Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3

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370. To the Earl of Strafford, Sept. 8.-Affected admiration of
the French government. Lettres de cachet. Students in
legislature. French treatment Of trees--555

371. To George Montagu, Esq. Sept. 17.-Visit to Versailles,
Madame du Barry. The Dauphin. Count de Provence. Count d'Artois.
The King. Visit to St. Cyr. Madame de Maintenon. Madame de
Cambise. Trait of Madame de Mailly --557

372. To the same, Oct. 13.-Return to England. Congratulations on
his friend's being appointed Lord North's private secretary--560

373. To the same, Oct. 16.-Return to Strawberry. His tragedy of
"The Mysterious Mother." Bad taste of the public. Garrick's
prologues and epilogues. French chalk and dirt contrasted with
English neatness and greenth--560

374. To the Hon. H. S. Conway, Nov. 14.-Lord Temple's dinner with
the Lord Mayor. Tottering position of the Duc de Choiseul. "Trip
to the Jubilee." Literature and politics of the day. Milton's
prose writings. Heroes and orators--561

375. To George Montagu, Esq. Dec. 14.-Condolence on the death of
Mrs. Trevor. Loss of friends and connexions. Cumberland's comedy
of "The Brothers." Alderman Backwell--562

376. To the Rev. Mr. Cole, Dec. 21.-Thanks for communications.
Mr. Tyson's etchings. Madame du Deffand--[N.] 563

Letter 1 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 17, 1759. (page 25)

I rejoice over your brother's honours, though I certainly had no
hand in them. He probably received his staff from the board of
trade. If any part of the consequences could be placed to
partiality for me, it would be the prevention of your coming to
town, which I wished. My lady Cutts(1) is indubitably your own
grandmother: the Trevors would once have had it, but by some
misunderstanding the old Cowslade refused it. Mr. Chute has
twenty more corroborating circumstances, but this one is
sufficient.

Fred. Montagu told me of the pedigree. I shall take care of all
your commissions. Felicitate yourself on having got from me the
two landscapes; that source is stopped. Not that Mr. M`untz is
eloped to finish the conquest of America, nor promoted by Mr.
Secretary's zeal for my friends, nor because the ghost of Mrs.
Leneve has appeared to me, and ordered me to drive Hannah and
Ishmael into the wilderness. A cause much more familiar to me
has separated US--nothing but a tolerable quantity of ingratitude
on his side, both to me and Mr. Bentley. The story is rather too
long for a letter: the substance was most extreme impertinence to
me, concluded by an abusive letter against Mr. Bentley, who sent
him from starving on seven pictures for a guinea to One hundred
pounds a year, my house, table, and utmost countenance. In
short, I turned his head, and was forced to turn him out of
doors. You shall see the documents, as it is the fashion to call
proof papers. Poets and painters imagine they confer the Honour
when they are protected, and they set down impertinence to the
article of their own virtue, when you dare to begin to think that
an ode or a picture is not a patent for all manner of insolence.

My Lord Temple, as vain as if he was descended from the stroller
Pindar, or had made up card-matches at the siege of Genoa, has
resigned the privy seal, because he has not the garter.(2) You
cannot imagine what an absolute prince I feel myself with knowing
that nobody can force me to give the garter to M`untz.

My Lady Carlisle is going to marry a Sir William Musgrave, who is
but three-and-twenty; but, in consideration of the match, and of
her having years to spare, she has made him a present of ten, and
calls them three-and-thirty. I have seen the new Lady Stanhope.
I assure you her face will introduce no plebeian charms into the
faces of the Stanhopes, Adieu!

(1) Lady Cutts was the mother of Mrs. Montagu, by her second
husband, John Trevor, Esq. and grandmother of George Montagu.-E.

(2) See vol. ii. p. 522, letter 344.

Letter 2 TO THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM PITT.(3)
Arlington Street, Nov. 19, 1759. (page 26)

Sir,
On coming to town, I did myself the honour of waiting on you and
Lady Hester Pitt: and though I think myself extremely
distinguished by your obliging note, I shall be sorry for having
given you the trouble of writing it, if it did not lend me a very
pardonable opportunity of saying what I much wished to express,
but thought myself too private a person, and of too little
consequence, to take the liberty to say. In short, Sir, I was
eager to congratulate you on the lustre you have thrown on this
country; I wished to thank you for the security you have fixed to
me of enjoying the happiness I do enjoy. You have placed England
in a situation in which it never saw itself--a task the more
difficult, as you had not to improve, but recover.

