Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3

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(678) Sir Fletcher Norton, afterwards Lord Grantley, had been
appointed attorney-general in the preceding December.-E.

Letter 229 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 1, 1764. (page 350)

I am not only pleased, my dear lord, to have been the first to
announce your brother's legacy to you, but I am glad whenever my
news reach you without being quite stale. I see but few persons
here. I begin my letters without knowing when I shall be able to
fill them, and then am to winnow a little what I hear, that I may
not send you absolute secondhand fables: for though I cannot
warrant all I tell you, I hate to send you every improbable tale
that is vented. You like, as one always does in absence, to hear
the common occurrences of your own country; and you see I am very
glad to be your gazetteer, provided you do not rank my letters
upon any higher foot. I should be ashamed of such gossiping, if
I did not consider it as chatting with you en famille, as we used
to do at supper in Grosvenor-street.

The Duke of Devonshire has made splendid provision for his
younger children; to Lady Dorothy,(679) 30,000 pounds; Lord
Richard and Lord George will have about 4,000 pounds a-year
apiece: for, besides landed estates, he has left them his whole
personal estate without exception, only obliging the present Duke
to redeem Devonshire-house, and the entire collection in it, for
20,000 pounds: he gives 500 pounds to each of his brothers, and
200 pounds to Lord Strafford, with some other inconsiderable
legacies. Lord Frederick carried the garter, and was treated by
the King with very gracious speeches of concern.

The Duke of Cumberland is quite recovered, after an incision of
many inches in his knee. Ranby(680) did not dare to propose that
a hero should be tied, but was frightened out of his senses when
the hero would hold the candle himself, which none of his
generals could bear to do: in the middle of the operation, the
Duke said, "Hold!" Ranby said, "For God's sake, Sir, let me
proceed now--it will be worse to renew it." The Duke repeated, "I
say hold!" and then calmly bade them give Ranby a clean waistcoat
and cap; for, said he, the poor man has sweated through these.
It was true; but the Duke did not utter a groan.

Have you heard that Lady Susan O'Brien's is not the last romance
of the sort? Lord Rockingham's youngest sister, Lady
Harriot,(681) has stooped even lower than a theatric swain, and
married her footman; but still it is you Irish(682) that commit
all the havoc. Lady Harriot, however, has mixed a wonderful
degree of prudence with her potion, and considering how plain she
is, has not, I think, sweetened the draught too much for her
lover: she settles a single hundred pound a-year upon him for his
life; entails her whole fortune on their children, if they have
any; and, if not, on her own family; nay, in the height of the
novel, provides for a separation, and insures the same pin-money
to Damon, in case they part. This deed she has vested out of her
power, by sending it to Lord Mansfield,(683) whom she makes her
trustee; it is drawn up in her own hand, and Lord Mansfield says
is as binding as any lawyer could make it. Did one ever hear of
more reflection in a delirium! Well, but hear more: she has
given away all her clothes, nay, and her ladyship, and says,
linen gowns are properest for a footman's wife, and is gone to
his family in Ireland, plain Mrs. Henrietta Surgeon. I think it
is not clear that she is mad, but I have no doubt but Lady
Bel(684) will be so who could not digest Dr. Duncan, nor even Mr.
Milbank.

My last told you of my sister's promotion.(685) I hear she is to
be succeeded at Kensington by Miss Floyd, who lives with Lady
Bolingbroke; but I beg you not to report this till you see it in
a Gazette of better authority than mine, who have it only from
fame and Mrs. A. Pitt.

I have not seen M. de Guerchy yet, having been in town but one
night since his return. You are very kind in accepting, on your
own account, his obliging expressions about me: I know no
foundation on which I should like better to receive them,: the
truth is he has distinguished me extremely, and when a person in
his situation shows much attention to a person so very
insignificant as I am, one is apt to believe it exceeds common
compliment: at least, I attribute it to the esteem which he could
not but see I conceived for him. His civility is so natural, and
his good nature so strongly marked, that I connected much more
with him than I am apt to do with new acquaintances. I pitied
the various disgusts he received, and I believe he saw I did. If
I felt for him, you may judge how much I am concerned that you
have your share. I foresaw it was unavoidable, from the swarms
of your countrymen that flock to Paris, and generally the worst
part; boys and governors are woful exports. I saw a great deal
of it when I lived with poor Sir Horace Mann at Florence-but you
have the whole market. We are a wonderful people-I would not be
our King,(686) our minister, or our ambassador, for the Indies.
One comfort, however, I can truly give you; I have heard their
complaints, if they have any, from nobody but yourself. Jesus!
if they are not content now, I wish they knew how the English
were received at Paris twenty years ago--why, you and I know they
were not received at all. Ay, and when the fashion of admiring
English is past, it will be just so again; and very reasonably-
-who would open their house to every staring booby from another
country?

