Books: Letters of Horace Walpole, V4

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I do lament your not going to Mr. Conway's play: both the author
and actors deserved such an auditor as you, and you deserved to
hear them. However, I do not pity good people who out of virtue
lose or miss any pleasures. Those pastimes fleet as fast as
those of the wicked; but when gone, you saints can sit down and
feast on your self-denial, and drink bumpers of satisfaction to
the health of your own merit. So truly I don't pity you.

You say you hear no news, yet you quote Mr. Topham;(615)
therefore why should I tell you that the King is going to
Cheltenham? Or that the Baccelli lately danced at the opera at
Paris with a blue bandeau on her forehead, inscribed, "Honi soit
qui mal y pense." Now who can doubt but she is as pure as the
Countess of Salisbury! Was not it ingenious? and was not the
ambassador so to allow it? No doubt he took it for a compliment
to his own knee.

Well! would we committed nothing but follies! What do we not
commit when the abolition of slavery hitches! Adieu!

Though Cato died, though Tully spoke,
Though Brutus dealt the godlike stroke,
Yet perish'd fated Rome.

You have written; and I fear that even if Mr. Sheridan speaks,
trade, the modern religion, will predominate. Adieu!

(614) Miss More, in her last letter, had said--"Mail-coaches,
which come to others, come not to me: letters and newspapers, now
that they travel In coaches, like gentlemen and ladies, come not
within ten miles of my hermitage: and while other fortunate
provincials are studying the world and its ways, and are feasting
upon elopement, divorces, and suicides, tricked out in all the
elegancies of Mr. Topham's phraseology, I am obliged to be
contented with village vices, petty iniquities, and vulgar sins,"
Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 77.-E.

(615) Major Topham was the proprietor of the fashionable morning
paper entitled The World. "In this paper," says Mr. Gifford, in
his preface to the Baviad, "were given the earliest specimens of
those unqualified and audacious attacks on all private character,
and which the town first smiled at for their quaintness then
tolerated for their absurdity; now--that other papers equally
wicked and more intelligible, have ventured to imitate it--will
have to lament to the last hour of British liberty." In 1791,
Major Topham published the Life of John Elwes the miser; which
Walpole considered one of the most amusing anecdotical books in
the English language.-E.

(616) While the Duke of Dorset, who kept her was ambassador at
Paris. The Countess of Salisbury, to the fall OF whose garter
has been attributed the foundation of the order of the Garter.

Letter 318 To Miss Hannah More.
Strawberry Hill, July 12, 1788. (page 402)

Won't you repent of having opened the correspondence, my dear
Madam, when you find my letters come so thick upon you? In this
instance, however, I am only to blame in part, for being too
ready to take advice, for the sole reason for which advice ever
is taken, 'because it fell in with my inclination. You said in
your last that you feared you took up time of mine to the
prejudice of the public; implying, I imagine, that I might employ
it in composing. Waving both your compliment, and my own vanity,
I will speak very seriously to you on that subject, and with
exact truth. My simple writings have had better fortune than
they had any reason to expect; and I fairly believe, in a great
degree, because gentlemen-writers, who do not write for interest,
are treated with some civility if they do not write absolute
nonsense. I think so, because I have not unfrequently known much
better works than mine much more neglected, if the name, fortune,
and situation of the authors were below mine. I wrote early,
from youth, spirits, and vanity; and from both the last when the
first no longer existed. I now shudder when I reflect on my own
boldness; and with mortification, when I compare my own writings
with those of any great authors. This is So true, that I
question"Whether it would be possible for me to summon up courage
to publish any thing I have written, if I could recall the past,
and should yet think as I think at present. So much for what is
over and out of my power. As to writing now, I have totally
forsworn the profession, for two solid reasons. One I have
already told you; and it is, that I know my own writings are
trifling and of no depth. The other is, that, light and futile
as they were, I am sensible they are better than I could compose
now. I am aware of the decay of the middling parts I had, and
others may be still more sensible of it. How do I know but I am
superannuated? nobody will be so coarse as to tell me so; but if
I published dotage all the world would tell me so. And who but
runs that risk who is an author after severity? What happened to
the greatest author of this age, and who certainly retained a
very considerable portion of his abilities for ten years after my
age Voltaire, at eighty-four, I think, Went to Paris to receive
the incense, in person, of his countrymen, and to be witness of
their admiration of a tragedy he had written at that Methusalem
age. Incense he did receive till it choked him; and at the
exhibition of his play he was actually crowned with laurel in the
box where he sat. But what became of his poor play? It died as
soon as he did--was buried with him; and no mortal, I dare to
say, has ever read a line of it since, it was so bad.(617)

