Books: Letters of Horace Walpole, V4

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But I chiefly amused myself with ideas of the change that would
be made in the world by the substitution of balloons to ships. I
supposed our seaports to become deserted villages; and
Salisbury-plain, Newmarhet-heath, (another canvass for alteration
of ideas,) and all downs (but the Downs) arising into dock-yards
for aerial vessels. Such a field would be ample in furnishing
new speculations. But to come to my ship-news:--

"The good balloon Dedalus, Captain Wing-ate, will fly in a few
days for China; he will stop at the top of the Monument to take
in passengers.

"Arrived on Brand-sands, the Vulture, Captain Nabob; the Tortoise
snow, from Lapland; the Pet-en-l'air, from Versailles; the
Dreadnought, from Mount Etna, Sir W. Hamilton commander; the
Tympany, Montgolfier; and the Mine-A-in-a-bandbox, from the Cape
of Good Hope. Foundered in a hurricane, the Bird of Paradise,
from Mount Ararat. The Bubble, Sheldon, took fire, and was burnt
to her gallery; and the phoenix is to be cut down to a
second-rate."

In those days Old Sarum will again be a town and have houses in
it. There will be fights in the air with wind-guns and bows and
arrows; and there will be prodigious increase of land for
tillage, especially in France, by breaking up all public roads as
useless. But enough of my fooleries; for which I am sorry you
must pay double, postage.

Letter 285 To John Pinkerton, Esq.(535)
October 28, 1784. (page 358)

I would not answer your letter, Sir, till I could tell you that I
had put Your play into Mr. Colman's hands, which I have done. He
desired my consent to his carrying it into the country to read it
deliberately: you shall know as soon as I receive his
determination. I am Much obliged to you for the many civil and
kind expressions in your letter, and for the friendly information
you give me. Partiality, I fear, dictated the former; but the
last I can only ascribe to the goodness of your heart. I have
published nothing Of any size but the pieces you mention, and one
or two small tracts now out of print and forgotten. The rest
have been prefaces to my Strawberry editions, and to a few other
publications; and some fugitive pieces which I reprinted several
years ago in a small volume, and which shall be at your service,
with the Catalogue of Noble Authors.

With regard to the bookseller who has taken the trouble to
collect my writings, (amongst which I do not doubt but he will
generously bestow on me many that I did not write, according to
the liberal practice of such compilers,) and who also intends to
write my life, to which, (as I never did any thing Worthy of the
notice of the public) he must likewise be a volunteer
contributor, it Would be vain for me to endeavour to prevent such
a design. Whoever has been so ill advised as to throw himself on
the public, must pay such a tax in a pamphlet or magazine when he
dies; but, happily, the insects that prey on carrion are still
more short-lived than the carcases were, from which they draw
their nutriment. Those momentary abortions live but a day, and
are thrust aside by like embryos. Literary characters, when not
illustrious, are known only to a few literary men; and amidst the
world of books, few readers can come to my share. Printing, that
secures existence (in libraries) to indifferent authors of any
bulk, is like those cases of Egyptian mummies which in catacombs
preserve bodies of one knows not Whom, and which are scribbled
over with characters that nobody attempts to read, till nobody
understands the language in which they were written. I believe
therefore it Will be most wise to swim for a moment on the
passing current, secure that it will soon hurry me into the ocean
where all things are forgotten. To appoint a biographer is to
bespeak a panegyric; and I doubt whether they who collect their
books for the Public, and, like me, are conscious of no intrinsic
worth, do but beg mankind to accept of talents (whatever they
were) in lieu of virtues. To anticipate spurious publications by
a comprehensive and authentic one, is almost as great an evil: it
is giving a body to scattered atoms; and such an act in one's old
age is declaring a fondness for the indiscretions of Youth, or
for the trifles of an age which, though more mature, is only the
less excusable. it is most true, Sir, that, so far from being
prejudiced in favour of my own writings I am persuaded that, had
I thought early as I think now, I would never have appeared as an
author. Age, frequent illness and pain, have given me as many
hours of reflection in the intervals of the two latter, as the
two latter have disabled from reflection; and, besides their
showing me the inutility of all our little views, they have
suggested an observation that I love to encourage in myself from
the rationality of it. I have learnt and practised the
humiliating task of comparing myself with great authors; and that
comparison has annihilated all the flattery that self-love could
suggest. I know how trifling my own writings are, and how far
below the standard that constitutes excellence: as for the shades
that distinguish the degrees of mediocrity, they are not worth
discrimination; and he must be very modest, or easily satisfied,
who can be content to glimmer for an instant a little more than
his brethren glow-worms. Mine, therefore, you find, Sir, is not
humility, but pride. When young, I wished for fame; not
examining whether I was capable of attaining it, nor considering
in what lights fame was desirable. There are two sorts of fame;
that attendant on the truly great, and that better sort that is
due to the good. I fear I did not aim at the latter, not-
discovered, till too late, that I could not compass the former.
Having neglected the best road, and having, instead of the other,
strolled into a narrow path that led to no good worth seeking, I
see the idleness of my journey, and hold it more graceful to
abandon my wanderings to chance or oblivion, than to mark
solicitude for trifles, which I think so myself.

