Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3

H >> Horace Walpole >> The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67

There was nobody at Park-place but Lord and Lady William
Campbell.(665) Old Sir John Barnard(666) is dead; for other
news, I have none. I beg you will always say a great deal for me
to my lady. As I trouble you with such long letters, it would be
unreasonable to overwhelm her too. You know my attachment to
every thing that is yours. My warmest wish is to see an end of
the present unhappy posture of public affairs, which operate so
shockingly even on our private. If I can once get quit of them,
it will be no easy matter to involve me in them again, however
difficult it may be, as you have found, to escape them. Nobody
is more criminal in my eyes than George Grenville, who had it in
his power to prevent what has happened to your brother. Nothing
could be more repugnant to all the principles he has ever most
avowedly and publicly professed--but he has opened my eyes--such
a mixture of vanity and meanness, of falsehood(667) and
hypocrisy, is not common even in this country! It is a
ridiculous embarras after all the rest, and yet you may conceive
the distress I am under about Lady Blandford,(668) and the
negotiations I am forced to employ to avoid meeting him there,
which I am determined not to do.

I shall be able, when I see you, to divert you with some
excellent stories of a principal figure on our side; but they are
too long and too many for a letter, especially of a letter so
prolix as this. Adieu, my dear lord!

(651) A small island, also called Tortuga, near St. Domingo, of
which a French squadron had dispossessed some English settlers.
This proceeding was, however, immediately disavowed by the
French, and orders were immediately despatched for restitution
and compensation to the sufferers. We can easily gather from Mr.
Walpole's own expressions why this affair was raised into such
momentary importance.-C.

(652) Thomas Bouldby, Esq. and his lady, sister of the first Duke
of Montagu, of the second creation.-E.

(653) Dr. George Stone.

(654) see ant`e, p. 332, letter 218.

(655) This affair is creditable to all the parties. When General
Conway was turned out, Mr Walpole placed all his fortune at his
disposal, in a very generous letter (p. 316, letter 205). This
induced Mr. Walpole to think of economy, and to state in a former
letter (p. 332, letter 218) some apprehension as to his
circumstances; in reply to which, Lord Hertford, who had already
made a similar proposition to General Conway, now offers to place
Mr. Walpole above the pecuniary difficulties which he
apprehended.-C.

(656) Colonel Fletcher of the 35th foot.-E.

(657) Not very surprising, however, as London would have been
about eighty miles round.-C.

(658) The following is a passage from a letter written by Mr.
Pitt to the Duke of Newcastle, in October, in reply to one of
these overtures:--"As for my single self, I purpose to continue
acting through life upon the best convictions I am able to form,
and Under the obligation of principles, not by the force of any
particular bargains. I presume not to judge for those who think
they see daylight to serve their country by such means: but shall
continue myself, as often as I think it worth the while to go to
the House of Commons, to go there free from stipulation-, about
every question under consideration, as well as to come out of the
House as free as I entered it. Having seen the close of last
session, and the system of that great war, in which my share of
the ministry was so largely arraigned, given up by silence in a
full House, I have little thoughts of beginning the world again
upon a new centre of union. Your grace will not, I trust, wonder
if, after so recent and so strange a phenomenon in politics, I
have no disposition to quit the free condition of a man standing
single, and daring to appeal to his country at large, upon the
soundness of his principles and the rectitude of his conduct."
See Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 296.-E.

(659) Mary Anne Drury, wife Of John, second Earl of
Buckinghamshire.-E.

(660) Mr. Walpole gives an unfair turn to this circumstance. The
stopping the Duke of York's remittances, and ordering him home,
was a measure of prudence, not to say of necessity, for that
young Prince's extravagance abroad had made a public clamour; so
much so, that a popular preacher delivered, about this time, a
sermon on the following text:--"The younger son gathered all
together, and took his journey into a far country, and there
wasted his substance with riotous living." St. Luke, xv. 13. The
letters and even the publications of the day allude to this
extravagance, and surely it was the duty of his brother and
sovereign to repress an indiscretion which occasioned such
observations.-C.

(661) William, created, in November, 1764, Duke of Gloucester;
and Henry created, in 1766, Duke of cumberland. The injustice of
mr. Walpole's insinuations will be evident, when it is
remembered that, at the date of this letter, the eldest of these
Princes was but twenty, and the other eighteen years of age, and
that they were both created Dukes, and had households established
for them as soon as they respectively came of age-C.

