Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3

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The East India Company, yesterday, elected Lord Clive--Great
Mogul; that is, they have made him governor-general of Bengal,
and restored his Jaghire.(544) I dare say he will put it out of
their power ever to take it away again. We have had a deluge of
disputes and pamphlets on the late events in that distant
province of our empire, the Indies. The novelty of the manners
divert me: our governors there, I think, have learned more of
their treachery and injustice, than they have taught them of our
discipline.

Monsieur Helvetius(545 arrived yesterday. I will take care to
inform the Princess, that you could not do otherwise than you did
about her trees. My compliments to all your hotel.

(532) The event took place on the 6th of March.-E.

(533) For High steward of the university, between Lord Sandwich
and the new Lord Hardwicke. Gray, in a letter of the 21st of
February, written from Cambridge, says, "This silly dirty place
has had all its thoughts taken up with choosing a new high
steward; and had not Lord Hardwicke surprisingly, and to the
shame of the faculty, recovered by a quack medicine, I believe in
my conscience the noble Earl of Sandwich had been chosen, though,
(let me do them the justice to say) not without a considerable
opposition." Works, vol. iv. p. 29.-E.

(534) Catharine Hyde, the granddaughter of the great Lord
Clarendon; herself remarkable for some oddities of character,
dress, and manners, to which the world became less indulgent as
she ceased to be young and handsome.-C.

(535) the sisters omitted were, Lady Dalkeith, Lady Elizabeth
Mackenzie, and Lady Mary Coke.-C.

(536) John Duke of Montagu left two daughters; the eldest,
Isabella, married first the Duke of Manchester, and, secondly,
Mr. Hussey, an Irish gentleman, created in consequence of this
union, Lord Beaulieu. Mary, the younger sister, married Lord
Cardigan, who was, in 1776, created Duke of Montagu: their eldest
son having been in 1762, created Lord Montagu. The marriage of
the elder sister with Mr. Hussey was considered, by her family
and the world, as a m`esalliance; and, therefore, the mistake of
lord Beaulieu for Lord Montagu was likely to give offence.-C.

(537) It is now almost necessary to remind the reader, that old
Bedlam stood in Moorfields.-C.

(538) Afterwards fifth Duke of Argyle.-E.

(539) He means, as subsequently appears, the Duke of Portland.-C.

(540) Lord Hertford's eldest daughter, afterwards wife of Mr.
Stewart, subsequently created Earl and Marquis of Londonderry.-E.

(541) Elizabeth Russell, daughter of the second Duke of Bedford.
She had four daughters; but the oldest died young.-E.

(542) Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Eyre, Esq. of Derbyshire,
second wife of the first, and mother of the second, Earl of
Massarene; the latter being at this time a minor. The election
was probably for the county of Antrim, in which both Lord
Massarene and Lord Hertford had considerable property.-C.

(543) Princess Amelia's, the corner of Harley Street; since the
residence of Mr. Hope, and of mr. Watson Taylor.-C.

(544) A rent-charge which had been granted him by the late Nabob,
and which, on the seizure of the territory on which it was
charged by the East India Company, Lord Clive insisted that the
Company should continue to pay. It was about twenty-five
thousand pounds per annum.-C.

(545) A French philosopher, the son of a Dutch Physician brought
into France by Louis XIV. He was the author of a dull book
mis-named "De l'Esprit." We cannot resist repeating a joke made
about this period on the occasion of a requisition made by the
French ministry to the government of Geneva, that it should seize
copies of this book "De l'Esprit," and Voltaire's "Pucelle
d'Orl`eans," which were supposed to be collected there in order
to be smuggled into France. The worthy magistrates were said to
have reported that, after the most diligent search, they could
find in their whole town no trace "de l'Esprit, et pas une
Pucelle."-C. [The following is Gibbon's character of Helvetius,
in a letter of the 12th of February, 1763:--"Amongst my
acquaintance I cannot help mentioning M. Helvetius, the author of
the famous book 'De l'Esprit.' I met him at dinner at Madame
Geoffrin's, where he took great notice of me, made me a visit
next day, has ever since treated me, not in a polite but a
friendly manner. Besides being a sensible man, an agreeable
companion, and the worthiest creature in the world, he has a very
pretty wife, an hundred thousand livres a-year, and one of the
best tables in Paris." He died in 1771, at the age of
fifty-six.-E.]

