Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3

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For the Catholic religion, I think it very consumptive. With a
little patience, if Whitfield, Wesley, my Lady Huntingdon, and
that rogue Madan(1001) live, I do not doubt but we shall have
something very like it here. And yet I had rather live at the
end of a tawdry religion, than at the beginning; which is always
more stern and hypocritic.

I shall be very glad to see your laborious work of the maps; you
are indefatigable, I know: I think mapping would try my patience
more than any thing.

My Richard the Third will go to press this week, and you shall
have one of the first copies, which I think will be in about a
month, if you will tell me how to convey it: direct to Arlington
street. Mr. Gray went to Cambridge yesterday se'nnight: I wait
for some papers from him for my purpose. I grieve for your
sufferings by the inundation; but you are not only an hermit,
but, what is better, a real philosopher. Let me hear from you
soon. Yours ever.

(1000) Mr. Cole had lately removed from Bleckeley, Bucks, to
Waterbeach, near Cambridge.

(1001) The Rev. Martin Madan, author of "Thelypthora," a defence
of a plurality of wives. In 1767, he subjected himself to much
obloquy, by dissuading a clerical friend from giving up a
benefice, which he had accepted under a solemn promise of
eventual resignation.-E.

Letter 334 To Sir David Dalrymple.(1002)
Strawberry Hill, Jan. 17, 1768. (page 507)

I will begin, Sir, with telling you that I have seen Mr. Sherriff
and his son. The father desired my opinion on sending his son to
Italy. I own I could by no means advise it. Where a genius is
indubitable and has already made much progress, the study of
antique and the works of the great masters may improve a young
man extremely, and open lights to him which he might never
discover of himself: but it is very different sending a young man
to Rome to try whether he has genius or not; which may be
ascertained with infinitely less trouble and expense at home.
Young Mr. Sherriff has certainly a disposition to drawing; but
that may not be genius. His misfortune may have made him embrace
it as a resource in his melancholy hours. Labouring under the
misfortune of deafness, his friends should consider to what
unhappiness they may expose him. His family have naturally
applied to alleviate his misfortune, and to cultivate the parts
they saw in him: but who, in so long a journey and at such a
distance, is to attend him in the same affectionate manner? Can
he shift for himself, especially without the language? who will
take the trouble at Rome of assisting him, instructing him,
pointing out to him what he should study? who will facilitate
the means to him of gaining access to palaces and churches, and
obtain permission for him to work there? I felt so much for the
distresses he must undergo, that I could not see the benefits to
accrue, and those eventual, as a compensation. Surely, Sir, it
were better to place him here with some painter for a year or
two. He does not seem to me to be grounded enough for such an
expedition.

I will beg to know how I may convey my Richard to you, which will
be published to-morrow fortnight. I do not wonder you could not
guess the discovery I have made. It is one of the most
marvellous that ever was made. In short, it is the original
coronation roll of Richard the Third, by which it appears that
very magnificent robes were ordered for Edward the Fifth, and
that he did, or was to have walked at his uncle's coronation.
This most valuable monument is in the Great Wardrobe. It is not,
though the most extraordinary the only thing that will much
surprise you in my work. But I will not anticipate what little
amusement you may find there. I am, Sir, etc.

(1002) Now first collected.

Letter 335 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Arlington Street, Feb. 1, 1768. (page 508)

Dear Sir,
I have waited for the impression of my Richard, to send you the
whole parcel together. This moment I have conveyed to Mr.
Cartwright a large bundle for you, containing Richard the
Third,(1003) the four volumes of the new edition of the
Anecdotes, and six prints of your relation Tuer. You will find
his head very small: but the original was too inconsiderable to
allow it to be larger. I have sent you no Patagon`eans;(1004)
for they are out of print: I have only my own copy, and could not
get another. Pray tell me how, or what you heard of it; and
tell me sincerely, for I did not know it had made any noise.

I shall be much obliged to you for the extract relating to the
Academy of which a Walpole was president. I doubt if he was of
our branch; and rather think he was of the younger and Roman
Catholic branch.

Are you reconciled to your new habitation? Don't you find it too
damp? and if you do, don't deceive yourself, and try to surmount
it, but remove immediately. Health is the most important of all
considerations. Adieu! dear Sir.

(1003) "Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the
Third, by Mr. Horace Walpole;" London, 1768, 4to. Two editions
of this work, which occasioned a good deal of historical
controversy, were published during the year.-E.

