Books: Letters of Horace Walpole, V4

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I have kept this letter some days in my writing-box, till I could
meet with a stray member of parliament, for it is not worth
making you pay for: but when you talk to me I cannot help
answering incontinently; besides, can one take up a letter at a
long distance, and heat one's reply over again with the same
interest that it occasioned at first? Adieu! I wish you may come
to Hampton before I leave these purlieus! Yours More and More.

(680) Miss More had written to Walpole,--"Poor France! though I
am sorry that the lawless rabble are so triumphant, I cannot help
hoping that some good will arise from the sum of human misery
having been so considerably lessened at one blow by the
destruction of the Bastille. The utter extinction of the
Inquisition, and the redemption of Africa, I hope yet to see
accomplished." Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 170.-E.

(681) To this passage Miss More thus replies:--"Your project for
relieving our poor slaves by machine work is so far from being
wild or chimerical, that of three persons deep and able in the
concern (Mr. Wilberforce among others), not one but has thought
it rational and practicable, and that a plough may be so
constructed as to save much misery." Memoirs, vol. ii. p.
187.-,E.

(682) "The History and Antiquities of Bristol, by William
Barrett:" Bristol, 1789, quarto; a Work which Mr. Park described
as " a motley compound of real and superstitious history."-E.

Letter 347 To Miss Hannah More.
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 4, 1789. (PAGE 444)

I am not surprised, my dear Madam, that the notice of my illness
should have stimulated your predominant quality, your
sensibility. 1 cannot do less in return than relieve it
immediately, by assuring you that I am in a manner recovered; and
should have gone out before this time, if my mind were as much at
ease as my poor limbs. I have passed, five months most
uncomfortably; the two last most unhappily. In June and
September I had two bad falls by my own lameness and weakness,
and was much bruised; while I was witness to the danger, and then
to the death, of my invaluable niece, Lady Dysart. She was
angelic, and has left no children. The unexpected death of Lord
Waldegrave(683) one of the most amiable of men, has not only
deprived me of him, but has opened a dreadful scene of
calamities! he and my niece were the happiest and most domestic
of couples.

Your kind inquiries after me have drawn these details from me,
for which I make no excuse; good-nature never grudges its pity.
I, who love to force your gravity to smile, am seriously better
pleased to indulge your benevolence with a subject of esteem,
which, though moving your compassion, will be accompanied by no
compunction. I will now answer your letter. Your plea, that not
composition, but business, has occasioned your silence, is no
satisfaction to me. In my present anxious solitude I have again
read Bonner and Florio, and the Bas Bleu; and do you think I am
much pleased to learn that you have not been writing? Who is it
says something like this line?--

Hannah will not write, and Lactilla will.

They who think her Earl Goodwin will outgo Shakspeare, might be
in the right, if they specified in what way. I believe she may
write worse than he sometimes did, though that is not easy; but
to excel him--oh! I have not words adequate to my contempt for
those who can suppose such a possibility!

I am sorry, very sorry, for what you tell me of poor Barrett's
fate. Though he did write worse than Shakspeare, it is great
pity he was told so, as it killed him; and I rejoice that I did
not publish a word in contradiction of the letters which he said
Chatterton sent to me, as I was advised to do. I might have
laughed at the poor man's folly, and then I should have been
miserable to have added a grain to the poor man's
mortification.(684)

you rejoice me, not my vanity, by telling me my idea of a
mechanic succedaneum to the labour of negroes is not visionary,
but thought practicable. Oh! how I wish I understood sugar
ploughs, and could marry them! Alas! I understand nothing
useful. My head is as un-mechanic as it is un-arithmetic,
un-geometric, un-metaphysic, uncommercial; but will not some one
of those superior heads to whom you have talked on my indigested
hint reduce it to practicability'! How a feasible scheme would
stun those who call humanity romantic, and show, from the books
of the Custom-house, that murder is a great improvement of the
revenue! Even the present situation of France is favourable.
Could not Mr. Wilberforce obtain to have the enfranchisement of
the negroes started there? The Jews are claiming their natural
rights there; and blacks are certainly not so great defaulters as
the Hebrews, though they too have undergone ample persecutions.
Methinks, as Lord George Gordon is in correspondence with the
`Etats, he has been a little remiss in not signing the petition
of those of his new communion.

