Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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(192) This report, which proved unfounded, was grounded on the
fact, that on the 18th of April his Majesty's ships Lenox, Kent,
and Orford, commanded by Captains Mayne, Durell, and Lord
Augustus Fitzroy, part of Admiral Balchen's squadron
being on a cruise about forty leagues to the westward of Cape
Finisterre, fell in with the Princessa, esteemed the finest ship
of war in the Spanish navy, and captured her, after an engagement
of five hours.-E.

(193) Henry fourth Earl of Carlisle, grandfather of the
present Earl. In 1742, he married Isabella, the daughter of
William fourth Lord Byron, and died in 1758.-E.

(194) Cardinal Ottoboni, Dean of the Sacred College, who died in
1740: he had been made a cardinal in 1689.-E.

153 Letter 23
To Richard West, Esq.
Naples, June 14, 1740, N. S.

Dear West,
One hates writing descriptions that are to be found in every book
of travels; but we have seen something to-day that I am sure you
never read of, and perhaps never heard of. Have
you ever heard of a subterraneous town? a whole Roman town, with
all its edifices, remaining under ground? Don't fancy the
inhabitants buried it there to save it from the Goths: they were
buried with it themselves; which is a caution we are not told
that they ever took. You remember in Titus's time there were
several cities destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius,
attended with an earthquake. Well, this was one of them, not
very considerable, and then called Herculaneum. (195) Above it
has since been built Portici, about three miles from
Naples, where the King has a villa. This under-ground city is
perhaps one of the noblest curiosities that ever has been
discovered. It was found out by chance, about a year and half
ago. They began digging, they found statues; they dug,
further, they found more. Since that they have made a
very considerable progress, and find continually. You may walk
the compass of a mile; but by the misfortune of the
modern town being overhead, they are obliged to proceed with
great caution, lest they destroy both one and t'other. By this
occasion the path is very narrow, just wide enough and high
enough for one man to walk upright. They have hollowed, as they
found it easiest to work, and have carried their
streets not exactly where were the ancient ones, but sometimes
before houses, sometimes through them. You would imagine that
all the fabrics were crushed together; on the contrary.,
except some columns, they have found all the edifices standing
upright in their proper ' situation. There is one inside of a
temple quite perfect, with the middle arch, two columns, and two
pilasters. It is built of brick plastered over, and
painted with architecture almost all the insides of the houses
are in the same manner; and, what is very particular the
general ground of all the painting is red. Besides this
temple, they make out very plainly an amphitheatre: the
stairs, of white marble and the seats are very perfect; the
inside was painted in the same colour with the private houses,
and great part cased with white marble. They have found among
other things some fine statues, some human bones, some rice,
medals, and a few paintings
extremely fine. These latter are preferred to all the ancient
paintings that have ever been discovered. We have not seen them
yet, as they are kept in the King's apartment, whither all these
curiosities are transplanted; and 'tis difficult to see them-but
we shall. I forgot to tell you, that in several places the beams
of the houses remain, but burnt to charcoal; so little damaged
that they retain visibly the grain of the wood, but upon touching
crumble to ashes. What is remarkable, there are no other marks
or appearance of fire, but what are visible on these beams.

There might certainly be collected great light from this
reservoir of antiquities, if a man of learning had the
inspection of it; if he directed the working, and would make a
journal of the discoveries. But I believe there is no
judicious choice made of directors. There is nothing of the kind
known in the world; I mean a Roman city entire of that age, and
that has not been corrupted with modern repairs.
(196) Besides scrutinising this very carefully, I should be
inclined to search for the remains of the other towns that were
partners with this in the general ruin. 'Tis certainly an
advantage to the learned world, that this has been laid up so
long. Most of the discoveries in Rome were made in a
barbarous age, where they only ransacked the ruins in quest of
treasure, and had no regard to the form and being of the
building; or to any circumstances that might give light to its
use and history. I shall finish this long account with a
passage which Gray has observed in Statius, and which
correctly pictures out this latent city:-

Haec ego Chalcidicis ad te, Marcelle, sonabam
Littoribus, fractas ubi Vestius egerit iras,
Emula Trinacriis volvens incendia flammis.
Mira fides! credetne viram ventura propago,
Cum segetes iterum, cum jam haec deserta virebunt,
Infra urbes populosque premi?
SyLv. lib. iv. epist. 4.

