Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3

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(700) Elisi, though a great singer, was a still greater actor:
his figure was large and majestic, and he had a great compass of
voice." Ibid.-E.

(701) Probably Mrs. George Pitt.-C.

(702) Of Grafton.

(703) This is altogether a very mysterious affair: M. de Vergy
was the cause of D'Eon's violent behaviour at Lord Halifax's (see
ant`e, p. 254, letter 181,); he afterwards took D'Eon's part, and
had the effrontery and the infamy to say, that he was suborned by
the French ministry to quarrel with and ruin D'Eon.-C.

(704) Mr. Charles Yorke; but we shall see, in the next letter,
that the fact on which all this imputation was built was
false.-C.

(705) Edward Legrand, Esq., treasurer to the Duke of Gloucester;
as the Hon. C. S. Cadogan was to the Duke of York.-E.

(706) Colonel Henry Clinton, afterwards commander-in-chief in
America, and K. B.-E.

(707) Colonel Edward Ligonier, aide-de-camp to the King.-E.

(708) The Countess of Northumberland.-E.

(709) James, third Earl of March, a lord of the bedchamber, who
subsequently, in 1778, succeeded to the dukedom of queensberry,
and was the last of that title.-E.

(710) The celebrated Mareschal Duc de Richelieu: he was born in
1696, and died in 1788. The whole of his long life was full of
adventures so extraordinary as to justify Mr. Walpole's
curiosity. The most remarkable, however, of all, had not at this
period occurred. In the year 1780, and at the age of
eighty-four, he married his third wife, and was severely
afflicted that a miscarriage of the Duchess destroyed his hopes
of another Cardinal de Richelieu; for to that eminence he
destined the child of his age. His biographer adds, that the
Duchess was an affectionate and attentive wife, notwithstanding
that her octogenarian husband tried her patience by reiterated
infidelities.-C.

Letter 234 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Dec. 3, 1764. (page 358)

I love to contradict myself as fast as I can when I have told you
a lie, lest you should take me for a chambermaid, or Charles
Townshend. But how can I help it? Is this a consistent age?
How should I know people's minds, if they don't know them
themselves? In short, Charles Yorke is not attorney-general, nor
Norton master of the rolls. A qualm came across the first, and
my Lord lorn across the second, who would not have Norton in his
court. I cannot imagine why; it is so gentle, amiable, honest a
being! But I think the Chancellor says, Norton does not
understand equity, so he remains prosecutor-general. Yorke would
have taken the rolls, if they would have made it much more
considerable; but as they would not, he has recollected that it
will be clever for one Yorke to have the air of being
disinterested, so he only disgraces himself,(711) and takes a
patent of precedence over the Solicitor-General:--but do not
depend upon this--he was to have kissed hands on Friday, but has
put it off till Wednesday next--between this and that, his Virtue
may have another fit. The court ridicule him even more than the
opposition. What diverts me most, is, that the pious and dutiful
house of Yorke, who cried and roared over their father's memory,
now throw all the blame on him, and say, he forced them into
opposition--amorent nummi expellas furc`a, licet usque
recurret.(712) Sewell(713) is master of the rolls.

Well! I may grow a little more explicit to you; besides, this
letter goes to you by a private hand. I gave you little hints,
to prepare you for the separation of the house of Grafton. It is
so, and I am heartily sorry for it. Your brother is chosen by
the Duke, and General Ellison by the Duchess, to adjust the
terms, which are not yet settled. The Duke takes all on himself,
and assigns no reason but disagreement of tempers. He leaves
Lady Georgina' with her mother, who, he says, is the properest
person to educate her, and Lord Charles, till he is old enough to
be taken from the women. This behaviour is noble and generous--
still I wish they could have agreed!

This is not the only parting that makes a noise. His grace of
Kingston(714) has taken a pretty milliner from Cranborn-alley,
and carried her to Thoresby. Miss Chudleigh, at the Princess's
birthday on Friday, beat her side till she could not help having
a real pain in it, that people might inquire what was the matter;
on which she notified a pleurisy, and that she is going to the
baths of Carlsbad, in Bohemia. I hope she will not meet with the
Bulgares that demolished the Castle of Thundertentronck.(715
y) My Lady Harrington's robbery is at last come to light, and
was committed by the porter,(716) who is in Newgate.

Lady Northumberland (who, by the way, has added an eighth footman
since I wrote to you last) told Me this Morning that the Queen is
very impatient to receive an answer from Lady Hertford, about
Prince George's letters coming through your hands, as she desired
they might.

