Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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When our earl went to the House of lords to-day, he
apprehended some incivilities from his Grace of Argyll, but he
was not there. Bedford, Halifax, Berkshire,(470) and some more,
were close by him, but would not bow to him. Lord
Chesterfield wished him joy. This is all I know for certain; for
I will not send you the thousand lies of every new day.

I must tell you how fine the masquerade of last night was. There
were five hundred persons, in the greatest variety of handsome
and rich dresses I ever saw, and all the jewels of London-and
London has some! There were dozens of ugly Queens of Scots, of
which I will only name to you the eldest Miss Shadwell! The
Princess of Wales was one, covered with
diamonds, but did not take off her mask: none of the Royalties
did, but every body else. Lady Conway (471) was a charming Mary
Stuart: Lord and Lady Euston, man and woman huzzars. But the two
finest and most charming masks were their Graces of
Richmond,(472) like Harry the Eighth and Jane Seymour:
excessively rich, and both so handsome @ Here is a nephew of the
King of Denmark, who was in armour, and his governor, a most
admirable Quixote. there were quantities of Vandykes, and all
kinds of old pictures walked out of the frames. It was an
assemblage of all ages and nations, and would look like the day
of judgment, if tradition did not persuade us that we are all to
meet naked, and if something else did not tell us that we shall
not meet with quite so much indifference, nor thinking quite so
much of the becoming. My dress was an
Aurungzebe: but of all extravagant figures commend me to our
friend the Countess!(473) She and my lord trudged in like
pilgrims with vast staffs in their hands; and she was so
heated, that you would have thought her pilgrimage had been, like
Pantagruel's voyage, to the Oracle of the Bottle! Lady Sophia was
in a Spanish dress-so was Lord Lincoln; not, to be sure, by
design, but so it happened. When the King came in, the Faussans
(474) were there, and danced an entr`ee. At the masquerade the
King sat by Mrs. Selwyn, and with tears told her, that "the Whigs
should find he loved them, as he had the poor man that was gone!"
He had sworn that he would not speak to the Prince at their
meeting, but was prevailed on.

I received your letter by Holland, and the paper about the
Spaniards. By this time you will conceive that I can speak of
nothing to any purpose, for Sir R. does not meddle in the
least with business.

As to the Sibyl, I have not mentioned it to him; I still am for
the other. Except that, he will not care, I believe, to buy more
pictures, having now so many more than he has room for at
Houghton; and he will have but a small house in town when we
leave this. But you must thank the dear Chutes for their new
offers; the obligations are too great, but I am most sensible to
their goodness, and, were I not so excessively tired now, would
write to them. I cannot add a word more, but to think of the
Princess:(475) "Comment! vous avez donc des enfans!" You see how
nature sometimes breaks out in spite of religion and prudery,
grandeur and pride, delicacy and
`epuisements! Good night!
Yours ever.

(460) See an account of this meeting in Lord Egmonfs "Faction
Detected." [To this meeting at the Fountain tavern Sir Charles
Hanbury Williams alludes in his Ode against the Earl of Bath,
called the Statesman-

"Then enlarge on his cunning and wit:
Say, how he harangued at the Fountain;
Say, how the old patriots were bit,
And a mouse was produced by a mountain."]

(461) Daniel Finch, seventh Earl of Winchilsea and third Earl of
Nottingham. He was made first lord of the admiralty upon the
breaking up of Sir R. Walpole's government.-D.

(462) William, second Lord Talbot, eldest son of the lord
chancellor of that name and title.-D.

(463) The following is from the Secker MS.-"Feb. 12. Meeting at
the Fountain tavern of above two hundred commoners and
thirty-five Lords. Duke of Argyle spoke warmly for
prosecuting Lord Orford, with hints of reflection on those who
had accepted. Mr. Pulteney replied warmly. Lord Talbot drank to
cleansing the Augean stable of the dung and grooms. Mr. Sandys
and Mr. Gibbon there. Lord Carteret and Lord
Winchilsea not. Lord Chancellor, in the evening, in private
discourse to me, strong against taking in any Tories: owning no
more than that some of them, perhaps, were not for the
Pretender, or, at least, did not know they were for him;
though, when I gave him the account first of my discourse with
the Prince, he said, the main body of them were of the same
principles with the Tories."-E.

(464) His mother was natural daughter of King James II.
(James, first Earl Waldegrave, appointed ambassador to the court
of France in 1730: died in 1741.-D.)

