Elbert Hubbard - "Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6"

George Gissing - "Our Friend the Charlatan"

Alexandre Dumas, Pere - "The Man in the Iron Mask"

William Wordsworth - "Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2"

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Books: Letters of Horace Walpole, V4

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




As lieutenant-general of the ordnance, I must beseech you to
give strict order that no more powder-mills may blow up. My
aunt, Mrs. Kerwood, reading one day in the papers that a
distiller's had been burnt by the head of the still flying off,
said, she wondered they did not make an act of parliament
against the heads of stills flying off. Now, I hold it much
easier for you to do a body this service; and would recommend
to your consideration whether it would not be prudent to have
all magazines of powder kept under water till they are wanted
for service. In the mean time, I expect a pension to make me
amends for what I have suffered under the government. Adieu!
Yours.

(68) Three powder-mills blew up on Hounslow-heath, on the 6th
of January, when such was the violence of the explosion that it
was felt not only in the metropolis, but as far as Gloucester,
and was very generally mistaken for the shock of an
earthquake.-E.



Letter 40 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, Jan. 28, 1772. (page 65)


It is long indeed, dear Sir, since we corresponded. I should
not have been silent if I had had any thing worth telling you
in your way: but I grow such an antiquity myself, that I think
I am less fond of what remains of our predecessors.

I thank you for Bannerman's proposal; I mean, for taking the
trouble to send it, for I am not at all disposed to subscribe.
I thank you more for the note on King Edward; I mean, too, for
your friendship in thinking of me. Of Dean Milles I cannot
trouble myself to think any more. His piece is at Strawberry:
perhaps I may look at it for the sake of your note. The bad
weather keeps me in town, and a good deal at home; which I find
very comfortable, literally practising what so many persons
pretend they intend, being quiet and enjoying my fireside in my
elderly days.

Mr. Mason has shown me the relics of poor Mr. Gray. I am sadly
disappointed at finding them so very inconsiderable. He always
persisted, when I inquired about his writings, that he had
nothing by him. I own I doubted. I am grieved he was so very
near exact--I speak of my own satisfaction; as to his genius,
what he published during his life will establish his fame as
long as our language lasts, and there is a man of genius left.
There is a silly fellow, I do not know who, that has published
a volume of Letters on the English Nation, With characters of
our modern authors. He has talked such nonsense On Mr. Gray,
that I have no patience with the compliments he has paid me.
He must have an excellent taste; and gives me a woful opinion
of my own trifles, when he likes them, and cannot see the
beauties of a poet that ought to be ranked in the first line.
I am more humbled by any applause in the present age, than by
hosts of such critics as Dean Milles. Is not Garrick reckoned
a tolerable author, though he has proved how little sense is
necessary to form a great actor'? His Cymon, his prologues and
epilogues, and forty such pieces of trash, are below
mediocrity, and yet delight the mob in the boxes as well as in
the footman's gallery. I do not mention the things written in
his praise; because he writes most Of them himself! But you
know any one popular merit can confer all merit. Two women
talking Of Wilkes, one said he squinted--t'other replied,
"Squints!--well, if he does, it is not more than a man should
squint." For my part, I can see how extremely well Garrick
acts, without thinking him six feet high. It is said
Shakspeare was a bad actor; why do not his divine plays make
our wise judges conclude that he was a good one? They have not
a proof of the contrary, as they have in Garrick's works--but
what is it to you or me what he is? We may see him act with
pleasure, and nothing obliges us to read his writings.(69)

(69) The best defence of Garrick against the charges which
Walpole so repeatedly brings against him will be found in the
estimation in which he was held by the most distinguished of
his contemporaries. His friend Dr. Johnson thought well of'
his talent in prologue writing: "Dryden," he said, "has written
prologues superior to any that David has written; but David has
written more good prologues than Dryden has done. It is
wonderful that he has been able to write such variety of them.
A true conception of character and natural expression of it,
were his distinguished excellences; but I thought him less to
be envied on the stage than at the head of a table. He was the
first man in the world for sprightly conversation."-E.



Letter 41 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, June 9, 1772. (page 66)

Dear sir,
The preceding paper(70) was given me by a gentleman, who has a
better opinion of my bookhood than I deserve. I could give him
no satisfaction, but told him, I would get inquiry made at
Cambridge for the pieces he wants. If you can give any
assistance in this chase, I am sure you will: as it will be
trouble enough, I will not make my letter longer.

(70) This letter enclosed some queries from a gentleman abroad,
respecting books, etc. relating to the order of Malta.