A correspondence between Legge and Lord Bute about the Hampshire
election is published to-day, by the express desire of the
former, When he was dying.(717) He showed the letters to me in
the spring, and I then did not-think them so strong or important
as he did. I am very clear it does no honour to his memory to
have them printed now. It implies want of resolution to publish
them in his lifetime, and that he died with more resentment than
I think one should care to own. I would Send them to you, but I
know Dr. Hunter takes care of such things. I hope he will send
you, too, the finest piece that I think has been written for
liberty since Lord Somers. It is called an Inquiry into the late
Doctrine on Libels, and is said to be written by one
Dunning,(718) a lawyer lately started up, who makes a great
noise. He is a sharp thorn in the sides of Lord Mansfield and
Norton, and, in truth, this book is no plaster to their pain. It
is bitter, has much unaffected wit, and is the Only tract that
ever made me understand law.(719) If Dr. Hunter does not send
you these things, I suppose he will convey them himself, as I
hear there will be a fourteenth occasion for him. Charles
Fitzroy says, Lord Halifax told Mrs. Crosby that you are to go to
Ireland. I said he l(nows you are not the most communicative
person in the world, and that you had not mentioned it--nor do I
now, by way of asking impertinent questions; but I thought you
would like to know what was said.

I return to Strawberry Hill to-morrow, but must return on
Thursday, as there is to be something at the Duke of York's that
evening, for which I have received a card. He and his brother
are most exceedingly civil and good-humoured--but I assure you
every place is like one of Shakspeare's plays:--Flourish, enter
the Duke of York, Gloucester, and attendants. Lady Irwin(720)
died yesterday.

Past eleven.

I have just come from a little impromptu ball at Mrs. Ann Pitt's.
I told you she had a new pension, but did I tell you it was five
hundred pounds a year? It was entertaining to see the Duchess of
Bedford and Lady Bute with their respective forces, drawn up on
different sides of the room; the latter's were most numerous. My
Lord Gower seemed very willing to promote a parley between the
two armies. It would have made you shrug up your shoulders at
dirty humanity, to see the two Miss Pelhams sit neglected,
without being asked to dance. You may imagine this could not
escape me, who have passed through the several grradations in
which Lady Jane Stuart and Miss Pelham are and have been; but I
fear poor Miss Pelham feels hers a little more than ever I
did.(721) The Duke of York's is to be a dinner and a ball for
Princess Amelia.

Lady Mary Bowlby(722) gave me a commission, a genealogical one,
from my Lady Hertford, which I will execute to the best of my
power. I am glad my part is not to prove eighteen generations Of
nobility for the Bruces. I fear they have made some
mes-alliances since the days of King Robert-at least, the present
Scotch nobility are not less apt to go into Lombard-street than
the English.

My Lady Suffolk was at the ball; I asked the Prince of Masserano
whom he thought the oldest woman in the room, as I concluded he
would not guess she was. He did not know my reason for asking,
and would not tell me. At last, he said very cleverly, his own
wife.

Mr. Sarjent has sent me this evening from Les Consid`erations sur
les Moeurs," and "Le Testament Politique,"(723) for which I give
you, my dear lord, a thousand thanks. Good night!

P.S. Manzoli(724) has come a little too late, or I think he would
have as many diamond watches and snuff-boxes as Farinelli.

(711) We can venture to state, that there never was any idea of
Mr. Yorke's accepting the rolls; and it is believed that they
never were offered to him; certainly, be himself never thought of
taking that office. The patent of precedence which he did
accept, was an arrangement, which, though convenient for the
conduct of the business in court, could give no addition of
either rank or profit to a person in Mr. Yorke's circumstances.
The facts were as follow: when Mr. Yorke, in 1756, was made
solicitor-general, he was not a King's counsel; he succeeded to
be attorney-general, but on his resignation in October 1763, he
lost the precedence which his offices had given him, and he
returned to the outer bar and a stuff gown. It was a novel and
anomalous sight to see a man who had led the Chancery bar so
long, and filled the greatest office of the law, retire to
comparatively, so humble a rank in the court in which he might be
every day expected to preside; and accordingly, on his first
appearance after his resignation, the Chancellor, with the
concurrence (indeed, it has been said on the suggestion) of the
bar, called to Mr. Yorke, out of his turn, next after the King's
counsel: this irregular pre-audience had lasted above a year,
when it was thought more proper and more convenient for the
business of the court to give Mr. Yorke that formal patent of
precedence, the value and circumstances of which Mr Walpole so
much misunderstands. We have heard from old lawyers, that Mr.
Yorke's business at this period was more extensive and less
lucrative than any other man ever possessed in Chancery, and we
find no less than four other barristers had at this time patents
of precedence.-C.

