Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3

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Adieu! Yours most cordially.

(854) Lady Barbara Montagu, daughter of George second Earl of
Halifax.-E.

(855) The Duke of Clarence, born on the 21st of August;
afterwards King William the Fourth.-'E.

(856) Madame de S`evign`e, whom Walpole frequently alludes to
under this title.-E.

Letter 261 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 28, 1765. (page 413)

The less one is disposed, if one has any sense, to talk of
oneself to people that inquire only out of compliment, and do not
listen to the answer, the more satisfaction one feels in
indulging a self-complacency, by Sighing to those that really
sympathize with our griefs. Do not think it is pain that makes
me give this low-spirited air to my letter. No, it is the
prospect of what is to come, not the sensation of what is
passing, that affects me. The loss of youth is melancholy
enough; but to enter into old age through the gate of infirmity
is most disheartening. My health and spirits make me take but
slight notice of the transition, and under the persuasion of
temperance being a talisman, I marched boldly on towards the
descent of the hill, knowing I must fall at last, but not
suspecting that I should stumble by the way. This confession
explains the mortification I feel. A month's confinement to one
who never kept his bed a day is a stinging lesson, and has
humbled my insolence to almost indifference. Judge, then, how
little I interest myself about public events. I know nothing of
them since I came hither, where I had not only the disappointment
of not growing better, but a bad return In one of my feet, so
that I am still wrapped up and upon a couch. It was the more
unlucky as Lord Hertford is come to England for a few days. He
has offered to come to me; but as I then should see him only for
some minutes, I propose being carried to town tomorrow. It will
be SO long before I can expect to be able to travel, that my
French journey will certainly not take place so soon as I
intended, and if Lord Hertford goes to Ireland, I shall be still
more fluctuating; for though the Duke and Duchess of Richmond
will replace them at Paris, and are as eager to have me with
them, I have had so many more years heaped upon me within this
month, that I have not the conscience to trouble young people,
when I can no longer be as juvenile as they are. Indeed I shall
think myself decrepit till I again saunter into the garden in my
slippers and without my hat in all weathers--a point I am
determined to regain, if possible; for even this experience
cannot make me resign my temperance and my hardiness. I am tired
of the world, its politics, its pursuits, and its pleasures; but
it will cost me some struggles before I submit to be tender and
careful. Christ! can I ever stoop to the regimen of old age? I
do not wish to dress up a withered person, nor drag it about to
public places; but to sit in one's room, clothed warmly,
expecting visits from folk-, I don't wish to see, and tended and
flattered by relations impatient for one's death let the gout do
its worst as expeditiously as it can; it would be more welcome in
my stomach than in my limbs. I am not made to bear a course of
nonsense and advice, but must play the fool in my own way to the
last, alone with all my heart, if I cannot be with the very few I
wish to see: but, to depend for comfort on others, who would be
no comfort to me; this surely is not a state to be preferred to
death: and nobody can have truly enjoyed the advantages of youth,
health, and spirits, who is content to exist without the two
last, which alone bear any resemblance to the first.(853)

You see how difficult it is to conquer my proud spirit: low and
weak as I am, I think my resolution and perseverance will get me
better, and that I shall still be a gay shadow; at least, I will
impose any severity upon myself, rather than humour the gout, and
sink into that indulgence with which most people treat it.
Bodily liberty is as dear to me as mental, and I would as soon
flatter any other tyrant as the gout, my Whiggism extending as
much to my health as to my principles, and being as willing to
part with life, when I cannot preserve it, as your uncle Algernon
when his freedom was at stake. Adieu!

(853) Upon this passage the Quarterly Review observes: "Walpole's
reflections on human life are marked by strong sense and
knowledge of mankind; but our most useful lesson will perhaps be
derived from considering this man of the world, full of
information and sparkling with vivacity, stretched on a sick bed,
and apprehending all the tedious languor of helpless decrepitude
and deserted solitude." Vol. xix. p. 129.-E.

