Books: Letters of Horace Walpole, V4

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(598) This highly-gifted young lady had, in the preceding year,
been appointed keeper of the robes to the Queen.-E.

Letter 311 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, June 17, 1787. (page 393)

I have very little to tell you since we met but disappointments,
and those of no great consequence. On Friday night Lady Pembroke
wrote to me that Princess Lubomirski was to dine with her the
next day, and desired to come in the morning to see Strawberry.
Well, my castle put on its robes, breakfast was prepared, and I
shoved another company out of the house, who had a ticket for
seeing it. The sun shone, my hay was cocked, we looked divinely;
and at half an hour after two, nobody came but a servant to Lady
Pembroke, to say her Polish altitude had sent her word she had
another engagement in town that would keep her too late:-so Lady
Pembroke's dinner was addled; and we had nothing to do, but, like
good Christians, if we chose it, to compel every body on the
road, whether they chose it or not, to come in and eat our soup
and biscuits. Methinks this liberum veto was rather impertinent,
and I begin to think that the partition of Poland was very right.

Your brother has sent me a card for a ball on Monday, but I have
excused myself. I have not yet compassed the whole circuit of my
own garden, and I have had an inflammation in one of my eyes, and
don't think I look as well as my house and my verdure; and had
rather see my haycocks, than the Duchess of Polignac and Madame
Lubomirski. "The Way to Keep Him" had the way to get me, and I
could crawl to it because I had an inclination; but I have a
great command of myself when I have no mind to do any thing.
Lady Constant was worth an hundred ars and irskis. Let me hear
of you when you have nothing else to do; though I suppose you
have as little to tell as you see I had.

Letter 312 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, July 28, 1787. (page 394)

St. Swithun is no friend to correspondence, my dear lord. There
is not only a great sameness in his own proceedings, but he makes
every body else dull-I mean in the country, where one frets at
its raining every day and all day. In town he is no more minded
than the proclamation against vice and immorality. Still, though
he has all the honours of the quarantine, I believe it often
rained for forty days long before St. Swithun was born, if ever
born he was; and the proverb was coined and put under his
patronage, because people observed that it frequently does rain
for forty days together at this season. I remember Lady Suffolk
telling me, that Lord Dysart's great meadow had never been mowed
but once in forty years without rain. I said, "All that that
proved was, that rain was good for hay," as I am persuaded the
climate of a country and its productions are suited to each
other. Nay, rain is good for haymakers too, who get more
employment the oftener the hay is made over again. I do not know
who is the saint that presides over thunder; but he has made an
unusual quantity in this chill summer, and done a great deal of
serious mischief, though not a fiftieth part of what Lord George
Gordon did seven years ago, and happily he is fled.

Our little part of the world has been quiet as usual. The Duke
of Queensberry has given a sumptuous dinner to the Princess de
Lamballe(599)--et voil`a tout. I never saw her, not even in
France. I have no particular penchant for sterling princes and
princesses, much less for those of French plate.

The only entertaining thing I can tell your lordship from our
district is, that old Madam French, who lives close by the bridge
at Hampton-court, where, between her and the Thames, she had
nothing but one grass-plot of the width of her house, has paved
that whole plot with black and white marble in diamonds, exactly
like the floor of a church; and this curious metamorphosis of a
garden into a pavement has cost her three hundred and forty
pounds:-a tarpaulin she might have had for some shillings, which
would have looked as well, and might easily have been removed.
To be sure, this exploit, and Lord Dudley's obelisk below a
hedge, with his canal at right angles with the Thames, and a sham
bridge no broader than that of a violin, and parallel to the
river, are not preferable to the monsters in clipt yews of our
ancestors;

Bad taste expellas fursa tamen usque recurret.

On the contrary, Mrs. Walsingham is making her house at Ditton
(now baptized Boyle-farm) very orthodox. Her daughter Miss
Boyle(600) who has real genius, has carved three tablets in
marble with buoys, designed by herself. Those sculptures are for
a chimney-piece; and she is painting panels in grotesque for the
library, with pilasters of glass in black and gold. Miss Crewe,
who has taste too, has decorated a room for her mother's house at
Richmond, which was Lady Margaret Compton's in a very pretty
manner. How much more amiable the old women of the next age will
be, than most of those we remember, who used to tumble at once
from gallantry to devout scandal and cards! and revenge on the
young of their own sex the desertion of ours. Now they are
ingenious, they will not want amusement. Adieu, my dear lord!