(712) The reader is requested to look back to p. 272, letter 188,
where he will find Mr. Walpole himself stating--long before Lord
Hardwickc's death, and even before his illness--that "the old
Chancellor was violent against the court, and that Mr. Charles
Yorke had resigned, contrary to his own; and Lord Royston's
inclination." The fact was in no way true; for it is well known
that there never was the slightest difference of opinion between
the old Lord Hardwicke and his son Charles upon their political
conduct.-C.

(713) Sir Thomas Sewell, Knight.-E.

(714) Evelyn, last Duke of Kingston: he soon after married Miss
Chudleigh, who was supposed to have been already married to Mr.
Augustus Hervey, afterwards Earl of Bristol.-C.

(715) An allusion to a loose incident in Voltaire's Candide.

(716) See ant`e, p. 260, letter 184.

(717) Mr. Legge had, in 1759, while chancellor of the exchequer
to George II. been requested by Lord Bute, in the name of the
Prince of Wales, to pledge himself to support a Mr. Stuart at the
next election for Hampshire: this Mr. Legge, for very sufficient
reasons, refused to do; and for this refusal (as he thought, and
wished to persuade the public) he was turned out of office at the
accession of the young King.-C.

(718) Mr. Dunning soon rose into great practice and eminence; in
1767 he was made solicitor-general, which office he held till
1770. He then made a considerable figure in the opposition, till
the accession to the ministry, in 1782, of his friend Lord
Shelburne, when he was created Lord Ashburton; he died next
year.-C.

(719) Mr. Dunning's pamphlet was intituled "Inquiry into the
Doctrine lately propagated concerning Juries, Libels, etc. upon
the principles of the Law and the Constitution." Gray, in a
letter to Walpole of the 30th, thus characterizes it:--"Your
canonical book I have been reading with great satisfaction. He
speaketh as one having authority. If Englishmen have any
feeling, methinks they must feel now; and if the ministry have
any feeling (Whom nobody will suspect of insensibility) they must
cut off the author's ears; for if is in all the forms a most
wicked libel. Is the old man and the lawyer put on, or is it
real? or has some real lawyer furnished a good part of the
materials, and another person employed them? This I guess."
Works, vol. iv. p. 40.-E.

(720) Anne Howard, daughter of the third Earl of Carlisle, and
widow of the third Viscount Irwin. She was lady of the
bedchamber to the Princess Dowager. Mr. Park has introduced her
into his edition of the Noble Authors.-C.

(721) Mr. Walpole means that he was courted during his father's
power, and neglected after his fall, as the daughters of a
succeeding prime minister, Mr. Henry Pelham, now were; but as
Lady Jane Stuart was but two-and-twenty years old, and Miss
Pelham was thirty-six, we may account for the preference given to
her ladyship at a ball, without any reference to the meanness and
political time-serving of mankind. Both the Misses Pelham died
unmarried.-C.

(722) Sister of the Duke of Montagu.

(723) A French forgery called "Le Testament Politique du
Chevalier Robert Walpole," of which Mr. Walpole drew up an
exposure, which is to be found in the second volume of his
works.-C.

(724) The enthusiasm, however, ran pretty high, as we learn from
the following passage, in one of the periodical papers of the
day:--"Signor Manzoli, the Italian singer at the Haymarket, got
no less, after paying all charges of every kind, by his benefit
last week (March, 1765), than 1000 guineas. This added to a sum
of 1,500 which he has already saved, and the remaining profits of
the season, is surely an undoubted proof of British generosity.
One particular lady complimented the singer with a 200 pound bill
for a ticket on that occasion."-C.''

Letter 235 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 16, 1764. (page 362)

As I have not read in the paper that you died lately at
Greatworth, in Northamptonshire, nor have met with any Montagu or
Trevor in mourning, I conclude you are living: I send this,
however, to inquire, and if you should happen to be departed,
hope your executor will be so kind as to burn it. Though you do
not seem to have the same curiosity about my existence, you may
gather from my handwriting that I am still in being; which being
perhaps full as much as you want to know of me, I will trouble
you with no farther particulars about myself--nay, nor about any
body else; your curiosity seeming to be pretty much the same
about all the world. News there are certainly none; nobody is
even dead, as the Bishop of Carlisle told me to-day, which I
repeat to you in general, though I apprehend in his own mind he
meant no possessor of a better bishopric.

