Books: Letters of Horace Walpole, V4

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Letter 258 To The Earl Of Buchan.(492)
Strawberry Hill, May 12, 1783. (page 324)

My lord,
I did not know, till I received the honour of your lordship's
letter, that any obstruction had been given to your charter. I
congratulate your lordship and the Society on the defeat of that
opposition, which does not seem to have been a liberal one. The
pursuit of national antiquities has rarely been an object, I
believe, with any university: why should they obstruct others
from marching in that track? I have often thought the English
Society of Antiquaries have gone out of their way when they
meddled with Roman remains, especially if not discovered within
our island. Were I to speak out, I should own, that I hold most
reliques of the Romans that have been found in Britain, of little
consequence, unless relating to such emperors as visited us.
Provincial armies stationed in so remote and barbarous a quarter
as we were then, acted little, produced little worth being
remembered. Tombstones erected to legionary officers and their
families, now dignified by the title of inscriptions; and banks
and ditches that surrounded camps, which we understand much
better by books and plans, than by such faint fragments, are
given with much pomp, and tell us nothing new. Your lordship's
new foundation seems to proceed on a much more rational and
useful plan. The biography of the illustrious of your country
will be an honour to Scotland, to those illustrious, and to the
authors: and may contribute considerably to the general history;
for the investigation of particular lives may bring out many
anecdotes that may unfold secrets of state, or explain passages
in such histories as have been already written; especially as the
manners of the times may enter into private biography, though
before Voltaire manners were rarely weighed in general history,
though very often the sources of considerable events. I shall be
very happy to see such lives as shall be published, while I
remain alive. I cannot contribute any thing of consequence to
your lordship's meditated account of John Law. I have heard many
anecdotes of him, though none that I can warrant, particularly
that of the duel for which he fled early.(493) I met the other
day with an account in some French literary gazette, I forget
which, of his having carried off the wife of another man. Lady
Catherine Law, his wife, lived, during his power in France, in
the most stately manner. Your lordship knows, to be sure, that
he died and is buried at Venice. I have two or three different
prints of him, and an excellent head of him in crayons by
Rosalba, the best of her portraits. It is certainly very like,
for, were the flowing wig converted into a female head-dress, it
would be the exact resemblance of Lady Wallingford, his daughter,
whom I See frequently at the Duchess of Montrose's, and who has
by no means a look of the age to which she is arrived. Law was a
very extraordinary man, but not at all an estimable one.

I don't remember whether I ever told your lordship that there are
many charters of your ancient kings preserved in the Scots
College at Paris, and probably many other curiosities. I think I
did mention many paintings of the old house of Lenox in the
ancient castle at Aubigny.

(492) Now first collected.

(493) Evelyn, in his Diary, gives the following account of this
duel:--"April 22 1694. A very young man, named Wilson, the
younger son of one who had not above two hundred pounds a-year
estate, lived in the garb and equipage of the richest nobleman,
for house, furniture, coaches, saddle-horses, and kept a table
and all things accordingly, redeemed his father's estate, and
gave portions to his sisters, being challenged by one Laws, a
Scotchman, was killed in a duel, not fairly. The quarrel arose
from his taking away his own sister from a lodging in a house
where this Laws had a mistress , which the mistress of the house
thinking a disparagement to it, and losing by it, instigated Laws
to this duel. He was taken, and condemned for murder. The
mystery is, how this so young a gentleman, very sober and of good
fame, could live in such an expensive manner; it could not be
discovered by all possible industry, or entreaty of his friends
to make him reveal it. It did not appear that he was kept by
women, play, coining, padding, or dealing in chemistry; but he
would sometimes say, that, if he should live ever so long, he had
wherewith to maintain himself in the same manner, This was a
subject Of much discourse." Law was found guilty of murder, and
sentence of death was passed upon him. He however, found means
to escape, and got clear off to the Continent. A reward of fifty
bounds for is apprehension appeared in the London Gazette of the
7th of January, 1695.-E.