The `Etats are detestable and despicable; and, in fact, guilty of
the outrages of the Parisian and provincial mobs. The mob of
twelve hundred, not legislators, but dissolvers of all law,
unchained the mastiffs that had been tied up, and were sure to
worry all who fell in their way. To annihilate all laws, however
bad, and to have none ready to replace them, was proclaiming
anarchy. What should one think of a mad-doctor, who should let
loose a lunatic, suffer him to burn Bedlam, chop off the heads of
the keepers, and then consult with some students in physic on the
gentlest mode of treating delirium? By a late vote I see that
the twelve hundred praters are reduced to five hundred: Vive la
reine Billingsgate! the Thalestris who has succeeded Louis
Quatorze! A committee of those Amazons stopped the Duke of
Orleans, who, to use their style, I believe is not a barrel the
better herring.

Your reflections on Vertot's passion for revolutions are
admirable,(685) and yet it is natural for an historian to like to
describe times of action. Halcyon days do not furnish matter for
talents; they are like the virtuous couple in a comedy, a little
insipid. Mr. Manly and Lady Grace, Mellefont and Cynthia, do not
interest one much. Indeed, in a tragedy where they are unhappy,
they give the audience full satisfaction, and no envy. The
newspapers, no doubt, thought Dr. Priestley could not do better
than to espouse you.(686) He certainly would be very judicious,
could he obtain your consent; but, alas! you would squabble about
Socinianism, or some of those isms. To tell you the truth, I
hate all those Constantinopolitan jargons, that set people
together by the ears about pedantic terms. When you apply
scholastic phrases as happily and genteelly as you do in your Bas
Bleu, they are delightful; but don't muddify your charming
simplicity with controversial distinctions, that will sour your
sweet piety. Sects are the bane of charity, and have deluged the
world with blood.

I do not mean, by what I am going to say, to extort another
letter from you before I have the pleasure of seeing you at
Hampton; but I really shall be much obliged to you for a single
line soon, only to tell me if Miss Williams is at Stoke with the
Duchess of Beaufort. To a short note, cannot you add a short P.
S. on the fate of Earl Goodwin?(687) Lac mihi novum non frigore
desit.
Adieu! my amiable friend! Yours most sincerely.

(683) George fourth Earl of Waldegrave born in 1751; married, in
1782, his cousin Lady Elizabeth Laura Waldegrave, daughter of
James, the second Earl. He died on the 22d of October.-E.

(684) Mr. Barrett was the person who first encouraged Chatterton
to publish the poems which he attributed to Rowley. He was a
respectable surgeon at Bristol.-E.

(685) Miss More, in her last letter, had said--"What a pity it is
that Vertot is not alive that man's element was a state
convulsion; he hopped over peaceful intervals, as periods of no
value, and only seemed to enjoy himself when all the rest of the
world was sad. Storm and tempest were his halcyon days."-E.

(686) In her letter to Walpole Miss More had said,--"I comforted
myself., that your two fair wives were within reach of your
elbow-chair, and that their pleasant society would somewhat
mitigate the sufferings of your confinement. Apropos of two
wives--when the newspapers the other day were pleased to marry me
to Dr. Priestley, I am surprised they did not rather choose to
bestow me on Mr. Madan, as his wife is probably better broken in
to these eastern usages, than Mrs. Priestley may be. I never saw
the Doctor but once in my life, and he had then
been married above twenty years." Memoirs, vol. ii. P. 188.-E.

(687) Ann Yearsley's tragedy, which had just been represented,
with little success, at the Bath and Bristol theatres. In reply
to Walpole's query, Miss More says, "There are, I dare say, some
Pretty Passages in it, but all seem to bring it in guilty of the
crime of dullness; which I take to be the greatest fault in
dramatic composition."-E.

Letter 348 To Miss Hannah More.
Berkeley Square, Feb. 20, 1790. (PAGE 446)