Letter 42 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, June 17, 1772. (page 66)

Dear sir,
You are a mine that answers beyond those of Peru. I have given
the treasure you sent me to the gentleman from whom I had the
queries. He is vastly obliged to you, and I am sure so am I,
for the trouble you have given yourself"and, therefore I am
going to give you more. King Edward's Letters are printed.(71)
Shall I keep them for you or send them, and how? I intend you
four copies--shall you want more? Lord Ossory takes a hundred,
and I have as many; but none will be sold.

I am out of materials for my press. I am thinking of printing
some numbers of miscellaneous MSS. from my own and Mr. Gray's
collection. If you have any among your stores that are
historic, new and curious, and like to have them printed, I
shall be glad of them. Among Gray's are letters of Sir Thomas
Wyat the elder.(72) I am sure you must have a thousand hints
about him. If you will send them to me I will do you justice;
as you will see I have in King Edward's Letters. Do you know
any thing of his son,(73) the insurgent, in Queen Mary's reign?

I do not know whether it was not to Payne the bookseller, but I
am sure I gave somebody a very few notes to the British
Topography. They were indeed of very little consequence.

I have got to-day, and am reading with entertainment, two vols.
in octavo, the Lives of Leland, Hearne, and Antony Wood.,(74)
I do not know the author, but he is of Oxford. I think you
should add that of your friend Brown Willis.(75) There is a
queer piece on Freemasonry in one of the volumes, said to be
written, on very slender authority, by Henry VI. with notes by
Mr. Locke: a very odd conjunction! It says that Arts were
brought from the East by Peter Gower. As I am sure you will
not find an account of this singular person in all your
collections, be it known to you, that Peter Gower was commonly
called Pythagoras. I remember our newspapers insisting that
Thomas Kouli Khan was an Irishman, and that his true name was
Thomas Callaghan.

On reading over my letter, I find I am no sceptic, having
affirmed no less than four times, that I am sure. Though this
is extremely awkward, I am sure I will not write my letter over
again; so pray excuse or burn my tautology.

P. S. I had like to have forgotten the most obliging, and to me
the most interesting part of your letter-your kind offer of
coming hither. I accept it most gladly; but, for reasons I
will tell you, wish it may be deferred a little. I am going to
Park-place (General Conway's), then to Ampthill (Lord
Ossory's), and then to Goodwood (Duke of Richmond's); and the
beginning of August to Wentworth Castle (Marquis of
Rockingham's); so that I shall not be at all settled here till
the end of the latter month. But I have a stronger reason. By
that time will be finished a delightful chapel I am building in
my garden, to contain the shrine of Capoccio, and the Window
with Henry III. and his Queen. My new bedchamber will be
finished too, which is now all in litter: and, besides,
September is a quiet month; visits to make or receive are over,
and the troublesome go to shoot partridges. If that time suits
you, pray assure me I shall see you on the first of September.

(71) "Copies of seven original Letters from King Edward VI. to
Barnaby Fitzpatrick." Strawberry Hill, 1772.-E.

(72) He was the contemporary and friend of Surrey, and was
accused by Henry VIII. of being the paramour of Anne Boleyn;
but the King's suspicion dying away, he was appointed, in 1537,
Henry's ambassador to the Emperor. His poems have recently
been published in the Aldine edition of the Poets; and in the
Biographical Preface to them are included some of his admirable
letters.-E.

(73) Sir Thomas Wyatt "the younger," son of the preceding, who
is presumed to have received that designation from having been
knighted in the lifetime of his father. Having joined in the
effort to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne, he was condemned
and executed for high treason, on the 11th of April 1554.-E.

(74) The editor was W. Huddersford, fellow of Trinity
College.-E.

(74) Browne Willis, the antiquary, and author of "A Survey of
the Cathedrals of England;" "Notitia Parliamentaria," etc. He
was born at Blandford in 1682, and died in February 1760. Dr.
Ducarel printed privately, immediately after his death, a small
quarto pamphlet, entitled " Some Account Of Browne Willis, Esq.
LL. D." One of Willis's peculiarities was his fondness for
visiting cathedrals on the saints, days to which they were
dedicated.-E.



