Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

H >> Horace Walpole >> The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67

P. S. I thank you ten thousand times for your last letter: when I
have as much wit and as much poetry in me, I'll send you as good
an one. Good night, child!

(167) The three following paragraphs are a literal translation of
French expressions to the same imports.

136 Letter 13
To Richard West, Esq.
>From a Hamlet among the Mountains of Savoy,
Sept. 28, 1739, N. S.

Precipices, mountains, torrents, wolves, rumblings, Salvator
Rosa-the pomp of our park and the meekness of our palace! Here
we are, the lonely lords of glorious, desolate prospects. I have
kept a sort of resolution which I made, of not writing to you as
long as I staid in France: I am now a quarter of an hour out of
it, and write to you. Mind, 'tis three months since we heard
from you. I begin this letter -among the clouds; where I shall
finish, my neighbour Heaven probably knows: 'tis an odd wish in a
mortal letter, to hope not to finish it on this side the
atmosphere. You will have a billet tumble to you from the stars
hen you least think of it; and that I should write it too! Lord,
how potent that sounds! But I am to undergo many
transmigrations before I come to "yours ever." Yesterday I was a
shepherd of Dauphin`e; to-day an Alpine savage; to-morrow a
Carthusian monk; and Friday a Swiss Calvinist. I have one
quality which I find remains with me in all worlds and in all
aethers; I brought it with me from your world, and am admired for
it in this-'tis my esteem for you: this is a common thought among
you, and you will laugh at it, but it is new here: as new to
remember one's friends in the world one has left, as for you to
remember those you have lost.

Aix in Savoy, Sept. 30th.

We are this minute come in here, and here's an awkward abb`e this
minute come in to us. I asked him if he would sit down. Oui,
oui, oui. He has ordered us a radish soup for supper, and has
brought a chess-board to play with Mr. Conway. I have left 'em
in the act, and am set down to write to you. Did you ever see
any thing like the prospect we saw yesterday? I never did. We
rode three leagues to see the Grande Chartreuse; (168)
expected bad roads and the finest convent in the kingdom. We
were disappointed pro and con. The building is large and plain,
and has nothing remarkable but its primitive simplicity; they
entertained us in the neatest manner, with eggs, pickled salmon,
dried fish, conserves, cheese, butter, grapes, and figs, and
pressed us mightily to lie there. We tumbled into the hands of a
lay-brother, who, unluckily having the charge of the meal and
bran, showed us little besides. They desired us to set down our
names in the list of strangers, where, among others, we found two
mottos of our countrymen, for whose stupidity and brutality we
blushed. The first was of Sir j * * * D * * *, who had wrote
down the first stanza of justum et tenacem, altering the last
line to Mente quatit Carthusiana. The second was of one D * *,
Coelum ipsum petimus stultitia; et hic ventri indico bellum. The
Goth!-But the road, West, the road! winding round a prodigious
mountain, and surrounded with others, all shagged with hanging
woods, obscured with pines, or lost in clouds! Below, a torrent
breaking through cliffs, and tumbling through fragments of rocks!
Sheets of @cascades forcing their silver speed down channelled
precipices, and hasting into the roughened river at the bottom!
Now and then an old foot-bridge, with a broken rail, a leaning
cross, a cottage, or the ruin of an hermitage! This sounds too
bombast and too romantic to one that has not seen it, too cold
for one that has. If I could send you my letter post between two
lovely tempests that echoed each other's wrath you might have
some idea of this noble roaring scene, as you were reading it.
Almost on the summit, upon a fine verdure, but without any
prospect, stands the Chartreuse. We staid there two hours, rode
back through this charming picture, wished for a painter, wished
to be poets! Need I tell you we wished for you? Good night!

Geneva, Oct. 2.

