Books: Letters of Horace Walpole, V4

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When you return, I shall lend you three volumes in quarto of
another Work,(800) With which you will be delighted. They are
state-letters in the reigns of Henry the Eighth, Mary, Elizabeth,
and James; being the correspondence of the Talbot and Howard
families, given by a Duke of Norfolk to the Herald's-office;
where they have lain for a century neglected, buried under dust,
and unknown, till discovered by a Mr. Lodge, a genealogist, who,
to gratify his passion, procured to be made a poursuivant. Oh!
how curious they are! Henry seizes an alderman who refused to
contribute to a benevolence: sends him to the army on the
borders; orders him to be exposed in the front line; and if that
does not do, to be treated with the utmost rigour of military
discipline. His daughter Bess is not less a Tudor. The mean,
unworthy treatment of the queen of Scots is striking; and you
will find Elizabeth's jealousy of her crown and her avarice were
at war, and how the more ignoble passion predominated. But the
most amusing passage is one in a private letter, as it paints the
awe of children for their parents a little differently from
modern habitudes. Mr. Talbot, second son of the Earl of
Shrewsbury, was a member of the House of Commons, and was
married. He writes to the Earl his father, and tells him, that a
young woman of a very good character, has been recommended to him
for chambermaid to his wife, and if his lordship does not
disapprove of it, he will hire her. There are many letters of
news, that are very entertaining too--but it is nine o'clock, and
I must go to Lady Cecilia's.

Friday.

The Conways, Mrs. Damer, the Farrens, and Lord Mount-Edgcumbe
supped at the Johnstones'. Lord Mount-Edgcumbe said excellently,
that "Mademoiselle D'Eon is her own widow." I wish I had seen
you both in your court-plis, at your presentation; but that is
only one wish amongst a thousand.

(795) Lady Craven; who was at this time in Italy with the
Margravine of Anspach. Lord Craven died at Lausanne in
September, and the lady was married to the Margrave in October
following.-E.

(796) Miss Martel married, in the following September, to Sir
William Hamilton-the lady, the infatuated attachment to whom has
been said to have been "the only cloud that obscured the bright
fame Of the immortal Nelson." By the following passage in a
letter, written by Romney the painter to Hagley the poet on the
19th of June, it will be seen that she had not been many days in
England, before a warm passion for her was engendered in the
breast of the artist:--"At present, and for the greatest part of
the summer, I shall be engaged in painting pictures from the
divine lady: I cannot give her any other epithet; for I think her
superior to all womankind. She asked me if you would not write
my life: I told her you had begun it-then, she said, she hoped
you would have much to say of her in the life; as she prides
herself in being my model."-E.

