Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3

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(437) He means that the opposition had adopted Pratt's view
instead of Mr. Yorke's.-C.

(438) This is not true; the real cause of his resignation is
stated ant`e, p. 251, letter 181; he certainly disagreed from the
Duke of Newcastle and others of his friends, who made the matter
of privilege a party question instead of treating it as a legal
one, as Mr. Yorke did.

(439) Philip Lord Royston, afterwards second Earl of Hardwicke,
elder brother of Mr. Charles Yorke.-E.

(440) George, first Marquis of Townshend, at this time a
major-general in the army. In the divisions on branches of the
Wilkes question, we sometimes find General Townshend a teller on
one side, and Mr. Townshend on the other.-C.

(441) The Hereditary Prince, who came to England to marry the
Princess Augusta, eldest sister of George III. He landed at
Harwich on the 12th of January, and arrived the same evening at
Somerset-house, where he was lodged. Lady Chatham, in a letter
to Mr. Pitt, relates the following anecdotes Mrs. Boscawen tells
me, that while the Prince was at Harwich, the people almost
pulled down the house in which he was, in order to see him. A
substantial Quaker insisted so strongly upon seeing him, that he
was allowed to come into the room: he pulled off his hat to him,
and said, 'Noble friend, give me thy hand!' which was given, and
he kissed it; 'although I do not fight myself, I love a brave man
that will fight: thou art a valiant Prince, and art to be married
to a lovely Princess: love her, make her a good husband, and the
Lord bless you both!'" See Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p.
272.-E.

(442) The Prince's chief secretary.-E.

(443) Granville, second Earl Gower, afterwards first Marquis:
groom of the stole.-E.

(444) William Charles Henry, Prince of Orange, who, in 1734,
married Anne, eldest daughter of George II.-E.

(445) Alicia Ashley, wife of Charles, third Earl of Tankerville,
lady of the bedchamber to Princess Augusta. Nothing but Mr.
Walpole's facetious ingenuity could have tortured the Prince's
little attention to Lady Tankerville into a desire to insult the
King.-C.

(446) Mr. Wilkes had thought it prudent to retire to Paris, under
circumstances which certainly rendered it unlikely that the
King's ambassador should pay him any kind of civil attention.-C.

(447) Again Mr. Walpole's partiality blinds him. "The Duellist"
is surely far from being the finest of Churchill's works. Mr.
Walpole's own feelings are strongly marked by the glee with which
he sees hemlock administered to his old friend Lord Holland, and
by being charmed with the abuse of Bishop Warburton.-C.

(448) Mr. Walpole, by one of those happy expressions which make
the chief charm of his writings, characterizes the stately
formality of this noble lord. His house at Witham is close to
the great road, a little beyond the town of Witham. Her late
Majesty, Queen Charlotte, slept there on her way to London, in
1761.-C.

(449) Mr. Walpole probably understood his lordship to mean that a
Serene Highness was not sufficiently important to require his
attendance at Witham.-C.

(450) Wilkes was convicted, in the Court of King's Bench, on the
21st of January, the day before this letter was begun, of having
written the Essay on Woman.-C.

(451) Mr. Kidgel, a clergyman, had obtained from a printer a copy
of the Essay on Woman, which he said he felt it his duty to
denounce. His own personal character turned out to be far from
respectable.-C.

(452) The opposition club was in Albemarle-street, and the
ministerial at the Cocoa-tree; and the papers of the day had
several political letters addressed to and from these clubs.-C.

(453) The oldest field-marshal in the army.

(454) Major-general A,Court had a little before resigned, or
rather been dismissed, for his parliamentary opposition, from the
command of the second regiment of foot-guards.-C.

(455) John, afterwards seventh Earl of galloway.

(456) Joseph Damer, first Lord Milton.

Letter 189 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, Jan. 31, 1764. (page 277)

Dear Sir,
Several weeks ago I begged you to tell me how to convey to you a
print of Strawberry Hill, and another of Archbishop Hutton. I
must now repeat the same request for two more volumes of my
Anecdotes of Painting, which are on the point of being published.
I hope no illness prevented my hearing from you.

To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Dear Sir,
I am impatient for your manuscript, but have not yet received it.
You may depend on my keeping it to myself, and returning it
safely.

I do not know that history of my father, which you mention, by
the name of Musgrave. If it is the critical history of his
administration, I have it; if not, I shall be obliged to you for
it.

Your kindness to your tenants is like yourself, and most humane.
I am glad Your prize rewards you, and wish your fortune had been
as good as mine, who with a single ticket in this last lottery
got five hundred pounds.

