Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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[See p. 100. Reminiscences, Chapter VII]

June 20th, 1738.
My Lord,
I write to you this post, to give you an account of what I
believe nobody else will so particularly, that Madame Walmond
(130) was presented in the drawing-room to his Majesty on
Thursday. As she arrived some days before, there can be no doubt
that it was not the first meeting, tho' the manner of her
reception had the appearance of it; for his Majesty went up to
her and kissed her on both sides, which is an honour, I believe,
never any lady had from a king in public. And when his Majesty
went away, Lord Harrington presented the great men in the
ministry and the foreign ministers in the drawing-room; the
former of which performed their part with the utmost respect and
submission. This is, likewise, quite new; for, though all kings
have had mistresses, they were attended at their own lodgings,
and not in so public a manner. I conclude they performed that
ceremony too; but they could not lose the first opportunity of
paying their respects, though ever so improperly.

These great men were, the Duke of Newcastle, Sir Robert Walpole,
my Lord Wilmington, my Lord Harrington, and Mr. Pelham. My Lord
Hervey had not the honour to be on the foot of a minister. . .
.

I have nothing more to say, but that this Madame Walmond is at
present in a mighty mean dirty lodging in St. James's Street.
Her husband came with her, but he is going away; and that house
that was Mr. Seymour's, in Hyde Park, which opens into the King's
garden, is fitting up for her; -and the Duchess of Kendal's
lodgings are making ready for her at St. James's. There is
nothing more known at present as to the settlement, but that
directions are given for one upon the establishment of Ireland.
perhaps that mayn't exceed the Duchess of Kendal's, which was
three thousand pounds a-year. But 'tis easy for the first
minister to increase that as she pleases.

[See p. 101.]

London, December 3rd, 1737.
I saw one yesterday that dined with my Lord Fanny, (131) who, as
soon as he had dined, was sent for to come up to his Majesty, and
there is all the appearance that can be of great favour to his
lordship. I mentioned him in my last, and I will now give you an
account of some things concerning his character, that I believe
you don't know. What I am going to say I am sure is as true as
if I had been a transactor in it myself. And I will begin the
relation with Mr. Lepelle, my Lord Fanny's wife's father, having
made her a cornet in his regiment as soon as she was born, which
is no more wrong to the design of an army than if she had been a
son: and she was paid many years after she was a maid of honour.
She was extreme forward and pert; and my Lord Sunderland got her
a pension of the late King, it being too ridiculous to continue
her any longer an officer in the army. And into the bargain, she
was to be a spy; but what she could tell to deserve a pension, I
cannot comprehend. However, King George the First used to talk
to her very much; and this encouraged my Lord Fanny and her to
undertake a very extraordinary project: and she went to the
drawing-room every night, and publicly attacked his Majesty in a
most vehement manner, insomuch that it was the diversion of all
the town; which alarmed the Duchess of Kendal, and the ministry
that governed her, to that degree, lest the King should be put in
the opposers' hands, that they determined to buy my Lady H- off;
and they gave her 4000 pounds to desist, which she did, and my
Lord Fanny bought a good house with it, and furnished it very
well.

[See p. 106. Reminiscences, Chapter IX]

London, March 19th, 1738.
My Lord,
I have received the favour of yours of the 11th by the post, but
not that which you mention by another hand. And since you can
like such sort of accounts as I am able to give you, I will
continue to do it. I think it is very plain now that Sir Robert
don't think it worth his while to make any proposals where it was
once suspected he would. And his wedding was celebrated as if he
had been King of France, and the apartments furnished in the
richest manner: crowds of people of the first quality being
presented to the bride, who is the daughter of a clerk that sung
the psalms in a church where Dr. Sacheverell was. After the
struggle among the court ladies who should have the honour of
presenting her, which the Duchess of Newcastle obtained, it was
thought more proper to have her presented by one of her own
family; otherwise it would look as if she had no alliances: and
therefore that ceremony was performed by Horace Walpole's wife,
who was daughter to my tailor, Lumbar. I read in a print lately,
that an old gentleman, very rich, had married a maiden lady with
two fatherless children but the printer did not then know the
gentleman's name.

March 27th, 1738.
'I think I did not tell you that the Duke of Dorset waited on my
Lady Walpole to congratulate her marriage, with the same ceremony
as if it had been one of the Royal Family, with his white staff,
which has not been used these many years, but when they attend
the Crown. But such a wretch as he is I hardly know; and his
wife, whose passion is only money, assists him in his odious
affair with Lady Betty Jermyn, who has a great deal to dispose
of; who, notwithstanding the great pride of the Berkeley family,
married an innkeeper's son. But indeed there was some reason for
that; for she was ugly, without a portion, and in her youth had
an unlucky accident with one of her father's servants; and by
that match she got money to entertain herself all manner of ways.
I tell you these things, which did not happen in your time of
knowledge, which is a melancholy picture of what the world is
come to; for this strange woman has had a great influence over
many.

