P. G. Wodehouse - "The Intrusion of Jimmy"

Sir Walter Scott - "Marmion"

John Lothrop Motley - "The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1574 76"

Prince De Joinville - "Memoirs"

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Books: Letters of Horace Walpole, V4

H >> Horace Walpole >> Letters of Horace Walpole, V4





For us, we are in most danger of a deluge; though I wonder we
so
frequently complain of long rains. The saying about St.
Swithin
is a proof of how often they recur; for proverbial sentences
are
the children of experience, not of prophecy. Good night! In a
few days I shall send you a beautiful little poem from the
Strawberry press.


(650) For an interesting account of the storming and
destruction
of the Bastille, on the 14th of July, see Mr. Shobert's
valuable
translation of M. Thiers's "History of the French Revolution,"
vol. i. p. 59.-E.


(651) "It was in vain," says Sir Walter Scott, "that the
Marquis
de Bouill`e pointed out the dangers arising from the
constitution
assigned to the States General, and insisted that the minister
was arming the Popular part of the nation against the two
privileged orders, and that the latter would soon experience
the
effects of their hatred, Necker calmly replied, that there was
a
necessary reliance to be placed on the virtues of the human
heart--the maxim of a worthy man, but not of an enlightened
statesman, who has but too much reason to know how often both
the
virtues and the prudence of human nature are surmounted by its
prejudices and Passions." Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, vol. i,
p,
107, ed. 1834.-E.



Letter 336 To Miss Hannah More.
Strawberry Hill, Monday night, July 20, 1789. (PAGE 427)

My excellent friend,
I never shall be angry with your conscientiousness, though I ) do
not promise never to scold it, as you know I think you sometimes
carry it too far; and how pleasant to have a friend to scold on
such grounds! I see all your delicacy in what you call your
double treachery, and your kind desire of connecting two of your
friends.(652) The seeds are sprung up already; and the Bishop
has already condescended to make me the first, and indeed so
unexpected a visit, that, had I in the least surmised it, I
should certainly, as became me, have prevented him. One effect,
however, I can tell you your pimping between us will have: his
lordship has, to please your partiality, flattered me so
agreeably in the letter you betrayed, that I shall never write to
you again without the dread of attempting the wit he is so
liberal as to bestow on me; and then either way I must be dull or
affected, though I hope to have the grace to prefer the former,
and then you only will be the sufferer, as we both should by the
latter. But I will come to facts -. they are plain bodies, can
have nothing to do with wit, and yet are not dull to those who
have any thing to do with them.

According to your order, I have delivered Ghosts(653) to Mrs.
Boscawen, Mrs. Garrick, Lady Juliana Penn, Mrs. Walsingham, and
Mr. Pepys. Mr. Batt, I am told, leaves London to-day; so I shall
reserve his to his return. This morning I carried his thirty to
the Bishop of London, who said modestly, he should not have
expected above ten. I was delighted with the palace, with the
Venerable chapel, and its painted episcopalities in glass, and
the brave hall, etc. etc. Though it rained, I would crawl to
Bonner's chair. In short, my satisfaction would have been
complete, but for wanting the presence of that jesuitess, "the
good old papist."

To-morrow departs for London, to be delivered to the Bristol
coach at the White-horse-cellar in Piccadilly, a parcel
containing sixty-four Ghosts, one of which is printed on brown
for your own eating. There is but one more such, so you may
preserve it like a relic. I know these two are not so good as
the white: but, as rarities, a collector would give ten times
more for them; and uniquity will make them valued more than the
charming poetry. I believe, if there was but one ugly woman in
the world, she would occasion a longer war than Helen did. You
will find the Bishop's letter in the parcel. I did not breathe a
hint of my having seen it, as I could not conjure up Into my pale
cheeks the blush I ought to exhibit on such flattery.

I pity you most sincerely for your almost drowned guest. Fortune
seems to delight in throwing poor Louisas in Your Way, that you
may exercise your unbounded charity and benevolence. Adieu!
pray write. I need not write to you to pray; but I wish, when
your knees have what the common people call a worky-day, you
would employ your hands the whole time. Yours most cordially.

P. S. I believe I have blundered, and that your knees would call
a week-day a holiday.

(652) With the view of making Bishop Porteus and Walpole better
known to each other, Miss More had committed what she called a
double treachery, in showing to the Bishop a letter she had
received from Walpole, and to Walpole one sent her by the
Bishop.-E.

(653) Though the author of this poem must have been known to so
many individuals in the year 1789, the secret was so well kept,
that it was actually printed in the, Gentleman's Magazine for
February, 1804, as the production of Walpole.-E.