Letter 259 To The Hon. George Hardinge.
Berkeley Square, May 17, 1783. (page 325)

Though I shall not be fixed at Strawberry on this day fortnight,
I will accept your offer, dear Sir, because my time is more at my
disposal than yours, and you May not have any other day to bestow
upon me later. I thank you for your second: which I shall read
as carefully as I did the former. It is not your fault if you
have not yet made Sir Thomas Rumbold white as driven snow to
Me.(494) Nature has providentially given us a powerful antidote
to eloquence, or the criminal that has the best advocate would
escape. But, when rhetoric. and logic stagger my lords the
judges, in steps prejudice, and, without one argument that will
make a syllogism, confutes Messrs. Demosthenes, Tully, and
Hardinge, and makes their lordships see as clearly as any old
woman in England, that belief is a much better rule Of faith than
demonstration. This is Just my case: I do believe, nay, and I
will believe, that no man ever went to India with honest
intentions. If he returns with 100,000 pounds it is plain that I
was in the right. But I have still a stronger proof; my Lord
Coke says "Set a thief to catch a thief;" my Lord Advocate(495)
says, "Sir Thomas is a rogue:" ergo.--I cannot give so complete
an answer to the rest of your note, as I trust I have done to
your pleadings, because the latter is in print, and your note is
manuscript. Now, unfortunately, I cannot read half of it; for,
give me leave to say, that either your hand or my spectacles are
so bad, that I generally guess at your meaning rather than
decipher it, and this time the context has not served me well.

(494) The bill of pains and penalties against Sir Thomas Rumbold,
late governor of Madras, was at this time in its progress through
the House of Commons. On the 1st of July, the further
proceedings upon the bill were adjourned to the 1st of October;
by which means the whole business fell to the ground.-E.

(495) Mr. Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville. "I think him," said
Mr. Wilberforce, in June, 1781, "the first speaker on the
ministerial side in the House of Commons, and there is a
manliness in his character which prevents his running away from
the question; he grants all his adversaries' premises, and fights
them On their own ground." Life, vol. i. P. 21.-E.

Letter 260 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, June 24, 1783. (page 326)

Though your lordship's partiality extends even to my letters, you
must perceive that they grow as antiquated as the writer. News
are the soul of letters: when we give them a body of our own
invention, it is as unlike to life as a statue. I have withdrawn
so much from the -world, that the newspapers know every thing
before me, especially since they have usurped the province of
telling every thing, private as -well as public: and
consequently, a great deal more than I should -wish to know, or
like to report. When I do hear the transactions of much younger
people, they do not pass from my ears into my memory; nor does
your lordship interest yourself more about them than I do. Yet
still, when one reduces one's departments to such narrow limits,
one's correspondence suffers by it. However, as I desire to show
only my gratitude and attachment, not my wit, I shall certainly
obey your lordship as long as you are content to read my letters,
after I have told you fairly how little they can entertain you.

For imports of French, I believe we shall have few more. They
have not ruined us so totally by the war, much less enriched
themselves so much by it, but that they who have been here,
complained so piteously of the expensiveness of England, that
probably they will deter others from a similar jaunt; nor, such
is their fickleness, are the French Constant to any thing but
admiration of themselves. Their Anglomanie I hear has mounted,
or descended, from our customs to our persons. English people
are in fashion at Versailles. A Mr. Ellis,(496) who wrote some
pretty verses at Bath two or three years ago, is a favourite
there. One who was so, or may be still, the Beau Dillon, came
upon a very different errand; in short, to purchase at any price
a book written by Linguet, which was just coming out, called
"Antoinette." That will tell your lordship why the Beau
Dillon(497) was the messenger.

Monsieur de Guignes and his daughters came hither; but it was at
eight o'clock at night in the height of the deluge. You may be
sure I was much flattered by such a visit! I was forced to light
candles to show them any thing; and must have lighted the moon to
show them the views. If this is their way of seeing England,
they might as well look at it with an opera-glass from the shores
of Calais.

Mr. Mason is to come to me on Sunday, and will find me mighty
busy in making my lock of hay, which is not Yet cut. I don't
know why, but people are always more anxious about their hay than
their corn, or twenty other things that cost them more. I
suppose my Lord Chesterfield, or some such dictator, made it
fashionable to care about one's hay. Nobody betrays solicitude
about getting in his rents.

