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

Lady Sophia Thomas,(754) has begged me to trouble you with a
small commission. It is to send me for her twelve little bottles
of "le Baume de Vie, compos`e par le Sieur Lievre, apoticaire
distillateur du Roi." If George Selwyn or Lord March are not set
out, they would bring it with pleasure, especially as she lives
at the Duke of Queensberry's.

We have not a new book, play, intrigue, marriage, elopement, or
quarrel; in short, we are very dull. For politics, unless the
ministers wantonly thrust their hands into some fire, I think
there will not even be a smoke. I am glad of it, for my heart is
set on my journey to Paris, and I hate every thing that stops me.
Lord Byron's foolish trial is likely to protract the session a
little; but unless there is any particular business, I shall not
stay for a puppet-show. Indeed, I can defend my staying here by
nothing but my ties to your brother. My health, I am sure, would
be better in another climate in winter. Long days in the House
kill me, and weary me into the bargain. The individuals of each
party are alike indifferent to me; nor can I at this time of day
grow to love men whom I have laughed at all my lifetime--no, I
cannot alter;--Charles Yorke or Charles Townshend are alike to
me, whether ministers or patriots. Men do not change in my eyes,
because they quit a black livery for a white one. When one has
seen the whole scene shifted round and round so often, one only
smiles, whoever is the present Polonius or the grave digger,
whether they jeer the Prince, or flatter his frenzy.

Thursday night, 14th.

The new assembly-room at Almack's was opened the night before
last, and they say is very magnificent, but it was empty; half
the town is ill With colds, and many were afraid to go, as the
house is scarcely built yet. Almack advertised that it was built
with hot brick and boiling water--think what a rage there must be
for public places, If this notice, instead of terrifying, could
draw any body thither. They tell me the ceilings were dropping
with wet--but can you believe me, when I assure you the Duke of
Cumberland was there?--Nay, had had a levee in the morning, and
went to the Opera before the assembly! There is a vast flight of
steps, and he was forced to rest two or three times. If he dies
of it--and how should he not?--it will sound very silly when
Hercules or Theseus ask him what he died of, to reply, "I caught
my death on a damp staircase at a new club-room."

Williams, the reprinter of the North Briton, stood in the pillory
to-day in Palace-yard. He went in a hackney-coach, the number of
which was 45. The mob erected a gallows opposite to him, on
which they hung a boot(755) with a bonnet of straw. Then a
collection was made for Williams, which amounted to near 200
pounds.(756) In short, every event informs the administration
how thoroughly they are detested, and that they have not a friend
whom they do not buy. Who can wonder, when every man of virtue
is proscribed, and they have neither parts nor characters to
impose even upon the mob! think to what a government is sunk,
when a Secretary of State is called in Parliament to his face
"the most profligate sad dog in the kingdom,"(757) and not a man
can open his lips in his defence. Sure power must have some
strange unknown charm, when it can compensate for such contempt!
I see many who triumph in these bitter pills which the ministry
are so often forced to swallow; I own I do not; it is more
mortifying to me to reflect how great and respectable we were
three years ago, than satisfactory to see those insulted who have
brought such shame upon us. 'Tis moor amends to national honour
to know, that if a printer is set in the pillory, his country
wishes it was my Lord This, or Mr. That. They will be gathered
to the Oxfords, and Bolingbrokes, and ignominious(758) of former
days; but the wound they have inflicted is perhaps indelible.
That goes to my heart, who had felt all the Roman pride of being
one of the first nations upon earth!--Good night!--I will go to
bed, and dream of Kings drawn in triumph; and then I will go to
paris, and dream I am proconsul there; pray, take care not to let
me be wakened with an account of an invasion having taken place
from Dunkirk!(759) Yours ever, H. W.

(749) The resolutions which were the foundation of the famous
Stamp-act.-E.

(750) The substance of this petition, and the grave answer which
the King was advised to give to such a ludicrous appeal, are
preserved in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1765, p. 95; where also
we learn that Mr. Walpole's idea of the Carpenters' petition was
put in practice, and his Majesty was humbly entreated to wear a
wooden leg himself, and to enjoin all his servants to do the
same. It may, therefore, be presumed that this jeu d'esprit was
from the pen of Mr. Walpole.-C.

(751) Lady Hirriot Wentworth, sister of the last Lord Strafford,
wife of Henry Vernon, Esq., and mother of Lady Grosvenor, whose
intrigue with the Duke of Cumberland made so much noise.-C.

