Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3

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Mr. Conway has pressed to command the new Quixotism on foot, and
has been refused; I sing a very comfortable te Deum for it.
Kingsley, Craufurd, and Keppel, are the generals, and Commodore
Keppel the admiral. The mob are sure of being pleased; they will
get a conquest, or a court-martial. A very unpleasant thing has
happened to the Keppels; the youngest brother, who had run in
debt at Gibraltar, and was fetched away to be sent to Germany,
gave them the slip at the first port they touched at in Spain,
surrendered himself to the Spanish governor, has changed his
religion, and sent for a ---- that had been taken from him at
Gibraltar; naturam expellas fure`a. There's the true blood of
Charles the Second sacrificing every thing for popery and a
bunter.

Lord Bolingbroke, on hearing the name of Lady Coventry at
Newmarket, affected to burst into tears, and left the room, not
to hide his crying, but his not crying.

Draper has handsomely offered to go on the expedition, and goes.

Ned Finch, t'other day, on the conquest of Montreal, wished the
King joy of having lost no subjects, but those that perished in
the rabbits. Fitzroy asked him if he thought they crossed the
great American lakes in such little boats as one goes to
Vauxhall? he replied, "Yes, Mr. Pitt said the rabbits"--it was
in the falls, the rapids.

I like Lord John almost as well as Fred. Montagu; and I like your
letter better than Lord John; the application of Miss Falkener
was charming. Good night.

P. S. If I had been told in June, that I should have the gout,
and kiss hands before November, I don't think I should have given
much credit to the prophet.

(112) In 1761, created Baron Boston.-E.

Letter 49 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street. October 25, 1760. (page 95)
I tell a lie: I am at Mr. Chute's.

Was ever so agreeable a man as King George the Second, to die the
very day it was necessary to save me from a ridicule? I was to
have kissed hands to-morrow-but you will not care a farthing
about that now; so I must tell you all I know of departed
majesty. He went to bed well last night, rose at six this
morning as usual, looked, I suppose, if all his money was in his
purse, and called for his chocolate. A little after seven, he
went into the water-closet; the German valet de chambre heard a
noise, listened, heard something like a groan, ran in, and found
the hero of Oudenarde and Dettingen on the floor, with a gash on
his right temple, by falling against the corner of a bureau. He
tried to speak, could not, and expired. Princess Emily was
called, found him dead, and wrote to the Prince. I know not a
syllable, but am come to see and hear as much as I can. I fear
you will cry and roar all night, but one could not keep it from
you. For my part, like a new courtier, I comfort myself,
considering what a gracious Prince comes next. Behold my luck.
I wrote to Lord Bute, just in all the unexpecteds, want Of
ambition, disinteresteds, etc. that I could amass, gilded with as
much duty affection, zeal, etc. as possible, received a very
gracious and sensible answer, and was to have been presented
to-morrow, and the talk of the few people, that are in town, for
a week. Now I shall be lost in the crowd, shall be as well there
as I desire to be, have done what was right, they know I want
nothing, may be civil to me very cheaply, and I can go and see
the puppet-show for this next month at my ease: but perhaps you
will think all this a piece of art; to be sure, I have timed my
court, as luckily as possible, and contrived to be the last
person in England that made interest with the successor. You see
virtue and philosophy always prone to know the world and their
own interest. However, I am not so abandoned a patriot yet, as
to desert my friends immediately; you shall hear now and then the
events of this new reign--if I am not made secretary of state--if
I am, I shall certainly take care to let you know it.

I had really begun to think that the lawyers for once talked
sense, when they said the King never dies. He probably cot his
death, as he liked to have done two years ago, by viewing the
troops for the expedition from the wall of Kensington Garden. My
Lady Suffolk told me about a month ago that he had often told
her, speaking of the dampness of Kensington, that he would never
die there. For my part, my man Harry will always be a favourite:
he tells me all the amusing news; he first told me of the late
Prince of Wales's death, and to-day of the King's.

Thank you, Mr. Chute is as well as can be expected--in this
national affliction. Sir Robert Brown has left every thing to my
Lady--aye, every thing, I believe his very avarice.

Lord Huntingtower wrote to offer his father eight thousand pounds
of Charlotte's fortune, if he would give them one thousand a-year
in present, and settle a jointure on her. The Earl returned this
truly laconic, for being so unnatural, an answer. "Lord
Huntingtower, I answer your letter as soon as I receive it; I
wish you joy; I hear your wife is very accomplished. Yours,
Dysart." I believe my Lady Huntingtower must contrive to make it
convenient for me, that my Lord Dysart should die--and then he
will. I expect to be a very respectable personage in time, and
to have my tomb set forth like the Lady Margaret Douglas, that I
had four earls to my nephews, though I never was one myself.
Adieu! I must go govern the nation.

