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

I think there is some glimmering of peace! God send the world
some repose from its woes! The King of Prussia has writ to
Belleisle to desire the King of France will make peace for him:
no injudicious step, as the distress of France will make them
glad to oblige him. We have no other news, but that Lord George
Sackville has at last obtained a court-martial. I doubt much
whether he will find his account in it. One thing I know I
dislike-a German aide-de-camp is to be an evidence! Lord George
has paid the highest compliment to Mr. Conway's virtue. Being
told, as an unlucky circumstance for him, that Mr. Conway was to
be one of his judges, (but It is not so,) he replied, there was
no man in England he should so soon desire of that number. And
it is no mere compliment, for Lord George has excepted against
another of them--but he knew whatever provocation he may have
given to Mr. Conway, whatever rivalship there has been between
them, nothing could bias the integrity of the latter. There is
going to be another court-martial on a mad Lord Charles Hay,(33)
who has foolishly demanded it; but it will not occupy the
attention of the world like Lord George's. There will soon be
another trial of another sort on another madman, an Earl Ferrers,
who has murdered his steward. He was separated by Parliament
from his wife, a very pretty woman, whom he married with no
fortune, for the most groundless barbarity, and now killed his
steward for having been evidence for her; but his story and
person are too wretched and despicable to give you the detail.
He will be dignified by a solemn trial in Westminster-hall.

Don't you like the impertinence of the Dutch? They have lately
had a mudquake, and giving themselves terrafirma airs, call it an
earthquake! Don't you like much more our noble national charity?
Above two thousand pounds has been raised in London alone,
besides what is collected in the country, for the French
prisoners, abandoned by their monarch. Must not it make the
Romans blush in their Appian-way, who dragged their prisoners in
triumph? What adds to this benevolence is, that we cannot
contribute to the subsistence of our own prisoners in France;
they conceal where they keep them, and use them cruelly to make
them enlist. We abound in great charities: the distress of war
seems to heighten rather than diminish them. There is a new one,
not quite so certain of its answering, erected for those wretched
women, called abroad les filles repenties. I was there the other
night, and fancied myself in a convent.

The Marquis of Buckingham and Earl Temple are to have the two
vacant garters to-morrow. Adieu!

Arlington Street, 6th.

I am this minute come to town, and find yours of Jan. 12. Pray,
my dear child, don't compliment me any more upon my learning;
there is nobody so superficial. Except a little history, a
little poetry, a little painting, and some divinity, I know
nothing. How should I? I, who have always lived in the big busy
world; who lie abed all the morning, calling it morning as long
as you please; who sup in company; who have played at pharaoh
half my life, and now at loo till two and three in the morning;
who have always loved pleasure haunted auctions--in short, who
don't know so much astronomy as would carry me to Knightsbridge,
nor more physic than a physician, nor in short any thing that is
called science. If it were not that I lay up a little provision
in summer, like the ant, I should be as ignorant as all the
people I live with. How I have LAUGHED when some of the
magazines have called me the learned gentleman! Pray don't be
like THE Magazines.

I see by your letter that you despair of peace; I almost do:
there is but a gruff sort of answer from the woman of' Russia
to-day in the papers; but how should there be peace? If We are
victorious, what is the King of Prussia? Will the distress of
France move the Queen of Hungary? When we do make peace, how few
will it content! The war was made for America, but the peace
will be made for Germany; and whatever geographers may pretend,
Crown-point lies somewhere in Westphalia. Again adieu! I don't
like your rheumatism, and much less your plague.

(26) Prints of the palace of Caserta.

(27) Don Carlos, King of Naples, who succeeded his half-brother
Ferdinand in the crown of Spain. An interesting picture of the
court of the King of the Two Sicilies at the time of his leaving
Naples, will be found in the Chatham Correspondence, in a letter
from Mr. Stanier Porten to Mr. Pitt. See vol. ii. p. 31.-E.

(28) Thomas, only son of Thomas Pitt of boconnock, eldest brother
of the famous William Pitt. [Afterwards Lord Camelford. (Gray,
in a letter to Dr. Wharton, of the 23d of January, says, "Mr.
Pitt (not the great, but the little one, my acquaintance) is
setting out on his travels. He goes with my Lord Kinnoul to
Lisbon; then (by sea still) to Cates; then up the Guadalquiver to
Seville and Cordova, and so perhaps to Toledo, but certainly to
Grenada; and, after breathing the perfumed air of Andalusia, and
contemplating the remains of Moorish magnificence, re-embarks at
Gibraltar or Malaga, and sails to Genoa. Sure an extraordinary
good way of passing a few winter months, and better than dragging
through Holland, Germany, and Switzerland, to the same place." A
copy of Mr. Thomas Pitt's manuscript Diary of his tour to Spain
and Portugal is in the possession of Mr. Bentley, the proprietor
of this Correspondence.-E.]