(752) Thomas Villers, second son of Lord Jersey, first Lord Hyde
of his family: his lady was Charlotte, daughter of Lady Jane
Hyde, wife of William Earl of Essex, daughter of Henry, second
Earl of clarendon, and sister of the Duchess of Queensberry.-C.

(753) George, fifteenth Lord Abergavenny; and his lady, Henrieta
Pelham, sister of the first Earl of Chichester: she died in
1768.-E.

(754) Lady Sophia Keppel, daughter of the first Earl of
Albemarle, and wife of Colonel Thomas.-E.

(755) A Jack-boot, in allusion to the Christian name and title of
Lord Bute.-C.

(756) In a blue purse trimmed with orange, the colour of the
revolution, in opposition to the Stuart.-C.

(757) ant`e, p. 370, letter 239.

(758) We might be surprised at finding a person of Mr. Walpole's
taste and judgment, describing Harley and St. John as
ignominious, if we did not recollect, that during their
administration his father had been sent to the Tower, and
expelled the House of commons for alleged official corruptions.
It were to be wished that Mr. Walpole's personal prejudices could
always be traced to so amiable a source.-C.

(759) The demolition of Dunkirk was one of the articles of the
late treaty of peace, on which discussions were still
depending.-C.

Letter 241 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Feb. 19, 1765. (page 376)

Your health and spirits and youth delight me; yet I think you
make but a bad use of them, when you destine them to a triste
house in a country solitude. If you were condemned to
retirement, It would be fortunate to have spirits to support it;
but great vivacity is not a cause for making it one's option.

Why waste your sweetness on the desert air! at least, why bestow
so little of your cheerfulness on your friends? I do not wish
you to parade your rubicundity and gray hairs through the mobs
and assemblies of London; I should think you bestowed them as ill
as on Greatworth; but you might find a few rational creatures
here, who are heartily tired of what are called our pleasures,
and who would be glad to have you in their chimney-corner. There
you might have found me any time this fortnight; I have been
dying of the worst and longest cold I ever had in my days, and
have been blooded, and taken James's powder to no purpose. I
look almost like the skeleton that Frederick found in the
oratory;(760) my only comfort was, that I should have owed my
death to the long day in the House of Commons, and have perished
with Our liberties; but I think I am getting the better of my
martyrdom, and shall live to See you; nay, I shall not be gone to
Paris. As I design that journey for the term of my figuring in
the world, I would fain wind up my politics too, and quit all
public ties together. As I am not old yet, and have an excellent
though delicate constitution, I may promise myself some agreeable
years, if I could detach myself from all connexions, but with a
very few persons that I value. Oh, with what joy I could bid
adieu to loving and hating; to crowds, public places, great
dinners, visits; and above all, to the House of Commons; but pray
mind when I retire, it shall only be to London and Strawberry
Hill--in London one can live as one will, and at Strawberry I
will live as I will. Apropos, my good old tenant Franklin is
dead, and I am in possession of his cottage, which will be a
delightfully additional plaything at Strawberry. I shall be
violently tempted to stick in a few cypresses and lilacs there
before I go to Paris. I don't know a jot of news: I have been a
perfect hermit this fortnight, and buried in Runic poetry and
Danish wars. In short, I have been deep in a late history of
Denmark, written by one Mallet, a Frenchman,(761) a sensible man,
but I cannot say he has the art of making a very tiresome subject
agreeable. There are six volumes, and I am stuck fast in the
fourth.

Lord Byron's trial I hear is to be in May. If you are curious
about it, I can secure you a ticket for Lord Lincoln's gallery.
The Antiquarian Society have got Goody Carlisle(762) for their
president, and I suppose she will sit upon a Saxon chalkstone
till the return of King Arthur. Adieu!

(760) An allusion to the scene in the last chapter of his Castle
of Otranto.- E.

(761) Paul Henry Mallet was born at Geneva in 1731, and was for
some time professor of history in his native city. He afterwards
became professor royal of the belles lettres at Copenhagen. The
introduction to his History of Denmark was afterwards translated
by Dr. Percy, under the title of Northern Antiquities, including
the Edda.-E.

(762) Dr. Charles Lyttelton, Bishop of Carlisle. See ant`e, p.
207, letter 149. On his death, in 1768, he made a very valuable
bequest of manuscripts and printed books to the Society.-E.