(797) On the first appearance of his most interesting and
instructive Life of Dr. Johnson, a considerable outcry was raised
against poor Boswell. On the subject of this outcry, Mr. Croker
in the introduction to his valuable edition of the work,
published in 1831, makes the following excellent observations:--
"Whatever doubts may have existed as to the prudence or the
propriety of the original publication--however naturally private
confidence was alarmed, or individual vanity offended--the voices
of criticism and complaint were soon drowned in the general
applause. And, no wonder; the work combines within itself the
four most entertaining classes of writing--biography, memoirs,
familiar letters, and that assemblage of literary anecdotes,
which the French have taught us to distinguish by the termination
Ana. It was a strange and fortuitous concurrence, that one so
prone to talk, and who talked so well, should be brought into
such close contact and confidence with one so zealous and so able
to record. Dr. Johnson was a man of extraordinary powers; but
Mr. Boswell had qualities, in their own way, almost as rare. He
United lively manners with indefatigable diligence, and the
volatile curiosity of a man about town with the drudging patience
of a chronicler. With a very good opinion of himself, he was
quick in discerning, and frank in applauding the excellencies of
others. His contemporaries, indeed, not without some colour of
reason, occasionally complained of him as vain, troublesome, and
giddy; but his vanity was inoffensive--his curiosity was commonly
directed towards laudable objects--when he meddled, be did so,
generally, from good-natured motives--and his giddiness was only
an exuberant gaiety, which never failed in the respect and
reverence due to literature, morals, and religion' ' and
posterity grate taste, temper, and talents with which he
selected, enjoyed, and described that polished intellectual
society which still lives in his work, and without his work had
perished!" Mr. Croker's edition of the work is the eleventh; and
since its appearance, a twelfth, in ten pocket volumes, with
embellishments has been given to the world, by Mr. Murray, of
which thousands are understood to have been called for. Whenever
Walpole, in the course of his correspondence, has had occasion to
introduce the name of Boswell, he has uniformly spoken so
disparagingly of him, that it is but justice to his memory to
append to the above extract, a passage or two, in which other
writers have recorded their estimation of him. Mr. Burke told
Sir James Mackintosh, that "he thought Johnson appeared greater
in Boswell's volumes than even in his own." Sir Walter Scott,
speaking of the Doctor, says, "he yet is, in our mind's eye, a
personification as lively as that of Siddons in Lady Macbeth, or
Kemble in Cardinal Wolsey; and all this arises from his having
found in Boswell such a biographer as no man but himself ever
had." In the opinion of the Edinburgh Reviewers, Boswell was "the
very prince of retail wits and philosophers," and his Life of
Johnson is pronounced to be "one of the best books in the world--
a great, a very great work;" while the quarterly Review considers
it "the richest dictionary of wit and wisdom, any language can
boast, and that to the influence of Boswell we owe, probably,
three-fourths of what is most entertaining, as well as no
inconsiderable portion of whatever is most instructive, in all
the books of memoirs that have subsequently appeared."-E.

(797) Dr. Johnson's attack upon Gray was undoubtedly calculated
to give great offence to Walpole: "Sir, he was dull in company,
dull in his closet, dull every where: he was dull in a new way,
and that made many people think him great: he was a mechanical
poet."-E.

(798) This was the "Letter from Mr. Burke to a member of the
National Assembly."-E.

(799) "We have had," says Mr. Burke, "the great professor and
founder of the philosophy of vanity in England. As I had good
opportunities of knowing his proceedings, almost from day to day,
he left no doubt on my mind that he entertained no principle,
either to influence his heart or to guide his understanding, but
vanity; with this vice he was possessed to a degree little short
of madness. Benevolence to the whole species, and want of
feeling for every individual with whom the professors come in
contact, form the character of the new philosophy. Setting up
for an unsocial independence, this their hero of vanity refuses
the just price of common labour, as well as the tribute which
opulence owes to genius, and which when paid, honours the giver
and the receiver: and then he pleads his beggary as an excuse for
his crimes. He melts with tenderness for those only who touch
him by the remotest relation; and then, without one natural pang,
casts away as a sort of offal and excrement, the spawn of his
disgustful amours, and sends his children to the hospital of
foundlings. The bear loves, licks, and forms her young; but
bears are not philosophers."-E.

(800) This was Lodge's "Illustrations of British History,
Biography, and Manners, in the Reigns of Henry the Eighth, Edward
the Sixth, Mary, Elizabeth and James the First;" a work which has
also been highly praised by Mr. Gifford, Sir Walter Scott, Sir
Egerton Brydges, Mr. Park, and others.-E.

Letter 381 To The Miss Berrys.
Berkeley Square, June 2, 1791. (page 504)

To the tune of the Cow with the crumpled Horn, etc.
"This is the note that nobody wrote."
"
This is the groom that carried the note that nobody wrote.

"This is Ma'am Gunning, Who was so very cunning, to examine the
groom that carried the note that nobody wrote.

"This is Ma'am Bowen, to whom it was owing,
that Miss Minify Gunning was so very cunning, to examine the
groom that carried the note that nobody wrote.

"These are the Marquisses shy of the horn, who caused the maiden
all for-Lorn, to become on a sudden so tattered and torn, that
Miss Minify Gunning was so very cunning, to examine the groom,
etc.