Letter 43 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Monday, June 22, 1772. (page 68)

It is lucky that I have had no dealings with Mr. Fordyce;(75)
for, if he had ruined me, as he has half the world, I could not
have run away. I tired myself with walking on Friday: the gout
came on Saturday in my foot; yesterday I kept my bed till four
o'clock, and my room all day-but, with wrapping myself all over
with bootikins, have scarce had any pain-my foot swelled
immediately, and today I am descended into the blueth and
greenth:(76) and though you expect to find that I am paving the
way to an excuse, I think I shall be able to be with you on
Saturday. All I intend to excuse myself from, is walking. I
should certainly never have the gout, if I had lost the use of
my feet. Cherubims that have no legs, and do nothing but stick
their chins in a cloud and sing, are never out of order.
Exercise is the worst thing in the world, and as bad an
invention as gunpowder.

Apropos to Mr. Fordyce, here is a passage ridiculously
applicable to him, that I met with yesterday in the letters of
Guy Patin: "Il n'y a pas long-temps qu'un auditeur des comptes
nomm`e Mons. Nivelle fit banqueroute; et tout fra`ichement,
c'est-`a-dire depuis trois jours, un tr`esorier des parties
casuelles, nomm`e SanSon, en a fait autant; et pour vous
montrer qu'il est vrai que res humanae faciunt circulum, comme
il a `et`e autrefois dit par Plato et par Aristote, celui-l`a
s'en retourne d'o`u il vient. Il est fils d'un paysan; il a
`et`e laquais de son premier m`etier, et aujourd'hui il n'est
plus rien, si non qu'il lui reste une assez belle femme."--I do
not think I can find in Patin or Plato, nay, nor in Aristotle,
though he wrote about every thing, a parallel case to Charles
Fox:(77) there are advertised to be sold more annuities of his
and his society, to the amount of five hundred thousand pounds
a-year! I wonder what he will do next, when he has sold the
estates of all his friends!

I have been reading the most delightful book in the world, the
Lives of Leland, Tom earne, and Antony Wood. The last's diary
makes a thick volume in octavo. One entry is, "This day Old
Joan began to make my bed." In the story of Leland is an
examination of a freemason, written by the hand of King Henry
VI., with notes by Mr. Locke. Freemasonry, Henry VI., and
Locke, make a strange heterogeneous olio; but that is not all.
The respondent, who defends the mystery of masonry, says it was
brought into Europe by the Venetians--he means the Phoenicians.
And who do you think propagated it? Why, one Peter Gore--And
who do you think that was?--One Pythagoras, Pythagore. I do
not know whether it is not still More extraordinary, that this
and the rest of the nonsense in that account made Mr. Locke
determine to be a freemason: so would I too, if I could expect
to hear of more Peter Gores.

Pray tell Lady Lyttelton that I say she will certainly kill
herself if she lets Lady Ailesbury drag her twice a-day to feed
the pheasants, and you make her climb cliffs and clamber over
mountains. She has a tractability that alarms me for her; and
if she does not pluck up a spirit, and determine never to be
put out of her own way, I do not know what may be the
Consequence. I will come and set her an example of
immovability. Take notice, I do not say one civil syllable to
Lady Ailesbury. She has not passed a whole day here these two
years. She is always very gracious, says she will come when
you will fix a time, as if you governed, and then puts it off
whenever it is proposed, nor will spare one Single day from
Park-place-as if other people were not as partial to their own
Park-places, Adieu! Yours ever.

Tuesday noon.

I wrote my letter last night; this morning I received yours,
and shall wait till Sunday, as you bid me, which will be more
convenient for my gout, though not for other engagements, but I
shall obey the superior, as nullum tempus occurrit regi et
podagrae.

(75) The greatest consternation prevailed at this time in the
metropolis, in consequence of the banking-house of Neale,
James, Fordyce, and Down having stopped payment. Fordyce was
bred a hosier in Aberdeen. For a memoir of him, see Gent. Mag.
vol. x1ii. p. 310.-E.

(76) Cant words of Walpole for blue and green. He means, that
he came out of his room to the blue sky and green fields.

(77) Gibbon, in a letter to Mr. Holroyd, of the 8th of
February, in reference to the recent debate in the House of
Commons, on the clerical petition for relief from subscription
to the Thirty-nine Articles, says--"I congratulate you on the
late victory of our dear Mamma, the Church of England. She had,
last Thursday, seventy-one rebellious sons, Who pretended to
set aside her will, on a account of insanity; but two hundred
and seventeen worthy champions, headed by Lord North, Burke,
Charles Fox, etc., though they allowed the thirty-nine clauses
of her testament were absurd and unreasonable, supported the
validity of it with infinite honour. By the bye, Charles Fox
prepared himself for that holy work by passing twenty-one hours
in the pious exercise of hazard; his devotions cost him only
about five hundred pounds an hour, in all, eleven thousand
pounds."-E.