(662) Mary, daughter of Charles, second Viscount Townshend, wife
of Edward, sixth son of the third Lord Cornwallis. I suspect
that here again Mr. Walpole's accusation is not correct. General
Cornwallis had been groom of the bedchamber to George II., and
was continued in the same office by the successor, till he was
appointed Governor of Gibraltar, when Mr. Henry Seymour was
appointed in his room.-C.

(663) This scandal has been immortalized by Junius.-C.

(664) At Wakefield Lodge, in Whittlebury Forest,
Northamptonshire.-E.

(665) Lord William, brother of General Conway's lady, and third
brother of the fifth Duke of Argyle; his wife was Sarah, daughter
of W. Teard, Esq. of Charleston.-E.

(666) Father of the city, which he had represented in six
parliaments. He had been a very leading member of the House of
Commons, and was much deferred to on all matters of commerce.-C.

(667) See ant`e, p. 272, letter 188.

(668) Maria Catherine de Jonge, a Dutch Lady, widow of William
Godolphin, Marquis of Blandford, and sister of Isabella Countess
of Denbigh; they were near neighbours and intimate acquaintances
of Mr. Walpole's.@.

Letter 221 To The Right Hon. William Pitt.(669)
Arlington Street, Aug. 29, 1764. (page 343)

Sir,
As you have always permitted me to offer you the trifles printed
at my press, I am glad to have one to send you of a little more
consequence than some in which I have had myself too great a
share. The singularity of the work I now trouble you with is
greater merit than its rarity; though there are but two hundred
copies, of which only half are mine.(670) If it amuses an hour
or two of your idle time, I am overpaid. My greatest ambition is
to pay that respect which every Englishman owes to your character
and services; and therefore you must not wonder if an
inconsiderable man seizes every opportunity, however awkwardly,
of assuring you, Sir, that he is Your most devoted, etc.

(669) Now first collected.

(670) The Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. See ant`e, p. 329,
letter 214.-E.

Letter 222 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 29, 1764. (page 343)

Dear sir,
Among the multitude of my papers I have mislaid, though not lost,
the account you was so good as to give me of your ancestor Toer,
as a painter. I have been hunting for it to insert it in the new
edition of my Anecdotes. It is not very reasonable to save
myself trouble at the expense of yours; but perhaps you can much
sooner turn to your notes, than I find your letter. Will you be
so good as to send me soon all the particulars you recollect of
him. I have a print of Sir Lionel Jenkins from his painting.

I did not send you any more orange flowers, as you desired; for
the continued rains rotted all the latter blow: but I had made a
vast potpourri, from whence you shall have as much as you please,
when I have the pleasure of seeing you here, which I should be
glad might be in the beginning of October, if it suits your
convenience. At the same time you shall have a print of Lord
Herbert, which I think I did not send you.

P. S. I trust you will bring me a volume or two of your MSS. of
which I am most thirsty.

Letter 223 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
September 1, 1764. (page 344)

I send you the reply to the Counter-address;(671) it is the
lowest of all Grub-street, and I hear is treated so. They have
nothing better to say, than that I am in love with you, have been
so these twenty years, and am no giant. I am a very constant old
swain: they might have made the years above thirty; it is so long
I have the same unalterable friendship for you, independent of
being near relations and bred up together. For arguments, so far
from any new ones, the man gives up or denies most of the former.
I own I am rejoiced not only to see how little they can defend
themselves, but to know the extent of their malice and revenge.
They must be sorely hurt, to be reduced to such scurrility. Yet
there is one paragraph, however, which I think is of George
Grenville's own inditing. It says, "I flattered, solicited, and
then basely deserted him." I no more expected to hear myself
accused of flattery, than of being in love with you; but I shall
not laugh at the former as I do at the latter. Nothing but his
own consummate vanity could suppose I had ever stooped to flatter
him! or that any man was connected with him, but who was low
enough to be paid for it. Where has he one such attachment?

You have your share too. The miscarriage at Rochfort now
directly laid at your door! repeated insinuations against your
courage. But I trust you will mind them no more than I do,
excepting the flattery, which I shall not forget, I promise them.