"These are the two Dukes, whose sharp rebukes made the two
Marquesses shy of the horn, and caused the maiden all for-Lorn,
etc.

"This is the General somewhat too bold, whose head was so hot,
though his heart was so cold; who proclaimed himself single
before it was meet, and his wife and his daughter turned into the
street, to please the Dukes, whose sharp rebukes," etc.

This is not at all new; I have heard it once or twice
imperfectly, but could not get a copy till now; and I think it
will divert you for a moment, though the heroines are as much
forgotten as Boadicea; nor have I heard of them since their
arrival at Dover.

Well! I have seen Madame d'Albany who has not a ray of royalty
about her. She has good eyes and teeth; but I think can have had
no more beauty than remains, except youth. She is civil and
easy, but German and ordinary. Lady Ailesbury made a small
assemblage for her on Monday, and my curiosity is satisfied. Mr.
Conway and Lady A., Lord and Lady Frederic Campbell, and Mrs. E.
Hervey and Mrs. Hervey, breakfasted with me that morning at
Strawberry, at the desire of the latter, who had never been
there; and whose commendations were so promiscuous, that I saw
she did not at all understand the style of the place. The day
was northeasterly and cold, and wanting rain; and I was not sorry
to return into town. I hope in five months to like staying there
much better. Mrs. Damer, who returned in such Spanish health,
has already caught an English northeastern cold; with pain in all
her limbs, and a little fever, and yesterday was not above two
hours out of her bed. Her father came to me from her before
dinner, and left her better; and I shall go to her presently;
and, this not departing till to-morrow, I hope to give you a
still more favourable account. These two days may boldly assume
the name of June, without the courtesy of England. Such weather
makes me wish myself at Strawberry, whither I shall betake myself
on Saturday.

505 Letter 382
To The Miss Berrys.
Berkeley Square, June 8, 1791.

Your No. 34, that was interrupted, and of which the last date
was of May 24th, I received on the 6th, and if I could find
fault, it would be in the length; for I do not approve of your
writing so much in hot weather, for, be it known to you ladies,
that from the first of the month, June is not more June at
Florence, My hay is crumbling away; and I have ordered it to be
cut, as a sure way of bringing rain. I have a selfish reason,
too, for remonstrating against long letters. I feel the season
advancing, when mine will be piteous short for what can I tell
you from Twickenham in the next three or four months'! Scandal
from Richmond and Hampton Court, or robberies at my own door?
The latter, indeed, are blown already. I went to Strawberry on
Saturday, to avoid the birthday crowd and squibs and crackers.
At six I drove to Lord Strafford's, where his goods are to be
sold by auction; his sister, Lady Anne,(801) intending to pull
down the house and rebuild it. I returned a quarter before
seven; and in the interim between my Gothic gate and Ashe's
nursery, a gentleman and gentlewoman, in a one-horse chair and
in the broad face of the sun, had been robbed by a single
highwayman, sans mask. Ashe's mother and sister stood and saw
it; but having no notion of a robbery at such an hour in the
high-road and before their men had left work, concluded it was
an acquaintance of the robber's. I suppose Lady Cecilia
Johnstone will not descend from her bedchamber to the
drawing-room without life-guard men. The Duke of Bedford(802)
eclipsed the whole birthday by his clothes, equipage, and
servants - six of the latter walked on' the side of the coach
to keep off the crowd-or to tempt it; for their liveries were
worth an argosie. The Prince *as gorgeous too - the latter is
to give Madame d'Albany a dinner. She has been introduced to
Mrs. Fitzherbert. You know I used to call Mrs. Cosway's(803)
concerts Charon's boat; now, methinks, London is so. I am glad
Mrs. C. is with you; she is pleasing-but surely it is odd to
drop a child and her husband and country, all in a breath! I am
glad you are disfranchised of the exiles. We have several, I
am told, hire; but I strictly confine myself to those I knew
formerly at Paris, and who all are quartered on Richmond Green.
I went to them on Sunday evening, but found them gone to Lord
Fitzwilliam's, the next house to Madame de Boufflers', to hear
his organ; whither I followed them, and returned with them.
The Comtesse Emilie played on her harp; then we all united at
loto. I went home at twelve, unrobbed; and Lord Fitzwilliam,
who asked much after you both, was to set out the next morning
for Dublin, though intending to stay there but four days, and
be back in three weeks.

