Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3

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The lord of the Festival(69) was there, and seemed neither
ashamed nor vain of the expense of his pleasures. At supper she
offered him Tokay, and told him she believed he would find it
good. The supper was in two rooms and very fine, and on the
sideboards, and even on the chairs, were pyramids and troughs of
strawberries and cherries you would have thought she was kept by
Vertumnus. Last night my Lady Northumberland lighted up her
garden for the Spaniards: I was not there, having excused myself
for a headache, which I had not, but ought to have caught the
night before. Mr. Doddington entertained these Fuentes's at
Hammersmith; and to the shame of our nation, while they were
drinking tea in the summer-house, some gentlemen, ay, my lord,
gentlemen, went into the river and showed the ambassadress and
her daughter more than ever they expected to see of England.

I dare say you are sorry for poor Lady Anson. She was
exceedingly good-humoured, and did a thousand good-natured and
generous actions. I tell you nothing of the rupture of Lord
Halifax's match, of which you must have heard so much; but you
will like a bon-mot upon it. They say, the hundreds of Drury
have got the better of the thousands of Drury.(70) The pretty
Countess(71) is still alive, was I thought actually dying on
Tuesday night, and I think will go off very soon. I think there
will soon be a peace: my only reason is, that every body seems so
backward at making war. Adieu! my dear lord!

(67) A staymaker of the time, who advertised in the newspapers
that he made stays at such a price, "tabby all over."

(68) Dodington had been minister in Spain.

(69) The Duke of Kingston.

(70) Lord Halifax kept an actress belonging to Drury Lane
Theatre; and the marriage broken off was with a daughter of Sir
Thomas Drury, an heiress.-E.

(71) The Countess of Coventry. She survived till the 1st of
October.-E.

Letter 28 To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, June 20, 1760. (page 68)

Who the deuce was thinking of Quebec? America was like a book one
has read and done with; or at least, if one looked at the book,
one just recollected that there was a supplement promised, to
contain a chapter on Montreal, the starving and surrender of it-
-but here are we on a sudden reading our book backwards. An
account came two days ago that the French on their march to
besiege Quebec, had been attacked by General Murray, who got into
a mistake and a morass, attacked two bodies that were joined,
when he hoped to come up with one of them before the junction,
was enclosed, embogged,'and defeated. By the list of officers
killed and wounded, I believe there has been a rueful slaughter-
-the place, too, I suppose will be retaken. The year 1760 is not
the year 1759. Added to the war we have a kind of plague too, an
epidemic fever and sore throat: Lady Anson is dead of it; Lord
Bute and two of his daughters were in great danger; my Lady
Waldegrave has had it, and I am mourning for Mrs. Thomas
Walpole,(72) who died of it--you may imagine I don't come much to
town; I had some business here to-day, particularly with Dagge,
whom I have sent for to talk about Sophia;(73) he will be here
presently, and then I will let you know what he says.

The embassy and House of Fuentes are arrived-many feasts and
parties have been made for them, but they do not like those out
of town, and have excused themselves rather ungraciously. They
were invited to a ball last Monday at Wanstead, but did not go:
yet I don't know where they can see such magnificence. The
approach, the coaches, the crowds of spectators to see the
company arrive, the grandeur of the fa`cade and apartments, were
a charming sight; but the town is so empty that that great house
appeared so too. He, you know, is all attention, generosity, and
good breeding.

I must tell you a private wo that has happened to me in my
neighbourhood--Sir William Stanhope bought Pope's house and
garden. The former was so small and bad, one could not avoid
pardoning his hollowing out that fragment of the rock Parnassus
into habitable chambers--but would you believe it, he has cut
down the sacred groves themselves! In short, it was a little bit
of ground of five acres, inclosed with three lanes, and seeing
nothing. Pope had twisted and twirled, and rhymed and harmonized
this, till it appeared two or three sweet little lawns opening
beyond one another, and the whole surrounded with thick
impenetrable woods. Sir William, by advice of his
son-in-law,(74) Mr. Ellis, has hacked and hewed these groves,
wriggled a winding-gravel walk through them with an edging of
shrubs, in what they call the modern taste, and in short, has
designed the three lanes to walk in again--and now is forced to
shut them out again by a wall, for there was not a Muse could
walk there but she was spied by every country fellow that went by
with a pipe in his mouth.

It is a little unlucky for the Pretender to be dying just as the
Pope seems to design to take Corsica into his hands, and might
give it to so faithful a son of the church.

I have heard nothing yet of Stosch.