I beg your pardon for talking so much of myself; but an answer
was due to the unmerited attention which you have paid to my
writings. I turn with more pleasure to speak on yours. Forgive
me if I shall blame you, whether you either abandon your
intention, or are too impatient to execute it.(536) Your preface
proves that you are capable of treating the subject ably; but
allow me to repeat, that it is a work that ought not to be
performed impetuously. A mere recapitulation of authenticated
facts would be dry; a more enlarged plan would demand much
acquaintance with the characters of the actors, and with the
probable sources of measures. The present time is accustomed to
details and anecdotes; and the age immediately preceding one's
own is less known to any man than the history of any other
period. You are young en - ugh, Sir, to collect information on
many particulars that will occur in your progress, from living
actors, at least from their contemporaries; and, great as your
ardour may be, you will find yourself delayed by the want of
materials, and by further necessary inquiries. As you have a
variety of talents, why should not you exercise them on works
that will admit of more rapidity; and at the same time, in
leisure moments, commence, digest, and enrich your plan by
collecting new matter for it?

In one word, I have too much zeal for your credit, not to
dissuade you from precipitation in a work of the kind you
meditate. That I speak sincerely you are sure; as accident, not
design, made you acquainted with my admiration of your tract on
medals. If I wish to delay your history, it must be from wishing
that it may appear with more advantages; and I must speak
disinterestedly, as my age will not allow me to hope to see it,
if not finished soon. I should not forgive myself if I turned
you from prosecution of your work; but, as I am certain that my
writings can have given you no opinion of my having sound and
deep judgment, pray follow your own, and allow no merit but that
of sincerity and zeal to the sentiments of yours, etc.

(535) Now first collected.

(536) Of writing a history of the reign of George the Second.

Letter 286 To Miss Hannah More.
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 13, 1784. (page 360)

Thank you a thousand times, dear Madam, for your obliging letter
and the new Bristol stones you have sent me, which would pass on
a more skilful lapidary than I am for having been brillianted by
a professed artist, if you had not told me that they came shining
-out of a native mine, and had no foreign diamond-dust to polish
them. Indeed, can one doubt any longer that Bristol Is as rich
and warm a soil as India? I am convinced it has been so of late
years, though I question its having been so luxuriant in Alderman
Canning's days; and I have MORE reasons for thinking so, than
from the marvels' of Chatterton.--But I will drop metaphors, lest
some nabob should take me au pi`e de la lettre, fit out an
expedition, plunder your city, and massacre you for weighing too
many carats.