Feb. 24th. 1738.
Monday next is fixed for presenting Mrs. Skerrit at court: and
there has been great solicitation from the court ladies who
should do it, in which the Duchess of Newcastle has succeeded,
and all the apartment is made ready for Sir Robert's lady, at his
house at the Cockpit. (132) I never saw her in my life, but at
auctions; but I remember I liked her as to behaviour very well,
and I believe she has a great deal of sense: and I am not one of
the number that wonder so much at this match; for the King of
France married Madame de Maintenon, and many men have done the
same thing. But as to the public, I do believe never was any man
so great a villain as Sir Robert.

Wednesday, Feb. 16th, 1741.
.....Some changes are made as to employments; but very few are
brought in but such as will be easily governed, and brought to
act so as to keep their places. I have inquired often about your
lordship, who I have not yet heard named in this alteration. And
I have been told that Lords Chesterfield and Gower are to have
nothing in the government, which I think a very ill sign of what
is intended; because that can be for no reason but because you
are all such men as are incapable of ever being prevailed on by
any arts to act any thing contrary to honour and the true
interests of our country.

(129) Where the Prince and Princess of Wales then resided.

(130 Welmoden.

(131 John, Lord Hervey, so called by Pope.

(132) Where the Prince and Princess of Wales then resided.

Correspondence of Horace walpole
Earl of Orford

121 Letter 1
To Richard West, Esq. (133)
King's College, Nov 9, 1735,

Dear West,
You expect a long letter from me, and have said in verse all that
I intended to have said in far inferior prose. I intended
filling three or four sides with exclamations against a
University life; but you have showed me how strongly they may be
expressed in three or four lines. I can't build without straw;
nor have I the ingenuity of the spider, to spin fine lines out of
dirt: a master of a college would make but a miserable figure as
a hero of a poem, and Cambridge sophs are too low to introduce
into a letter that aims not at punning:

Haud equidem invideo vati, quem pulpita pascunt.

But why mayn't we hold a classical correspondence? I can
never forget the many agreeable hours we have passed in
reading Horace and Virgil; and I think they are topics
will never grow stale. Let us extend the Roman empire,
and cultivate two barbarous towns o'er -run with rusticity and
Mathematics. The creatures are so used to a circle,
that they Plod on in the same eternal round, with their
whole view confined to a punctum, cujus nulla est pars:
"Their time a moment, and a point their space."

Orabunt causas melius, coelique meatus
Describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent
Tu coluisse novem Musas, Romane, memento;
Hae tibi crunt artes. . . .

We have not the least poetry stirring here; for I can't
call verses on the 5th of November and 30th of January
by that name, more than four lines on a chapter in the New
Testament is an epigram. Tydeus (134) rose and set at Eton: he
is only known here to be a scholar of King's. Orosmades and
Almanzor are just the same; that is, I am almost the only person
they are acquainted with, and consequently the only person
acquainted with their excellencies. Plato improves every day; so
does my friendship with him. These three
divide my whole time, though I believe you will guess
there is no quadruple alliance; (135) that was a happiness which
I only enjoyed when you was at Eton. A short account of the Eton
people at Oxford would much oblige, my dear West, your faithful
friend,
H. WALPOLE.

(133) Richard West was the only son of the Right Honourable
Richard West, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, by Elizabeth,
daughter of the celebrated Dr. Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury. When
this correspondence commences, Mr. West was nineteen years old,
and Mr. Walpole one year younger. [West died on the 1st of
January, 1742, at the premature age of twenty-six. He had a
great genius for poetry. His correspondence
with Gray, and several of his poems, are included
in the collection of letters published by Mr. Mason.
West's father published an able discourse of treasons and bills
of attainder, and a tract on the manner of creating peers. He
also wrote several essays in "The Freethinker;" and was the
reputed author of a tragedy called "Hecuba;" which was performed
at Drury Lane theatre in 1726.]

(134) Tydeus, Orosmades, Almanzor, and Plato, were names
which had been given by them to some of their Eton
schoolfellows.

(135) Thus as boys they had called the intimacy formed at Eton
between Walpole, Gray, West, and Ashton.