In a trifling book, written two or three years ago,(4) I said
(speaking of the name in the world the most venerable to me),
"sixteen unfortunate and inglorious years since his removal have
already written his eulogium." It is but justice to you, Sir, to
add, that that period ended when your administration began.

Sir, do not take this for flattery: there is nothing in your
power to give that I would accept; nay, there is nothing I could
envy, but what I believe you would scarce offer me--your glory.
This may seem very vain and insolent: but consider, Sir, what a
monarch is a man who wants nothing! consider how he looks down
on one who is only the most illustrious man in England! But Sir,
freedoms apart, insignificant as I am, probably it must be some
satisfaction to a great mind like yours to receive incense, when
you are sure there is no flattery blended with it; and what must
any Englishman be that could give you a moment's satisfaction and
would hesitate?

Adieu! Sir. I am unambitious, I am uninterested, but I am vain.
You have, by your notice, uncanvassed, unexpected, and at a
period when you certainly could have the least temptation to
stoop down to me, flattered me in the most agreeable manner. If
there could arrive the moment when you could be nobody, and I any
body, you cannot imagine how grateful I would be. In the mean
time, permit me to be, as I have been ever since I had the honour
of knowing you, Sir, your most obedient humble servant.

(3) Now first collected.

(4) His "Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors."-E.

Letter 3 To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Nov. 30th of the Great Year. (page 27)

here is a victory more than I promised you! For these thirteen
days we have been in the utmost impatience for news. The Brest
fleet had got out; Duff, with three ships, was in the utmost
danger--Ireland ached--Sir Edward Hawke had notice in ten hours,
and sailed after Conflans--Saunders arrived the next moment from
Quebec, heard it, and sailed after Hawke, without landing his
glory. No express arrived, storms blow; we knew not what to
think. This morning at four we heard that, on the 20th, Sir
Edward Hawke came in sight of the French, who were pursuing Duff.
The fight began at half an hour past two--that is, the French
began to fly, making a running fight. Conflans tried to save
himself behind the rocks of Belleisle, but was forced to burn his
ship of eighty guns and twelve hundred men. The Formidable, of
eighty, and one thousand men, is taken; we burned the Hero of
seventy-four, eight hundred and fifteen men. The Thes`ee and
Superbe of seventy-four and seventy, and of eight hundred and
fifteen and eight hundred men, were sunk in the action, and the
crews lost. Eight of their ships are driven up the Vilaine,
after having thrown over their guns; they have moored two
frigates to defend the entrance, but Hawke hopes to destroy them.
Our loss is a scratch, one lieutenant and thirty-nine men killed,
and two hundred and two wounded. The Resolution of seventy-four
guns, and the Essex of sixty-four, are lost, but the crews saved;
they, it is supposed, perished by the tempest, which raged all
the time, for

"We rode in the whirlwind and directed the storm."

Sir Edward heard guns of distress in the night, but could not
tell whether of friend or foe, nor could assist them.(5)

Thus we wind up this wonderful year! Who that died three years
ago and could revive, would believe it! Think, that from
Petersburgh to the Cape of Good Hope, from China to California,

De Paris `a Perou,

there are not five thousand Frenchmen in the world that have
behaved well! Monsieur Thurot is piddling somewhere on the coast
of Scotland, but I think our sixteen years of fears of invasion
are over--after sixteen victories. if we take Paris, I don't
design to go thither before spring. My Lord Kinnoul is going to
Lisbon to ask pardon for Boscawen's beating De la Clue in their
House; it will be a proud supplication, with another victory in
bank.(6) Adieu! I would not profane this letter with a word of
any thing else for the world.

(5) This was Hawke's famous victory, for which he received the
thanks of Parliament, and a pension of two thousand pounds
a-year. In 1765, he was created a peer.-D.

(6) The object of Lord Kinnoul's mission to the court of Portugal
was to remove the misunderstanding between the two crowns, in
consequence of Admiral Boscawen's having destroyed some French
ships under the Portuguese fort in the bay of Lagos.-E.