Adieu, my dear West! and believe me yours ever.

(195) Some excavations were made at Herculaneum in 1709
by the Prince d'Elbeuf; but, thirty years elapsed after the
prince had been forbidden to dig further, before any more
notice was taken of them. In December 1738 the King of the two
Sicilies was at Portici, and gave orders for the
prosecution of these subterranean labours. There had been an
excavation in the time of the Romans;
and another so lately as 1689. In a letter from Gray
to his mother, he describes their visits to Herculaneum;
but, not mentioning it by name, Mason supposed it had not then
been discovered to be that city. It is evident, from this
observation of Walpole, that Mason's opinion was unfounded.-E.

(196) Pompei a was not then discovered.

155 Letter 24
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
R`e di Cofano, vulg. Radicofani, July 5, 1740, N. S.

You will wonder, my dear Hal, to find me on the road from
Rome: why, intend I did to stay for a new popedom, but the old
eminences are cross and obstinate, and will not choose one the
Holy Ghost does not know when. There is a horrid thing called
the mallaria, that comes to Rome, every summer, and kills one,
and I did not care for being killed so far from Christian burial.
We have been jolted to death; my servants let us
come without springs to the chaise, and we are wore
threadbare: to add to our disasters, I have sprained my ancle,
and have brought it along, laid upon a little box of baubles that
I have bought for presents in England. Perhaps I may pick you
out some little trifle there, but don't depend upon it; you are a
disagreeable creature and may be I shall not care for you.
Though I am so tired in this devil of a place, yet I have taken
it into my head, that it is like Hamilton's Bawn, (197) and I
must write to you. 'Tis the top of a black barren mountain, a
vile little town at the foot of an old citadel: yet this, know
you, was the residence of one of the three kings that went to
Christ's birth-day; his name was Alabaster, Abarasser, or some
such thing; the other two were kings, one of the East, the other
of Cologn. 'Tis this of Cofano, who was represented in an
ancient painting found in the Palatine Mount, now in the
possession of Dr. Mead; he was crowned by Augustus. Well, but
about writing-what do you think I write with? Nay, with a pen;
there was never a one to be found in the whole
circumference but one, and that was in the possession of the
governor, and had been used time out of mind to write
the parole with : I was forced to send to borrow it. It was sent
me under the conduct of a sergeant and two Swiss, with desire to
return it when I should have done with it. 'Tis a curiosity, and
worthy to be laid up with the relics
which we have just been seeing- in a small hovel of
Capucins, on the side of the hill, and which were all brought by
his Majesty from Jerusalem. Among other things of great sanctity
there is a set of gnashing of teeth, the grinders very entire; a
bit of the worm that never dies, preserved in spirits; a crow of
St. Peter's cock, very useful against
Easter; the crisping and curling, frizzling and frowncing of Mary
Magdalen, which she cut off on growing devout. The good man that
showed us all these commodities was got into such a train of
calling them the blessed this, and blessed that, that at last he
showed us a bit of the blessed fig-tree that Christ cursed.

Florence, July 9.

