Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3

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"How unlucky were Nature and Art to poor Nell!
She was painting her cheeks at the time her nose fell."

Adorning cathedrals when the religion itself totters, is very
like poor Nell's mishap.(1082) ***** I will trouble you with no
more at present, but to get from Mr. Lort the name of the Norfolk
monster, and to give it to Jackson. Don't forget the list of
English heads in Dr. Ewin's book for Mr. Granger; particularly
the Duchess of Chenreux. I will now release you, only adding my
compliments to Dr. Ewin, Mr. Tyson, Mr. Lort, Mr. Essex, and once
more to the Benthams. Adieu, dear Sir! Yours ever

Remember to ask me for icacias, and any thing else with which I
can pay some of my debts to you..

(1081) A favourite dog of Mr. Walpole's.

(1082) Here follow some minute directions for building the
gateway, unintelligible without the sketch that accompanied the
letter, and uninteresting with it, and a list of prints that Mr.
Walpole was anxious to procure.

Letter 366 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, August 12, 1769. (page 549)

Dear Sir,
I was in town yesterday, and found the parcel arrived very safe.
I give you a thousand thanks, dear Sir, for all the contents; but
when I sent you the list of heads I wanted, it was for Mr.
Jackson, not at all meaning to rob you; but your generosity much
outruns my prudence, and I must be upon my guard with you. The
Catherine Bolen was particularly welcome; I had never seen it--it
is a treasure, though I am persuaded not genuine, but taken from
a French print of the Queen of Scots, which I have. I wish you
could tell me from whence it was taken; I mean from what book: I
imagine the same in which are two prints, which Mr. Granger
mentions, and has himself (with Italian inscriptions, too), of a
Duke of Northumberland and an Earl of Arundel. Mr. Bernardiston
I never saw before--I do not know in what reign he lived--I
suppose lately: nor do I know the era of the Master of Benet.
When I come back, I must beg you to satisfy these questions. The
Countess of Kent is very curious, too; I have lately got a very
dirty one, so that I shall return yours again. Mrs. Wooley I
could not get high or low. But there is no end of thanking you-
-and yet I must for Sir J. Finet, though Mr. ; but I am sure
they will be very useful to me. I hope he will not forget me in
October. It will be a good opportunity of
sending you some good acacias, or any thing you Want
from hence. I am sure you ought to ask me for any thing in
my power, so much I am in your debt: I must
beg to be a little more, by entreating you to pay Mr. Essex
whatever he asks for his drawing, which is
just what I wished. The iron gates I have.

With regard to a history of Gothic architecture, in which he
desires my advices, the plan, I think, should lie in a very
simple compass. Was I to execute it, it
should be thus:--I would give a series of
plates, even from the conclusion of Saxon architecture, beginning
with the round Roman arch, and going on to show how they
plaistered and zigzagged it, and then how better ornaments crept
in till the beautiful Gothic arrived at its perfection: then how
it deceased in Henry the Eighth's reign--Abp. Wareham's tomb at
Canterbury, being I believe the last example of unbastardized
Gothic. A very few plates more would demonstrate its change:
though Holbein embroidered it with some morsels of true
architecture. In Queen Elizabeth's reign there was scarce any
architecture at all: I mean no pillars, or seldom, buildings then
becoming quite plain. Under James a barbarous composition
succeeded. A single plate of something of Inigo
Jones, in his heaviest and worst style, should terminate the
work; for he soon stepped into the true and perfect Grecian.

The next part, Mr. Essex can do better than any body, and is,
perhaps, the only person that can do it. This should
consist of observations on the art, proportions, and method of
building, and the reasons observed by the Gothic architects for
what they did. This would show what great men they
were, and how they raised such aerial and stupendous masses;
though unassisted by half the lights now enjoyed by their
successors. The prices and the wages of workmen, and
the comparative value of money and provisions at the several
periods, should be stated, as far as it is possible to get
materials.

The last part (I don't know whether it should not be the first
part) nobody can do so well as yourself. This must be to
ascertain the chronological period of each building; and not only
of each building but of each tomb, that shall be exhibited: for
you know the great delicacy and richness of Gothic ornaments were
exhausted on small chapels, oratories and tombs. For my own
part, I should wish to have added detached samples of the various
patterns of ornaments, which would not be a great many; as,
excepting pinnacles, there is scarce one which does not branch
from the trefoil; quadrefoils, cinquefoils, etc. being but
various modifications of it. I believe almost all the
ramifications of windows are so, and of them there should be
samples, too.