1736

122 Letter 2
To George Montagu, Esq. (136)
King's College, May 2, 1736.

Dear Sir,
Unless I were to be married myself, I should despair ever
being able to describe a wedding so well as you have done: had I
known your talent before, I would have desired an
epithalamium. I believe the princess (137) will have more
beauties bestowed on her by the occasional poets, than even a
painter would afford her. They will cook up a new Pandora, and
in the bottom of the box enclose Hope, that all they have said is
true. A great many, out of excess of good breeding, having heard
it was rude to talk Latin before women, propose complimenting her
in English; which she will be much the
better for. I doubt most of them instead of fearing their
compositions should not be understood, should fear they
should: they write they don't know what, to be read by they don't
know who. You have made me a very unreasonable request, which I
will answer with another as extraordinary: you desire I would
burn your letters; I desire you would keep mine. I know but of
one way of making what I send you useful, which is, by sending
you a blank sheet: sure you would not grudge three-pence for a
half-penny sheet, when you give as much for one not worth a
farthing. You drew this last paragraph on you by your exordium,
as you call it, and conclusion. I hope, for the future, our
correspondence will run a little more glibly, with dear George,
and dear Harry; not as formally as if we were playing a game at
chess in Spain and Portugal; and Don Horatio was to have the
honour Of specifying to Don Georgio, by an epistle, whether he
would move. In one point I would have our correspondence like a
game at chess; it should last all our lives-but I hear you cry
check; adieu! Dear George, yours ever.

(136) George Montagu was the son of Brigadier-General Edward
Montagu, and nephew to the Earl of Halifax. He was member of
parliament for Northampton, usher of the black rod in Ireland
during the lieutenancy of the Earl of Halifax, ranger of
Salsey Forest, and private secretary to Lord North when
chancellor of the exchequer. [And of him "it is now only
remembered," says the "Quarterly Review," vol. xix. p. 131, "that
he was a gentleman-like body of the vieille cour, and that he was
usually attended by his brother John, (the Little John of
Walpole's correspondence,) who was a midshipman at the age of
sixty, and found his chief occupation in carrying about his
brother's snuff-box."]

(137) Augusta, Princess of Saxe-Gotha, married, in April,
1736, to Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales.

123 Letter 3
To George Montagu, Esq.
King's College, May 6, 1736.

Dear George,
I agree with you entirely in the pleasure you take
in talking over old stories, but can't say but I meet
every day with new circumstances, which will be still
more pleasure to me to recollect. I think at our age
'tis excess of joy, to think, while we are running over
past happinesses, that it is still in our power to enjoy
as great. Narrations of the greatest actions of other people are
tedious in comparison of the serious trifles that every man can
call to mind of himself while he was learning
those histories. Youthful passages of life are the chippings of
Pitt's diamond, set into little heart-rings with mottos; the
stone itself more worth, the filings more gentle
and agreeable. Alexander, at the head of the world,
never tasted the true pleasure that boys of his own age
have enjoyed at the head of a school. Little intrigues,
little schemes, and policies engage their thoughts;
and, at the same time that they are laying the foundation for
their middle age of life, the mimic republic they live in
furnishes materials of conversation for their latter age; and old
men cannot be said to be children a second time
with greater truth from any one cause, than their living
over again their childhood in imagination. To reflect
on the season when first they felt the titillation of love, the
budding passions, and the first dear object of their
wishes! how unexperienced they gave credit to all the tales of
romantic loves! Dear George, were not the playing fields at Eton
food for all manner of flights? No old maid's gown, though it
had been tormented into all the fashions from King James to King
George, ever underwent so many transformations as those poor
plains have in my idea. At first I was contented with tending a
visionary flock, and sighing some pastoral name to the echo of
the cascade under the bridge. How happy should I have been to
have had a kingdom only for the pleasure of being driven from it,
and living disguised in an humble vale! As I got further
into Virgil and Clelia, I found myself transported from Arcadia
to the garden of Italy; and saw Windsor Castle in no other view
than the Capitoli immobile saxum. I wish a committee of the
House of Commons may ever seem to be the senate; or a bill appear
half so agreeable as a billet-doux. You see how deep you have
carried me into old stories; I write of them with pleasure, but
shall talk of them with more to you. I can't say I am sorry I
was never quite a schoolboy: an expedition against bargemen, or a
match at cricket, may be very pretty things to recollect; but,
thank my stars, I can remember things very near as pretty. The
beginning of my Roman history was spent in the asylum, or
conversing in Egeria's hallowed grove; not in thumping and
pommelling king Amulius's herdsmen. I was sometimes troubled
with a rough creature or two from the plough; one, that one
should have thought, had worked with his head, as well as his
hands, they were both so callous. One of the most agreeable
circumstances I can recollect is the Triumvirate, composed of
yourself, Charles,(138) and Your sincere friend.