My dear Harry,
We are come hither, and I have received another letter from you
with Hosier's Ghost. Your last put me in pain for you, when you
talked of going to Ireland; but now I find your
brother and sister go with you, I am not much concerned.
Should I be? You have but to say, for my feelings are
extremely at your service to dispose as you please. Let us see:
you are to come back to stand for some
place; that will be about April. 'Tis a sort of thing I
should do, too; and then we should see one another, and that
would be charming; but it is a sort of thing I have no mind to
do; and then we shall not see one another, unless you
would come hither-but that you cannot do: nay, I would not have
you, for then I shall be gone. So! there are many @
that just signify nothing at all. Return I must sooner than I
shall like. I am happy here to a degree. I'll tell you my
situation. I am lodged with Mr. Mann, (198) the best of
creatures. I have a terreno all to myself, with an open
gallery on the Arno, where I am now writing to you. Over
against me is the famous Gallery; and, on either hand, two fair
bridges. Is not this charming and cool? The air is so serene,
and so secure, that one sleeps with all the windows and doors
thrown open to the river, and only covered with a slight gauze to
keep away the gnats. Lady Pomfret
(199) has a charming conversation once a week. She has
taken a vast palace and a vast garden, which is vastly
commode, especially to the cicisbeo-part of mankind, who have
free indulgence to wander in pairs about the arbours. You know
her daughters : Lady Sophia (200) is still, nay she must be, the
beauty she was: Lady Charlotte, (201) is much improved, and is
the cleverest girl in the world; speaks the purest Tuscan, like
any Florentine. The
Princess Craon (202) has a constant pharaoh and supper every
night, where one is quite at one's ease. I am going into the
country with her and the prince for a little while, to a villa of
the Great Duke's. The people are good-humoured here and easy;
and what makes me pleased with them, they are pleased with me.
One loves to find people care for one, when they can have no view
in it.

You see how glad I am to have reasons for not returning; I wish I
had no better.

As to Hosier's Ghost, (203) I think it very easy, and
consequently pretty; but, from the ease, should never have
guessed it Glover's. I delight in your, "the patriots cry it up,
and the courtiers cry it down, and the hawkers cry it up and
down," and your laconic history of the King and Sir
Robert, on going to Hanover, and turning out the Duke of
Argyle. The epigram, too, you sent me
on the same occasion is charming.

Unless I sent you back news that you and others send me, I can
send you none. I have left the conclave, which is the only
stirring thing in this part of the world, except the child that
the Queen of Naples is to be delivered of in August. There is no
likelihood the conclave will end, unless the messages take effect
which 'tis said the Imperial and
French ministers have sent to their respective courts for
leave to quit the Corsini for the Albani faction: otherwise there
will never be a pope. Corsini has
lost the only one he could have ventured to make pope, and him he
designed; 'twas Cenci, a relation of the Corsini's
mistress. The last morning Corsini made him rise, stuffed a dish
of chocolate down his throat, and would carry him to
the scrutiny. The poor old creature went, came back, and
died. I am sorry to have lost the sight of the pope's
coronation, but I might have stayed for seeing it till I had been
old enough to be pope myself.

Harry, what luck the chancellor has! first, indeed, to be in
himself so great a man; but then in accidents: he is
made chief justice and peer, when Talbot is made chancellor and
peer: (204) Talbot dies in a twelvemonth, and leaves him the
seals at an age when others are scarce made solicitors:
(205)-then marries his son into one of the first families of
Britain, (206) obtains a patent for a marquisate and eight
thousand pounds a year after the Duke of Kent's death: the duke
dies in a fortnightt, and leaves them all! People talk of
Fortune's wheel, that is always rolling: my Lord Hardwicke has
overtaken her wheel, and rolled with it. I perceive Miss Jenny
(207) would not venture to Ireland, nor stray so far from London;
I am glad I shall always know where to find her within threescore
miles. I must say a word to my lord, which, Harry, be sure you
don't read. ["My dear lord, I don't love troubling you with
letters, because I know you don't love the trouble of answering
them; not that I should insist on that ceremony, but I hate to
burthen any one's conscience. Your brother tells me he is to
stand member of parliament: without telling me so, I am sure he
owes it to you. I am sure you will not repent setting him up;
nor will he be ungrateful to a brother who deserves so much, and
whose least merit is not the knowing how to employ so great a
fortune."]