Arlington Street, Nov. 3.

I came to town to-day to meet your brother, who is going to
Euston and Thetford,(687) and hope he will bring back a good
account of the domestic history,(688) of which we can learn
nothing authentic. Fitzroy(689) knows nothing. The town says
the Duchess is going thither.

We have been this evening with Duchess Hamilton,(690) who is
arrived from Scotland, visibly promising another Lord Campbell.
I shall take this opportunity of seeing M. de Guerchy, and that
opportunity, of sending this letter, and one from your brother.
Our politics are all at a stand. The Duke of Devonshire's death,
I concluded, would make the ministry all powerful, all
triumphant, and all insolent. It does not appear to have done
so. They are, I believe, extremely ill among themselves, and not
better in their affairs foreign or domestic. The cider counties
have instructed their members to join the minority. The house of
Yorke seems to have laid aside their coldness and irresolution,
and to look towards opposition. The unpopularity of the court is
very great indeed--still I shall not be surprised if they
maintain their ground a little longer.

There is nothing new in the way of publication: the town itself'
is still a desert. I have twice passed by Arthur's(691) to-day,
and not seen a chariot.

Hogarth is dead, and Mrs. Spence, who lived with the Duchess of
Newcastle.(692) She had saved 20,000 pounds which she leaves to
her sister for life, and after her, to Tommy Pelham. Ned
Finch(693) has got an estate from an old Mrs. Hatton of 1500
pounds a year, and takes her name.

Adieu! my lord and lady, and your whole et cetera.

(679) Lady Dorothy married, in 1766, the Duke of Portland.-E.

(680) A celebrated surgeon of the day. He was serjeant-surgeon
to the King, and F. R. S.-E.

(681) Lady Henrietta Alicia Wentworth, born in 1737; married Mr.
William Surgeon.-E.

(682) Lord Hertford was an Irish peer; he had besides so large a
fortune there, and paid so much attention to the interests of
that country,, that Mr. Walpole calls him Irish.-C.

(683) Lord Mansfield had married Lady Harriot's aunt.-E.

(684) Lady Isibella Finch, lady of the bedchamber to Princess
Amelia, was Lady Harriot's aunt. The Mr. Milbank here mentioned
had married Lady Mary Wentworth, the elder sister of Lady
Harriot.-C.

(685) From being housekeeper at Kensington Palace, to the same
office at Windsor Castle; but Mr. Walpole is mistaken as to the
name of her successor: it was Miss Roche loyd.-C.

(686) It is due to the character of the King and the ministers,
whom Mr. Walpole so often and so wantonly depreciates, to solicit
the reader's attention to such passages as this, in which he
imputes to others, and therefore implies in himself, an unfair
disposition to criticise and censure.-C.

(687) He was member for Thetford.-E.

(688) Of the Grafton family.-E.

(689) Colonel Charles Fitzroy. See ant`e, p. 261, Letter 185.-E.

(690) Elizabeth Gunning, widow of James, sixth Duke of Hamilton,
and wife, in 1759, of John, fifth Duke of Argyle.-E.

(691) The fashionable club in St. James's Street.-E.

(692) The Duke of Newcastle, in a letter to Mr. Pitt of the 19th
of October, says, "The many great losses, both public and
private, which we have had this summer, have very greatly
affected the Duchess; and the last of all, of her old friend and
companion of above forty-five years, poor Mrs. Spence, has added
much to the melancholy situation in which she was before."
Chatham Correspondence, vol, ii. p. 295.-E.

(693) Edward, fifth son of the sixth Earl of Winchelsea. Mrs.
Hatton was his maternal aunt, sister of the last Viscount
Hatton.-C.

Letter 230 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 8, 1764. (page 352)

I am much disappointed, I own, dear Sir, at not seeing you: more
so, as I fear it will be long before I shall, for I think of
going to paris early in February. I ought indeed to go directly,
as the winter does not agree with me here. Without being
positively ill, I am positively not well: about this time of
year, I have little fevers every night, and pains in my breast
and stomach, which bid me repair to a more flannel climate.
These little complaints are already begun, and as soon as affairs
will permit me, I mean to transport them southward.