Letter 197 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Sunday, March 18, 1764. (page 300)

You will feel, my dear lord, for the loss I have had, and for the
much greater affliction of poor Lady Malpas. My nephew(546) went
to his regiment in Ireland before Christmas, and returned but
last Monday. He had, I suppose, heated himself in that
bacchanalian country, and was taken ill the very day he set out,
yet he came on, but grew much worse the night of his arrival; it
turned to an inflammation in his bowels, and he died last Friday.
You may imagine the distress where there was so much domestic
felicity, and where the deprivation is augmented by the very
slender circumstances in which he could but leave his family; as
his father--such an improvident father--is living! Lord Malpas
himself was very amiable, and I had always loved him--but this is
the cruel tax one pays for living, to see one's friends taken
away before one! It has been a week of mortality. The night I
wrote to you last, and had sent away my letter, came an account
of my Lord Townshend's death. He had been ill treated by a
surgeon in the country, then was carried improperly to the Bath,
and then again to Rainham, tho Hawkins, and other surgeons and
physicians represented his danger to him. But the woman he kept,
probably to prevent his seeing his family, persisted in these
extravagant journeys, and he died in exquisite torment the day
after his arrival in Norfolk. He mentions none of his children
in his will, but the present lord; to whom he gives 300 pounds
a-year that he had bought, adjoining to his estate. But there is
said, or supposed to be, 50,000 pounds in the funds in his
mistress's name, who was his housemaid. I do not aver this, for
truth is not the staple commodity of that family. Charles is
much disappointed and discontented--not so my lady, who has 2000
pounds a-year already, another 1000 pounds in jointure, and 1500
pounds her own estate in Hertfordshire.(547) We conclude, that
the Duke of Argyle will abandon Mrs. Villiers(548) for this
richer widow; who will only be inconsolable, as she is too
cunning, I believe, to let any body console her. Lord
Macclesfield(549) is dead too; a great windfall for Mr.
Grenville, who gets a teller's place for his son.

There is no public news: there was a longish day on Friday in our
House, on a demand for money for the new bridge from the city.
It was refused, and into the accompt of contempt, Dr. Hay(550)
threw a good deal of abuse on the common council--a nest of
hornets, that I do not see the prudence of attacking.

I leave to your brother to tell you the particulars of an
impertinent paragraph in the papers on you and your embassy; but
I must tell you how instantly, warmly, and zealously, he resented
it. He went directly to the Duke of Somerset, to beg of him to
complain of it to the Lords. His grace's bashfulness made him
choose rather to second the complaint, but he desired Lord
Marchmont to make it, who liked the office, and the printers are
to attend your House to-morrow.(551)

I went a little too fast in my history of Lord Clive, and yet I
had it from Mr. Grenville himself. The Jaghire is to be decided
by law, that is in the year 1000. Nor is it certain that his
Omrahship goes; that will depend on his obtaining a board of
directors to his mind, at the approaching election.(552) I
forgot, too, to answer your question about Luther;(553) and now I
remember it, I cannot answer it. Some said his wife had been
gallant. Some, that he had been too gallant, and that she
suffered for it. Others laid it to his expenses at his election;
others again, to political squabbles on that subject between him
and his wife--but in short, as he sprung into the world by his
election, so he withered when it was over, and has not been
thought on since.