(465) banks's tragedy of "The Unhappy Favourite; or, the Earl of
Essex," was first acted in 1682. The prologue and epilogue were
written by Dryden. Speaking of this play, in the Tatler, Sir
Richard Steele says, "there is in it not one good line, and yet
it is a play which was never seen without drawing
tears from some part of the audience; a remarkable instance, that
the soul is not to be moved by words, but things; for the
incidents in the drama are laid together so happily that the
spectator makes the play for himself, by the force with which the
circumstance has upon his imagination."-E.

(466) Thomas Lumley, third Earl of Scarborough.-D.

(467) "February 17. Prince of Wales went to St. James's. The
agreement made at eleven the night before, and principally by Mr.
Pultney; as Lord Wilmington told me. The King received him in
the drawing-room: the Prince kissed his hand: he asked him how
the Princess did: showed no other mark of regard. All the
courtiers went the same day to Carlton House. The Bishop of
Gloucester (Dr. Benson) and I went thither. The Prince and
princess civil to us both." Secker MS.-E.

(468) Charles Spencer, second duke of Marlborough succeeded to
that title on the death of his aunt Henrietta, Duchess of
Marlborough, in 1733.-D.

(469) Sir George Lyttelton, afterwards created Lord Lyttelton.
Miss Fortescue was his first wife, and mother of Thomas,
called the wicked Lord Lyttelton. She died in childbed and Lord
Lyttelton honoured her Memory with the well-known Monody which
was so unfeelingly parodied by Smollett.-D. [ Under the title of
an "Ode on the Death of My Grandmother.")

(470 Henry Bowes Howard, fourth Earl of Berkshire. He
succeeded, in 1745, as eleventh Earl of Suffolk, on the death,
without issue, of henry, tenth earl. He died in 1757.-D.

(471) Lady Isabella Fitzroy, Youngest daughter of the Duke of
grafton, and wife of Francis Seymour, Lord Conway of Hertford.

(472) Charles Lennox, master of the horse, and Sarah Cadogan, his
duchess. He died in the year following.

(473) The Countess of Pomfret.

(474) Two celebrated comic dancers.

(475) Princess Craon, so often mentioned in these letters.-D.

227 Letter 55
To Sir Horace Mann.
London, Feb. 25, 1742.

I am impatient to hear that you have received my first account of
the change; as to be sure you are now for every post. This last
week has not produced many new events. The Prince of Wales has
got the measles,(476) so there has been but little incense
offered up to him: his brother of Saxe-Gotha has got them too.
When the Princess went to St. James's, she fell at the King's
feet and struggled to kiss his hand, and burst into tears. At
the Norfolk masquerade she was vastly bejewelled; Frankz had lent
her forty thousand pounds worth, and refused to be paid for the
hire, only desiring that she would tell whose they were. All
this is nothing, but to introduce one of Madame de Pomfret's
ingenuities, who. being dressed like a pilgrim, told the
Princess, that she had taken her for the Lady of Loreto.

But you will wish for politics now, more than for histories of
masquerades, though this last has taken up people's thoughts full
as much. The House met last Thursday and voted the army without
a division: Shippen (477 alone, unchanged, Opposed it. They have
since been busied on elections, turning out our
friends and voting in their own.. almost without opposition. The
chief affair has been the Denbighshire election, on the petition
of Sir Watkyn William . 'They have voted him into parliament and
the high-sheriff into Newgate. Murray (478) was most eloquent:
Lloyd,(479) the counsel on the other side, and no bad one, (for I
go constantly, though I do not stay long, but "leave the dead to
bury their dead," said that it was objected to the sheriff, that
he was related to the
sitting member; but, indeed, in that country (Wales) it would be
difficult not to be related. Yesterday we had another
hearing of the petition of the Merchants, when Sir Robert
Godschall shone brighter than even his usual. There was a copy
of a letter produced, the original having been lost: he asked
whether the copy had been taken before the original was lost, or
after!

Next week they commence their prosecutions, which they will
introduce by voting a committee to inquire into all the
offices: Sir William Yonge is to be added to the impeachments,
but the chief whom they wish to punish is my uncle.(480) He is
the more to be pitied, because nobody will pity him. They are
not fond of a formal message which the States General have sent
to Sir Robert, "to compliment him on his new honour, and to
condole with him on being out of the ministry, which will be so
detrimental to Europe!