I am sorry it is out of my power to make the addition you wish to
Mr. Tuer's article: many of the following sheets are printed off,
and there is no inserting any thing now, without shoving the
whole text forward, which you see is impossible. You promised to
bring me a portrait of him: as I shall have four or five new
plates, I can get his head into one of them: will you send it as
soon as you can possibly to my house in Arlington-street; I will
take great care of it-, and return it to you safe.

Letter 231 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 9, 1764. (page 353)

I don't know whether this letter will not reach you, my dear
lord, before one that I sent to you last week by a private hand,
along with one from your brother. I write this by my Lord
Chamberlain's order--you may interpret it as you please, either
as by some new connexion of the Bedford squadron with the
opposition, or as a commission to you, my lord ambassador. As
yet, I believe you had better take it upon the latter foundation,
though the Duke of Bedford has crossed the country from Bath to
Woburn, without coming to town. Be that as it may, here is the
negotiation intrusted to you. You are desired by my Lord Gower
to apply to the gentilhomme de la chambre for leave for
Doberval(694) the dancer, who was here last year, to return and
dance at our Opera forthwith. If the court of France -will
comply with this request, we will send them a discharge in full,
for the Canada bills and the ransom of their prisoners, and we
will permit Monsieur D'Estain to command in the West Indies,
whether we will or not. The city of London must not know a word
of this treaty, for they hate any mortal should be diverted but
themselves, especially by any thing relative to harmony. It is,
I own, betraying my country and my patriotism to be concerned in
a job of this kind. I am sensible that there is not a weaver in
Spitalfields but can dance better than the first performer in the
French Opera; and yet, how could I refuse this commission? Mrs.
George Pitt delivered it to me just now, at Lord Holderness's at
Sion, and as my virtue has not yet been able to root out all my
good-breeding--though I trust it will in time--I could not help
promising that I would write to you--nay, and engaged that you
would undertake it. When I venture, sure you may, who are out of
the reach of a mob!

I believe this letter will go by Monsieur Beaumont. He
breakfasted here t'other morning, and pleased me exceedingly: he
has great spirit and good-humour. It is incredible what pains he
has taken to see. He has seen Oxford, Bath, Blenheim, Stowe,
Jews, Quakers, Mr. Pitt, the Royal Society, the Robinhood, Lord
Chief-Justice Pratt, the Arts-and-Sciences, has dined at
Wildman's, and, I think, with my Lord Mayor, or is to do.
Monsieur de Guerchy is full of your praises; I am to go to
Park-place with him next week, to make your brother a visit.

You know how I hate telling you false news: all I can do, is to
retract as fast as I can. I fear I was too hasty in an article I
sent you in my last, though I then mentioned it only as a report.
I doubt, what we wish in a private family(695) will not be
exactly the event.

The Duke of Cumberland has had a dangerous sore-throat, but is
recovered. In one of the bitterest days that could be felt, he
would go upon the course at Newmarket with the windows of his
landau down. Newmarket-heath, at no time of the year, is placed
under the torrid zone. I can conceive a hero welcoming death, or
at least despising it; but if I was covered with more laurels
than a boar's head at Christmas, I should hate pain, and Ranby,
and an operation. His nephew of York has been at Blenheim, where
they gave him a ball, but did not put themselves to much expense
in dancers; the figurantes were the maid-servants. You will not
doubt my authority, when I tell you my Lady Bute was my
intelligence. I heard to-day, at Sion, of some bitter verses
made at Bath, on both their graces of Bedford. I have not seen
them, nor, if I had them, would I send them to you before they
are in print, which I conclude they will be, for I am sorry to
say, scandalous abuse is not the commodity which either side is
sparing of. You can conceive nothing beyond the epigrams which
have been in the papers, on a pair of doves and a parrot that
Lord Bute has sent to the Princess.(696)

I hear-but this is another of my paragraphs that I am far from
giving you for sterling--that Lord Sandwich is to have the Duke
of Devonshire's garter; Lord Northumberland stands against Lord
Morton,(697) for president of the Royal Society, in the room of
Lord Macclesfield. As this latter article will have no bad
consequences if it should prove true, you may believe it. Earl
Poulet is dead, and Soame, who married Mrs. Naylor's sister.