Letter 263 To George Montagu, Esq.
Saturday, Aug. 31, 1765, Strawberry Hill. (page 416)

I thought it would happen so; that I should not see you before I
left England! Indeed, I may as well give you quite up, for every
year reduces our Intercourse. I am prepared, because it must
happen, if I live, to see my friends drop off; but my mind was
not turned to see them entirely separated from me while they
live. This is very uncomfortable, but so are many things!--well!
I will go and try to forget you all--all! God knows that all that
I have left to forget is small enough; but the warm heart, that
gave me affections, is not so easily laid aside. If I could
divest myself of that, I should not, I think, find much for
friendship remaining; you, against whom I have no complaint, but
that you satisfy yourself with loving me without any desire of
seeing me, are one of the very last that I wish to preserve; but
I will say no more on a subject that my heart is too full of.

I shall set out on Monday se'nnight, and force myself to believe
that I am glad to go, and yet this will be my chief joy, for I
promise myself little pleasure in arriving. Can you think me boy
enough to be fond of a new world at my time of life! If I did not
hate the world I know, I should not seek another. My greatest
amusement will be in reviving old ideas. The memory of what made
impressions on one's youth is ten times dearer than any new
pleasure can be. I shall probably write to you often, for I am
not disposed to communicate myself' to any thing that I have not
known these thirty years. My mind is such a compound from the
vast variety that I have seen, acted, pursued, that it would cost
me too much pains to be intelligible to young persons, if I had a
mind to open myself to them. They certainly do not desire I
should. You like my gossiping to you, though you seldom gossip
with me. The trifles that amuse my mind are the only points I
value now. I have seen the vanity of every thing serious, and
the falsehood of every thing that pretended to be serious. I go
to see French plays and buy French china, not to know their
ministers, to look into their government, or think of the
interests of nations--in short, unlike most people that are
growing old, I am convinced that nothing is charming but what
appeared important in one's youth, which afterwards passes for
follies. Oh! but those follies were sincere; if the pursuits of
age are so, they are sincere alone to self-interest. Thus I
think, and have no other care but not to think aloud. I would
not have respectable youth think me an old fool. For the old
knaves, they may suppose me one of their number if they please; I
shall not be so--but neither the one nor the other shall know
what I am. I have done with them all, shall amuse myself as well
as I can, and think as little as I can; a pretty hard task for an
active mind!

Direct your letters to Arlington-street, whence Favre will take
care to convey them to me. I leave him to manage all my affairs,
and take no soul but Louis. I am glad I don't know your Mrs.
Anne; her partiality would make me love her; and it is entirely
incompatible with my present system to leave even a postern-door
open to any feeling which would steal in if I did not double-bolt
every avenue.

If you send me any parcel to Arlington-street before Monday
.se'nnight I will take care of it. Many English books I conclude
are to be bought at Paris. I am sure Richardson's works are, for
they have stupefied the whole French nation:(857) I will not
answer for our best authors. You may send me your list, and, if
I do not find them, I can send you word, and you may convey them
to me by Favre's means, who will know of messengers, etc., coming
to Paris.

I have fixed no precise time for my absence. My wish is to like
it enough to stay till February, which may happen, if I can
support the first launching into new society. I know four or
five very agreeable and sensible people there, as the Guerchys,
Madame de Mirepoix, Madame de Boufflers, and Lady Mary Chabot,-
-these intimately; besides the Duc de Nivernois, and several
others that have been here. Then the Richmonds will follow me in
a fortnight or three weeks, and their house will be a sort of
home. I actually go into it at first, till I can suit myself
with an -,apartment; but I shall take care to quit it before they
come, for, though they are in a manner my children, I do not
intend to adopt the rest of my countrymen; nor, when I quit the
best company here, to live in the worst there; such @are young
travelling boys, and, what is still worse, old travelling boys,
governors.

Adieu! remember you have defrauded me of this summer; I will be
amply repaid the next, so make your arrangements accordingly.

(857) "High as Richardson's reputation stood in his own country,
it was even more exalted in those of France and Germany, whose
imaginations are more easily excited, and their passions more
easily moved, by tales of fictitious distress, than are the cold-
blooded English. Foreigners of distinction have been known to
visit Hampstead, and to inquire for the Flask Walk, distinguished
as a scene in Clarissa's history, just as travellers visit the
rocks of Meillerie to view the localities of Rousseau's tale of
passion. Diderot vied with Rousseau in heaping incense upon the
shrine of the English author. The former compares him to Homer,
and predicts for his memory the same honours which are rendered
to the father of epic poetry; and the last, besides his
well-known burst of eloquent panegyric, records his opinion in a
letter to D'Alembert:--'On n'a jamais fait encore, en quelque
langue que ce soit, de roman `egal `a Clarisse, ni m`eme
approchant.'" Sir Walter Scott; Prose Works, Vol. iii. p. 49.-E.

