Books: Letters of Horace Walpole, V4

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Whenever the weather cools to an English consistence, I will see
you at Park-place or in town: but I think not at the former
before the end of next month, unless I recover more courage than
I have at present; for if I was to get a real fit, and be
confined to my bed in such sultry days, I should not have
strength to go through it. I have just fixed three new benches
round my bowling-green, that I may make four journeys of the
tour. Adieu!

Monday morning.

As I was rising this morning, I received an express from your
daughter, that she will bring Madame de Cambis and Lady Melbourne
to dinner here to-morrow. I shall be vastly pleased with the
party, but it puts Philip and Margaret to their wit's end to get
them a dinner: nothing is to be had here; we must send to
Richmond, and Kingston, and Brentford; I must borrow Mr. Ellis's
cook, and somebody's confectioner, and beg somebody's fruit, for
I have none of these of my own, nor know any thing of the matter:
but that is Philip and Margaret's affair, and not mine; and the
worse the dinner is, the more Gothic Madame de Cambis will think
it.

I have been emptying my pond, which was more in my head than the
honour of my kitchen; and in the mud of the troubled water I have
found all my gold, as Dunning and Barr`e(503) did last year. I
have taken out fifteen young fish of a year and a half old for
Lady Ailesbury, and reserved them as an offering worthy of
Amphitrite in the vase, in the cat's vase,(504) amidst the azure
flowers that blow. They are too portly to be carried in a
smelling-bottle in your pocket. I wish you could plan some way
of a waterman's calling for them, and transporting them to
Henley. They have not changed their colour, but will next year.
How lucky it would be, should you meet your daughter about
Turnham Green, and turn back with them!

(502) Now first printed.

503) In the preceding year, through the influence of Lord
Shelburne, a considerable pension had been granted to Colonel
Barr`e, and a peerage and pension to Mr. Dunning.-E.

(504) The china vase in which Walpole's favourite cat Selima was
drowned. See Gray's Works, vol. i. p. 6.-E.

Letter 264 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 12, 1783. (page 332)

Your lordship tells me you hope my summer has glided pleasantly,
like our Thames- I cannot say it has passed very pleasantly to
me, though, like the Thames, dry and low; for somehow or other I
caught a rheumatic fever in the great heats, and cannot get rid
of it. I have just been at Park-place and Nuneham, in hopes
change of air would cure me; but to no purpose. Indeed, as want
of sleep is my chief complaint, I doubt I must make use of a very
different and more disagreeable remedy, the air of London, the
only place that I ever find agree with me when I am out of order.
I was there for two nights a fortnight ago, and slept perfectly
well. In vain has my predilection for Strawberry made me try to
persuade myself that this was all fancy: but, I fear, reasons
that appear strong, though contrary to our inclinations, must be
good ones. London at this time of year is as nauseous a drug as
any in an apothecary's shop. I could find nothing at all to do,
and so went to Astley's, `which indeed was much beyond my
expectation. I do not wonder any longer that Darius was chosen
king by the instructions he gave to his horse; nor that Caligula
made 'his consul. Astley can make his dance minuets and
hornpipes: which is more extraordinary than to make them vote at
an election, or act the part of a magistrate, which animals of
less capacities can perform as dexterously as a returning officer
or a master in chancery. But I shall not have even Astley now:
her Majesty the Queen of France, who has as much taste as
Caligula, has sent for the whole dramatis personae to Paris. Sir
William Hamilton was at Park-place, and gave us dreadful accounts
of Calabria: he looks much older, and has the patina of a bronze.

At Nuneham I was much pleased with the improvements both within
doors and without. Mr. Mason was there; and as he shines in
every art, was assisting Mrs. Harcourt with his new discoveries
in painting, by which he will unite miniature and oil. Indeed,
she is a very apt and extraordinary scholar. Since our
professors seem to have lost the art of colouring, I am glad at
least that they have ungraduated assessors.

We have plenty and peace at last; consequently leisure for
repairing some of our losses, if we have sense to set about the
task. On what will happen I shall make no conjectures, as it is
not likely I should see much of what is to come. Our
enemies have humbled us enough to content them; and we have
succeeded so ill in innovations, that surely we shall not tempt
new storms in haste.