Presently.
Mr. Dagge has disappointed me, and I am obliged to go out of
town, but I have writ to him to press the affair, and will press
it, as it is owing to his negligence. Mr. Chute, to whom I
spoke, says he told Dagge he was ready to be a trustee, and
pressed him to get it concluded.

(72) Daughter of Sir Gerard Vanneck.

(73) Natural daughter of Mr. Whitehed, mentioned in preceding
letters, by a Florentine woman.

(74) Welbore Ellis, afterwards*Lord Mendip, married the only
daughter of Sir William Stanhope; in right of whom he afterwards
enjoyed Pope's villa at Twickenham.-E.

Letter 29 To Sir David Dalrymple.(75)
June 20th, 1760. (page 69)

I am obliged to you, Sir, for the volume of Erse poetry - all of
it has merit; but I am sorry not to see in it the six
descriptions of night, with which you favoured me before, and
which I like as much as any of the pieces. I can, however, by no
means agree with the publisher, that they seem to be parts of an
heroic poem; nothing to me can be more unlike. I should as soon
take all the epitaphs in Westminster Abbey, and say it was an
epic poem on the History of England. The greatest part are
evidently elegies; and though I should not expect a bard to write
by the rules of Aristotle, I would not, on the other hand, give
to any work a title that must convey so different an idea to
every common reader. I could wish, too, that the authenticity
had been more largely stated. A man who knows Dr. Blair's
character, will undoubtedly take his word; but the gross of
mankind, considering how much it is the fashion to be sceptical
in reading, will demand proofs, not assertions.

I am glad to find, Sir, that we agree so much on the Dialogues of
the Dead; indeed, there are very few that differ from us. It is
well for the author, that none of his critics have undertaken to
ruin his book by improving it, as you have done in the lively
little specimen you sent me., Dr. Brown has writ a dull dialogue,
called Pericles and Aristides, which will have a different effect
from what yours, would have. One of the most objectionable
passages in lord Lyttelton's book is, in my opinion, his
apologizing for 'the moderate government of Augustus. A man who
had exhausted tyranny in the most lawless and Unjustifiable
excesses is to be excused, because, out of weariness or policy,
he grows less sanguinary at last!

There is a little book coming Out, that will amuse you. It is a
new edition of Isaac Walton's Complete Angler,. full of anecdotes
and historic notes. It is published by Mr. Hawkins,(76) a very
worthy gentleman in my neighbourhood, but who, I could wish, did
not think angling so very innocent an amusement. We cannot live
without destroying animals, but shall-we torture them for our
sport--sport in their destruction?(77) I met a rough officer at
his house t'other day, who said he knew such a person was turning
Methodist; for, in the middle of conversation, he rose, and
opened the window to let out a moth. I told him I did not know
that the Methodists had any principle so good, and that I, who am
certainly not on the point of becoming one, always did so too.
One of the bravest and best men I ever knew, Sir Charles Wager, I
have often heard declare he never killed a fly willingly. It is
a comfortable reflection to me, that all the victories of last
year have been gained since the suppression of the bear garden
and prize-fighting; as it is plain, and nothing else would have
made it so, that our valour did not, singly and solely depend
upon, those two universities. Adieu.!

(75) Now first collected.

(76) Afterwards Sir John Hawkins, Knight, the executor and
biographer of Dr. Johnson.-E.

(77) Lord Byron, like Walpole, had a mortal dislike to angling,
and describes it as " the cruelest, the coldest, and the
stupidest of pretended sports." Of good Isaac Walton he says,

"The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb,. in his gullet
Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it."-E.

Letter 30 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(78)
Strawberry Hill, June 21, 1760. (page 70)

There is nothing in the world so tiresome as a person that always
says they will come to one and never does; that is a mixture of
promises and excuses; that loves one better than anybody, and yet
will not stir a step to see one; that likes nothing but their own
ways and own books, and that thinks the Thames is not as charming
in one place as another, and that fancies Strawberry Hill is the
only thing upon earth worth living for-all this you would say, if
even I could make you peevish: but since you cannot be provoked,
you see I am for you, and give myself my due. It puts me in mind
of General Sutton, who was one day sitting by my father at his
dressing. Sir Robert said to Jones, who was shaving him, "John,
you cut me"--presently afterwards, "John, you cut me"--and again,
with the same patience or Conway-ence, "John, you cut me."
Sutton started up and cried, "By God! if he can bear it, I can't;
if you cut him once more, damn my blood if I don't knock you
down!" My dear Harry, I will knock myself down-but I fear I
shall cut you again. I wish you sorrow for the battle of Quebec.
I thought as much of losing the duchies of Aquitaine and Normandy
as Canada.