There, Harry,-I have done. Don't suspect me: I have said no ill
of you behind your back. Make my
best compliments to Miss Conway. (208)

I thoght I had done, and lo, I had forgot to tell you, that who
d'ye think is here?-Even Mr. More! our Rheims Mr.
More! the fortification, hornwork, ravelin, bastion Mr.
More! which is very pleasant sure. At the end of the eighth
side, I think I need make no excuse for leaving off; but I am
going to write to Selwyn, and to the lady of the mountain; from
whom I have had a very kind letter. She has at last
received the Chantilly brass. Good night: write to me from one
end of the world to t'other. Yours ever.

(197) A large old house, two miles from the seat of Sir
Arthur Acheson, near Market-hill, and the scene of Swift's
humorous poem, "The Grand Question debated, whether
Hamilton's Bawn should be turned into a barrack or a malt-
house."-E.

(198) Afterwards Sir Horace Mann. He was at this time
resident at Florence from George II.

(199) Henrietta Louisa, wife of Thomas Earl of Pomfret. [She was
the daughter of John Lord Jefferies, Baron of Wem. Lady Pomfret,
who was the friend and correspondent of Frances
Duchess of Somerset, retired from the court upon the death of
Queen Caroline in 1737.]

(200) Afterwards married to John Lord Carteret, who became Earl
of Granville on the death of his mother in the year 1744.

(201) Lady Charlotte Fermor married, in August 1746, William
Finch, brother of Daniel seventh Earl of Winchelsea, by whom she
had issue a son, George, who, on the death of his uncle, in 1769,
succeeded to the earldom. Her ladyship was governess to the
children of George III., and highly esteemcd by him and his royal
consort.-E.

(202) The Princess Craon was the favourite mistress of
Leopold the last Duke of Lorrain, who married her to M. de
Beauveau, and prevailed on the Emperor to make him a prince of
the empire. They at this time resided at Florence, where Prince
Craon was at the head of the council of regency.

(203) This was a party ballad (written by Glover, though by some
at the time ascribed to Lord Bath,) on the taking of
Porto-Bello by Admiral Vernon. "The case of Hosier," says
Bishop Percy, in his admirable Reliques, vol. ii. p. 382,
where the song is preserved, "The case of Hosier, which is here
so pathetically represented, was briefly this. In
April 1726, that commander was sent with a strong fleet into the
Spanish West Indies to block up the galleons in the port of that
country, or, should they presume to come out, to
seize and carry them to England: he accordingly arrived at
Bastimentos, near Porto-Bello; but, being employed rather to
overawe than attack the Spaniards, with whom it was probably not
our interest to go to war, he continued long inactive on this
station. He afterwards removed to Carthagena, and
remained crusing in those seas, till the greater part of his men
perished deplorably by the diseases of that unhealthy
Climate. This brave man, seeing his best officers and men thus
daily swept away, his ships exposed to inevitable
destruction, and himself made the sport of the enemy, is
said to have died of a broken heart.-E.

(204) Philip Yorke Lord Hardwicke was the son of an attorney at
Dover, and was introduced by the Duke of Newcastle to Sir Robert
Walpole. He was attorney-general, and when Talbot, the
solicitor-general, was preferred to him in the contest for the
chancellorship, Sir Robert made him chief justice
for life, with an increased salary. He was an object of
aversion to Horace Walpole, who, in his Memoirs, tells us, "in
the House of Lords, he was laughed at, in the cabinet
despised." Upon which it is very properly observed by the
noble editor of those memoirs, Lord Hollan,-"Yet, in the
course of the work, Walpole laments Lord Hardwicke's
influence in the cabinet, where he would have us believe
that he was despised, and acknowledges that he exercised a
dominion nearly absolute over that house of Parliament
which, he would persuade his readers, laughed at him. The truth
is, that, wherever this great magistrate is mentioned, Lord
Orford's resentments blind his judgment and disfigure his
narrative."-E.