(29) John Lyon, ninth Earl of Strathmore. He married in 1767
Miss Bowes, the great heiress, whose disgraceful adventures are
so well known.-D.

(30) Lady Strathmore, rushing between her husband and a
gentleman, with whom he had quarrelled and was fighting, and
trying to hold the former, the other stabbed him in her -arms, on
which she went mad, though not enough to be confined.

(31) His name was Dagge.

(32) Miss Fenton, the first Polly of the Beggar's Opera. Charles
Duke of Bolton took her off the stage, had children by her, and
afterwards married her.

(33) Lord Charles Hay, brother of the Marquis of Tweedale.

Letter 14 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.
Strawberry Hill, February 4th, 1760. (page 44)

Sir,
I deferred answering your last, as I was in hopes of BEING able
to send you a SHEET or two of my new work, but I find so many
difficulties and so much darkness attending the beginning, that I
can scarce say I have begun. I can only say in general, that I
do not propose to go further back than I have sure footing; that
is, I shall commence with what Vertue had collected from our
records, which, with regard to painting, do not date before Henry
III.; and then from him there is a gap to Henry VII. I shall
supply that with a little chronology of intervening paintings,
THOUGH, hitherto, I can find none of the two first Edwards. From
Henry VIII. there will be a regular succession of painters, short
lives of whom I am enabled by Vertue's MSS. to write, and I shall
connect them historically. I by no means Mean to touch on
foreign Artists, unless they came over hither; but they are
essential, for we had scarce any others tolerable. I propose to
begin with the anecdotes of painting only, because, in that
branch, my materials are by far most considerable. If I shall be
able to publish this part, perhaps it may induce persons of
curiosity and knowledge to assist me in the darker parts of the
story touching our architects, statuaries, and engravers. But it
is from the same kind friendship which has assisted me so
liberally already, that I expect to draw most information; need I
specify, Sir, that I mean yours, when the various hints in your
last letter speak so plainly for me?

It is a pleasure to have any body one esteems agree with one's
own sentiments, as you do strongly with mine about Mr. Hurd.(34)
It is impossible not to own that he has sense and great
knowledge--but sure he is a most disagreeable writer! He loads
his thoughts with so many words, and those couched in so hard a
style, and so void of all veracity, that I have no patience to
read him. In one point. in the dialogues you mention, he is
perfectly ridiculous. He takes infinite pains to make the world
believe, upon his word, that they are the genuine productions of
the speakers, and yet does not give himself the least trouble to
counterfeit the style of any one of them. What was so easy as to
imitate Burnet? In his other work, the notes on Horace, he is
still more absurd. He cries up Warburton's preposterous notes on
Shakspeare, which would have died of their own folly, though Mr.
Edwards had not put them to death with the keenest wit in the
world.(35) But what signifies any sense, when it takes Warburton
for a pattern, who, with much greater parts, has not been able to
save himself from, or rather has affectedly involved himself in
numberless absurdities?--who proved Moses's legation by the sixth
book of Virgil;--a miracle (Julian's Earthquake), by proving it
was none;--and who explained a recent poet (Pope) by metaphysical
notes, ten times more obscure than the text! As if writing were
come to perfection, Warburton and Hurd are going back again; and
since commentators, obscurity, paradoxes, and visions have been
so long exploded, ay, and pedantry too, they seem to think that
they shall have merit by reviving what was happily forgotten -,
and yet these men have their followers, by that balance which
compensates to one for what he misses from another. When an
author writes clearly, he is imitated; and when obscurely, he is
admired. Adieu!

(34) Who died Bishop of Worcester in 1808. He was the author of
many works, most of which are now little read, although they had
a great vogue in their day. There is a great deal of justice in
Mr. Walpole's criticism of him and his patron.-C.

(35) In the "Canons of Criticism."--E.