(1004) "An Account of the Giants lately discovered; in a letter
to a friend in the country." London, 1766, 8vo. It was
afterwards translated into French by the Chevalier Redmond, an
Irish officer in the French service.-E.

Letter 336 To Sir David Dalrymple.(1005)
Arlington Street, Feb. 2, 1768. (page 509)

I have sent to Mr. Cadell my Historic Doubts, Sir, for you. I
hope they may draw forth more materials, which I shall be very
ready either to subscribe to or to adopt. In this view I must
beg you, Sir, to look into Speed's History of England, and in his
account of Perkin Warbeck you will find Bishop Leslie often
quoted. May I trouble you to ask, to what work that alludes, and
whether in print or MS.? Bishop Leslie lived under Queen
Elizabeth, and though he could know nothing of Perkin Warbeck,
was yet near enough to the time to have had much better materials
than we have. May I ask, too, if Perkin Warbeck's Proclamation
exists any where authentically? You will see in my book the
reason of all these questions.

I am so much hurried with it just now, that you will excuse my
being so brief. I can attribute to nothing but the curiosity of
the subject, the great demand for it; though it was sold publicly
but yesterday, and twelve hundred and fifty copies were printed,
Dodsley has been with me this morning to tell me he must prepare
another edition directly. I am, Sir, etc.

(1005) Now first collected.

Letter 337 To Mr. Gray.
Arlington Street, Feb. 18, 1768. (page 509)

You have sent me a long and very obliging letter, and yet I am
extremely out of humour with you. I saw Poems by Mr. Gray
advertised: I called directly at Dodsley's to know if this was to
be more than a new edition? He was not at home himself, but his
foreman told me he thought there were some new pieces, and notes
to the whole. It was very unkind, not only to go out of town
without mentioning them to me, without showing them to me, but
not to say a word of them in this letter. Do you think I am
indifferent, or not curious, about what you write? I have ceased
to ask you, because you have so long refused to show me any
thing. You could not suppose I thought that you never write.
No; but I concluded you did not intend, at least yet, to publish
what you had written. As you did intend it, I might have
expected a month's preference. You will do me the Justice to own
that I had always rather have seen your writings than have shown
you mine; which you know are the most hasty trifles in the world,
and which, though I may be fond of the subject when fresh, I
constantly forget in a very short time after they are published.
This would sound like affectation to others, but will not to you.
It would be affected, even to you, to say I am indifferent to
fame. I certainly am not, but I am indifferent to almost any
thing I have done to acquire it. The greater part are mere
compilations; and no wonder they are, as you say, incorrect, when
they are commonly written with people in the room, as Richard and
the Noble Authors were. But I doubt there is a more intrinsic
fault in them: which is, that I cannot correct them. If I write
tolerably, it must be -,it once; I can neither mend nor add. The
articles of Lord Capel and Lord Peterborough, in the second
edition of the Noble Authors, cost me more trouble than all the
rest together: and you may perceive that the worst part of
Richard, in point of ease and style, is what relates to the
papers you gave me on Jane Shore, because it was taken on so long
afterwards, and when my impetus was chilled. If some time or
other you will take the trouble of pointing out the inaccuracies
of' 'It, I shall be much obliged to you: at present I shall
meddle no more with it. It has taken its fate; nor did I mean to
complain. I found it was Condemned indeed beforehand, which was
what I alluded to. Since publication (as has happened to me
before) the success has gone beyond my expectation.

Not only at Cambridge, but here there have been people wise
enough to think me too free with the King of Prussia!(1006) A
newspaper has talked of my known inveteracy to him. Truly, I
love him as well as I do most kings. The greater offence is my
reflection on Lord Clarendon. It is forgotten that I had
overpraised him before. Pray turn to the new State Papers, from
which, it is said, he composed his history. You will find they
are the papers from which he did not compose his history. And
yet I admire my Lord Clarendon more than these pretended admirers
do. But I do not intend to justify myself. I can as little
satisfy those who complain that I do not let them know what
really did happen. If this inquiry can ferret out any truth, I
shall be glad. I have picked up a few more circumstances. I now
want to know what Perkin Warbeck's Proclamation was, which Speed
in his history says is preserved by Bishop Leslie. If you look
in Speed, perhaps you will be able to assist me.

