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

The Duchess of Buckingham, (375) who is more mad with pride than
any merchant's wife in Bedlam, came the other night to the opera
en princesse, literally in robes, red velvet and ermine. I must
tell you a story of her: last week she sent for Cori,(376) to pay
him for her opera-ticket; he was not at
home, but went in an hour afterwards. She said, "Did he treat
her like a tradeswoman? She would teach him to respect women of
her birth; said he was in league with Mr. Sheffield (377) to
abuse her, and bade him come the next morning at nine." He came,
and she made him wait till eight at night, only sending him an
omlet and a bottle of wine, "as it was Friday, and he a Catholic,
she supposed he did not eat meat." At last she
received him in all the form of a princess giving audience to an
ambassador. "Now," she said, "she had punished him."

In this age we have some who pretend to impartiality: you will
scarce guess how Lord Brook (378) shows his: he gives one vote on
one side, one on the other, and the third time does not vote at
all, and so on, regularly.

My sister is ,up to the elbows in joy and flowers that she has
received from you this morning and begs I will thank you for her.

You know, or have heard of, Mrs. Nugent, Newsham's mother; she
went the other morning to Lord Chesterfield to beg "he would
encourage Mr. Nugent (379) to speak in the house; for that really
he was so bashful, she was afraid his abilities would be lost on
the world." I don't know who has encouraged him; but so it is,
that this modest Irish converted Catholic does talk a prodigious
deal of nonsense in behalf of English
liberty.

Lord Gage (380) is another; no man would trust him in a wager,
unless he stakes, and yet he is trusted by a whole borough with
their privileges and liberties! He told Mr. Winnington the other
day, that he would bring his son into parliament, that he would
not influence him, but leave him entirely to himself. "D-n it,"
said Winnington, "so you have all his
lifetime."

Your brother says you accuse him of not writing to you, and that
his reasons are, he has not time, and next, that I tell you all
that can be said. So I do, I think: tell me when I begin to tire
you, or if I am too circumstantial; but I don't believe you will
think so, for I remember how we used to want such a correspondent
when I was with you.

I have spoke about the young man who is well content to live with
you as a servant out of livery. I am to settle the
affair finally with his father on Monday, and then he shall set
out as soon as possible. I will send the things for
Prince Craon etc. by him. I will write to Madame Grifoni the
moment I hear she is returned from the country.

The Princess Hesse (381) is brought to bed of a son. We are
going into mourning for the Queen of Sweden;(382) she had
always been apprehensive of the small-pox, which has been very
fatal in her family.

You have heard, I suppose, of the new revolution (383) in
Muscovy. The letters from Holland to-day say, that they have put
to death the young Czar and his mother, and his father too:
which, if true,(384) is going very far, for he was of a sovereign
house in another country, no subject of Russia, and after the
death of his wife and son, could have no pretence or interest to
raise more commotions there.

We have got a new opera, not so good as the former; and we have
got the famous Bettina to dance, but she is a most
indifferent performer. The house is excessively full every
Saturday, never on Tuesday: here, you know, we make every
thing a fashion.

I am happy that my fears for Tuscany vanish every letter. There!
there is a letter of twelve sides! I am forced to page it, it is
SO long, and I have not time to read it over and look for the
mistakes.
Yours, ever.

(363) Antonio Cocchi, a learned physician and author, at
Florence; a particular friend of Mr. Mann. [The following
favourable character of Dr. Cocchi is contained in a letter from
the Earl of Cork to Mr. Duncombe, dated Florence,
November 29, 1754. "Mr Mann's fortunate in the friendship, skill,
and care of his physician, Dr. Cocchi. He is a man of most
extensive learning; understands, reads, and speaks all the
European languages; studious, polite, modest, humane, and
instructive. He is always to be admired and beloved by all who
know him. Could I live with these two gentlemen only, and
converse with few or none others, I should scarce desire to
return to England for many years."]

(364) Samuel Sandys, a republican, raised on the fall of Sir
R.'W. to be chancellor of the exchequer, then degraded to a peer
and cofferer, and soon afterwards laid aside. [In 1743, he was
raised to the peerage by the title of Lord Sandys,
Baron of Omberley in the county of Worcester, and died in
1770. Dr. Nash, in his history of that county, states him to
have been "a very useful, diligent senator-a warm, steady
friend-a good neighbor, and a most hospitable country
gentleman and provincial magistrate."]

(365) William Murray, brother of Lord- Stormont, and of Lord
Dunbar, the Pretender's first minister. He is known by his
eloquence and the friendship of Mr. Pope. He was soon
afterwards promoted to be solicitor-general. (Afterwards the
celebrated chief-justice of the King's Bench, and Earl of
Man's'field.-D.)

