Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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We don't talk now of any of the Royals passing into Flanders;
though the Champion (697) this morning had an admirable
quotation, on the supposition that the King would go himself:
it was this line from the Rehearsal:-

"Give us our fiddle; we ourselves will play."

The lesson for the Day (698) that I sent you, I gave to Mr.
Coke, who came in as I was writing it, and by his dispersing
it, it has got into print, with an additional one, which I
cannot say I am proud should go under my name. Since that,
nothing but lessons are the fashion: first and second lessons,
morning and evening lessons, epistles, etc. One of the Tory
papers published so abusive an one last week on the new
ministry, that three gentlemen called on the printer, to know
how he dared to publish it. Don't you like these men who for
twenty years together led the way, and published every thing
that was scandalous, that they should wonder at any body's
daring to publish against them! Oh! it will come home to them!
Indeed, every body's fame now is published at length: last
week the Champion mentioned the Earl of Orford and his natural
daughter, Lady Mary, at length (for which he had a great mind
to prosecute the printer). To-day, the London Evening Post
says, Mr. Pane, nephew of Mr. Scrope, is made first clerk of
the treasury, as a reward for his uncle's taciturnity before
the Secret Committee. He is in the room of old Tilson, who
was so tormented by that Committee that it turned his brain,
and he is dead.

I am excessively shocked at Mr. Fane's (699) behaviour to you;
but Mr. Fane is an honourable man! he lets poor you pay him
his salary for eighteen months, without thinking of returning
it! But if he had lost that sum to Jansen,(700) or to any of
the honourable men at White's, he would think his honour
engaged to pay it. There is nothing, sure, so whimsical as
modern honour! You may debauch a woman upon a promise of
marriage, and not marry her; you may ruin your tailor's or
your baker's family by not paying them; you may make Mr. Mann
maintain you for eighteen months, as a public minister, out of
his own pocket, and still be a man of honour! But, not to pay
a common sharper, or not to murder a man that has trod upon
your toe, is such a blot in your scutcheon, that you could
never recover your honour, though you had in your veins "all
the blood of all the Howards!"

My love to Mr. Chute: tell him, as he looks on the east front
of Houghton, to tap under the two windows in the left-hand
wing, up stairs, close to the colonnade-there are Patapan and
I, at this instant, writing to you; there we are almost every
morning, or in the library; the evenings, we walk till dark;
then Lady Mary, Miss Leneve, and I play at comet; the Earl,
Mrs. Leneve, and whosoever is here, discourse; car telle est
notre vie! Adieu!

(693) Lady Walpole. Richcourt, the Florentine minister, was
her lover, and both, as has been seen in the former part of
these letters, were enemies of Sir . H. Mann.-D.

(694) This means retaken by the Imperialists from the French,
who had obtained possession of it on the 25th of November,
1741. The Austrian troops drove the French out of Prague, in
December, 1742.-D.

(695) This wish was gratified, though not in this year.
Marshal Belleisle was taken prisoner in 1745, by the
Hanoverian dragoons, was confined for some months in Windsor
Castle, and exchanged after the battle of Fontenoy.-D.

(696) A profligate ecclesiastic, who was deeply engaged in the
corrupt political intrigues of the day. In these he was
assisted by his sister Madame Tencin, an unprincipled woman of
much ability, who had been the mistress of the still more
infamous Cardinal Dubois. Voltaire boasts in his Memoirs, of
having killed the Cardinal Tencin from vexation, at a sort of
political hoax, which he played off upon him.-D. [The cardinal
was afterwards, made Archbishop of Lyons. In 1752, he
entirely quitted the court, and retired to his diocese, where
he died in 1758, ,greatly esteemed," says the Biog. Univ. for
his extensive charities." His sister died in 1749. She was
mother of the celebrated D'Alembert by Destouches Canon, and
authoress of "Le Comte de Comminges," "Les Malheurs de
l'Amour," and other romances.]

(697) 'The Champion was an opposition Journal, written by
Fielding. [Assisted by Ralph, the historian.)

(698) Entitled " The Lessons for the Day, 1742." Published in
Sir Charles Hanbury Williams's works, but written by
Walpole.-D.