Letter 337 To Miss Berry.
Strawberry Hill, July 29, 1789. (PAGE 428)

I have received two dear letters from you of the 18th and 25th
and though you do not accuse me, but say a thousand kind things
to me in the most agreeable manner, I allow my ancientry, and
that I am an old, jealous, and peevish husband, and quarrel with
you if I do not receive a letter exactly at the moment I please
to expect one. You talk of mine; but, if you knew how I like
Yours, you would not wonder that I am impatient, and even
unreasonable in my demands. However, though I own my faults, I
do not mean to correct them. I have such pleasure in your
letters (I am sorry I am here forced to speak in the singular
number,'which by the way is an Irishism,) that I will be cross if
you do not write to me perpetually. The quintessence of your
last but one was, in telling me you are better - how fervently do
I wish to receive such accounts every post. But who can mend but
old I, in such detestable weather?--not one hot day; and, if a
morning shines, the evening closes with a heavy shower.

Of French news I can give you no fresher or more authentic
account, than you can collect in general from the newspapers; but
my present visitants and every body else confirm the veracity of
Paris being in that anarchy that speaks the populace domineering
in the most cruel and savage manner, and which a servile
multitude broken loose calls liberty; and which in all
probability will end, when their Massaniello-like reign is over,
in their being more abject slaves than ever, and chiefly by the
crime of their `Etats, who, had they acted with temper and
prudence, might have obtained from their poor and undesigning
King a good and permanent constitution. Who may prove their
tyrant, if reviving loyalty does not in a new frenzy force him to
be so, it is impossible to foresee; but much may happen first.
The rage seems to gain the provinces, and threatens to exhibit
the horrors of those times when the peasants massacred the
gentlemen. Thus you see I can only conjecture, which is not
sending you news; and my intelligence reaches me by so many
rebounds, that you must not depend on any thing I can tell you.
I repeat, because I hear; but draw on you for no credit. Having
experienced last winter, in suporaddition to a long life of
experience, that in Berkeley Square I could not trust to a single
report from Kew, can I swallow implicitly at Twickenham the
distorted information that comes from Paris through the medium of
London?

You asked me in one of your letters who La Chalotais was. I
answer, premier pr`esident or avocat-g`en`eral, I forget which,
of the Parliament of Bretagne; a great, able, honest, and most
virtuous man, who opposed the Jesuits and the tyranny of the Duc
d'Aiguillon; but he was as indiscreet as he was good. Calonne
was his friend and confident; to whom the imprudent patriot
trusted, by letter, his farther plan of opposition and designs.
The wretch pretended to have business with, or to be sent for by,
the Duc de la Vrilli`ere, secretary of state; a courtier-wretch,
whose mistress used to sell lettres do cachet for a louis.(654)
Calonne was left to wait in the antechamber; but being, as he
said, suddenly called in to the minister, as he was reading (a
most natural soil for such a lecture) the letter of his friend,
he by a second natural inadvertence left the fatal letter on the
chimney-piece. The consequence, much more natural, was, that La
Chalotais was committed to the Ch`ateau du Taureau, a horrible
dungeon on a rock in the sea, with his son, whose legs mortified
there, and the father was doomed to the scaffold; but the Duc de
Choiseul sent a counter reprieve by an express and a cross-road,
and saved him.(655) At the beginning of this reign he was
restored. Paris, however, was so
indignant at the treachery, that this Calonne was hissed out of
the theatre, when I was in that capital.(656) When I heard, some
years after, that a Calonne was made controlleur-g`en`eral, I
concluded that it must be a son, not conceiving that so
reprobated a character could emerge to such a height; but asking
my sister, 'who has been in France since I was, she assured me it
was not only the identical being, but that when she was at Metz,
where I think he was intendant, the officers in garrison would
not dine with him. When he fled hither for an asylum, I did not
talk of his story till I saw it in one of the pamphlets that were
written against him in France, and that came over hither.

Friday night, 31st.

My company prevented my finishing this: part left me at noon, the
residue are to come to-morrow. To-day I have dined at
Fulham(657) along with Mrs. Boscawen but St. Swithin played the
devil so, that we could not stir out of doors, and had fires to
chase the watery Spirits. Quin, being once asked if ever he had
seen so bad a winter, replied, "Yes, just such an one last
summer!"--and here is its youngest brother!