By beginning a new date, I should begin a new letter; but I have
seen nothing yet, and the Post is going Out: 'tis a strange
tumbled dab, and dirty too, I am sending you; but what can I do?
There is no possibility of writing such a long history over
again. I find there are many English in the town; Lord Brook,
(169) Lord Mansel, (170) Lord Hervey's eldest son,(171) and a son
of-of Mars and Venus, or of Antony and Cleopatra, or, in short,
of-. This is the boy, in the bow of whose hat Mr. Hedges pinned
a pretty epigram. I don't know if you ever heard it; I'll
suppose you never did, because it will fill up my letter:

"Give but Cupid's dart to me,
Another Cupid I shall be:
No more distinguish'd from the other,
Than Venus would be from my mother."

Scandal says, Hedges thought the two last very like; and it says
too, that she was not his enemy for thinking so.

Adieu! Gray and I return to Lyons in three days. Harry stays
here. Perhaps at our return we may find a letter from you: it
ought to be very full of excuses, for you have been a lazy
creature: I hope you have, for I would not owe your silence to
any other reason.
Yours ever.

(168) It was on revisiting it, when returning to England after
his unfortunate quarrel with Walpole, that Gray inscribed his
beautiful "Alcaic Ode" in the album of the fathers of this
monastery. Gray's account of this grand scene, where "not a
precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with
religion and poetry," will be found in his letter to West, dated
Turin, Nov. 16, N. S. 1739. Works, vol. ii. p. 69.-E.

(169) Francis Lord Brooke, advanced to the dignity of Earl Brooke
in 1746.-E.

(170) Thomas Lord Mansell, who died in 1743, without issue. He
was succeeded in the title by his uncles Christopher and Bussy;
and, On the death of the latter in 1744, it became extinct.-E.

(171) George William Hervey, who succeeded his grandfather as
Earl of Bristol in 1751, and died Unmarried in 1775.-E.

138 Letter 14
To Richard West, Esq.
Turin, Nov. 11, 1739, N. S.

So, as the song says, we are in fair Italy! I wonder we are; for
on the very highest precipice of Mount Cenis, the devil of
discord, in the similitude of sour wine, had got amongst our
Alpine savages, and set them a-fighting with Gray and me in the
chairs: they rushed him by me on a crag, where there was scarce
room for a cloven foot. The least slip had tumbled us into such
a fog, and such an eternity, as we should never have found our
way out of again. We were eight days in coming hither from
Lyons; the four last in crossing the Alps. Such uncouth rocks,
and such uncomely inhabitants! My dear West, I hope I shall
never see them again! At the foot of Mount Cenis we were obliged
to quit our chaise, which was taken all to pieces and loaded on
mules; and we were carried in low arm-chairs on poles, swathed in
beaver bonnets, beaver gloves, beaver stockings, muffs, and
bear-skins. When we came to the top, behold the snows fallen!
and such quantities, and conducted by such heavy clouds that hung
glouting, that I thought we could never have waded through them.
The descent is two leagues, but steep and rough as O * * * *
father's face, over which,
you know, the devil walked with hobnails in his shoes. But the
dexterity and nimbleness of the mountaineers are
inconceivable: they run with you down steeps and frozen
precipices, where no man, as men are now, could possibly walk.
We had twelve men and nine mules to carry us, our servants, and
baggage, and were above five hours in this agreeable jaunt The
day before, I had a cruel accident, and so extraordinary an one,
that it seems to touch upon the traveller. I had brought with me
a little black spaniel of King Charles's breed; but the
prettiest, fattest, dearest creature! I had let it out of the
chaise for the air, and it was waddling along close to the head
of the horses, on the top of the highest Alps, by the side of a
wood of firs. There darted out a young wolf, seized poor dear
Tory (172) by the throat, and, before we could possibly prevent
it, sprung up the side of the rock and carried him off. The
postilion jumped off and struck at him with his whip, but in
vain. I saw it and screamed, but in vain; for the road was so
narrow, that the servants that were behind could not get by the
chaise to shoot him. What is the extraordinary part is, that it
was but two o'clock, and broad sunshine. It was shocking to see
anything one loved run away with to so
horrid a death. .... .