(366) Sir Richard Lloyd, advanced in 1754 to be
solicitor-general, in the room of Mr. Murray, appointed
attorney-general. [And in 1759, appointed one of the Barons of
the exchequer.]

(367) Arthur St. Leger, Lord Doneraile, died in 1750, being lord
of the bedchamber to the Prince of Wales.

(368) Lord Sundon and Sir Charles Wager had been the Court
candidates for Westminster at the late election against
Admiral Vernon and Charles Edwin, Esq.-D.

(369) A great London merchant, and one of the members for the
City. His reputation for integrity and ability gave him much
weight in the House of Commons.-D. (Lord Chatham, when mr. Pitt,
frequently calls him the Great Commoner. In 1749, he became
father of the City; when, much against his will, the merchants
erected a statue of him in the Royal Exchange. He died in 1764.]

(370) Paul Whitehead, an infamous but not despicable poet. [See
ante, p. 190, Letter 42.]

(371) Thomas Lord Viscount Gage had been a Roman Catholic, and
was master of the household to the Prince. [Lord Gage, in
1721, was elected for the borough of Tewksbury; which he
represented till within a few months of his death, in 1754. He
was a zealous politician, and distinguished himself, in 1732, by
detecting the fraudulent sale of the Derwentwater estates.]

(372) John Perceval, second Earl of Egmont, in Ireland,
created, in 176@, Lord Lovel and Rolland in the peerage of Great
Britain. He became, in 1747, a lord of the bedchamber to
Frederick Prince of Wales, and in the early part of the reign of
George III. held successively the offices of
postmaster-general and first lord of the admiralty. He was a man
of some ability and a frequent and fluent speaker, and was the
author of a celebrated party pamphlet of' the day,
entitled "Faction Detected." His excessive love of ancestry led
him, in Conjunction with his father, and assisted by
Anderson, the genealogist, to print two thick octavo volumes
respecting his family, entitled "History of the House of
Ivery;" a most remarkable monument of human vanity.-D.
[Boswell was not of this opinion. "Some have affected to
laugh," he says, "at the History of the House of Ivery: it would
be well if many others would transmit their pedigrees to
posterity, with the same accuracy and generous zeal with which
the noble lord who compiled that work has honoured and
perpetuated his ancestry. Family histories, like the imagines
majorum of the ancients, excite to virtue." See "Life of
Johnson," vol viii. p. 188.]

(373) Swallowfield, in Berkshire, the seat of John Dodd, Esq.

(374) A scheme for obtaining a larger allowance for the Prince of
Wales.

(375) Catherine, Duchess Dowager of Buckingham, natural
daughter of King James II. (Supposed to be really the
daughter of Colonel Graham, a man of Gallantry of the time, and a
lover of her mother, Lady Dorchester.-D.) [This
remarkable woman was extravagantly proud of her descent from
James the Second, and affected to be the head of the Jacobite
party in England. She maintained a kind of royal state, and
affected great devotion to the memory of her father and
grandfather. On the death of her son, the second Duke of
Buckingham of the Sheffield family (whose funeral was
celebrated in a most extraordinary manner), she applied to the
old Duchess of Marlborough, who was as high spirited as
herself, for the loan of the richly-ornamented hearse which had
conveyed the great duke to his grave. "Tell her," said Sarah, "it
carried the Duke of Marlborough, and shall never carry any one
else." "My upholsterer," rejoined Catherine of Buckingham in a
fury, "tells me I can have a finer for twenty pounds."-" This
last stroke," says the editor of the Suffolk Correspondence, "
was aimed at the parsimony of their Graces of Marlborough, which
was supposed to have been visible even in the funeral; but the
sarcasm was as unjust as the original request of borrowing the
hearse was mean and unfeeling."-E.]

(376) Angelo Maria Cori, prompter to the Opera.

(377) Mr. Sheffield, natural son of the late Duke of
Buckingham, with whom she was at law.

(378) Francis, Baron, and afterwards created Earl Brooke.

(379) Robert Nugent, a poet, a patriot, an author, a lord of the
treasury, (and finally an Irish peer by the titles of Lord Clare
and Earl Nugent. He seems to have passed his long life in
seeking lucrative places and courting rich widows, in both of
which pursuits be was eminently successful.-D.) [He married the
sister and heiress of Secretary Craggs, and his only
daughter married the first Marquis of Buckingham. A volume of
his ,Odes and Epistles" were published anonymously in 1733. He
died in 1788.)