This work you see could not be executed by one hand; Mr. Tyson
could give great assistance. I wish the plan was drawn out, and
better digested. This is a very rude sketch, and first thought.
I should be very glad to contribute what little I know, and to
the expense too, which would be considerable; but I am sure we
could get assistance-and it had better not be undertaken than
executed superficially. Mr. Tyson's History of Fashions and
Dresses would make a valuable part of the work; as, in elder
times especially, much must be depended on tombs for dresses.
I have a notion the King might be inclined to encourage such
a work; and, if a proper plan was drawn out, for which I have not
time now, I would endeavour to get it laid before him, and his
patronage solicited. Pray talk this over with Mr. Tyson and Mr.
Essex. It is an idea worth pursuing.

You was very kind to take me out of the scrape about the organ
and yet if my insignificant name could carry it to one side, I
would not scruple to lend it.(1084) Thank you, too, for St.
Alban and Noailles. The very picture the latter describes was in
my father's collection, and is now at Worksop. I have scarce
room to crowd in my compliments to the good house of Bentham, and
to say, yours ever.

(1083) The Rev. Michael Tyson, of Bennet College, Cambridge. He
was elected F. S. A. in 1768, and died in
1780. He was greatly Esteemed by Mr. Gough, and is described as a
good antiquary and a gentleman artist. He engraved a remarkable
portrait of Jane Shore, some of the old
masters of his college, and some of the noted characters in and
about Cambridge.-E.

(1084) There was a dispute among the chapter at Ely respecting
the situation of the organ.

letter 367 To George Montagu, Esq.
August 18, 1769. (page 551)

As I have heard nothing of you since the Assyrian calends, which
is much longer ago than the Greek, you may perhaps have died in
Media, at Ecbatana, or in Chaldoea, and then to be sure I have no
reason to take it ill that you have forgotten me. There is no
Post between Europe and the Elysian fields, where I hope in the
Lord Pluto you are; and for the letters that are sent by Orpheus,
Aeneas, Sir George Villiers, and such accidental passengers, to
be sure one cannot wonder if they miscarry. You might indeed
have sent one a scrawl by Fanny, as Cock-lane is not very distant
from Arlington-street; but, when I asked her, she scratched the
ghost of a no, that made One's ears tingle again. If, contrary
to all probability, you still be above ground, and if, which is
still more improbable, you should repent of your sins while you
are yet in good health, and should go strangely further, and
endeavour to make Atonement by writing to me again, I think it
conscientiously right to inform you, that I am not in
Arlington-street, nor at Strawberry-hill, nor even in Middlesex;
nay, not in England; I am--I am--guess where--not in Corsica, nor
at Spa--stay, I am not at Paris yet, but I hope to be there in
two days. In short, I am at Calais, having landed about two
hours ago, after a tedious passage of nine hours. Having no soul
with me but Rosette, I have been amusing myself with the arrival
of a French officer and his wife in a berlin, which carried their
ancestors to one of Moli`ere's plays: as Madame has no maid with
her, she and Monsieur very prudently untied the trunks, and
disburthened the venerable machine of all its luggage themselves;
and then with a proper resumption of their equality, Monsieur
gave his hand to Madame, and conducted her in much ceremony
through the yard to their apartment. Here ends the beginning of
my letter; when I have nothing else to do, perhaps, I may
continue it. You cannot have the confidence to complain, if I
give you no more than my moments perdus; have you deserved any
better of me?

Saturday morning.

Having just recollected that the whole merit of this letter will
consist in the Surprise, I hurry to finish it, and send it away
by the captain of the packet, who is returning. You may repay me
this surprise by answering my letter, and by directing yours to
Arlington-street, from whence Mary will forward it to me. You
will not have much time to consider, for I shall set out on my
return from Paris the first of October,(1085) according to my
solemn promise to Strawberry; and you must know, I keep my
promises to Strawberry much better than you do. Adieu! Boulogne
hoy!