Letter 44 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, July 7, 1772. (page 70)

Dear Sir,
I sent you last week by the Cambridge Fly, that puts up in
Gray's-inn-lane, six copies of King Edward's Letters, but fear
I forgot to direct their being left at Mr. Bentham's, by which
neglect perhaps you have not yet got them; so that I have been
very blamable, while I thought I was very expeditious; and it
was not till reading your letter again just now that I
discovered my carelessness.

I have not heard of Dr. Glynn, etc., but the housekeeper has
orders to receive them. I thank you a thousand times for the
Maltese notes, which I have given to the gentleman, and for the
Wyattiana: I am going to work on the latter.

I have not yet seen Mr. 's print, but am glad it is so like. I
expected Mr. Mason would have sent me one early; but I suppose
he keeps it for me, as I shall call on him in my way to Lord
Strafford's.

Mr. West,(78) one of our brother antiquaries, is dead. He had
a very curious collection of old pictures, English coins,
English prints, and manuscripts. But he was so rich, that I
take for granted nothing will be sold. I could wish for his
family pictures of Henry V. and Henry VIII.

Foote, in his new comedy of The Nabob, has lashed Master Doctor
Miles and our Society very deservedly for the nonsensical
discussion they had this winter about Whittington and his Cat.
Few of them are fit for any thing better than such researches.
Poor Mr. Granger has been very ill, but is almost recovered. I
intend to invite him to meet you in September. It is a party I
shall be very impatient for: you know how sincerely I am, dear
Sir, your obliged and Obedient humble servant.

(78) James West, Esq. He was for some time one of the
secretaries of the treasury, vice president of the Society of
Antiquaries, and president of the Royal Society. His curious
collection of manuscripts were purchased by the Earl of
Shelburne, and are now deposited in the British Museum.-E.




Letter 45 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, July 28, 1772. (page 70)

Dear Sir,
I am anew obliged to you, as I am perpetually, for the notice
you give me of another intended publication against me in the
Archaeologia, or Old Woman's Logic. By Your account, the
author will add much credit to their Society! For my part, I
shall take no notice of any of his handycrafts. However, as
there seems to be a willingness to carp at me, and as gnats may
on a sudden provoke one to give a slap, I choose to be at
liberty to say what I think Of the learned Society; and
therefore I have taken leave of them, having so good an
occasion presented as their council on Whittington and his Cat,
and the ridicule that Foote has thrown on them. They are
welcome to say any thing on my writings, but that they are the
works of a fellow of so foolish a Society.

I am at work on the Life of Sir Thomas Wyat, but it does not
please me; nor will it be entertaining, though you have
contributed so many materials towards it. You must take one
trouble more it is to inquire and search for a book that I want
to see. It is the Pilgrim; was written by William Thomas, who
was executed in Queen Mary's time; but the book was printed
under, and dedicated to, Edward VI. I have only an imperfect
memorandum of it, and cannot possibly recall to mind from
whence I made it. All I think I remember is, that the book was
in the King's library. I have sent to the Museum to inquire
after it; but I cannot find it mentioned in Ames's History of
English Printers. Be so good as to ask all your antiquarian
friends if they know such a work.

Amidst all your kindness, you have added one very disagreeable
paragraph:--I mean, you doubt about coming here in September.
Fear of a sore throat would be a reason for your never coming.
It is one of the distempers in the world the least to be
foreseen, and September, a dry month, one of the least likely
months to bring it. I do not like your recurring to so very
ill-founded an excuse, and positively will not accept it,
unless you wish I should not be so much as I an, dear Sir, Your
most faithful humble servant,
H. W.



Letter 46 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 25, 1772. (page 71)

Dear sir,
I thank YOU for your notices, dear Sir, and will deliver you
from the trouble of any further pursuit of the Peleryne of
Thomas. I have discovered him among the Cottonian MSS. in the
Museum, and am to see him.

If Dr. Browne is returned to Cambridge, may I beg you to give
him a thousand thanks for the present he left at my house, a
goarstone and a seal, that belonged to Mr. Gray. I shall lay
them up in my cabinet at Strawberry among my most valuables.
Dr. Browne, however, was not quite kind to me; for he left no
direction where to find him in town, so that I could not wait
upon him, nor invite him to Strawberry Hill, as I much wished
to do, Do not these words, "invite him to Strawberry," make
Your ears tingle? September is at hand, and You must have no
sore throat. The new chapel in the garden is almost finished,
and you must come to the dedication.