As I am neither by a thousandth part so great, nor a quarter so
little, I will herewith send you a fragment that an accidental
rencontre set me upon writing,, and which I found so flat, that I
would not finish it. Don't believe that I am either begging
praise by the stale artifice of' hoping to be contradicted; or
that I think there is any occasion to make you discover my
caducity. No; but the fragment contains a curiosity--English
verses written by a French prince of the blood, and which at
first I had a mind to add to my Royal and Noble Authors, but as
he was not a royal author of ours, and as I could not please
myself with an account of him, I shall revert to my old
resolution of not exposing my pen's gray hairs.(618)

Of one passage I must take notice; it is a little indirect sneer
at our crowd of authoresses. My choosing to send this to you is
a proof that I think you an author, that is, a classic. But in
truth I am nauseated by the Madams Piozzi, etc. and the host of
novel-writers in petticoats, who think they imitate what is
inimitable, Evelina and Cecilia. Your candour I know will not
agree with me, when I tell you I am not at all charmed with Miss
Seward and Mr. Hayley piping to one another: but you I exhort,
and would encourage to write; and flatter myself you will never
be royally gagged and promoted to fold Muslins, as has been
lately wittily said on Miss Burney, in the list of five hundred
living authors. Your writings promote virtues; and their
increasing editions prove their worth and utility. If you
question my sincerity, can you doubt my admiring you, when you
have gratified my self-love so amply in your Bas Bleu? Still, as
much as I love your writings, I respect yet more your heart and
your goodness. You are so good, that I believe you would go to
heaven, even though there were no Sunday, and only six working
days in the week. Adieu, my best Madam!

(617) Madame du Deffand, in a letter to Walpole of the 8th of
March 1778, says--"Voltaire se Porte bien: il est uniquement
occup`e de sa tragedie d'Ir`ene; on assure qu'on la jouera de
demain en huit: si elle n'a pas de succ`es, il en mourra." On the
18th, she again writes--"Le succ`es de la pi`ece a `et`e tr`es
mediocre; il y eut cependant beaucouP de claquemens de mains,
mais C'`etait Plus Voltaire qui en `etait l'objet que la Pi`ece."
He died in the May following.-E.

(618) The French prince of the blood here spoken of, was Charles
Duke of Orleans, who being a prisoner at the battle of Agincourt,
was brought to England and detained here for twenty.five years.
For a copy of the verses, see Walpole's works, vol. i. p. 564.-E.

Letter 319 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, August 2, 1788. (page 404)

Matter for a letter, alas! my dear lord, I have none; but about
letters I have great news to tell your lordship, only may the
goddess of post-offices grant it be true! A Miss Sayer, of
Richmond, who is at Paris, writes to Mrs. Boscawen, that a Baron
de ]a Garde (I am sorry there are so many as in the genealogy of
my story.) has found in a vieille armoire five hundred more
letters of Madame de S`evign`e, and that they will be printed if
the expense is not too great. I am in a taking, lest they should
not appear before I set out for the Elysian fields for, though
the writer is one of the first personages I should inquire after
on my arrival, I question whether St. Peter has taste enough to
know where she lodges, she is more likely to be acquainted with
St. Catherine of Sienna and St. Undecimillia; and therefore I had
rather see the letters themselves. It is true I have no small
doubt of the authenticity of the legend; and nothing will
persuade me of its truth so much as the non-appearance of the
letters-a melancholy kind of conviction. But I vehemently
suspect some new coinage, like the letters of Ninon de l'Enclos,
Pope Ganganelli, and the Princess Palatine. I have lately been
reading some fragments of letters of the Duchess of Orleans,
which are certainly genuine, and contain some curious
circumstances; for though she was a simple gossiping old
gentlewoman, yet many little facts she could not help learning:
and, to give her her due, she was ready to tell all she knew. To
our late Queen she certainly did write often; and her Majesty,
then only Princess, was full as ready to pay her in her own coin,
and a pretty considerable treaty of commerce for the exchange of
scandal was faithfully executed between them; insomuch that I
remember to have heard forty years ago, that our gracious
sovereign entrusted her Royal Highness of Orleans with an
intrigue of one of her women of the bedchamber. Mrs. Selwyn to
wit; and the good Duchess entrusted it to so many other dear
friends that at last it got into the Utrecht Gazette, and came
over hither, to the signal edification of the court of Leicester-
fields. This is an additional reason, besides the internal
evidence, for my believing the letters genuine. This old dame
was mother of the Regent; and when she died, somebody wrote on
her tomb, Cy gist l'Oisivet`e. This came over too; and nobody
could expound It, till our then third Princess, Caroline,
unravelled it,--Idleness is the mother of all vice.