(1085) Mr. Walpole arrived at Paris on the 18th of august, and
left it on the 5th of October. On the 18th of July, Madame du
Deffand had written to him--"Vous souhaitez que je vive
quatre-vingt-huit ans; et pourquoi le souhaiter, si votre premier
voyage ici doit `etre le dernier'! Pour que ce souhait m'e`ut
`et`e agr`eable, il falloit y ajouter, 'Je verrai encore bien des
fois ma Petite, et je jouerai d'un bonheur qui n'`etoit r`eserv`e
qu'a moi, L'amiti`e la plus tendre, la plus sincere, et la plus
constants qu'il f`ut jamais.' Adieu! mon plaisir est troubl`e,
je l'avoue; je crains que ce ne soit un exc`es de complaisance
qui vous fasse faire ce voyage."-E.

Letter 368 To John Chute, Esq.
Paris, August 30, 1769. (page 552)

I have been so hurried with paying and receiving visits, that I
have not had a moment's worth of time to write. My passage was
very tedious, and lasted near nine hours for want of wind. But I
need not talk of my journey; for Mr. Maurice, whom I met on the
road, will have told you that I was safe on terra firma.

Judge of my surprise at hearing four days ago, that my Lord
Dacre(1086) and my lady were arrived here. They are lodged
within a few doors of me. He is come to consult a Doctor
Pomme,(1087) who has prescribed wine, and Lord Dacre already
complains of the violence of his appetite. If you and I had
pommed him to eternity, he would not have believed us. A man
across the sea tells him the plainest thing in the world; that
man happens to be called a doctor; and happening for novelty to
talk common sense, is believed, as if he had talked nonsense!
and what is more extraordinary, Lord Dacre thinks himself better,
though he is so.

My dear old woman(1088) is in better health than when I left her,
and her spirits so increased, that I tell her she will go mad
with age. When they ask her how old she is, she answers, "J'ai
soixante et mille ans." She and I went to the Boulevard last
night after supper, and drove about there till two in the
morning. We are going to sup in the country this evening, and
are to go tomorrow night at eleven to the puppet-show. A
prot`eg`e of hers has written a piece for that theatre. I have
not yet seen Madame du Barri, nor can get to see her picture at
the exposition at the Louvre, the crowds are so enormous that go
thither for that purpose. As royal curiosities are the least
part of my virt`u, I wait with patience. Whenever I have an
opportunity I visit gardens, chiefly with a view to Rosette's
having a walk. She goes nowhere else, because there is a
distemper among the dogs.

There is going to be represented a translation of Hamlet: who
when his hair is cut, and he is curled and powdered, I suppose
will be exactly Monsieur le Prime Oreste. T'other night I was at
M`erope. The Dumenil was as divine as Mrs. Porter; they said her
familiar tones were those of a poisonni`ere. In the last act,
when one expected the catastrophe, Narbas, more interested than
any body to see the event, remained coolly on the stage to hear
the story. The Queen's maid of honour entered without her
handkerchief, and with her hair most artfully undressed, and
reeling as if she was maudlin, sobbed Out a long narrative, that
did not prove true; while Narbas, with all the good breeding in
the world, was more attentive to her fright than to what had
happened. So much for propriety. Now for probability. Voltaire
has published a tragedy, called "Les Gu`e,bres." Two Roman
colonels open the piece: they are brothers, and relate to one
another, how they lately in company destroyed, by the Emperor's
mandate, a city of the Guebres, in which were their own wives and
children: and they recollect that they want prodigiously to know
whether both their families did perish in the flames. The son of
the one and the daughter of the other are taken up for heretics,
and, thinking themselves brother and sister, insist upon being
married, and upon being executed for their religion. The son
stabs his father, who is half a Gu`ebre, too. The high-priest
rants and roars. The Emperor arrives, blames the pontiff for
being a persecutor, and forgives the son for assassinating his
father (who does not die) because--I don't know why, but that he
may marry his cousin. The grave-diggers in Hamlet have no
chance, when such a piece as the Guebres is written agreeably to
all rules and unities. Adieu, my dear Sir! I hope to find you
quite well at my return. Yours ever.

(1086) Thomas Barret Lennard, seventeenth Baron Dacre. His
lordship married Ann Maria, daughter of Sir John Pratt, lord
chief-justice of the court of King's Bench.-E.

(1087) At that time the fashionable physician of Paris. He was
originally from Arles, and attained his celebrity by curing the
ladies of fashion in the French metropolis of the vapours.-E.

(1088) Madame du Deffand.

\Letter 369 To George Montagu, Esq.