Just coming out of Camber, which is a little nasty old hole, I
copied an inscription set up at the end of a great road, which
was practised through an immense solid rock by bursting it
asunder with gunpowder. The Latin is pretty enough, and so I
send it
you:

"Carolus Emanuel II. Sab. dux, Pedem. princeps, Cypri
rex,public`a felicitate part`a, singulorum commodis intentus,
breviorem securioremque viam regiam, natur`a occlusam, Romanis
intentatam, mteris desperatam, dejectis scopulorum repagulus,
aquata montiuminiquitate, quae cervicibus imminebant precipitia
pedibus substernens, aeternis populorum commerciis patefecit.
A.D. 1670."

We passed the Pas de Suze, where is a strong fortress on a rock,
between two very neighbouring mountains; and then, through a fine
avenue of three leagues, we at last discovered Tturin:--

"E l'un k l'altro mostra, ed in tanto oblia
La noia, e'l mal 'delta passata via."'

'Tis really by far one of the prettiest cities I have seen; not
one of your large straggling ones that can afford to have twenty
dirty suburbs, but, clean and compact, very new and very regular.
The king's palace is not of the proudest without, but of the
richest within; painted, gilt, looking-glassed, very costly, but
very tawdry; in short, a very popular palace. We were last night
at the Italian comedy-the devil of a house and the devil of
actors! Besides this, there is a sort of an heroic tragedy,
called "La rapprentatione dell' Anima Damnata."(173) A woman, a
sinner, comes in and makes a solemn prayer to the Trinity: enter
Jesus Christ and the Virgin: he scolds, and exit: she tells the
woman her son is very angry, but she don't know, she will see
what she can do. After the play we were introduced to the
assembly, which they call the conversazione: there were many
people playing at ombre, pharaoh, and a game called taroc, with
cards so high, (174) to the number of seventy-eight. There are
three or four English here Lord Lincoln,(175) with Spence,(176)
your professor of poetry; a Mr. B*** and a Mr. C*** a man that
never utters a syllable. We have tried all stratagems to make
him speak. Yesterday he did at last open his mouth, and said
Bec. all laughed so at the novelty of the thing that he shut it
again, and will never speak more. I think you can't complain now
of my not writing to you. What a volume of trifles! I wrote
just the fellow to it from Geneva; had it you? Farewell! Thine.

(172) This incident is described also by Gray in one of his
letters to his mother. "If the dog," he adds, "had not been
there, and the creature had thought fit to lay hold of one of the
horses, chaise and we, and all, must inevitably have tumbled
above fifty fathoms perpendicularly down the precipice."-E.

(173) This representation is also mentioned by Spence, in a
letter to his mother:-"In spite of the excellence," he says, "of
the actors, the greatest part of the entertainment to me was the
countenances of the people in the pit and boxes. When the devils
were like to carry off the Damned Soul, every body was in the
utmost consternation and when St. John spoke so obligingly to
her, they were ready to cry out for joy. When the Virgin
appeared on the stage, every body looked respectful; and, on
several words spoke by the actors, they pulled off, their hats,
and crossed themselves. What can you think of a people, where
their very farces are religious, and where they are so
religiously received? It was from such a play as this (called
Adam and Eve) that Milton when he was in Italy, is said to have
taken the first hint for his divine poem of "Paradise Lost."
What small beginnings are there sometimes to the greatest
things!-E.

(174) In the manuscript the writing of this word is extraordinary
tall.

(175) Henry ninth Earl of Lincoln, who having, in 1744, married
Catherine, eldest daughter and heiress of the Right Honourable
Henry Pelham, inherited, in 1768, the dukedom of
Newcastle-under-Line at the demise of the countess's uncle,
Thomas Pelham Holles, who, in 1756, had been created Duke of
Newcastle-under-Line, with special remainder to the Earl of
Lincoln.-E.

(176) The Rev. Joseph Spence, the author of one of the best
collections of ana the English language possesses-the well-known
"Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters of Books and Men," of
which the best edition is that edited by Singer.-E.