>From this place I can send your lordship new or entertaining,
nor expect more game in town, whither nothing but search of
health should carry me. Perhaps it is a vain chase at my age;
but at my age one cannot trust to Nature's operating cures
without aiding her; it is always time enough to abandon one's
self when no care will palliate our decays. I hope your lordship
and Lady Strafford will long be in no want of such attentions;
nor should I -have talked so Much of my own cracks, had I had any
thing else to tell you. It would be silly to aim at vivacity
when it is gone: and, though a lively old man is sometimes an
agreeable being, a pretending old man is ridiculous. Aches and
an apothecary cannot give one genuine spirits; 'tis sufficient if
they do not make one peevish' Your lordship is so kind as to
accept of me as I am, and you shall find nothing more counterfeit
in me than the sincere respect and gratitude with which I have
the honour to be your lordship's most devoted humble servant.

Letter 265 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 11, 1783. (page 334)

My rheumatism, I thank your lordship, is certainly better, though
not quite gone. It was very troublesome at night till I took the
bark; but that medicine makes me sleep like opium. But I will
say no more about it, nothing is so troublesome as to talk of
chronical complaints: has one any right to draw on the compassion
of others, when one must renew the address daily and for months?

The aspect of Ireland is very tempestuous.(505) I doubt they
will hurt us materially without benefiting themselves. If they
obtain very short parliaments, they will hurt themselves more
than us, by introducing a confusion that will prevent their
improvements. Whatever country does adopt short parliaments,
will, I am entirely persuaded, be forced to recur to their former
practice; I mean, if the disorders introduced do not produce
despotism of some sort or other. I am very sorry Mr. Mason
concurs in trying to revive the Associations.(506) Methinks our
state is so deplorable, that every healing measure ought to be
attempted instead of innovations. For my own part, I expect
nothing but distractions, and am not concerned to be so old. I
am so old, that, were I disposed to novelties, I should think
they little became my age. I should be ashamed, when my hour
shall come, to be caught in a riot of country squires and
parsons, and haranguing a mob with a shaking head. A leader of
faction ought to be young and vigorous. If an aged gentleman
does get an ascendant, he may be sure that younger men are
counting on his exit, and only flatter him to succeed to his
influence, while they are laughing at his misplaced activity. At
least, these would be my thoughts, who of all things dread being
a jest to the juvenile, if they find me out of my sphere.

I have seen Lord Carlisle's play, and it has a great deal of
merit--perhaps more than your lordship would expect. The
language and images are the best part, after the two principal
scenes, which are really fine.(507)

I did, as your lordship knows and says, always like and esteem
Lady Fitzwilliam. I scarce know my lord; but, from what I have
heard of him in the House of Lords, have conceived a good opinion
of his sense; of his character I never heard any ill; which is a
great testimonial in his favour, when there are so many horrid
characters, and when all that are conspicuous have their minutest
actions tortured to depose against them.

You may be sure, my dear lord, that I heartily pity Lady
Strafford's and your loss of four-legged friends. Sense and
fidelity are wonderful recommendations; and when one meets with
them, and can be confident that one is not imposed upon, I cannot
think that the two additional legs are any drawback. At least I
know that I have had friends who would never have vexed or
betrayed me, if they had walked on all-fours.

I have no news to send your lordship; indeed I inquire for none,
nor wish to hear any. Whence is any good to come? I am every
day surprised at hearing people eager for news. If there is any,
they are sure of hearing it. How can one be curious to know one
does not know what; and perpetually curious to know? Has one
nothing to do but to hear and relate something new? And why can
one care about nothing but what one does not know? And why is
every event worth hearing, only because one has not heard it?
Have not there been changes enough? divorces enough? bankruptcies
and robberies enough? and, above all, lies enough? No: or
people would not be everyday impatient for the newspaper. I own,
I am glad on Sunday when there is no paper(508) and no fresh lies
circulating. Adieu, my good lord and lady! May you long enjoy
your tranquillity, undisturbed by villany, folly, and madness!

(505) The Volunteer Corps of Ireland had long entertained
projects for reforming the parliamentary representation of the
country, and had appointed delegates for carrying that object
into effect. In September they met at Dungannon when a plan of
reform was proposed and agreed upon, and the 10th of November
fixed on for a convention at Dublin of the representatives of the
whole body of Volunteers. "Many gentlemen," says Mr. Hardy, in
his Memoirs of Lord Charlemont, "must have seen a letter of Mr.
Fox, then secretary of state, to General Burgoyne, at that time
commander-in-chief in Ireland, on the subject Convention. It was
written with the spirit of a patriot and wisdom of a true
statesman. In his ardour for a parliamentary reform, he yielded,
he said, to none of the Convention, but he dreaded the
consequences of such a proceeding; and would, he added, lament it
as the deepest misfortune of his life, if, by any untoward Steps
then taken, and whilst he was minister, the two kingdoms should
be separated, or run the Slightest risk of separation."-E.