Letter 50 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Arlington Street, October 26, 1760. (page 96)

My dear lord,
I beg your pardon for so long a silence in the late reign; I knew
nothing worth telling you; and the great event of this morning
you Z, will certainly hear before it comes to you by so sober and
regular a personage as the postman. The few circumstances known
yet are, that the King went well to bed last night; rose well at
six this morning; went to the water-closet a little after seven
-, had a fit, fell against a bureau, and gashed his right temple:
the valet de chambre heard a noise and a groan, and ran in: the
King tried to speak, but died instantly. I should hope this
would draw you southward: such scenes are worth looking at, even
by people who regard them with such indifference as your lordship
and I. I say no more, for what will mix in a letter with the
death of a King! I am my lady's and your lordship's most
faithful servant.

Letter 51 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Tuesday, October 28. (page 97)

The new reign dates with great propriety and decency; the
civilest letter to Princess Emily; the greatest kindness to the
duke; the utmost respect to the dead body. No changes to be made
but those absolutely necessary, as the household, etc.--and what
some will think the most unnecessary, in the representative of
power. There are but two new cabinet counsellors named; the Duke
of York and Lord Bute, so it must be one of them. The Princess
does not remove to St. James's, so I don't believe it will be
she. To-day England kissed hands, so did I, and it is more
comfortable to kiss hands with all England, than to have all
England ask why one kisses hands. Well! my virtue is safe; I had
a gracious reception, and yet I am almost as impatient to return
to Strawberry, as I was to leave it on the news. There is great
dignity and grace in the King's manner. I don't say this, like
my dear Madame de S`evign`e, because he was civil to me but the
part is well acted. If they do as well behind the scenes, as
upon the stage, it will be a very complete reign. Hollinshed, or
Baker, would think it begins well, that is, begins ill; it has
rained without intermission, and yesterday there came a cargo of
bad news, all which, you know, are similar omens to a man who
writes history upon the information of the clouds. Berlin is
taken by the Prussians, the hereditary Prince beaten by the
French. Poor Lord Downe has had three wounds. He and your
brother's Billy Pitt are prisoners. Johnny Waldegrave was shot
through the hat and through the coat; and would have been shot
through the body, if he had had any. Irish Johnson is wounded in
the hand; Ned Harvey somewhere; and Prince Ferdinand mortally in
his reputation for sending this wild detachment. Mr. Pitt has
another reign to set to rights. The Duke of Cumberland has taken
Lord Sandwich's, in Pall-mall; Lord Chesterfield has offered his
house to Princess Emily; and if they live at Hampton-court, as I
suppose his court will, I may as well offer Strawberry for a
royal nursery; for at best it will become a cakehouse; 'tis such
a convenient airing for the maids of honour. If I was not forced
in conscience to own to you, that my own curiosity is exhausted,
I would ask you, if you would not come and look at this new
world; but a new world only reacted by old players is not much
worth seeing; I shall return on Saturday. The Parliament is
prorogued till the day it was to have met; the will is not
opened; what can I tell you more? Would it be news that all is
hopes and fears, and that great lords look as if they dreaded
wanting bread? would this be news? believe me, it all grows
stale soon. I had not seen such a sight these three-and-thirty
years: I came eagerly to town; I laughed for three days-. I am
tired already. Good night!

P. S. I smiled to myself last night. Out of excess of attention,
which costs me nothing, when I mean it should cost nobody else
any thing, I went last night to Kensington to inquire after
Princess Emily and Lady Yarmouth: nobody knew me, they asked my
name. When they heard it, they did not seem ever to have heard
it before, even in that house. I waited half an hour in a lodge
with a footman of Lady Yarmouth's; I would not have waited so
long in her room a week ago; now it only diverted me. Even
moralizing is entertaining, when one laughs at the same time; but
I pity those who don't moralize till they cry.

