Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3

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Four times the nuptial bed she warm'd,
And every time so well perform'd,
That when death spoil'd each husband's billing,
He left the widow every shilling.
Fond was the dame, but not dejected;
Five stately mansions she erected
With more than royal pomp, to vary
The prison of her captive
When Hardwicke's towers shall bow their head,
Nor mass be more in Worksop said;
When Bolsover's fair fame shall tend,
Like Olcotes, to its mouldering end;
When Chatsworth tastes no Can'dish bounties,
Let fame forget this costly countess.

As I returned, I saw Newstead and Althorpe: I like both. The
former is the very abbey.(98) The great east window(99) of the
church remains, and connects with the house; the hall entire, the
refectory entire, the cloister untouched, with the ancient
cistern of the convent, and their arms on it; a private chapel
quite perfect. The park, which is still charming, has not been
so much unprofaned; the present lord has lost large sums, and
paid part in old oaks, five thousand pounds of which have been
cut near the house. In recompense he has built two baby forts,
to pay his country in castles for the damage done to the navy,
and planted a handful of Scotch firs, that look like plough-boys
dressed in old family liveries for a public day. In the hall is
a very good collection of pictures, all animals; the refectory,
now the great-drawing-room, is full of Byrons; the vaulted roof
remaining, but the windows have new dresses making for them by a
Venetian tailor.(100) Althorpe(101) has several very fine
pictures by the best Italian hands, and a gallery of all one's
acquaintance by Vandyke and Lely. I wonder you never saw it; it
is but six miles from Northampton. Well, good night; I have writ
you such a volume, that you see I am forced to page it. The Duke
has had a stroke of the palsy, but is quite recovered, except in
some letters, which he cannot pronounce; and it is still visible
in the contraction of one side of his mouth. My compliments to
your family.

(93) The patron saint Of the town. The imagery and carved work
on the front of the cathedral was much injured in 1641. The
cross upon the west window is said to have been frequently aimed
at by Cromwell's soldiery.-E.

(94) Daughter of John Hoskins, Esq. and widow of William the
third Duke of Devonshire.

(95) Afterwards Duchess of Portland.

(96) Anciently the seat of the Vernons. Sir George Vernon, in
Queen Elizabeth's time, was styled King of the Peak," and the
property came into the Manners family by his daughter marrying
Thomas, son of the first Earl of Rutland.-E.

(97) She was daughter of John Hardwicke, of Hardwicke in
Derbyshire. Her first husband was Robert Barley, Esq. who
settled his large estate on her and hers. She married, secondly,
Sir William Cavendish; her third husband was Sir William St. Lo;
and her fourth was George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, whose
daughter, Lady Grace, married her son by Sir William Cavendish.

(98) Evelyn, who visited Newstead in 1654, says of it:--"It is
situated much like Fontainbleau, in France, capable of being made
a noble seat, accommodated as it is with brave woods and streams;
it has yet remaining the front of a glorious abbey church." Lord
Byron thus beautifully describes the family seat, in the
thirteenth canto of Don Juan:

"An old, old monastery once, and now
Still older mansion-of a rich and rare
Mix'd Gothic, much as artists all allow
Few specimens yet left us can compare.

"Before the mansion lay a lucid lake,
Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed
By a river, which its soften'd way did take
In currents through the calmer water spread
Around: the wildfowl nestled in the brake
And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed:
The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood
With their green faces fix'd upon the flood."-E.

(99) A mighty window, hollow in the centre,
Shorn of its glass of thousand colourings,
Through which the deepen'd glories once could enter,
Streaming from off the sun like seraph's wings,
Now yawns all desolate."-E.

(100) "----The cloisters still were stable,
The cells, too, and refectory, I ween:
An exquisite small chapel had been able
Still unimpaired to decorate the scene
The rest had been reform'd, replaced, or sunk,
And spoke more of the baron than the monk."-E.

(101) The seat of Earl Spencer.-E.

Letter 43 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 4, 1760. (87)

My dear lord,
You ordered me to tell you how I liked Hardwicke. To say the
truth, not exceedingly. The bank of oaks over the ponds is fine,
and the vast lawn behind the house: I saw nothing else that is
superior to the common run of parks. For the house, it did not
please me at all; there is no grace, no ornament, no Gothic in
it. I was glad to see the style of furniture of that age; and my
imagination helped me to like the apartment of the Queen of
Scots. Had it been the chateau of a Duchess of Brunswick, on
which they had exhausted the revenues of some centuries, I don't
think I should have admired it at all. In short, Hardwicke
disappointed me as much as Chatsworth surpassed my expectation.
There is a richness and vivacity of prospect in the latter; in
the former, nothing but triste grandeur.