(506) "The Yorkshire Association had been formed in 1779, from
the gentry of moderate fortunes and the more substantial yeomen.,
under the pressure of those burdens which resulted from the war
with America, with the view of obtaining, first, an economical,
and then a parliamentary reform; but in the various changes which
soon afterwards perplexed the political world, its first object
was almost forgotten, and its most important character was the
front Of Opposition which it now maintained against that powerful
aristocracy which had long ruled the country with absolute
dominion. It now declared against the Coalition administration."
Life of Wilberforce, vol. i. p. 51.-E.

(507) Of Lord Carlisle's tragedy, entitled " The Father's
Revenge,' Dr. Johnson also entertained a favourable opinion. "Of
the sentiments," he says, "I remember not one I wished omitted.
in the imagery, I cannot forbear to distinguish the comparison of
joy succeeding grief to light rushing on the eye accustomed to
darkness. It seems to have all that can be desired to make it
please: it is new, just, and delightful. With the characters,
either as conceived or preserved, I have no fault to find; but
was much inclined to congratulate a writer, who, in defiance of
prejudice and fashion, made the Archbishop a good man, and
scorned all thoughtless applause which a vicious churchman would
have brought him." It was with reference to this tragedy, that
Lord Byron regretted the flippant and unjust sarcasms against his
noble relation, which he had admitted into the early editions of
his "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," under the mistaken
impression that Lord Carlisle had intentionally slighted him.-E.

(508) What would Walpole say, if he could witness the alteration
which has taken place in this respect since the year 1783?-E.

Letter 266 To Lady Browne.(509)
Berkeley Square, Oct. 19, 1783. (page 336)

As it is not fit my better-half should be ignorant of the state
of her worse-half, lest the gossips of the neighbourhood should
suspect we are parted; let them know, my life, that I am much
better to-day. I have had a good deal of fever, and a bad night
on Wednesday; but the last was much better, and the fever is much
diminished to-day. In short, I have so great an opinion of
town-dried air, that I expect to be well enough to return to
Twickenham on Monday; and, if I do, I will call on you that
evening; though I have not been out of my house yet. Indeed, it
is unfortunate that so happy a couple, who have never exchanged a
cross word, and who might claim the flitch of bacon, cannot be
well--the one in town, the other in the country.

(509) Now first printed

Letter 267 To Governor Pownall.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 27, 1783. (page 336)

I am extremely obliged to you, Sir, for the valuable
communication made to me.(510) It is extremely so to me, as it
does justice to a memory I revere to the highest degree; and I
flatter myself that it would be acceptable to that part of the
world that loves truth; and that part will be the majority, as
fast as they pass away -who have an interest in preferring
falsehood. Happily, truth is longer-lived than the passions of
individuals; and, when mankind are not misled, they can
distinguish white from black. I myself do not pretend to be
unprejudiced; I must be so to the best of fathers - I should be
ashamed to be quite impartial. No wonder, then, Sir, if I am
greatly pleased with so able a justification; yet I am not so
blinded, but that I can discern solid reasons for admiring your
defence. You have placed that defence on sound and nezo grounds;
and, though very briefly, have very learnedly stated and
distinguished the landmarks of our constitution, and the
encroachments made on it, by justly referring the principles of
liberty to the Saxon systern, and by imputing the corruptions of
it to the Norman. This was a great deal too deep for that
superficial mountebank, Hume, to go; for a mountebank he was. He
mounted a system in the garb of a philosophic empiric, but
dispensed no drugs but what he was authorized to vend by a royal
patent, and which were full of Turkish opium. He had studied
nothing relative to the English constitution before Queen
Elizabeth, and had selected her most arbitrary acts to
countenance those of the Stuarts: and even hers he
misrepresented; for her worst deeds were levelled against the
nobility, those of the Stuarts against the people. Hers,
consequently, were rather an obligation to the people; for the
most heinous part of despotism is, that it produces a thousand
despots instead of one. Muley Moloch cannot lop off many heads
with his own hands; at least, he takes those in his way. those
of his courtiers; but his bashaws and viceroys spread destruction
every where. The flimsy, ignorant, blundering manner in which
Hume executed the reigns preceding Henry the Seventh, is a proof
how little he had examined the history of our constitution.