I wish well enough to posterity to hope that dowager highnesses
will Imitate the practice, and write all the trifles that occupy
their royal brains; for the world so at least learns some true
history, which their husbands never divulge, especially if they
are privy to their own history, which their ministers keep from
them as much as possible. I do not believe the present King of
France knows much more of what he, or rather his Queen, is
actually doing, than I do. I rather pity him; for I believe he
means well, which is not a common article of my faith.

I shall go about the end of this week to Park-place, where I
expect to find the Druidic temple from Jersey erected. How dull
will the world be, if constant pilgrimages are not made thither!
where, besides the delight of the scenes, that temple, the rude
great arch, Lady Ailesbury's needle-works, and Mrs. Damer's
Thames and Isis on Henley-bridge, with other of her sculptures,
make it one of the most curious spots in the island, and unique.
I want to have Mr. Conway's comedy acted there; and then the
father, mother, and daughter would exhibit a theatre of arts as
uncommon. How I regret your lordship did not hear Mrs. Damer
speak the epilogue!

Letter 320To John Pinkerton, Esq.(619)
Arlington Street, Aug. 14, 1788. (page 405)

Your intelligence of the jubilees to be celebrated in Scotland in
honour of the Revolution was welcomed indeed. It is a favourable
symptom of an age when its festivals are founded on good sense
and liberality of sentiment, and not to perpetuate superstition
and slavery. Your countrymen, Sir, have proved their good sense
too in their choice of a poet. Your writings breathe the noble
generous spirit congenial to the institution. Give me leave to
say that it is very flattering to me to have the ode communicated
to me; I will not say, to be consulted, for of that distinction I
am not worthy: I am not a poet, and am Sure I cannot improve your
ideas, which you have expressed with propriety and clearness, the
necessary ingredients of an address to a populous meeting; for I
doubt our numerous audiences are not arrived at Olympic taste
enough to seize with enthusiasm the eccentric flights of Pindar.
You have taken a more rational road to inspiration,'-by adhering
to the genuine topics of the occasion; and you speak in so manly
a Style, that I do not believe a more competent judge could amend
your poetry.

I will tell you how more than occasionally the mention of Pindar
slipped into my pen. I have frequently, and even yesterday,
wished that some attempt were made to ennoble our horse-races,
particularly at Newmarket, by associating better arts with the
courses; as, by contributing for odes, the best of which should
be rewarded by medals. Our nobility would find their vanity
gratified; for, as the pedigrees of their steeds would soon grow
tiresome, their own genealogies would replace them; and, in the
mean time, poetry and medals would be improved. Their lordships
would have judgment enough to know if their horse (which should
be the impression on one side) were not well executed; and, as I
hold that there is no being more difficult to draw well than a
horse, no bad artist could be employed. Such a beginning would
lead farther; and the cup or plate for the prize might rise into
beautiful vases. But this is a vision; and I may as well go to
bed and dream of any thing else.

(619) Now first collected.

Letter 321 To Miss Hannah More.(620)
Strawberry Hill, August 17, 1788. (page 406)

Dear Madam,
In this great discovery of a new mine of Madame de S`evign`e's
letters, my faith, I confess, is not quite firm. Do people sell
houses wholesale, without opening their cupboards? This age,
too, deals so much in false coinage, that booksellers and
Birmingham give equal vent to what is not sterling; with the only
difference, that the shillings of the latter pretend that the
names are effaced, while the wares Of the former pass under
borrowed names. Have we not seen, besides all the Testamens
Politiques, the spurious letters of Ninon de l'Enclos, of Pope
Ganganelli, and the Memoirs of the Princess Palatine? This is a
little mortifying, while we know that there actually exists at
Naples a whole library of genuine Greek and Latin authors; most
of whom probably, have never been in print: and where it is not
unnatural to suppose the work of some classics, yet lost, may be
in being, and the remainder of some of the best. Yet, at the
'rate in which they proceed to unroll, it would take as many
centuries to bring them to light, as have elapsed since they were
overwhelmed. Nay, another eruption of Vesuvius may return all
the volumes to chaos! Omar is stigmatized for burning the library
of Alexandria. Is the King of Naples less a Turk? IS not it
almost as unconscientious to keep a seraglio of virgin authors
under the custody of nurses, as of blooming Circassians?
Consider, my dear Madam, I am past seventy; or I should not be SO
Ungallant as to make the smallest comparison between the contents
of the two harems. Your picture, which hangs near my elbow,
would frown, I am sure, if I had any light meaning.