Letter 52 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Oct. 28, 1760. (page 98)

The deaths of kings travel so much faster than any post, that I
cannot expect to tell you news, when I say your old master is
dead. But I can pretty well tell you what I like best to be
able to say to you on this occasion, that you are in no danger.
Change Will scarce reach to Florence when its hand is checked
even in the capital. But I will move a little regularly, and
then you will form your judgment more easily--This is Tuesday;
on Friday night the King went to bed in perfect health, and
rose so the next morning at his usual hour of six; he called
for and drank his chocolate. At seven, for every thing with
him was exact and periodic, he went into the closet to dismiss
his chocolate. Coming from thence, his valet de chambre heard
a noise; waited a moment, and heard something like a groan. He
ran in, and in a small room between the closet and bedchamber
he found the King on the floor, who had cut the right side of
his face against the edge of a bureau, and who after a gasp
expired. Lady Yarmouth was called, and sent for Princess
Amelia; but they only told the latter that the King was ill and
wanted her. She had been confined for some days with a
rheumatism, but hurried down, ran into the room without farther
notice, and saw her father extended on the bed. She is very
purblind, and more than a little deaf They had not closed his
eyes: she bent down close to his face, and concluded he spoke
to her, though she could not hear him-guess what a shock when
she found the truth. She wrote to the Prince of Wales--but so
had one of the valets de chambre first. He came to town and
saw the Duke(113) and the privy council. He was extremely kind
to the first--and in general has behaved with the greatest
propriety, dignity, and decency. He read his speech to the
council with much grace, and dismissed the guards on himself to
wait on his grandfather's body. It is intimated, that he means
to employ the same ministers, but with reserve to himself of
more authority than has lately been in fashion. The Duke of
York and Lord Bute are named of the cabinet council. The late
King's will is not yet opened. To-day every body kissed hands
at Leicester-house, and this week, I believe, the King will go
to St. James's. The body has been opened; the great ventricle
of the heart had burst. What an enviable death! In the
greatest period of glory of this country, and of his reign, in
perfect tranquillity at home, at seventy-seven, growing blind
and deaf, to die without a pang, before any reverse of fortune,
or any distasted peace, nay, but two days before a ship load of
bad news: could he have chosen such another moment? The news is
bad indeed! Berlin taken by capitulation, and yet the Austrians
behaved so savagely that even the Russians(114) felt delicacy,
were shocked, and checked them! Nearer home, the hereditary
Prince(115) has been much beaten by Monsieur de Castries, and
forced to raise the siege of Wesel, whither Prince Ferdinand
had Sent him most unadvisedly: we have scarce an officer
unwounded. The secret expedition will now, I conclude, sail,
to give an `eclat to the new reign. Lord Albemarle does not
command it, as I told you, nor Mr. Conway, though both applied.

Nothing is settled about the Parliament; not even the necessary
changes in the household. Committees of council are regulating
the mourning and the funeral. The town, which between armies,
militia, and approaching elections, was likely to be a desert
all the winter, is filled in a minute, but every thing is in
the deepest tranquility. People stare; the only expression.
The moment any thing is declared, one shall not perceive the
novelty of the reign. A nation without parties is soon a
nation without curiosity. You may now judge how little your
situation is likely to be affected. I finish; I think I feel
ashamed of tapping the events of a new reign, of which probably
I shall not see half. If I was not unwilling to balk your
curiosity, I should break my pen, as the great officers do
their white wands, over the grave of the old King. Adieu!

(113) William Duke of Cumberland.

(114) The Russians and Austrians obtained possession of Berlin,
while Frederick was employed in watching the great Austrian
army. They were, however, soon driven from it.-D.

(115) Of Brunswick; afterwards the celebrated duke of that
name.-D.

Letter 53 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Oct. 31, 1760. (page 99)

When you have changed the cipher of George the Second into that
of George the Third. and have read the addresses, and have
shifted a few lords and grooms of the bedchamber, you are master
of the history of the new reign, which is indeed but a new lease
of the old one. The favourite took it up in a
high style; but having, like my Lord Granville, forgot to ensure
either house of Parliament, or the mob, the third house of
Parliament, he drove all the rest to unite. They have united,
and have notified their resolution of governing as
before: not but the Duke of Newcastle cried for his old
master, desponded for himself, protested he would retire,
consulted every body whose interest it was to advise him to stay,
and has accepted to-day, thrusting the dregs of his ridiculous
life into a young court, which will at least be saved from the
imputation of childishness, by being governed by folly of seventy
years growth.

The young King has all the appearance of being amiable. There is
great grace to temper much dignity and extreme good-nature, which
breaks out on all occasions. Even the household is not settled
yet. The greatest difficulty is the master of the horse. Lord
Huntingdon is so by all precedent; Lord Gower, I believe, will be
so. Poor Lord Rochford is undone - nobody is unreasonable to
save him. The Duke of Cumberland has taken Schomberg-house in
Pall-mall; Princess Emily is dealing for Sir Richard Lyttelton's
in Cavendish-square. People imagined the Duke of Devonshire had
lent her Burlington-house; I don't know why, unless they supposed
she was to succeed my Lady Burlington in every thing.

