Books: Letters of Horace Walpole, V4

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The Marquisate(711) is just where it was--to be and not to be.
The Duchess of Argyll is said to be worse. Della Crusca(712) has
published a poem, called "The Laurel of Liberty," which, like the
Enrag`es, has confounded and overturned all ideas. There are
gossamery tears and silky oceans--the first time, to be sure,
that any body ever cried cobwebs, or that the sea was made of
paduasoy.(713) There is, besides, a violent tirade against a
considerable personage, who, it is supposed, the author was
jealous of, as too much favoured a few years ago by a certain
Countess. You may guess why I am not more explicit: for the same
reason I beg YOU not to mention it at all; it would be
exceedingly improper. As the Parliament will meet in a
fortnight, and the town be plumper, my letters may grow more
amusing; though, unless the weather grows worse, I shall not
contribute my leanness to its embonpoint. Adieu!

(711) Meaning the reported marriage of Miss Gunning to the
Marquis of Blandford.-B.

(712) Robert Merry, Esq. who, at this time, wrote in the
newspapers under this signature, and thereby became the object of
the caustic satire of the author of the Baviad and Maviad--

"Lo, Della Crusca in his closet pent,
He toils to give the crude conception vent
Abortive thoughts, that right and wrong confound,
Truth sacrific'd to letters, sense to sound;
False glare, incongruous images combine,
And noise and nonsense chatter through the line."-E.

(713) Besides the above, Mr. Gifford instances, from the same
poem, "moody monarchs, radiant rivers, cooling cataracts, lazy
Loires, gay Garonnes, glossy glass, mingling murder, dauntless
day, lettered lightnings, delicious dilatings, sinking sorrows,
real reasoning, meliorating mercies, dewy vapours damp that sweep
the silent swamps, etc. etc."-E.

Letter 360 To The Miss Berrys.
Strawberry Hill, Thursday, Nov. 18, 1790. (page 461)

On Tuesday morning, after my letter was gone to the post, I
received yours of the 2d (as I have all the rest) from Turin, and
it gave me very little of the joy I had so much meditated to
receive from a letter thence. And why did not it?-because I had
got one on Saturday, which anticipated and augmented all the
satisfaction I had allotted for Turin. You will find my
Tuesday's letter, if ever you receive it, intoxicated with
Chamberry; for which, and all your kind punctuality, I give you a
million of thanks. But how cruel to find that you found none of
my letters at Turin! There ought to have been two at least, of
October the 16th and 19th. I have since directed one thither of
the 25th; but alas! from ignorance, there was par Paris on none
of them; and the Lord knows at how many little German courts they
may have been baiting! I shall put par Paris on this; but beg you
will tell me, as soon as you can, which route is the shortest and
the safest; that is, by which you are most likely to receive
them. You do me justice in concluding there has been no
negligence of mine in the case; indeed, I have been ashamed of
the multiplicity of my letters, when I had scarce any thing to
tell you but
my own anxiety to hear of your being quietly settled at Florence,
out of the reach of all commotions. And how could I but dread
your being molested by some accident, in the present state of
France! and how could your healths mend in bad inns, and till you
can repose somewhere? Repose you will have at Florence, but I
shall fear the winter for you there: I suffered more by cold
there, than by any place in my life; and never came home at night
without a pain in my breast, which I never felt elsewhere, yet
then I was very young and in perfect health. If either of you
suffer there in any shape, I hope you will retire to Pisa.

My inquietude, that presented so many alarms to me before you set
out, has, I find, and am grieved for it, not been quite in the
Wrong. Some inconveniences I am persuaded you have sunk: yet the
difficulty of landing at Dieppe, and the ransack of your poor
harmless trunks at Bourgoin, and the wretched lodgings with which
you were forced to take up at Turin, count deeply with me: and I
had much rather have lost all credit as a prophet, since I could
not prevent your journey. May it answer for your healths! I
doubt it will not in any other respect, as you have already found
by the voiturins. In point of pleasure, is it possible to divest
myself so radically of all self-love as to wish you may find
Italy as agreeable as you di formerly? In all other lights, I do
most fervently hope there will he no drawbacks on your plan.
Should you be disappointed in any way, you know what a warm heart
is open to receive you back; and so will your own Cliveden(714)
be too.

I am glad you met the Bishop of Arras,(715) and am much pleased
that he remembers me. I saw him very frequently at my dear old
friend's,.(716) and liked him the best of all Frenchmen I ever
knew. He is extremely sensible, easy, lively, and void of
prejudices. Should he fall in your way again, I beg you will
tell him how sincere a regard I have for him. He lived in the
strictest union with his brother, the Archbishop of Tours, whom I
was much less acquainted with, nor know if he be living.

