Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3

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Yesterday we sat till eight on the address, which yet passed
without a negative - we had two very long speeches from Mr. Pitt
and Mr. Grenville; many fine parts in each. Mr. Pitt has given
the latter some strong words, yet not so many as were
expected.(355) To-morrow we go on the great question 'of
privilege; but I must send this away, as we have no chance of
leaving the House before midnight, if before next morning.

This long letter contains the history of but two days; yet if two
days furnish a history, it is not my fault. The ministry, I
think, may do whatever they please. Three hundred, that will
give up their own privileges, may be depended upon for giving up
any thing else. I have not time or room to ask a question, or
say a word more.

Nov. 18, Friday.

I have luckily got a holiday, and can continue my despatch, as
you know dinner time is my chief hour of business. The Speaker,
unlike Mr. Onslow, who was immortal in the chair, is taken very
ill, and our House is adjourned to Monday. Wilkes is thought in
great danger: instead of keeping him quiet, his friends have
shown their zeal by him, and himself has been all spirits and
riot, and sat in his bed the next morning to correct the press
for to-morrow's North Briton. His bon-mots are all over the
town, but too gross, I think, to repeat; the chief' are at the
expense of poor Lord George.(356) Notwithstanding Lord
Sandwich's masked battery, the tide runs violently for Wilkes,
and I do not find people in general so inclined to excuse his
lordship as I was. One hears nothing but
stories of the latter's impiety, and of the concert he was In
with Wilkes on that subject. Should this hero die, the Bishop of
Gloucester may doom him whither he pleases, but Wilkes will pass
for a saint and a martyr.

Besides what I have mentioned, there were two or three passages
in the House of Lords that were diverting. Lord Temple dwelled
much on the Spanish ministry being devoted to France. Lord
Halifax replied, "Can we help that? We can no more oblige the
King of Spain to change his ministers, than his lordship can
force his Majesty to change the present administration." Lord
Gower, too, attacking Lord Temple on want of respect to the King,
the Earl replied, "he never had wanted respect for the King: he
and his family had been attached to the house of Hanover full as
long as his lordship's family had."(357)

You may imagine that little is talked of but Wilkes, and what
relates to him. Indeed, I believe there is no other news, but
that Sir George Warren marries Miss Bishop, the maid of honour.
The Duchess Of Grafton is at Euston, and hopes to stay there till
after Christmas. Operas do not begin till tomorrow se'nnight;
but the Mingotti is to sing, and that contents me. I forgot to
tell you, and you may Wonder at hearing nothing Of the Reverend
Mr. Charles Pylades,(358) while Mr. John Orestes is making such a
figure: but Dr. Pylades, the poet, has forsaken his consort and
the Muses, and is gone off with a stonecutter's daughter.(359)
If he should come and offer himself to you for chaplain to the
embassy!

The Countess of Harrington was extremely alarmed last Sunday,, on
seeing the Duc de Prequigny enter her assembly: she forbade Lady
Caroline(360) speaking to such a debauched young man, and
communicated her fright to everybody. The Duchess of Bedford
observed to me that as Lady Berkeley(361) and some other matrons
of the same stamp were there, she thought there was no danger of
any violence being committed. For my part, the sisters are so
different, that I conclude my Lady Hertford has not found any
young man in France wild enough for her. Your counterpart, M. de
Guerchy, takes extremely. I have not yet seen his wife.

I this minute receive your charming long letter of the 11th, and
give you a thousand thanks for it. I wish next Tuesday was past,
for Lady Hertford's sake. You may depend on my letting you know,
if I hear the least rumour in your disfavour. I shall do so
without your orders, for I could not bear to have you traduced
and not advertise you to defend yourself. I have hitherto not
heard a
syllable; but the newspapers talk of your magnificence, and I
approve extremely your intending to support their evidence; for
though I do not think it necessary to scatter pearls and diamonds
about the streets like their vice-majesties(362), of Ireland, one
owes it to one's self and to the King's choice to prove it was
well made.

The colour given at Paris to Bunbury's(363) stay in England has
been given out here too. You need not, I think, trouble yourself
about that; a majority of three hundred will soon show, that if
he was detained, the reason at least no longer subsists.

Hamilton is certainly returning from Ireland. Lord
Shannon's(364) son is going to marry the Speaker's daughter, and
the Primate has begged to have the honour of Joining their hands.

This letter is wofullv blotted and ill-written, yet I must say it
is print compared to your lordship's. At first I thought you had
forgot that you was not writing to the secretary of state, and
had put it into cipher. Adieu! I am neither, dead of my fever
nor apoplexy, nay, nor of the House of Commons. I rather think
the violent heat of the latter did me good. Lady Ailesbury was
at court yesterday, and benignly received;(365) a circumstance
you will not dislike.