140 Letter 15
To Richard West, Esq.
>From Bologna, 1739.

I don't know why I told Ashton I would send you an account of
what I saw: don't believe it, I don't intend it. Only think what
a vile employment 'tis, making
catalogues! And then one should have that odious Curl (177) get
at one's letters, and publish them like Whitfield's
Journal, or for a supplement to the Traveller's Pocket
Companion. Dear West, I protest against having seen any thing
but what all the world has seen; nay, I have not seen half that,
not-some of the most common things; not so much as a miracle.
Well, but you don't expect it, do you? Except
pictures. and statues, we are not very fond of sights; don't go
a-staring after crooked towers and conundrum staircases. Don't
you hate, too, a jingling epitaph (178) of one Procul and one
Proculus that is here? Now and then we drop in at a procession,
or a high-mass, hear the music, enjoy a strange attire, and hate
the foul monkhood. Last week, was the feast of the Immaculate
Conception. On the eve we went to the
Franciscans' church to hear the academical exercises. There were
moult and moult clergy, about two dozen dames, that
treated one another with illustrissima and brown kisses, the
vice-legate, the gonfalonier, and some senate. The
vice-legate, whose conception was not quite so immaculate, is a
young personable person, of about twenty, and had on a
mighty pretty cardinal-kind of habit; 'twould make a
delightful masquerade dress. We asked his name: Spinola. What,
a nephew of the cardinal-legate? Signor, no: ma credo che gli
sia qualche cosa. He sat on the right hand with the gonfalonier
in two purple fauteuils. Opposite was a throne of crimson
damask, with the device of the Academy, the Gelati; and trimmings
of gold. Here sat at a table, in black, the head of' the
academy, between the orator and the first poet At two
semicircular tables on either hand sat three poets and three;
silent among many candles. The chief made a little introduction,
the orator a long Italian vile harangue. Then the chief, the
poet, and the poets,-who were a Franciscan, an Olivetan, an old
abb`e, and three lay,-read their
compositions; and to-day they are pasted up in all parts of the
town. As we came out of the church, we found all the
convent and neighbouring houses lighted all over with
lanthorns of red and yellow paper, and two bonfires. But you are
sick of this foolish ceremony; I'll carry you to no more -. I
will only mention, that we found the Dominicans' church here in
mourning for the inquisitor: 'twas all hung with black cloth,
furbelowed and festooned with yellow gauze. We have seen a
furniture here in a much prettier taste; a gallery of Count
Caprara's: in the panels between the windows are pendent trophies
of various arms taken by one of his ancestors from the Turks.
They are whimsical, romantic, and have a pretty effect. I looked
about, but could not perceive the portrait of the lady at whose
feet they were indisputably offered. In coming out of Genoa we
were more lucky; found the very spot where Horatio and Lothario
were to have fought, "west of the town, a mile among the rocks."

My dear West, in return for your epigrams of Prior, I will
transcribe some old verses too, but which I fancy I can show you
in a sort of a new light. They are no newer than Virgil, and
what is more odd, are in the second Georgic. 'Tis, that I have
observed that he not only excels when he is like himself, but
even when he is very like inferior poets: you will say that they
rather excel by being like him: but mind, they are all near one
another:

"Si non ingenter oribus domus alta superbis
Mane sa@atame totis vomit Eedibus uridam:"

And the four next lines; are they not just like Martial? In the
following he is as much Claudian"

"Illum non populi fasces, non purpura regum
Flexit, et infidos agitans discordia fratres;
Aut conjurato descendens Dacus ab Istro."

Then who are these like?

"nec ferrea jura, insanumque forum,
aut populi tabularia vidit.
Sollicitant alii remis freta ceca, ruuntque
In ferrum, penetrant aulas et limina regum.
Hic petit excidiis urbem miseresque Penates,
Ut gemma, bibat, et Sarrano indormiat ostro."