I have seen Lincoln and York, and to say the truth, prefer the
former in some respects. In truth, I was scandalized in the
latter. William of Hatfield's tomb and figure is thrown aside
into a hole: and yet the chapter possess an estate that his
mother gave them. I have charged Mr. Mason(79) with my
anathema, unless they do justice. I saw Roche Abbey, too;
which is hid in such a venerable chasm, that you might lie
concealed there even from a 'squire parson of the parish. Lord
Scarborough, to whom it belongs, and who lives at next door,
neglects it as much as if he was afraid of ghosts. I believe
Montesino's cave lay in just such a solemn thicket, which is
now so overgrown, that, when one finds the spot, one can scarce
find the ruins.

I forgot to tell you, that in the screen of York Minster there
are most curious statues of the Kings of England, from the
Conqueror to Henry VI.; very singular, evidently by two
different hands, the one better than the other, and most of
them I am persuaded, very authentic. Richard II., Henry III.,
and Henry V., I am sure are; and Henry Iv., though unlike the
common portrait at Hampton-court, in Herefordshire, the most
singular and villanous countenance I ever saw. I intend to try
to get them well engraved. That old fool, James I., is crowded
in, in the place of Henry VII., that was taken away to make
room for this piece of flattery; for the chapter did not slight
live princes. Yours ever.

(79) Mason was a residentiary of York cathedral; as well as
prebendary of Duffield, and rector of Aston.-E.



Letter 47 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, August 28, 1772. (page 72)

Dear Sir,
Your repentance is much more agreeable than your sin, and will
cancel it whenever you please. Still I have a fellow-feeling
for the indolence of age, and have myself been writing an
excuse this instant for not accepting an invitation above
threescore miles off. One's limbs, when they grow old, will
not go any where, when they do not like it. If yours should
find themselves in a more pliant humour, you are always sure of
being welcome here, let the fit of motion come when it will.

Pray what is become of that figure you mention of Henry VII.,
which the destroyers, not the builders have rejected? and which
the antiquaries, who know a man by his crown better than by his
face, have rejected likewise? The latter put me in mind of
characters in comedies, in which a woman disguised in man's
habit, and whose features her very lover does not know, is
immediately acknowledged by pulling off her hat, and letting
down her hair, which her lover had never seen before. I should
be glad to ask Dr. Milles, if he thinks the crown of England
was always made, like a quart pot, by Winchester measure? If
Mr. Tyson has made a print from that little statue, I trust he
will give me one; and if he, or Mr. Essex, or both, will
accompany you hither, I shall be glad to see them.

At Buckden, in the Bishop's palace, I saw a print of Mrs.
Newcome: I Suppose the late mistress of St. John's. Can you
tell me where I can procure one? Mind, I insist that you do
not serve me as you have often done, and send me your own, if
you have one. I seriously will not accept it, nor ever trust
you again. On the staircase, in the same palace, there is a
picture of two young men, in the manner of Vandyck, not at all
ill done; do you know who they are, or does any body? There is
a worse picture, in a large room, of some lads, which, too, the
housemaid did not know. Adieu! dear Sir, yours ever.



Letter 48To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 7, 1772. (page 73)

Dear Sir,
I did receive the print of Mrs. Newcome, for which I am
extremely obliged to you, with a thousand other favours, and
should certainly have thanked you for it long ago, but I was
then, an(I am now, confined to my bed with the gout in every
limb, and in almost every joint. I have not been out of my
bedchamber these five weeks to-day and last night the pain
returned violently into one of my feet; so that I am now
writing to you in a most uneasy posture, which will oblige me
to be very short.

Your letter, which I suppose was left at my house in Arlington
street by Mr. Essex, was brought to me this morning. I am
exceedingly sorry for his disappointment, and for his coming
without writing first; in which case I might have prevented his
journey. I do not know, even, whither to send to him, to tell
him how impossible it is for me just now, in my present painful
and hopeless situation, to be of any use to him. I am so weak
and faint, I do not see even my nearest relations, and God
knows how long it will be before I am able to bear company,
much less application. I have some thoughts, as soon as I am
able, of removing to Bath; so that I cannot guess when it will
be in my power to consider duly Mr. Essex's plan with him. I
shall undoubtedly, if ever capable of it, be ready to give him
my advice, such as it is; or to look over his papers, and even
to correct them, if his modesty thinks me more able to polish
them than he is himself. At the same time, I must own, I think
he will run too great a risk by the expense. The engravers in
London are now arrived at such a pitch of exorbitant
imposition, that, for my own part, I have laid aside all
thoughts of having a single plate more done.