P.S. If I have not told you all you want to know, interrogate me,
and I will answer the next post.

(341) Parliament met on the 15th of November. The public mind
was at this moment in a considerable ferment, and the King's
speech invited Parliament "to discourage that licentious spirit
which is repugnant to the true principles of liberty and of this
happy constitution." It was expected that these words would, from
their being understood as a direct attack on Mr. Wilkes, have
opened a debate on his question, which was then uppermost in
every mind; but the opposition were unwilling to put themselves
under the disadvantage of opposing the address and of excepting
against words, which, in their general meaning were
unexceptionable; they, therefore, had recourse to the proceedings
so well described in this letter.-C.

(342) He means, that parties were so violent that the members
seemed inclined to come to blows.-C.

(343) The King's speech, which is now read at the house of the
minister, to a selection of the friends of government, was
formerly read at the Cockpit, and all who chose attended.-C.

(344) "Yet oh, my sons! a father's words attend;
So may the Fates preserve the ears you lend."-E.

(345) "As soon as the members were sworn at the table, Mr. Wilkes
and Mr. Grenville then a chancellor of the exchequer, arose in
their places, the first to make a complaint of a breach of
privilege in having been imprisoned, etc.; and Mr. Grenville, to
communicate to the House a message from the King, which related
to the privileges of the House: the Speaker at the same time
acquainted the House, that the clerk had prepared a bill, and
submitted it to them, whether, in point of form, the reading of
the bill should not be the first proceeding towards opening the
session. A very long debate ensued, which of these three matters
ought to have the precedence,, -and at last it was carried in
favour of the bill." Hatsell's Precedents, vol. ii. p. 77.-E.

(346) Afterwards Lord Sydney. The Townshends were supposed to be
very unsteady, if not fickle, in their political conduct; a
circumstance which gives point to Goldsmith's mention of this Mr.
Townshend in his character of Burke:-

"----yet straining his throat
To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote."-C.

(347) Henry Seymour Conway, only brother of Lord Hertford, at
this time a groom of the bedchamber, lieutenant-general in the
army, and colonel of the first regiment of dragoons. He was, as
we will see, in consequence of his opposition to government on
these questions, dismissed both from court and his regiment: but
he became, on a change of ministers in 1765, secretary of state;
and in 1772 was promoted to be a general; and in 1793 a
field-marshal.-C.

(348) Lord North was at this time one of the junior lords of the
treasury.-E.

(349) Samuel Martin, Esq. Member for Camelford. He had been
secretary of the treasury during the Duke of Newcastle's and Lord
Bute's administration.-E.

(350) These lines, and two others, usually appended to them--

"He that is in battle slain
Can never rise to fight again,"

are not in Hudibras. Butler has the same thought in two lines--

"For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that's slain."
Par. iii. Cant. 3, 1. 243.-C.

(351) At the coronation, Lord Talbot, as lord steward, appeared
on horseback in Westminster-hall. His horse had been, at
numerous rehearsals, so assiduously trained to perform what was
thought the most difficult part of his duty, namely, the retiring
backwards from the royal table, that, at the ceremony itself, no
art of his rider could prevent the too docile animal from making
his approaches to the royal presence tail foremost. This
ridiculous incident, was the occasion of some sarcastic remarks
in the North Briton, of the 21st August, which led to a
correspondence between Lord Talbot and Mr. Wilkes, and ultimately
to a duel in the garden of the Red Lion Inn, at Bagshot, Mr.
Wilkes proposed that the parties should sup together that night,
and fight next morning. Lord Talbot insisted on fighting
immediately. This altercation, and some delay of Wilkes in
writing papers, which (not expecting, he said, to take the field
before morning) he had left unfinished, delayed the affair till
dusk, and after the innocuous exchange of shots by moonlight, the
parties shook hands, and supped together at the inn with a great
deal of jollity.-C.

(352) A young Scotch officer of the name of Forbes, fastened a
quarrel on Mr. Wilkes, in Paris, for having written against
Scotland, and insisted on his fighting him. Wilkes declined
until he should have settled an engagement of the same nature
which he had with Lord Egremont. Just at this time Lord Egremont
died, and Wilkes immediately offered to meet Captain Forbes at
Menin, in Flanders. By some mistake Forbes did not appear, and
the affair blew over. A long controversy was kept up on the
subject by partisans in the newspapers; but on the whole it is
impossible to deny that Forbes's conduct was nasty and foolish,
and that Wilkes behaved himself like a man of temper and
honour.-C.