I am sorry you did not hear all Monsieur do Lally
Tollendal's(804) tragedy, of which I have had a good account.
I like his tribute to his father's memory.(805) Of French
politics you must be tired; and so am I. Nothing appears to me
to promise their chaos duration; consequently, I expect more
chaos, the sediment of which is commonly despotism. Poland
ought to make the French blush-but that, they are not apt to do
on any occasion. Let us return to Strawberry. The house of
Sebright breakfasted there with me on Monday; the daughter had
given me a drawing, and I owed her a civility. Thank you for
reminding me of falls: in one sense I am more liable to them
than when you left me, for I am sensibly much weaker since my
last fit; but that weakness makes me move much slower, and
depend more on assistance. In a word, there is no care I do
not take of myself: my heart is set on installing you at
Cliveden; and it will not be my fault if I do not preserve
myself till then. If another summer is added, it will be
happiness indeed--but I am not presumptuous, and count the days
only till November. I am glad you, on your parts, repose till
your journey commences, and go not into sultry crowded lodgings
at the Ascension. I was at Venice in summer, and thought
airing on stinking ditches pestilential, after enjoying the
delicious nights on the Ponte di Trinit`a at Florence, in a
linen night-gown and a straw hat, with improvisatori. and
music, and the coffee-houses open with ices--at least, such
were the customs fifty years ago,.

The Duke of St. Albans has cut down all the brave old trees at
Hanworth, and consequently reduced his park to what it issued
from Hounslow-heath: nay, he has hired a meadow next to mine,
for the benefit of embarkation; and there lie all the good old
corpses of oaks, ashes, and chestnuts, directly before your
windows, and blocking up one of my views of the river! but so
impetuous is the rage for building, that his grace's timber
will, I trust, not annoy us long. There will soon be one
street from London to Brentford; ay, and from London to every
village ten miles round! Lord Camden has just let ground at
Kentish Town for building fourteen hundred houses--nor do I
wonder; London is, I am certain, much fuller than ever I saw
it. I have twice this spring been going to stop my coach in
Piccadilly, to inquire what was the matter, thinking there was
a mob--not at all; it was only passengers. Nor is there any
complaint of depopulation from the country: Bath shoots out
into new crescents, circuses, and squares every year:
Birmingham, Manchester, Hull, and Liverpool would serve ay King
in Europe for a capital, and would make the Empress of Russia's
mouth water. Of the war with Catherine Slay-Czar I hear not a
breath, and thence conjecture it is dozing into peace.

Mr. Dundas has kissed hands for secretary of state; and Bishop
Barrington, of Salisbury, is transferred to Durham, which he
affected not to desire, having large estates by his wife in the
south-but from
the triple-mitre downwards, it is almost always true, what I
said some years ago, that "nolo episcopari is Latin for I
lie.-- Tell it not in Gath that I say so; for I am to dine
to-morrow at the Bishop of London's, at Fulham, with Hannah
Bonner, my imprime. This morning I went with Lysons the
Reverend to see Dulwich college, founded in 1619 by Alleyn, a
player, which I had never seen in my many days. e were
received by a smart divine, tr`es bien poudr`e, and with black
satin breeches--but they are giving new wings and red satin
breeches to the good old hostel too, and destroying a gallery
with a very rich ceiling; and nothing will remain of ancient
but the front, and an hundred mouldy portraits, among apostles,
sibyls, and Kings of England. On Sunday I shall settle at
Strawberry; and then wo betide you on post-days! I cannot make
news without straw. The Johnstones are going to Bath, for the
healths of both; so Richmond will be my only staple. Adieu,
all three!