The Duke of Richmond and Lord Lyttelton agree with you, that I
have not disculpated Richard of the murder of Henry VI. I own to
you, it is the crime of which in my own mind I believe him most
guiltless. Had I thought he committed it, I should never have
taken the trouble to apologize-for the rest. I am not at all
positive or obstinate on your other objections, nor know exactly
what I believe on many points of this story. And I am so
sincere, that, except a few notes hereafter, I shall leave the
matter to be settled or discussed by others. As you have written
much too little, I have written a great deal too much, and think
only of finishing the two or three other things I have begun--and
of those, nothing but the last volume of Painters is designed for
the present public. What has one to do when turned fifty, but
really think of finishing?(1007)

I am much obliged and flattered by Mr. Mason's approbation, and
particularly by having had almost the same thought with him. I
said, "People need not be angry at my excusing Richard; I have
not diminished their fund of hatred, I have only transferred it
from Richard to Henry." Well, but I have found you close with
Mason--No doubt, cry Prating I, something will come out.(1008)-
-Oh! no--leave us, both of you, to Annabellas and Epistles to
Ferney,(1009) that give Voltaire an account of his own tragedies,
to +Macarony fables that are more unintelligible than Pilpay's
are in the original, to Mr. Thornton's hurdy-gurdy poetry'(1010)
and to Mr. ***** who has imitated himself worse than any fop in
a magazine would have done. In truth, if you should abandon us,
I could not wonder--When Garrick's prologues and epilogues, his
own Cymons and farces, and the comedies of the fools that pay
court to him, are the delight of the age, it does not deserve any
thing better. Pray read the new account of Corsica. What
relates to Paoli will amuse you much. There is a deal about the
island and its divisions that one does not care a straw for. The
author, Boswell,(1011) is a strange being, and, like Cambridge,
has a rage of knowing any body that ever was talked of. He
forced himself upon me at Paris in spite of my teeth and my
doors, and I see has given a foolish account of all he could pick
up from me about King Theodore. He then took an antipathy to me
on Rousseau's account, abused me in the newspapers, and exhorted
Rousseau to do so too: but as he came to see me no more, I
forgave all the rest. I see he now is a little sick of Rousseau
himself; but I hope it will not cure him of his anger to me.
However, his book will I am sure entertain you.(1012)

I will add but a word or two more. I am criticised for the
expression tinker up in the preface. Is this one of those that
you object to? I own I think such a low expression, placed to
ridicule an absurd instance of wise folly, very forcible.
Replace it with an elevated word or phrase, and to my conception
it becomes as flat as possible.

George Selwyn says I may, if I please, write historic doubts on
the present Duke of Grafton too. Indeed, they would be doubts,
for I know nothing certainly.

Will you be so kind as to look into Leslie De Rebus Scotorum, and
see if Perkin's Proclamation is there, and if there, how
authenticated. You will find in Speed my reason for asking this.
I have written in such a hurry, I believe you will scarce be able
to read my letter--and as I have just been writing French,
perhaps the sense may not be clearer than the writing. Adieu!

(1006) Gray, in a letter to Mr. Walpole, of the 14th, had said--
"I have heard it objected, that you raise doubts and
difficulties, and do not satisfy them by telling us what is
really the case. I have heard you charged with disrespect to the
King of Prussia; and above all, to King William and the
Revolution. My own objections are little more essential: they
relate chiefly to inaccuracies of style, which either debase the
expression or obscure the meaning. As to your argument@ most of
the principal parts are made out with a clearness and evidence
that no one would expect, where materials are so scarce. Yet I
still suspect Richard of the murder of Henry the Sixth." Works,
vol. iv. p. 105.-E.

(1007) To this Gray, on the 25th, replied--"To what you say to me
so civilly, that I ought to write more, I answer in your own
words, (like the Pamphleteer, who is going to refute you out of
your own mouth,) what has one to do, when turned fifty, but
really to think of finishing? However, I will be candid (for you
seem to be so with me), and avow to you, that, till fourscore and
ten, whenever the humour takes me, I will write, because I like
it; and because I like myself better when I do so. If I do not
write much, it is because I cannot." Works, vol. iv. p. 111.-E.

(1008) "I found him close with Swift."--"Indeed?"--"No doubt,"
Cries prating Balbus, "something will come out." Pope.

(1009) Keate's "Ferney; an Epistle to M. Voltaire."-E.