Newstead delighted me. There is grace and Gothic indeed--good
chambers and a comfortable house. The monks formerly were the
only sensible people that had really good mansions.(102) I saw
Althorpe too, and liked it very well: the pictures are fine. In
the gallery I found myself quite at home; and surprised the
housekeeper by my familiarity with the portraits.

I hope you have read Prince Ferdinand's thanksgiving, where he
has made out a victory by the excess of his praises. I supped at
Mr. Conway's t'other night with Miss West'(103) and we diverted
ourselves with the encomiums on her Colonel Johnston. Lady
Ailesbury told her, that to be sure next winter she would burn
nothing but laurel-faggots. Don't you like Prince Ferdinand's
being so tired with thanking, that at last he is forced to turn
God over to be thanked by the officers?

In London there is a more cruel campaign than that waged by the
Russians: the streets are a very picture of the murder of the
innocents--one drives over nothing but poor dead dogs!(104) The
dear, good-natured, honest, sensible creatures! Christ! how can
anybody hurt them? Nobody could but those Cherokees the English,
who desire no better than to be halloo'd to blood:--one day
Admiral Byng, the next Lord George Sackville, and to-day the poor
dogs!

I cannot help telling your lordship how I was diverted the night
I returned hither. I was sitting with Mrs. Clive, her sister and
brother, in the bench near the road at the end of her long walk.
We heard a violent scolding; and looking out, saw a pretty woman
standing by a high chaise, in which was a young fellow, and a
coachman riding by. The damsel had lost her hat, her cap, her
cloak, her temper, and her senses; and was more drunk and more
angry than you can conceive. Whatever the young man had or had
not done to her. she would not ride in the chaise with him, but
stood cursing and swearing in the most outrageous style: and when
she had vented all the oaths she could think of, she at last
wished perfidion might seize him. You may imagine how we
laughed. The fair intoxicate turned round, and cried "I am
laughed at!--Who is it!--What, Mrs. Clive? Kitty Clive?--No:
Kitty Clive would never behave so!" I wish you could have seen
My neighbour's confusion. She certainly did not grow paler than
ordinary. I laugh now while I repeat it to you.

I have told Mr. Bentley the great honour you have done him, my
lord. He is happy the Temple succeeds to please you.

(102) "----It lies perhaps a little low, Because the monks
preferred a hill behind To shelter their devotion from the wind."
Byron.-E.

(103) Lady Henrietta-Cecilia, eldest daughter of John, afterwards
Lord de la Warr. In 1763, she was married to General James
West.-E.

(104) In the summer of this year the dread of mad dogs' raged
like an epidemic: the periodical publications of the time being
filled with little else of domestic interest than the squabbles
of the dog-lovers and dog-haters. The Common Council of London,
at a meeting on the @6th August, issued an order for killing all
dogs found in the street., or highways after the 27th, and
offered a reward of two shillings for every dog that should be
killed and buried in the skin. In Goldsmith's Citizen of the
World there is an amusing paper in which he ridicules the fear of
mad dogs as one of those epidemic terrors to which our countrymen
are occasionally prone.-E.

Letter 44 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, September 19, 1760. (page 88)

thank you for your notice, though I should certainly have
contrived to see you without it. Your brother promised he would
come and dine here one day with you and Lord Beauchamp. I go to
Navestock on Monday, for two or three days; but that Will not
exhaust your waiting.(105) I shall be in town on Sunday; but- as
that is a court-day, I will not--so don't propose it--dine with
you at Kensington; but I will be with my Lady Hertford about six,
where your brother and you will find me if you please. I cannot
come to Kensington in the evening, for I have but one pair of
horses in the world, and they will have to carry me to town in
the morning.

I wonder the King expects a battle; when Prince Ferdinand can do
as well without fighting, why should he fight? Can't he make the
hereditary Prince gallop into a mob of Frenchmen, and get a
scratch on the nose; and Johnson straddle across a river and come
back with six heads of hussars in his fob, and then can't he
thank all the world, and assure them he shall never forget the
victory they have not gained? These thanks are sent over: the
Gazette swears that this no-success was chiefly owing to General
Mostyn; and the Chronicle protests, that it was achieved by my
Lord Granby's losing his hat, which he never wears; and then his
lordship sends over for three hundred thousand pints of porter to
drink his own health; and then Mr. Pitt determines to carry on
the war for another year; and then the Duke of Newcastle hopes
that we shall be beat, that he may lay the blame on Mr. Pitt, and
that then he shall be minister for thirty years longer; and then
we shall be the greatest nation in the universe. Amen! My dear
Harry, you see how easy it is to be a hero. If you had but taken
impudence and Oatlands in your way to Rochfort, it would not have
signified whether you had taken Rochfort or not. Adieu! I don't
know who Lady Ailesbury's Mr. Alexander is. If she curls like a
vine with any Mr. Alexander but you, I hope my Lady Coventry will
recover and be your Roxana.