A week has finished my curiosity fully; I return to Strawberry
to-morrow, and I fear go next week to Houghton, to make an
appearance of civility to Lynn, whose favour I never asked, nor
care if I have or not; but I don't know how to refuse this
attention to Lord Orford, who begs it.

I trust you will have approved my behaviour at court, that is, my
mixing extreme politeness with extreme indifference. Our
predecessors, the philosophers of ancient days, knew not how to
be disinterested without brutality; I pique myself on founding a
new sect. My followers are to tell kings, with excess of
attention, that they don't want them, and to despise favour with
more good breeding than others practise in suing for it. We are
a thousand times a greater nation than the Grecians: why are we
to imitate them! Our sense is as great, our follies greater; sure
we have all the pretensions to superiority! Adieu!

P. S. As to the fair widow Brown, I assure you the devil never
sowed two hundred thousand pounds in a more fruitful soil: every
guinea has taken root already. I saw her yesterday; it shall be
some time before I see her again.

Letter 54 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 4, 1760. (page 100)

I am not gone to Houghton, you see: my Lord Orford is come to
town, and I have persuaded him to stay and perform decencies.
King George the Second is dead richer than Sir Robert Brown,
though perhaps not so rich as my Lord Hardwicke. He has left
fifty thousand pounds between the Duke, Emily, and Mary; the Duke
has given up his share. To Lady Yarmouth a cabinet, with the
contents; they call it eleven thousand pounds. By a German deed,
he gives the Duke to the value of one hundred and eighty thousand
pounds, placed on mortgages, not immediately recoverable. e had
once given him twice as much more, then revoked it, and at last
excused the revocation, on the pretence of the expenses of the
war; but owns he was the best son that ever lived, and had never
offended him; a pretty strong comment on the affair of
Closterseven! He gives him, besides, all his jewels in England;
but had removed all the best to Hanover, which he makes crown
jewels, and his successor residuary legatee. The Duke, too, has
some uncounted cabinets. My Lady Suffolk has given me a
particular of his jewels, which plainly amount to one hundred and
fifty thousand pounds. It happened oddly to my Lady Suffolk.
Two days before he died, she went to make a visit at Kensington,
not knowing of the review; she found herself hemmed in by
coaches, and was close to him, whom she had not seen for so many
years, and to my Lady Yarmouth; but they did not know her: it
struck her, and has made her very sensible to his death.
The changes hang back. Nothing material has been altered yet.

Ned Finch, the only thing my Lady Yarmouth told the new King she
had to ask for, is made surveyor of the roads, in the room of Sir
Harry Erskine, who is to have an old regiment. He excuses
himself from seeing company, as favourite of the favourite.
Arthur is removed from being clerk of the wine-cellar, a
sacrifice to morality The Archbishop has such hopes of the young
King, that he is never out of the circle. He trod upon the
Duke's foot on Sunday, in the haste of his zeal; the Duke said to
him, "My lord, if your grace is in such a hurry to make your
court, that is the way." Bon-mots come thicker than changes.
Charles Townshend, receiving an account of the impression the
King's death had made, was told Miss Chudleigh cried. "What,"
said he, "Oysters?" And last night, Mr. Dauncey, asking George
Selwyn if Princess Amelia would have a guard? he replied, "Now
and then one, I suppose."

An extraordinary event has happened to-day; George Townshend sent
a challenge to Lord Albemarle, desiring him to be with a second
in the fields. Lord Albemarle took Colonel Crawford, and went to
Mary-le-bone; George Townshend bespoke Lord Buckingham, who loves
a secret too well not to tell it: he communicated it to Stanley,
who went to St. James's, and acquainted Mr. Caswall, the captain
on guard. The latter took a hackney-coach, drove to
Mary-le-bone, and saw one pair. After waiting ten minutes, the
others came; Townshend made an apology to Lord Albemarle for
making him wait. "Oh," said he, "men of spirit don't want
apologies: come, let us begin what we came for." At that
instant, out steps Caswall from his coach, and begs their pardon,
as his superior officers, but told them they were his prisoners.
He desired Mr. Townshend and Lord Buckingham to return to their
coach; he would carry back Lord Albemarle and Crawford in his.
He did, and went to acquaint the King, who has commissioned some
of the matrons of the army to examine the affair, and make it up.
All this while, I don't know what the quarrel was, but they hated
one another so much on the Duke's account, that a slight word
would easily make their aversions boil over. Don't you, nor even
your general come to town on this occasion? Good night.