I have nothing new, that is, nothing old to tell you. You care
not about the present world, and are the only real philosopher, I
know.

I this winter met with a very large lot of English heads, chiefly
of the reign of James I., which very nearly perfects my
collection. There were several which I had in vain hunted for
these ten years. I have bought too, some very scarce, but more
modern ones out of Sir Charles Cotterell's collection. Except a
few of Faithorne's, there are scarce any now that I much wish
for.

With my Anecdotes I packed up for you the head of Archbishop
Hutton, and a new little print of Strawberry. If the volumes, as
I understand by your letter, stay in town to be bound, I hope
your bookseller will take care not to lose those trifles.

Letter 190 To Sir David Dalrymple.(457)
Arlington Street, Jan. 31, 1764. (page 278)

I am very sorry, Sir, that your obliging corrections of my
Anecdotes of Painting have come so late, that the first volume is
actually reprinted. The second shall be the better for them. I
am now publishing the third volume, and another of Engravers. I
wish you would be so kind as to tell me how I may convey them
speedily to you: you waited too long the last time for things
that have little merit but novelty. These volumes are of still
less worth than the preceding; our latter painters not
compensating by excellence for the charms that antiquity has
bestowed on their antecessors.

I wish I had known in time what heads of Nanteuil you want.
There has been a very valuable sale of Sir Clement Cotterell's
prints, the impressions most beautiful, and of which Nanteuil
made the capital part. I do not know who particularly collects
his works now, but I have ordered my bookseller Bathoe,(458) who
is much versed in those things, to inquire; and if I hear of any
purchaser, Sir, I will let you know.

I have not bought the Anecdotes of Polite literature,(459)
suspecting them for a bookseller's compilation, and confirmed in
it by never hearing them mentioned. Our booksellers here at
London disgrace literature, by the trash they bespeak to be
written, and at the same time prevent every thing else from being
sold. They are little more or less than upholsters, who sell
sets or bodies of arts and sciences for furniture; and the
purchasers, for I am sure they are not readers, buy only in that
view.(460) I never thought there was much merit in reading: but
yet it is too good a thing to be put upon no better footing than
In damask and mahogany.

Whenever I can be of the least use to your studies or
collections, you know, Sir, that you may command me freely.

(457) Now first collected.

(458) This very intelligent bookseller, who lived near Exeter
'Change, in the Strand, died in 1768.-E.

(459) This was a very amusing and judicious selection, in five
small volumes, very neatly printed.-E.

(460 "I once said to Dr. Johnson, 'I am sorry, Sir, you did not
get more for your Dictionary.' His answer was, 'I am sorry too;
but it was very well: the booksellers are generous liberal-minded
men.' He, upon all occasions, did ample justice to their
character in this respect. He considered them as the patrons of
literature and, indeed, although they have eventually been
considerable gainers by his Dictionary, it is to them that we owe
its having been undertaken and carried out at the risk of great
expense for they were not absolutely sure of being indemnified."
Boswell's Johnson, vol. ii. p. 58.-E.

Letter 191 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Feb. 6, 1764. (page 279)

You have, I hope, long before this, my dear lord, received the
immense letter that I sent you by old Monin. It explained much,
and announced most part of which has already happened; for you
will observe that when I tell you any thing, very positively, it
is on good intelligence. I have another much bigger secret for
you, but that will be delivered to you by word of mouth. I am
not a little impatient for the long letter you promised me. In
the mean time thank you for the account you give me of the King's
extreme civility to you. It is like yourself, to dwell on that,
and to say little of M. de Chaulnes's dirty behaviour; but
Monsieur and Madame de Guerchy have told your brother and me all
the particulars.

I was but too good a prophet when I warned you to expect new
extravagances from the Due de Chaulnes's son. Some weeks ago he
lost five hundred pounds to one Virette, an equivocal being, that
you remember here. Paolucci, the Modenese minister, who is not
in the odour of honesty, was of the party. The Duc de Pecquigny
said to the latter, "Monsieur, ne jouez plus avec lui, si vous
n'`etes pas de moiti`e." So far was very well. On Saturday at
the Maccaroni Club(461) (which is composed of all the travelled
young men, men who wear long curls and spying-glasses,) they
played again: the Duc lost, but not Much. In the passage at the
Opera, the Duc saw Mr. Stuart talking to Virette, and told the
former that Virette was a coquin, a fripon, etc. etc. Virette
retired, saying only, "Voil`a un fou." The Duc then desired Lord
Tavistock to come and see him fight Virette, but the Marquis
desired to be excused. After the Opera, Virette went to the
Duc's lodgings, but found him gone to make his complaint to
Monsieur de Guerchy, whither he followed him; and farther this
deponent knoweth not. I pity the Count (de Guerchy,) who is one
of the best-natured amiable men in the world, for having this
absurd boy upon his hands!