(353) At this time secretary of state. " It is a great mercy,"
says Lord Chesterfield, in a letter to his son, of the 3d of
December, "that Mr. Wilkes, the intrepid defender of our rights
and liberties, is out of danger; and it is no less a mercy, that
God hath raised up the Earl of Sandwich, to vindicate true
religion and morality. These two blessings will justly make an
epocha in the annals affairs country."-E.

(354) The Bishop of Gloucester, whose laborious commentaries on
Pope's Essay on Man gave Wilkes the idea of fathering on him the
notes on the Essay on Woman.-C.

(355) Dr. Birch, in a letter to Lord Royston, gives the following
account of what passed in the House of Lords on this occasion:-
-"The session commenced with a complaint made by Lord Sandwich
against Mr. Wilkes for a breach of privilege in being the author
of a poem full of obscenity and blasphemy, intitled 'An Essay on
Woman,' with notes, under the name of the Bishop of Gloucester.
His letters, which discovered the piece was his, had been seized
at Kearsley's the bookseller, when the latter was taken up for
publishing No. 45 of the North Briton. Lord Temple and Lord
Sandys objected to the reading letters, till the secretary of
state's warrant, by which Kearsley had been arrested, had been
produced and shown to be a legal act; but this objection being
overruled, the Lords voted the Essay a most scandalous, obscene,
and impious libel, and adjourned the farther consideration of the
subject, as far as concerned the author, till the Thursday
following."-E.

Lord Barrington, in a letter to Sir Andrew Mitchell, gives the
following account of Mr. Pitt's speech:--"He spoke with great
ability, and the utmost degree of temper: he spoke civilly, and
not unfairly, of the ministers; but of the King he said every
thing which duty and affection could inspire. The effect of this
was a vote for an address, nem. con. I think, if fifty thousand
pounds had been given for that speech, it would have been well
expended. It secures us a quiet session." See Chatham
Correspondence, Vol. ii. p. 262.-E.

(356) Probably Lord George Sackville, so disagreeably celebrated
for his conduct at Minden; afterwards a peer, by the title of
Lord Sackville, and secretary of state. In the North Briton
which was in preparation when Wilkes was taken up, he advised
that Lord George should carry the sword before the King at an
intended thanksgiving. Of all the persons suspected of being the
author of Junius, Lord George Sackville seems the most
probable.-C. ["It is peculiarly hostile to the opinion in favour
of Lord George, that Junius should roundly have accused him of
want of courage." Woodfall's Junius, Vol. i. P. 161.]

(357) Lord Gower had been reputed the head of the Jacobites. Sir
C. H. Williams sneeringly calls him "Hanoverian Gower;" and when
he accepted office from the house of Brunswick, all the Jacobites
in England were mortified and enraged. Dr. Johnson, a steady
Tory, was, when compiling his Dictionary, with difficulty
persuaded not to add to his explanation of the word
deserter--"Sometimes it is called a Go'er."-C. ["Talking," says
Boswell, "upon this subject, Dr. Johnson mentioned to me a
stronger instance of the predominance
of his private feelings in the composition of this work than any
now to be found in it: 'You know, Sir, Lord Gower forsook the old
Jacobite interest: when I came to the word renegades after
telling what it meant, one who deserts to the enemy, a revolter,
I added, sometimes we Say a GOWER: thus it went to the press; but
the printer had more wit than I, and struck it out.'" Croker's
Boswell.]

(358) Churchill the satirist and Wilkes; of whom Mr. Southey, in
his Life of Cowper, relates the following anecdote:--"Churchill
became Wilkes's coadjutor in the North Briton; and the
publishers, when examined before the privy council on the
publication of No. 45, having declared that Wilkes gave orders
for the printing, and Churchill received the profits from the
sale, orders were given for arresting Churchill under the general
warrant. He was saved from arrest by Wilkes's presence of mind,
who was in custody of the messenger when Churchill entered the
room. 'Good morning, Thompson,' said Wilkes to him: 'how does
Mrs. Thompson do? Does she dine in the country?' Churchill took
the hint as readily as it had been given. He replied, that Mrs.
Thompson was waiting for him, and that he only came for a moment,
to ask him how he did. Then almost directly he took his leave,
hastened home, secured his papers, retired into the Country, and
eluded all search."-E.