Don't they seem to be Juvenal's?-There are some more, which to me
resemble, Horace; but perhaps I think so from his having some on
a parallel subject. Tell me if I am mistaken; these are they:

"Interea dulces pendent eircum oscula nati:
Casta pudicitiam servat domus-"

inclusively to the end of these:

"Hanc olim veteres vitam colti`ere Sabini
Hanc Remus et frater: sic fortis Etruria crevit,
Scilicet et retum facta est pulcherrima Roma."

If the imagination is whimsical; well at least, 'tis like me to
have imagined it. Adieu, child! We leave Bologna
to-morrow. You know 'tis the third city in Italy for
pictures: knowing that, you know all. We shall be three days
crossing the Apennine to Florence: would it were over!

My dear West, I am yours from St. Peter's to St. Paul's!

(177) Edmund Curll, the well-known bookseller. The letters
between Pope and many of his friends falling into Curll's hands,
they were by him printed and sold. As the volume contained some
letters from noblemen, Pope incited a prosecution against him in
the House of Lords for breach of privilege; but, when the orders
of the House were examined, none of them appeared to have been
infringed: Curll went away triumphant, and Pope was left to seek
some other remedy.-E.

(178) The Epitaph on the outside of the wall of the church of St.
Proculo-

Si procul `a Proculo Proculi campana fuisset, Jam procul `a
Proculo Proculus ipse foret. A.D. 1392.

142 Letter 16
To Richard West, Esq.
Florence, Jan. 24, 1740, N. S.

Dear West,
I don't know what volumes I may send you from Rome; from
Florence I have little inclination to send you any. I see
several things that please me calmly, but `a force d'en avoir vu
I have left off screaming Lord! this! and Lord! that! To speak
sincerely, Calais surprised me more than any thing I have seen
since. I recollect the joy I used to propose if I could but once
see the great duke's gallery; I walk into it now with as little
emotion as I should into St. Paul's. The statues are a
congregation of good sort of people, that I have a great deal of
unruffled regard for. The farther I travel the less I wonder at
any thing: a few days reconcile one to a new spot, or an unseen
custom; and men are
so much the same every where, that one scarce perceives any
change of situation. The same weaknesses, the same passions that
in England plunge men into elections, drinking, whoring, exist
here, and show themselves in the shapes of Jesuits,
Cicisbeos, and Corydon ardebat Alexins. The most remarkable
thing I have observed since I came abroad, is, that there are no
people so obviously mad as the English. The French, the
Italians, have great follies, great faults; but then they are so
national, they cease to be striking. In England, tempers vary so
excessively, that almost every one's faults are
peculiar to himself. I take this diversity to proceed partly
from our climate, partly from our government: the first is
changeable, and makes us queer; the latter permits our
queernesses to operate as they please. If one
could avoid contracting this queerness, it must certainly be the
most entertaining to live in England, where such a variety of
incidents continually amuse. The incidents of a week in London
would furnish all Italy with news for a twelvemonth. The only
two circumstances of moment in the life of an
Italian, that ever give occasion to their being mentioned, are,
being married, and in a year after taking a cicisbeo. Ask the
name, the husband, the wife, or the cicisbeo, of any person, et
voila qui est fini.
Thus, child, 'tis dull dealing here! Methinks your Spanish war is
little more livel By the gravity of the proceedings, one would
think both nations were Spaniard. Adieu! Do you
remember my maxim, that you used to laugh at? Every body does
every thing, and nothing comes on't. I am more convinced of it
now than ever. I don't know whether S***w,'s was not still
better, Well, gad, there is nothing in nothing. You see how I
distil all my speculations and improvements, that they may lie in
a small compass. Do you remember the story of the prince, that,
after travelling three years, brought home nothing but a nut?
They cracked it: in it was wrapped up a piece of silk, painted
with all the kings, queens, kingdoms. and every thing in the
world: after many unfoldings, out stepped a little dog, shook his
ears, and fell to dancing a saraband. There is a fairy tale for
you. If I had any thing as good as your old song, I would send
it too; but I can only thank you for it, and bid you good night.
Yours ever.