(1010) His burlesque Ode on St. Cecilia's Day; with the humour of
which Dr. Johnson was much diverted, and used to repeat this
passage--

"In strains more exalted the salt-box shall join,
And clattering and battering and clapping combine,
With a rap and a tap, while the hollow side sounds,
Up and down leaps the flap, and with rattling rebounds.-E.

(1011) "Your history," wrote Dr. Johnson to Boswell, "is like
other histories, but your journal is, in a very high degree,
curious and delightful: there is between them that difference
which there will always be found between notions borrowed from
without and notions generated within. Your history was copied
from books; your journal rose out of your own experience and
observation. I know not whether I could name any narrative by
which curiosity is better excited or better gratified."-E.

(1012) To this Gray replies--,'Mr. Boswell's book has pleased and
moved me strangely; all, I mean, that relates to Paoli. He is a
man born two thousand years after his time! The pamphlet proves
what I have always maintained, that any fool may write a most
valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard
and saw with veracity. Of Mr. Boswell's truth I have not the
least suspicion, because I am sure be could invent nothing of
this kind. The true title of this part of his work is a Dialogue
between a Green Goose and a Hero." Works, vol. iv. p. 112.-E.

Letter 338 To Mr. Gray.
Arlington Street, Friday night, Feb. 26, 1768. (page 512)

I plague you to death, but I must reply a few more words. I
shall be very glad to see in print, and to have those that are
worthy, see your ancient Odes; but I was in hopes there were some
pieces. too, that I had not seen. I am sorry there are
not.(1013)

I troubled you about Perkin's Proclamation. because Mr. Hume lays
great stress upon it, and insists, that if Perkin affirmed that
his brother was killed, it must have been true, if he was true
Duke of York. Mr. Hume would have persuaded me that the
Proclamation is in Stowe, but I can find no such thing there;
nor, what is more, in Casley's Catalogue, which I have twice
looked over carefully. I wrote to Sir David Dalrymple In
Scotland, to inquire after it; because I would produce it if I
could, though it should make against me: but he, I believe,
thinking I inquired with the contrary view, replied very drily,
that it was published at York, and was not to be found in
Scotland. Whether he is displeased that I have plucked a hair
from the tresses of their great historian; or whether, as I
suspect, he is offended for King William; this reply was all the
notice he took of my letter and book. I only smiled; as I must
do when I find one party is angry with me on King William's, and
the other on Lord Clarendon's account.

The answer advertised is Guthrie's, who is furious that I have
taken no notice of his History. I shall take as little of his
pamphlet; but his end will be answered, if he sells that and one
or two copies of his History.(1014) Mr. Hume, I am told, has
drawn up an answer too, which I shall see, and, if I can, will
get him to publish; for, if I should ever choose to say any thing
more on this subject, I had rather reply to him than to
hackney-writers:--to the latter, indeed, I never will reply. A
few notes I have to add that will be very material; and I wish to
get some account of a book that was once sold at Osborn's, that
exists perhaps at Cambridge, and of which I found a memorandum
t'other day in my note-book. It is called A Paradox, or Apology
for Richard the Third, by Sir William Cornwallis.(1015) If you
could discover it, I should be much obliged to you.

Lord Sandwich, with whom I have not exchanged a syllable since
the general warrants, very obligingly sent me an account of the
roll at Kimbolton; and has since, at my desire, borrowed it for
me and sent it to town.(1016) It is as long as my Lord
Lyttelton's History; but by what I can read of it (for it is both
ill written and much decayed), it is not a roll of kings, but of
all that have been possessed of, or been Earls of Warwick: or
have not--for one of the first earls is Aeneas. How, or
wherefore, I do not know, but amongst the first is Richard the
Third, in whose reign it was finished, and with whom it
concludes. He is there again with his wife and son, and Edward
the Fourth, and Clarence and his wife, and Edward their son (who
unluckily is a little old man), and Margaret Countess of
Salisbury, their daughter.--But why do I say with these? There
is every body else too and what is most meritorious, the habits
of all the times are admirably well observed from the most savage
ages. Each figure is tricked with a pen, well drawn, but neither
Coloured nor shaded. Richard is straight, but thinner than my
print; his hair short, and exactly curled in the same manner; not
so handsome as mine, but what one might really believe intended
for the same countenance, as drawn by a different painter,
especially when so small; for the figures in general are not so
long as one's finger. His queen is ugly, and with just such a
square forehead as in my print, but I cannot say like it. Nor,
indeed, where forty-five figures out of fifty (I have not counted
the number) must have been imaginary, can one lay great stress on
the five. I shall, however, have these figures copied,
especially as I know Of no other image of the son. Mr. Astle is
to come to Me tomorrow morning to explain the writing.