(105) Mr. Conway, as groom of the bedchamber to the King, was
then in waiting at Kensington.

Letter 45 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill. (page 89)

You are good for nothing; you have no engagement, you have no
principles; and all this I am not afraid to tell you,. as you
have left your sword behind you. If you take it ill, I have
given my nephew, who brings your sword, a letter of attorney to
fight you for me; I shall certainly not see you: my Lady
Waldegrave goes to town on Friday, but I remain here. You lose
Lady Anne Connolly and her forty daughters, who all dine here
to-day upon a few loaves and three small fishes. I should have
been glad if you would have breakfasted here on Friday on your
way; but as I lie in bed rather longer than the lark, I fear our
hours would not suit one another. Adieu!

Letter 46 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, October 2, 1760. (page 90)

I announce my Lady Huntingtower(106) to you. I hope you will
approve the match a little more than I Suppose my Lord Dysart
will, as he does not yet know, though they have been married
these two hours, that, at ten o'clock this morning, his son
espoused my niece Charlotte at St. James's church. The moment
my Lord Dysart is dead, I will carry you to see the Ham-house;
it is pleasant to call cousins with a charming prospect over
against one. Now you want to know the detail: there was none.
It is not the style of Our Court to have long negotiations; we
don't fatigue the town with exhibiting the betrothed for six
months together in public places. Vidit, venit, vicit;--the
young lord has liked her some time; on Saturday se'nnight He
came to my brother, and made his demand. The princess did not
know him by sight, and did not dislike him when she did; she
consented. and they were married this morning. My Lord Dysart
is such a - that nobody will pity him; he has kept his son till
six-and-twenty, and would never make the least settlement on
him; "Sure," said the young man, "if he will do nothing for me,
I may please myself; he cannot hinder me of ten thousand pounds
a-year, and sixty thousand that are in the funds, all entailed
on me"--a reversion one does not wonder the bride did not
refuse, as there is present possession too of a very handsome
person; the only thing his father has ever given him. His
grandfather, Lord Granville, has always told him to choose a
gentlewoman, and please himself; yet I should think the ladies
Townshend and Cooper would cackle a little.

I wish you could have come here this October for more reasons
than one. The Teddingtonian history is grown wofully bad.
Mark Antony, though no boy, persists in losing the world two or
three times over for every gipsy that be takes for a Cleopatra.
I have laughed, been scolded, represented, begged, and at last
spoken very roundly--all with equal success; at present we do
not meet. I must convince him of ill usage, before I can make
good usage of any service. All I have done is forgot, because
I will not be enamoured of Hannah Cleopatra too. You shall
know the whole history when I see you; you may trust me for
still being kind to him; but that he must not as yet suspect;
they are bent on going to London, that she may visit and be
visited, while he puts on his red velvet and ermine, and goes
about begging in robes.

Poor Mr. Chute has had another very severe fit of the gout; I
left him in bed, but by not hearing he is worse, trust on
Saturday to find him mended. Adieu!

(106) Charlotte, third daughter of Sir Edward Walpole, and
sister to Lady Waldegrave, and to Mrs. Keppel.

Letter 47 To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Oct. 5, 1760. Page 91)

I am afraid you will turn me off from being your gazetteer. Do
you know that I came to town to-day by accident, and was here
four hours before I heard that Montreal was taken? The express
came early this morning. I am so posthumous in my intelligence,
that you must not expect any intelligence from me--but the same
post that brings you this, will convey the extraordinary gazette,
which of late is become the register of the Temple of Fame. All
I know is, that the bonfires and squibs are drinking General
Amherst's(107) health.

Within these two days Fame and the Gazette have laid another egg;
I wish they may hatch it themselves! but it is one of that
unlucky hue which has so often been addled; in short, behold
another secret expedition. It was notified on Friday, and
departs in a fortnight. Lord Albemarle, it is believed, will
command it. One is sure at least that it cannot be to America,
for we have taken it all. The conquest of Montreal may perhaps
serve in full of all accounts, as I suspect a little that this
new plan was designed to amuse the City of London at the
beginning of the session, who would not like to have wasted so
many millions on this campaign, without any destruction of friend
or foe.(108) Now, a secret expedition may at least furnish a
court-martial, and the citizens love persecution even better than
their money. A general or in admiral to be mobbed either by
their applause or their hisses, is all they desire.-Poor Lord
Albemarle!