We have exchanged spring and summer for autumn and winter, as
well as day for night. If religion or law enjoined people to
love light, and prospect, and verdure, I should not wonder if
perverseness made us hate them; no, nor if society made us prefer
living always in town to solitude and beauty. But that is not
the case. The most fashionable hurry into the country at
Christmas and Easter, let the weather be ever so bad; and the
finest ladies, who will go no whither till eleven at night,
certainly pass more tiresome hours in London alone than they
would in the country. But all this is no business of mine: they
do what they like, and so do I; and I am exceedingly tolerant
about people who are perfectly indifferent to me. The sun and
the seasons were not gone out of fashion when I was young; and I
may do what I will with them now I am old: for fashion is
fortunately no law but to its devotees. Were I five-and-twenty,
I dare to say I should think every whim of my contemporaries very
wise, as I did then. In one light I am always on the side of the
Young, for they only silently despise those who do not conform to
their ordinances; but age is very apt to be angry at the change
of customs, and partial to others no better founded. It is happy
when we are occupied by nothing more serious. It is happy for a
nation when mere fashions are a topic that can employ its
attention; for, though dissipation may lead to graver moments, it
commences with ease and tranquillity: and they at least who live
before the scene shifts are fortunate, considering and comparing
themselves with the various regions who enjoy no parallel
felicity. I confess my reflections are couleur de rose at
present. I did not much expect to live to see peace, without far
more extensive ruin than has fallen on us. I will not probe
futurity in search of less agreeable conjectures.
Prognosticators may see many seeds of dusky hue; but I am too old
to look forwards. Without any omens, common sense tells one,
that in the revolution of ages nations must have unprosperous
periods. But why should I torment myself for what may happen in
twenty years after my death, more than for what may happen in two
hundred? Nor shall I be more interested in the one than in the
other. This is no indifference for my country: I wish it could
always be happy; but so I do to all other countries. Yet who
could ever pass a tranquil moment, if such future speculations
vexed him?

Adieu, my good lord! I doubt this letter has more marks of
senility than the one I announced at the beginning. When I had
no news to send you, it was no reason for tiring you with
commonplaces. But your lordship's indulgence spoils me. Does
not it look as if I thought, that, because you commend my
letters, you would like whatever I say? Will not Lady Strafford
think that I abuse your patience? I ask both your pardons, and
am to both a most devoted humble servant.

(496) George Ellis, Esq.; afterwards a contributor to "The
Rolliad;" a coadjutor of Mr. Canning and Mr. Frere in "The
Anti-Jacobin," and editor of "Specimens of Ancient English
Romances," etc. He died in 1815, at the age of seventy. Sir
Walter Scott, in the introduction to the fifth canto of Marmion,
thus addresses him-

Thou, who can give to lightest lay
An unpedantic moral gay,
Nor less the dullest theme bid flit
On wings of unexpected wit;
In letters as in life approved,
Example honour'd and beloved;
Dear Ellis! to the bard impart
A lesson of thy magic art
To win at once the head and heart,-
At once to charm, instruct, and mend,
My guide, my pattern, and my friend!"-E.

(497) "Colonel Edward Dillon was particularly acquainted with
him," says Wraxall, in his posthumous Memoirs; "he descended, I
believe, collaterally from the noble Irish family of the Earls of
Roscommon, though his father carried on the trade of a
wine-merchant at Bordeaux; but he was commonly called 'Le Comte
Edouard Dillon,' and 'Le Beau Dillon.' In my estimation, he
possessed little pretense to the latter epithet: but surpassed
most men in stature, like Lord Whitworth, Lord Hugh Seymour, and
the other individuals on whom Marie Antoinette cast a favourable
eye. That she showed him some imprudent marks of predilection at
a ball, which, when they took place, excited Comment, is true;
but they prove only indiscretion and levity on her part."-E.

Letter 261 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, August 1, 1783. (page 328)

It would be great happiness indeed to me, my dear lord, if such
nothings as my letters could contribute to any part of your
lordship's; but as your own partiality bestows their chief merit
on them, you see they owe More to your friendship than to the
writer. It is not my interest to depreciate them; much less to
undermine the foundation of their sole worth. Yet it would be
dishonest not to warn your lordship, that if my letters have had
any intrinsic recommendation, they must lose of it every day.
Years and frequent returns of gout have made a ruin of me.
Dulness, in the form of indolence, grows upon me. I am inactive,
lifeless, and so indifferent to most things. that I neither
inquire after nor remember any topics that might enliven my
letters. Nothing is so insipid as my way of passing MY time.
But I need not specify what my letters speak. They can have no
spirit left; and would be perfectly inanimate, if attachment and
gratitude to your lordship were as liable to be extinguished by
old age as our more amusing qualities. I make no new connexions;
but cherish those that remain' with all the warmth of youth and
the piety of gray hairs.