Letter 4 TO SIR HORACE MANN.
Arlington Street, Dec. 13, 1759. (page 28)

That ever you should pitch upon me for a mechanic or geometric
commission! How my own ignorance has laughed at me since I read
your letter! I say, your letter, for as to Dr. Perelli's, I know
no more of a Latin term in mathematics than Mrs. Goldsworthy(7)
had an idea of verbs. I will tell you an early anecdote in my
own life, and you shall judge. When I first went to Cambridge, I
was to learn mathematics of the famous blind professor Sanderson.
I had not frequented him a fortnight, before he said to me,
"Young man, it is cheating you to take your money: believe me,
you never can learn these things; you have no capacity for
them."- I can smile now, but I cried then with mortification.
The next step, in order to comfort myself, was not to believe him
: I could not conceive that I had not talents for any thing in
the world. I took, at my own expense, a private instructor,(8)
who came to me once a-day for a year. Nay, I took infinite
pains, but had so little capacity, and so little attention, (as I
have always had to any thing that did not immediately strike my
inclination) that after mastering any proposition,
when the man came the next day, it was as new to me as if I had
never heard of it ; in short, even to common figures, I am the
dullest dunce alive. I have often said it of myself, and it is
true, that nothing that has not a proper Dame of a man or
a woman to it, affixes any idea upon my mind. I could
remember who was King Ethelbald's great aunt, and not be sure
whether she lived in the year 500 or 1500. I don't know whether I
ever told you, that when you sent me the seven gallons of drams,
and they were carried to Mr. Fox by mistake for Florence wine, I
pressed @im to keep as much as he liked: for, said I, I have seen
the bill of lading, and there is a vast quantity. He asked how
much? I answered seventy gallons; so little idea I have of
quantity. I will tell you one more story of myself, and you will
comprehend what sort of a head I have! Mrs. Leneve said to me
one day, "There is a vast waste of coals in your house ; you
should make the servants take off the fires at night." I
recollected this as I was going to bed, and, out of economy, put
my fire out with a bottle of Bristol water! However, as I
certainly will neglect nothing to oblige you, I went to Sisson
and gave him the letter. He has undertaken both the engine and
the drawing, and has promised the utmost care in both. The
latter, he says, must be very large, and that it will take some
time to have it performed very accurately. He has promised me
both in six or seven weeks. But another time, don't imagine,
because I can bespeak an enamelled bauble, that I am fit to be
entrusted with the direction of the machine at Marli. It is not
to save myself trouble, for I think nothing so for you, but
I would have you have credit, and I should be afraid of
dishonouring you.

There! there is the King of Prussia has turned all our war and
peace topsy-turvy ! If Mr. Pitt Will conquer
Germany too, he must go and do it himself. Fourteen thousand
soldiers and nine generals taken, as it were, in a partridge net!
and what is worse, I have not heard yet that the monarch owns his
rashness.(9) As often as he does, indeed, he is apt to repair
it. You know I have always dreaded Daun--one cannot make a
blunder but he profits of it-and this ' just at the moment that
we heard of nothing but new bankruptcy in France. I want to know
what a kingdom is to do when it is forced to run away?

14th.--Oh! I interrupt my reflections--there is another bit of a
victory! Prince Henry, who has already succeeded to his
brother's crown, as king of the fashion, has
beaten a parcel of Wirternberghers and taken four battalions.
Daun is gone into Bohemia, and Dresden is still to be ours. The
French are gone into winter quarters--thank God! What weather is
here to be lying on the ground! Men should be statues, or will
be so, if they go through it. Hawke is enjoying himself in
Quiberon Bay, but I believe has done no more execution. Dr. Hay
says it will soon be as shameful to beat a Frenchman as to beat a
woman. Indeed, one is
forced to ask every morning what victory there is, for fear of
missing one. We talk of a con(,,ress at Breda, and some think
Lord Temple will go thither: if he does, I shall really believe
it will be peace; and a good one, as it will then be of Mr.
Pitt's making.

I was much pleased that the watch succeeded so triumphantly, and
beat the French watches, though they were two to one. For the
Fugitive pieces: the Inscription for the Column(10) was written
when I was with you at Florence, though I don't wonder that you
have forgotten it after so many yeirs. I would not have it
talked of, for I find some grave personages are offended -with
the liberties I have taken with so imperial a head. What could
provoke them to give a column Christian burial? Adieu!

(7) Wife of the English consul at Leghorn, where, when she was
learning Italian by grammar, she said, "Oh! give me a language in
which there are no verbs!" concluding, as she had not learnt her
own language by grammar, that there were no verbs in English.

(8) Dr. Treviger.

(9) It was not Frederick's fault; he was not there ; but that of
General Finek, who had placed himself so injudiciously, that he
was obliged to capitulate to the Austrians with fourteen thousand
men.

(10) The inscription for the neglected Column in St. Mark's Place
at Florence.-E.