Letter 15 To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Feb. 28, 1760. (page 45)

The next time you see Marshal Botta, and are to act King of Great
Britain, France, and Ireland, you must abate about an hundredth
thousandth part of the dignity of your crown. You are no more
monarch of all Ireland, than King O'Neil, or King Macdermoch is.
Louis XV. is sovereign of France, Navarre, and Carrickfergus.
You will be mistaken if you think the peace is made, and that we
cede this Hibernian town, in order to recover Minorca, or to keep
Quebec and Louisbourg. To be sure, it is natural you should
think so: how should so victorious and heroic nation cease to
enjoy any of its possessions, but to save Christian blood? Oh! I
know, you will suppose there has been another insurrection, and
that it is King John(36) of Bedford, and not King George of
Brunswick, that has lost this town. Why, I own you are a great
politician, and see things in a moment-and no wonder, considering
how long you have been employed in negotiations; but for once all
your sagacity is mistaken. Indeed, considering the total
destruction of the maritime force of France, and that the great
mechanics and mathematicians of this age have not invented a
flying bridge to fling over the sea and land from the coast of
France to the north of Ireland, it was not easy to conceive how
the French should conquer Carrickfergus--and yet they have. But
how I run on! not reflecting that by this time the old Pretender
must have hobbled through Florence on his way to Ireland, to take
possession of this scrap of his recovered domains; but I may as
well tell you at once, for to be sure you and the loyal body of
English in Tuscany will slip over all this exordium to come to
the account of so extraordinary a revolution. Well, here it is.
Last week Monsieur Thurot--oh! now you are au fait!--Monsieur
Thurot, as I was saying, landed last week in the isle of Islay,
the capital province belonging to a great Scotch King,(37) who is
so good as generally to pass the winter with his friends here in
London. Monsieur Thurot had three ships, the crews of which
burnt two ships belonging to King George, and a house belonging
to his friend the King of Argyll--pray don't mistake; by his
friend(38) I mein King George's, not Thurot's friend. When they
had finished this campaign, they sailed to Carrickfergus, a
poorish town, situated in the heart of the Protestant cantons.
They immediately made a moderate demand of about twenty articles
of provisions, promising to pay for them; for you know it is the
way of modern invasions(39) to make them cost as much as possible
to oneself, and as little to those one invades. If this was not
complied with, they threatened to burn the town, and then march
to Belfast, which is much richer. We were sensible of this civil
proceedings and not to be behindhand, agreed to it; but somehow
or other this capitulation was broken; on which a detachment (the
whole invasion consists of one thousand men) attack the place.
We shut the gates, but after the battle of Quebec it is
impossible that so great a people should attend to such trifles
as locks and bolts, accordingly there were none--and as if there
were no gates neither, the two armies fired through them--if this
is a blunder, remember I am describing an Irish war. I forgot to
give you the numbers of the Irish army. It consisted but Of
seventy-two, under lieut.-colonel Jennings, a wonderful brave
man--too brave, in short, to be very judicious. Unluckily our
ammunition was soon spent, for it is not above a year that there
have been any apprehensions for Ireland, and as all that part of
the country are most protestantly loyal, it was not thought
necessary to arm people who would fight till they die for their
religion. When the artillery was silenced, the garrison thought
the best way of saving the town was by flinging it at the heads
of the besiegers; accordingly they poured volleys of brickbats at
the French, whose commander, Monsieur Flobert, was mortally
knocked down, and his troops began to give way. However, General
Jennings thought it most prudent to retreat to the castle, and
the French again advanced. Four or five raw recruits still
bravely kept the gates, when the garrison, finding no more
gunpowder in the castle than they had had in the town, and not
near so good a brick-kiln, sent to desire to surrender. General
Thurot accordingly made them prisoners of war, and plundered the
town.

END OF THE SIEGE OF CARRICKFERGUS.

You will perhaps ask what preparations have been made to recover
this loss. The, viceroy immediately despatched General
Fitzwilliam with four regiments of foot and three of horse
against the invaders, appointing to overtake them in person at
Newry; but -@is I believe he left Bladen's Caesar, and Bland's
Military Discipline behind him in England, which he used to study
in the camp at Blandford, I fear he will not have his campaign
equipage ready soon enough. My Lord Anson too has sent nine
ships, though indeed he does not think they will arrive time
enough. Your part, my dear Sir, will be very easy: you will only
have to say that it is nothing, while it lasts; and the moment it
is over, you must say it was an embarkation of ten thousand men.
I will punctually let you know how to vary your dialect. Mr.
Pitt is in bed very ill with the gout.