(599) Sister to the Prince de Carignan, of the royal house of
Sardinia, and wife of the Prince de Lamballe, only son to the Duc
de Penthi`evre. She was sur-intendante de la maison de la Reine,
and, from her attachment to Marie Antoinette, was one of the
first females who fell a victim to the fury of the French
revolution. The peculiar circumstances of horror which attended
her death, and the indignities offered to her remains, are in the
memory of every one who has read the accounts of that
heart.rending event.-E.

(600) Afterwards married to Lord Henry Fitzgerald.

Letter 313 To Miss Hannah More.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 14, 1787. (page 395)

My dear Madam,
I am shocked for human nature at the repeated malevolence of this
woman!(601) The rank soil of riches we are accustomed to see
overrun with weeds and thistles; but who could expect that the
kindest seeds sown on poverty and dire misfortunes should meet
with nothing but a rock at bottom? Catherine de' Medici, suckled
by popes. and transplanted to a throne, seems more excusable.
Thank heaven, Madam, for giving you so excellent a heart; ay, and
so good a head. You are not only benevolence itself: but, with
fifty times the genius of a Yearsley, you are void of vanity.
How strange that vanity should expel gratitude! Does not the
wretched woman owe her fame to you, as well as her affluence? I
can testify your labours for both. Dame Yearsley reminds me of
the Troubadours, those vagrants whom I used to admire till I knew
their history; and who used to pour out trumpery verses, and
flatter or abuse accordingly as they were housed and clothed, or
dismissed to the next parish. Yet you did not set this person in
the stocks, after procuring an annuity for her! I beg your pardon
for renewing so disgusting a subject, and will never mention it
again. You have better amusement; you love good works, a temper
superior to revenge.(602)

I have again seen our poor friend in Clarges-street: her
faculties decay rapidly, and of course she suffers less. She has
not an acquaintance in town; and yet told me the town was very
full, and that she had had a good deal of company. Her health is
re-established, and we must now be content that her mind is not
restless. My pity now feels most for Mrs. Hancock,(603) whose
patience is inexhaustible, though not insensible.

Mrs. Piozzi, I hear, has two volumes of Dr. Johnson's Letters
ready for publication.(604) Bruce is printing his Travels; which
I suppose will prove that his narratives were fabulous, as he
will scarce repeat them by the press. These and two more volumes
of Mr. Gibbon's History, are all the literary news I know.
France seems sunk indeed in all respects. What stuff are their
theatrical goods, their Richards, Ninas, and Tarares! But when
their Figaro could run threescore nights, how despicable must
their taste be grown!(605) I rejoice that the political
intrigues are not more creditable. I do not dislike the French
from the vulgar antipathy between neighbouring nations, but for
their insolent and unfounded airs of superiority. In arms we
have almost always outshone them: and till they have excelled
Newton, and come near to Shakspeare, pre-eminence in genius must
remain with us. I think they are most entitled to triumph over
the Italians; as, with the most meagre and inharmonious of all
languages, the French have made more of that poverty in tragedy
and eloquence, than the Italians have done with the language the
most capable of both. But I did not mean to send you a
dissertation. I hope it will not be long before you remove to
Hampton.--Yet why should I wish that'! You will only be
geographically nearer to London till February. Cannot you now
and then sleep at the Adelphi on a visit to poor Vesey and your
friends, and let one know if you do?

(601) Walpole had recently received a letter from Miss More, in
which she had said--"MY old friend the milk-woman has just
brought out another book, to which she has prefixed my original
preface to her first book, and twenty pages of the scurrility
published against me in her second. To all this she has added
the deed which I got drawn up by an eminent lawyer to secure her
money in the funds, and which she asserts I made Mrs. Montagu
sign without reading." Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 80.

(602) Mrs. Yearsley was a woman of strong masculine
understanding, and of a powerful independent mind, which could
not brook any thing in the nature of dictation or interference.
Whether she then was a widow, or separated from her husband, I
know not; but, in 1793, she kept a bookseller and stationer's
shop, under the name of Ann Yearsley, at Bristol Hot-wells,
assisted by her son, and there all sorts of literary discussion
used to take place daily amongst those who frequented it; and
Mrs. Yearsley being somewhat free, both in her political and
religious opinions, as well as not a little indignant at Mrs.
More's attempt at holding a control over her proceedings, it is
not matter of wonder, that a very unreasonable asperity should
have been exhibited on both sides.-G.