Seriously, Madam, I am surprised-and chiefly at the kind of
genius of this unhappy female.(537) Her ear, as you remark, is
perfect but that, being a gift of nature, amazes me less. Her
expressions are more exalted than poetic; and discover taste, as
you say, rather than discover flights of fancy and wild ideas, as
one should expect. I should therefore advise her quitting blank
verse, which wants the highest colouring, to distinguish it from
prose; whereas her taste, and probably good sense, might give
sufficient beauty to her rhymes. Her not being learned is
another reason against her writing in blank verse. Milton
employed all his reading, nay, all his geographic knowledge, to
enrich his language, and succeeded. They who have imitated him
in that particular, have been mere monkeys; and they who
neglected it, flat and poor.

Were I not persuaded by the samples you have sent me, Madam, that
this woman has talents, I should not advise encouraging her
propensity, lest it should divert her from the care of her
family, and, after the novelty is over, leave her worse than she
was. When the late Queen patronized Stephen Duck,(538) who was
only a wonder at first, and had not genius enough to support the
character he had promised, twenty artisans and labourers turned
poets, and starved.(539) Your poetess can scarce be more
miserable than she is, and even the reputation of being an
authoress may procure her customers: but as poetry is one of your
least excellencies, Madam (your virtues will forgive 'me), I am
sure you will not only give her counsels for her works, but for
her conduct; and your gentleness will blend them so judiciously,
that she will mind the friend as well as the mistress. She must
remember that she is a Lactilla, not a Pastora; and is to tend
real cows, not Arcadian sheep.

What! if I should go a step farther, dear Madam, and take the
liberty of reproving you for putting into this poor woman's hands
such a frantic thing as The Castle of Otranto? It was fit for
nothing but the age in which it was written: an age in which much
was known; that -required only to be amused, nor cared whether
its amusements were conformable to truth and the models of good
sense; that could not be spoiled; was in no danger of being too
credulous and rather wanted to be brought back to imagination,
than to be led astray by it:-but you will have made a hurly-burly
in this poor woman's head, which it cannot develop and digest.

I will not reprove, without suggesting something in my turn.
Give her Dryden's Cock and Fox, the standard of good sense,
poetry, nature, and ease. I would recommend others of his tales:
but her imagination is already too gloomy, and should be
enlivened; for which reason I do not name Mr. Gray's Eton Ode and
Churchyard.' Prior's Solomon (for I doubt his Alma, though far
superior, is too learned for her limited reading,) would be very
proper. In truth, I think the cast of the age (I mean in its
compositions) is too sombre. The flimsy giantry of Ossian has
introduced mountainous horrors. The exhibitions at
Somerset-house are crowded with Brobdignag ghosts. Read and
explain to her a charming poetic familiarity called the
Blue-stocking Club. If she has not your other pieces, might I
take the liberty, Madam, of begging you to buy them for her, and
let me be in your debt? And that your lessons may win their way
more easily, even though her heart be good, will you add a guinea
or two, as you see proper? And though I do not love to be named,
yet, if it would encourage a subscription, I should have no
scruple. It will be best to begin moderately! for, if she should
take Hippocrene for Pactolus, we may hasten her ruin, not
contribute to her fortune.

On recollection, you had better call me Mr. Anybody, than name my
name, which I fear is in bad odour at Bristol, on poor
Chatterton's account; and it may be thought that I am atoning his
ghost: though, if his friends would show my letters to him, you
would find that I was as tender to him as to your milkwoman: but
that they have never done, among other instances of their
injustice. However, I beg you to say nothing on that subject, as
I have declared I would not.

I have seen our excellent friend in Clarges-street: she complains
as usual of her deafness; but I assure you it is at least not
worse, nor is her weakness. Indeed I think both her and Mr.
Vesey better than last winter. When will you blue-stocking
yourself and come amongst us? Consider how many of us are
veterans; and, though we do not trudge on foot according to the
institution, we may be out at heels-and the heel, you know,
Madam, has never been privileged.