Lord George Sackville was put under arrest to-day. His trial
comes on to-morrow, but I believe will be postponed, as the
court-martial will consult the judges, whether a man who is not
in the army, may be tried as an officer. The judges will answer
yes, for how can a point that is not common sense, not be common
law!

Lord Ferrers is in the Tower; so you see the good-natured people
of England will not want their favourite amusement, executions-
-not to mention, that it will be very hard if the Irish war don't
furnish some little diversion.

My Lord Northampton frequently asks me about you. Oh! I had
forgot, there is a dreadful Mr. Dering come over, who to show
that he has not been spoiled by his travels, got drunk the first
day he appeared, and put me horridly out of countenance about my
correspondence with you--for mercy's sake take care how you
communicate my letters to such cubs. I will send you no more
invasions, if you read them to bears and bear-leaders.
Seriously, my dear child, I don't mean to reprove you; I know
your partiality to me, and your unbounded benignity to every
thing English; but I sweat sometimes, when I find that I have
been corresponding for two or three months with young Derings.
For clerks and postmasters, I can't help it, and besides, they
never tell one they have seen One's letters; but I beg you will
at most tell them my news, but without my name, or my words.
Adieu! If I bridle you, believe that I know that it is only your
heart that runs away with you.

(36) John Duke of Bedford, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

(37) Archibald Earl of Islay and Duke of Argyle.

(38) The Duke of argyle had been suspected of temporizing in the
last rebellion.

(39) Alluding to our expensive invasions on the coast of France.

Letter 16 To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, March 4, 1760. (page 48)

never was any romance of such short duration as Monsieur
Thurot's! Instead of the waiting for the viceroy's army, and
staying to see whether it had any ammunition, or was only armed
with brickbats `a la Carrickfergienne, he re-embarked on the
28th, taking along with him the mayor and three others--I
suppose, as proofs of his conquest. The Duke of Bedford had sent
notice of' the invasion to Kinsale, where lay three or four of
our best frigates. They instantly sailed, and came up with the
flying invaders in the Irish Channel. You will see the short
detail of the action in the Gazette; but, as the letter was
written by Captain Elliot himself, you will not see there, that
he with half the number of Thurot's crew, boarded the latter's
vessel. Thurot was killed, and his pigmy navy all taken and
carried into the Isle of Man. It is an entertaining episode; but
think what would have happened, if the whole of the plan had
taken place -it the destined time. The negligence of the Duke of
Bedford's administration has appeared so gross, that one may
believe his very kingdom would have been lost, if Conflans had
not been beat. You will see, by the deposition of Ensign hall,
published in all our papers, that the account of the siege of
Carrickfergus, which I sent you in my last, was not half so
ridiculous as the reality--because, as that deponent said, I was
furnished with no papers but my memory. The General Flobert, I
am told, you may remember at Florence; he was then very mad, and
was to have fought Mallet.--but was banished from Tuscany. Some
years since he was in England; and met Mallet at lord
Chesterfield's, but without acknowledging one another. The next
day Flobert asked the Earl if Mallet had mentioned him?--No-"Il a
donc," said Flobert, "beaucoup de retenue, car surement ce qu'il
pourroit dire de moi, ne seroit pas `a mon avantage."--it was
pretty, and they say he is now grown an agreeable and rational
man.

The judges have given their opinion that the court-martial on
lord George Sackville is legal; so I suppose it will proceed on
Thursday.

I receive yours of the 16th of last month: I wish you had given
me any account of your headaches that I could show to Ward. He
will no more comprehend nervous, than the physicians do who use
the word. Send me an exact description; if he can do you no
good, at least it will be a satisfaction to me to have consulted
him. I wish, my dear child, that what you say at the end of your
letter, of appointments and honours, was not as chronical as your
headaches-that is a thing you may long complain of-indeed there I
can consult nobody. I have no dealings with either our
state-doctors or statequacks. I only know that the political
ones are so like the medicinal ones, that after the doctors had
talked nonsense for years, while we daily grew worse, the quacks
ventured boldly, and have done us wonderful good. I should not
dislike to have you state your case to the latter, though I
cannot advise it, for the regular physicians are daintily
jealous; nor could I carry it, for when they know I would take
none of their medicines myself, they would not much attend to me
consulting them for others, nor would it be decent, nor should I
care to be seen in their shop. Adieu!