I have heard nothing since my Tuesday's letter. As I still hope
its predecessors will reach you, I will not repeat the trifling
scraps of news I have sent you in them. In fact, this is only a
trial whether par Paris is a better passport than a direction
without it; but I am grievously sorry to find difficulty of
correspondence superadded to the vexation of losing you. Writing
to you was grown my chief occupation. I wish. Europe and its
broils were in the East Indies, if they embarrass us quiet folks,
who have nothing to do with their squabbles. The Duchess of
Gloucester, who called on me yesterday, charged me to give her
compliments to you both. Miss Foldson(717) has not yet sent me
your pictures: I was in town on Monday, and sent to reproach her
with having twice broken her promise; her mother told my servant
that Miss was at Windsor, drawing the Queen and Princesses. That
is not the work of a Moment. I am glad all the Princes are not
on the spot.

I think of continuing here till the weather grows very bad; which
it has not been at all yet, though not equal to what I am
rejoiced you have found. I have no Somerset or Audley-street to
receive me: Mrs. Damer is gone too. The Conways remain at
Park-place till after Christmas; It is entirely out of fashion
for women to grow old and stay at home in an evening. They
invite you, indeed, now and then, but do not expect to see you
till near midnight; which is rather too late to begin the day,
unless one was born but twenty years ago. I do not condemn any
fashions, which the young ought to set, for the old certainly
ought not; but an oak that has been going on in its old way for
an hundred years, cannot shoot into a May-pole in three years,
because it is the mode to plant Lombardy poplars.

What I should have suffered, if your letters, like mine, had
wandered through Germany! I, you was sure, had written, and was
in no danger. Dr. Price, who had whetted his ancient talons last
year to no purpose, has had them all drawn by Burke, and the
Revolution Club is as much exploded as the Cock-lane Ghost; but
you, in order to pass a quiet winter in Italy, would pass through
a fiery furnace. Fortunately, you have not been singed, and the
letter from Chamberry has composed all my panics, but has by no
means convinced me that I was not perfectly in the right to
endeavour to keep you at home. One does not put one's hand in
the fire to burn off a hangnail; and, though health is
delightful, neither of you were out of order enough to make a
rash experiment. I Would not be so absurd as to revert to old
arguments, that happily proved no prophecies, if my great anxiety
about you did not wish, in time, to persuade you to return
through Switzerland and Flanders, if the latter is pacified and
France is not; of which I see no likelihood.

Pray forgive me, if parts of my letters are sometimes tiresome;
but can I appear only always cheerful when you two are absent,
and have another long journey to make, ay, and the sea to cross
again? My fears cannot go to sleep like a paroli at faro till
there is a new deal, in which even then I should not be sure of
winning. If I see you again, I will think I have gained another
milleleva, as I literally once did; with this exception, that I
was vehemently against risking a doit at the game of travelling.
Adieu!

(714) Little Strawberry Hill, which he had then thus named.

(715) M. de Conzies. This amiable prelate declined, in 1801, the
Parisian archiepiscopacy, proffered him by Buonaparte, and died
in London, in December 1804, in the arms of Monsieur, afterwards
Charles the Tenth.-E.

(716) Madame du Deffand.

)717 Afterwards Mrs. Mee.

Letter 361 To The Miss Berrys.
Strawberry Hill, Friday night, Nov. 27, 1790. (page 463)

I am waiting for a letter from Florence, not with perfect
patience, though I could barely have one, even if you did arrive,
as you intended, on the 12th; but twenty temptations might have
occurred to detain you in that land of eye and ear sight; my
chief eagerness is to learn that you have received at least some
of my letters. I wish too to know, though I cannot yet, whether
you would have me direct Par Paris, or as I did before. In this
state of uncertainty I did not prepare this to depart this
morning; nor, though the Parliament met yesterday, have I a
syllable of news for you, as there will be no debate till all the
members have been sworn, which takes two or three days.
Moreover, I am still here: the weather, though very rainy, is
quite warm; and I have much more agreeable society at Richmond,
with small companies and better hours, than in town, and shall
have till after Christmas, unless great cold drives me thither.
Lady Di, Selwyn, the Penns, the Onslows, Douglases, Mackinsys,
Keenes, Lady Mount-Edgcumbe, all stay, and Some of them meet
every evening. The Boufflers too are constantly invited, and the
Comtesse Emilie sometimes carries her harp, on which they say she
plays better than Orpheus; but as I never heard him on earth, nor
chez Proserpine, I do not pretend to decide. Lord
Fitzwilliam(718) has been here too; but was in the utmost danger
of being lost on Saturday night, in a violent storm between
Calais and Dover, as the captain confessed to him when they were
landed. Do you think I did not ache at the recollection of a
certain Tuesday when you were sailing to Dieppe?