The third augmentation in Holland is confirmed, and that the
Prince of Hesse is chosen generallissimo, which makes it
believed that his Grace of Argyll will not go over, but that we
shall certainly have a war with France in the spring.
Argyll has got the Ordnance restored to him, and they wanted to
give him his regiment; to which Lord Hertford (481) was desired
to resign it, with the offer of his old troop again. He said he
had received the regiment from the King; if his Majesty pleased
to take it back, he might, but he did not know why he should
resign it. Since that, he wrote a letter to the King, and sent
it by his son, Lord Beauchamp, resigning his regiment, his
government, and his wife's pension, as lady of the bedchamber to
the late Queen.

No more changes are made yet. They have offered the Admiralty to
Sir Charles Wager again, but he refused it: he said, he heard
that he was an old woman, and that he did not know what good old
women could do any where.

A comet has appeared here for two nights, which, you know, is
lucky enough at this time and a pretty ingredient for making
prophecies.

These are all the news. I receive your letters regularly, and
hope you receive mine so: I never miss one week. Adieu! my
dearest child! I am perfectly well; tell me always that you are.
Are the good Chutes still at Florence? My best love to them, and
services to all.

Here are some new Lines much in vogue:(482)

1741.

Unhappy England, still in forty-one (483)
By Scotland art thou doom'd to be undone!
But Scotland now, to strike alone afraid,
Calls in her worthy sister Cornwall's (484) aid;
And these two common Strumpets, hand in hand,
Walk forth, and preach up virtue through the land;
Start at corruption, at a bribe turn pale,
Shudder at pensions, and at placemen rail.
Peace, peace! ye wretched hypocrites; or rather
With Job, say to Corruption, " Thou'rt our Father."

But how will Walpole justify his fate?
He trusted Islay (485) till it was too late.
Where were those parts! where was that piercing mind!
That judgment, and that knowledge of mankind!
To trust a Traitor that he knew so well!
(Strange truth! I)ctray'd, but not deceived, he fell!)
He knew his heart was, like his aspect, vile;
Knew him the tool, and Brother of Argyll!
Yet to his hands his power and hopes gave up;
And though he saw 'twas poison, drank the cup!
Trusted to one he never could think true,
And perish'd by a villain that he knew.

(476) "February 21. Prince taken ill of the measles. The King
sent no message to him in his illnesses Secker MS.-E.

(477) William Shippen, a celebrated Jacobite. Sir R. Walpole
said that he was the Only man whose price he did not know. [See
ante, p. 194, Letter 45.]

(478) William Murray, Mr. Pope's friend,
afterwards Solicitor, and then Attorney-general.

(479) Sir Richard Lloyd, who succeeded Mr. Murray, in 1754, as
Solicitor-general.

(480) Horace Walpole, brother of Sir Robert.

(481) Algernon Seymour, Earl of Hertford, eldest son of
Charles, called the proud Duke of Somerset, whom he succeeded in
that Title, and was the last Duke of Somerset of that
branch; his son, who is here mentioned, having died before
him.-D.

(482) These Lines were written by Sir Charles Hanbury
Williams. [And are published in the edition of his works, in
three volumes, 12 no.1.

(483) Alluding to the Grand Rebellion against Charles the
First.

(484) The Parliament which overthrew Sir R. W. was carried
against him by his losing the majority of the Scotch and
Cornish boroughs; the latter managed by Lord Falmouth
and Thomas Pitt.

(485) Archibald Campbell, Earl of Islay, brother of John, Duke of
Argyll, in conjunction with whom (though then openly at variance)
he was supposed to have betrayed Sir R.
W. and to have let the Opposition
succeed in the Scotch elections, which were trusted to
his management. It must be
observed, that Sir R. W. would never allow that he believed
himself betrayed by Lord Islay.

229 Letter 56
To Sir Horace Mann.
London, March 3d, 1742.

I am Obliged to write to you to-day, for I am sure I shall not
have a moment to-morrow; they are to make their motion for a
secret committee to examine into the late administration. We are
to oppose it strongly, but to no purpose; for since the change,
they have beat us on no division under a majority of forty. This
last week has produced no new novelties; his
Royal Highness has been shut up with the measles, of which he was
near dying, by eating China oranges.

We are to send sixteen thousand men into Flanders in the
spring, under his Grace of Argyll; they talk of the Duke of
Marlborough and Lord Albemarle to command under him. Lord
Cadogan (486) is just dead, so there is another regiment
vacant: they design Lord Delawar's for Westmoreland;(487) so now
Sir Francis Dashwood (488) will grow as fond of the King again as
he used to be-or as he has hated him since.