(380) Lord Gage was one of those persons to whom the
privileges of parliament were of extreme consequence, as their
own liberties were inseparable from them.

(381) Mary, fourth daughter of King George II.

(382) Ulrica, Queen of Sweden, sister of Charles XII.

(383) This relates to the revolution by which the young Czar John
was deposed, and the Princess Elizabeth raised to the throne.

(384) This was not true. The Princess Anne of Mecklenburgh died
in prison at Riga, a few years afterwards. Her son, the young
Czar, and her husband, Prince Antony of Brunswick
Wolfenbuttle, were confined for many years.

206 Letter 49
To Sir Horace Mann.
London, Dec. 29, 1741.

I write to YOU two days before the post goes out, because
to-morrow I am to go out of town; but I would answer your
letter by way of Holland, to tell you how much you have
obliged both Sir Robert and me about the Dominichini;(385) and to
beg you to thank Mr. Chute and Mr. Whithed-but I cannot leave it
to you.

"My dear Mr. Chute, was ever any thing so kind! I crossed the
Giogo (386) with Mr. Coke,(387) but it was in August, and I
thought it then the greatest compliment that ever was paid to
mortal; and I went with him too! but you to go only for a
picture, and in the month of December: What can I say to you? You
do more to oblige your friend, than I can find terms to thank you
for. If I was to tell-it here, it would be believed as little as
the rape of poor Tory (388) by a wolf. I can only say that I
know the Giogo, its snows and its inns, and consequently know the
extent of the obligation that I have to you and Mr. Whithed."

Now I return to you, my dear child: I am really so much
obliged to you and to them, that I know not what to say. I read
Pennee's letter to Sir. R., who was much pleased with his
discretion; he will be quite a favourite of mine. And now we are
longing for the picture; you know, of old, my
impatience.

Your young secretary-servant is looking out for a ship, and will
set out in the first that goes: I envy him.

The Court has been trying but can get nobody to stand for
Westminster. You know Mr. Doddington has lost himself
extremely by his new turn, after so often changing sides: he is
grown very fat and lethargic; my brother Ned says, "he is grown
of less consequence, but more weight."(389)

One hears of nothing but follies said by the Opposition, who grow
mad on having the least prospect. Lady Carteret,(390) who, you
know, did not want any new fuel to her absurdity, says, "they
talk every day of making her lord first minister, but he is not
so easily persuaded as they think for." Good night.
Yours, ever.

(385) A celebrated picture of a Madonna and Child by
Dominichino, in the palace Zembeccari, at Bologna, now in the
collection of the Earl of Orford, at Houghton, in Norfolk.
(Since sent to Russia with the rest of the collection.-D.)

(386) The Giogo is the highest part of the Apennine between
Florence and Bologna.

(387) Son of Lord Lovel, since Earl of Leicester. [In 1744, Lord
Lovel was created Viscount Coke of Holkham and Earl of Leicester.
His only son Edward died before him, in 1753,
without issue; having married Lady Mary, one of the co-heirs of
John Duke of Argyle and Greenwich.]

(388) A black spaniel of Mr. Walpole's was seized by a wolf on
the Alps, as it was running at the head of the chaise-horses, at
noonday. [See ante, p. 139 letter 14.]

(389) George Bubb Dodington had lately resigned his post of one
of the lords of the treasury, and gone again into
opposition. [In Walpole's copy of the celebrated Diary of this
versatile politician, he had written a "Brief account of George
Bubb Doddington, Lord Melcombe," which the noble editor of the
"Memoires" has inserted. It describes him, "as his Diary shows,
vain, fickle, ambitious, and corrupt,' and very lethargic; but
gives him credit for great wit and readiness." Cumberland, in
his Memoirs, thus paints him:-"Dodington,
lolling in his chair, in perfect apathy and self-command,
dozing, and even snoring, at intervals, in his lethargic way,
broke out every now and then into gleams and flashes of wit and
humour." In 1761, he was created Lord Melcombe, and died in the
following year.]

(390) Frances, daughter of Sir Robert Worseley, and first wife of
John Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl of Granville.