(620) Now first collected.

Letter 322 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 12, 1788. (page 407)

My late fit of gout, though very short, was a very authentic one,
my dear lord, and the third I have had since Christmas. Still,
of late years, I have suffered so little pain, that I can justly
complain of nothing but the confinement, and the debility of my
hands and feet, which, however, I can still use to a certain
degree; and as I enjoy such good spirits and health in the
intervals, I look upon the gout as no enemy; yet I know it is
like the compacts said to be made with the devil, (no kind
comparison to a friend!) who showers his favours on the
Contractors, but is sure to seize and carry them off at last.

I would not say so much of myself, but in return to your
lordship's obliging concern for me: Yet, insignificant as the
subject, I have no better in bank; and if I plume myself on the
tolerable state of my out-ward man, I doubt your lordship finds
that age does not treat my interior so mildly as the gout does
the other. If my letters, as you are pleased to say, used to
amuse you, you must perceive how insipid they are grown, both
from my decays and the little intercourse I have with the world.
Nay, I take care not to aim at false vivacity: what do the
attempts of age at liveliness prove but its weakness? What the
Spectator said wittily, ought to be practised in sober sadness by
old folks: when he was dull, he declared it was by design. So
far, to be sure, we ought to observe it, as not to affect more
spirits than we possess. To be purposely stupid, would be
forbidding our correspondents to continue the intercourse; and I
am so happy in enjoying the honour of your lordship's friendship,
that I will be content (if you can be so) with my natural
inanity, without studying to increment it.

I have been at Park-place, and assure your lordship that the
Druidic temple vastly more than answers my expectation. Small it
is, no doubt, when you are within the enclosure, and but a chapel
of ease to Stonehenge; but Mr. Conway has placed it with so much
judgment, that it has a lofty effect, and infinitely more than it
could have had if he had yielded to Mrs. Damer's and my opinion,
who earnestly begged to have it placed within the enclosure of
the home grounds. It now stands on the ridge of the high hill
without, backed by the horizon, and with a grove on each side at
a little distance; and, being exalted beyond and above the range
of firs that climb up the sides of the hill from the valley,
wears all the appearance of an ancient castle, whose towers are
only shattered, not destroyed; and devout as I am to old castles,
and small taste as I have for the ruins of ages absolutely
barbarous, it is impossible not to be pleased with so very rare
an antiquity so absolutely perfect, and it is difficult to
prevent visionary ideas from improving a prospect.

If, as Lady Anne Conolly told your lordship, I have had a great
deal of company, you must understand it of my house, not of me;
for I have very little. Indeed, last Monday both my house and I
were included. The Duke of York sent me word the night before,
that he would come and see it, and of course I had the honour of
showing it myself. He said, and indeed it seemed so, that he was
much pleased; at least, I had every reason to be satisfied; for I
never saw any prince more gracious and obliging, nor heard one
utter more personally kind speeches.

I do not find that her grace the Countess of Bristol's(621) will
is really known yet. They talk of two wills--to be sure, in her
double capacity; and they say she has made three coheiresses to
her jewels, the Empress of Russia, Lady Salisbury, and the whore
of Babylon.(622) The first of those legatees, I am not sorry, is
in a piteous scrape: I like the King of Sweden no better than I
do her and the Emperor; but it is good that two destroyers should
be punished by a third, and that two crocodiles should be gnawed
by an insect. Thank God! we are not only at peace, but in full
plenty--nay, and in full beauty too. Still better; though we
have had rivers of rain, it has not, contrary to all precedent,
washed away our warm weather. September, a month I generally
dislike for its irresolute mixture of warm and cold, has hitherto
been peremptorily fine. The apple and walnut-trees bend down
with fruit, as in a poetic description of Paradise.

(621) The Duchess of Kingston, who died at Paris in August.-E.

(622) The newspapers had circulated a report that the Duchess had
bequeathed her diamonds to the Empress of Russia and his Holiness
the Pope.-E.

Letter 323 To Miss Hannah More.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 22, 1788. (page 408)

I don't like to defraud you of your compassion, my good friend,
profuse as you are of it. I really suffered scarce any pain at
all from my last fit of gout. I have known several persons who
think there is a dignity in complaining; and, if you ask how they
do, reply, "Why, I am pretty well to-day; but if you knew what I
suffered yesterday!" Now methinks nobody has a right to tax
another for pity on what is past; and besides, complaint of what
is over can only make the hearer glad you are in pain no longer.
Yes, yes, my dear Madam, you generally place your pity so
profitably, that YOU shall not waste a drop upon me, who ought
rather to be congratulated on being so well at my age.