Letter 55 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 13, 1760. (page 102)

Even the honeymoon of a new reign don't produce events every day.
There is nothing but the common Paying of addresses and kissing
hands. The chief difficulty is settled; Lord Gower yields the
mastership of the horse to Lord Huntingdon, and removes to the
great wardrobe, from whence Sir Thomas Robinson was to have gone
into Ellis's place, but he is saved. The city, however, have a
mind to be out of humour; a paper has been fixed on the Royal
Exchange, with these words, "No petticoat government, no Scotch
minister, no Lord George Sackville;" two hints totally unfounded,
and the other scarce true. No petticoat ever governed less, it
is left at Leicester-house; Lord George's breeches are as little
concerned; and, except Lady Susan Stuart and Sir Harry Erskine,
nothing has yet been done for any Scots. For the King himself,
he seems all good-nature, and wishing to satisfy every body; all
his speeches are obliging. I saw him again yesterday, and was
surprised to find the levee-room had lost so entirely the air of
the lion's den. This sovereign don't stand in one spot, with his
eyes fixed royally on the ground, and dropping bits of German
news; he walks about, and speaks to every body- I saw him
afterwards on the throne, where he is graceful and genteel, sits
with dignity, and reads his answers to addresses well; it was the
Cambridge address, carried by the Duke of Newcastle in his
doctor's gown, and looking like the M`edecin malgr`e lui. He had
been vehemently solicitous for attendance, for fear my Lord
Westmoreland, who vouchsafes himself to bring the address from
Oxford, should outnumber him. Lord Litchfield and several other
Jacobites have kissed hands; George Selwyn says, "They go to St.
James's, because now there are so many Stuarts there."

Do you know, I had the curiosity to go to the burying t'other
night; I had never seen a royal funeral; nay, I walked as a rag
of quality, which I found would be, and so it was, the easiest
way of seeing it. It is absolutely a noble sight. The Prince's
chamber, hung with purple, and a quantity of silver lamps, the
coffin under a canopy of purple velvet, and six vast chandeliers
of silver on high stands, had a very good effect. The ambassador
from Tripoli and his son were carried to see that chamber. The
procession through a line of foot-guards, every seventh man
bearing a torch, the horse-guards lining the outside, their
officers with drawn sabres and crape sashes on horseback, the
drums muffled, the fifes, bells tolling, and minute guns,--all
this was very solemn. But the charm was the entrance of the
abbey, where we were received by the dean and chapter in rich
robes, the choir and almsmen bearing torches; the whole abbey so
illuminated, that one saw it to greater advantage than by day;
the tombs, long aisles, and fretted roof, all appearing
distinctly, and with the happiest chiaro scuro. There wanted
nothing but incense, and little chapels here and there, with
priests saying mass for the repose of the defunct; yet one could
not complain of its not being Catholic enough. I had been in
dread of' being coupled with some boy of ten years old; but the
heralds were not very accurate, and I walked with George
Grenville, taller and older, to keep me in countenance. When we
came to the chapel of Henry the Seventh, all solemnity and
decorum ceased; no order was observed, people sat or stood where
they could or would; the yeomen of the guard were crying out for
help, oppressed by the immense weight of the coffin; the bishop
read sadly, and blundered in the prayers; the fine chapter, Man
that is born of a woman, was chanted, not read; and the anthem,
besides being immeasurably tedious, would have served as well for
a nuptial. The real serious part was the figure of the Duke of
Cumberland, heightened by a thousand melancholy circumstances.
He had a dark brown adonis, and a cloak of black cloth, with a
train of five yards. Attending the funeral of a father could not
be pleasant: his leg extremely bad, yet forced to stand upon it
near two hours; his face bloated and distorted with his late
paralytic stroke, which has affected, too, one of his eyes, and
placed over the mouth of the vault, into which, in all
probability, he must himself so soon descend; think how
unpleasant a situation! he bore it all with a firm and
unaffected countenance. This grave scene was fully contrasted by
the burlesque Duke of Newcastle. He fell into a fit of crying
the moment he came into the chapel, and flung himself back in a
stall, the archbishop hovering over him with a smelling-bottle;
but in two minutes his curiosity got the better of his hypocrisy,
and he ran about the chapel with his glass to spy who was or was
not there, spying with one hand, and mopping his eyes with the
other. Then returned the fear of catching cold; and the Duke of
Cumberland, who was sinking with heat, felt himself weighed down,
and turning round, found it was the Duke of Newcastle standing
upon his train, to avoid the chill of the marble. It was very
theatric to look down into the vault, where the coffin lay,
attended by mourners with lights. Clavering, the groom of the
bedchamber, refused to sit up with the body, and was dismissed by
the King's order.