I could say much, much more, Sir, in commendation of your work,
were I not apprehensive of being biassed by the subject. Still,
that it would not be from flattery, I wilt prove, by taking the
liberty of making two objections; and they are only to the last
page but one. Perhaps you will think that my first objection
does show that I am too much biassed. I own I am sorry to see my
father compared to Sylla. The latter was a sanguinary usurper, a
monster; the former, the mildest, most forgiving, best-natured of
men, and a legal minister. Nor, I fear, will the only light in
which you compare them, Stand The test. Sylla resigned his power
voluntarily, insolently: perhaps timidly. as he might think he
had a better chance of dying in his bed, if he retreated, than by
continuing to rule by force. My father did not retire by his own
option. He had lost the majority of the House of Commons.
Sylla, you say, Sir, retired unimpeached; it is true, but covered
with blood. My father was not impeached, in our strict sense, Of
the word; but, to my great joy, he was in effect. A secret
committee, a worse inquisition than a jury, was named; not to try
him, but to sift his life for crimes: and Out Of Such a jury,
chosen in the dark, and not one of whom he might challenge, he
had some determined enemies, many opponents, and but two he could
suppose his friends. And what was the consequence ? A man
charged with every state crime almost, for twenty years, was
proved to have done--what? Paid some writers much more than they
deserved, for having defended him against ten thousand and ten
'thousand libels, (some of which had been written by his
inquisitors,) all which libels were confessed to have been lies
by his inquisitors themselves; for they could not produce a
shadow of one of the crimes with which they had charged him! I
must own, ,Sir, I think that Sylla and my father ought to be set
in opposition rather than paralleled.

My other objection is still more serious: and if I am so happy as
to convince you, I shall hope that you will alter the paragraph;
as it seems to impute something to Sir Robert, of which he was
not only most innocent, but of which if he had been guilty, I
should think him extremely so, for he would have been very
ungrateful. You say he had not the comfort to see that he had
established his own family by any thing which he received from
the gratitude of that Hanover family, or from the gratitude of
that country, which he had saved and served! Good Sir, what does
this sentence seem to imply, but that either Sir Robert himself,
or his family, thought or think, that the Kings George . and II.
or England, were ungrateful in not rewarding his services? Defend
him and us from such a charge! He
nor we ever had such a thought. Was it not rewarding him to make
him prime minister, and maintain and support him against his
enemies for twenty years together? Did not George I. make his
eldest son a peer, and give to the father and son a valuable
patent place in the custom-house for three lives? Did not George
II. give my elder brother the auditor's place, and to my brother
and me other rich places for our lives; for, though in the gift
of the first lord of the treasury, do we not owe them to the King
who made him so? Did not the late King make my father an earl,
and dismiss him with a pension of 4000 pounds a-year for his
life? Could he or we not think these ample rewards? What
rapacious sordid wretches must he and we have been, and be, could
we entertain such an idea? As far have we all been from thinking
him neglected by his country. Did not his country see and know
these rewards? and could it think these rewards inadequate?
Besides, Sir, great as I hold my father's services, they were
solid and silent, not ostensible. They were of a kind to which I
hold your justification a more suitable reward than pecuniary
recompenses. To have fixed the house of Hanover on the throne,
to have maintained this country in peace and affluence for twenty
years, with the other services you record, Sir, were actions, the
`eclat of which must be illustrated by time and reflection; and
whose splendour has been brought forwarder than I wish it had, by
comparison with a period very dissimilar! If Sir Robert had not
the comfort of leaving his family in affluence, it was not
imputable to his King or his country. Perhaps I am proud that he
did not. He died forty thousand pounds in debt. That was the
wealth of a man that had been taxed as the plunderer of his
country! Yet, with all my adoration of my father, I am just
enough to own that it was his own fault if he died so poor. He
had made Houghton much too magnificent for the moderate estate
which he left to support it; and, as he never --I repeat it with
truth, never--got any money but in the South Sea and while he was
paymaster. his fondness for his paternal seat, and his boundless
generosity, were too expensive for his fortune. I will mention
one instance, which will show how little he was disposed to turn
the favour of the crown to his own profit. He laid out fourteen
thousand pounds of his own money on Richmond New Park. I could
produce other reasons too why Sir Robert's family were not in so
comfortable a situation, as the world, deluded by
misrepresentation, might expect to see them at his death. My
eldest brother had been a very bad economist during his father's
life, and died himself fifty thousand pounds in debt, or more; so
that to this day neither Sir Edward nor I have received the five
thousand pounds apiece which Sir Robert left us as our fortunes.
I do not love to charge the dead; therefore will only say, that
Lady Orford (reckoned a vast fortune, which till she died she
never proved,) wasted vast sums; nor did my brother or father
ever receive but the twenty thousand pounds which she brought at
first,'and which were spent on the wedding and christening; I
mean, including her jewels.