We have at last finished the Merchants' petition, under the
conduct of the Lord Mayor and Mr. Leonidas;(489) the greatest
coxcomb and the greatest oaf that ever met in blank verse or
prose. I told you the former's question about the copy of a
letter taken after the original was lost. They have got a new
story of him; that hearing of a gentleman who had had the
small-pox twice and died of it, he asked, if he died the first
time or the second-if this is made for him, it is at least quite
in his style. After summing up the evidence (in doing which, Mr.
Glover literally drank several times to the Lord Mayor in a glass
of water that stood by him,) Sir John Barnard moved to vote, that
there had been great neglect in the
protection of the trade, to the great advantage of' the enemy,
and the dishonour of the nation. He said he did not mean to
charge the Admiralty particularly, for then particular persons
must have had particular days assigned to be heard in their own
defence, which would take up too much time, as we are now going
to make inquiries of a much higher nature. Mr. Pelham was for
leaving out the last words. Mr. Doddington rose, and in a set
speech declared that the motion was levelled at a particular
person, who had so usurped all authority, that all inferior
offices were obliged to submit to his will, and so either bend
and bow, or be broken: but that he hoped the steps we were now
going to take, would make the office of first
minister so dangerous a post, that nobody would care to accept it
for the future. Do but think of this fellow, who has so lost all
character, and made himself so odious to both King, and Prince,
by his alternate flatteries, changes, oppositions, and changes of
flatteries and oppositions, that he can never expect what he has
so much courted by all methods,-think of his talking of making it
dangerous for any one else to accept the first ministership!
Should such a period ever arrive, he would accept it with joy-the
only chance he can ever have for it! But sure, never was
impudence more put to shame! The whole debate turned upon him.
Lord Doneraile (490) (who, by the way, has produced blossoms of
Doddington like fruit, and
consequently is the fitter scourge for him) stood up and said, he
did not know what that gentleman meant; that he himself was as
willing to bring all offenders to justice as any man; but that he
did not intend to confine punishment to those who had been
employed only at the end of the last ministry, but
proposed to extend it to all who had been engaged in it, and
wished that that gentleman would speak with more lenity of an
administration, in which he himself had been concerned for so
many years. Winnington said, he did not know what Mr.
Doddington had meant, by either bending or being broken; that he
knew some who had been broken, though they had bowed an bended.
Waller defended Doddington, and said, if he was
gilty, at least Mr. Winnington was so too; on which Fox rose up,
and, laying his hand on his breast, said, he never wished to have
such a friend, as could only excuse him by bringing in another
for equal share of his guilt. Sir John Cotton
replied; he did not wonder that Mr. Fox (who had spoken with
great warmth) was angry at hearing his friend in place,
compared to one out of place. Do but figure how Doddington must
have looked and felt during such dialogues! In short, it ended
in Mr. Pultney's rising, and saying, he could not be against the
latter words, as he thought the former part of the motion had
been proved . and wished both parties would join in carrying on
the war vigorously, or in procuring a good peace, rather than in
ripping open old sores, and continuing the
heats and violences of parties. We came to no division-for we
should have lost it by too many.

Thursday evening.

I had written all the former part of my letter, only reserving
room to tell you, that they had carried the secret
committee-but it is put off till next Tuesday. To-day we had
nothing but the giving up the Heydon election, when Mr.
Ppultney had an opportunity (as Mr. Chute and Mr. Robinson would
not take the trouble to defend a cause which they could not
carry) to declaim upon corruption: had it come to a trial, there
were eighteen witnesses ready to swear positive bribery against
Mr. Pultney. I would write to Mr. Chute, and thank him for his
letter which you sent me, but I am so out of
humour at his brother's losing his seat, that I cannot speak
civilly even to him to-day.

It is said, that my Lord's Grace of Argyll has carried his great
point of the Broad Bottom-as I suppose you will hear by
rejoicings from Rome. The new Admiralty is named; at the head is
to be Lord Winchilsea, with Lord Granard,(491) Mr.
Cockburn, his Grace's friend, Dr. Lee, the chairman, Lord Vere
Beauclerc;(492) one of the old set, by the interest of the Duke
of Dorset, and the connexion of Lady Betty Germain, whose niece
Lord Vere married; and two Tories, Sir John Hind Cotton and Will.
Chetwynd,(493) an agent of Bolingbroke's-all this is not declared
yet, but is believed.

This great Duke has named his four aid-de-camps-Lord Charles Hay;
George Stanhope, brother of Earl Stanhope; Dick
Lyttelton, who Was page; and a Campbell. Lord Cadogan is not
dead, but has been given over.

We are rejoicing over the great success of the Queen of
Hungary's arms, and the number of blows and thwarts which the
French have received. It is a prosperous season for our new
popular generals to grow glorious!