If you like to know the state of the town, here it is. In the
first place, it is very empty; in the next, there are more
diversions than the week will hold. A charming Italian opera,
with no dances and no company, at least on Tuesdays; to supply
which defect, the subscribers are to have a ball and supper--a
plan that in my humble opinion will fill the Tuesdays and empty
the Saturdays. At both playhouses are woful English operas;
which, however, fill better than the Italian, patriotism being
entirely confined to our ears: how long the sages of the law may
leave us those I cannot say. Mrs Cornelis, apprehending the
future assembly at Almack's, has enlarged her vast room, and hung
it with blue satin, and another with yellow satin; but Almack's
room, which is to be ninety feet long, proposes to swallow up
both hers, as easy as Moses's rod gobbled down those Of the
magicians. Well, but there are more joys; a dinner and assembly
every Tuesday at the Austrian minister's; ditto on Thursdays at
the Spaniard's; ditto on Wednesdays and Sundays at the French
ambassador's; besides Madame de Welderen's on Wednesdays, Lady
Harrington's Sundays, and occasional private mobs at my lady
Northumberland's. Then for the mornings, there are lev`ees and
drawing-rooms without end. Not to mention the maccaroni-club,
which has quite absorbed Arthur's; for you know old fools will
hobble after young ones. Of all these pleasures, I prescribe
myself a very small pittance,--my dark corner in my own box at
the Opera, and now and then an ambassador, to keep my French
going till my journey to Paris. Politics are gone to sleep, like
a paroli at pharaoh, though there is the finest tract lately
published that ever was written, called an Inquiry into the
Doctrine of Libels. It would warm your old Algernon blood; but
for what any body cares, might as well have been written about
the wars of York and Lancaster. The thing most in fashion is my
edition of Lord Herbert's Life; people are mad after it, I
believe because only two hundred were printed; and, by the
numbers that admire it, I am convinced that if I had kept his
lordship's counsel, very few would have found out the absurdity
of it. The caution with which I hinted at its extravagance, has
passed with several for approbation, and drawn on theirs. This
is nothing new to me; it is when one laughs out at their idols
that one angers people. I do not wonder now that Sir Philip
Sydney was the darling hero, when Lord Herbert, who followed him
so close and trod in his steps, is at this time of day within an
ace of rivalling him. I wish I had let him; it was contradicting
one of my own maxims, which I hold to be very just; that it is
idle to endeavour to cure the world of any folly, unless We Could
cure it of being foolish.

Tell me whether I am likely to see you before I go to Paris,
which will be early in February. I hate you for being so
indifferent about me. I live in the world, and yet love nothing,
care a straw for nothing, but two or three old friends, that I
have loved these thirty years. You have buried yourself with
half a dozen parsons and isquires, and Yet never cast a thought
upon those you have always lived with. You come to town for two
Months, grow tired in six weeks, hurry away, and then one hears
no more of you till next winter. I don't want you to like the
world, I like it no more than you; but I stay awhile in it,
because while one sees it one laughs at it, but when one gives it
up one grows angry with it; and I hold it to be much wiser to
laugh than to be out of humour. You cannot imagine how much ill
blood this perseverance has cured me of; I used to say to myself,
"Lord! this person is so bad, that person is so bad, I hate
them." I have now found out that they are all pretty much alike,
and I hate nobody. Having never found you out, but for integrity
and sincerity, I am much disposed to persist in a friendship with
you; but if I am to be at all the pains of keeping it up, I shall
imitate my neighbours (I don't mean those at next door, but in
the Scripture sense of my neighbour, any body,) and say "That is
a very good man, but I don't care a farthing for him." Till I
have taken my final resolution on that head, I am yours most
cordially.

Letter 236 To George Montagu, Esq.
Christmas-eve, 1764. (page 364)

You are grown so good, and I delight so much in your letters when
you please to write them, that though it is past midnight, and I
am to go out of town tomorrow morning, I must thank you.

I shall put your letter to Rheims into the foreign post with a
proper penny, and it will go much safer and quicker than if I
sent it to Lord Hertford, for his letters lie very often till
enough are assembled to compose a jolly caravan. I love your
good brother John, as I always do, for keeping your birthday; I,
who hate ceremonious customs, approve of what I know comes so
much from the heart as all he and you do and say. The General
surely need not ask leave to enclose letters to me.

There is neither news, nor any body to make it, but the clergy,
who are all gaping after or about the Irish mitre,(725) which
your old antagonist has quitted. Keene has refused it; Newton
hesitates, and they think will not accept it; Ewer pants for it,
and many of the bench I believe do every thing but pray for it.
Goody Carlisle hopes for Worcester if it should be vacated, but I
believe would not dislike to be her Grace.