Well! now for a little politics. The Cider-bill(462) has not
answered to the minority, though they ran the ministry hard;(463)
but last Friday was extraordinary. George Grenville was pushed
upon some Navy bills; I don't understand a syllable, you know of
money and accounts; but whatever was the matter,(464) he was
driven from entrenchment to entrenchment by Baker,(465) and
Charles Townshend. After that affair was over, and many gone
away, Sir W. Meredith moved for the depositions on which the
warrant against Wilkes had been granted. The ministers
complained of the motion being made so late In the day; called it
a surprise; and Rigby moved to adjourn, which was carried but by
73 to 60. Had a surprise been intended, one may imagine the
minority would have been better provided with numbers; but it
certainly had not been concerted: however, a majority, shrunk to
thirteen, frightened them out of the small senses they possess.
heaven, earth, and the treasury, were moved to recover their
ground to-day, when the question was renewed. For about two
hours the debate hobbled on very lamely, when on a sudden your
brother rose, and made such a speech(466)--but I wish any body
was to give you the account except me, whom you will think
partial: but you will hear enough of it, to confirm any thing I
can say. Imagine fire, rapidity, argument, knowledge, wit,
ridicule, grave, spirit; all pouring like a torrent, but without
clashing. Imagine the House in a tumult of continued applause
imagine the ministers thunderstruck; lawyers abashed and almost
blushing, for it was on their quibbles and evasions he fell most
heavily, at the same time answering a whole session of arguments
on the side of the court. No, it was unique; you can neither
conceive it, nor the exclamations it occasioned. Ellis, the
forlorn hope, Ellis presented himself in the gap, till the
ministers could recover themselves, when on a sudden Lord George
Sackville led up the Blues;(467) spoke with as much warmth as
your brother had, and with great force continued the attack which
he had begun. Did not I tell you he would take this part? I was
made privy to it; but this is far from all you are to expect.
Lord North in vain rumbled about his mustard-bowl, and
endeavoured alone to outroar a whole party: him and Forrester,
Charles Townshend took up, but less well than usual. His
jealousy of your brother's success, which was very evident, did
not help him to shine. There were several other speeches, and,
upon the whole, it was a capital debate; but Plutus is so much
more persuasive an orator than your brother or Lord George, that
we divided but 122 against 217. Lord Strange, who had agreed to
the question, did not dare to vote for it, and declared off; and
George Townshend who had actually voted for it on Friday, now
voted against it. well! upon the whole, I heartily wish this
administration may last: both their characters and abilities are
so contemptible, @at I am sure we can be in no danger from
prerogative when trusted to such hands!

Before I have done with Charles Townshend, I must tell you one of
his admirable bon-mots. Miss Draycote,(468) the great fortune,
is grown very fat: he says her tonnage is become equal to her
poundage.

There is the devil to pay in Nabob-land, but I understand Indian
histories no better than stocks. The council rebelled against
the governors and sent a deputation, the Lord knows why, to the
Nabob, who cut off the said deputies' heads, and then, I think,
was disnabob'd himself, and Clive's old friend reinstated. There
is another rebellion in Minorca, where Johnson [has renounced his
allegiance to viceroy Dick Lyttelton, and set up for himself.
Sir Richard has laid the affair before the King and council;
Charles Townshend first, and then your brother, (you know why I
am sorry they should appear together in that cause,) have tried
to deprecate Sir Richard's wrath: but it was then too late. The
silly fellow has brought himself' to a precipice.

I forgot to tell you that Lord George Sackville carried into the
minority with him his own brother(469) Lord Middlesex; Lord
Milton's brother;(470) young Beauclerc; Sir Thomas Hales; and
Colonel Irwine.

We have not heard a word of the Hereditary Prince and Princess.
They were sent away in a tempest, and I believe the best one can
hope is, that they are driven to Norway.(471)

Good night, my dear lord; it is time to finish, for it is half an
hour after one in the morning - I am forced to purloin such hours
to Write to you, for I get up so late, and then have such a
perpetual succession Of nothings to do, such auctions, politics,
visits, dinners, suppers, books to publish or revise, etc. that I
have not a quarter of an hour without a call upon it: but I need
not tell you, who know my life, that I am forced to create new
time, if I will keep up my correspondence with you. You seem to
like I should, and I wish to give you every satisfaction in my
power.