207 Letter 50
To Sir Horace Mann.
London, Jan. 7, 1741-2, O. S.

I must answer for your brother a paragraph that he showed me in
one of your letters: "Mr. W.'s letters are full of wit; don't
they adore him in England?" Not at all-and I don't
wonder at them: for if I have any wit in my letters, which I do
not at all take for granted, it is ten to one that I have none
out of my letters. A thousand people can write, that cannot
talk; and besides, you know, (or I conclude so, from the little
one hears stirring,) that numbers of the English have wit, who
don't care to produce it. Then, as to adoring; YOU now See Only
my letters, and you may be sure I take care not to write you word
of any of my bad qualities, which other people must see in the
gross; and that may be a great
hindrance to their adoration. Oh! there are a thousand other
reasons I could give you, why I am not the least in fashion. I
came over in an ill season: it is a million to one that
nobody thinks a declining old minister's son has wit. At any
time, men in opposition have always most; but now, it would be
absurd for a courtier to have even common sense. There is not a
Mr. Stuart, or a Mr. Stewart, whose names begin but with the
first letters of Stanhope,(391) that has not a better chance than
I, for being liked. I can assure you, even those of the same
party would be fools, not to pretend to think me one. Sir Robert
has showed no partiality for me;(392) and do you think they would
commend where he does not? even supposing they had no envy,
which by the way, I am far from saying they have not. Then. my
dear child, I am the coolest man of my party, and if I am ever
warm, it is by contagion; and where violence passes for parts,
what will indifference be called? But how could you think of such
a question '! I don't want money, consequently Do old women pay
me for my wit; I have a very flimsy constitution, consequently
the young women won't taste my wit, and it is a long while before
wit makes its own way in the world; especially, as I never prove
it, by assuring people that I have it by me. Indeed, if I were
disposed to brag, I could quote two or three half-pay officers,
and an old aunt or two, who laugh prodigiously at every thing I
say; but till they are allowed judges, I will not brag of such
authorities.

If you have a mind to know who is adored and has wit, there is
old Churchill has as much God-d-n-ye wit as ever-except that he
has lost two teeth. There are half a dozen Scotchmen who vote
against the Court, and are cried up by the Opposition for wit, to
keep them steady. They are forced to cry up their parts, for it
would be too barefaced to commend their honesty. Then Mr. Nugent
has had a great deal of wit till within this week; but he is so
busy and so witty, that even his own party grow tired of him.
His plump wife, who talks of nothing else, says he entertained
her all the way on the road with repeating his speeches.

I did not go into the country, last week, as I intended, the
weather was so bad; but I shall go on Sunday for three or four
days, and perhaps shall not be able to write to you that week.
You are in an agitation, I suppose, about politics: both sides
are trafficking deeply for votes during the holidays. It is
allowed, I think, that we shall have a majority of twenty-six:
Sir R. says more; but now, upon a pinch, he brags like any
bridegroom.

The Westminster election passed without any disturbance, in
favour of Lord Perceive-all (394) and Mr. Perceive-nothing, as my
uncle calls them. Lord Chesterfield was vaunting to Lord Lovel,
that they should have carried it, if they had set up two
broomsticks. "So I see," replied Lovel. But it seems we have not
done with it yet: if we get the majority, this will be declared a
void election too, for my Lord Chancellor (395) has found out,
that the person who made the return, had no right to make it: it
was the High Bailiff's clerk, the High Bailiff himself being in
custody of the sergeant-at-arms. it makes a great noise, and
they talk of making subscriptions for a Petition.

Lord Stafford (396) is come over. He told me some good
stories of the Primate.(397)

Last night I had a good deal of company to hear Monticelli and
Amorevoli, particularly the three beauty-Fitzroys, Lady
Euston, Lady Conway, and Lady Caroline.(398) Sir R. liked the
singers extremely: he had not heard them before, I forgot to tell
you all our beauties there was Miss Hervey,(399) my
lord's daughter, a fine, black girl, but as masculine as her
father should be;(400) and jenny Conway, handsomer Still,(401)
though changed with illness, than even the Fitzroys. I made the
music for my Lord Hervey, who is too ill to go to operas: yet,
with a coffin-face, is as full of his little dirty
politics as ever. He will not be well enough to go to the House
till the majority is certain somewhere, but lives shut up with my
Lord Chesterfield and Mr. Pultney-a triumvirate, who hate one
another more than any body they could proscribe, had they the
power. I dropped in at my Lord Hervey's, the other night,
knowing my lady had company: it was soon after our defeats. My
lord, who has always professed particularly to me, turned his
back on me, and retired for an hour into a
whisper with young Hammond,(402) at the end of the room. Not
being at all amazed at one whose heart I knew so well, I
stayed on, to see more of this behaviour; indeed, to rise
myself to it. At last he came up to me, and begged this
music. which I gave him, and would often again, to see how many
times I shall be ill and well with him within this month.
Yesterday came news that his brother, Captain William Hervey, has
taken a Caracca ship, worth full two hundred thousand
pounds. He was afterwards separated from it by a storm, for two
or three days, and was afraid of losing it, having but
five-and-twenty men to thirty-six Spaniards; but he has
brought it home safe. I forgot to tell you, that upon losing the
first question, Lord Hervey kept away for a week; on our carrying
the next great one, he wrote to Sir Robert, how much he desired
to see him, "not upon any business, but Lord Hervey longs to see
Sir Robert Walpole."