However, as my public feeling never carries me to any great
lengths of reflection, I bound all my Qu`ebecian meditations to a
little diversion on George Townshend's absurdities. The Daily
Advertiser said yesterday, that a certain great officer who had a
principal share in the reduction of Quebec had given it as his
opinion, that it would hold out a tolerable siege. This great
general has acquainted the public to-day in an advertisement
with--what do you think?--not that he has such an opinion, for he
has no opinion at all, and does not think that it can nor cannot
hold out a siege,--but, in the first place, that he was luckily
shown this paragraph, which, however, he does not like; in the
next, that he is and is not that great general, and yet that
there is nobody else that is; and, thirdly, lest his silence,
till he can proceed in another manner with the printer, (and
indeed it is difficult to conceive what manner of proceeding
silence is,) should induce anybody to believe the said paragraph,
he finds himself under a necessity of giving the public his
honour, that there is no more truth in this paragraph than in
some others which have tended to set the opinions of some general
officers together by the ears--a thing, however, inconceivable,
which he has shown may be done, by the confusion he himself has
made in the King's English. For his another manner with the
printer, I am impatient to see how the charge will lie against
Matthew Jenour, the publisher of the Advertiser, who, without
having the fear of God before his eyes, has forcibly, violently,
and maliciously, with an offensive weapon called a hearsay, and
against the peace of our sovereign Lord the King, wickedly and
traitorously assaulted the head of George Townshend, general, and
accused it of having an opinion, and him the said George
Townshend, has slanderously and of malice prepense believed to be
a great general; in short, to make Townshend easy, I wish, as he
has no more contributed to the loss of Quebec than he did to the
conquest of it, that he was to be sent to sign this capitulation
too.

There is a delightful little French book come out, called "Tant
Mieux pour elle." It is called Cr`ebillon's, and I should think
was so. I only borrowed it, and cannot get one; tant pis pour
vous. By the way, I am not sure you did not mention it to me;
somebody did.

Have you heard that Miss Pitt has dismissed Lord Buckingham?
Tant mieux pour lui. She damns her eyes that she will marry some
captain--tant mieux pour elle. I think the forlorn earl should
match with Miss Ariadne Drury; and by the time my Lord Halifax
has had as many more children and sentiments by and for Miss
Falkner, as he can contrive to have. probably Miss Pitt may be
ready to be taken into keeping. Good night!

P. S. The Prince of Wales has been in the greatest anxiety for
Lord Bute; to whom he professed to Duncombe, and Middleton, he
has the greatest obligations; and when they pronounced their
patient out of danger, his Royal Highness gave to each of them a
gold modal of himself, as a mark of his sense of their care and
attention.

(78) Now first printed.

Letter 31 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, June 28, 1760. (page 72)

The devil is in people for fidgetting about! They can neither be
quiet in their own houses, nor let others be at peace in theirs!
Have not they enough of one another in winter, but they must
cuddle in summer too? For your part, you are a very priest: the
moment one repents, you are for turning it to account. I wish
you was in camp--never will I pity you again. How did you
complain when you was in Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, and I don't
know where, that you could never enjoy Park-place! Now you have a
whole summer to yourself, and you are as junkettaceous as my Lady
Northumberland. Pray, what horse-race do you go to next? For my
part, I can't afford to lead such a life: I have Conway-papers to
sort; I have lives of the painters to write; I have my prints to
paste, my house to build, and every thing in the world to tell
posterity. How am I to find time for all this? I am past forty,
and may 'not have above as many more to live; and here I am to go
here and to go there--well, I will meet you at Chaffont on
Thursday; but I positively will stay but one night. I have
settled with our brother that we will be at Oxford on the 13th of
July, as Lord Beauchamp is only loose from the 12th to the 20th.
I will be at Park-place on the 12th, and we will go together the
next day. If this is too early for you, we may put it off to the
15th: determine by Thursday, and one of us will write to Lord
Hertford.