Tuesday, February 7, four o'clock.

I tremble whilst I continue my letter, having just heard such a
dreadful story! A captain of a vessel has made oath before the
Lord Mayor, this morning, that he saw one of the yachts sunk on
the coast of Holland; and it is believed to be the one in which
the Prince was. The city is in an uproar; nor need one point out
all such an accident may produce, if true; which I most fervently
hope it is not. My long letter will help you to comments enough,
which will be made on this occasion. I wish you may know, at
this moment, that our fears are ill placed. The Princess was not
in the same yacht with her husband. Poor Fanshawe,(472) as clerk
of the green cloth, with his wife and sister, was in one of them.

Here is more of the Duc de Pecquigny's episode. An officer was
sent yesterday to put Virette under arrest. His servant disputed
with the officer on his orders, till his master made his escape.
Virette sent a friend, whom he ordered to deliver his letter in
person, and see it read, with a challenge, appointing the Duc to
meet him at an hour after seven this morning, at Buckingham-gate,
where he waited till ten to no purpose, though the Duc had not
been put under arrest. Virette absconds, and has sent M. de
Pecquigny word, that he shall abscond till he can find a proper
opportunity of fighting him. Your discretion will naturally
prevent your talking of this; but I thought you would like to be
prepared, if this affair should any how happen to become your
business, though your late discussion With the Duc de Chaulnes
will add to your disinclination from meddling with it.

I must send this to the post before I go to the Opera, and
therefore shall not be able to tell you more of the Prince of
Brunswick by this post.

(461) The "Maccaroni" of 1764 was nearly synonymous with the term
"dandy" at present in vogue, and even become classical by the use
of it by Lord Byron; who, in his story of Beppo, written in 1817,
speaks of

----"the dynasty of Dandies, now
Perchance succeeded by some other class
Of imitated imitators:--how
Irreparably soon decline, alas!
The demagogues of fashion: all below
Is frail; how easily the world is lost
By love, or war, and now and then by frost!"-E.

(462) A bill, passed in the last session, for an additional duty
on cider and perry, which was violently opposed by the cider
counties, and taken up as a general opposition question. This
measure was considered as a great error on the part of Lord Bute,
and the unpopularity consequent upon it is said to have
contributed to his resignation.

(463) On a motion for a committee on the Cider-bill on the 24th
of January. Mr. James Grenville, in a letter to his sister, Lady
Chatham, speaking of this debate says, "I should make you as old
a woman as either Sandys or Rushout, if I were to state all the
jargon that arose in this debate. It was plain the Court meant
to preclude any repeal of the bill; the cider people coldly
wished to obtain it. Sir Richard Bamfylde, at the head of them,
spoke, not his own sentiments, as he declared, but those which
the instructions and petitions of his constituents forced him to
maintain. We divided 127 with us: against us, 167." Chatham
Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 282.-E.

(464) It was a proposal for converting certain outstanding
navy-bills into annuities at four per cent.-C.

(465) Sir William Baker, member for Plympton; an alderman of
London. He married the eldest daughter of the second Jacob
Tonson, the bookseller.-E.

(466) There is no other account of this remarkable speech to be
found; and indeed we have little notice of General Conway's
parliamentary efforts, except Mr. Burke's general and brilliant
description of his conduct as leader of the House of Commons in
the Rockingham administration. As General Conway's reputation in
the House of Commons has been in some degree forgotten, it may be
as well to cite the passage from Mr. Burke's speech, in 1774, on
American taxation, in support of what Mr. Walpole says of the
General's powers in debate:--"I will likewise do justice, I ought
to do it, to the honourable gentleman who led us in this House.
Far from the duplicity wickedly charged on him, he acted his part
with alacrity and resolution. We all felt inspired by the
example he gave us, down even to myself, the weakest in that
phalanx. I declare for one, I knew well enough (it could not be
concealed from any body) the true state of things; but, in my
life I never came with so much spirits into this House. It was a
time for a man to act in. We had powerful enemies; but we had
faithful and determined friends and a glorious cause. We had a
great battle to fight, but we had the means of fighting; not as
now, when our arms are tied behind us. We did fight that day,
and conquer. I remember, Sir, with a melancholy pleasure, the
situation of the Honourable gentleman (General Conway) who made
the motion for the repeal; in that crisis, when the whole trading
interest of this empire, crammed into your lobbies with a
trembling, and anxious expectation, waited, ,almost to a winter's
return of light, their fate from your resolution. When, at
length, you had determined in their favour, and your doors thrown
open, showed them the figure of their deliverer in the
well-earned triumph of his important victory, from the whole of
that grave multitude there arose an involuntary burst of
gratitude and transport, They jumped upon him like children on a
long absent father. They clung about him like captives about the
redeemer. All England, all America, joined in his applause. Nor
did he seem insensible to the best of all earthly regards--the
love and admiration of his fellow-citizens. Hope elevated, and
joy brightened his crest. I stood near him; and his face, to use
the expression of the Scripture of the first martyr, 'his face
was as if it had been the face of an angel.' I do not know how
others feel; but if I had Stood in that situation, I never would
have exchanged it for all that kings, in their profusion, could
bestow. I did hope, that that day's danger and honour would have
been a bond to hold us all together for ever. But alas! that,
with other pleasing visions, is long since vanished."-C.