(138) Colonel Charles Montagu, afterwards Lieutenant-General, and
Knight of the Bath, and brother of George Montagu. He married
Elizabeth Villiers, Viscountess Grandison,
daughter of the Earl of Grandison.

124 Letter 4
To George Montagu, Esq.
King's College, May 20, 1736.

Dear George:
You will excuse my not having written to you, when you hear I
have been a jaunt to Oxford. As you have seen it, I shall only
say I think it one of the most agreeable places I ever set my
eyes on. In our way thither we stopped at the Duke of Kent's,
(139) at Wrest. (140) On the great staircase is a picture of the
duchess; (141) I said it was very like; oh, dear sir! said Mrs.
Housekeeper, it's too handsome for my lady duchess; her grace's
chin is much longer than that.

In the garden are monuments in memory of Lord Harold (142) Lady
Glenorchy, (143) the late duchess,(144) and the present duke. At
Lord Clarendon's (145) at Cornbury,(146) is a
prodigious quantity of Vandykes; but I had not time to take down
any of their dresses. By the way, you gave me no account of the
last masquerade. Coming back, we saw Easton Neston,(147) a seat
of Lord Pomfret, where in an old greenhouse is a wonderful fine
statue of Tully, haranguing a numerous assembly of decayed
emperors, vestal virgins with new noses, Colossuses, Venuses,
headless carcases, and carcaseless heads, pieces of tombs, and
hieroglyphics.(148) I saw Althorp(149) the same day, where are a
vast many pictures-some mighty good; a gallery with the Windsor
beauties, and Lady Bridgewater(150) who is full as handsome as
any of them; a bouncing head of, I believe, Cleopatra, called
there the Duchess of Mazarine. The park is enchanting. I forgot
to tell you I was at Blenheim, where I saw nothing but a cross
housekeeper, and an impertinent porter, except a few pictures, a
quarry of stone that looked at a distance like a great house, and
about this quarry, quantities of inscriptions in honour of the
Duke of Marlborough, and I think of her grace too.

Adieu! dear George, Yours ever.

The verses are not published.

(139) Henry de Grey, Duke, Marquis, and Earl of Kent, son of
Anthony Earl of Kent, and Mary, daughter of Lord Lucas. [The
duke, who had been so created in 1710, having lost all his sons
during his lifetime, obtained a new patent in 1740,
creating him Marquis Grey, with remainder to his
grand-daughter Jemima Campbell, daughter of his eldest
daughter, Lady amabel Grey, by her husband John, third Earl of
Breadalbane. On the death of the duke, in June 1740, the
marquisate of Grey and barony of Lucas, together with the
Wrest House and all the vast estates of the duke, devolved upon
his grand-daughter, Lady Jemima Campbell, then Lady
Jemima Royston, she having married Philip Viscount Royston,
eldest son of the Earl of Hardwicke, by whom she had two
daughters, Amabel married in July 1772, to Lord Polwarth, only
son of the Earl of Marchmont, created a peer of Great Britain by
the title of Baron Hume of Berwick, and who died in 1781 without
issue: her ladyship was advanced to the dignity of Countess de
Grey by letters patent, in 1816, with remainder of that earldom
to her sister Mary Jemima, wife of Thomas second Lord Grantham,
and that lady's male issue. Lady Grantham died in 1830; and upon
the death of the countess, in 1833, she was succeeded under the
patent by her nephew Lord Grantham, the present Earl de Grey.]

(140) Wrest House in Bedfordshire. [It is remarkable that, from
the death of the Duke of Kent, Wrest House has never
remained a second generation in the same family, but has
descended successively through females to the families of
Yorke Earl of Hardwicke, Hume Earl of Marchmont, and is now
vested in that of Robinson Lord Grantham, the
great-great-grandson of the duke.)

(141) Lady Sophia Bentinck, second wife of the Duke of Kent, and
daughter to William Earl of Portland.

(142) Anthony Earl of Harold, eldest son of the Duke of Kent.
[Married to Lady Mary Grafton, daughter of the Earl of Thanet.
He died without issue, in 1723, in consequence of an ear of
barley sticking in his throat. His widow, who survived many
years, afterwards married John first Earl Gower.]

(143) Amabella, eldest daughter of the Duke of Kent, married to
John Campbell, Lord Viscount Glenorchy, son of Lord
Breadalbane.