(359) Mr. Southey states, that "a fortnight had not elapsed
before both parties were struck with sincere compunction, and
through the intercession of a true friend, at their entreaty, the
unhappy penitent was received by her father: it is said she would
have proved worthy of this parental forgiveness, if an elder
sister had not, by continual taunt,; and reproaches, rendered her
life so miserable, that, in absolute despair, she threw herself
upon Churchill for protection. Instead of making a just
provision forher, which his means would have allowed, he received
her as his mistress. If all his other writings were forgotten,
the lines in which he expressed his compunction for his conduct
would deserve always to be remembered--

"Tis not the babbling of a busy world,
Where praise and censure are at random hurl'd,
Which can the meanest of my thoughts control,
one settled purpose of my soul;
Free and at large might their wild curses roam,
If all, if all, alas! were well at home.
No; 'tis the tale which angry conscience tells,
When she, with more than tragic horror, swells
Each circumstance of guilt; when stern, but true,
She brings bad action.,; full into review,
And, like the dread handwriting on the wall,
Bids late remorse awake at reason's call;
Arm'd at all points, bids scorpion vengeance pass,
And to the mind holds up reflection's glass--
The mind, which starting heaves the heartfelt groan,
And hates that form she knows to be her own.'"-E.

(360) Her eldest daughter, afterwards Viscountess Fortrose . she
died in 1767, at the age of twenty.-E.

(361) Elizabeth Drax, wife of Augustus, fourth Earl Berkeley; she
had been lady of the bedchamber to the Princess-dowager.-E.

(362) Hugh Earl, and afterwards Duke of Northumberland, and his
lady, Elizabeth Seymour, only surviving child of Algernon Duke of
Somerset, and heiress, by her grandmother, of the Percies.-E.

(363) Sir Charles Bunbury, Bart. The reason evidently was, that
he remained to vote in the House of Commons.-C.

(364) Lord Boyle, eldest son of the first Earl of Shannon,
married, in the following month, Catharine, eldest daughter of
the Right Hon. John Ponsonby, Speaker of the Irish House of
commons, by Lady Ellen Cavendish, second daughter of the third
Duke of Devonshire. Lord Shannon, Mr. Ponsonby, and the Primate,
Dr. George Stone, Archbishop of Armagh, were the ruling
triumvirate of Ireland. They
were four times declared lords justices of that kingdom. Some
differences had, however, occurred between these great leaders,
which Mr. Walpole insinuates that this marriage was likely to
heal.-C.

(365) the benignity of her reception at court is noticed because
General Conway's late votes against the ministry might naturally
have displeased the King, to whom he was groom of the
bedchamber.-C.

Letter 180 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 20, 1763. (page 250)

You are in the wrong; believe me you are in the wrong to stay in
the country; London never was so entertaining since it had a
steeple or a madhouse. Cowards fight duels; secretaries of state
turn Methodists on the Tuesday, and are expelled the playhouse
for blasphemy on Friday. I am not turned Methodist, but patriot,
and what is more extraordinary, am not going to have a place.
What is more wonderful still, Lord Hardwicke has made two of his
sons resign their employments. I know my letter sounds as
enigmatic as Merlin's almanack; but my events have really
happened. I had almost persuaded myself like you to quit the
world; thank my stars I did not. Why, I have done nothing but
laugh since last Sunday; though on Tuesday I was one of a hundred
and eleven, who were outvoted by three hundred; no laughing
matter generally to a true patriot, whether he thinks his country
undone or himself. Nay, I am still: more absurd; even for my
dear country's sake I cannot bring myself to connect with Lord
Hardwicke, or the Duke of Newcastle, though they are in the
minority-an unprecedented case, not to love every body one
despises, when they are of the same side. On the contrary, I
fear I resembled a fond woman, and dote on the dear betrayer. In
short, and to write something that you can understand, you know I
have long had a partiality for your cousin Sandwich, who has
out-Sandwiched himself. He has impeached
Wilkes for a blasphemous poem, and has been expelled for
blasphemy himself by the Beefsteak Club at Covent-garden. Wilkes
has been shot by Martin, and instead of being burnt at an auto da
fe, as the Bishop of Gloucester intended, is reverenced as a
saint by the mob, and if he dies, I suppose, the people will
squint themselves into convulsions at his tomb, in honour of his
memory. Now is not this better than feeding one's birds and
one's bantams, poring one's eyes out over old histories, not half
so extraordinary as the present, or ambling to Squire Bencow's on
one's padnag, and playing
at cribbage with one's brother John and one's parson? Prithee
come to town, and let us put off taking the veil for another
year: besides by this time twelvemonth we are sure the world will
be a year older in wickedness, and we shall have more matter for
meditation. One would not leave it methinks till it comes to the
worst, and that time cannot be many months off. In the mean
time, I have bespoken a dagger, in case the circumstances should
grow so classic as to make it becoming to kill oneself; however,
though disposed to quit the world, as I have no mind to leave it
entirely, I shall put off my death to the last minute, and do
nothing rashly, till I see Mr. Pitt and Lord Temple place
themselves in their curule chairs in St. James's-market, and
resign their throats to the victors. I am determined to see them
dead first, lest they should play me a trick, and be hobbling to
Buckingham-house, while I am shivering and waiting for them on
the banks of Lethe. Adieu! Yours, Horatius.