It is very provoking that people must always be hanging or
drowning themselves, or going mad, that you forsooth, Mistress,
may have the diversion of exercising your pity and good-nature,
and charity, and intercession, and all that bead-roll of virtues
that make you so troublesome and amiable, when you might be ten
times more agreeable by things that would not cost one above
half-a-crown at a time.(688) YOU are an absolutely walking
hospital, and travel about into lone and bye places, with your
doors open to house stray casualties! I wish at least that you
would have some children yourself, that you might not be plaguing
one for all the Pretty brats that are starving and friendless. I
suppose it was some such goody two or three thousand years ago
that suggested the idea of an alna-mater, suckling the three
hundred and sixty-five bantlings of the Countess of Hainault.
Well, as your newly-adopted pensioners have two babes, I insist
on your accepting two guineas for them instead of one at present
(that is, when you shall be present). i If you cannot
circumscribe your own charities, you shall not stint mine, Madam,
who can afford it much better, and who must be dunned for alms,
and do not scramble over hedges and ditches in searching for
opportunities of flinging away my money on good works. I employ
mine better at auctions, and in buying pictures and baubles, and
hoarding curiosities, that in truth I cannot keep long but that
will last for ever in my catalogue, and make me immortal! Alas!
will they cover a multitude of sins? Adieu! I cannot jest after
that sentence. Yours sincerely.

(688) Miss More was at this
time raising a subscription for the benefit of the family of a
poor man who had been cut down after he had nearly hung
himself.-E.

Letter 349 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(689)
Strawberry Hill, June 25, 1790. (PAGE 447)

I am glad at least that you was not fetched to town on last
Tuesday, which was as hot as if Phaeton had once more gotten into
his papa's curricle and driven it along the lower road; but the
old king has resumed the reins again, and does not allow us a
handful more of beams than come to our northern share. I am
glad, too, that I was not summoned also to the Fitzroyal
arrangement: it was better to be singed here, than exposed
between two such fiery furnaces as Lady Southampton and my niece
Keppel. I pity Charles Fox to be kept on the Westminster
gridiron.(690) Before I came out of town, I was diverted by a
story from the hustings: one of the mob called out to Fox, "Well,
Charley, are not you sick of your coalition?" "Poor gentleman!"
cried an old woman in the crowd, "why should not he like a
collation?"

I am very sorry Mrs. Damer is so tormented, but I hope the new
inflammation will relieve her. As I was writing that sentence
this morning, Mesdames de Boufflers came to see me from Richmond,
and brought a Comte de Moranville to see my house. The puerile
pedants of their `Etats are going to pull down the statues of
Louis Quatorze, like their silly ancestors, who proposed to
demolish the tomb of John Duke of Bedford. The Vicomte de
Mirabeau is arrested somewhere for something, perhaps for one of
his least crimes; in short, I M angry that the cause of liberty
is profaned by such rascals. If the two German Kings make peace,
as you hear and as I expected, the Brabanters, who seem not to
have known much better what to do with their revolution, will be
the first sacrifice on the altar of peace.

I stick fast at the beginning of the first volume of Bruce,(691)
though I am told it is the most entertaining; but I am sick of
his vanity, and (I believe) of his want of veracity; but I am
sure of his want of method and of his obscurity. I hope my wives
were not at Park-place in your absence: the loss of them is
irreparable to me, and I tremble to think how much more I shall
feel it in three months, when I am to part with them for--who can
tell how long? Adieu!

(689) Now first printed.

(690) At the close of the election, on the 2d of July, the
numbers were, for Mr. Fox 3516, Lord Hood 3217, and Mr. Horne
Took 1697.-E.

(691) Bruce's "Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile" had
just appeared, in five large quarto volumes. It was dedicated to
George the Third, who, while society in general raised a cry of
incredulity against it, stood up warmly in its' favour, and
contended that it was a great work.-E.

Letter 350 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, June 26, 1790. (page 448)

I do not forget your lordship's commands, though I do recollect
my own inability to divert you. Every year at my advanced time
of life would make more reasonable my plea of knowing nothing
worth repeating, especially at this season. The general topic of
elections is the last subject to which I could listen: there is
not one about which I care a straw; and I believe your lordship
quite as indifferent. I am not much more au fait of war. or
peace; I hope for the latter, nay and expect it, because it is
not yet war. Pride and anger do not deliberate to the middle of
the campaign; and I believe even the great incendiaries are more
intent on making a good bargain than on saving their honour. If
they save lives, I care not who is the better politician; and, as
I am not to be their judge, I do not inquire what false weights
they fling into the scales. Two-thirds of France, who are not so
humble as I, seem to think they can entirely new-model the world
with metaphysical compasses; and hold that no injustice, no
barbarity, need to be counted in making the experiment. Such
legislators are sublime empirics, and in their universal
benevolence have very little individual sensibility. In short,
the result of my reflections on what has passed in Europe for
these latter centuries is, that tyrants have no consciences, and
reformers no feeling; and the world suffers both by the plague
and by the cure. What oceans of blood were Luther and Calvin the
authors of being spilt! The late French government was
detestable; yet I still doubt whether a civil war will not be the
consequence of the revolution, and then what may be the upshot?
Brabant was grievously provoked; is it sure that it will be
emancipated? For how short a time do people who set out on the
most just principles, advert to their first springs of motion,
and retain consistency? Nay, how long can promoters of
revolutions be sure of maintaining their own ascendant? They are
like projectors, who are commonly ruined; while others make
fortunes on the foundation laid by the inventors.