(144) Jemima, eldest daughter of Lord Crewe, and first wife of
the Duke of Kent.

(145) Henry Earl of Clarendon and Rochester, son of Laurence Earl
of Rochester.

(146) In the county of Oxford.

(147) Easton Neston, the ancient family seat of the Fermor
family, had been rebuilt by Sir William Fermor who was
elevated to the peerage by the title of Baron Lempster of
Lempster, or Leominster, county of Hereford; and whose only son
Thomas, second baron, was advanced to the earldom of
Pomfret in 1721.-E.

(148) Part of the invaluable collection of the great Earl of
Arundel. They had been formerly purchased by John Lord
Jefferies, Baron of Wem; and in 1755 were presented by his
daughter, the Countess-dowager of Pomfret, to the University of
Oxford.-E.

(149) The seat of Charles, fifth Earl of Sunderland; who, upon
the demise of his aunt Henrietta, eldest daughter of John Duke of
Marlborough, succeeded to the honours of his illustrious
grandfather. Althorp is now the seat of Earl Spencer. An
account of the mansion, its pictures, etc. was published by Dr.
Dibdin, in 1822, under the title of "Edes Althorpianae," as a
supplement to his "Bibliotheca Spenceriana."-E.

(150) Elizabeth, third daughter of the great Duke of
Marlborough, and wife of Scroop, Earl and afterwards first Duke
of Bridgewater. She died, however, previous to her
husband's advancement to the dukedom.-E.

126 Letter 5
To George Montagu, Esq.
King's College, May 30, 1736.

Dear George,
You show me in the prettiest manner how much you like
Petronius Arbiter; I have heard you commend him, but I am more
pleased with your tacit approbation of writing like him, prose
interspersed with verse: I shall send you soon in return some
poetry interspersed with prose; I mean the Cambridge
congratulation with the notes, as you desired. I have
transcribed the greatest part of what was tolerable at the
coffee-houses; but by most of what you will find, you will hardly
think I have left any thing worse behind. There is lately come
out a new piece, called A Dialogue between
Philemon and Hydaspes on false religion, by one Mr.
Coventry,(151) A.M., and fellow, formerly fellow-commoner, of
Magdalen. He is a young man, but 'tis really a pretty thing. If
you cannot get it in town, I will send it with the verses. He
accounts for superstition in a new manner, and I think a Just
One; attributing it to disappointments in love. He don't
resolve it all into that bottom; ascribes it almost wholly as the
source of female enthusiasm; and I dare say there's ne'er a girl
from the age of fourteen to four-and-twenty, but will subscribe
to his principles, and own, if the dear man were dead that she
loves, she would settle all her affection on heaven, whither he
was gone.

Who would not be an Artemisia, and raise the stately mausoleum to
her lord; then weep and watch incessant over it like the Ephesian
matron!

I have heard of one lady, who had not quite so great a
veneration for her husband's tomb, but preferred lying alone in
one, to lying on his left hand; perhaps she had an aversion to
the German custom of left-handed wives. I met yesterday with a
pretty little dialogue on the subject of constancy tis between a
traveller and a dove

LE PASSANT.
Que fais tu dans ce bois, plaintive Tourturelle?

LA ToURTURELLE.
Je g`emis, j'ai perdu ma compagne fidelle.

LE PASSANT.
Ne crains tu pas que l'oiseleur
Ne te fasse mourir comme elle?

La Tourturelle.
Si ce n'est lui, ce sera ma douleur.

'Twould have been a little more apposite, if she had grieved for
her lover. I have ventured to turn it into that view,
lengthened it, and spoiled it, as you shall see.

P.-Plaintive turtle, cease your moan;
Hence away;
In this dreary wood alone
Why d'ye stay?

T.-These tears, alas! you see flow
For my mate!
P.-Dread you not from net or bow
His sad fate?

T.-If, ah! if they neither kill,
Sorrow will.

You will excuse this gentle nothing, I mean mine, when I tell
you, I translated it out of pure good-nature for the use of a
disconsolate wood-pigeon in our grove, that was made a widow by
the barbarity of a gun. She coos and calls me so movingly,
'twould touch your heart to hear her. I protest to you it
grieves me to pity her. She is so allicholy as any thing. I'll
warrant you now she's as sorry as one of us would be. Well, good
man, he's gone, and he died like a lamb. She's an unfortunate
woman, but she must have patience; tis what we must all come to,
and so as I was saying, Dear George, good bye t'ye,
Yours sincerely.