You will wonder more at what I am going to tell you in the last
place: I am preparing, in earnest, to make you a visit-not next
week, but seriously in February. After postponing it for seven
idle months, you will stare at my thinking of it just after the
meeting Of the Parliament. Why, that is just one of my principal
reasons. I will stay and see the opening and one or two
divisions; the minority will be able to be the majority, or they
will not: if they can, they will not want me, who want nothing of
them: if they cannot, I am sure I can do them no good, and shall
take my leave of them;--I mean always, to be sure, if things do
not turn on a few votes: they shall not call me a deserter. In
every other case, I am so sick of politics, which I have long
detested, that I must bid adieu to them. I have acted the part
by your brother that I thought right. He approves what I have
done, and what I mean to do; so do the few I esteem, for I have
notified my intention; and for the rest of the world, they may
think what they please. In truth, I have a better reason, which
would prescribe my setting out directly, if it was consistent
with my honour. I have a return of those nightly fevers and
pains in my breast, which have come for the three last years -,it
this season: change of air and a better climate are certainly
necessary to me in winter. I shall thus indulge my inclinations
every way. I long to see you and my Lady Hertford, and am
wofully sick of the follies and distractions of this country, to
which I see no end, come what changes will! Now, do you wonder
any longer at my resolution? In the mean time adieu for the
present!

(694) D'Auberval was not only a celebrated dancer, but a composer
of ballets.@.

(695) The reconciliation of the Duke and Duchess of Grafton.-E.

(696) The Princess Dowager of Wales.

(697) Lord Morton was elected.

Letter 232 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
November 10, 1764. (page 355)

Soh! madam, you expect to be thanked, because you have done a
very obliging thing.(698) But I won't thank you, and I won't be
obliged. It is very hard one can't come into your house and
commend any thing, but you must recollect it and send it after
one! I will never dine in your house again; and, when I do, I
will like nothing; and when I do, I will commend nothing; and
when I do, you shan't remember it. You are very grateful indeed
to Providence that give you so good a memory, to stuff it with
nothing but bills of fare of what every body likes to eat and
drink! I wonder you are not ashamed! Do you think there is no
such thing as gluttony of the memory?--You a Christian! A pretty
account you will be able to give of yourself!-Your fine folks in
France may call this friendship and attention, perhaps--but sure,
if I was to go to the devil, it should be for thinking of nothing
but myself, not of others, from morning to night. I would send
back your temptations; but, as I will not be obliged to you for
them, verily I shall retain them to punish you; ingratitude being
a proper chastisement for sinful friendliness. Thine in the
spirit, Pilchard Whitfield.

(698) Lady Hervey, it is supposed, had sent Mr. Walpole some
potted pilchards.

Letter 233 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 25, 1764. (page 356)

Could you be so kind, my dear lord, as to recollect Dr.
Blanchard, after so long an interval. It will make me still more
cautious of giving recommendations to you, instead of drawing
upon the credit you give me. I saw Mr. Stanley last night at the
Opera, who made his court extremely to me by what he said of you.
It was our first opera, and I went to town to hear Manzoli,(699)
who did not quite answer my expectation, though a very fine
singer, but his voice has been younger, and wants the touching
tones of Elisi.(700) However, the audience was not so nice, but
applauded him immoderately, and encored three of his songs. The
first woman was advertised for a perfect beauty, with no voice;
but her beauty and voice are by no means so unequally balanced:
she has a pretty little small pipe, and only a pretty little
small person, and share of beauty, and does not act ill. There
is Tenducci, a moderate tenor, and all the rest intolerable. If
you don't make haste and send us Doberval, I don't know what we
shall do. The dances were not only hissed, as truly they
deserved to be, but the gallery, `a la Drury-lane, cried out, ,
Off! off!" The boxes were empty, for so is the town, to a degree.
The person,(701) who ordered me to write to you for Dobeval, was
reduced to languish in the Duchess of Hamilton's box. My
Duchess(702) does not appear yet--I fear.

Shall I tell you any thing about D'Eon? it is sending coals to
Paris: you must know his story better than me; so in two words
Vergy, his antagonist, is become his convert:(703) has wrote for
him and sworn for him,--nay, has made an affidavit before Judge
Wilmot, that Monsieur de Guerchy had hired him to stab or poison
D'Eon. Did you ever see a man who had less of an assassin than
your pendant, as Nivernois calls it! In short, the story is as
clumsy, as abominable. The King's Bench cited D'Eon to receive
his sentence: he absconds: that court issued a warrant to search
for him and a house in Scotland-yard, where he lodged, was broken
open, but in vain. If there is any thing more, you know it
yourself. This law transaction is buried in another. The Master
of the Rolls, Sir Thomas Clarke, is dead, and Norton succeeds.
Who do you think succeeds him? his predecessor.(704) The house
of York is returned to the house of Lancaster: they could not
keep their white roses pure. I have not a little suspicion that
disappointment has contributed to this faux-pas. Sir Thomas made
a new will the day before he died, and gave his vast fortune, not
to Mr. Yorke, as was expected, but to Lord Macclesfield, to whom,
it is come out, he was natural brother. Norton, besides the
Rolls, which are for lite, and near 3,000 pounds a-year, has a
pension of 1,200 pounds. Mrs. Anne Pitt, too, has got a third
pension: so you see we are not quite such beggars as you
imagined!