George Selwyn has had a frightful accident, that ended in a great
escape. He was at dinner at Lord Coventry's, and just as he was
drinking a glass of wine, he was seized with a fit of coughing,
the liquor went wrong, and suffocated him: he got up for some
water at the sideboard, but being strangled, and losing his
senses, he fell against the corner of the marble table with such
violence, that they thought he had killed himself by a fracture
of his skull. He lay senseless for some time, and was recovered
with difficulty. He was immediately blooded, and had the chief
wound, which is just over the eye, sewed up--but you never saw so
battered a figure. All round his eye is as black as jet, and
besides the scar on his forehead, he has cut his nose at top and
bottom. He is well off with his life, and we with his wit.

P. S. Lord Macclesfield has left his wife(554) threescore
thousand pounds.

(546) George Viscount Malpas member for Corfe-Castle, and colonel
of the 65th regiment of foot, the son of George, third Earl of
Cholmondeley, and of Mary, only legitimate daughter of Sir Robert
Walpole. Lord Malpas had married, in 1747, Hester daughter and
heiress of Sir Francis Edwards, Bart. and by her was father of
the fourth Earl.

(547) She was daughter and heiress of J. Harrison, Esq. of Balls,
in Herts.-E.

(548) Probably Mary Fowke, widow of Mr. Henry Villiers, nephew of
the first Earl of Jersey.-C.

(549) George, second Earl of Macclesfield, one of the tellers of
the exchequer, and president of the Royal Society.-E.

(550) George Hay, LL. D. member for Sandwich, and one of the
lords of the admiralty.-E.

(551) We find in the Journals, that the printers of two papers in
which the libellous paragraph appeared, were, after examination
at the bar, committed to Newgate. The libel itself is not
recorded. The proceedings in the House of Lords were notified to
Lord Hertford by the secretary of state, and the following is a
copy of his reply to this communication:--"Paris, March 27th,
1764. I am informed by my friend, of the insult that has been
offered to my character in two public papers, and of the zeal
shown by administration in seconding the resentment of the House
of Peers in my favour. Perhaps my own inclination might have led
me to despise such indignities; but if others, and particularly
my friends, take the matter more warmly, I am not insensible to
their attention, and receive with gratitude such pledges of their
regard. I had indeed flattered myself, that my course of life
had hitherto created me no enemy; but as I find that this
felicity is too great for any man, I am pleased, at least, to
find that he is a very low one: and I am so far obliged to him
for discovering to me the share I have in the friendship of so
many great persons, and for procuring me a testimony of esteem
from so honourable an assembly as that of the Peers of
England."-C.

(552) Lord Clive made it a condition of his going to India, that
Mr. Sullivan should be deprived of the lead he had in the
direction at home.-C. [Soon after the election of the directors,
the court took the subject of the settlement of Lord Clive's
Jaghire into consideration; and a proposition, made by himself,
was, on the ]6th of May, agreed to, confirming his right for ten
years, if he lived so long, and provided the company continued,
during that period, in possession of the lands from which the
revenue was Paid.-E.]

(553) John Luther, Esq. of Myless, near Ongar, in Essex, who, on
the death of Mr. Harvey, of Chigwell, stood on the popular
interest ,for that county against Mr. Conyers, and succeeded.-C.

(554) Lord Macclesfield's second wife, whom he married in 1757,
was a Miss Dorothy Nesbit.-E.

Letter 198 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Tuesday night, March 27, 1764. (page 302)

Your brother has just told me, my dear lord, at the Opera, that
Colonel Keith, a friend of his, sets out for Paris on Thursday.
I take that opportunity of saying a few things to you, which
would be less proper than by the common post; and if I have not
time to write to Lord Beauchamp too, I will defer my answer to
him till Friday, as the post-office will be more welcome to read
that.