The charming Countess(109) is dead at last; and as if the whole
history of both sisters was to be extraordinary, the Duchess of
Hamilton is in a consumption too, and going abroad directly.
Perhaps you may see the remains of these prodigies, you will see
but little remains; her features were never so beautiful as Lady
Coventry's, and she has long been changed, though not yet I think
above six-and-twenty. The other was but twenty-seven.

As all the great ladies are mortal this year, my family is forced
to recruit the peerage. My brother's last daughter is married;
and, as Biddy Tipkin(110) says, though their story is too short
for a romance, it will make a very pretty novel--nay, it is
almost brief enough for a play, and very near comes within one of
the unities, the space of four-and-twenty hours. There is in the
world, particularly in my world, for he lives directly over
against me across the water, a strange brute called Earl of
Dysart.(111) Don't be frightened, it is not he. His son, Lord
Huntingtower, to whom he gives but four hundred pounds a year, is
a comely young gentleman of twenty-six, who has often had
thoughts of trying whether his father would not like
grandchildren better than his own children, as sometimes people
have more grand-tenderness than paternal. All the answer he
could ever get was, that the Earl could not afford, as he has
five younger children, to make any settlement, but he offered, as
a proof of his inability and kindness, to lend his son a large
sum of money at low interest. This indigent usurer has thirteen
thousand pounds a year, and sixty thousand pounds in the funds.
The money and ten of the thirteen thousand in land are entailed
on Lord Huntingtower. The young lord, it seems, has been in love
with Charlotte for some months, but thought so little of
inflaming her, that yesterday fortnight she did not know him by
sight. On that day he came and proposed himself to my brother,
who with much surprise heard his story, but excused himself from
giving an answer. He said, he would never force the inclinations
of his children; he did not believe his daughter had any
engagement or attachment, but she might have: he would send for
her and know her mind. She was at her sister Waldegrave's, to
whom, on receiving the notification, she said very sensibly, "if
I was but nineteen, I would refuse pointblank; I do not like to
be married in a week to a man I never saw. But I am
two-and-twenty; some people say I am handsome, some say I am not;
I believe the truth is, I am likely to be at large and to go off
soon-it is dangerous to refuse so great a match." Take notice of
the married in a week; the love that was so many months in
ripening, could not stay above a week. She came and saw this
impetuous lover, and I believe was glad she had not refused
pointblank-for they were married last Thursday. I tremble a
little for the poor girl; not to mention the oddness of the
father, and twenty disagreeable things that may be in the young
man, who has been kept and lived entirely out of the world; @
takes her fortune, ten thousand pounds, and cannot settle another
shilling upon her till his father dies, and then promises Only a
thousand a year. Would one venture one's happiness and one's
whole fortune for the chance of being Lady Dysart?@if Lord
Huntingtower dies before his father, she will not have sixpence.
Sure my brother has risked too much!

Stosch, who is settled at Salisbury, has writ to me to recommend
him to somebody or other as a travelling governor or companion.
I would if I knew any body: but who travels now? He says you
have notified his intention to me-so far from it, I have not
heard from you this age: I never was SO long without a letter-
-but you don't take Montreals and Canadas every now and then.
You repose like the warriors in Germany-at least I hope so--I
trust no ill health has occasioned your silence. Adieu!

(107) General Sir Jeffrey Amherst distinguished himself in the
war with the French in America. He was subsequently created a
peer, and made commander-in-chief.-D.

(108) The large armament, intended for a secret expedition and
collected at Portsmouth, was detained there the whole summer, but
the design was laid aside.-E.

(109) Maria Gunning, Countess of Coventry.

(110) In Steele's "Tender Husband"

(111) Lionel Tolmache, Earl of Dysart, lived at Ham House, over
against Twickenham.