P. S. Upon reading my letter, I perceive still plainer the
sameness that reigns here; for I find I have said the same thing
ten times over. I don't care, I have made out a letter, and that
was all my affair.

143 Letter 17
To Richard West, Esq.
Florence, February 27, 1740, N. S.

Well, West, I have found a little unmasqued moment to Write to
you; but for this week past I have been so muffled up in my
domino, that I have not had the command of my elbows. But what
have you been doing all the mornings? Could you not
write then?-No, then I was masqued too; I have done nothing but
slip out of my domino into bed, and out of bed into my domino.
The end of the Carnival is frantic, bacchanalian; all the morn
one makes parties in masque to the shops and
coffee-houses, and all the evening to the operas and balls. Then
I have danced, good gods! how have I danced! The
Italians are fond to a degree of our country dances: Cold and
raw-they only know by the tune; Blowzybella is almost Italian,
and Buttered peas is Pizelli ag buro. There are but three days
more; but the two last are to have balls all the morning at the
fine unfinished palace of the Strozzi; and the Tuesday night a
masquerade after supper: they sup first, to eat gras, and not
encroach upon Ash-Wednesday. What makes masquerading more
agreeable here than in England, is
the great deference that is showed to the disguised. Here they
do not catch at those little dirty opportunities of
saying any ill-natured thing they know of you, do not abuse you
because they may, or talk gross bawdy to a woman of
quality. I found the other day, by a play of Etheridge's, that
we have had a sort of Carnival even since the
Reformation; Ytis in "She would if She could," they talk of going
a-mumming in Shrove-tide.(179)-After talking so much of
diversions, I fear you will attribute
to them the fondness I own I contract for Florence; but it has so
many other charms, that I shall not want excuses for
my taste. The freedom of the Carnival has given me
opportunities to make several acquaintances.; and if I have no
found them refined, learned, polished, like some other cities,
yet they are civil, good-natured, and fond of the English-.
Their little partiality for themselves, opposed to the
violent vanity of the French, makes them very amiable in my eyes.
I can give you a comical instance of their great
prejudice about nobility; it happened yesterday. While we were
at dinner at Mr. Mann'S. (180) word was brought by his secretary,
that a cavalier demanded audience of him upon an affair of
honour. Gray and I flew behind the curtain of the door. An
elderly gentleman, whose attire was not certainly correspondent
to the greatness of his birth, entered, and
informed the British minister, that one Martin. an English
painter, had left a challenge for him at his house, for having
said Martin was no gentleman. He would by no means have spoke of
the duel before the transaction of it, but that his honour, his
blood, his etc. would never permit him to fight with one who was
no cavalier; which was what he came to inquire of his excellency.
We laughed loud laughs, but unheard: his fright or his nobility
had closed his ears. But mark the sequel: the instant he was
gone, my very English curiosity hurried me out of the gate St.
Gallo; 'twas
the place and hour appointed. We had not been driving about
above ten minutes, but out popped a little figure, pale but
cross, with beard unshaved and hair uncombed, a slouched hat, and
a considerable red cloak, in which was wrapped, under his arm,
the fatal sword that was to revenge the highly injured Mr.
Martin, painter and defendant. I darted my head out of the
coach, just ready to say, " Your servant, Mr. Martin," and talk
about the architecture of the triumphal arch that was building
there; but he would not know me, and walked off. We left him to
wait for an hour, to grow very cold and very
valiant the more it grew past the hour of appointment. We were
figuring all the poor creature's huddle of thoughts, and confused
hopes of victory or fame, of his unfinished pictures, or his
situation upon bouncing into the next world. You will think us
strange creatures; but 'twas a pleasant sight, as we knew the
poor painter was safe. I have thought of it since, and am
inclined to believe that nothing but two English could have been
capable of such a jaunt. I remember, 'twas reported in London,
that the plague was at a house in the city, and all the town went
to see it.