Letter 264 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Arlington Street, Sept. 3, 1765. (page 418)

My dear lord,
I cannot quit a country where I leave any thing that I honour so
much as your lordship and Lady Strafford, without taking a sort
of leave of you. I shall set out for Paris on Monday next the
9th, and shall be happy if I can execute any commission for you
there.

A journey to Paris Sounds youthful and healthy. I have certainly
mended much this last week, though with no pretensions to a
recovery of youth. Half the view of my journey is to
re-establish my health--the other half, to wash my hands of
politics, which I have long determined to do whenever a change
should happen. I would not abandon my friends while they were
martyrs; but, now they have gained their crown of glory, they are
well able to shift for themselves; and it was no part of my
compact to go to that heaven, St. James's, with them. Unless I
dislike Paris very much, I shall stay some time; but I make no
declarations, lest I should be soon tired of it, and coming back
again. At first, I must like it, for Lady Mary Coke will be
there, as if by assignation. The Countesses of Carlisle and
Berkeley, too, I hear, will set up their staves there for some
time; but as my heart is faithful to Lady Mary, they would not
charm me if they were forty times more Disposed to it.

The Emperor' is dead,(858)--but so are all the Maximilians and
Leopolds his predecessors, and with no more influence on the
present state of things. The EmpressQueen will still be
master-Dowager unless she marries an Irishman, as I wish with all
my soul she may.

The Duke and Duchess of Richmond will follow me in about a
fortnight: Lord and Lady George Lennox go with them; and Sir
Charles Banbury and Lady Sarah are to be at Paris, too, for some
time: so the English court there will be very juvenile and
blooming. This set is rather younger than the dowagers with whom
I pass so much of my summers and autumns; but this is to be my
last sally into the world and when I return, I intend to be as
sober as my cat, and purr quietly in my own chimney corner.

Adieu, my dear lord! May every happiness attend you both, and may
I pass some agreeable days next summer with you at Wentworth
Castle!

(858) Francis the First, Emperor of Germany, died at Inspruck, on
Sunday the 18th of August. He was in good health the greater part
of the day, and assisted at divine service; but, between nine and
ten in the evening, he was attacked by a fit of apoplexy, and
expired in a few minutes afterwards in the arms of his son, the
King of the Romans.-E.

Letter 265 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
Arlington Street, Sept. 3, 1765. (page 419)

The trouble your ladyship has given yourself so immediately,
makes me, as I always am, ashamed of putting you to any. There
is no persuading you to oblige moderately. Do you know, Madam,
that I shall tremble to deliver the letters you have been so good
as to send me? If you have said half so much of me, as you are,
so partial as to think of me, I shall be undone. Limited as I
know myself, and hampered in bad French, how shall I keep up to
any character at all? Madame d'Aiguillon and Madame Geoffrin
will never believe that I am the true messenger, but will
conclude that I have picked Mr. Walpole's portmanteau's pocket.
I wish only to present myself to them as one devoted to your
ladyship; that character I am sure I can support in any language,
and it is the one to which they would pay the most regard. Well!
I don't care, Madam-it is your reputation that is at stake more
than mine; and, if they find me a simpleton that don't know how
to express myself, it will all fall upon you at last.' If your
ladyship will risk that, I will, if you please, thank you for a
letter to Madame d'Egmont, too: I long to know your friends,
though at the hazard of their knowing yours. Would I were a
jolly old man, to match, at least, in that respect, your jolly
old woman!(859)--But, alas! I am nothing but a poor worn-out rag,
and fear, when I come to Paris, that I shall be forced to pretend
that I have had the gout in my understanding. My spirits, such
as they are, will not bear translating; and I don't know whether
I shall not find it the wisest part I can take to fling myself
into geometry, or commerce, or agriculture, which the French now
esteem, don't understand, and think we do. They took George
Selwyn for a poet, and a judge of planting and dancing-. why may
I not pass for a learned man and a philosopher? If the worst
comes to the worst, I will admire Clarissa and Sir Charles
Grandison; and declare I have not a friend in the world that is
not like my Lord Edward Bomston, though I never knew a character
like it in my days, and hope I never shall; nor do I think
Rousseau need to have gone so far out of his way to paint a
disagreeable Englishman.