This comes with your muff, my Anecdotes of Painting, the fine
pamphlet on libels, and the Castle of Otranto, which came out
to-day. All this will make some food for your fireside. Since
you will not come and see me before I go, I hope not to be gone
before you come, though I am not quite in charity with you about
it. Oh! I had forgot; don't lend your Lord Herbert, it will grow
as dirty as the street; and as there are so few, and They have
been so lent about, and so dirtied, the few clean copies will be
very valuable. What signifies whether they read it or not?
there will be a new bishop, or a new separation, or a new
something or other, that will do just as well, before you can
convey your copy to them; and seriously, if you lose it, I have
not another to give you; and I would fain have you keep my
editions together, as you had the complete set. As I want to
make you an economist of my books, I will inform you that this
second' set of Anecdotes sells for three guineas. Adieu!

P. S. I send you a decent smallish muff, that you may put in your
pocket, and it costs but fourteen shillings.

(7250 Dr. John Stone, Archbishop of Armagh and primate of all
Ireland, died on the 19th of December 1764.-E.

Letter 237 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Jan. 10, 1765. (page 364)

I should prove a miserable prophet or almanac maker, for my
predictions are seldom verified. I thought the present session
likely to be a very supine one, but unless the evening varies
extremely from the morning, it will be a tempestuous day--and yet
it was a very southerly and calm wind that began the hurricane.
The King's Speech was so tame, that, as George Montagu said of
the earthquake, you might have stroked it.(726) Beckford (whom I
certainly did not mean by the gentle gale) touched on
Draper'S(727) Letter about the Manilla money. George Grenville
took up the defence of the Spaniards, though he said he only
stated their arguments. This roused your brother, who told
Grenville he had adopted the reasoning of Spain; and showed the
fallacy of their pretensions. He exhorted every body to support
the King's government, "which I," said he, "ill-used as I have
been, wish and mean to support-not that of ministers, when I see
the laws and independence of Parliament struck at in the most
profligate manner." You may guess how deeply this wounded.
Grenville took it to himself, and asserted that his own life and
character were as pure, uniform, and little profligate as your
brother's. The silence of the House did not seem to ratify this
declaration. Your brother replied with infinite spirit, that he
certainly could not have meant Mr. Grenville, for he did not take
him for the minister-(I do not believe this was the least
mortifying part)--that he spoke of public acts that were in every
body's mouth, as the warrants, and the disgrace thrown on the
army by dismissions for parliamentary reasons; that for himself
he was an open enemy, and detested men who smiled in his face and
stabbed him I do not believe he meant this personally, but
unfortunately the whole House applied it to Mr. Grenville's
grimace); that for his own disgrace, he did not know where to
impute it, for every minister had disavowed it. It was to the
warrants, he said, he owed what had happened; he had fallen for
voting against them, but had he had ten regiments, he would have
parted with them all to obey his conscience; that he now could
fall no lower, and would speak as he did then, and would not be
hindered nor intimidated from speaking the language of
Parliament. Grenville answered, that he had never avowed nor
disavowed the measure of dismissing Mr. Conway--(he disavowed it
to Mr. Harris,)(728) that he himself had been turned out for
voting against German connexions; that he had never approved
inquiring into the King's prerogative on that head-(I can name a
person who can repeat volumes of what he has said on the
subject,) and that the King had as much right to dismiss military
as civil officers, and then drew a ridiculous parallel betwixt
the two, in which he seemed to give himself the rank of a civil
lieutenant-general. This warmth was stopped by Augustus Hervey,
who spoke to order, and called for the question; but young T.
Townshend confirmed, that the term profligacy was applied by all
mankind to the conduct on the warrants. It was not the most
agreeable circumstance to Grenville, that Lord Granby closed the
debate, by declaring how much he disapproved the dismission of
officers for civil reasons, and the more, as he was persuaded it
would not prevent officers from acting according to their
consciences; and he spoke of your brother with many encomiums.
Sir W. Meredith then notified his intention of taking up the
affair of the warrants on Monday se'nnight. Mr. Pitt was not
there, nor Lord Temple in the House of Lords; but the latter is
ill. I should have told you that Lord Warkworth(729) and Thomas
Pitt(730) moved our addresses; as Lord Townshend and Lord
Botetourt did those of the Lords. Lord Townshend said, though it
was grown unpopular to praise the King, yet he should, and he was
violent against libels; forgetting that the most ill-natured
branch of them, caricatures, his own invention, are left off.
Nobody thought it worth while to answer him, at which he was much
offended.