Much less shall I allow you to make apologies for your admirable
and proper conduct towards your Poor prot`eg`ee(623) And now you
have told me the behaviour of a certain great dame, I will
confess to you that I have known it some months by accident-nay,
and tried to repair it. I prevailed on Lady * * * * *, who as
readily undertook the commission, and told the Countess of her
treatment of you. Alas! the answer was, "It is too late; I have
no money." No! but she has, if she has a diamond left. I am
indignant; yet, do you know, not at this duchess, or that
countess, but at the invention of ranks, and titles, and
pre-eminence. I used to hate that king and t'other prince; but,
alas! on reflection I find the censure ought to fall on human
nature in general. They are made of the same stuff as we, and
dare we say what we should be in their situation? Poor creatures!
think how they are educated, or rather corrupted, early, how
flattered! To be educated properly, they should be led through
hovels, and hospitals, and prisons. Instead of being reprimanded
(and perhaps immediately after sugar-plum'd) for not learning
their Latin or French grammar, they now and then should be kept
fasting; and, if they cut their finger, should have no plaister
till it festered. No part of a royal brat's memory, which is
good enough, should be burthened but with the remembrance of
human sufferings. In short, I fear our nature is so liable to be
corrupted and perverted by greatness, rank, power, and wealth,
that I am inclined to think that virtue is the compensation to
the poor for the want of riches: nay, I am disposed to believe
that the first footpad or highwayman has been a man of quality,
or a prince, who could not bear having wasted his fortune, and
was too lazy to work; for a beggar-born would think labour a more
natural way of getting a livelihood than venturing his life. I
have something a similar opinion about common women. No modest
girl thinks of many men, till she has been in love with one, been
ruined by him, and abandoned. But to return to my theme, and it
will fall heavy on yourself. Could the milkwoman have been so
bad, if you had merely kept her from starving, instead of giving
her opulence? The soil, I doubt, was bad; but it could not have
produced the rank weed of ingratitude, if you had not dunged it
with gold, which rises from rock, and seems to meet with a
congenial bed when it falls on the human heart.

And so Dr. Warton imagines I m writing "Walpoliana!" No, in
truth, nor any thing else; nor shall-nor will I go out in a
jest-book. Age has not only made me prudent, but, luckily, lazy;
and, without the latter extinguisher, I do not know but that
farthing candle my discretion would let my snuff of life flit to
the last sparkle of folly, like what children call. the parson
and clerk in a bit of burnt paper. You see by my writability in
pressing my letters on you, that my pen has still a colt's tooth
left, but I never indulge the poor old child with more paper than
this small-sized sheet, I do not give it enough to make a paper
kite and fly abroad on wings of booksellers. You ought to
continue writing, for you do good your writings, or at least mean
it; and if a virtuous intention fails, it is a sort of coin,
which, though thrown away, still makes the donor worth more than
he was before he gave it away. I delight too in the temperature
of your piety, and that you would not see the enthusiastic
exorcist. How shocking to suppose that the Omnipotent Creator of
worlds delegates his power to a momentary insect to eject
supernatural spirits that he had permitted to infest another
insect, and had permitted to vomit blasphemies against himself!
Pray do not call that enthusiasm, but delirium. I pity real
enthusiasts, but I would shave their heads and take away some
blood. The exorcist's associates are in a worse predicament, I
doubt, and hope to make enthusiasts. If such abominable
impostors were not rather a subject of indignation, I could smile
at the rivalship between them and the animal magnetists, who are
inveigling fools into their different pales. And alas! while
folly has a shilling left, there will be enthusiasts and quack
doctors; and there will be slaves while there are kings or
sugar-planters.(624) I have remarked, that though Jesuits, etc.
travel to distant East and West to propagate their religion and
traffic, I never heard of one that made a journey into Asia or
Africa to preach the doctrines of liberty, though those regions
are so deplorably oppressed. Nay, I much doubt whether ever any
chaplain of the regiments we have sent to India has once
whispered to a native of Bengal, that there are milder forms of
government than those of his country. No; security of property
is not a wholesome doctrine to be inculcated in a land where the
soil produces diamonds and gold! In short, if your Bristol
exorcist believes he can cast out devils, why does he not go to
Leadenhallstreet? There is a company whose name is legion.