If you think, Madam, this sally is not very favourable to the
country I am going to, recollect, that all I object to them is
their quitting their own agreeable style, to take up the worst of
ours. Heaven knows, we are unpleasing enough; but, in the first
place, they don't understand us; and in the next, if they did, so
much the worse for them. What have they gained by leaving
Moli`ere, Boileau, Corneille, Racine, La Rochefucault, Crebillon,
Marivaux, Voltaire, etc.? No nation can be another nation. We
have been clumsily copying them for these hundred years, and are
not we grown wonderfully like them? Come, madam, you like what I
like of them? I am going thither, and you have no aversion to
going thither--but own the truth; had not we both rather go
thither fourscore years ago? Had you rather be acquainted with
the charming madame Scarron, or the canting Madame de Maintenon?
with Louis XIV. when the Montespan governed him, or when P`ere le
Tellier? I am very glad when folks go to heaven, though it is
after another body's fashion; but I 'wish to converse with them
when they are themselves. I abominate a conqueror; but I do not
think he makes the world much compensation, by cutting the
throats of his Protestant subjects to atone for the massacres
caused by his ambition.

The result of all this dissertation, Madam--for I don't know how
to call it a letter--is, that I shall look for Paris in the midst
of Paris, and shall think more of the French that have been than
the French that are, except of a few of your friends and mine.
Those I know, I admire and honour, and I am sure I will trust to
your ladyship's taste for the others; and if they had no other
merit, I can but like those that will talk to me of you. They
will find more sentiment in me on that chapter, than they can
miss parts; and I flatter myself that the one will atone for the
other.

(859) la Duchesse Douairi`ere d'Aiguillon, n`ee Chabot, mother of
the Duc d'Aiguillon, who succeeded the Duc de Choiseul as
minister for foreign affairs. She was a correspondent of Lady
Hervey's. In a letter to Walpole, of the 20th of November 1766,
madame du Deffand says:--"Je soupai Iiier chez Madame
d'Aiguillon: elle nous lut la traduction de la Lettre d'H`eloyse
de Pope, et d'un chant du po`eme de Salomon, de Prior; elle
`ecrit admirablement bien; j'en `etais r`eellement dans
l'enthousiasme: dites-le `a Milady Hervey." She died in 1772.-E.

Letter 266 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 5, 1765. (page 420)

Dear sir,
You cannot think how agreeable your letter was to me, and how
luckily it was timed. I thought you in Cheshire, and did not
know how to direct; I now sit down to answer it instantly.

I have been extremely ill indeed with the gout all over; in head,
stomach, both feet, both wrists, and both shoulders. I kept my
bed a fortnight in the most sultry part of this summer; and for
nine weeks could not say I was recovered. Though I am still
weak, and very soon tired with the least walk, I am in other
respects quite well. However, to promote my entire
reestablishment, I shall set out for Paris next Monday. Thus
your letter came luckily. To hear you talk of going thither,
too, made it most agreeable. Why should you not advance your
journey? Why defer it till the winter is coming on? It would
make me quite happy to visit churches and convents with you: but
they are not comfortable in cold weather. Do, I beseech you,
follow me as soon as possible. The thought of your being there
at the same time makes me much more pleased with my journey; you
will not, I hope, like it the less; and, if our meeting there
should tempt you to stay longer, it will make me still more
happy.

If, in the mean time, I can be of any use to you, I shall be glad
either in taking a lodging for you, Or any thing else. Let me
know, and direct to me in Arlington-street, whence my servant
Will convey it to me. Tell me above all things that you will set
out sooner.

If I have any money left when I return, and can find a place for
it, I shall be very glad to purchase the ebony cabinet you
mention, and will make it a visit with you next summer if you
please--but first let us go to Paris. I don't give up my passion
for ebony; but, since the destruction of the Jesuits, I hear one
can pick up so many of their spoils that I am impatient for the
opportunity.

I must finish, as I have so much business before I set out; but I
must repeat, how lucky the arrival of your letter was, how glad I
was to hear of your intended journey, and how much I wish it may
take place directly. I will only add that the court goes to
Fontainbleau, the last week in September, or first in October,
and therefore it is the season in the world for seeing all
Versailles quietly, and at one's ease. Adieu! dear sir, yours
most cordially.