Well! Quebec(79) is come to life again. Last night I went to see
the Holdernesses, who by the way are in raptures with Park-in
Sion-lane; as Cibber says of the Revolution, I met the Raising of
the Siege; that is, I met my lady in a triumphal car, drawn by a
Manks horse thirteen little fingers high, with Lady Emily:

et sibi Countess
Ne placeat, ma'amselle curru portatur eodem-

Mr. Milbank was walking in ovation by himself after the car; and
they were going to see the bonfire at the alehouse at the corner.
The whole procession returned with me; and from the countess's
dressing-room we saw a battery fired before the house, the mob
crying "God bless the good news!"--These are all the particulars
I know of the siege: my lord would have showed me the journal,
but we amused ourselves much better in going to eat peaches from
the new Dutch stoves.

The rain is come indeed, and my grass is as green as grass; but
all my hay has been cut and soaking this week, and I am too much
in the fashion not to have given Up gardening for farming; as
next I suppose We shall farming and turn graziers and hogdrivers.

I never heard of such a Semele as my Lady Stormont(80) brought to
bed in flames. I hope Miss Bacchus Murray will not carry the
resemblance through, and love drinking like a Pole. My Lady
Lyttelton is at Mr. Garrick's, and they were to have breakfasted
here this morning; but somehow or other they have changed their
mind. Good Night!

(79) Quebec was besieged by the French in the spring of this
year, with an army of fifteen thousand men, under the command of
the Chevalier de Levis, assisted by a naval force. They were,
however, repulsed by General Murray, who was supported by Lord
Colville and the fleet under his command; and on the night of the
16th of May raised the siege very precipitately, leaving their
cannon, small arms, stores, etc. behind them.-E.

(80) See vol. ii. p. 513, letter 336.-E.

Letter 32 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 4, 1760. (page 73)

I am this minute returned from Chaffont, where I have been these
two days. Mr. Conway, Lady Ailesbury, Lady Lyttelton, and Mrs.
Shirley are there; and Lady Mary is going to add to the number
again. The house and grounds are still in the same dislocated
condition; in short, they finish nothing but children; even Mr.
Bentley's Gothic stable, which I call Houynhm castle, is not
roughcast yet. We went to see More-park, but I was not much
struck with it, after all the miracles I had heard Brown had
performed there. He has undulated the horizon in so many
artificial mole-hills, that it is full as unnatural as if it was
drawn with a rule and compasses. Nothing is done to the house;
there are not even chairs in the great apartment. My Lord Anson
is more slatternly than the Churchills, and does not even finish
children. I am going to write to Lord Beauchamp, that I shall be
at Oxford on the 15th, where I depend upon meeting you. I design
to see Blenheim, and Rousham, (is not that the name of Dormer's?)
and Althorp, and Drayton, before I return--but don't be
frightened, I don't propose to drag you to all or any of these,
if you don't like it.

Mr. Bentley has sketched a very pretty Gothic room for Lord
Holderness, and orders are gone to execute it directly in
Yorkshire. The first draught was Mason's; but as he does not
pretend to much skill, we were desired to correct it. I say we,
for I chose the ornaments. Adieu! Yours ever.

P. S. My Lady Ailesbury has been much diverted, and so will you
too. Gray is in @their neighbourhood. My Lady Carlisle says,
"he is extremely like me in his manner." They went a party to
dine on a cold loaf, and passed the day; Lady A. protests he
never opened his lips but once, and then only said, "Yes, my
lady, I believe so."(81)

(81) Gray, in a letter to Dr. Clarke, of the 12th of August,
says, "For me, I am come to my resting-place, and find it very
necessary, after living for a month in a house with three women
that laughed from morning till night, and would allow nothing to
the sulkiness of my disposition. Company and cards at home,
parties by land and water abroad, and (what they call) doing
something, that is, racketting about from morning to night, are
occupations, I find, that wear out my spirits." Works, vol. iii.
p. 253.-E.

Letter 33 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, July 7, 1760. (page 74)

I shall write you but a short letter myself, because I make your
brother, who has this moment been here, write to-night with all
the particulars relating to the machine. The ten guineas are
included in the sixty; and the ship, which is not yet sailed, is
insured. My dear child, don't think of making me any excuses
about employing me; I owe you any trouble sure that I can
possibly undertake, and do it most gladly; in this one instance I
was sorry you had pitched upon me, because it was entirely out of
my sphere, and I could not even judge whether I had served you
well or not. I am here again waiting for Dagge, whom it is more
difficult to see than a minister; he disappointed me last time,
but writ to me afterwards that he would immediately settle the
affair for poor Sophia.

