Books: Letters of Horace Walpole, V4

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(695) In a letter written in this month to Walpole, Miss More
asks, "Where and how are the Berrys? I hope they are within
reach of your great chair, if you are confined, and of your
airings, if you go abroad. I hate their going to Yorkshire: as
Hotspur Says, 'What do they do in the north, when they ought to
be in the south?", Memoirs, vol.ii. p. 235.-E.

(696) Lady Caroline Russell; married, in 1762, to the Duke of
Marlborough.

(697) Lord Robert Spencer, brother of the Duke of Marlborough.

Letter 353 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, August 9, at night, 1790. (page 452)

MR. NICHOLLS has offered to be postman to you; whereof, though I
have nothing, or as little as nothing, to say, I thought as how,
it would look kinder to send nothing in writing than by word of
mouth.

Nothing the first. So the peace is made, and the stocks drank
its health in a bumper; but when they waked the next morning,
they found they had reckoned without their host, and that their
majesties the King of big Britain and the King of little Spain
have agreed to make peace some time or other, if they can agree
upon it; and so the stocks drew in their horns: but, having great
trust in some time or other, they only fell two pegs lower. I,
who never believed there would be war, keep my prophetic stocks
up to par, and my consolation still higher; for when Spanish
pride truckles, and English pride has had the honour of bullying,
I dare to say we shall be content with the ostensible triumph, as
Spain will be with some secret article that will leave her much
where she was before. Vide Falkland's Island.

Nothing the second. Miss Gunning's match with Lord Blandford.
You asserted it so peremptorily, that, though I doubted it, I
quoted you. Lo! it took its rise solely in poor old Bedford's
dotage, that still harps on conjunctions copulative, but now
disavows it, as they say, on a remonstrance from her daughter.

Nothing the third. Nothing will come of nothing, says King Lear,
and your humble servant.

Letter 354 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, August 12, 1790. (page 452)

I must not pretend any longer, my dear lord, that this region is
void of news and diversions. Oh! we can innovate as well as
neighbouring nations. If an Earl Stanhope, though he cannot be a
tribune, is ambitious of being a plebeian, he may without law be
as vulgar as heart can wish; and, though we have not a national
assembly to lay the axe to the root of nobility, the peerage have
got a precedent for laying themselves in the kennel. Last night
the Earl of Barrymore was so humble as to perform a buffoon-dance
and act Scaramouch in a pantomime at Richmond for the benefit of
Edwin, Jun. the comedian:(698) and I, like an old fool, but
calling myself a philosopher that loves to study human nature in
all its disguises, went to see the performance.

Mr. Gray thinks that some Milton or some Cromwell may be lost to
the world under the garb of a ploughman. Others may suppose that
some excellent jack-pudding may lie hidden under red velvet and
ermine. I cannot say that by the experiment of last night the
latter hypothesis has been demonstrated, any more than the
inverse proposition in France, where, though there seem to be
many as bloody-minded rascals as Cromwell, I can discover none of
his abilities.(699) They have settled nothing like a
constitution; on the contrary, they seem to protract every thing
but violence, as much as they can, in order to keep their Louie a
day, which is more than two-thirds of the Asset they perhaps ever
saw in a month. I do not love legislators that pay themselves so
amply! They might have had as good a constitution as twenty-four
millions of people could comport. As they have voted an army of
an hundred and fifty thousand men, I know what their constitution
will be, after passing through a civil war. In short, I detest
them: they have done irreparable injury to liberty, for no
monarch will ever summon `etats again; and all the real service
that will result from their fury will be, that every King in
Europe, for these twenty, or perhaps thirty years to come, will
be content with the prerogative he has. without venturing to
augment it.

The Empress of Russia has thrashed the King of Sweden; and the
King of Sweden has thrashed the Empress of Russia. I am more
glad that both are beaten than that either is victorious ; for I
do not, like our newspapers, and such admirers, fall in love with
heroes and heroines who make war without a glimpse of
provocation. I do like our makincy peace, whether we had
provocation or not. I am forced to deal in European news, my
dear lord, for I have no homespun. I don't think my whole
inkhorn could invent another paragraph; and therefore I will take
my leave, with (your lordship knows) every kind wish for your
health and happiness.(700)

(698) In the following month "The Follies of a Day" was performed
at Lord Barrymore's private theatre, at Wergrave. "His lordship,
in the character of the gardener," according to the newspapers,
"was highly comic, and his humour was not overstrained: the whole
concluded with a dance, in which was introduced a favourite pas
Russe, by Lord Barrymore and Mr. Delpini, which kept the theatre
in a roar."-E.

