Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3

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You ask me about the harvest--you might as well ask me about the
funds. I thought the land flowed with milk and honey. We have
had forty showers, but they have not lasted a minute each; and as
the weather continues warm and my lawn green,

"I bless my stars, and call it luxury."

They tell me there are very bad accounts from several colonies,
and the papers are full of their remonstrances; but I never read
such things. I am happy to have nothing to do with them, and
glad you have not much more. When one can do no good, I have no
notion of sorrowing oneself for every calamity that happens in
general. One should lead the life of a coffee-house politician,
the most real patriots that I know, who amble out every morning
to gather matter for lamenting over their country. I leave mine,
like the King of Denmark, to ministers and Providence; the latter
of which, like an able chancellor of the exchequer to an ignorant
or idle first lord, luckily does the business. That little King
has had the gripes, which have addled his journey to York. I
know nothing more of his motions. His favourite is fallen in
love with Lady Bel Stanhope,(1047) and the monarch himself
demanded her for him. The mother was not averse, but Lady Bel
very sensibly refused--so unfortunate are favourites the instant
they set their foot in England! He is jealous of
Sackville,(1048) and says, "ce gros noir n'est pas beau;" which
implies that he thinks his own whiteness and pertness charming.
Adieu! I shall see you on Wednesday.

(1045) Now first printed.

(1046) J. Damer, Esq., of carne in Dorsetshire, brother to the
first Lord Milton.-E.

)1047) Afterwards Countess of Sefton.-E.

(1048) Who afterwards succeeded to the Dukedom of Dorset.-E.

Letter 352 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 30, 1768. (page 532)

You are always heaping so many kindnesses on me, dear Sir, I
think I must break off all acquaintance with you, unless I can
find some way of returning them. The print of the Countess of
Exeter Is the greatest present to me in the world. I have been
trying for years to no purpose to get one. Reynolds the painter
promised to beg one for me of a person he knows, but I have never
had it. I wanted it for four different purposes. 1. As a
grandmother (in law, by the Cranes and Allingtons): 2. for my
collection of heads: 3. for the volumes of prints after pieces in
my collection: and, above all, for my collection of Faithornes,
which though so fine, wanted such a capital print: and to this
last I have preferred it. I give you unbounded thanks for it:
and yet I feel exceedingly ashamed to rob you. The print of Jane
Shore I had: but as I have such various uses for prints I easily
bestowed it. It is inserted in my Anecdotes, where her picture
is mentioned.

Thank you, too, for all your notices. I intend next summer to
set about the last volume of my Anecdotes, and to make still
further additions to my former volumes, in which these notes find
their place. I am going to reprint all my pieces together, and,
to my shame be it spoken, find they will at least make two large
quartos. You, I know, will be partial enough to give them a
place on a shelf, but as I doubt many persons will not be so
favourable, I Only think of leaving the edition behind me.

Methinks I should like for your amusement and my own, that you
settled to Ely: yet I value your health so much beyond either,
that I must advise Milton, Ely being, I believe, a very damp,
and, consequently, a very unwholesome situation. Pray let me
know on which you fix; and if you do fix this summer, remember
the hopes you have given me of a visit. My summer, that is, my
fixed residence here, lasts till November. My gallery is not
only finished, but I am going on with the round chamber at the
end of it; and am besides playing with the little garden on the
other side of the road, which was old Franklin's, and by his
death came into my hands. When the round tower is finished, I
propose to draw up a description and catalogue of the whole house
and collection, and I think you will not dislike lending me your
assistance.

Mr. Granger,(1049) of Shiplake, is printing his laborious and
curious Catalogue of English heads, with an accurate though
succinct account of almost all the persons. It will be a very
valuable and useful work, and I heartily wish may succeed; though
I have some fears. There are of late a small number of persons
who collect English heads but not enough to encourage such a
work: I hope the anecdotic part will make it more known and
tasted. It is essential to us, who shall love the performance,
that it should sell: for he prints no farther at first than to
the end of the first Charles: and, if this part does not sell
well, the bookseller will not purchase the remainder of the copy,
though he gives but a hundred pounds for this half'; and good Mr.
Granger is not in circumstances to afford printing it himself. I
do not compare it with Dr. Robertson's writings, who has an
excellent genius, with admirable style and manner; and yet I
cannot help thinking, that there is a good deal of Scotch puffing
and partiality, when the booksellers have given the Doctor three
thousand pounds for his Life of Charles V., for composing which
he does not pretend to have obtained any new materials.

