of the Treasury window, was taken
up alive, and lived thirty-six hours in the most perfect
possession of his mental activity, his religion, and his
reasoning faculties. With an astonishing composure he settled
his affairs with both worlds. He never seemed to feel any
remorse, or to reproach his conscience with the guilt of suicide.
In vain had they entreated him to accept of this place. In a
fatal moment he consented: after this, he never had a moment's
peace, and little or no sleep; this brought on a slow nervous
fever, but not to confine him a moment. I saw him two days
before. He looked pale and eager, and talked with great disgust
of his place, on my congratulating him on such an acquisition.
We chatted away, however, and he grew pleasant; and we parted--
never to meet again."-E.

(477) In a review of the edition of the Works of Mason which
appeared in 1816, the quarterly Review, after expressing a wish
that this and the Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers had been
included in the collection, says, "The Archaeological Epistle was
an hasty but animated effusion, drawn forth by the Rowleian
Controversy, and dressed in the garb of old English verse, in
order to obviate the argument drawn from the difficulty of
writing in the language of the fifteenth century. The task might
indeed have been per; formed by many; but the sentiments accorded
with the known declarations of Mason." Vol. xv. p. 385.-E.

Letter 246 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Berkeley Square, May 24, 1782. (page 312)

You are always kind to me, dear Sir, in all respects, but I have
been forced to recur to a rougher prescription than ass's milk.
The pain and oppression on my breast obliged me to be blooded two
days together, which removed my cold and fever; but, as I
foresaw, left me the gout in their room. I have had it in my
left foot and hand for a week, but it is going. This cold is very
epidemic. I have at least half a dozen nieces and great-nieces
confined with it. but it is not dangerous or lasting. I shall
send you, within this day or two, the new edition of my Anecdotes
of Painting; you will find very little new: it is a cheap edition
for the use of artists, and that at least they who really want
the book, and not the curiosity, may have it, without being
forced to give the outrageous price at which the Strawberry
edition sells, merely because it is rare.

I could assure Mr. Gough, that the Letter on Chatterton cost me 6
very small pains. I had nothing to do but recollect and relate
the exact truth. There has been published another piece on it,
which I cannot tell whether meant to praise or to blame me, so
wretchedly is it written; and I have received another anonymous
one, dated Oxford, (which may be to disguise Cambridge) and which
professes to treat me very severely, though stuffed with fulsome
compliments. It abuses me for speaking modestly of myself--a
fault I hope I shall never mend; avows agreeing with me on the
supposition of the poems, which may be a lie, for it is not
uncharitable to conclude that an anonymous writer is a liar;
acquits me of being at all accessory to the poor lad's
catastrophe; and then, with most sensitive nerves, is shocked to
death, and finds me guilty of it, for having, after it happened,
dropped, that had he lived he might have fallen into more serious
forgeries, though I declare that I never heard that he did. To
be sure, no Irishman ever blundered more than to accuse one of an
ex post facto murder! If this Hibernian casuist is smitten
enough with his own miscarriage to preserve it in a magazine
phial, I shall certainly not answer it, not even by this couplet
which is suggested:

So fulsome, yet so captious too, to tell you much it grieves me,
That though your flattery makes me sick, your peevishness
relieves me.

Adieu, my good Sir. Pray inquire for your books, if you do not
receive them: they go by the Cambridge Fly.

Letter 247 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Berkeley Square, June 1, 1782. (page 313)

I thank you much, dear Sir, for your kind intention about
Elizabeth of York;. but it would be gluttony and rapacity to
accept her: I have her already in the picture of her
marriage,(478) which was Lady Pomfret's; besides Vertue's print
of her, with her husband, son, and daughter-in-law. In truth I
have not room for any more pictures any where; yet, without
plundering you, or without impoverishing myself, I have
supernumerary pictures with which I can furnish your vacancies;
but I must get well first to look them out. As yet I cannot walk
alone; and my posture, as you see, makes me write ill. It is
impossible to recover in such weather--never was such a sickly
time.