(699) Gibbon, in a letter written a few months before from
Lausanne to Lord Sheffield, makes the following reflections:--
"The French nation had a glorious opportunity, but they have
abused and may lose their advantages. If they had been content
with a liberal translation of our system, if they had respected
the prerogatives of the crown and the privileges of the nobles,
they might have raised a solid fabric on the only true
foundation, the natural aristocracy of a great country. How
different is the prospect! Their King brought a captive to
Paris, after his palace had been stained with the blood of his
guards; the nobles in exile; the clergy plundered in a way which
strikes at the root of all property; the capital an independent
republic; the union of the provinces dissolved; the flames of
discord kindled by the worst of men, and the honestest of the
Assembly a set of wild visionaries. As yet there is no symptom
of a great man, a Richelieu or a Cromwell, arising either to
restore the monarchy, or to lead the commonwealth."-E.

(700) This appears to have been the last letter addressed by
Walpole to the Earl of Strafford. His lordship died at Wentworth
Castle, on the 10th of March following, in his seventy-ninth
year.-E.

Letter 355 To Sir David Dalrymple.(701)
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 21, 1790. (page 454)

So many years, Sir, have elapsed since I saw Burleigh, that I
cannot in general pretend to recollect the pictures Well. I do
remember that there was a surfeit of pieces by Luca Jordano, and
Carlo Dolce, no capital masters, and posterior to the excellent.
The Earl of Exeter, who resided long at Rome in the time of those
two painters, seemed to have employed them entirely during his
sojourn there. I was not struck more than you, Sir, with the
celebrated Death of Seneca, though one of the best works of
Jordano. Perhaps Prior's verses lifted it to part of its fame,
though even those verses are inferior to many of that charming
poet's compositions. Upon the whole, Burleigh is a noble palace,
contains many fine things, and the inside court struck me with
admiration and reverence. The Shakspeare Gallery is truly most
inadequate to its prototypes but how should it be worthy of them!
If we could recall the brightest luminaries of painting, could
they do justice to Shakspeare? Was Raphael himself as great a
genius in his art as the author of Macbeth? and who could draw
Falstaffe, but the writer of Falstaffe? I am entirely of your
opinion, Sir, that two of Northcote's pictures, from King John
and Richard the Third, are at the head of the collection. In
Macklin's Gallery of Poets and Scripture, there are much better
pictures than at Boydell's. Opie's Jephthah's Vow is a truly
fine performance, and would be so in any assemblage of paintings;
as Sir Joshua's Death of Beaufort is worthy of none: the Imp is
burlesque, and the Cardinal seems terrified at him as before him,
when the Imp is behind him. In Sir Thomas Hanmer's edition there
is a print that gives the fact simply, pathetically, and with
dignity, and just as you wish it told.

My sentiments on French politics concur as much with yours as
they do on subjects above. The National Assembly set out too
absurdly and extravagantly, not to throw their country into the
last confusion; which is not the way of correcting a government,
but more probably of producing a worse, bad as the old was, and
thence they will have given a lasting wound to liberty: for what
king will ever call `Etats again, if he can possibly help it! The
new legislators were pedants, not politicians, when they
announced the equality of all men. We are all born so, no doubt,
abstractedly; and physically capable of being kept so, were it
possible to establish a perfect government, and give the same
education to all men. But are they so in the present
constitution of society, under a bad government, where most have
had no education at all, but have been debased, brutified, by a
long train and mixture of superstition and oppression, and
witnesses to the luxury and vices of their superiors, which they
could only envy and not enjoy? It was turning tigers loose; and
the degradation of the nobility pointed out the prey. Could it
be expected that savages so hallooed on to outrage and void of
any notions of reciprocal"duties and obligations, would fall into
a regular system of' acting as citizens under the government of
reason and justice? It was tearing all the bonds of society,
which the experience of mankind had taught them were necessary to
the mutual convenience of all; and no provision, no security, was
made for those who were levelled, and who, though they enjoyed
what they had by the old constitution, were treated, or were
exposed to be treated, as criminals. They have been treated so:
several have been butchered; and the National Assembly dare not
avenge them, as they should lose the favour of the intoxicated
populace. That conduct was senseless, or worse. With no less
folly did they seek to expect that a vast body of men, more
enlightened, at least, than the gross multitude, would sit down
in patience under persecution and deprivation of all they valued;
I mean the nobility and clergy, who might be stunned, but Were
sure of reviving and of burning with vengeance. The insult was
the greater, as the subsequent conduct of the National Assembly
has proved more shamefully dishonest, in their paying themselves
daily more than two-thirds of them ever saw perhaps in a month;
and that flagitious self-bestowed stipend, as it is void of all
patriotic integrity, will destroy their power too; for, if
constitution-making is so lucrative a trade, others will wish to
share in the plunder of their country too; and, even without a
civil war, I am persuaded the present Assembly will neither be
septennial, nor even triennial.