I am going into Warwickshire; and I think shall go on to Lord
Strafford's, but propose returning before the end of September.
Yours ever.

(1049) The Rev. James Granger, Vicar of Shiplake in Oxfordshire;
where he died in 1776. See post, May 27, 1769.-E.

Letter 353 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, Monday, Oct. 10, 1768. (page 534)

I give you a thousand thanks, my dear Lord, for the account of
the ball at Welbeck. I shall not be able to repay it with a
relation of the masquerade to-night;(1050) for I have been
confined here this week with the gout in my foot, and have not
stirred off my bed or couch since Tuesday. I was to have gone to
the great ball at Sion on Friday, for which a new road,
paddock, and bridge were made, as other folks make a dessert. I
conclude Lady Mary Coke has, and will tell you of all these
pomps, which Health thinks so serious, and Sickness with her
grave face tells one are so idle. Sickness may make me moralize,
but I assure you she does not want humour. She has diverted me
extremely with drawing a comparison between the repose (to call
neglect by its dignified name) which I have enjoyed in this fit,
and the great anxiety in which the whole world was when I had the
last gout, three years ago--you remember my friends were then
coming into power. Lord Weymouth was so good as to call at least
once every day, and inquire after me; and the foreign ministers
insisted that I should give them the satisfaction of seeing me,
that they might tranquillize their sovereigns with the certainty
of My not being in any danger. The Duke and Duchess of Newcastle
were So kind, though very nervous themselves, as to send
messengers and long messages every day from Claremont. I cannot
say this fit has alarmed Europe quite so much. I heard the bell
ring at the gate, and asked with much majesty if it was the Duke
of Newcastle had sent? "No, Sir, it was only the butcher's boy."
The butcher's boy is, indeed, the only courier i have had.
Neither the King of France nor King of Spain appears to be under
the least concern about me.

My dear Lord, I have had so many of these transitions in my life,
that you will not wonder they divert me more than a masquerade.
I am ready to say to most people, "Mask, I know you." I wish I
might choose their dresses!

'When I have the honour of seeing Lady Strafford, I shall beseech
her to tell me all the news: for I am too nigh and too far to
know any. Adieu, my dear Lord!

(1050) A masquerade given at the Opera-house by the King of
Denmark; one of the most magnificent which had ever been given in
England. The jewels worn on the occasion by the maskers were
estimated to be of the value of two millions.-E.

Letter 354 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 10, 1768. (page 535)

I have not received the cheese, but I thank you as much
beforehand. I have been laid up with a fit of the gout in both
feet and a knee; at Strawberry for an entire month, and eight
days here: I took the air for the first time the day before
yesterday, and am, considering, surprisingly recovered by the
assistance of the bootikins and my own perseverance in drinking
water. I moulted my stick to-day, and have no complaint but
weakness left. The fit came just in time to augment my felicity
in having quitted Parliament. I do not find it so uncomfortable
to grow old, when One is not obliged to expose oneself in public.

I neither rejoice nor am sorry at your being accommodated in your
new habitation. It has long been plain to me that you choose to
bury yourself in the ugliest spot you can find, at a distance
from almost all your acquaintance; so I give it up; and then I am
glad you are pleased.

Nothing is stirring but politics, and chiefly the worst kind of
politics, elections. I trouble myself with no sort, but seek to
pass what days the gout leaves me or bestows on me, as quietly as
I can. I do not wonder at others, because I doubt I am more
singular than they are; and what makes me happy would probably
not make them so. My best compliments to your brother; I shall
be glad to see you both when you come; though for you, you don't
care how little time you pass with your friends. Yet I am, and
ever shall be Yours most sincerely.

Letter 355 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 15, 1768. (page 535)

You cannot wonder when I receive such kind letters from you, that
I am vexed our intimacy should be reduced almost to those
letters. It is selfish to complain, when you give me such good
reasons for your system: but I grow old; and the less time we
have to live together, the more I feel a separation from a person
I love so well; and that reflection furnishes me with arguments
in vindication of my peevishness. Methinks, though the contrary
is true in practice, prudence should be the attribute of youth,
not of years. When we approach to the last gate of life, what
does it signify to provide for new furnishing one's house? Youth
should have all those cares; indeed, charming youth is better
employed. It leaves foresight to those that have little occasion
for it. You and I have both done with the world, the busy world,
and therefore I would smile with you over what we have both seen
of it, and luckily we can smile both, for we have quitted it
willingly, not from disgust nor mortifications. However, I do
not pretend to combat your reasons, much less would I draw you to
town a moment sooner than it is convenient to you, though I shall
never forget your offering it. Nay, it is not so much in town
that I wish we were nearer, as in the country. Unless one lives
exactly in the same set of company, one is not much the better
for one's friends being in London. I that talk of giving up the
world, have only given up the troubles of it, as far as that is
possible. I should speak more properly in saying, that I have
retired out of the world into London. I always intend to place
some months between me and the moroseness of retirement. We are
not made for Solitude. It gives us prejudices, it indulges us in
our own humours, and at last we cannot live without them.