I have not yet seen Bishop Newton's life. I will not give three
guineas for what I would not give threepence, his Works; his
Life,(479) I Conclude, will be borrowed by all the magazines, and
there I shall see it.

I know nothing of Acciliator--I have forgotten some of my good
Latin, and luckily never knew any bad; having always detested
monkish barbarism. I have just finished Mr. Pennant's new
volume, parts of which amused me; though I knew every syllable,
that was worth knowing before, for there is not a word of
novelty; and it is tiresome his giving such long extracts out of
Dugdale and other common books, and telling one long stories
about all the most celebrated characters in the English history,
besides panegyrics on all who showed him their houses: but the
prints are charming; though I cannot conceive why he gave one of
the Countess of Cumberland, who never did any thing worth memory,
but recording the very night on which she conceived.

"The Fair Circassian" was written by a Mr. Pratt, who has
published several works under the name of Courtney Melmoth.(480)
The play might have been written by Cumberland, it is bad enough.
I did read the latter's coxcombical Anecdotes,(481) but saw
nothing on myself, except mention of my Painters. Pray what is
the passage you mean on me or Vertue? Do not write on purpose to
answer this, it is not worth while.

(478) This picture of the marriage of Elizabeth of York with
Henry the Seventh was painted by Mabuse, and is described in
Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting.-E.

(479) Shortly after the death of Bishop Newton, his Works were
published, with an autobiographical Memoir, in two volumes
quarto. The prelate, speaking, in this Memoir, of Johnson's
Lives of the Poets, having observed, that "candour was much hurt
and offended at the malevolence that predominated in every part,"
the Doctor, in a conversation with Dr. Adams, master of Pembroke
College, Oxford, thus retaliated on his townsman:--"Tom knew he
should be dead before what he said of me would appear: he durst
not have printed it while he was alive." Dr. Adams: "I believe
his Dissertations on the Prophecies' is his great work."
Johnson: "Why, Sir, it is Tom's great work; but how far it is
great, or how much of it is Tom's, are other questions. I fancy
a considerable part of it was borrowed." Dr. Adams: "He was a
very successful man." Johnson: "I don't think so, Sir. He did
not get very high. He was late in getting what he did get, and
he did not get it by the best means. I believe he was a gross
flatterer."-Life, vol. viii. p. 286.-E.

(480) Mr. Pratt was the author of "Gleanings in England,"
"Gleanings through Wales, Holland, and Westphalia," and many
other works which enjoyed a temporary popularity, but are now
forgotten. Of Mr. Pratt, the following amusing anecdote is
related by Mr. Gifford, in the Maviad:--"This gentleman lately
put in practice a very notable scheme. Having scribbled himself
fairly out of notice, he found it expedient to retire to the
Continent for a few months, to provoke the inquiries of Mr.
Lane's indefatigable readers. Mark the ingratitude of the
creatures! No inquiries were made, and Mr. Pratt was forgotten
before he had crossed the channel. Ibi omnis efFusus labor--but
what!

The mouse that is content with one poor hole,
Can never be a mouse of any soul:

baffled in this expedient, he had recourse to another, and, while
we were dreaming of nothing less, came before us in the following
paragraph:--"A few days since, died at Basle in Switzerland, the
ingenious Mr. Pratt: his loss will be severely felt by the
literary world, as he joined to the accomplishments of the
gentleman the erudition of the scholar." This was inserted in
the London papers for several days successively; the country
papers too yelled out like syllables of dolour; at length, while
our eyes were yet wet for the irreparable loss we had sustained,
came a second paragraph as follows: "As no event of late has
caused a more general sorrow than the supposed death of the
ingenious Mr. Pratt, we are happy to have it in our power to
assure hiss numerous admirers, that he is as well as they can
wish and (what they will be delighted to hear) busied is
preparing his Travels for the press."-E.