(701) Now first collected.

Letter 356 To The Miss Berrys.
Sunday, Oct. 10, 1790, The day of your departure. (page 455)

Is it possible to write to my beloved friends, and refrain from
speaking of my grief for losing you; though it is but the
continuation of what I have felt ever since I was stunned by your
intention Of going abroad this autumn? Still I will not tire YOU
With it Often. In happy days I smiled, and called you my dear
wives--now I can only think on you as darling children of whom I
am bereaved! As such I have loved and do love You; and, charming
as you both are, I have had no Occasion to remind myself that I
am Past seventy-three. Your hearts, your understandings, your
virtues, and the cruel injustice of your fate,(702) have
interested me in every thing that concerns you; and so far from
having occasion to blush for any unbecoming weakness, I am proud
of my affection for you, and very proud of your condescending to
pass so many hours with a very old man, when every body admires
you, and the most insensible allow that your good sense and
information (I speak of both) have formed you to Converse with
the most intelligent of our sex as well as your own; and neither
can tax you with airs of pretension or affectation. Your
simplicity and natural ease set off all your other merits-all
these graces are lost to me, alas! when I have no time to lose.

Sensible as I am to my loss, it will occupy but part of my
thoughts, till I know you are safely landed, and arrived safely
at Turin. Not till you are there, and I learn so, will my
anxiety subside, and settle into steady, selfish sorrow. I
looked at every weathercock as I came along the road to-day, and
was happy to see every one point northeast. May they do so
to-morrow!

I found here the frame for Wolsey, and to-morrow morning Kirgate
will place him in it; and then I shall begin pulling the little
parlour to pieces, that it may be hung anew to receive him. I
have also obeyed Miss Agnes, though with regret; for, on trying
it, I found her Arcadia(703) would fit the place of the picture
she condemns, which shall therefore be hung in its room; though
the latter should give Way to nothing else, nor shall be laid
aside, but shall hang where I shall see it almost as often. I
long to hear that its dear paintress is well; I thought her not
at all so last night. You will tell me the truth, though she in
her own case, and in that alone, allows herself mental
reservation.

Forgive me for writing nothing to-night but about you two and
myself. Of what can I have thought else? I have not spoken to a
single person but my own servants since we parted last night.

I found a message here from Miss Howe(704) to invite me for this
evening--do you think I have not preferred staying at home to
write to you, as this Must go to London to-morrow morning by the
coach to be ready for Tuesday's post! My future letters shall
talk of other things, whenever I know any thing worth repeating;
or perhaps any trifle, for I am determined to forbid myself
lamentations that would weary you; and the frequency of my
letters will prove there is no forgetfulness. If I live to see
you again, you will then judge whether I am changed; but a
friendship so rational and so pure as mine is, and so equal for
both, is not likely to have any of the fickleness of youth, when
it has none of its other ingredients. It was a sweet consolation
to the short time that I may have left, to fall into such a
society; no wonder then that I am unhappy at that consolation
being abridged. I pique myself on no philosophy but what a long
use and knowledge of the world had given me-the philosophy of
indifference to most persons and events. I do pique myself on
not being ridiculous at this very late period of my life; but
when there is not a grain of passion in my affection for you two,
and when you both have the good sense not to be displeased at my
telling you so, (though I hope you would have despised me for the
contrary,) I am not ashamed to say that your loss is heavy to me;
and that I am only reconciled to it by hoping that a winter in
Italy, and the journeys and sea air, will be very beneficial to
two constitutions so delicate as yours. Adieu! my dearest
friends it would be tautology to subscribe a name to a letter,
every line of which would suit no other man in the world but the
writer.

(702) This alludes to Miss Berry's father having been
disinherited by an uncle, to whom he was heir at law, and a large
property left to his younger brother.-M.B.