Lady Sundon(402) is dead, and Lady M- disappointed: she, who is
full as politic as my Lord Hervey, had made herself an
absolute servant to Lady Sundon, but I don't hear that she has
left her even her old clothes. Lord Sundon is in great grief: I
am surprised, for she has had fits of madness ever since her
ambition met such a check by the death of the Queen.(404) She
had great power with her, though the Queen pretended to
despise her; but had unluckily told her, or fallen into her power
by some secret.(405) I was saying to Lady Pomfret, to be sure
she is dead very rich!" She replied, with some warmth, She never
took money." When I came home, I mentioned this to Sir R. "No,"
said he, "but she took jewels; Lord Pomfret's place of master of
the horse to the Queen was bought of her for a pair of diamond
earrings, of fourteen hundred pounds value." One day that she
wore them at a visit at old
Marlboro's, as soon as she was gone, the Duchess said to Lady
Mary Wortley,(406) "How can that woman have the impudence to go
about in that bribe?"-,, Madam," said Lady Mary, "how would you
have people know where wine is to be sold, unless there is a sign
hung out!" Sir R. told me, that in the enthusiasm of her vanity,
Lady Sundon had proposed to him to unite with her, and govern the
kingdom together: he bowed, begged her
patronage, but said he thought nobody fit to govern the
kingdom, but the King and Queen.-Another day.

Friday morning. I was forced to leave off last night, as I found
it would be impossible to send away this letter finished in any
time. It will be enormously long, but I have prepared you for
it. When I consider the beginning of my letter, it looks as if I
were entirely of your opinion about the
agreeableness of them. I believe you will never commend them
again, when you see how they increase upon your hands. I have
seen letters of two or three sheets, written from merchants at
Bengal and Canton to their wives: but then they contain the
history of a twelvemonth: I grow voluminous from week to week. I
can plead in excuse nothing but the true reason; you desired it;
and I remember how I used to wish for such letters, when I was in
Italy. My Lady Pomfret carries this humanity still farther, and
because people were civil to her in Italy, she makes it a rule to
visit all strangers in general. She has been to visit a Spanish
Count (407) and his wife, though she cannot open her lips in
their language. They fled from Spain, he and his brother having
offended the Queen, (408) by their attachments to the Prince of
Asturias; his brother ventured back to bring off this woman, who
was engaged to him. Lord Harrington (409) has procured them a
pension of six hundred a-year. They live chiefly with Lord
Carteret and his
daughter,(410) who speak Spanish. But to proceed from where I
left off last night, like the Princess Dinarzade in the
Arabian Nights, for you will want to know what happened one day.
Sir Robert was at dinner with Lady Sundon, who hated the Bishop
of London, as much as she loved the Church. "Well," said she to
Sir R., "how does your pope do!"-"Madam," replied he, "he is my
pope, and shall be my Pope; every body has some pope or other;
don't you know that you are one! They call you Pope Joan." She
flew into a passion, and desired he would not fix any names on
her; that they were not so easily got rid of.

We had a little ball the other night at Mrs. Boothby's, and by
dancing, did not perceive an earthquake, which frightened all
the undancing part of the town.

We had a civility from his Royal Highness,(411) who sent for
Monticelli the night he was engaged here, but, on hearing it,
said he would send for him some other night. If I did not live
so near St. James's, I would find out some politics in
this-should not one?

Sir William Stanhope (412) has had a hint from the same
Highness, that his company is not quite agreeable: whenever he
met any body at Carlton House whom he did not know, he said,
"Your humble servant, Mr. or Mrs. Hamilton."

I have this morning sent aboard the St. Quintin a box for you,
with your secretary-not in it.

Old Weston of Exeter is dead. Dr. Clarke, the Dean, Dr.
Willes, the decipherer, and Dr. Gilbert of Llandaff, are
candidates to succeed him.(413) Sir R. is for Willes, who, he
says, knows so many secrets, that he might insist upon being
archbishop.

My dear Mr. Chute! how concerned I am that he took all that
trouble to no purpose. I will not write to him this post, for as
you show him my letters, this here will sufficiently employ any
one's patience-but I have done. I long to hear that the
Dominichini is safe. Good night.
Yours, ever.