(205) charles Talbot baron Talbot was, on the 29th Nov.
1733, made lord high chancellor and created a baron; and,
dying in Feb. 1737, was succeeded by Lord Hardwicke. There is a
story current, that Sir Robert Walpole, finding it
difficult to prevail on Yorke to quit a place for life, for the
higher but more precarious dignity of chancellor, worked upon his
jealousy, and said that if he persisted in refusing the seals, he
must offer them to Fazakerly. "Fazakerly!"
exclaimed Yorke, "impossible! he is certainly a Tory,
perhaps a Jacobite." "It's all very true," replied Sir
Robert, taking out his watch; " but if by one o'clock you do not
accept my offer, Fazakerly by two becomes lord keeper of the
great seal, and one of the staunchest Whigs in all
England!" Yorke took the seals and the peerage.-E.

(206) That of Grey, Duke of Kent, see avove.-E.

(207) Miss Jane Conway, half-sister to Henry Seymour Conway. She
died unmarried in 1749.

(208) Afterwirds married to John Harris, Esq. of
Hayne in Devonshire.

159 Letter 25
To Richard West, Esq.
Florence, July 31, 1740, N. S.

Dear West,
I have advised with the most notable antiquarians of this city on
the meaning of Thur gut Luetis. I can get no satisfactory
interpretation. In my own opinion 'tis Welsh. I don't love
offering conjectures on a language in which I have hitherto made
little proficiency, but I will trust you with my
explication. You know the famous Aglaughlan, mother of
Cadwalladhor, was renowned for her conjugal virtues, and grief on
the death of her royal spouse. I conclude this medal was struck
in her regency, by her express order, to the memory of her lord,
and that the inscription Thur gut Luetis means no more than her
dear Llewis or Llewellin.

In return for your coins I send you two or three of different
kinds. The first is a money of one of the kings of Naples; the
device, a horse; the motto, Equitas regni. This curious pun is
on a coin in the Great Duke's collection, and by great chance I
have met with a second. Another is, a satirical
medal struck on Lewis XIV.; 'tis a bomb, covered with
flower-de-luces, bursting; the motto, Se ipsissimo. The last,
and almost the only one I ever saw with a text well applied, is a
German medal with a Rebellious town besieged and blocked up; the
inscription, This kind is not expelled but by fasting.
Now I mention medals, have they yet struck the intended one on
the taking of Porto-Bello? Admiral Vernon will shine in our
medallic history. We have just received the news of the
bombarding Carthagena, and the taking Chagre. (209) We are in
great expectation of some important victory obtained by the
squadron under Sir John Norris. we are told the Duke is to be of
the expedition; is it true? (210) All the letters, too, talk of
France suddenly declaring war; I hope they will defer it for a
season, or one shall be obliged to return through Germany.

The conclave still subsists, and the divisions still increase; it
was very near separating last week, but by breaking into two
popes; they were on the dawn of a schism. Aldovrandi had
thirty-three voices for three days, but could not procure the
requisite two more; the Camerlingo having engaged his faction to
sign a protestation against him and each party were
inclined to elect. I don't know whether one should wish for a
schism or not; it might probably rekindle the zeal for the church
in the powers of Europe which has been so far decaying.
On Wednesday we expect a third she-meteor. Those learned
luminaries the Ladies Pomfret and Walpole are to be joined by the
Lady Mary Wortley Montague. You have not been witness to the
rhapsody of mystic nonsense which these two fair ones
debate incessantly, and consequently cannot figure what must be
the issue of this triple alliance: we have some idea of it. Only
figure the coalition of prudery, debauchery, sentiment, history,
Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and metaphysics; all, except the
second, understood by halves, by quarters, or not at all. You
shall have the journals of this notable academy. Adieu, my dear
West! Yours ever,

Hor. Walpole.