Letter 5 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Dec. 23, 1759. (page 30)

How do you do? are you thawed again? how have you borne the
country in this bitter weather? I have not been here these three
weeks till to-day, and was delighted to find it so pleasant, and
to meet a comfortable southeast wind, the fairest of all winds,
in spite of the scandal that lies on the east; though it is the
west that is parent of all ugliness. The frost was succeeded by
such fogs, that I could not find my way out of London.

Has your brother told you of the violences in Ireland? There
wanted nothing but a Massaniello to overturn the government; and
luckily for the government and for Rigby, he, who was made for
Massaniello, happened to be first minister there. Tumults, and
insurrections, and oppositions,

"Like arts and sciences, have travelled west."

Pray make the general collect authentic accounts of those civil
wars against he returns--you know where they will find their
place, and that you are one of the very few that will profit of
them. I will grind and dispense to you all the corn you bring to
my mill.

We good-humoured souls vote eight millions with as few questions,
as if the whole House of Commons was at the club at Arthur's; and
we live upon distant news, as if London was York or Bristol.
There is nothing domestic, but that Lord George Lennox, being
refused Lord Ancram's consent, set out for Edinburgh with Lady
Louisa Kerr, the day before yesterday; and Lord Buckingham is
going to be married to our Miss Pitt of Twickenham, daughter of
that strange woman who had a mind to be my wife, and who sent Mr.
Raftor to know why I did not marry her. I replied, "Because I
was not sure that the two husbands, that she had at once, were
both dead." Apropos to my wedding, Prince Edward asked me at the
Opera, t'other night, when I was to marry Lady Mary Coke: I
answered, as soon as I got a regiment; which, you know, is now
the fashionable way.

The kingdom of beauty is in as great disorder as the kingdom of
Ireland. My Lady Pembroke looks like a ghost-poor Lady Coventry
is going to be one; and the Duchess of Hamilton is so altered I
did not know her. Indeed, she is bid with child, and so big,
that as my Lady Northumberland says, it is plain she has a camel
in her belly, and my Lord Edgecumbe says, it is as true it did
not go through the eye of a needle. That Countess has been laid
up with a hurt in her leg; Lady Rebecca Paulett pushed her on the
birthnight against a bench: the Duchess of Grafton asked if it
was true that Lady Rebecca kicked her? "Kick me, Madam! When did
you ever hear of a Percy that took a kick?"

I can tell you another anecdote of that house, that will not
divert you less. Lord March making them a visit this summer at
Alnwick Castle, my lord received him at the gate, and said, "I
believe, my lord, this is the first time that ever a Douglas and
a Percy met here in friendship." Think of this from a Smithson to
a true Douglas!

I don't trouble my head about any connexion; any news into the
country I know is welcome, though it comes out higlepigledy, just
as it happens to be packed up. The cry in Ireland has been
against Lord Hilsborough, supposing him to mediate an union of
the two islands; George Selwyn, seeing him set t'other night
between my Lady Harrington and Lord Barrington, said, "Who can
say that my Lord Hilsborough is not an enemy to an union?"

I will tell you one more story, and then good night. Lord
Lyttelton(11) was at Covent Garden; Beard came on: the former
said, "How comes Beard here? what made him leave Drury Lane?"
Mr. Shelley, who sat next him, replied, "Why, don't you know he
has been such a fool as to go and marry a Miss Rich? He has
married Rich's daughter." My lord coloured; Shelley found out
what he had said, and ran away.

I forgot to tell you, that you need be in no disturbance about
M`untz's pictures; they were a present I made you. Good night!

(11) Lord Lyttelton married a daughter of Sir Robert Rich.

Letter 6 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.
Strawberry Hill, Dec. 23, 1759. (page 31)

Sir,
I own I am pleased, for your sake as well as my own, at hearing
from you again. I felt sorry at thinking that you was displeased
with the frankness and sincerity of my last. You have shown me
that I made a wrong judgment of you, and I willingly correct it.

You are extremely obliging in giving yourself the least trouble
to make collections for me. I have received so much assistance
and information from you, that I am sure I cannot have a more
useful friend. For the Catalogue, I forgot it, as in the course
of things I suppose it is forgot. For the Lives of English
Artists I am going immediately to begin it, and shall then fling
it into the treasury of the world, for the amusement of the world
for a day, and then for the service of any body who shall happen
hereafter to peep into the dusty drawer where it shall repose.