(537) Mrs. Yearsley, the milkwoman of Bristol, whose talent was
discovered by Miss Hannah More, who solicited for her the
protection of Mrs. Montagu, in a prefatory letter prefixed to her
Poems, published in quarto, in the year 1785.-E.

(538) Some of Stephen Duck the thresher's verses having been
shown to Queen Caroline she settled twelve shillings a-week upon
him, and appointed him keeper of her select library at
Richmond.(539) He afterwards took orders, and obtained the
living of Byfleet, in Surrey; but growing melancholy, in 1750, he
threw himself into the river, near Reading, and was drowned.
Swift wrote upon him the following epigram--

The thresher, Duck, could o'er the Queen prevail;
The proverb says, No fence against a flail;
>From threshing corn, he turns to thresh his brains,
For which her Majesty allow him grains;
Though 'tis confest, that those who ever saw
His poems, think them all not worth a straw.
Thrice happy Duck! employ'd in threshing stubble,
Thy toil is lessen'd, and thy profits double."-E.

(539) "Robert Bloomfield," says Mr. Crabbe, in his journal for
1817, "had better have rested as a shoemaker, or even a farmer's
boy; for he would have been a farmer perhaps in time, and now he
is an unfortunate poet." Poor John Clare, it will be
recollected, died in a workhouse.-E.

Letter 287 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Sunday Night, Nov. 28, 1784. (page 362)

I have received the parcel of papers you sent me, which I
conclude come from Lord Strafford, and will apply them as well as
I possibly can, you may be sure, but with little hope of doing
any good: humanity is no match for cruelty. There are now and
then such angelic beings as Mr. Hanway and Mr. Howard; but our
race in general is pestilently bad and malevolent. I have been
these two years wishing to promote my excellent friend Mr.
Porter's plan for alleviating the woes of chimney-sweepers, but
never could make impression on three people; on the contrary,
have generally caused a smile.

George Conway's intelligence of hostilities commenced between the
Dutch and Imperialists makes me suppose that France will support
the former--or could they resist? Yet I had heard that France
would not. Some have thought, as I have done, that a combination
of partition would happen between Austria, France, and Prussia,
the modern law of nations for avoiding wars. I know nothing: so
my conjectures may all be erroneous; especially as one argues
reason; a very inadequate judge, as it leaves passions, caprices,
and accidents, out of its calculation. It does not seem the
interest of France, that the Emperor's power should increase in
their neighbourhood and extend to the sea. Consequently it is
France's interest to protect Holland in concert with Prussia.
This last is a transient power, and may determine on the death of
the present King; but the Imperial is a permanent force, and must
be the enemy of France, however present connexions may incline
the scale.

In any case, I hope we shall no way be hooked into the quarrel
not only from the impotence of our circumstances, but as I think
it would decide the loss of Ireland, which seems tranquillizing:
but should we have any bickering with France, she would renew the
manoeuvres she practised so fatally in America. These are my
politics; I do not know with whose they coincide or disagree, nor
does it signify a straw. Nothing will depend on my opinion; nor
have I any opinion about them, but when I have nothing at all to
do that amuses me more, or nothing else to fill a letter.

I can give you a sample of my idleness, what may divert Lady
Ailesbury and your academy of arts and sciences for a minute in
the evening. It came into my head yesterday to send a card to
Lady Lyttelton, to ask when she would be in town; here it is in
an heroic epistle:- From a castle as vast as the castles on
signs,--

>From a hill that all Africa's molehills outshines,
This epistle is sent to a cottage so small,
That the door cannot ope if you stand in the hall,
To a lady who would be fifteen, if her knight
And old swain were as young as Methusalem quite;
It comes to inquire, not whether her eyes
Are as radiant as ever, but how many sighs
He must vent to the rocks and the echoes around,
(Though nor echo nor rock in the parish is found,)
Before she, obdurate, his passion will meet--
His passion to see her in Portugal-street?