Letter 48 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 14, 1760. (page 92)

If you should see in the newspapers, that I have offered to raise
a regiment at Twickenham, am going with the expedition, and have
actually kissed hands, don't believe it; though I own, the two
first would not be more surprising than the last. I will tell
you how the calamity befell me, though you will laugh instead of
pitying me. Last Friday morning, I was very tranquilly writing
my Anecdotes of Painting,--I heard the bell at the gate ring--I
called out, as usual, "Not at home;" but Harry, who thought it
would be treason to tell a lie, when he saw red liveries, owned I
was, and came running up: "Sir, the Prince of Wales is at the
door, and says he is come on purpose to make you a visit!" There
was I, in the utmost confusion, undressed, in my slippers, and my
hair about my ears; there was no help, insanunt vetem aspiciet-
-and down I went to receive him. Him was the Duke of York.
Behold my breeding of the old court; at the foot of the stairs I
kneeled down, and kissed his hand. I beg your uncle Algernon
Sidney's pardon, but I could not let the second Prince of the
blood kiss my hand first. He was, as he always is, extremely
good-humoured; and I, as I am not always, extremely respectful.
He stayed two hours, nobody with him but Morrison; I showed him
all my castle, the pictures of the Pretender's sons, and that
type of the Reformation, Harry the Eighth's ----, moulded into a
to the clock he gave Anne Boleyn. - But observe my luck; he would
have the sanctum sanctorum in the library opened: about a month
ago I removed the MSS. in another place. All this is very well;
but now for the consequences; what was I to do next? I have not
been in a court these ten years, consequently have never kissed
hands in the next reign. Could I let a Duke of York visit me,
and never go to thank him? I know, if I was a great poet, I might
be so brutal, and tell the world in rhyme that rudeness is
virtue; or, if I was a patriot, I might, after laughing at Kings
and Princes for twenty years, catch at the first opening of
favour and beg a place. In truth, I can do neither; yet I could
not be shocking; I determined to go to Leicester-house, and
comforted myself that it was not much less meritorious to go
there for nothing, than to stay quite away; yet I believe I must
make a pilgrimage to Saint Liberty of Geneva, before I am
perfectly purified, especially as I am dipped even at St.
James's. Lord Hertford, at my request, begged my Lady Yarmouth
to get an order for my Lady Henry to go through the park, and the
countess said so many civil things about me and my suit, and
granted it so expeditiously, that I shall be forced to visit,
even before she lives here next door to my Lady Suffolk. My
servants are transported; Harry expects to see me first minister,
like my father, and reckons upon a place in the Custom-house..
Louis, who drinks like a German, thinks himself qualified for a
page of the back stairs--but these are not all my troubles. As I
never dress in summer, I had nothing upon earth but a frock,
unless I went in black, like a poet, and pretended that a cousin
was dead, one of the muses. Then I was in panics lest I should
call my Lord Bute, your Royal Highness. I was not indeed in much
pain at the conjectures the Duke of Newcastle would make on such
an apparition, even if he should suspect that a new opposition
was on foot, and that I was to write some letters to the Whigs.

Well, but after all, do you know that my calamity has not
befallen me yet? I could not determine to bounce over head and
ears into the drawing-room at once, without one soul knowing why
I cane thither. I went to London on Saturday night, and Lord
Hertford was to carry me the next Morning; in the meantime I
wrote to Morrison, explaining my gratitude to one brother, and my
unacquaintance with t'other, and how afraid I was that it would
be thought officious and forward if I was presented now, and
begging he would advise me what to do; and all this upon my
bended knee, as if Schutz had stood over me and dictated every
syllable. The answer was by order from the Duke of York, that he
smiled at my distress, wished to put me to no inconvenience, but
desired, that as the acquaintance had begun without restraint, it
might continue without ceremony. Now I was in more perplexity
than ever! I could not go directly, and yet it was not fit it
should be said I thought it an inconvenience to wait on the
Prince of Wales. At present it is decided by a jury of court
matrons, that is, courtiers, that I must write to my Lord Bute
and explain the whole, and why I desire to come now--don't fear;
I will take care they shall understand how little I come for. In
the mean time, you see it is my fault if I am not a favourite,
but alas! I am not heavy enough to be tossed in a blanket, like
Doddington; I should never come down again; I cannot be driven in
a royal curricle to wells and waters: I can't make love now to my
contemporary Charlotte Dives; I cannot quit Mufti and my
parroquet for Sir William Irby,(112) and the prattle of a
drawing-room, nor Mrs. Clive for Aelia Lalia Chudleigh; in short,
I could give up nothing but an Earldom of EglingtOn; and yet I
foresee, that this phantom of the reversion of a reversion will
make me plagued; I shall have Lord Egmont whisper me again; and
every tall woman and strong man, that comes to town, will make
interest with me to get the Duke of York to come and see them.
Oh! dreadful, dreadful! It is plain I never was a patriot, for I
don't find my virtue a bit staggered by this first glimpse of
court sunshine.