Paris, Sept. 7, 1769. (page 553)

Your two letters flew here together in a breath. I shall answer
the article of business first. I could certainly buy many things
for you here, that you would like, the reliques of the last age's
magnificence; but, since my Lady Holderness invaded the
custom-house with a hundred and fourteen gowns, in the reign of
that two-penny monarch George Grenville, the ports are so
guarded, that not a soul but a smuggler can smuggle any thing
into England; and I suppose you would not care to pay
seventy-five per cent, on second-hand commodities. All I
transported three years ago, was conveyed under the canon of the
Duke of Richmond. I have no interest in our present
representative; nor if I had, is he returning. Plate, of all
earthly vanities, is the most impassable: it is not Counerband in
its metallic capacity, but totally so in its personal; and the
officers of the custom-house not being philosophers enough to
separate the substance from the superficies, brutally hammer both
to pieces, and return you only the intrinsic: a compensation
which you, who are a member of Parliament, would not, I trow, be
satisfied with. Thus I doubt you must retrench your generosity
to yourself, unless you can contract into an Elzevir size, and be
content with any thing one can bring in one's pocket.

My dear old friend was charmed with your mention of her, and made
me vow to return you a thousand compliments. She cannot conceive
why you will not step hither. Feeling in herself no difference
between the spirits of twenty-three and seventy-three, she thinks
there is no impediment to doing whatever one will but the want of
eyesight. If she had that, I am persuaded no consideration would
prevent her making me a visit at Strawberry Hill. She makes
songs, sings them, remembers all that ever were made; and, having
lived from the most agreeable to the most reasoning age, has all
that was amiable in the last, all that is sensible in this,
without the vanity of the former, or the pedant impertinence of
the latter. I have heard her dispute with all sorts of people,
on all sorts of subjects, and never knew her in the wrong. She
humbles the learned, sets right their disciples, and finds
conversation for every body. Affectionate as Madame de
S`evign`e, she has none of her prejudices, but a more universal
taste; and, with the most delicate frame, her spirits hurry her
through a life of fatigue that would kill me, if I was to
continue here. If we return by one in the morning from supping
in the country, she proposes driving to the Boulevard or to the
Foire St. Ovide, because it is too early to go to bed. I had
great difficulty last night to persuade her, though she was not
well, not to sit up till' between two or three for the comet; for
which purpose she had appointed an astronomer to bring his
telescopes to the President Henault's, as she thought it would
amuse me. In short, her goodness to me is so excessive, that I
feel unashamed at producing my withered person in a round of
diversions, which I have quitted at home. I tell a story; I do
feel ashamed, and sigh to be in my quiet castle and cottage; but
it costs me many a Pang, when I reflect that I shall probably
never have resolution enough to take another journey to see this
best and sincerest of friends, who loves me as much as my mother
did! but it is idle to look forward--what is next year?-a bubble
that may burst for her or me, before even the flying year can
hurry to the end of its almanack! To form plans and projects in
such a precarious life as this, resembles the enchanted
castles"of fairy legends, in which every gate Was guarded by
giants, dragons, etc. Death or diseases bar every portal through
which we mean to pass; and, though we may escape them and reach
the last chamber, what a wild adventurer is he that centres his
hopes at the end of such an avenue! I am contented with the
beggars of the threshold, and never propose going on, but as the
gates open of themselves.

The weather here is quite sultry, and I am sorry to say one can
send to the corner of the street and buy better peaches than all
our expense in kitchen gardens produces. Lord and Lady Dacre are
a few doors from me, having started from Tunbridge more suddenly
than I did from Strawberry Hill, but on a more unpleasant motive.
My lord was persuaded to come and try a new physician. His faith
is greater than mine! but, poor man! can one wonder that he is
willing to believe? My lady has stood her shock, and I do not
doubt will get over it.

Adieu, my t'other dear old friend! I am sorry to say I see you
almost as seldom as I do Madame du Deffand. However, it is
comfortable to reflect that we have not changed to each other for
some five-and-thirty years, and neither you nor I haggle about
naming so ancient a term. I made a visit yesterday to the Abbess
of Panthemont, General Oglethorpe's niece,(1089) and no chicken.
I inquired after her mother, Madame de Meziers, and I thought I
might to a spiritual votary to immortality venture to say, that
her mother must be very old; she interrupted me tartly, and said,
no, her mother had been married extremely young. Do but think of
its seeming important to a saint to sink a wrinkle of her own
through an iron grate! Oh, we are ridiculous animals; and if
animals have any fun in them, how we must divert them.