(603) "What a blessing for Mrs. Vesey, that Mrs. Hancock is alive
and well! I do venerate that woman beyond words; her faithful,
quiet, patient attachment makes all showy qualities and shining
talents appear little in my eyes. Such characters are what Mr.
Burke calls I the soft quiet green, on which the soul loves to
rest!"' Hannah More's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 80.-E.

(604) In speaking of these Letters, which appeared shortly after,
Hannah More says--:They are such as ought to have been written,
but ought not to have been printed: a few of them are very good:
sometimes he is moral, and sometimes he is kind. The imprudence
of editors and executors is an additional reason why men of parts
should be afraid to die. Burke said to me the other day, in
allusion to the innumerable lives, anecdotes, remains, etc. of
this great man, 'How many maggots have crawled out of that great
body!'" Memoirs, vol. ii-P. 101-E.

(605) Mr. Walpole had never seen Figaro acted, nor had he been at
Paris for many years before it appeared: he was not, therefore,
aware of the bold, witty, and continued allusions of almost every
scene and of almost every incident of that comedy, to the most
popular topics and the most distinguished characters of the day.
The freedom with which it treated arbitrary government and all
its establishments, while they all yet continued in unwelcome
force- in France, and the moral conduct of each individual of the
piece exactly suiting the no-morality of the audience, joined to
the admirable manner in which it was acted, certainly must be
allowed to have given it its greatest vogue. But even now, when
most of these temporary advantages no longer exist, whoever was
well acquainted with the manners, habits, and anecdotes of Paris
at the time of the first appearance of Figaro, will always admire
in it a combination of keen and pointed satire, easy wit, and
laughable incident.-B.

Letter 314 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Berkeley Square, Nov. 11, 1787. (page 397)

>From violent contrary winds,(606) and by your letter going to
Strawberry Hill, whence I was 'come, I have but just received it,
and perhaps shall Only be able to answer it by snatches, being up
to the chin in nephews and nieces.

I find you knew nothing of the pacification when you wrote, When
I saw your letter, I hoped it would tell me you was coming back,
as your island is as safe as if it was situated in the Pacific
Ocean, or at least as islands there used to be, till Sir Joseph
Banks chose to put them up. I sent you the good news on the very
day before you wrote, though I imagined you would learn it by
earlier intelligence. Well, I enjoy both your safety and your
great success, which is enhanced by its being owing to your
character and abilities. I hope the latter will be allowed to
operate by those who have not quite so much of either. I shall
be wonderful glad to see little Master Stonehenge(607) at Park-
place; it will look in character there: but your own bridge is so
stupendous in comparison, that hereafter the latter will be
thought to have been a work of the Romans. Dr. Stukeley will
burst his cerements to offer mistletoe in your temple; and Mason,
on the contrary, will die of vexation and spite that he cannot
have Caractacus acted on the spot. Peace to all such!

--But were there one whose fires
True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires,

he would immortalize you, for all you have been carrying on in
Jersey, and for all you shall carry off. Inigo Jones, or
Charlton,- or somebody, I forget who, called Stonehenge "Chorea
Gigantum:" this will be the chorea of the pigmies; and, as I
forget too what is Latin for Lilliputians, I will make a bad pun,
and say,

----Portantur avari
Pygmalionis opes.--

Pygmalion is as well-sounding a name for such a monarch as
Oberon. Pray do not disappoint me, but transport the
cathedral(608) of your island to your domain on our continent. I
figure unborn antiquaries making pilgrimages to visit your
bridge, your daughter's bridge,(609) and the Druidic temple; and
if I were not too old to have any imagination left, I would add a
sequel to Mi Li.(610) Adieu!

(606) Mr. Conway was at this time at his government in Jersey.

(607) Mr. Walpole thus calls the small Druidic temple discovered
in Jersey, which the States of that island had presented to
General Conway, to be transported to and erected at Park-place.
Dr. Walter Charlton published a dissertation on Stonehenge in
1663, entitled "Chorea Gigantum." it was reprinted in 1715.-E.

(608) The Druidic temple.

(609) The keystones of the centre arch of the bridge at Henley
are ornamented with heads of the Thames and Isis, designed by the
Hon. Mrs. Damer, and executed by her in Portland stone.

(610) One of the Hieroglyphic tales, containing a description of
Park-place. it will be found in Walpole's works.