Lord Bute is come to town, has been long with the King alone, and
goes publicly to court and the House of Lords, where the Barony
of Bottetourt((555) has engrossed them some days, and of which
the town thinks much, and I not at all, so I can tell you nothing
about it. The first two days, I hear, Lord Bute was little
noticed; but to-day much court was paid to him, even by the Duke
of Bedford. Why this difference, I don't know: that matters are
somehow adjusted between the favourite not minister, and the
ministers not favourites, I have no doubt. Pitt certainly has
been treating with him, and so threw away the great and
unexpected progress which the opposition had made. They, good
people, are either not angry with him for this, or have not found
it out. The Sandwiches and rigbys, who feel another half year
coming into their pockets, are not so blind. For my own part, I
rejoice that the opposition are only fools, and by thus missing
their treaty, will not appear knaves. In the mean time, I have
no doubt but the return of Lord Bute must produce confusion at
court. He and Grenville are both too fond of being ministers,
not to be jealous of one another. If what is said to be designed
proves true, that the King will go to Hanover, and take the Queen
with him, I shall expect that clamour (which you see depends on
very few men,(556) for it has subsided during these private
negotiations) will rise higher than ever. The Queen's absence
must be designed to leave the regency in the hands of another
lady:(557) connect that with Lord Bute's return, and judge what
will be the consequence! These are the present politics, at
least mine, who trouble myself little about them, and know less.
I have not been at the House this month; the great points which
interested me are over, and the very stand has shut the door. I
might like some folks out, but there are so few that I desire to
see in, that indifference is my present most predominating
principle. The busier world are attentive to the election at
Cambridge, which comes on next Friday; and I think, now, Lord
Sandwich's friends have little hopes. Had I a vote, it would not
be given for the new Lord Hardwicke.

But we have a more extraordinary affair to engage us, and of
which you particularly will hear much more,-indeed, I fear must
be involved in. D'Eon has published (but to be sure you have
already heard so) a most scandalous quarto, abusing Monsieur de
Guerchy outrageously, and most offensive to Messieurs de Praslin
and Nivernois.(558) In truth, I think he will have made all
three irreconcilable enemies. The Duc de Praslin must be
outraged as to the Duke's carelessness and partiality to D'Eon,
and will certainly grow to hate Guerchy, concluding the latter
can never forgive him. D'Eon, even by his own account, is as
culpable as possible, mad with pride, insolent, abusive,
ungrateful, and dishonest, in short, a complication of
abominations, yet originally ill used by his court, afterwards
too well; above all, he has great malice, and great parts to put
the malice in play. Though there are even many bad puns in his
book, a very uncommon fault in a French book, yet there is much
wit too.(559) Monsieur de Guerchy is extremely hurt, though with
the least reason of the three; for his character for bravery and
good-nature is so established, that here, at least, he will not
suffer. I could write pages to you upon this Subject, for I am
full of it--but I will send you the book. The council have met
to-day to consider what to do upon it. Most people think it
difficult for them to do any thing. Lord Mansfield thinks they
can--but I fear he has a little alacrity on the severe side in
such cases. Yet I should be glad the law would allow severity in
the present case. I should be glad of it, as I was in your case
last week; and considering the present constitution of things,
would put the severity of the law in execution. You will wonder
at this sentence out of my mouth,(560) but not when you have
heard my reason. The liberty of the press has been so much
abused, that almost all men, especially such as have weight, I
mean, grave hypocrites and men of arbitrary principles, are ready
to demand a restraint. I would therefore show, that the law, as
it already stands, is efficacious enough to repress enormities.
I hope so, particularly in Monsieur de Guerchy's case, or I do
not see how a foreign minister can come hither; if, while their
persons are called sacred, their characters are at the mercy of
every servant that can pick a lock and pay for printing a letter.
It is an odd coincidence of accidents that has produced abuse on
you and your tally in the same week--but yours was a flea-bite.