As the sixth line goes rather too near the core, do not give a
copy of it: however, I should be sorry if it displeased; though I
do not believe it will, but be taken with good-humour as it was
meant.(540)

(540) It was taken in perfect good-humour; and Lady Lyttelton
returned the following answer, which Mr. Walpole owned was better
than his address:--

"Remember'd, though old by a wit and a beau!
I shall fancy, ere long, I'm a Ninon L'Enclos:
I must feel impatient such kindness to meet,
And shall hasten my flight into Portugal-street."
Ripley Cottage, 28th Nov.

Letter 288 To Miss Hannah More.
Berkeley Square, April 5, 1785. (page 363)

Had I not heard part of your conversation with Mrs. Carter the
other night, Madam, I should certainly not have discovered the
authoress of the very ingenious anticipation of our future
jargon.(541) How should I? I am not fortunate Enough to know
all your talents; nay, I question whether you yourself suspect
all you possess. Your Bas Bleu is in a style very, different
from any of your other productions that I have seen; and this
letter, which shows your intuition Into the degeneracy of our
language, has a vein of humour and satire that could not be
calculated from your Bas Bleu, in which good nature and
good-humour had made a great deal of learning wear all the ease
of familiarity. I did wish you to write another Percy, but I beg
now that you will first produce a specimen of all the various
manners in which you can shine; for, since you are as modest as
if your issue were illegitimate, I don't know but, like some
females really in fault, you would stifle some of your pretty
infants, rather than be detected and blush.

In the mean time, I beseech you not only to print your Specimen
of the Language that is to be in fashion, but have it entered at
Stationers' hall; or depend upon it, if ever a copy falls into
the hands of a fine gentleman yet unborn, who shall be able both
to read and write, he will adopt your letter for his own, and the
Galimatias will give the ton to the court, as Euphues did near
two hundred years ago; and then you will have corrupted our
language instead of defending it: and surely it is not your
interest, Madam, to have pure English grow obsolete.

If you do not promise to grant my request, I will show your
letter every where to those that are worthy of seeing it; that
is, indeed, in very few places; for you shall have the honour of
it. It is one of those compositions that prove themselves
standards, by begetting imitations; and if the genuine parent is
unknown, it will be ascribed to every body that is supposed (in
his own set) to have more wit than the rest of the world. I
should be diverted, I own, to hear it faintly disavowed by some
who would wish to pass for its authors; but still there is more
pleasure in doing justice to merit, than in drawing vain
pretensions into a scrape; and, therefore, I think you and I had
better be honest and acknowledge it, though to you (for I am out
of the question, but as evidence) it will be painful; for though
the proverb says, "Tell truth and shame the devil," I believe he
is never half so much confounded as a certain amiable young
gentlewoman, who is discovered to have more taste and abilities
than she ever ventured to ascribe to herself even in the most
private dialogues with her own heart, especially when that native
friend is so pure as to have no occasion to make allowances even
for self-love. For my part, I am most seriously obliged to you,
Madam, for so agreeable and kind a communication.

(541) This is an answer to the following anonymous letter, sent
to Mr. Walpole by Miss Hannah More, ridiculing the prevailing
adoption of French idioms into the English language. There is
not in this satirical epistle one French word nor one English
idiom:--

"A Specimen of the English Language, as it will probably be
written and spoken in the next century. In a letter from a lady
to her friend, in the reign of George the Fifth.

Alamode Castle, June 20, 1840.

Dear Madam,
"I NO sooner found myself here than I visited my new apartment,
which is composed of five pieces: the small room, which gives
upon the garden, is practised through the great one; and there is
no other issue. As I was quite exceeded with fatigue, I had no
sooner made my toilette, than I let myself fall on a bed of
repose, where sleep came to surprise me.

" My lord and I are on the intention to make good cheer, and a
great expense; -and this country is in possession to furnish
wherewithal to amuse oneself. All that England has of
illustrious, all that youth has of amiable, or beauty of
ravishing, sees itself in this quarter. Render yourself here,
then, my friend; and you shall find assembled all that there is
of best, whether for letters, whether for birth.