Letter 315 To Thomas Barrett, Esq.(611)
Berkeley Square, June 5, 1788. (page 398)

I wish I could charge myself with any merit, which I always wish
to have towards you, dear Sir, in letting Mr. Matthew see
Strawberry; but in truth he has so much merit and modesty and
taste himself, that I gave him the ticket with pleasure, which it
seldom happens to me to do; for most of those who go thither, go
because it is the fashion, and because a party is a prevailing
custom too; and my tranquillity is disturbed, because nobody
likes to stay at home. If Mr. Matthew was really entertained I
am glad; but Mr. Wyatt has made him too correct a Goth not to
have seen all the imperfections and bad execution of my attempts;
for neither Mr. Bentley nor my workmen had studied the science,
and I was always too desultory and impatient to consider that I
should please myself more by allowing time, than by hurrying my
plans into execution before they were ripe. My house therefore
is but a sketch by beginners, yours is finished by a great
master; and if Mr. Matthew liked mine, it was en virtuose, who
loves the dawnings of an art, or the glimmerings of its
restoration.

I finished Mr. Gibbon a full fortnight ago, and was extremely
pleased. It is a most wonderful mass of information, not only of
history, but almost on all the ingredients of history, as war,
government, commerce, coin, and what not. If it has a fault, it
is in embracing too much, and consequently in not detailing
enough, and it, striding backwards and forwards from one set of
princes to another, and from one subject to another; so that,
without much historic knowledge, and without much memory, and
much method in one's memory, it is almost impossible not to be
sometimes bewildered: nay, his own impatience to tell what he
knows, makes the author, though commonly so explicit, not
perfectly clear in his expressions. The last chapter of the
fourth Volume, I own, made me recoil, and I could scarcely push
through it. So far from being Catholic or heretic, I wished Mr.
Gibbon had never heard of Monophysites, Nestorians, or any such
fools! But the sixth volume made ample amends; Mahomet and the
Popes were gentlemen and good company. I abominate fractions of
theology and reformation.

Mr. Sheridan, I hear, did not quite satisfy the passionate
expectation that had been raised;(612) but it was impossible he
could, when people had worked themselves into an enthusiasm of
offering fifty, ay, fifty guineas for a ticket to hear him.
Well! we are sunk and deplorable in many points, yet not
absolutely gone, when history and eloquence throw out such
shoots! I thought I had outlived my country; I am glad not to
leave it desperate. Adieu, dear Sir!

(611) OF Lee, in East Kent; Whose seat was built by Mr. Wyatt,
and greatly admired by Walpole.-E.

(612) Of his speech in Westminster-hall, on bringing forward the
Begum charge against Mr. Hastings; upon which Mr. Burke
pronounced the high ealogium, that "all the various species of
oratory that had been heard, either in ancient or modern
times-whatever the acuteness of the bar, the dignity of the
senate, or the morality of the pulpit; could furnish--had not
been equal to what the House had that day heard." Gibbon, who
was present, thus describes it, in a letter to Lord Sheffield:--
"Yesterday the august scene was closed for this year. Sheridan
surpassed himself; and, though I am far from considering him a
perfect orator, there were many beautiful passages in his speech-
-on justice, filial love, etc.; one of the closest chains of
argument I ever heard, to prove that Hastings was responsible for
the acts of Middleton; and a compliment, much admired to a
certain historian of your acquaintance. Sheridan, on the close
of his speech, sunk into Burke's arms--a good actor: but I called
this morning; he is perfectly well."-E.

Letter 316 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, Tuesday night, June 17, 1788. (page 399)