Thank you, my dear lord, for your anecdotes relative to Madame
Pompadour, her illness, and the pretenders to her succession. I
hope she may live till I see her; she is one of the greatest
curiosities of the age, and I am a pretty universal virtuoso.
The match Of My niece with the Duke of Portland(561) was, I own,
what I hinted at, and what I then believed likely to happen. It
is now quite off, and with very extraordinary circumstances; but
if I tell it you at all, it Must not be in a letter, especially
when D'Eons steal letters and print them. It is a secret, and so
little to the lover's advantage, that I, who have a great regard
for his family, shall not be the first to divulge it.

We had last night, a magnificent ball at Lady Cardigan's;(562)
three sumptuous suppers in three rooms. The house, you know, is
crammed with fine things, pictures, china, japan, vases, and
every species of curiosities. These are much increased even
since I was in favour there, particularly by Lord Montagu's
importations. I was curious to see how many quarrels my lady
must have gulped before she could fill her house--truly, not
many, (though some,) for there were very few of her own
acquaintance, chiefly recruits of her son and daughter. There
was not the soup`con of a Bedford, though the town has married
Lord Tavistock and Lady Betty(563)--but he is coming to you to
France. The Duchess of Bedford told me how hard it was, that I,
who had personally offended my Lady Cardigan, should be invited,
and that she, who had done nothing, and yet had tried to be
reconciled, should not be asked. "Oh, Madam," said I, "be easy as
to that point, for though she has invited me, she will scarce
speak to me but I let all such quarrels come and go as they
please: if people, so indifferent to me, quarrel with me, it is
no reason why I should quarrel with them, and they have my full
leave to be reconciled when they please."

I must trouble you once more to know to what merchant you
consigned the Princess's trees, and Lady Hervey's biblioth`eque--
I mean for the latter. I did not see the Princess last week, as
the loss of my nephew kept me from public places. Of all public
places, guess the most unlikely one for the most unlikely person
to have been at. I had sent to know how Lady Macclesfield did:
Louis(564) brought me word that he could hardly get into St.
James's-square, there was so great a crowd to see my lord lie in
state. At night I met my Lady Milton(565) at the Duchess of
Argyle's, and said in joke, "Soh, to be sure, you have been to
see my Lord Macclesfield lie in state!" thinking it impossible--
she burst out into a fit of laughter, and owned she had. She and
my Lady Temple had dined at Lady Betty's,(566) put on hats and
cloaks, and literally waited on the steps of the house in the
thick of the mob, while one posse was admitted and let out again
for a second to enter, before they got in.

You will as little guess what a present I have had from Holland--
only a treatise of mathematical metaphysics from an author I
never heard of, with great encomiums on my taste and knowledge.
To be sure, I am warranted to insert this certificate among the
testimonia authorum, before my next edition of the Painters.
Now, I assure you, I am much more just--I have sent the gentleman
word what a perfect ignoramus I am, and did not treat my vanity
with a moment's respite. Your brother has laughed at me, or
rather at the poor man who has so mistaken me, as much as ever I
did at his absence and flinging down every thing at breakfast.
Tom, your brother's man, told him to-day, that Mister
Helvoetsluys had been to wait on him--now you are guessing,--did
you find out this was Helvetius?

It is piteous late, and I must go to bed, only telling you a
bon-mot of Lady Bell Finch.(567) Lord Bath owed her half a
crown; he sent it next day, with a wish that he could give her a
crown. She replied, that though he could not give her a crown,
he could give her a coronet, and she was very ready to accept
it.(568) I congratulate you on your new house; and am your very
sleepy humble servant.

(555) The ancient Barony of Bottetourt had been considered as
extinct ever since the reign of Edward III. and was now claimed
by Mr. Norborne Berkeley, member for Gloucestershire, and a groom
of the bedchamber; the revival of a claim so long forgotten
created considerable interest.-C.

(556) This is an important observation: it affords a clue to the
causes of the unpopularity of the early years of George III.-C.

(557) The Princess Dowager.

(558) M. de Praslin was secretary for foreign affairs, and M. de
Nivernois had been lately ambassador in England.-C.

(559) At this distance of time, D,Eon's book seems to us the mere
ravings of insane vanity; the puns poor, and the wit rare and
forced.-C.