My gout is quite gone; and if I had a mind to disguise its
remains, I could walk very gracefully, except on going down
stairs. Happily, it is not the fashion to hand any body; the
nymph and I should soon be at the bottom.

Your old cousin Newcastle is going; he has had a stroke of the
palsy, and they think will not last two days.(1051) I hope he is
not sensible, as I doubt he would be too averse to his situation.
Poor man! he is not like my late amiable friend, Lady
Hervey;(1052) two days before She died, she wrote to her Son
Bristol these words: "I feel my dissolution coming on, but I have
no pain; what can an old woman desire more?" This was consonant
to her usual propriety--yes, propriety IS grace, and thus every
body may be graceful, when other graces are fled. Oh! but you
will cry, is not this a contradiction to the former part of your
letter? Prudence is one of the graces of age;-why--yes, I do not
know but it may and yet I don't know how, it is a musty quality;
one hates to allow it to be a grace--come, at least it is only
like that one of the graces that hides her face. In Short, I
have ever been so imprudent, that though I have much corrected
myself, I am not at all vain of such merit. I have purchased it
for much more than it was worth. I wish you joy of Lord
Guildford's amendment; and always take a full part in your
satisfaction or sorrow. Adieu! Yours ever.

(1051) The Duke of Newcastle died on the 17th.-E.

(1052) Lady Hervey died on the 2d of September, in the
sixty-eighth year of her age.-E.

Letter 356 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 1, 1768. (page 536)

I like your letter, and have been looking at my next door but
one. The ground-story is built, and the side walls will
certainly be raised another floor, before you think of arriving.
I fear nothing for you but the noise of workmen, and of this
street in front and Picadilly on the other side. If you can bear
such a constant hammering and hurricane, it will rejoice me to
have you so near me; and then I think I must see you oftener than
I have done these ten years. Nothing can be more dignified than
this position. From my earliest memory Arlington-street has been
the ministerial street. The Duke of Grafton is actually coming
into the house of Mr. Pelham, which my Lord president is
quitting, and which occupies too the ground on which my father
lived; and Lord Weymouth has just taken the Duke of Dorset's; yet
you and I, I doubt, shall always live on the wrong side of the
way.

Lord Chatham is reconciled to Lord Temple and George
Grenville.(1053) The second is in great spirits on the occasion;
and yet gives out that Lord Chatham earnestly solicited it. The
insignificant Lepidus patronizes Antony, and is sued to by
Augustus! Still do I doubt whether Augustus will ever come forth
again. Is this a peace patched up by Livia for the sake of her
children, seeing the imbecility of her husband? or is Augustus
to own he has been acting changeling, like the first Brutus, for
near two years? I do not know, I remain in doubt.

Wilkes has struck an artful stroke.(1054) The ministers, devoid
of all management in the House of Commons, consented that he
should be heard at the bar of the House, and appointed to-morrow,
forgetting the election for Middlesex is to come on next
Thursday: one would think they were impatient to advance riots.
Last Monday Wilkes demanded to examine Lord Temple: when that was
granted, he asked for Lord Sandwich and Lord March. As the first
had not been refused, the others could not. The Lords were
adjourned till to-day
@ , and, I suppose, are now sitting on this perplexing demand.
If Lord Temple desires to go to the bar of the Commons, and the
others desire to be excused, it will be difficult for the Lords
to know what to do. Sandwich is frightened out of his
senses,(1055) and March does not like it. Well! this will cure
ministers and great lords of being flippant in dirty tyranny,
when they see they may be worried for it four years afterwards.

The Commons, I suppose, are at this minute as hotly engaged on
the Cumberland election between Sir James Lowther and the Duke of
Portland. Oh! how delightful and comfortable to be sitting
quietly here a scribbling to you, perfectly indifferent about
both houses! You will Just escape having your brains beaten out,
by not coming this fortnight. The Middlesex election will be
over. Adieu! Yours ever.