Quebec, you know, is saved; but our German histories don't go on
so well as our American. Fouquet is beat, and has lost five out
of twelve thousand men, after maintaining himself against thirty
for seven hours--he is grievously wounded, but not prisoner. The
Russians are pouring on--adieu the King of Prussia, unless Prince
Ferdinand's battle, of which we have expected news for these four
days, can turn the scale a little--we have settled that he is so
great a general, that you must not wonder if We expect that he
should beat all the world in their turns.

There has been a woful fire at Portsmouth; they say occasioned by
lightning; the shipping was saved, but vast quantities of stores
are destroyed.

I shall be more easy about your nephew, since you don't adopt my
idea; and yet I can't conceive with his gentle nature and your
good sense but you would have sufficient authority over him. I
don't know who your initials mean, Ld. F. and Sr. B. But don't
much signify, but consider by how many years I am removed from
knowing the rising generation.

I shall some time hence trouble you for some patterns of
brocadella of two or three colours: it is to furnish a round
tower that I am adding, with a gallery, to my castle: the
quantity I shall want will be pretty large; it is to be a
bedchamber entirely hung bed, and eight armchairs; the dimensions
thirteen feet high, and twenty-two diameter. Your Bianca Capello
is to be over the chimney. I shall scarce be ready to hang it
these two years, because I move gently, and never begin till I
have the money ready to pay, which don't come very fast, as it is
always to be saved out of my income, subject, too, to twenty
other whims and expenses. I only mention it now, that you may at
your leisure look me out half a dozen patterns; and be so good as
to let me know the prices. Stosch is not arrived yet as I have
heard.

Well,--at last, Dagge is come, and tells me I may assure you
positively that the money will be paid in- two months from this
time; he has been at Thistlethwait's,(82) which is nineteen miles
from town, and goes again this week to make him sign a paper, on
which the parson(82) will pay the money. I shall be happy when
this is completed to your satisfaction, that is, when your
goodness is rewarded by being successful; but till it is
completed, with all Mr. Dagge's assurances, I shall not be easy,
for those brothers are such creatures, that I shall always expect
some delay or evasion, when they are to part with money. Adieu!

(82) Brother and heirs of Mr. Whithed, who had changed his name
for an estate.
(Transcriber's note: this note really is cited twice in the above
paragraph.)

Letter 34 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 19, 1760. (page 75)

Mr. Conway, as I told you, was With me at Oxford, and I returned
with him to Park-place, and to-day hither. I am sorry you could
not come to us; we passed four days most agreeably, and I believe
saw more antique holes and corners than Tom Hearne did in
threescore years. You know my rage for Oxford; if King's-college
would not take it ill,. I don't l(now but I should retire
thither, and profess Jacobitism, that I might enjoy some
venerable set of chambers. Though the weather has been so
sultry, I ferreted from morning to night, fatigued that strong
young lad Lord Beauchamp, and harassed his tutors till they were
forced to relieve one another.' With all this, I found nothing
worth seeing, except the colleges themselves, painted glass, and
a couple of crosiers. Oh, yes! in an old buttery at Christ-
church I discovered two of the most glorious portraits by Holbein
in the world. They call them Dutch heads. I took them down,
washed them myself, and fetched out a thousand beauties. We went
to Blenheim and saw all Vanbrugh's quarries, all the acts of
parliament and gazettes on the Duke in inscriptions, and all the
old flock chairs, wainscot tables, and gowns and petticoats of
Queen Anne, that old Sarah could crowd among blocks of marble.
It looks like the palace of an auctioneer, who has-been chosen
King of Poland, and furnished his apartments with obsolete
trophies, rubbish that nobody bid for, and a dozen pictures, that
he had stolen from the inventories of different families. The
place is as ugly as the house, and the bridge, like the beggars
at the old Duchess's gate, begs for a drop of water, and is
refused. We went to Ditchley, which is a good house, well
furnished, has good portraits, a wretched saloon, and one
handsome scene behind the house. There are portraits of the
Litchfield hunt, in true blue frocks, with ermine capes. One of
the colleges has exerted this loyal pun, and made their east
window entirely of blue glass. But the greatest pleasure we had,
was in seeing Sir Charles Cotterel's at Housham; it reinstated
Kent with me; he has nowhere shown so much taste. The house is
old, and was bad; he has improved it, stuck as close as he could
to Gothic, has made a delightful library, and the whole is
comfortable. The garden is Daphne in little; the sweetest little
groves, streams, glades, porticoes, cascades, and river,
imaginable; all the scenes are perfectly classic. Well, if I had
such a house, such a library, so pretty a place, and so pretty a
wife, I think I should let King George send to Herenhausen for a
master of the ceremonies.