Letter 351 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Wednesday night, July 1, 1790. (page 448)

It is certainly not from having any thing to tell you, that I
reply so soon, but as the most agreeable thing I can do in my
confinement. The gout came into my heel the night before last,
perhaps from the deluge and damp. I increased it yesterday by
limping about the house with a party I had to breakfast. To-day
I am lying on the settee, unable to walk alone, or even to put on
a slipper. However, as I am much easier this evening, I trust it
will go off.

I do not love disputes, and shall not argue with you about Bruce;
but, if you like him, you shall not choose an author for me. It
is the most absurd, obscure, and tiresome book I know. I shall
admire if you have a clear conception about most of the persons
and matters in his work; but, in fact, I do not believe you have.
Pray, can you distinguish between his cock and hen Heghes, and
between A Yasouses and Ozoros? and do you firmly believe that an
old man and his son were sent for and put to death, because the
King had run into a thornbush, and was forced to leave his
clothes behind him? Is it your faith, that one of their
Abyssinian Majesties pleaded not being able to contribute towards
sending for a new Abuna, because he had spent all his money at
Venice in looking-glasses? And do you really think that Peter
Paez was a Jack-of-all-trades, and built palaces and convents
without assistance, and furnished them with his own hands? You,
who are a little apt to contest most assertions, must have
strangely let out your credulity!(692) I could put forty
questions to you as wonderful; and, for my part, could as soon
credit * * * *.

I am tired of railing at French barbarity and folly. They are
more puerile now serious, than -when in the long paroxysm of gay
levity. Legislators, a senate, to neglect laws, in order to
annihilate coats of arms and liveries! to pull down a King, and
set up an Emperor! They are hastening to establish the tribunal
of the praetorian guards; for the sovereignty, it seems, is not
to be hereditary. One view of their F`ete of the 14th,(693) I
suppose, is to draw money to Paris; and the consequence will be,
that the deputies will return to the provinces drunk with
independence and self-importance, and will commit fifty times
more excesses, massacres, and devastations, than last year.
George Selwyn says, that Monsieur, the King's brother, is the
only man of rank from whom they cannot take a title.(694)

How franticly have the French acted, and how rationally the
Americans! But Franklin and Washington were great men. None have
appeared yet in France; and Necker has only returned to make a
wretched figure! He is become as insignificant as his King; his
name is never mentioned, but now and then as disapproving
something that is done. Why then does he stay? Does he wait to
strike some great stroke, when every thing is demolished? His
glory, which consisted in being minister though a Protestant, is
vanished by the destruction of popery; the honour of which, I
suppose, he will scarce assume to himself. I have vented my
budget, and now good night! I feel almost as if I could walk up
to bed.

(692 Though Bruce's work was attacked at the time by the critics
with much virulence, his statements have been more or less
confirmed by Salt, Burckhardt, Wit-an, Clarke, Belzoni, and other
distinguished travellers. Bruce never replied to any of his
opponents; but sometimes said to his daughter, that he hoped she
would live to see the time when the truth of what he had written
would be established. He lost his life in April 1794, in
consequence of an accidental slip of his foot, while handing a
lady down stairs to her carriage. A second edition of his
Travels was published in 1805, by Dr. Alexander Murray, from a
copy which the traveller had himself prepared for the press.-E.