(718) Richard, seventh and last Viscount Fitzwilliam, the
munificent benefactor to the University of Cambridge. He died in
1816.-E.

Letter 362 To Miss Agnes Berry.
Strawberry Hill, Sunday, Nov. 29, 1790. (page 464)

Though I write to both at once, and reckon your letters to come
equally from both, yet I delight in seeing your hand with a pen
as well as with a pencil, and you express yourself as well with
the one as with the other. Your part in that which I have been
so happy as to receive this moment, has singularly obliged me, by
your having saved me the terror of knowing you had a torrent to
cross after heavy rain. No cat is so afraid of water for
herself, as I am grown to be for you. That panic, which will
last for many months, adds to my fervent desire of your returning
early in the autumn, that you may have neither fresh water nor
the "silky" ocean to cross in winter. Precious as our insular
situation is, I am ready to wish with the Frenchman, that you
could somehow or other get to it by land,-- Oui, c'est une isle
toujours, je le sais bien; mais, par exemple, en allant
d'alentour, n'y auroit-il pas moyen d'y arriver par terre?"

Correggio never pleased me in proportion to his fame; his grace
touches upon grimace; the mouth of the beautiful Angel at Parma
curls up almost into a half-moon. Still I prefer Corregio to the
lourd want of grace in Guereino, who is to me a German edition of
Guido. I am sorry the bookseller would not let you have an
Otranto. Edwards told me, above two months ago, that he every
day expected the whole impression; and he has never mentioned it
waiting for my corrections. I will make Kirgate write to him,
for I have told you that I am still here. We have had much rain,
but no flood; and yesterday and to-day have exhibited Florentine
skies.

>From town I know nothing; but that on Friday, after the King's
speech, Earl Stanhope made a most frantic speech on the National
Assembly and against Calonne's book, which he wanted to have
taken up for high treason.(719) He was every minute interrupted
by loud bursts of laughter; which was all the answer he received
or deserved. His suffragan Price has published a short, sneaking
equivocal answer to Burke, in which he pretends his triumph over
the King of France alluded to July, not to October, though his
sermon was preached in November. Gredat--but not Judaeus Apella,
as Mr. Burke so wittily says of the assignats.(720) Mr.
Grenville, the secretary of state, is made a peer, they say to
assist the Chancellor in the House of Lords: yet the papers
pretend the Chancellor is out of humour, and will resign the
first may be true, the latter probably not.(721)

Richmond, my metropolis, flourishes exceedingly. The Duke of
Clarence arrived at his palace there last night, between eleven
and twelve, as I came from Lady Douglas. His eldest brother and
Mrs. Fitzherbert dine there to-day with the Duke Of Queensbury,
as his grace, who called here this morning, told me, on the very
spot where lived Charles the First, and where are the portraits
of his principal courtiers from Cornbury. Queensbury has taken
to that palace at last, and has frequently company and music
there in an evening. I intend to go.

I suppose none of my Florentine acquaintance are still upon
earth. The handsomest woman there, of my days, was a Madame
Grifoni, my fair Geraldine: she would now be a Methusalemess, and
much more like a frightful picture I have of her by a one-eyed
German painter. I lived then with Sir Horace Mann, in Casa
Mannetti in Via de' Santi Apostoli, by the Ponte di Trinit`a.
Pray, worship the works of Masaccio, if any remain; though I
think the best have been burnt in a church. Raphael himself
borrowed from him. Fra Bartolomeo, too, is one of my standards
for great ideas; and Benvenuto Cellini's Perseus a rival of the
antique, though Mrs. Damer will not allow it. Over against the
Perseus is a beautiful small front of a house, with only three
windows, designed by Raphael; and another, I think, near the
Porta San Gallo, and I believe called Casa Panciatici or
Pandolfini.

(719) in the report of Lord Stanbope's speech, as it is given in
the Parliamentary History, there is no expression of a wish that
M. Calonne should be ,taken up for high treason." What the noble
Earl said was, that the assertion that a civil war would meet
with the support of all the crowned heads in Europe was a
scandalous libel on the King of England, and might endanger the
lives of many natives of Scotland and Ireland then residing in
France.-E.