Letter 267 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Amiens, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 1765. (page 421)

Beau Cousin,
I have had a very prosperous journey till just at entering this
city. I escaped a Prince of Nassau at Dover, and sickness at
sea, though the voyage lasted seven hours and a half. I have
recovered my strength surprisingly in the time; though almost
famished for want of clean victuals, and comfortable tea and
bread and butter. half a mile from hence I met a coach and four
with an equipage of French, and a lady in pea-green and silver, a
smart hat and feather., and two suivantes. My reason told me it
was the Archbishop's concubine; but luckily my heart whispered
that it was Lady Mary Coke. I Jumped out of my chaise--yes,
jumped, as Mrs. Nugent said of herself, fell on my knees, and
said my first ave Maria, grati`a plena. We just shot a few
politics flying--heard that Madame de Mirepoix had toasted me
t'other day in tea--shook hands, forgot to weep, and parted; she
to the Hereditary Princess, I to this inn, where is actually
resident the Duchess of Douglas. We are not likely to have an
intercourse, or I would declare myself' a Hamilton.(860)

I find this country wonderfully enriched since I saw it
four-and-twenty years ago. Boulogne is grown quite a plump snug
town, with a number Of new houses. The worst villages are tight,
and wooden shoes have disappeared. Mr. Pitt and the city of
London may fancy what they will, but France will not come
a-begging to the Mansion-house this year or two. In truth. I
impute this air of opulence a little to ourselves. The crumbs
that fall from the chaises of the swarms of English that visit
Paris, must have contributed to fatten this province. It is
plain I must have little to do when I turn my hand to
calculating: but here is my observation. From Boulogne to Paris
it will cost me near ten guineas; but then consider, I travel
alone, and carry Louis most part of the way in the chaise with
me. Nous autres milords Anglais are not often so frugal. Your
brother, last year, had ninety-nine English to dinner on the
King's birthday. How many of them do you think dropped so little
as ten guineas on this road? In short, there are the seeds of a
calculation for you, and if you will water them with a torrent of
words, they will produce such a dissertation, that you will be
able to vie with George Grenville next session in plans of
national economy-only be sure not to tax travelling till I come
back, loaded with purchases; nor, till then, propagate my ideas.
It will be time enough for me to be thrifty of the nation's
money, when I have spent all my own.

Clermont, 12th.

While they are getting my dinner, I continue my journal. The
Duchess of Douglas (for English are generally the most
extraordinary persons that we meet with even out of England) left
Amiens before me, on her way home. You will not guess what she
carries with her--Oh! nothing that will hurt our manufactures;
nor what George Grenville himself would seize. One of her
servants died at Paris: she had him embalmed, and the body is
tied before her chaise: a droll way of being chief mourner.

For a French absurdity, I have observed that along the great
roads they plant walnut-trees, but strip them up for firing. It
is like the owl that bit off the feet of mice, that they might
lie still and fatten.

At the foot of this hill is an old-fashioned ch`ateau belonging
to the Duke of Fitz-James, with a parc en quincunx and clipped
hedges. We saw him walking in his waistcoat and riband, very
well powdered; a figure like Guerchy. I cannot say his seat
rivals Goodwood or Euston.(861) I shall lie at Chantilly
to-night, for I did not Set Out till ten this morning--not
because I could not, as you will suspect, get up sooner--but
because all the horses in the country have attended the Queen to
Nancy.(862) Besides, I have a little Underplot of seeing
Chantilly and St. Denis in my way: which you know one could not
do in the dark to-night, nor in winter, if I return then.

H`otel de feue Madame l'Ambassadrice d'Angleterre,
Sept. 13, seven o'clock.

I am Just arrived. My Lady Hertford is not at home, and Lady
Anne(863) will not come out of her burrow: so I have just time to
finish this before Madame returns; and Brian sets out to-night
and will carry it. I find I shall have a great deal to say:
formerly I observed nothing, and now remark every thing minutely.
I have already fallen in love with twenty things, and in hate
with forty. Adieu! yours ever.

(860) The memorable cause between the houses of Douglas and
Hamilton was then pending.-E.

(861) The Duc de Fitzjames's father, Mareschal Berwick, was a
natural son of James II. Mr. Walpole therefore compares his
country-seat with those of the Dukes of Richmond and Grafton,
similar descendants from his brother, Charles II.-E.

(862) Stanislaus King of Poland, father to the Queen of Louis XV.
lived at Nancy.-E.