Prince William, you know, is Duke of Gloucester, with the same
appanage as the Duke of York. Legrand(705) is his Cadogan;
Clinton(706) and Ligonier(707) his grooms.

Colonel Crawford is dead at Minorca, and Colonel Burton has his
regiment; the Primate (Stone) is better, but I suppose, from his
distemper, which is a dropsy in his breast, irrecoverable. Your
Irish queen(708) exceeds the English Queen, and follows her with
seven footmen before her chair--well! what trumperies I tell you!
but I cannot help it--Wilkes is outlawed, D'Eon run away, and
Churchill dead--till some new genius arises, you must take up
with the operas, and pensions, and seven footmen. But patience!
your country is seldom sterile long.

George Selwyn has written hither his lamentations about that
Cossack Princess. I am glad of it, for I did but hint it to my
Lady Rervey, (though I give you my word, without quoting you,
which I never do upon the most trifling occurrences,) and I was
cut very short, and told it was impossible. A la bonne heure!
Pray, who is Lord March(709) going to marry? We hear so, but
nobody named. I had not heard of your losses at whisk; but if I
had, should not have been terrified: you know whisk gives no
fatal ideas to any body that has been at Arthur's and seen
hazard, Quinze, and Trente-et-Quarante. I beg you will prevail
on the King of France to let Monsieur de Richelieu give as many
balls and f`etes as he pleases, if it is only for my diversion.
This journey to Paris is the last colt's tooth I intend ever to
cut, and I insist upon being prodigiously entertained, like a
Sposa Monacha, whom they cram with this world for a twelvemonth,
before she bids adieu to it for ever. I think, when I shut
myself up in my convent here, it will not be with the same
regret. I have for some time been glutted with the world, and
regret the friends that drop away every day; those, at least,
with whom I came into the world, already begin to make it appear
a great void. Lord Edgecumbe, Lord Waldegrave, and the Duke of
Devonshire leave a very perceptible chasm. At the Opera last
night, I felt almost ashamed to be there. Except Lady Townshend,
Lady Schaub, Lady Albemarle, and Lady Northumberland, I scarce
saw a creature whose debut there I could not remember: nay, the
greater part were maccaronies. You see I am not likely, like my
brother Cholmondeley (who, by the way, was there too), to totter
into a solitaire at threescore. The Duke de Richelieu(710) is
one of the persons I am curious to see--oh! am I to find Madame
de Boufflers, Princess of Conti? Your brother and Lady Aylesbury
are to be in town the day after to-morrow to hear Manzoli, and on
their way to Mrs. Cornwallis, who is acting l'agonisante; but
that would be treason to Lady Ailesbury. I was at Park-place
last week: the bridge is finished, and a noble object.

I shall come to you as soon as ever I have my cong`e, which I
trust will be early in February. I will let you know the moment
I can fix my time, because I shall beg you to order a small
lodging to be taken for me at no great distance from your palace,
and only for a short time, because, if I should like France
enough to stay some months I can afterwards accommodate myself to
my mind. I should like to be so near you that I could see you
whenever it would not be inconvenient to you, and without being
obliged to that intercourse with my countrymen, which I by no
means design to cultivate. If I leave the best company here, it
shall not be for the worst. I am getting out of the world, not
coming into it, and shall therefore be most indifferent about
their acquaintance, or what they think of my avoiding it. I come
to see you and my Lady Hertford, to escape from politics, and to
amuse myself with seeing, which I intend to do with all my eyes.
I abhor show, am not passionately fond of literati, don't want to
know people for a few months, and really think of nothing but
some comfortable hours with you, and indulging my curiosity.
Excuse almost a page about myself, but it was to tell you how
little trouble I hope to give you.

(699) "Manzoli's voice was the most powerful and voluminous
soprano that had been heard on our stage since the time of
Farinelli; and his manner of singing was grand and full of taste
and dignity. The lovers of music in London were more unanimous
in approving his voice and talents, than those of any other
singer within my memory." Burney.--E.