I wish you had told me in what age your Franciscan friars lived;
and what the passage in Comines is. I am very ready to make
amende honorable. Thank you for the notes on the Noble Authors.
They shall be inserted when I make a new edition, for the sake of
the trouble the person has taken, though they are of little
consequence. Dodsley has asked me for a new edition; but I have
had little heart to undertake such work, no more than to mend my
old linen. It is pity one cannot be born an ancient, and have
commentators to do such jobs for one! Adieu! Yours ever.

Saturday morning.

On reading over your letter again this morning, I do find the age
in which the friars lived--I read and write in such a hurry, that
I think I neither know what I read or say.

(1013) Gray, in his letter of the 25th, had said:--"The Long
Story was to be totally omitted, as its only use (that of
explaining the plates) was gone; but, to supply the place of it
in bulk, lest my works should be mistaken for the works of a flea
or a pismire I promised to send him an equal weight of poetry or
prose; so I put up about two ounces of stuff, viz. The Fatal
Sisters; The Descent of Odin; a bit of something from the Welch,
and certain little Notes, partly from justice-,, partly from ill-
temper, just to tell the gentle reader that Edward 1. was not
Oliver Cromwell, nor Queen Elizabeth the Witch of Endor. This is
literally all; and with all this, I shall be but a shrimp of an
author." Works, vol. iv. P. 110.-E.

(1014) Gray, in his answer of the 6th of March, says--"Guthrie,
you see, has vented himself in the Critical Review. His History
I never saw, nor is it here, nor do I know any one that ever saw
it. He is a rascal; but rascals may chance to meet with curious
records." Works, vol. iv. p. 116.-E.

(1015) "The Praise of King Richard the Third," which was
published by Sir William Cornwallis, Knight, the celebrated
"Essayist," in 1617, is reprinted in the third volume of the
Somers' Collection of Tracts.-E.

(1016) From this roll were taken the two plates of portraits in
the Historic Doubts.

Letter 339 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, March 12, 1768. (page 514)

The house, etc. described in the enclosed advertisement I Should
think might suit you; I am sure its being in my neighbourhood
would make me glad, if it did. I know no more than what you will
find in this scrap of paper, nor what the rent is, nor whether it
has a chamber as big as Westminster-hall; but as you have flown
about the world, and are returned to your ark without finding a
place to rest your foot, I should think you might as well inquire
about the house I notify to you, as set out with your caravan to
Greatworth, like a Tartar chief; especially as the laws of this
country will not permit you to stop in the first meadow you like,
and turn your horses to grazing without saying by your leave.

As my senatorial dignity is gone,(1017) and the sight of my name
is no longer worth threepence, I shall not put you to the expense
of a cover, and I hope the advertisement will not be taxed, as I
seal it to the paper. In short, I retain so much iniquity from
the last infamous Parliament that you see I would still cheat the
public. The comfort I feel in sitting peaceably here, instead of
being at Lynn in the high fever of a contested election, which at
best would end in my being carried about that large town like the
figure of a pope at a bonfire, is very great. I do not think,
when that function is over, that I shall repent my resolution.
What could I see but sons and grandsons playing over the same
knaveries, that I have seen their fathers and Grandfathers act?
Could I hear oratory beyond my Lord Chatham's? Will there ever
be parts equal to Charles Townshend's? Will George Grenville
cease to be the most tiresome of beings? Will he not be
constantly whining, and droning, and interrupting, like a
cigala(1018) in a sultry day in Italy.

Guthrie has published two criticisms on my Richard;(1019) one
abusive in the Critical Review; t'other very civil and even
flattering in a pamphlet; both so stupid and contemptible, that I
rather prefer the first, as making some attempt at vivacity; but
in point of argument, nay, and of humour, at which he makes an
effort too, both things are below scorn. As an instance of the
former, he says, the Duke of Clarence might die of drinking sack,
and so be said to be drowned in a butt of malmsey; of the latter
sort, are his calling the Lady Bridget Lady Biddy, and the Duke
of York poor little fellow! I will weary you with no more such
stuff!