Letter 242 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Feb. 28, 1765. (page 377)

Dear sir,
As you do not deal with newspapers, nor trouble Yourselves with
occurrences of modern times, you may perhaps conclude from what I
have told you, and from my silence, that I am in France. This
will tell you that I am not; though I have been long thinking of
it, and still intend it, though not exactly yet. My silence I
must lay on this uncertainty, and from having been much out of
order above a month with a very bad cold and cough, for which I
am come hither to try change of air. Your brother Apthorpe, who
was so good as to call upon me about a fortnight ago in town,
found me too hoarse to speak to him. We both asked one another
the same question--news of you?

I have lately had an accession to my territory here, by the death
of good old Franklin, to whom I had given for his life the lease
of the cottage and garden cross the road. Besides a little
pleasure in planting, and in crowding it with flowers, I intend
to make, what I am sure you are antiquarian enough to approve, a
bower, though your friends the abbots did not indulge in such
retreats, at least not under that appellation: but though we love
the same ages, you must excuse worldly me for preferring the
romantic scenes of antiquity. If you will tell me how to send
it, and are partial enough to me to read a profane work in the
style of former centuries, I shall convey to you a little
story-book, which I published some time ago, though not boldly
with my own name: but it has succeeded so well, that I do not any
longer entirely keep the secret. Does the title, The Castle of
Otranto(763) tempt you? I shall be glad to hear you are well and
happy.

(763) In the first edition of this work, of which but very few
copies were printed, the title ran thus:--"The Castle of Otranto,
a Story, translated by William Marshal, Gent., from the original
Italian of onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the church of St. Nicholas
at Otranto. London: printed for Thomas Lownds, in Fleet Street,
1765."-E.

Letter 243 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, March 9, 1765. (page 378)

Dear sir,
I had time to write but a short note with the Castle of Otranto,
as your messenger called on me at four o'clock, as I was going to
go abroad. Your partiality to me and Strawberry have, I hope,
inclined you to excuse the wildness of the story. You will even
have found some traits to put you in mind of this
place.(764)--When you read of the Picture quitting its
panel,(765) did not you recollect the portrait of Lord Falkland,
all in white, in my gallery? Shall I even confess to you, what
was the origin of this romance! I waked one morning, in the
beginning of last June, from a dream, of which, all I could
recover was, that I had thought myself in an ancient castle, (a
very natural dream for a head filled like mine with Gothic
story,) and that on the uppermost bannister of a great staircase
I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the evening I sat down, and
began to write, without knowing in the least what I intended to
say or relate. The work grew on my hands, and I grew fond of
it--add, that. I was very glad to think of any thing, rather
than politics. In short, I was so engrossed with my tale, which
I completed in less than two months, that one evening, I wrote
from the time I had drunk my tea, about six o'clock, till after
one in the morning when my hand and fingers were so weary, that
I- could not hold my pen to finish the sentence, but left Matilda
and Isabella talking, in the middle of a paragraph. You will
laugh at my earnestness; but if I have amused you by retracing
with any fidelity the manners of ancient days, I am content, and
give you leave to think me as idle as you please.

You are, as you have long been to me, exceedingly kind, and I
should, with great satisfaction, embrace your offer of visiting
the solitude of Bleckely, though my cold is in a manner gone, and
my cough quite, if I was at liberty: but as I am preparing for my
French journey, and have forty businesses upon my hands, and can
only now and then purloin a day, or half a day, to come hither.
You know I am not cordially disposed to your French journey,
which is much more serious, as it is to be much more lasting.
However, though I may suffer by your absence, I would not
dissuade what may suit your inclination and circumstances. One
thing, however, has struck me, which I must mention, though it
would depend on a circumstance, that would give me the most real
concern. It was suggested to me by that real fondness I have for
your MSS. for your kindness about which I feel the utmost
gratitude. You would not, I think, leave them behind you: and
are you aware of the danger you would run, If, you settled
entirely in France? Do You know that the King of France is heir
to all strangers who die in his dominions, by what they call the
Droit d'Aubaine. Sometimes by great interest and favour, persons
have obtained a remission of this right in their lifetime: and
yet that, even that, has not secured their effects from being
embezzled. Old Lady Sandwich(766) had obtained this remission,
and yet, though she left every thing to the present lord, her
grandson, a man for whose rank one should have thought they would
have had regard, the King's officers forced themselves into her
house, after her death, and plundered. You see, if you go, I
shall expect to have your MSS. deposited with me. Seriously, you
must leave them in safe custody behind you.