I came to town yesterday on some business, and found a case.
When I opened it, what was there but my Lady Ailesbury's most
beautiful of all pictures!(672) Don't imagine I can think it
intended for me: or that, if it could be so, I would hear of such
a thing. It is far above what can be parted with, or accepted.
I am serious--there is no letting such a picture, when one has
accomplished it, go from where one can see it every day. I
should take the thought equally kind and friendly, but she must
let me bring it back, if I am not to do any thing else with it,
and it came by mistake. I am not so selfish as to deprive her of
what she must have such pleasure in seeing. I shall have more
satisfaction in seeing it at Park-place; where, in spite of the
worst kind of malice, I shall persist in saying my heart is
fixed. They may ruin me, but no calumny shall make me desert
you. Indeed your case would be completely cruel, if it was more
honourable for your relations and friends to abandon you than to
stick to you. My option is made, and I scorn their abuse as much
as I despise their power.

I think of coming to you on Thursday next for a day or two,
unless your house is full, or you hear from me to the contrary.
Adieu! Yours ever.

(671) A pamphlet written by Mr. Walpole, in answer to another,
called ,An Address to the Public on the late Dismissal of a
General Officer."

(672) A landscape executed in worsteds by Lady Ailesbury. It is
now at Strawberry Hill.

Letter 224 To The Rev. Dr. Birch.
September 3, 1764. (page 345)

Sir,
I am extremely obliged to you for the favour of your letter, and
the enclosed curious one of Sir William Herbert. It would have
made a very valuable addition to Lord Herbert's Life, which is
now too late; as I have no hope that Lord Powis will permit any
more to be printed. There were indeed so very few, and but half
of those for my share, that I have not it in my power to offer
you a copy, having disposed of my part. It is really a pity that
so singular a curiosity should not be public; but I must not
complain, as Lord Powis has been so good as to indulge my request
thus far. I am, Sir, Your much obliged humble servant, H. W.

Letter 225 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 5, 1764. (page 345)

My dear lord,
Though I wrote to you but a few days ago, I must trouble you with
another line now. Dr. Blanchard, a Cambridge divine, and who has
a good paternal estate in Yorkshire, is on his travels, which he
performs as a gentleman; and, therefore, wishes not to have his
profession noticed. He is very desirous of paying his respects
to you, and of being countenanced by you while he stays at Paris.
It will much oblige a particular friend of mine, and consequently
me, if you will favour him with your attention. Every body
experiences your goodness, but in the present case I wish to
attribute it a little to my request.

I asked you about two books, ascribed to Madame de Boufflers. if
they are hers, I should be glad to know where she found, that
Oliver Cromwell took orders and went over to Holland to fight the
Dutch. As she has been on the spot where he reigned (which is
generally very strong evidence), her countrymen will believe her
in spite of our teeth; and Voltaire, who loves all anecdotes that
never happened, because they prove the manners of the times, will
hurry it into the first history he publishes. I, therefore,
enter my caveat against it; not as interested for Oliver's
character, but to save the world from one more fable. I know
Madame de Boufflers will attribute this scruple to my partiality
to Cromwell (and, to be sure, if we must be ridden, there is some
satisfaction when the man knows how to ride). I remember one
night at the Duke of Grafton's, a bust of Cromwell was produced:
Madame de Boufflers, without uttering a syllable, gave me the
most speaking look imaginable, as much as to Say, Is it possible
you can admire this man! Apropos: I am sorry to say the reports
do not cease about the separation,(673) and yet I have heard
nothing that confirms it.

I once begged you to send me a book in three volumes, called
"Essais sur les Moeurs;" forgive me if I put you in mind of it,
and request you to send me that, or any other new book. I am
wofully in want of reading, and sick to death of all our
political stuff; which, as the Parliament is happily at the
distance of three months, I would fain forget till I cannot help
hearing of it. I am reduced to Guicciardin, and though the
evenings are so long, I cannot get through one of his periods
between dinner and supper. They tell me Mr. Hume has had sight
of King James's journal:(674) I Wish I could see all the trifling
passages that he will not deign to admit into history. I do not
love great folks till they have pulled off their buskins and put
on their slippers, because I do not care sixpence for what they
would be thought, but for what they are.

Mr. Elliot brings us woful accounts of the French ladies, of the
decency of their conversation, and the nastiness of their
behaviour.

Nobody is dead, married, or gone mad, since my last. Adieu!

P. S. I enclose an epitaph on Lord Waldegrave, written by my
brother,(675) which I think you will like, both for the
composition and the strict truth of it.