(1053) Through the mediation of their mutual friend, Mr.
Calcraft, a reconciliation between Lord Chatham and Earl Temple
took place at Hayes, on the 25th of November, to which Mr.
Grenville heartily acceded. See Chatham Correspondence, vol,
iii. p. 349.-E.

(1054) Mr. Wilkes, on the 14th of November, had presented a
petition to the House of Commons, praying for a redress of his
grievances.-E.

(1055) By a reference to Sir Henry Cavendish's Debates, vol. i.
pp. 93, 131, it will be seen, that Lord Sandwich expressed,
through Mr. Rigby, his readiness to be examined, and that he was
examined on the 31st of January.-E.

Letter 357 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Sunday, March 26, 1769. (page 538)

I beg your pardon; I promised to send you news, and I had quite
forgot that we have had a rebellion; at least, the Duke of
Bedford says so. Six or eight hundred merchants, English, Dutch,
Jews, Gentiles, had been entreated to protect the Protestant
succession, and consented.(1056) They set out on Wednesday noon
in their coaches and chariots, chariots not armed with scythes
like our Gothic ancestors. At Temple-bar they met several
regiments of foot dreadfully armed with mud, who discharged a
sleet of dirt on the royal troop. Minerva, who had forgotten her
dreadful Egis, and who, in the shape of Mr. Boehm, carried the
address, was forced to take shelter under a Cloud in Nando's
coffeehouse, being more afraid of Buckhorse than ever Venus was
of Diomed; in short, it was a dismal day; and if Lord Talbot had
not recollected the patriot feats of his youth,(1057) and
recommenced bruiser, I don't know but the Duchess of
Kingston,(1058) who has so long preserved her modesty, from both
her husbands, might not have been ravished in the drawing-room.
Peace is at present restored, and the rebellion adjourned to the
thirteenth of April; when Wilkes and Colonel Luttrell are to
fight a pitched battle at Brentford, the Phillippi of antoninus.
Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fogi, know nothing of
these broils. You don't convert your ploughshares into
falchions, nor the mud of Adderbury into gunpowder. I tremble for
my painted windows, and write talismans of number forty-five on
every gate and postern of my castle. Mr. Hume is writing the
Revolutions of Middlesex, and a troop of barnacle geese are
levied to defend the capital. These are melancholy times!
Heaven send we do not laugh till we cry!

London, Tuesday, 28th.

Our ministers, like their Saxon ancestors, are gone to bold a
wittenagemoot on horseback at Newmarket. Lord Chatham, we are
told, is to come forth after the holidays and place himself at
the head of the discontented. When I see it I shall believe it.
Lord Frederick Campbell is, at last, to be married this evening
to the Dowager-countess of Ferrers.(1059) The Duchess of Grafton
is actually Countess of Ossory.(1060) This is a short gazette;
but, consider, it is a time of truce. Adieu!

(1056) A great riot took place on the 22d of March 1769, when a
cavalcade of the merchants and tradesmen of the city of London,
who were proceeding to St. James's with a loyal address, was so
maltreated by the populace, that Mr. Boehm, the gentleman to whom
the address was entrusted, was obliged to take refuge in Nando's
coffeehouse. His coach was rifled; but the address escaped the
search of the rioters, and was, after considerable delay, during
which a second had been voted and prepared, eventually presented
at St. James's.-E.

(1057) Lord Talbot behaved with great intrepidity upon this
occasion: though he had his staff of office broken in his hand,
and was deserted by his servants, he secured two of the most
active of the rioters. His example recalled the military to
their duty, who, without employing either guns or bayonets,
captured fifteen more.-E.

(1058) The Duke of Kingston had married Miss Chudleigh on the 8th
of this instant; the Consistory Court of London having declared,
on the 11th of February previous, that the lady was free from any
matrimonial contract with the Hon. Augustus John Hervey. On the
19th, she was presented, upon her marriage, to their Majesties;
who honoured her by wearing her favours, as did all the great
officers of state.-E.

(1059) See vol. iii. p. 58, letter 24. This unfortunate lady was
burnt to death at Lord Frederick's seat at Combe Bank, in July
1807.-E.

(1060) Lady Anne Liddel, only daughter of Henry Liddel, Lord
Ravensworth, married, in 1756, to Augustus Henry, third Duke of
Grafton; from whom being divorced by act of parliament, she was
married secondly, on the 26th of March, to the Earl of Ossory.-E.