(467) Mr. Walpole tinges his approbation of Lord George's
politics by this allusion to Minden, where his lordship had not
"led up the Blues."-C.

(468) Miss Anna Maria Draycote, married in April, 17()3, to Earl
Pomfret. To taste Mr. Townshend's jest, one must recollect, that
in the finance of that day the duties of tonnage and poundage
held a principal place.-C.

(469) Governor Vansittart, contrary to the advice of his council,
had deposed the Nabob Meer Jaffier, and transferred the
sovereignty to his son-in-law, Cossim Ali Cawn. The latter,
however, soon forgot his obligations to the English; and in
consequence of some aggressions on his part, a deputation,
consisting of Mesrs Amyatt and Hay, members of council, attended
by half a dozen other gentlemen, was sent to the new Nabob.
While this deputation was on its return, hostilities broke out,
and these gentlemen were put to death as they were passing the
city of Mor", Moreshedabad. About the same here the English
council at Patna and their attendants were made prisoners, and
afterwards cruelly massacred. These events necessitated the
deposition of Cossim, and Jaffier was accordingly, after a short
campaign, restored.-C. (468) Charles, afterwards second Duke of
Dorset.-E.

(470) John Damer, member for Dorchester. Lord Milton had married
Lord George's youngest sister, Lady Caroline.-E.

(471) The Prince and Princess landed safely at Helvoet on the 2d
of February.-E.

(472) Simon Fanshawe, Esq. member for Grampound. He had married
a lady of his own name.

Letter 192 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 1764. (page 283)

My dear lord,
You ought to be Witness to the fatigue I am suffering, before you
can estimate the merit I have in being writing to you at this
moment. Cast up eleven hours in the House of Commons on Monday,
and above seventeen hours yesterday--ay, seventeen at length,-
-and then you may guess if I am tired! nay, you must add
seventeen hours that I may possibly be there on Friday, and then
calculate if I am weary.(473) In short, yesterday was the
longest day ever known in the House of Commons--why, on the
Westminster election at the end of my father's reign,(474) I was
at home by six. On Alexander Murray's(475) affair, I believe, by
five--on the militia, twenty people, I think, sat till six, but
then they were only among themselves, no heat, no noise, no
roaring. It was half an hour after seven this morning before I
was at home. Think of that, and then brag of your French
parliaments!(476)

What is ten times greater, Leonidas and the Spartan minority did
not make such a stand at Thermopylae, as we did. Do you know, we
had like to have been the majority? Xerxes(477) is frightened
out of his senses; Sysigambis(478) has sent an express to Luton
to forbid Phrates(479) coming to town to-morrow: Norton's(480)
impudence has forsaken him; Bishop Warburton is at this moment
reinstating Mr. Pitt's name in the dedication to his sermons,
which he had expunged for Sandwich's;(481) and Sandwich himself
is--at Paris, perhaps, by this time, for the first thing I expect
to hear to-morrow is, that he is gone off.

Now are you mortally angry with me for trifling with you, and not
telling you at once the particulars of this almost-revolution.
You may be angry, but I shall take my own time, and shall give
myself what airs I please both to you, my Lord Ambassador, and to
you, my Lord Secretary of State, who will, I suppose, open this
letter--if you have courage enough left. In the first place, I
assume all the impertinence of a prophet, aye, of that great
curiosity, a prophet, who really prophesied before the event, and
whose predictions have been accomplished. Have I, or have I not,
announced to you the unexpected blows that would be given to the
administration?--come, I will lay aside my dignity, and satisfy
your impatience. There's moderation.