"Yesterday I did my possible to give to eat; the dinner was of
the last perfection, and the wines left nothing to desire. The
repast was seasoned with a thousand rejoicing sallies, full of
salt and agreement, and one more brilliant than another. Lady
France, charmed me as for the first time; she is made to paint,
has a great air, and has infinitely of expression in her
physiognomy; her manners have as much of natural as her figure
has of interesting.

"I had prayed Lady B, to be of this dinner, as I had heard
nothing but good of her; but I am now disabused on her subject:
she is past her first youth, has very little instruction, is
inconsequent, and subject to caution; but having evaded with one
of her pretenders, her reputation has been committed by the bad
faith of a friend, on whose fidelity she reposed herself; she is,
therefore fallen into devotion, goes no more to spectacles, and
play is detested at her house. Though she affects a mortal
serious, I observed that her eyes were Of intelligence with those
of Sir James, near whom I had taken care to plant myself, though
this is always a sacrifice which costs. Sir James is a great
sayer of nothings; it is a spoilt mind, full of fatuity and
pretension: his conversation is a tissue of impertinences, and
the bad tone which reigns at present has put the last hand to his
defect,. He makes but little care of his word; but, as he lends
himself to whatever is proposed of amusing, the women all throw
themselves at his head. Adieu"

Letter 289 To John Pinkerton, Esq.(542)
June 22, 1785. (page 365)

Since I received your book,(543) Sir, I scarce ceased from
reading till I had finished it; so admirable I found it, and so
full of good sense, brightly delivered. Nay, I am pleased with
myself too for having formed the same opinions with you on
several points, in which we do not agree with the generality of
men. On some topics, I confess frankly, I do not concur with
you: Considering how many you have touched, it would be wonderful
if we agreed on all, or I should not be sincere if I said I did.
There are others on which I have formed no opinion; for I should
give myself an impertinent air, with no truth, if I pretended to
have any knowledge of many subjects, of which, young as you are,
you seem to have made yourself master. Indeed, I have gone
deeply into nothing, and therefore shall not discuss those heads
which we differ most: as probably I should not defend my own
opinions well. There is but one part of your work to which I
will venture any objection, though you have considered it much,
and I little, very little indeed, with regard to your proposal,
which to me is but two days old: I mean your plan for the
improvement of our language, which I allow has some defects, and
which wants correction in several particulars. The specific
amendment which you propose, and to which I object, is the
addition of a's and O's to our terminations. To change s for a
in the plural number for our substantives and adjectives would be
so violent an alteration, that I believe neither the power of
Power nor the power of Genius would be able, to effect it. In
most cases I am convinced that very strong innovations are more
likely to make impression than small and almost imperceptible
differences, as in religion, medicine, politics, etc.; but I do
not think that language can be treated in the same manner,
especially in a refined age. When a nation first emerges from
barbarism, two or three masterly writers may operate wonders; and
the fewer the number of writers, as the number is small at such a
period, the more absolute is their authority. But when a country
has been polishing itself for two or three centuries, and when
consequently authors are innumerable, the most supereminent
genius (or whoever is esteemed so, though without foundation,)
possesses very limited empire, and is far from meeting implicit
obedience. Every petty writer will contest very novel
institutions: every inch of change in language will be disputed;
and the language will remain as it was, longer than the tribunal
which should dictate very heterogeneous alterations. With regard
to adding a or o to final consonants, consider, Sir, should the
usage be adopted, what havoc it would make! All our poetry would
be defective in metre, or would become at once as obsolete as
Chaucer; and could we promise ourselves, that, though we should
have better harmony and more rhymes, we should have a new crop of
poets, to replace Milton, Dryden, Gray, and, I am sorry you will
not allow me to add, Pope! You might enjoin our prose to be
reformed, as you have done by the Spectator in your thirty-fourth
Letter; but try Dryden's Ode by your new institution.