I guess, my dear lord, and only guess, that you are arrived at
Wentworth Castle. If you are not, my letter will lose none of
its bloom by waiting for you; for I have nothing fresh to tell
you, and only write because you enjoined it. I settled in my
Lilliputian towers but this morning. I wish people would come
into the country on May-day, and fix in town on the first of
November. But as they will not, I have made up my mind; and
having so little time left, I prefer London, when my friends and
society are in it, to living here alone, or with the weird
sisters of Richmond and Hampton. I had additional reason now,
for the streets are as green as the fields: we are burnt to the
bone, and have not a lock of bay to cover our nakedness: oats are
so dear, that I suppose they will soon be eaten at Brooks's and
fashionable tables as a rarity. The drought has lasted so long,
that for this fortnight I have been foretelling haymaking and
winter, which June generally produces; but to-day is sultry, and
I am not a prophet worth a straw. Though not resident till now,
I have flitted backwards and forwards, and last Friday came
hither to look for a minute at a ball at Mrs. Walsingham's at
Ditton which would have been pretty, for she had stuck coloured
lamps in the hair of all her trees and bushes, if the east wind
had not danced a reel all the time by the side of the river. Mr.
Conway's play,(613) of which your lordship has seen some account
in the papers, has succeeded delightfully, both in representation
and applause. The language is most genteel, though translated
from verse; and both prologue and epilogue are charming. The
former was delivered most Justly and admirably by Lord Derby, and
the latter with inimitable spirit and grace by Mrs. Damer. Mr.
Merry and Mrs. Bruce played excellently too. But General Conway,
Mrs. Damer, and every body else are drowned by Mr. Sheridan,
whose renown has engrossed all Fame's tongues and trumpets. Lord
Townshend said he should be sorry were he forced to give a vote
directly on Hastings, before he had time to cool; and one of the
peers saying the speech had not made the same impression on him,
the Marquis replied, a seal might be finely cut, and yet not be
in fault for making a bad impression.

I have, you see, been forced to send your lordship what scraps I
brought from town: the next four months, I doubt will reduce me
to my old sterility; for I cannot retail French gazettes, though
as a good Englishman bound to hope they will contain a civil war.
I care still less about the double imperial campaign, only hoping
that the poor dear Turks will heartily beat both Emperor and
Empress. If the first Ottomans could be punished, they deserved
it, but present possessors have as good a prescription 'on their
side as any People in Europe. We ourselves are Saxons, Danes,
Normans; our neighbours are Franks, not Gauls; who the rest are,
Goths, Gepidae, Heruli, Mr. Gibbon knows; and the Dutch usurped
the estates of herrings, turbots, and other marine indigenae.
Still, though I do not wish the hair of a Turk's beard to be
hurt, I do not say that it would not be amusing to have
Constantinople taken, merely as a lusty event; for neither could
I live to see Athens revive, nor have I much faith in two such
bloody-minded vultures, cock and hen, as Catherine and Joseph,
conquering for the benefit of humanity; nor does my Christianity
admire the propagation of the Gospel by the mouth of cannon.
What desolation of peasants and their families by the episodes of
forage and quarters! Oh! I wish Catherine and Joseph were
brought to Westminster-hall and worried by Sheridan! I hope,
too, that the poor Begums are alive to hear of his speech; it
will be some comfort, though I doubt nobody thinks of restoring
them a quarter of a lac!

(613) A comedy, called "False Appearances" translated from
L'Homme du Jour of Boissy. It was first acted at the private
theatre at Richmond.house, and afterwards at Drury-lane.-E.

Letter 317 To Miss Hannah More.
Strawberry Hill, July 4, 1788. (page 401)

I am soundly rejoiced, my dear Madam, that the present summer is
more favourable to me than the last: , and that, instead of not
answering my letters in three months, you open the campaign. May
not I flatter myself' that it is a symptom of your being in
better health? I wish, however, you had told me so in positive
words, and that all your complaints have left you. Welcome as is
your letter, it would have been ten times more welcome bringing
me that assurance; for don't think I forget how ill you was last
winter. As letters, you say, now keep their coaches, I hope
those from Bristol will call often at my door.(614) I promise
you I will never be denied to them.

No botanist am I; nor wished to learn from you, of all the Muses,
that piping has a new signification. I had rather that you
handled an oaten pipe than a carnation one; yet setting layers, I
own, is preferable to reading newspapers, one of the chronical
maladies of this age. Every body reads them, nay quotes them,
though every body knows they are stuffed with lies or blunders.
How should it be otherwise? If any extraordinary event happens,
who but must hear it before it descends through a coffee-house to
the runner of a daily paper? They who are always wanting news,
are wanting to hear they don't know what. A lower species,
indeed, is that of the scribes you mention, who every night
compose a journal for the satisfaction of such illiterati, and
feed them with all the vices and misfortunes of every private
family; nay, they now call it a duty to publish all those
calamities which decency to wretched relations used in compassion
to suppress, I mean self-murder in particular. Mr. -Is was
detailed at length; and to-day that of Lord - and -. The
pretence is, in terrorem, like the absurd stake and highway of
our ancestors; as if there were a precautionary potion for
madness, or the stigma of a newspaper were more dreadful than
death. Daily journalists, to be sure, are most respectable
magistrates! Yes, much like the cobblers that Cromwell made
peers.