Arlington Street, Friday evening.

I was getting into my postchaise this morning with this letter in
my pocket, and Coming to town for a day or two, when I heard the
Duke of Cumberland was dead: I find it is not so. he had two
fits yesterday at Newmarket, whither he would go. The Princess
Amelia, who had observed great alteration in his speech,
entreated him against it. He has had too some touches of the
gout, but they were gone off, or might have prevented this
attack. I hear since the fits yesterday, which are said to have
been but slight, that his leg is broken out, and they hope will
save him. Still, I think, one cannot but expect the worst.

The letters yesterday, from Spa, give a melancholy account of the
poor Duke of Devonshire as he cannot drink the waters they think
of removing him; I suppose, to the baths at Aix-la-Chapelle; but
I look on his case as a lost one. There's a chapter for
moralizing! but five-and-forty, with forty thousand pounds
a-year and happiness wherever he turned him! My reflection is,
that it is folly to be unhappy at any thing, when felicity itself
is such a phantom.

(673) Of the Duke and Duchess of Grafton.-E.

(674) Since published, under the generous patronage of George the
Third, by Dr. Clarke, his Majesty's librarian. The work is,
however, not what Mr. Walpole contemplated: it is not a journal
of private feelings, interests, and actions, but a relation
rather of public affairs; and though the notes of James II. were
undoubtedly the foundation of the work, it was, in truth, written
by another hand, and that too a hand the least likely to have
given us the kind of memoirs which Mr. Walpole justly thinks
would have been so valuable. When an eminent person writes his
own memoirs, we have, at least, the motives which he thinks it
creditable to assign to his conduct--he has, generally the
candour of vanity, and even when he has not that candour, he is
sometimes blinded into discovering truth unawares; but nothing
can be more futile and fastidious than the meagre notes of the
original actor, fresh woven and discoloured by the hands of an
obsequious servant, who conceals all the facts he cannot explain,
and all the motives he cannot justify. Such memoirs resemble the
real life as the skeleton does the living man.-C.

(675) Sir Edward Walpole, K.B., second son of Sir Robert, and the
father of Ladies Dysart and Waldegrave, and Mrs. Keppel.-E.

Letter 226 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 5, 1764. (page 347)

It is over with us!--if I did not know your firmness, I would
have prepared you by degrees; but you are a man, and can hear the
worst at once. The Duke of Cumberland is dead. I have heard it
but this instant. The Duke of Newcastle was come to breakfast
with me, and pulled out a letter from Lord Frederick, with a
hopeless account of the poor Duke of Devonshire. Ere I could
read it, Colonel Schutz called at the door and told my servant
this fatal news! I know no more--it must be at Newmarket, and
very sudden; for the Duke of Newcastle had a letter from Hodgson,
dated on Monday, which said the Duke was perfectly well, and his
gout gone:--Yes, to be sure, into his head. Princess Amelia had
endeavoured to prevent his going to Newmarket, having perceived
great alteration in his speech, as the Duke of Newcastle had.
Well! it will not be. Every thing fights against this country!
Mr. Pitt must save it himself--or, what I do not know whether he
will not like as well, share in overturning its liberty--if they
will admit him; -which I question now if they will be fools
enough to do.

You see I write in despair. I am for the whole, but perfectly
tranquil. We have acted with honour, and have nothing to
reproach ourselves with. We cannot combat fate. We shall be
left almost alone; but I think you will no more go with the
torrent than I will. Could I have foreseen this tide of ill
fortune, I would have done just as I have done; and my conduct
shall show I am satisfied I have done right. For the rest, come
what come may, I am perfectly prepared and while there is a free
spot of earth upon the globe, that shall be my country. I am
sorry it will not be this, but to-morrow I shall be able to laugh
as usual. What signifies what happens when one is
seven-and-forty, as I am to-day!

"They tell me 'tis my birthday"--but I will not go on with
Antony, and say

----"and I'll keep it
With double pomp of sadness."

No. when they can smile, who ruin a great country'. sure those
who would have saved it may indulge themselves in that
cheerfulness which conscious integrity bestows. I think I shall
come to you next week; and since we have no longer any plan of
operations to settle, we will look over the map of Europe, and
fix upon a pleasant corner for our exile--for take notice, I do
not design to fall upon my dagger, in hopes that some Mr. Addison
a thousand years hence may write a dull tragedy about me. I will
write my own story a little more cheerfully than he would; but I
fear now I must not print it at my own press. Adieu! You was a
philosopher before you had any occasion to be so: pray continue
so; you have ample occasion! Yours ever, H. W.