I beg pardon, Sir, for this tedious detail, which is minutely,
perhaps too minutely, true; but, when I took the liberty of
contesting any part of a work which I admire so much, I owed it
to you and to myself to assign my reasons. I trust they will
satisfy you; and, if they do, I am sure you will alter a
paragraph against which it is the duty of the family to exclaim.
Dear as my father's memory is to my soul, I can never subscribe
to the position that he was unrewarded by the house of Hanover.

(510) The Governor's "Character of Sir Robert Walpole." It will
be found among the original papers in COXe's Life of Sir
Robert.-E.

Letter 268 To Governor Pownall.
Berkeley Square, Nov. 7, 1783. (page 339)

You must allow me, Sir, to repeat my thanks for the second copy
of your tract on my father, and for your great condescension in
altering the two passages to which I presumed to object; and
which are not only more consonant to exactness, but, I hope, no
disparagement to the piece. To me they are quite satisfactory.
And it is a comfort to me too, that what I begged to have changed
was not any reflection prejudicial to his memory; but, in the
first point, a parallel not entirely similar in circumstances;
and, in the other, a sort of censure on 'others to which I could
not subscribe. With all my veneration for my father's memory, I
should not remonstrate against just censure on him. Happily, to
do justice to him, most iniquitous calumnies ought to be removed;
and then there would remain virtues and merits enough, far to
outweigh human errors, from which the best of men, like him,
cannot be exempt. Let his enemies, ay and his friends, be
compared with him, and then justice would be done! Your essay,
Sir, will, I hope, some time or other, clear the way to his
vindication. It points out the true way of examining his
character; and is itself, as far as it goes, unanswerable. As
such, what an obligation it must be to, Sir, etc.

Letter 269To The Earl Of Strafford.
Berkeley Square, Nov. 10, 1783. (page 339)

If I consulted my reputation as 'a writer, which your lordship's
partiality is so kind as to allot me, I should wait a few days
till my granary is fuller of stock, which probably it would be by
the end of next week; but, in truth, I had rather be a grateful,
and consequently a punctual correspondent, than an ingenious one;
as I value the honour of your lordship's friendship more than
such tinsel bits of fame as can fall to my share, and of which I
am particularly sick at present, as the Public Advertiser dressed
me out t'other day with a heap of that dross which he had
pillaged from some other strolling playwrights, who I did not
desire should be plundered for me.

Indeed, when the Parliament does meet, I doubt, nay hope, it will
make less sensation than usual. The orators of Dublin have
brought the flowers of Billingsgate to so high perfection, that
ours comparatively will have no more scent than a dead dandelion.
If your lordship has not seen the speeches of Mr. Flood and Mr.
Grattan,(511) you may perhaps still think that our oyster-women
can be more abusive than members of parliament. Since I began my
letter, I hear that the meeting of the delegates from the
Volunteers is adjourned to the first of February.(512) This
seems a very favourable circumstance. I don't like a reformation
begun by a Popish army! Indeed, I did hope that peace would bring
us peace, at least not more than the discords incidental to a
free ,government: but we seem not to have attained that era yet!
I hope it will arrive, though I may not see it. I shall not
easily believe that any radical alteration of a constitution that
preserved us so long, and carried us to so great a height, will
recover our affairs. There is a wide difference between
correcting abuses and removing landmarks. Nobody disliked more
than I the strides that were attempted towards increasing the
prerogative; but as the excellence of our constitution, above all
others, consists in the balance established between the three
powers of King, Lords, and Commons, I wish to see that
equilibrium preserved. No single man, nor any private junta, has
a right to dictate laws to all three. In Ireland, truly,' a
still worse spirit I apprehend to be at bottom; in short, it is
frenzy or folly to suppose that an army composed of three parts
of Catholics can be intended for any good purposes.