(693) The grand federation in the Champ de Mar, on the
anniversary of the taking of the Bastille, thus described by M.
Thiers:--"A magnificent amphitheatre, formed at the further
extremity, was destined for the national authorities. The King
and the president sat beside one another on similar seats.
Behind the King was an elevated balcony for the Queen and the
court. The ministers were at some distance before from the King,
and the deputies ranged on either side. Four hundred thousand
spectators occupied the lateral amphitheatres. Sixty thousand
armed federalists performed their evolutions in the intermediate
space; and in the centre, upon a base twenty-five feet high,
stood the altar of the country. Three hundred priests, in white
surplices and tricoloured scarfs, covered the steps, and were to
officiate. The Bishop of Anton" [afterwards Prince Talleyrand]
began the mass. Divine service over, La Fayette received the
orders of the King, who handed to him the form of the oath. La
Fayette carried it to the altar. At this moment all the banners
waved, every sabre glistened. The general the army, the
president, the deputies cried 'I swear it.' The King, standing,
with his hand outstretched towards the altar, said 'I King of the
French, swear,' etc. At this moment., the Queen, moved by the
general emotion, clasped in her arms the august child, the heir
to the throne, and, from the balcony, showed him to the assembled
nation. At this moment shouts of joy, attachment 'enthusiasm,
were addressed to the mother and the child, and all hearts were
hers." History of the Revolution, vol. i. p. 155.-E.

(694) On the 20th of Julio, a decree, that the titles of duke,
count, marquis, viscount, baron, and chevalier should be
suppressed, had been carried in the National Assembly by a large
majority.-E.

Letter 352 To Miss Berry.
Strawberry Hill, Saturday night, July 3, 1790. (page 450)

How kind to write the very moment you arrived! but pray do not
think that, welcome as your letters are, I would purchase them at
the price of any fatigue to you-a proviso I put in already
against moments when you may be more weary than by a journey to
Lymington. You make me happy by the good accounts of Miss Agnes;
and I should be completely so, if the air of the sea could be so
beneficial to you both, as to make your farther journey
unnecessary to your healths, at least for some time; for--and I
protest solemnly that not a personal thought enters into the
consideration--I shall be excessively alarmed at your going to
the Continent. when such a frenzy has seized it. You see by the
papers, that the flame has burst out at Florence: can Pisa then
be secure? Flanders can be no safe road; and is any part of
France so? I told you in my last of the horrors at Avignon. At
Madrid the people are riotous against the war with us, and
prosecuted I am persuaded it will not be; but the demon of Gaul
is busy every where. The Etats, who are as foolish as atrocious,
have printed lists of the surnames which the late noblesse are to
assume or resume; as if people did not know their own names. I
like a speech I have heard of the Queen. She went with the King
to see the manufacture of glass, and, as they passed the Halles,
the poissardes huzzaed them; "Upon my word," said the Queen,
"these folks are civiler when you visit them, than when they
visit you." This marked both spirit and good -humour. For my
part, I am so shocked at French barbarity, that I begin to think
that our hatred of them is not national prejudice, but natural
instinct; as tame animals are born with an antipathy to beasts of
prey.

Mrs. Damer tells me in a letter to-day, that Lady Ailesbury was
charmed with you both (which did not surprise either of us); and
she never saw two persons have so much taste for the country, who
have no place of their Own. It may be so; but begging her
ladyship's pardon and yours, I think that people who have a place
of their own, are mighty apt not to like any other.

I feel all the kindness at your determination of coming to
Twickenham in August, and shall certainly say no more against it,
though I am certain that I shall count every day that passes; and
when they are passed, they will leave a melancholy impression on
Strawberry, that I had rather have affixed to London. The two
last summers were infinitely the pleasantest I ever passed here,
for I never before had an agreeable neighbourhood. Still I loved
the place, and had no comparisons to draw. Now, the
neighbourhood will remain, and will appear ten times worse; with
the aggravation of remembering two months that may have some
transient roses, but I am sure, lasting thorns. You tell me I do
not write with my usual spirits: at least I will suppress, as
much as I can, the want of them, though I am a bad
dissembler.(695)

You do not mention the cathedral at Winchester, which I have
twice seen and admired; nor do you say any thing of Bevismount
and Netley--charming Netley! At Lyndhurst you passed the palatial
hovel of my royal nephew; who I have reason to wish had never
been so, and did all I could to prevent his being.

The week before last I met the Marlboroughs at Lady Di's. The
Duchess(696) desired to come and see Strawberry again, as it had
rained the whole time she was here last. I proposed the next
morning: no, she could not: she expected company to dinner; she
believed their brother, Lord Robert(697) would dine with them: I
thought that a little odd, as they had Just turned him out for
Oxfordshire; and I thought a dinner no cause at the distance of
four miles. In her grace's dawdling way, she could fix no time:
and so on Friday, at half an hour after seven, as I was going to
Lady North's, they arrived; and the sun being setting, and the
moon not risen, You may judge how much they could see through all
the painted glass by twilight.