Mrs. Boscawen saw a letter from Paris to Miss Sayer this morning,
Which says Necker's son-in-law was arrived, and had announced his
father-in- law's promise of return from Basle. I do not know
whether his honour or ambition prompt this compliance; Surely not
his discretion. I am much acquainted with him, and do not hold
him great and profound enough to quell the present anarchy. if
he attempts to moderate for the King, I Shall not be surprised if
he falls another victim to tumultuary jealousy and outrage.(658)
All accounts agree in the violence of the mob against the
inoffensive as well as against the objects of their resentment;
and in the provinces, where even women are not safe in their
houses. The hotel of the Duc de Chatelet, lately built and
superb, has been assaulted, and the furniture sold by
auction;(659) but a most shocking act of a royalist in Burgundy
who is said to have blown up a committee of forty persons, will
probably spread the flames of civil rage much wider. When I read
the account I did not believe it; but the Bishop of London says,
he hears the `Etats have required the King to write to every
foreign power not to harbour the execrable author, who is
fled.(660) i fear this conflagration will not end as rapidly as
that in Holland!

(654) The Duc de la Vrillibre was dismissed in 1775, and
succeeded by M. de Malesherbes, Madame du Deffand's letter to
Walpole of June 26, 1774, contains the following epigram on
him:--

"Ministre sans talent ainsi que sans vertu,
Couvert d'ignominie autant qu'on le peut `etre,
Retire-toi donc! Qu'attends-tu?
Qu'on te jette par la fen`etre?"-E.

(655) La Chalotais died in July 1785. Among other works he wrote
an "Essay On National Education," which was reprinted in 1825.
His son perished by the guillotine in January 1794.-E.

(656) "An intrigue brought M. de Calonne forward, who was not in
good odour with the public, because he had contributed to the
persecution Of La chatolais." Thiers, vol. i. p. 5.-E.

(657) With Bishop Porteus. "I fear," writes Hannah More, on
hearing of this dinner, "I shall secretly triumph in the success
of my fraud, if it has contributed to bring about any intercourse
between the Abbey of Fulham and the Castle of Otranto, it sounds
so ancient and so feudal! But among the things which pleased you
in the episcopal domain, I hope the lady of it has that good
fortune; she is quite a model of a pleasant wife. Now, I am
acquainted with a great many very good wives, who are so notable
and so manageable, that they make a man every thing but happy;
and I know a great many other;, who sing, play and paint, and cut
paper, and are so accomplished, that they have no time to be
agreeable, and no desire to be useful," Memoirs, vol.'Ii. p.
165.-E.

(658) On the 16th of July, five days after the dismissal of M.
Necker, the National Assembly obtained his recall. His return
from Basle to Paris was one continued triumph. During the next
twelve months, he was constantly presenting new financial
statements; but he soon perceived that his influence was daily
diminishing: at length the famous Red Book appeared, and
completely put an end to his popularity. In September 1790, his
resignation was accepted: as he was quitting the kingdom, his
carriage was stopped by the same populace which had so recently
drawn him into Paris in triumph; and it was necessary to apply to
the Assembly for an order, directing that he should be allowed to
proceed to Switzerland. He obtained this permission, and retired
to Coppet, "there," says M. Thiers, "to contemplate at a
distance, a revolution which he was no longer qualified to
observe Closely Or to guide."-E.

(659) The Duke, who was colonel of the King's guard, narrowly
escaped assassination.-E.

(660) After an inquiry, instituted by the National Assembly, the
whole was found to be a villanous fabrication.-E.



Letter 338 To John Pinkerton, Esq.(661)
Strawberry Hill, July 31, 1789. (PAGE 431)

Having had my house full of relations till this evening, I could
not answer the favour of your letter Sooner; and now I am ashamed
of not being able to tell you that I have finished reading your
"Essay on the Ancient History of Scotland." I am so totally
unversed in the story of original nations, and I own always find
myself so little interested in savage manners unassisted by
individual characters, that, though you lead me with a firmer
hand than any historian through the dark tracts, the clouds rose
round me the moment I have passed them, and I retain no memory of
the ground I have trod. I greatly admire your penetration, and
read with wonder your clear discovery of the kingdom of
Strathclyde; but, though I bow to you, as I would to the founder
of an empire, I confess I do not care a straw about your
subjects, with whom I am no more acquainted than with the ancient
inhabitants of Otaheite. Your origin of the Piks is most able;
but then I cannot remember them with any precise discrimination
from any other hyperborean nation; and all the barbarous names at
the end of the first volume, and the gibberish in the Appendix,
was to me as unintelligible as if Repeated Abracadabra; and made
no impression on me but to raise respect of your patience, and
admire a sagacity that could extract meaning and suite from what
seemed to me the most indigestible of all materials. You rise in
my estimation in Proportion to the disagreeable mass of your
ingredients. What gave me pleasure that I felt, was the
exquisite sense and wit of your Introduction; and your masterly
handling and confutation of the Macphersons, Whitaker, etc.
there and through your work. Objection I have but one, I think
you make yourself too much a party against the Colts. I do not
think they were or are worthy of hatred.