P. S. There are some big news from the East Indies. I don't know
what, except that the hero Clive has taken Mazulipatam and the
Great Mogul's grandmother. I suppose she will be brought over
and put in the Tower with the Shahgoest, the strange Indian beast
that Mr. Pitt gave to the King this winter.

.Letter 17 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, March 26, 1760. (page 49)

I have a good mind to have Mr. Sisson tried by a court-martial,
in order to clear my own character for punctuality. It is time
immemorial since he promised me the machine and the drawing in
six weeks. After above half of time immemorial was elapsed, he
came and begged for ten guineas. Your brother and I called one
another to a council of war, and at last gave it him nemine
contradicente. The moment your hurrying letter arrived, I issued
out a warrant and took Sisson up, who, after all his promises,
was guilty by his own confession, of not having begun the
drawing. However, after scolding him black and blue, I have got
it from him, have consigned it to your brother James, and you
will receive it, I trust, along With this. I hope too time
enough for the purposes it is to serve, and correct; if it is
not, I shall be very sorry. You shall have the machine as soon
as possible, but that must go by sea.

I shall execute your commission about Stoschino(40) much better;
he need not fear my receiving him well, if he has virt`u to
sell,--I am only afraid, in that case, of receiving him too well.
You know what a dupe I am when I like any thing.

I shall handle your brother James as roughly as I did Sisson--six
months without writing to you! Sure he must turn black in the
face, if he has a drop of brotherly ink in his veins. As to your
other brother,(41) he is so strange a man, that is, so common a
one;, that I am not surprised at any thing he does or does not
do.

Bless your stars that you are not here, to be worn out with the
details of lord George's court-martial! One hears of nothing
else. It has already lasted much longer than could be conceived,
and now the end of it is still at a tolerable distance. The
colour of it is more favourable for him than it looked at first.
Prince Ferdinand's narrative has proved to set out with a heap of
lies. There is an old gentleman(42) of the same family who has
spared no indecency to give weight to them--but, you know,
general officers are men of strict honour, and nothing can bias
them. Lord Charles Hay's court-martial is dissolved, by the
death of one of the members--and as no German interest is
concerned to ruin him, it probably will not be re-assumed. Lord
Ferrers's trial is fixed for the 16th of next month. Adieu!

P. S. Don't mention it from me, but if you have a mind you may
make your court to my Lady Orford, by announcing the ancient
barony of Clinton, which is fallen to her, by the death of the
last incumbentess.(43)

(40) Nephew of Baron Stosch, a well-known virtuoso and antiquary,
who died at Florence.

(41) Edward Louisa Mann, the eldest brother.

(42) George the Second.

(43) Mrs. Fortescue, sister of Hugh last Lord Clinton.

Letter 18 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, March 27, 1760. (page 50)

I should have thought that you might have learnt by this time,
that when a tradesman promises any thing on Monday, Or Saturday,
or any particular day of the week, he means any Monday or any
Saturday of any week, as nurses quiet children and their own
consciences by the refined salvo of to-morrow is a new day. When
Mr. Smith's Saturday and the frame do arrive, I will pay the one
and send you the other.

Lord George's trial is not near being finished. By its draggling
beyond the term of the old Mutiny-bill, they were forced to make
out a new warrant: this lost two days, as all the depositions
were forced to be read over again to, and resworn by, the
witnesses; then there will be a contest, whether Sloper(44) shall
re-establish his own credit by pawning it farther. Lord Ferrers
comes on the stage on the sixteenth of next month.

I breakfasted the day before yesterday at Elia laelia
Chudleigh's. There was a concert for Prince Edward's birthday,
and at three, a vast cold collation, and all the town. The house
is not fine, nor in good taste, but loaded with finery.
Execrable varnished pictures, chests, cabinets, commodes, tables,
stands, boxes, riding on One another's backs, and loaded with
terrenes, filigree, figures, and every thing upon earth. Every
favour she has bestowed is registered by a bit of Dresden china.
There is a glass-case full of enamels, eggs, ambers, lapis
lazuli, cameos, toothpick-cases, and all kinds of trinkets,
things that she told me were her playthings; another cupboard,
full of the finest japan, and candlesticks and vases of rock
crystal, ready to be thrown down, in every corner. But of all
curiosities, are the conveniences in every bedchamber: great
mahogany projections, with brass handles, cocks, etc. I could
not help saying, it was the loosest family I ever saw. Adieu!