For my Lord Clarendon's new work(12) of which you ask me, I am
charmed with it. It entertains me more almost than any book I
ever read. I was told there was little in it that had not
already got abroad, or was not known by any other channels. If
that is true, I own I am so scanty an historian as to have been
ignorant of many of the facts but sure, at least, the
circumstances productive of, or concomitant on several of them,
set them in very new lights. The deductions and stating of
arguments are uncommonly fine. His language I find much
censured--in truth, it is sometimes involved, particularly in the
indistinct usage of he and him. But in my opinion his style is
not so much inferior to the former History as it seems. But this
I take to be the case; when the former part appeared, the world
was not accustomed to a good style as it is now. I question if
the History of the Rebellion had been published but this summer,
whether it would be thought so fine in point of style as it has
generally been reckoned. For his veracity, alas! I am sorry to
say, there is more than one passage in the new work which puts
one a little upon one's guard in lending him implicit credit.
When he says that Charles I. and his queen were a pattern of
conjugal affection, it makes one stare. Charles was so, I verily
believe; but can any man in his historical senses believe, that
my Lord Clarendon did not know that, though the Queen was a
pattern of affection, it was by no means of the conjugal
kind.(13) Then the subterfuges my Lord Clarendon uses to avoid
avowing that Charles II. was a Papist, are certainly no grounds
for corroborating his veracity.(14) In short, I don't believe
him when he does not speak truth; but he has spoken so much
truth, that it is easy to see when he does not.

Lucan is in poor forwardness. I have been plagued with a
succession of bad printers, and am not got beyond the fourth
book. It will scarce appear before next winter. Adieu! Sir. I
have received so much pleasure and benefit from your
correspondence, that I should be sorry to lose it. I will not
deserve to lose it, but endeavour to be, as you will give me
leave to be, your, etc.

(12) The life of Edward Earl of Clarendon, etc. Dr. Johnson, in
the sixty-fifth number of the Idler, has also celebrated the
appearance of this interesting and valuable work.-C.

(13) Mr. Walpole had early taken up this opinion; witness that
gross line in his dull epistle to Aston, written in 1740, "The
lustful Henrietta's Romish shade;" but we believe that no good
authority for this imputation can be produced: there is strong
evidence the other way: and if we were even to stand on mere
authority, we should prefer that of Lord Clarendon to the
scandalous rumours of troublesome times, which were, we believe,
the only guides of Mr. Walpole.-C.

(14) Nor for impugning it; for, the very fact, brought to light
in later times, of Charles's having, with great secrecy and
mystery, reconciled himself to the church of Rome on his
deathbed, proves that up to that extreme hour he was not a
Papist.-C.

Letter 7 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Jan. 7, 1760. (page 32)

You must wonder I have not written to you a long time; a person
of my consequence! I am now almost ready to say, We, instead of I
In short, I live amongst royalty--considering the plenty, that is
no great wonder. All the world lives with them, and they with
all the world. Princes and Princesses open shops in every corner
of the town, and the whole town deals with them. As I have gone
to one, I chose to frequent all, that I night not be particular,
and seem to have views; and yet it went so much against me, that
I came to town on purpose a month ago for the Duke's levee, and
had engaged brand to go with me, and then could not bring myself
to it. At last, I went to him and the Princess Emily yesterday.
It was well I had not flattered myself with being still in my
bloom; I am grown so old since they saw me, that neither of them
knew me. When they were told, he just spoke to me (I forgive
him; he is not out of my debt, even with that) - she was
exceedingly gracious, and commended Strawberry to the skies.
TO-night, I was asked to their party at Norfolk House. These
parties are wonderfully select and dignified one might sooner be
a knight of Malta than qualified for them; I don't know how the
Duchess of Devonshire, Mr. Fox, and I, were forgiven some of our
ancestors. There were two tables at loo, two at whist, and a
quadrille. I was commanded to the Duke's loo; he was sat down:
not to make him wait, I threw my hat upon the marble table, and
broke four pieces off a great crystal chandelier. I stick to my
etiquette, and treat them with great respect; not as I do my
friend, the Duke of York. But don't let us talk any more of
Princes. My Lucan appears to-morrow; I must say it is a noble
volume. Shall I send it you--or won't you come and fetch it?

There is nothing new of public, but the violent commotions in
Ireland,(15) whither the Duke of Bedford still persists in going.
AEolus to quell a storm!

I am in great concern for my old friend, poor Lady Harry
Beauclerc; her lord dropped down dead two nights ago, as he was
sitting with her and all their children. Admiral Boscawen is
dead by this time.(16) Mrs. Osborne and I are not much
afflicted; Lady Jane Coke too is dead, exceedingly rich; I have
not heard her will yet.