Letter 358 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, April 15, 1769. (page 539)

I should be very sorry to believe half your distempers. I am
heartily grieved for the vacancy that has happened in your mouth,
though you describe it so comically. As the only physic I
believe in is prevention, you shall let me prescribe to you. Use
a little bit of alum twice or thrice in a week, no bigger than
half your nail, till it has all dissolved in your mouth, and then
spit out. This has fortified my teeth, that they are as strong
as the pen of Junius.(1061) I learned it of Mrs. Grosvenor, who
had not a speck in her teeth to her death. For your other
complaints, I revert to my old sermon, temperance. If you will
live in a hermitage, methinks it is no great addition to live
like a hermit. Look in Sadeler's prints, they had beards down to
their girdles; and with all their impatience to be in heaven,
their roots and water kept them for a century from their wishes.
I have lived all my life like an anchoret in London, and within
ten miles, shed my skin after the gout, and am as lively as an
eel in a week after. Mr. Chute, who has drunk no more wine than
a fish, grows better every year. He has escaped this winter with
only a little pain in one hand. Consider that the physicians
recommended wine, and then can you doubt of its being poison?
Medicines may cure a few acute distempers, but how should they
mend a broken constitution? they would as soon mend a broken
leg. Abstinence and time may repair it, nothing else can; for
when time has been employed to spoil the blood, it cannot be
purified in a moment.

Wilkes, who has been chosen member of Parliament almost as often
as Marius was consul, was again re-elected on Thursday. The
House of Commons, who are as obstinate as the county, have again
rejected him. To-day they are to instate Colonel Luttrell in his
place.(1062) What is to follow I cannot say, but I doubt
grievous commotions. Both sides seem so warm, that it Will be
difficult for either to be in the right. This is not a merry
subject, and therefore I will have done with it. If it comes to
blows, I intend to be as neutral as the gentleman that was going
out with his hounds the morning of Edgehill. I have seen too
much of parties to list with any of them.

You promised to return to town, but now say nothing of it. You
had better come before a passport is necessary: Adieu!

(1061) The Letters of Junius, the first of which appeared on the
21st of January, were now in course of publication, and exciting
great attention, not only in this country, but, as it would seem,
also in France: "On parle ici beaucoup de votre `ecrit de
Junius," writes Madame du Deffand to Walpole.-E.

(1062) Wilkes, having been expelled the House of Commons on the
3d of February 1769, was a third time elected for Middlesex on
the 16th of March. On the 17th, the election was declared by the
House to be null and void, and a new writ was ordered to be
issued. On the day of election, the 13th of April, Wilkes,
Luttrell, and Serjeant Whitaker presented themselves as
candidates, when the former, having a majority, was declared duly
elected. On the 14th, this election was pronounced void, and on
the 15th Henry Laws Luttrell, Esq. was duly elected, by 197
against 143, and took his seat accordingly.-E.

Letter 359 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, May 11, 1769. (page 540)

You are so wayward, that I often resolve to give you up to your
humours. Then something happens with which I can divert you, and
my good-humour returns. Did not you say you should return to
London long before this time? At least, could you not tell me you
had changed your mind? why am I to pick it out from your absence
and silence, as Dr. Warburton found a future state in Moses's
saying nothing of the matter! I could go on with a chapter of
severe interrogatories, but I think it more cruel to treat You as
a hopeless reprobate; yes, you are graceless, and as I have a
respect for my own scolding, I shall not throw it away upon you.

Strawberry has been in great glory; I have given a festino there
that will almost mortgage it. Last Tuesday all France dined
there: Monsieur and Madame du Chatelet,(1063) the Duc de
Liancourt,(1064) three more French ladies, whose names you will
find in the enclosed paper, eight other Frenchmen, the Spanish
and Portuguese ministers, the Holdernesses, Fitzroys, in short we
were four-and-twenty. They arrived at two. At the gates of the
castle I received them, dressed in the cravat of Gibbons's
carving, and a pair of gloves embroidered up to the elbows that
had belonged to James the First. The French servants stared, and
firmly believed this was the dress of English country gentlemen.
After taking a survey of the apartments, we went to the
printing-house, where I had prepared the enclosed verses, with
translations by Monsieur de Lille,(1065) one of the company. The
moment they were printed off, I gave a private signal, and French
horns and clarionets accompanied this compliment. We then went
to see Pope's grotto and garden, and returned to a magnificent
dinner in the refectory. In the evening we walked, had tea,
coffee, and lemonade in the gallery, which was illuminated with a
thousand, or thirty candles, I forgot which, and played at whist
and loo till midnight. Then there was a cold supper, and at one
the company returned to town, saluted by fifty nightingales, who,
as tenants of the manor, came to do honour to their lord.