Letter 227 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 13, 1764. (page 348)

Lord John Cavendish has been so kind as to send me word of the
Duke of Devonshire's(676) legacy to you.(677) You cannot doubt
of the great joy this gives me; and yet it serves to aggravate
the loss of so worthy a man! And when I feel it thus, I am
sensible how much more it will add to your concern, instead of
diminishing it. Yet do not wholly reflect on your misfortune.
You might despise the acquisition of five thousand pounds simply;
but when that sum is a public testimonial to your virtue, and
bequeathed by a man so virtuous, it is a million. Measure it
with the riches of those who have basely injured you, and it is
still more! Why, it is glory, it is conscious innocence, it is
satisfaction--it is affluence without guilt--Oh! the comfortable
sound! It is a good name in the history of these corrupt days.
There it will exist, when the wealth of your and their country's
enemies will be wasted, or will be an indelible blemish on their
descendants.

My heart is full, and yet I will say no more. My best loves to
all your opulent family. Who says virtue is not rewarded in this
world? It is rewarded by virtue, and it is persecuted by the
bad. Can greater honour be paid to it?

(676) William, fourth Duke of Devonshire. During his
administration in Ireland, Mr. Conway had been secretary of state
there. He died at Spa on the 2d of October.-E.

(677) The legacy was contained in the following codicil, written
in the Duke's own hand. "I give to General Conway five thousand
pounds as a testimony of my friendship to him, and of my sense of
his Honourable conduct and friendship for me."-E.

Letter 228 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 29, 1764. (page 348)

I am glad you mentioned it: I would not have had you appear
without your close mourning for the Duke of Devonshire upon any
account. I was once going to tell you of it, knowing your
inaccuracy in such matters; but thought it still impossible you
should be ignorant how necessary it is. Lord Strafford, who has
a legacy of only two hundred pounds, wrote to consult Lady
Suffolk. She told him, for such a sum, which only implies a
ring,, it was sometimes not done but yet advised him to mourn.
In your case it is indispensable; nor can you see any of his
family without it. Besides it is much better on such an occasion
to over, than under do. I answer this paragraph first, because I
am so earnest not to have you blamed.

Besides wishing to see you all, I have wanted exceedingly to come
to you, having much to say to you; but I am confined here, that
is, Mr. Chute is: he was seized with the gout last Wednesday
se'nnight, the day he came hither to meet George Montagu, and
this is the first day he has been out of his bedchamber. I must
therefore put off our meeting till Saturday, when you shall
certainly find me in town.

We have a report here, but the authority bitter bad, that Lord
March is going to be married to Lady Conway. I don't believe it
the less for our knowing nothing of it; for unless their daughter
were breeding, and it were to save her character, neither your
brother nor Lady Hertford would disclose a tittle about it. Yet
in charity they should advertise it, that parents and relations,
if it is so, may lock up all knives, ropes, laudanum, and rivers,
lest it should occasion a violent mortality among his fair
admirers.

I am charmed with an answer I have just read in the papers of a
man in Bedlam, who was ill-used by -,in apprentice because he
Would not tell him why he was confined there. The unhappy
creature said at last, "Because God has deprived me of a blessing
which you never enjoyed." There never was any thing finer or more
moving! Your sensibility will not be quite so much affected by a
story I heard t'other day of Sir Fletcher Norton. He has a
mother--yes, a mother: perhaps you thought that, like that tender
urchin Love,

----duris in cotibus illum
Ismarus, aut Rhodope, aut extremi Garamantes,
Nec nostri generis puerum nec sanguinis edunt.

Well, Mrs. Rhodope lives in a mighty shabby hovel at Preston,
which the dutiful and affectionate Sir Fletcher began to think
not suitable to the dignity of one who has the honour of being
his parent. He cheapened a better, in which were two pictures
which the proprietor valued at threescore pounds. The
attorney(678) insisted on having them for nothing, as fixtures-
-the landlord refused, the bargain was broken off, and the
dowager Madam Norton remains in her original hut. I could tell
you another story which you would not dislike; but as it might
hurt the person concerned, if it was known, I shall not send it
by the post; but will tell you when I see you. Adieu!