(703) A drawing by Miss Agnes Berry.

(704) Julia Howe, an unmarried sister of Admiral Earl Howe, who
lived at Richmond.

Letter 357 To The Miss Berrys.
Sunday, Oct. 31, 1790. (page 457)

Perhaps I am unreasonably impatient, and expect letters before
they can come. I expected a letter from Lyons three days ago,
though Mrs. Damer told me I should not have one till to-morrow.
I have got one to-day; but alas! from Pougues only, eleven and a
half posts short of Lyons! Oh! may Mrs. Damer prove in the right
to-morrow! Well! I must be happy for the past; and that you had
such delightful weather, and but one little accident to your
carriage. We have had equal summer till Wednesday last, when it
blew a hurricane. I said to it, "Blow, blow, thou winter wind, I
don't mind you now!" but I have not forgotten Tuesday the 12th;
and now I hope it will be as calm as it is to-day on Wednesday
next, when Mrs. Damer is to sail.(705) I was in town on Thursday
and Friday, and so were her parents, to take our leaves; as we
did on Friday night, supping all at Richmond-house. She set out
yesterday morning, and I returned hither. I am glad you had the
amusement of seeing the National Assembly. Did Mr. Berry find it
quite so august as he intended it should be? Burke's pamphlet is
to appear to-morrow, and Calonne has published a thumping one of
four hundred and forty pages.(706) I have but begun it, for
there is such a quantity of calculations, and one is forced to
bait so often to boil milliards of livres down to a rob of pounds
sterling, that my head is only filled with figures instead of
arguments, and I understand arithmetic less than logic.

Our war still hangs by a hair, they say; and that this
approaching week must terminate its fluctuations. Brabant, I am
told, is to be pacified by negotiations at the Hague. Though I
talk like a newspaper, I do not assume their airs, nor give my
intelligence of any sort for authentic, unless when the Gazette
endorses the articles. Thus, Lord Louvain is made Earl of
Beverley, and Lord Earl of Digby; but in no Gazette, though still
in the Songs of Sion, do I find that Miss Gunning is a
marchioness. It is not that I suppose you care who gains a step
in the aristocracy; but I tell you these trifles to keep you au
courant, and that at your return you may not make only a baronial
curtsey, when it should be lower by two rows of ermine to some
new-hatched countess. This is all the, news-market furnishes.
Your description of the National Assembly and of the Champ de
Mars were both admirable; but the altar of boards and canvass
seems a type of their perishable constitution, as their
air-balloons were before. French visions are generally full of
vapour, and terminate accordingly. I have been at Mrs.
Grenville's(707) this evening, who had a small party for the
Duchess of Gloucester: there were many inquiries after my wives.

(705) Mrs. Damer was going to pass the winter at Lisbon, on
account of her health.

(706) This was his "Lettre sur l'`Etat de la France, pr`esent et
`a venir;" of which a translation appeared in the following
year.-E.

(707) Margaret Banks, widow Of the Hon. Henry Grenville, who died
in 1784. Their only daughter was married, in 1781, to Viscount
Mahon, afterwards Earl Stanhope.

Letter 358 To The Miss Berrys
Park-place, Nov. 8, 1790. (page 458)

No letter since Pougues! I think you can guess how uneasy I am!
It is not the fault of the wind; which has blown from every
quarter. To-day I cannot hear, for no post comes in on Mondays.
What can have occasioned my receiving no letters from Lyons,
when, on the 18th of last month, you were within twelve posts of
it? I am now sorry I came hither, lest by change of place a
letter may have shuttlecocked about, and not have known where to
find me; and yet I left orders with Kirgate to send it after me,
if one came to Strawberry on Saturday. I return thither
to-morrow, but not till after the post is come in here. I am
writing to you now, while the company are walked out, to divert
my impatience; which, however, is but a bad recipe, and not
exactly the way to put YOU Out Of my head.

The first and great piece of news is the pacification with Spain.
The courier arrived on Thursday morning with a most acquiescent
answer to our ultimatum: what that was I do not know, nor much
care. Peace contents me, and for my part I shall not haggle
about the terms. I have a good general digestion, and it is not
a small matter that will lie at my stomach when I have no hand in
dressing the ingredients.