Lord Essex's trial is printed with the State Trials. In return
for your obliging offer, I can acquaint you with a delightful
publication of this winter, a Collection of Old Ballads and
Poetry, in three volumes, many from Pepys's Collection at
Cambridge.(767) There were three such published between thirty
and forty years ago, but very carelessly, and wanting many in
this set: indeed, there were others, a looser sort,(768) which
the present editor, who is a clergyman, thought it decent to
omit.

When you go into Cheshire, and upon your ramble, may I trouble
you with a commission? but about which you must promise me not to
go a Step Out of your way. Mr. Bateman has got a cloister at Old
Windsor, furnished with ancient wooden chairs, most of them
triangular, but all of various patterns, and carved and turned in
the most uncouth and whimsical forms. He picked them up one by
one, for two, three, five, or six shillings apiece from different
farmhouses in Herefordshire. I have long envied and coveted
them. There may be such in poor cottages, in so neighbouring a
county as Cheshire. I should not grudge any expense for purchase
or carriage; and should be glad even of a couple such for my
cloister here. When you are copying inscriptions in a churchyard
in any village, think of me, and step into the first cottage you
see--but don't take further trouble than that.

I long to know what your bundle of manuscripts from Cheshire
contains.

My bower is determined, but not at all what it is to be. Though
I write romances, I cannot tell how to build all that belongs to
them. Madame Danois, in the Fairy Tales, used to tapestry them
with jonquils; but as that furniture will not last above a
fortnight in the year, I shall prefer something more huckaback.
I have decided that the outside shall be of treillage, which,
however, I shall not commence, till I have again seen some of old
Louis's old-fashioned Galanteries at Versailles. Rosamond's
bower, you, and I, and Tom Hearne know, was a labyrinth:(769) but
as my territory will admit of a very short clew, I lay aside all
thoughts of a mazy habitation: though a bower is very different
from an arbour, and must have more chambers than one. In short,
I both know, and don't know, what it should be. I am almost
afraid I must go and read Spenser, and wade through his
allegories, and drawling stanzas, to get at a picture. But, good
night! you see how one gossips, when one is alone, and at quiet
on one's own dunghill!--Well! it may be trifling; yet it is such
trifling as Ambition never is happy enough to know! Ambition
orders palaces, but it is Content that chats for a page or two
over a bower. Yours ever.

(764) "As, in his model of a Gothic modern mansion, Mr. Walpole
had studiously endeavoured to fit to the purpose of modern
convenience or luxury the rich, varied, and complicated tracery
and carving of the ancient cathedral, so, in the Castle of
Otranto, it was his object to unite the marvellous turn of
incident and imposing tone of chivalry exhibited in the ancient
romance, with that accurate display of human character and
contrast of feelings and passions, which is, or ought to be,
delineated in the modern novel." Sir Walter Scott; Prose Works,
vol. iii. p. 307.-E.

(765) The forms of the grim knight and pictured saint
Look living in the moon; and as you turn
Backward and forward, to the echoes faint
Of your own footsteps--voices from the urn
Appear to wake, and shadows wild and quaint
Start from the frames which fence their aspects stern,
As if to ask how you can dare to keep
A vigil there, where all but death should sleep."
Don Juan, c. xvi. st. 18.-E.

(766) Elizabeth, second daughter of John Wilmot Earl of
Rochester, and sister and co-heiress of Charles third Earl, and
widow of Edward Montagu third Earl of Sandwich, who died 20th of
October, 1729.-E.

(767) Edited by the Rev. Thomas Percy, fellow of St. John's
College, Oxford, and afterwards Bishop of Dromore. "The reviver
of minstrel poetry in Scotland was the venerable Bishop of
Dromore, who, in 1765, published his elegant collection of heroic
ballads, songs, and pieces of early poetry under the title of
'Reliques Of Ancient English Poetry.' The plan of the work was
adjusted in concert with Mr. Shenstone, but we own we cannot
regret that the execution of it devolved upon Dr. Percy alone; of
whose labours, as an editor, it might be said, 'Nihil quod
tetigit non ornavit.'" Sir W. Scott. Prose Works, vol. xvii. P.
120.-E.