The weather here has been, and is, with very few intervals,
sultry to this moment. I think it has been of service to me;
though by overheating Myself I had a few days of lameness. The
harvest is half over already all round us; and so pure, that not
a poppy or cornflower is to be seen. Every field seems to have
been weeded like Brisco's bowling-green. If Ceres, who is at
least as old as many of our fashionable ladies, loves tricking
herself out in flowers as they do, she must be mortified: and
with more reason; for she looks well always with top-knots of
ultramarine and vermilion, which modern goddesses do not for half
so long as they think they do. As Providence showers so many
blessings on us, I wish the peace may confirm them! Necessary I
am sure it was; and when it cannot restore us, where should we
have been had the war continued? Of our situation and prospect I
confess my opinion is melancholy, not from present politics but
from past. We flung away the most brilliant position, I doubt,
for a long season! With politics I have totally done. I wish
the present ministers may last; for I think better of their
principles than of those of their opponents (with a few salvos on
both sides,) and so I do of their abilities. But it would be
folly in me to concern myself about new generations. How little
a way can I see of their progress!

I am rather surprised at the new Countess of Denbigh. How could
a woman be ambitious of resembling Prometheus, to be pawed and
clawed and gnawed by a vulture?(498) I beg your earldom's
pardon; but I could not conceive that a coronet was so very
tempting!

Lady Browne is quite recovered, unless she relapses from what we
suffer at Twickenham-park from a Lord Northesk,(499) an old
seaman, who is come to Richmond on a visit to the Duke of
Montrose. I think the poor man must be out of his senses, at
least he talks us out of ours. It is the most incessant and
incoherent rhapsody that ever was heard. He sits by the
card-table, and pours on Mrs. N * * * all that ever happened in
his voyages or his memory. He details the ship's allowance, and
talks to her as if she was his first-mate. Then in the mornings
he carries his daughter to town to see St. Paul's, and the Tower,
and Westminster Abbey; and at night disgorges all he has seen,
till we don't know the ace of spades from Queen Elizabeth's
pocket-pistol in the armoury. Mercy on us! And mercy on your
lordship too! Why should you be stunned with that alarum? Have
you had your earthquake, my lord? Many have had theirs. I
assure you I have had mine. Above a week ago, when broad awake,
the doors of the cabinet by my bedside rattled, without a breath
of wind. I imagined somebody was walking on the leads, or had
broken into the room under me. It was between four and five in
the morning. I rang my bell. Before my servant could come it
happened again; and was exactly like the horizontal tremor I felt
from the earthquake some years ago. As I had rung once, it is
plain I was awake. I rang again; but heard nothing more. I am
quite persuaded there was some commotion; nor is it surprising
that the dreadful eruptions of fire on the coasts of Italy and
Sicily(500) should have occasioned some alteration that has
extended faintly, hither, and contributed to the heats and mists
that have been so extraordinary. George Montagu said of our last
earthquake, that it was so tame you might have stroked it. It is
comfortable to live where one can reason on them without dreading
them! What satisfaction should you have in having erected such a
monument of your taste, my lord, as Wentworth Castle, if you did
not know but it might be overturned in a moment and crush you?
Sir William Hamilton is expected: he has been groping in all
those devastations. Of all vocations I would not be a professor
of earthquakes! I prefer studies that are couleur de rose; nor
would ever think of calamities, if I can do nothing To relieve
them. Yet this is a weakness of mind that I do not defend. They
are more respectable who can behold philosophically the great
theatre of events, or rather this little theatre of ours! In
some ampler sphere, they may look on the catastrophe of
Messina(501) as we do kicking to Pieces an ant-hill.

Bless me! what a farrago is my letter! It is like the extracts
of books in a monthly magazine! I had no right to censure poor
Lord Northesk's ramblings! Lady Strafford will think he has
infected me. Good-night, my dear lord and lady! Your ever
devoted.

(498) An allusion to Lord Denbigh's figure, and his arms blazoned
on a spread eagle.-E.