Upon the whole, dear Sir, you see that your work is too learned
and too deep for my capacity and shallow knowledge. I have told
you that my reading and knowledge is and always was trifling and
superficial, and never taken up or pursued but for present
amusement. I always was incapable of dry and unentertaining
studies; and of all studies the origin of nations never was to my
taste. Old age and frequent disorders have dulled both my
curiosity and attention, as well as weakened my memory; and I
cannot fix my attention to long deductions. I say to myself,
"What is knowledge to me who stand on the verge, and must leave
any old stores as well as what I may add to them; and how little
could that be?"

Having thus confessed the truth, I am sure you are too candid and
liberal to be offended - you cannot doubt of my high respect for
your extraordinary abilities I am even proud of having discovered
them of myself without any clue. I should be very insincere, if
I pretended to have gone through with eagerness your last work,
which demands more intense attention than my age, eyes, and
avocations will allow. I cannot read long together; and you are
sensible that your work is not a book to be`rea'd' by snatches
and intervals; especially as the novelty, to me at least,
requires some helps to connect it with the memory.

(661) Now first collected.



Letter 339 To Miss Hannah More.(662)
Strawberry Hill, August 9, 1789. (PAGE 432)

You are not very corresponding, (though better of late,) and
therefore I will not load the conscience of your fingers much,
lest you should not answer me in three months. I am happy that
you are content with my edition of your Ghost, and with the brown
copy. Every body is charmed with your poem: I have not heard one
breath but of applause. In confirmation, I enclose a note to me
from the Duchess of Gloucester, who certainly never before wished
to be an authoress. You may lay it up in the archives of
Cowslip-green, and carry it along with your other testimonials to
Parnassus.(663) Mr. Carter, to whom I sent a copy, is delighted
with it. The Bishop, with whom I dined last week, is extremely
for your printing an edition for yourself, and desired I would
press you to it. Mind, I do press you: and could Bonner's Ghost
be laid again,-which is ,impossible, for it will walk for ever,
and by day too,--we would have it laid in the Red Sea by some
West India merchant, who must be afraid of spirits, and cannot be
in charity with you. Mrs. Boscawen dined at Fulham with me. It
rained all day; and, though the last of July, we had fires in
every room, as if Bonner had been still in possession of the see.

I have not dared to recollect you too often by overt acts, dear
Madam; as, by the slowness of your answer, you seem to be sorry
my memory was so very alert. Besides, it looks as if you had a
mind to keep me at due distance, by the great civility and cold
complimentality of your letter; a style I flattered myself you
had too much good will towards me to use. Pretensions to
humility I know are generally traps to flattery; but, could you
know how very low my opinion is of myself, I am sure you would
not have used the terms to me you did, and which I will not
repeat, as they are by no means applicable to me. If I ever had
tinsel parts, age has not only tarnished them, but convinced me
how frippery they were.

Sweet are your Cowslips, sour my Strawberry Hill;
My fruits are fallen, your blossoms flourish still.

Mrs. Boscawen told me last night, that she had received a long
letter from you, which makes me flatter myself you have no return
of your nervous complaints. Mrs. Walsingham I have seen four or
five times - Miss Boyle has decorated their house most
charmingly; she has not only designed, but carved in marble,
three beautiful base reliefs, with boys, for a chimney-piece;
besides painting elegant panels for the library, and forming, I
do not know how, pilasters of black and gold beneath glass; in
short, we are so improved in taste, that, if it would be decent,
I could like to live fifty or sixty years more, just to see how
matters go on. In the mean time, I wish my Macbethian wizardess
would tell me "that Cowslip Dale should come to Strawberry Hill;"
which by the etiquette of oracles, you know, would certainly
happen, because so improbable. I will be content if the nymph of
the dale will visit the old man of the mountain, and her most
sincere friend.

(662) Now first collected.