(768) The work was entitled "A Collection of Old Ballads,
corrected from the best and most ancient copies extant, with
Introductions, historical, critical, or humorous." Sir Walter
Scott observes, that the editor was an enthusiast in the cause of
old poetry, and selected his matter without much regard to
decency, as will appear from the following singular preface to
one or two indelicate pieces of humour:--"One of the greatest
complaints made by the ladies against the first volume of our
collection, and, indeed, the only one which has reached my ears,
is the want of merry songs. I believe I may give a pretty good
guess at what they call mirth in such pieces as These, and shall
endeavour to satisfy them." Prose Works, vol. xvii. p. 122.-E.

(769) The Bower of Rosamond is said, or rather fabled, to have
been a retreat built at Woodstock by Henry II. for the safe
residence of his mistress, Rosamond Clifford; the approaches of
which were so intricate, that it could not be entered without the
guidance of a thread, which the King always kept in his own
possession. His Queen, Eleanor, having, however, gained
possession of the thread, obtained access to, and speedily
destroyed her fair rival.-E.

Letter 244 To Monsieur Elie De Beaumont.(770)
Strawberry Hill, March 18, 1765. (page 381)

Sir,
When I had the honour of seeing you here, I believe I told you
that I had written a novel, in which I was flattered to find that
I had touched an effusion of the heart in a manner similar to a
passage in the charming letters of the Marquis de Roselle.(771) I
have since that time published my little story, but was so
diffident of its merit, that I gave it as a translation from the
Italian. Still I should not have ventured to offer it to so
great a mistress of the passions as Madame de Beaumont, if the
approbation of London, that is, of a country to which she and
you, Sir, are so good as to be partial, had not encouraged me to
send it to you. After I have talked of the passions, and the
natural effusion-, of the heart, how will you be surprised to
find a narrative of the most improbable and absurd adventures!
How will you be amazed to hear that a country of whose good sense
you have an opinion should have applauded so wild a tale! But
you must remember, Sir, that whatever good sense we have, we are
not yet in any light chained down to precepts and inviolable
laws. All that Aristotle or his superior commentators, your
authors, have taught us, has not yet subdued us to regularity: we
still prefer the extravagant beauties of Shakspeare and Milton to
the cold and well-disciplined merit of Addison, and even to the
sober and correct march of Pope. Nay, it was but t'other day
that we were transported to hear Churchill rave in numbers less
chastised than Dryden's, but still in numbers like Dryden's.(772)
You will not, I hope, think I apply these mighty names to my own
case with any vanity, when it is only their enormities that I
quote, and that in defence, not of myself' but of my countrymen,
who have good-humour enough to approve the visionary scenes and
actors in the Castle of Otranto.

To tell you the truth, it was not so much my intention to recall
the exploded marvels of ancient romance, as to blend the
wonderful of old stories with the natural of modern novels. The
world is apt to wear out any plan whatever; and if the Marquis de
Roselle had not appeared, I should have been inclined to say,
that that species had been exhausted. Madame de Beaumont must
forgive me if I add, that Richardson had, to me at least, made
that kind of writing insupportable. I thought the nodus was
become dignus vindice, and that a god, at least a ghost, was
absolutely necessary to frighten us out of too much senses. When
I had so wicked a design, no wonder if the execution was
answerable. If I make you laugh, for I cannot flatter myself
that I shall make you cry, I shall be content; at least I shall
be satisfied, till I have the pleasure of seeing you, with
putting you in mind of, Sir, your, etc.

P. S. The passage I alluded to in the beginning of my letter is
where Matilda owns her passion to Hippolita. I mention it, as I
fear so unequal a similitude would not strike Madame de Beaumont.

(770) M. Elie de Beaumont was
admitted an advocate at the French bar in 1762. The weakness of
his voice militated against his success as a pleader, but the
beauty and eloquence with which he drew up his M`emoires, and
especially the one in favour of the unfortunate Calas family,
gained him great reputation. He was born in 1732, and died in
1786.-E.

(771) A French epistolary novel written by Madame Elie de
Beaumont. She also wrote the third part of "Anecdotes de la Cour
et du R`egne de Edouard II." She was born at Caen in 1729, and
died in 1783.-E.

(772) "Churchill," observes Mr. Campbell, in his Specimens of the
British Poets, " may be ranked as a satirist immediately after
Pope and Dryden, with perhaps a greater share of humour than
either. He has the bitterness of Pope, with less wit to atone
for it; but no mean share of the free manner and energetic
plainness of Dryden," Vol. vi. P. 5.-E.

Letter 245 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, March 28, 1765. (page 382)