(499) George, sixth Earl of Northesk, a naval officer of
distinction, who attained the rank of admiral of the white. He
died in 1792.-E.

(500) In the course of this year a series of violent earthquakes
occurred in Calabria and Sicily. In February, the city of Casal
Nuova was entirely swallowed up; and the Princess Gerace
Grimaldi, with more than four thousand persons, perished in an
instant. The inhabitants of Scylla, who, headed by their Prince,
had descended from the rock and taken refuge on the sea-shore,
were all washed away by an enormous wave, on its return from the
land which it had inundated.-E.

(501) Messina, and all the northern parts of Sicily, suffered
greatly by the convulsions of nature alluded to in the preceding
note.-E.

Letter 262 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, August 15, 1783. (page 330)

The address from the Volunteers is curious indeed, and upon the
first face a little Irish. What! would they throw off our
Parliament, and yet amend it? It is like correcting a question in
the House of Commons, and then voting against it. But I suppose
they rather mean to increase confusion here, that we may not be
at leisure to impede their progress; at least this may be the
intention of the leaders. Large bodies are only led by being
earnest in themselves, when their leaders are not so: but my head
is not clear enough to apply it to different matters, nor could I
do any good if it were. Our whole system is become a disjointed
chaos, and time must digest it, or blow it up shortly. I see no
way into it, nor expect any thing favourable but from chance,
that often stops confusion on a sudden. To restore us by any
system, it would require a single head furnished with wisdom,
temper, address, fortitude, full and undivided power, and sincere
patriotism divested of all personal views. Where is that prodigy
to be found? and how should it have the power, if it had all the
rest? And if it had the power, how could it be divested of that
power again? And if it were not, how long would it retain its
virtues? Power and wisdom would soon unite, like Antony and
Augustus, to annihilate their colleague virtue, for being a poor
creature like Lepidus. In short, the mass of matter is too big
for me: I am going Out of the world, and cannot trouble myself
about it. I do think of your part in it, and wish to preserve
you where you are, for the benefits that you may contribute. I
have a high opinion of Mr. Fox, and believe that by frankness you
may become real friends, which would be greatly advantageous to
the country. There is no competition in my mind where you are
concerned: but Fox is the minister with whom I most wish you
united,-indeed, to all the rest I am indifferent or adverse: but,
besides his superior abilities, he has a liberality of acting
that is to my taste; it is like my father's plainness, and has
none of the paltry little finesses of a statesman.

Your parties do not tempt me, because I am not well enough to
join in them: nor yet will they stop me, though I had rather find
only you and Lady Ailesbury and Mrs. Damer. I am not seriously
ill; nay, am better upon the whole than I was last year: but I
perceive decays enough in myself to be sensible that the scale
may easily be inclined to the worst side. This observation makes
'me very indifferent to every thing that is not much at my heart.
Consequently what concerns you is, as it has always been for
above forty years, a principal object. Adieu!

Letter 263To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(502)

Strawberry Hill, Sunday, August 27, 1783. (page 331)

Though I begin my letter on and have dated it Sunday, I recollect
that it may miss you if you go to town on Tuesday, and therefore
I shall not send it to the post till to-morrow. I can give you
but an indifferent account of myself. I went to Lord Dacre's:
but whether the heat and fatigue were too much for me, or whether
the thunder turned me sour, for I am at least as weak as
small-beer, I came back with the gout in my left hand and right
foot. The latter confined me for three days; but though my ankle
is still swelled, I do not stay in my house: however I am
frightened, and shall venture no more expeditions yet; for my
hands and feet are both SO lame, that I am neither comfortable to
myself or any body else, abroad, when I must confine them, stay
by myself or risk pain, which the least fatigue gives me. At
this moment I have a worse embargo even than lameness on me. The
Prince d'Hessenstein has written to offer me a visit--I don't
know when. I have just answered his note, and endeavoured to
limit its meaning to the shortest sense I could, by proposing to
give him a dinner or a breakfast. I would keep my bed rather
than crack our northern French together for twelve hours.

I know nothing upon earth but my own disasters. Another is, that
all yesterday I thought all my gold-fish stolen. I am not sure
that they are not; but they tell me they keep at the bottom of
the water from the hot weather. It is all to be laded out
to-morrow morning, and then I shall know whether they are gone or
boiled.