(801) Lady Anne Wentworth, married to the Right Honourable
Thomas Conolly.

(802) Francis, fifth Duke of Bedford. He died at Woburn, in
March 1802, at the early age of thirty-one; upon which event,
Mr. Fox, in moving for a new writ for Tavistock, in the room of
his brother John, who succeeded to the dukedom, pronounced an
eloquent eulogium on the deceased-the only speech he could ever
be prevailed upon to revise for publication-E.

(803) Maria Cosway, the wife of the eminent painter, and
herself distinguished for her proficience both in painting and
music. She was a native of Italy but of English parentage; and
being passionately fond of music, her soir`ees in Pall-Mall and
afterwards in Stratford-place, were attended by all the fashion
of the town. In consequence of ill-health, accompanied by her
brother, who had gained, as a student in painting, the
Academy's gold metal, she had left England for Italy; where she
remained about three years.-E

(804) The celebrated Count Lally do Tollendal. In 1789, he was
one of the most eloquent members of the Constituent Assembly;
but disapproving of the principles that prevailed, he retired
into Switzerland, Gibbon, in a letter of the 15th of December
of that year, says of him, "Lally is an amiable man of the
world, and a poet: he passes the winter here; you know how much
I prefer a quiet select society to a crowd of names and titles:
what happy countries are England and Switzerland, if they know
and preserve their happiness!" Having returned to France in
1792, he was sent to the Abbaye; whence he escaped during the
massacres which took place in the prisons in September, and
effected his retreat to England, where he found an asylum in
the house of Lord Sheffield. On the restoration of the
Bourbons, he was created a peer of France, and died in 1830.
The subject of the tragedy above alluded to was the fall of the
Earl of Strafford.-E.

(805) The unfortunate Count do Lally, governor of Pondicherry;
who, on the surrender of the place to the English in 1761, was
made prisoner of war, and sent to England. In the Chatham
Correspondence, there is a letter from him to Mr. Pitt, written
in English; in which he says, "When I shall have seen and heard
here of Mr. Pitt all I have already read of him, I shall always
remember I am his prisoner, and liberty to me, though a
Frenchman, is of an inestimable value; therefore, I earnestly
beg your interest with his Majesty to grant me leave to repair
to my native soil." The desired permission was granted; but no
sooner had he reached Paris, than he was thrown into the
Bastille, and after being confined several years, brought to
trial for treachery and found guilty. When his sentence was
pronounced, "the excess of his indignation," says Voltaire, "
was equal to his astonishment: he inveighed against his judges,
and, holding in his hand a pair of compasses, which he used for
tracing maps in his prison, he struck it against his heart; but
the blow was not sufficient to take away life; he was dragged
into a dung-cart, with a gag in his mouth, lest, being
conscious of his innocence, he should convince the Spectators
of the injustice of his fate." Madame du Deffand, in giving to
Walpole, on the 10th of January 1766, an account of this
horrible scene, having stated, that the populace "battait des
mains pendant l'ex`ecution," he returned her an answer, in a
high degree honourable to his moral feeling:--"Ah! Madame,
Madame, quelles horreurs me racontez-vous la! Qu'on ne dise
jamais que les Anglais sent durs et f`eroces. Veritablement ce
sent les Fran`cais qui le sent, Oui, oui, vous `etes des
sauvages, des Iroquois, vous autres. On a bien massacr`e des
gens chez nous, mais a-t-on jamais vu battre des Mains pendant
qu'on mettait `a mort un pauvre malheureux, un officier
general, qui avait langui pendant deux ans en prison? un homme
enfin si sensible `a l'honneur, qu'il n'avait pas voulu se
sauver! si touch`e de la disgrace qu'il chercha `a avaler les
grilles de sa prison plut`ot que de se voir expos`e `a
l'ignominie publique; et c'est exactement cette honn`ete pudeur
qui fait qu'on le traine dans un tombereau, et qu'on lui met un
baillon `a la bouche comme au dernier des sc`elerats. Mon
Dieu! que je suis aise d'avoir quitt`e Paris avant cette
horrible sc`ene! je me serais fait d`echirer, ou mettre `a la
Bastille."-E.