The pacification of Brabant is likely to be volume the second.
The Emperor, and their majesties of Great Britain and Prussia,
and his Serene Highness the Republic of Holland have sent a card
to his turbulent Lowness of Brabant, and* they allow him but
three weeks to submit to his old sovereign: on promise of a
general pardon -or the choice of threescore thousand men ready to
march without a pardon.

The third volume, expected, but not yet in the press, is a
counterrevolution in France. Of that I know nothing but rumour;
yet it certainly is not the most incredible event that rumour
ever foretold. In this country the stock of the National
Assembly IS fallen down to bankruptcy. Their only renegade,
aristocrat Earl Stanhope, has, with D. W. Russel, scratched his
name out of the Revolution Club; but the fatal blow has been at
last given by Mr. Burke. His pamphlet(708) came out this day
se'nnight, and is far superior to what was expected, even by his
warmest admirers. I have read it twice; and though of three
hundred and fifty pages, I wish I could repeat every page by
heart. It is sublime, profound, and gay. The wit and satire are
equally brilliant; and the whole is wise, though in some points
he goes too far: yet in general there is far less want of
judgment than could be expected from him. If it could be
translated,--which, from the wit and metaphors and allusions, is
almost impossible,--I should think it would be a classic book in
all countries, except in present France.(709) To their tribunes
it speaks daggers though, unlike them, it uses none. Seven
thousand copies have been taken off by the booksellers already,
and a new edition is preparing. I hope you will see it soon.
There ends my gazette.

There is nobody here at present but Mrs. Hervey, Mrs. E. Hervey,
and Mrs. Cotton: but what did I find on Saturday? Why, the
Prince of Furstemberg,(710) his son, and son's governor! I was
ready to turn about and go back: but they really proved not at
all unpleasant. The ambassador has not the least German
stiffness or hauteur; is extremely civil, and so domestic a man,
that he talked comfortably of his wife and eight children, and of
his fondness for them. He understands English, though he does
not speak it. The son, a good-humoured lad of fifteen, seems
well-informed: the governor, a middle-aged officer, speaks
English so perfectly, that even by his accent I should not have
discovered him for a foreigner. They stayed all night, and went
to Oxford next morning before I rose.

November 9th, at night.

This morning, before I left Park-place, I had the relief and joy
of receiving your letter of October 24, from Lyons. It would
have been still more welcome, if dated from Turin; but, as you
have met with no impediments so far, I trust you got out of
France as well as through it. I do hope, too, that Miss Agnes is
better, as you say; but when one is very anxious about a person,
credulity does not take long strides in proportion. I am not
surprised at your finding voiturins, or any body, or any thing,
dearer: where all credit and all control are swept away, every
man will be a tyrant in proportion to his necessities and his
strength. Societies were invented to temperate force: but it
seems force was liberty, and much good may it do the French with
being delivered from every thing but violence!--which I believe
they will soon taste pro and con.! You may make me smile by
desiring me to continue my affection. Have I so much time left
for inconstancy? For threescore years and ten I have not been
very fickle in my friendship: in all these years I never found
such a pair as you and your sister. Should I meet with a
superior pair,-but they must not be deficient in any one of the
qualities which I find in you two,-why, Perhaps, I may change;
but, with that double mortgage on my affections, I do not think
you are in much danger of losing them. You shall have timely
notice if a second couple drops out of the clouds and falls in my
way.

(708) The far-famed "Reflections on the Revolution in France;" of
which about thirty thousand copies were sold in a comparatively
short space of time.-E.

(709) A French translation, by M. Dupont, shortly after made its
appearance, and spread the reputation of the work over all
Europe. The Emperor of Germany, Catherine of Russia, and the
French Princes transmitted to Mr. Burke their warm approbation of
it, and the unfortunate Stanislaus of Poland sent him his
likeness on a gold medal.-E.

(710) The Landgrave of Furstemberg had been sent from the Emperor
Leopold to notify his being elected King of the Romans, and his
subsequent coronation as Emperor of Germany.-E.

Letter 359 To Miss Berry.
November 11, 1790. (page 460)

I had a letter from Mrs. Damer at Falmouth. She suffered much by
cold and fatigue, and probably sailed on Saturday evening last,
and may be at Lisbon by this time, as you, I trust, are in Italy.
Mr. Burke's pamphlet has quite turned Dr. Price's head. He got
upon a table at their club, toasted to our Parliament becoming a
National Assembly, and to admitting no more peers of their
assembly, having lost the only one they had. They themselves are
very like the French `Etats: two more members got on the table
(their pulpit), and broke it down: so be it!