But, to have done with politics. Old Marlborough has at last
published her Memoirs; they are digested by one Hooke, (494) who
wrote a Roman history; but from her materials which are so
womanish, that I am sure the man might sooner have made a gown
and petticoat with them. There are some choice letters from
Queen Anne, little inferior in the fulsome to those from King
James to the Duke of Buckingham.

Lord Oxford's (495) famous sale begins next Monday, where
there is as much rubbish of another kind as in her grace's
history. Feather bonnets presented by the Americans to Queen
Elizabeth; elks'-horns -cups; true copies converted into
candle of original pictures that never existed; presents to
himself from the Royal Society, etc. particularly forty
volumes of prints of illustrious English personages; which
collection is collected from frontispieces to godly books, bibles
and head-pieces and tail-pieces to Waller's works;
views of King Charles's sufferings; tops of ballads;
particularly earthly crowns for heavenly ones, and streams of
glory. There are few good pictures. for the miniatures are not
to be sold, nor the manuscripts , the books not till next year.
There are a few fine bronzes, and a very fine
collection of English coins.

We have got another opera,(496) which is liked. There was to
have been a vast elephant, but the just directors, designing to
give the audience the full weight of one for their money, made it
so heavy that at the prova it broke through the stage. It was to
have carried twenty soldiers, with Monticelli on a throne in the
middle. There is a new subscription begun for next year, thirty
subscribers at two hundred pounds each. Would you believe that I
am one? You need not believe it
quite, for I am but half an one; Mr. Conway and I take a share
between us. We keep Monticelli and Amorevoli, and to please Lord
Middlesex, that odious Muscovita; but shall discard Mr. Vaneschi.
We are to have the Barberina and the two Faussans; so, at least,
the singers and dancers will be equal to any thing in Europe.

Our earl is still at Richmond: I have not been there yet; I shall
go once or twice; for however little inclination I have to it, I
would not be thought to grow cool just now. You know I am above
such dirtiness, and you are sensible that my
coolness is of much longer standing. Your sister is with mine at
the Park; they came to town last Tuesday for the
opera, and returned next day. After supper, I prevailed on your
sister (497) to sing, and though I had heard her before, I
thought I never heard any thing beyond it; there is a
sweetness in her voice equal to Cuzzoni's, with a better
manner. '

I was last week at the masquerade, dressed like an old woman, and
passed for a good mask. I took the English liberty of teasing
whomever I pleased, particularly old Churchill. I told him I was
quite ashamed. of being there till I met him, but was quite
comforted with finding one person in the room older than myself.
The Duke,(498) who had been told who I was, came up and said, "Je
connois cette poitrine." I took him for some Templar, and
replied, "Vous! vous ne connoissez que des poitrines qui sont
bien plus us`ees." It was unluckily pat. The next night, at the
drawing-room, he asked me, very good-humouredly, if I knew who
was the old woman that had
teased every body at the masquerade. We were laughing so much at
this, that the King crossed the room to Lady Hervey, who was with
us, and said, "What are those boys laughing at set" She told him,
and that I had said I was so awkward at
undressing myself, that I had stood for an hour in my stays and
under-petticoat before my footman. My thanks to Madame Grifoni.
I cannot write more now, as I must not make my
letter too big, when it appears at the secretary's office
nouc. As to my sister, I am sure Sir Robert would never have
accepted Prince Craon's offer, who now, I suppose, would not be
eager to repeat it.

(486) Charles, Lord Cadogan, of Oakley, to which title he
succeeded on the death of his elder brother, William, Earl
Cadogan, who was one of the most distinguished "of
Marlborough's captains." Charles, Lord Cadogan, did not die at
the period when this letter was written. On the contrary, he
lived, till the year 1776.-D.

(487) John, seventh Earl of Westmoreland. He built the
Palladian Villa of Mereworth, in Kent, which is a nearly exact
copy of the celebrated Villa Capra, near Vicenza. He died in
1762. Sir Francis Dashwood succeeded, on his decease, to the
barony in fee of Le Despencer.-D.

(488) Sir Francis Dashwood, nephew to the Earl of
Westmoreland, had gone violently into Opposition, on that
lord's losing his regiment.

(489) Mr. Glover. (Walpole always depreciates Glover; but his
conduct, upon the occasion referred to in the text, displayed
considerable ability.-D.) [His speech upon this occasion was
afterwards published in a pamphlet, entitled, ,A short Account of
the late Application to Parliament, made by the Merchants of
London, upon the Neglect of their Trade; with the Substance
thereof, as summed up by Mr. Glover.,,]