(560) It certainly does not appear quite consistent, that Mr.
Walpole, who so much disapproves of an attack on his friends,
Lord Hertford and M. de Guerchy, should have been delighted, but
a few pages since, with the hemlock administered to Lord Holland,
and the scurrility against Bishop Warburton.-C.

(561) See ant`e, p. 298), letter 196.

(562) See ant`e, p. 298, letter 196.

(563) Lady Cardigan's eldest daughter, married, in 1767, to the
third Duke of Buccleuzh. This amiable and venerable lady is
still living.-C. [She died in 1827.]

(564) His valet.

(565) Lady Caroline Sackville, wife of Joseph Damer, Lord Milton,
of Ireland.-C.

(566) Lady Betty Germain.-C.

(567) Lady Isabella Finch, daughter of Daniel, sixth Earl of
Winchelsea. She was lady of the bedchamber to Princess Amelia,
and died unmarried in 1771.-C.

(568) It seems that Lord Bath's coronet, and perhaps still more
his great wealth, for which, after his son's death, he had no
direct heir, subjected his lordship to views of the nature
alluded to in Lady Bell's bon-mot. In the Suffolk Letters,
lately published, is a proposition to this effect from Mrs. Anne
Pitt, made with all appearance of seriousness.-C. (The following
is the passage alluded to. It is contained in a letter from Mrs.
Anne Pitt to Lady Suffolk, dated November 10, 1753:--"I hear my
Lord Bath is here very lively, but I have not seen him, which I
am very sorry for, because I want to offer myself to him. I am
quite in earnest, and have set my heart upon it; so I beg
seriously you will carry it in your mind, and think if you could
find any way to help me. Do not you think Lady Betty Germain and
Lord and Lady Vere would be ready to help me, if they knew how
willing I am? But I leave all this to your discretion, and repeat
seriously, that I am quite in earnest. he can want nothing but a
companion that would like his company; and in my situation I
should not desire to make the bargain without that circumstance.
And though all I have been saying Puts me in mind of some
advertisements I have seen in the newspapers from gentlewoman in
distress, I will not take that method; but I want to recollect
whether you did not tell me, as I think you did many years ago,
that he once spoke so well of me, that he got anger for it at
home, where I never was a favourite. I perceive that by thinking
aloud, as I am apt to do with you, this letter is grown very
improper for the post, so I design to send it with a tea-box my
sister left and does not want, directed to your house."-E.]

Letter 199 To Charles Churchill, Esq.(569)
Arlington Street, March 27, 1764. (page 306)

Dear sir,
I had just sent away a half-scolding letter to my sister, for not
telling me of Robert's(570) arrival, and to acquaint you both
with the loss of poor Lord Malpas, when I received your very
entertaining letter of the 19th. I had not then got the draught
of the Conqueror's kitchen, and the tiles you were so good as to
send me; and grew horribly afraid lest old Dr. Ducarel, who is an
ostrich of an antiquary, and can digest superannuated brickbats,
should have gobbled them up. At my return from Strawberry Hill
yesterday, I found the whole cargo safe, and am really much
obliged to you. I weep over the ruined kitchen,. but enjoy the
tiles. They are exactly like a few which I obtained from the
cathedral of Gloucester, when it was new paved; they are inlaid
in the floor of my china-room. I would have got enough to pave
it entirely; but the canons, who were flinging them away, had so
much devotion left, that they enjoined me not to pave a pagoda
with them, nor put them to any profane use. As scruples Increase
in a ratio to their decrease, I did not know but a china-room
might casuistically be interpreted a pagoda, and sued for no
more. My cloister is finished and consecrated but as I intend to
convert the old blue and white hall next to the china-room into a
Gothic columbarium, I should seriously be glad to finish the
floor with Norman tiles. However, as I shall certainly make you
a visit in about two months, I will wait till then, and bring the
dimensions with me.