(720) "The Assembly made in their speeches a sort of swaggering
declaration, something, I rather think, above legislative
competence; that is, that there is no difference in value between
metallic money and their assignats. This was a good, stout proof
article of faith, pronounced under an anathema, by the venerable
fathers of this philosophic synod. Gredat who will certainly not

Judaeus Apella."-E.

(721) In Mr. Wilberforce's Diary for this year there appears the
following entry:-"Nov- 22. Dined with Mr. Pitt. He told me of
Grenville's peerage and the true reasons--distrust of Lord
Thurlow. Saw Thurlow's answer to the news. Gave Pitt a serious
word or two." See Life, vol. i. p. 284.-E.

Letter 363 To The Miss Berrys.
Strawberry Hill, Dec. 20, 1790; very late at night. (page 465)

The French packet that was said to be lost on Tuesday last, and
which did hang out signals of distress, was saved, but did not
bring any letters; but three Flemish mails that were due are
arrived, and did bring letters, and, to my inexpressible joy, two
from you of the 22d and 29th of the last month, telling Me that
you have received as far as No. 4 and 5 of mine. Thank all the
stars in Herschell's telescope, or beyond its reach, that our
correspondence is out of the reach of France and all its ravages!
Thank you a million of times for all your details about
yourselves When even the apprehension of any danger disquiets me
so much, judge whether I do not interest myself in every
particular of your pleasures and amusements! Florence was my
delight, as it is yours but, I don't know how, I wish you did not
like it quite so much and, after the gallery. how will any
silver-penny of a gallery look? Indeed, for your Boboli, which I
thought horrible even fifty years ago, before shepherds had seen
the star of taste in the west, and glad tidings were proclaimed
to their flocks, I do think there is not an acre on the banks of
the Thames that should vail the bonnet to it.

Of Mr. Burke's book, if I have not yet told you my opinion, I do
now: that it is one of the finest compositions in print. There
is reason, logic, wit, truth. eloquence, and enthusiasm in the
brightest colours. That it has given a mortal stab to sedition,
I believe and hope; because the fury of the Brabanters,-whom,
however, as having been aggrieved, I pitied and distinguish
totally from the savage Gauls, -and the unmitigated and execrable
injustices of the latter, have made almost any state preferable
to such anarchy and desolation, that increases every day.
Admiring thus, as I do, I am very far from subscribing to the
extent of almost all Mr. Burke's principles. The work, I have no
doubt, will hereafter be applied to support very high doctrines;
and to you I will say, that I think it an Apocrypha, that, in
many a council of Bishops, will be added to the Old Testament.
Still, such an Almanzor was wanting at this crisis; and his foes
show how deeply they are wounded, by their abusive pamphlets.
Their Amazonian allies, headed by Kate Macaulay(722) and the
virago Barbauld, whom Mr. Burke calls our poissardes, spit their
rage at eighteenpence a head, and will return to Fleet-ditch,
more fortunate in being forgotten than their predecessors,
immortalized in the Dunciad. I must now bid you good-night; and
night it is, to the tune of morning. Adieu, all three!

(722) A pamphlet, entitled "Observations on the Reflections of
the Right Hon. Edmund Burke on the Revolution in France; in a
Letter to Earl Stanhope," was attributed to Mrs. Macaulay.-E.

Letter 364 To Miss Berry.
Berkeley Square, Saturday, Jan. 22, 1791. (page 466)

I have been most unwillingly forced to send you such bad accounts
of myself by my two last letters; but, as I could not conceal
all, it was best to tell you the whole truth. Though I do not
know that there was any real danger, I could not be so blind to
my own age and weakness as not to think that, with so much gout
an fever, the conclusion might very probably be fatal: and
therefore it was better
you should be prepared for what might happen. The danger appears
to be entirely over: there seems to be no more gout to come. I
have no fever, have a very good appetite, and sleep well. Mr.
Watson,(723) who is all tenderness and attention, is persuaded
to-day that I shall recover the use of my left hand ; of which I
despaired much more than of the right, as having been seized
three weeks earlier. Emaciated and altered I am incredibly, as
you would find were you ever to see me again. But this illness
has dispelled all visions ; and, as I have little prospect of
passing another happy autumn, I Must wean myself from whatever
would embitter my remaining time by disappointments.