(1089) Sister of the Princess de Ligne.

Letter 370 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Paris, Sept. 8, 1769. (page 555)

T'other night, at the Duchess of Choiseul's at supper, the
intendant of Rouen asked me, if we have roads of communication
all over England and Scotland'@--I suppose he thinks that in
general we inhabit trackless forests and wild mountains, and that
once a year a few legislators come to Paris to learn the arts of
civil life, as to sow corn, plant vines, and make operas. If
this letter should contrive to scramble through that desert
Yorkshire, where your lordship has attempted to improve a dreary
hill and uncultivated vale, you will find I remember your
commands of writing from this capital of the world, whither I am
come for the benefit of my country, and where I am intensely
studying those laws and that beautiful frame of government, which
can alone render a nation happy, great, and flourishing; where
lettres de cachet soften manners, and a proper distribution of
luxury and beggary ensures a common felicity. As we have a
prodigious number of students in legislature of both sexes here
at present, I will not anticipate their discoveries; but as your
particular friend, will communicate a rare improvement on nature,
which these great philosophers have made, and which would add
considerable beauties to those parts which your lordship has
already recovered from the waste, and taught to look a little
like a Christian country. The secret is very simple, and yet
demanded the effort of a mighty genius to strike it out. It is
nothing but this: trees ought to be educated as much as men, and
are strange awkward productions when not taught to hold
themselves upright or bow on proper occasions. The academy de
belles-lettres have even offered a prize for the man that shall
recover the long lost art of an ancient Greek, called le sieur
Orph`ee, who instituted a dancing-school for plants, and gave a
magnificent ball on the birth of the Dauphin of Thrace, which was
performed entirely by forest-trees. In this whole kingdom there
is no such thing as seeing a tree that is not well-behaved. They
are first stripped up and then cut down; and you would as soon
meet a man with his hair about his ears as an oak or ash. As the
weather is very hot now, and the soil chalk, and the dust white,
I assure you it is very difficult, powdered as both are all over,
to distinguish a tree from a hairdresser. Lest this should sound
like a travelling hyperbole, I must advertise your lordship, that
there is little difference in their heights; for, a tree of
thirty years' growth being liable to be marked as royal timber,
the proprietors take care not to let their trees live to the age
of being enlisted, but burn them, and plant others as often
almost as they change their fashions. This gives an air of
perpetual youth to the face of the country, and if adopted by us
would realize Mr. Addison's visions, and

"Make our bleak rocks and barren mountains smile."

What other remarks I have made in my indefatigable search after
knowledge must be reserved to a future opportunity; but as your
lordship is my friend, I may venture to say without vanity to
You, that Solon nor any Of the ancient philosophers who travelled
to Egypt in quest of religions. mysteries, laws, and fables,
never sat up so late with the ladies and priests and presidents
de parlement at Memphis, as I do here--and consequently were not
half so well qualified as I am to new-model a commonwealth. I
have learned how to make remonstrances, and how to answer them.
The latter, it seems, is a science much wanted in my own
country(1090)--and yet it is as easy and obvious as their
treatment of trees, and not very unlike it. It was delivered
many years ago in an oracular sentence of my namesake,
"Odi profanum vulgus, et arceo." You must drive away the vulgar,
and you must have an hundred and fifty thousand men to drive them
away with--that is all. I do not wonder the intendant of Rouen
thinks we are still in a state of barbarism, when we are ignorant
of the very rudiments of government.

The Duke and Duchess of Richmond have been here a few days, and
are gone to Aubign`e. I do not think him at all well, and am
exceedingly concerned for it; as I know no man who has more
estimable qualities. They return by the end of the month. I am
fluctuating whether I shall not return with them, as they have
pressed me to do, through Holland. I never was there, and could
never go so agreeably; but then it would protract my absence
three weeks, and I am impatient to be in my own cave,
notwithstanding the wisdom I imbibe every day. But one cannot
sacrifice one's self wholly to the public: Titus and Wilkes have
now and then lost a day. Adieu, my dear lord! Be assured that I
shall not disdain yours and Lady Strafford's conversation, though
you have nothing but the goodness of your hearts, and the
simplicity of your manners, to recommend you to the more
enlightened understanding of your old friend.