Letter 383 To The Miss Berrys.

Strawberry Hill, June 14, 1791.(page 508)

I pity you! what a dozen or fifteen uninteresting letters are
you
going to receive! for here I am, unlikely to have any thing to
tell you worth sending. You had better come back
incontinently-but pray do not prophesy any more; you have been
the death of our summer, and we are in close mourning for it in
coals and ashes. It froze hard last night: I went out for a
moment to look at my haymakers, and was starved. The contents
of
an English June are, hay and ice, orange-flowers and
rheumatisms!
I am now cowering over the fire. Mrs. Hobart had announced a
rural breakfast at Sans-Souci last Saturday; nothing being so
pastoral as a fat grandmother in a row of houses on Ham Common.
It rained early in the morning: she despatched postboys, for
want
of Cupids and zephyrs, to stop the nymphs and shepherds who
tend
their flocks in Pall-Mall and St. James's- street; but half of
them missed the couriers and arrived. Mrs. Montagu was more
splendid yesterday morning, and breakfasted seven hundred
persons
on opening her great room, and the room with the hangings of
feathers. The King and Queen had been with her last week. I
should like to have heard the orations she had prepared on the
occasion. I was neither City-mouse nor country-mouse. I did
dine at Fulham on Saturday with the Bishop of London: Mrs.
Boscawen, Mrs. Garrick, and Hannah More were there; and Dr.
Beattie, whom I had never seen. He is quiet, simple, and
cheerful, and pleased me. There ends my tale, this instant,
Tuesday! How shall I fill a couple of pages more by Friday
morning! Oh! ye ladies on the Common, and ye uncommon ladies in
London, have pity on a poor gazetteer, and supply me with
eclogues or royal panegyrics Moreover--or rather more under--I
have had no letter from you these ten days, though the east
wind
has been as constant as Lord Derby. I say not this in
reproach,
as you are so kindly punctual; but as it stints me from having
a
single paragraph to answer. I do not admire specific responses
to every article; but they are great resources on a dearth.

Madame de Boufflers is ill of a fever, and the Duchess de
Biron(806) goes next week to Switzerland:--mais qu'est que cela
vous fait? I must eke out this with a few passages that I think
will divert you, from the heaviest of all books, Mr. Malone's
Shakspeare, in ten thick octavos, with notes, that are an
extract
of all the opium that is spread through the works of all the
bad
playwrights of that age. Mercy on the poor gentleman's
patience!
Amongst his other indefatigable researches he has discovered
some
lists of effects in the custody of the property-man to the Lord
Admiral's company of players, in 1598. Of those effects he has
given eight pages-you shall be off for a few items; viz. "My
Lord Caffe's [Caiaphas's] gercheri [jerkin] and his hoose
[hose];
one rocke, one tombe, one Hellemought [Hell-mouth], two
stepelles
and one chyme of belles, one chaine of Dragons, two coffines,
one
bulle's head, one vylter, one goste's crown, and one frame for
the heading of black Jone; one payer of stayers for Fayeton,
and
bowght a robe for to goo invisabell." The pair of stairs for
Phaeton reminds one of Hogarth's Strollers dressing in a barn,
where Cupid on a ladder is reaching Apollo's stockings, that
are
hanging to dry on the clouds; as the steeples do of a story in
L'Histoire du Th`eatre Fran`cois: Jodelet, who not only wrote
plays, but invented the decorations, was to exhibit of both
before Henry the Third. One scene was to represent a view of
the
sea, and Jodelet had bespoken two rochers; but not having time
to
rehearse, what did he behold enter on either side of the stage,
instead of two rochers, but two clochers! Who knows but my Lord
Admiral bought them?