Your No. 15 came two days ago, and gives me the pleasure of
knowing that you both are the better for riding, which I hope you
will continue. I am glad, too, that you are pleased with your
Duchess of Fleury and your Latin professor: but I own, except
your climate and the six hundred camels, you seem to me to have
met with no treasure which you might not have found here without
going twenty miles: and even the camels, according to Soame
Jenyns' spelling, were to be had from Carrick and other places.

I doubt you apply Tully de Amicitia too favourably: at least, I
fear there is no paragraph that countenances 73 and 27.

Monday, the 24th.

I think I shall give you pleasure by telling you that I am very
sure now of recovering from the present fit. It has almost
always happened to me, in my considerable fits of the gout, to
have one critical night that celebrates its departure: at the end
of two different fits I each time slept eleven hours. Morpheus
is not quite so young nor so generous now ; but, with the
interruption of a few minutes, he presented me with eight hours
last night: and thence I shall date my recovery. I shall now
begin to let in a little company; and, as the Parliament will
meet in a week, my letters will probably not be so dull as they
have been; nor shall I have occasion, nor be obliged, to talk so
much of myself, of which I am sure others must be tired, when I
am so much tired myself.

Tuesday, the 25th.

Old Mrs. French(724) is dead at last, and I am on the point of
losing, or have lost, my oldest acquaintance and friend, George
Selwyn, who was yesterday at the extremity. These misfortunes,
though they can be so but for a short time, are very sensible to
the old; but him I really loved, not only for his infinite wit,
but for a thousand good qualities. Lady Cecilia Johnstone was
here yesterday. I said much for you, and she as much to you.
The Gunnings are still playing the fool, and perhaps somebody
with them; but I cannot tell you the particulars now. Adieu!

(723) His surgeon.

(724) An Irish lady, who, during the latter part of her life, had
a country house at Hampton Court.

Letter 365 To The Miss Berrys.
Saturday, Jan. 29, 1791. (page 468)

Voici de ma propre `ecriture! the best proof that I am
recovering, though not rapidly, which is not the march of my time
of life. For n these last six days I have mended more than I
expected. My left hand, the first seized, is the most dilatory,
and of which I have least hopes. The rheumatism, that I thought
so clear and predominant, is so entirely gone, that I now rather
think it was hussar-gout attacking in flying squadrons the
outposts. No matter which, very ill I was ; and you might see
what I thought of myself: nor can I stand many such victories.
My countenance was so totally altered, that I could not trace it
myself. Its outlines have returned to their posts, though with
deep gaps. This is a true picture, and too long an one of self;
and too hideous for a bracelet. Apropos, your sweet Miss
Foldson, I believe, is painting portraits of all our Princesses,
to be sent to all the Princes upon earth ; for, though I have
sent her several written duns, she has not deigned even to answer
one in writing. I don't know whether Mrs. Buller is not
appointed Royal Academician too; for, though I desired the
"Charming-man," who was to dine with her that day, to tell her,
above a week ago, that I should be glad to see her, she has not
taken the least notice of it. Mr. Batt, ditto; who was at
Cambridge's when I was at the worst, and knew so, has not once
inquired after me, in town or country. So you see you have
carried off your friends from me as well as yourselves: and it is
not them I regret; or rather, in fact, I outlive all my friends!
Poor Selwyn is gone, to my sorrow; and no wonder Ucalegon feels
it!(725) He has left about thirty thousand pounds to
Mademoiselle Fagniani;(726) twenty of which, if she has no
children, to go to those of Lord Carlisle ; the Duke of
Queensberry residuary legatee. Old French has died as foolishly
as she lived, and left six thousand pounds to you don't know whom
; but to be raised out of her judicious collection of trumpery
pictures, etc.

Pray, delight in the following story: Caroline Vernon, fille
d'honneur, lost t'other night two hundred pounds at faro, and
babe Martindale mark it up. He said he had rather have a draft
on her banker. "oh! willingly;" and she gave him one. Next
morning he hurried to Drummond's, lest all her money should be
drawn out. said the clerk, "would you receive the contents
immediately?" "Assuredly." "why, Sir, have you read the note?"
Martindale took it; it was, "Pay to the bearer two hundred blows,
well applied." The nymph tells the story herself; and yet I think
the clerk had the more humour of the two.

The Gunninghiad(727) draws to a conclusion. The General, a few
weeks ago, to prove the equality of his daughter to any match,
literally put into the newspapers, that he himself is the
thirty-second descendant in a line from Charlemagne;--oui,
vraiment! Yet he had better have, like Prior's Madam,