(663) In reply to this, Miss More says, "You not only do all you
can to turn my head by printing my trumpery verses yourself. but
you call in royal aid to complete my delirium. I comfort myself
you will counteract some part of the injury you have done, my
principles this summer, by a regular course of abuse when we meet
in the winter: remember that you owe this to my moral health;
next to being flattered I like to be scolded; but to be let
quietly alone would be intolerable. Dr. Johnson once said to me,
'I Never mind whether they praise or abuse your writings; any
thing is tolerable except oblivion.'" Memoirs, vol. ii. P.
169.-E.



Letter 340 To John Pinkerton, Esq.(664)
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 14, 1789. (PAGE 433)

I must certainly have expressed myself very awkwardly, dear Sir,
if you conceive I meant the slightest censure on your book, much
less on your manner of treating it; which is as able, and clear,
and demonstrative as possible. No; it was myself, my age, my
want of apprehension and memory, and my total ignorance of the
subject, which I intended to blame. I never did taste or study
the very ancient histories of nations. I never had a good memory
for names of persons, regions, places, which no specific
circumstances concurred to make me remember; and now, at
seventy-two, when, as is common, I forget numbers of names most
familiar to me, is it possible I should read with pleasure any
work that consists of a vocabulary so totally new to me? Many
years ago, when my faculties were much less impaired, I was
forced to quit Dow's History of Indostan, because the Indian
names made so little impression on me, that I went backward
instead of forward, and was every minute reverting to the former
page to find about whom I was reading. Your book was a still
more laborious work to me; for it contains such a series of
argumentation that it demanded a double effort from a weak old
head; and, when I had made myself master of a deduction, I forgot
it the next day, and had my pains to renew. These defects have
for some time been so obvious to me, that I never read now but
the most trifling books; having often said that, at the very end
of life, it is useless to be improving one's stock of knowledge,
great or small, for the next world. Thus, Sir, all I have said
in my last letter or in this, is an encomium on your work, not a
censure or criticism. It -would be hard on you, indeed, if my
incapacity detracted from your merit.

Your arguments in defence of works of science and deep
disquisition are most just; and I am sure I have neither power
nor disposition to answer them. You have treated your matter as
it ought to be treated. Profound men or conversant on the
subject, like Mr. Dempster, will be pleased with it, for the very
reasons that made it difficult to me. If Sir Isaac Newton had
written a fairy tale, I should have swallowed it eagerly; but do
you imagine, Sir, that, idle as I am, I am, idiot enough to think
that Sir Isaac had better have amused me for half an hour, than
enlightened mankind and all ages? I was so fair as to confess to
you that your work was above me, and did not divert me: you was
too candid to take that ill, and must have been content with
silently thinking me very silly; and I am too candid to condemn
any man for thinking of me as I deserve. I am only sorry when I
do deserve a disadvantageous character.

Nay, Sir, you condescend, after all, to ask My opinion of the
best way of treating antiquities; and, by the context, I suppose
you mean, how to make them entertaining. I cannot answer you in
one word -, because there are two ways, as there are two sorts of
readers. I should therefore say, to please antiquaries of
judgment, as you have treated them, with arguments and proofs;
but, if you would adapt antiquities to the taste of those who
read only to be diverted, not to be instructed, the nostrum is
very easy and short. You must divert them in the true sense of
the word diverto; you must turn them out of the way, you must
treat them with digressions nothing or very little to the
purpose. But, easy as I call this recipe, you, I believe, would
find it more difficult to execute, than the indefatigable
industry you have employed to penetrate chaos and extract the
truth. There have been professors who have engaged to adapt all
kinds of knowledge to the meanest capacities. I doubt their
success, at least on me: however, you need not despair; all
readers are not as dull and superannuated as, dear Sir, yours,
etc.

(664) Now first collected.



Letter 341 To John Pinkerton, Esq,(665)
Strawberry Hill, August 19, 1789. (PAGE 434)

I will not use many words, but enough, I hope, to convince you
that I meant no irony in my last. All I said of you and myself
was very sincere- It is my true opinion that your understanding
is one of the strongest, most manly, and clearest I ever knew;
and, as I hold my own to be of a very inferior kind and know it
to be incapable of sound, deep application, I should have been
very foolish if I had attempted to sneer at you or your pursuits.
Mine have always been light and trifling, and tended to nothing
but my casual amusement; I will not say, without a little vain
ambition of showing some parts but never with industry sufficient
to make me apply to any thing solid. My studies, if they could
be called so, and my productions, were alike desultory. In my
latter days I discovered the utility both of my objects and
writings: I felt how insignificant is the reputation of an author
of mediocrity; and that, being no genius, I only added one name
more to a list of writers that had told the world nothing but
what it could as well be without.