Though far unworthy to enter into so learned and political a
correspondence, I am employed pour barbouiller une page
de 7 pounces et demie en hauteur, et `a en largeur; and to inform
you that we are at Florence, a city of Italy, and the capital of
Tuscany: the latitude I cannot justly tell, but it is governed by
a prince called Great Duke; an excellent place to employ all
one's animal sensations in, but utterly contrary to one's
rational powers. I have struck a medal upon myself: the device
is thus 0, and the motto Nihilissimo, which I take in the most
concise manner to contain a full account of my person,
sentiments, occupations, and late glorious successes. If you
choose to be annihilated too, you cannot do better than undertake
this journey. Here you shall get up at twelve
o'clock, breakfast till three, dine till five, sleep till six,
drink cooling liquors till eight, go to the bridge till ten, sup
till two, and so sleep till twelve again.

Lahore fessi venimus ad larem nostrum,
Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto;
Hoc est, quod unum est, pro laborious tantis.
O quid solutis est beatius curis?

We shall never come home again; a universal war is just upon the
point of breaking out; all outlets will be
shut up. I shall be secure in my nothingness, while you, that
will be so absurd as to exist, will envy me. You don't tell me
what proficiency you make in the noble science of defence. Don't
you start still at the sound of a gun? Have you learned to say
ha! ha! and is your neck clothed with thunder? Are your whiskers
of a tolerable length? And have you got drunk yet with brandy and
gunpowders? Adieu, noble captain!
T. GRAY.

(209) On the 24th March, 1740, the Spaniards hung out a white
flag, and the place was surrendered by capitulation to Admiral
Vernon.-E.

(210) The Duke of Cumberland had resolved to accompany Sir John
Norris as a volunteer, and sailed with him from St.
Helens on the 10th June; but on the 17th a gale arising drove
them into Torbay, Where Sir John continued until the 29th, when
he again put to sea; but the wind once more becoming
contrary, and blowing very hard, he was constrained to return to
Spithead, and on the following day his royal highness
returned to London.-E.

161 Letter 26
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Florence, September 25, 1740, N. S.

My dear Hal,
I begin to answer your letter the moment I have read it,
because you bid me; but I grow so unfit for a correspondence with
any body in England, that I have almost left it off. 'Tis so
long since I was there, and I am so utterly a stranger to every
thing that passes there, that I must talk vastly in the dark to
those I write: and having in a manner settled
myself here, where there can be no news, I am void of all
matter for filling up a letter. As, by the absence of the Great
Duke, Florence is become in a manner a country town, YOU may
imagine that we are not without dem`el`es; but for a
country town I believe there never were a set of people so
peaceable, and such strangers to scandal. 'Tis the family of
love, where every body is paired, and go as constantly
together as paroquets. Here nobody hangs or drowns
themselves; they are not ready to cut one another's throats about
elections or parties; don't think that wit consists in saying
bold truths, or humour in getting
drunk. But I shall give you no more of their characters,
because I am so unfortunate as to think that their encomium
consists in being the reverse of the English, who in general are
either mad, or enough to make other people so. After
telling you so fairly my sentiments, you may believe, my dear
Harry, that I had rather see you here than in England. 'Tis an
evil wish for you, who should not be lost in so obscure a place
as this. I will not make you compliments, or else here is a
charming opportunity for saying what I think of you. As I am
convinced you love me, and as I am conscious you have One strong
reason for it, I will own to you, that for my own peace you
should wish me to remain here. I am so well within and without,
that you would scarce know me: I am younger than ever, think of
nothing but diverting myself, and live in a round of pleasures.
We have operas, concerts, and balls,
mornings and evenings. I dare not tell you all One's
idleness: you would look so grave and senatorial at hearing that
one rises at eleven in the morning, goes to the opera at nine at
night, to supper at one, and to bed at three! But
literally here the evenings and nights are so charming and so
warm, one can't avoid 'em.