Letter 181
To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Nov. 25, 1763. (page 251)

You tell me, my dear lord, in a letter I have this moment
received from you, that you have had a comfortable one from me; I
fear it was not the last: you will not have been fond of your
brother's voting against the court. Since that, he has been told
by different channels that they think of taking away regiments
from opposers. He heard it, as he would the wind whistle: while
in the shape of a threat, he treats it with contempt; if put into
execution his scorn would subside into indifference. You know he
has but one object--doing what is right; the rest may betide as
it will. One or two of the ministers,(366) who are honest men,
would, I have reason to believe, be heartily concerned to have
such measures adopted; but they are not directors. The little
favour they possess, and the desperateness of their situation
oblige them to swallow many things they disapprove, and which
ruin their character with the nation; while others, who have no
character to lose, and whose situation is no less desperate, care
not what inconveniences they bring on their master, nor what
confusion on their country, in which they can never prosper,
except when it is convulsed. The nation, indeed, seems
thoroughly sensible of this truth. They are unpopular beyond
conception: even of those that vote with them there are numbers
that express their aversion without reserve. Indeed, on
Wednesday, the 23d, this went farther: we were to debate the
great point of privilege: Wilbraham(367)
objected, that Wilkes was involved in it, and ought to be
present. On this, though, as you see, a question of slight
moment, fifty-seven left them at once: they were but 243 to
166.(368) As we had sat, however, till eight at night, the
debate was postponed to next day. Mr. Pitt, who had a fever and
the gout, came on crutches, and wrapped in flannels: so he did
yesterday, but was obliged to retire at ten at night, after
making a speech of an hour and fifty minutes; the worst, I think,
I ever heard him make in my life. For our parts, we sat till
within ten minutes of two in the morning: yet we had but few
speeches, all were so long. Hussey,(369) solicitor to the
Princess of Wales, was against the court, and spoke with great
spirit, and true Whig spirit. Charles Yorke(370) shone
exceedingly. He had spoke and voted with us the night before;
but now maintained his opinion against Pratt's.(371) It was a
most able and learned performance, and the latter part, which was
oratoric, uncommonly beautiful and eloquent. You find I don't
let partiality to the Whig cause blind my judgment. That speech
was certainly the masterpiece of the day. Norton would not have
made a figure, even if Charles Yorke had not appeared; but giving
way to his natural brutality, he got into an ugly scrape. Having
so little delicacy or decency as to mention a cause in which he
had prosecuted Sir John Rushout(372) (Who sat just under him) for
perjury, the tough old knight (who had been honourably acquitted
of the charge) gave the House an account of the affair; and then
added, "I was assured the prosecution was set on foot by that
Honest gentleman; I hope I don't Call him out of his name--and
that it was in revenge for my having opposed him in an election."
Norton denied the charge upon his honour, which did not seem to
persuade every body. Immediately after this we had another
episode. Rigby,(373) totally unprovoked either by any thing said
or by the complexion of the day, which was grave and
argumentative, fell Upon Lord Temple, and described his behaviour
on the commitment of Wilkes. James Grenville,(374) who sat
beside him, rose in all the acrimony of resentment: drew a very
favourable picture of his brother, and then one of Rigby,
conjuring up the bitterest words, epithet, and circumstances that
he could amass together: told him how interested he was, and how
ignorant: painted his Journey to Ireland to get a law-place, for
which he was so unqualified; and concluded with affirming he had
fled from thence to avoid the vengeance of the people. The
passive Speaker suffered both painters to finish their words, and
would have let them carry their colours and brushes into
Hyde-park the next morning, if other people had not represented
the necessity of demanding their paroles that it should go no
farther. They were both unwilling to rise: Rigby did at last,
and put an end to it with humour(375) and good-humour. The
numbers were 258 to 133. The best speech of
all those that were not spoken was Charles Townshend's.(376) He
has for some time been informing the world that for the last
three months he had constantly employed six clerks to search and
transcribe records, journals, precedents, etc. The production of
all this mountain of matter was a mouse, and that mouse
stillborn: he has voted with us but never uttered a word.