(699) Charles Fane, afterwards Lord Fane, had been minister at
Florence before Mr. Mann.

(700) A notorious gambler. He is mentioned by Pope, in the
character of the young man of fashion, in the fourth canto of
the Dunciad,

"As much estate, and principle, and wit,
As Jansen, Fleetwood, Cibber, shall think fit."-D.

284 Letter 83
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, Sept. 11, 1742.

I could not write to you last week, for I was at
Woolterton,(701) and in a course of visits, that took up my
every moment. I received one from you there, of August 26th,
but have had none at all this week.

You know I am not prejudiced in favour of the country, nor
like a place because it bears turnips well, or because you may
gallop over it without meeting a tree: but I really was
charmed with Woolterton; it is all wood and water! My uncle
and aunt may, without any expense, do what they have all their
lives avoided, wash themselves and make fires.(702) Their
house is more than a good one; if they had not saved
eighteen pence in every room, it would have been a fine one.
I saw several of my acquaintance,(703) Volterra vases,
Grisoni landscapes, the four little bronzes, the
raffle-picture, etc.

We have printed about the expedition to Naples: the affair at
Elba, too, is in the papers, but we affect not to believe it.
We are in great apprehensions of not taking Prague--the only
thing that has been taken on our side lately, I think, is my
Lord Stair's journey hither and back again-we don't know for
what-he is such an Orlando! The papers are full of the most
defending King'S Journey to Flanders;our private letters say
not a word of it-I say our, for at present I
think the earl's intelligences and mine are pretty equal as to
authority.

Here is a little thing which I think has humour in it.

A CATALOGUE OF NEW FRENCH BOOKS.

1. Jean-sans-terre, on l'Empereur en pet-en-l'air; imprim`e `a
Frankfort.

2. La France mourante d'une suppression
d'hommes et d'argent: dedi`e au public.

3. L'art de faire les Neutralit`es, invent`e
en Allemagne, et `ecrit en cette langue, par Un des Electeurs,
et nouvellement traduit en Napolitain; par le Chef d'Escadre
Martin.

4. Voyage d'Allemaune, par Monsieur de Maupertuis; avec un
t`elescope, invent`e pendant son voyage; `a l'usage des
H`eros, pour regarder leur victoires de loin.

5. M`ethode court et facile pour faire entrer les troupes
Fran`coies en Allemagne:-mais comment faire, pour les en faire
sortir?

6. Trait`e tr`es salutaire et tr`es utile sur la
reconnoissance envers les bienfaicteurs, par le Roy de
Pologne. Folio, imprim`e `a Dresde.

7. Obligation sacr`ee des Trait`es, Promesses, et
Renonciations, par le Grand Turc; avec des Remarques
retractoires, par un Jesuite.

8. Probleme; combien il faut d'argent FranSois pour payer le
sang Su`edois circul`e par le Comte de Gyllembourg

9. Nouvelle m`ethode de friser les cheveux `a la Francoise;
par le Colonel Mentz et sa Confrairie.

10. Recueil de Dissertations sur la meilleure mani`ere de
faire la partition des successions, par le Cardinal de Fleury;
avec des notes, historiques et politiques, par la Reine
d'Espagne.

11. Nouveau Voyage de Madrid `a Antibes, par l'Infant Dom
Philippe.

12. Lart de chercher les ennemis sans lea trouver; par le
Marechal de Maillebois.

13. La fid`elit`e couronn`ee, par le G`en`eral Munich et le
Comte d'Osterman.

14. Le bal de Lintz et les amusements de DOnawert; pi`ece
pastorale et galante,
en un acte, par le Grand Duc.

15. l'Art de maitriser les Femmes, par sa Majest`e
Catliolique.

16. Avantures Boh`emiennes, tragi-comiques, tr`es curieuses,
tr`es int`erressantes, et charg`ees d'incidents. Tom. i. ii.
iii.
N.B. Le dernier tome, qui fera le denouement, est sous presse.

Adieu! my dear child; if it was not for this secret of
transcribing, what should one do in the country to make out a
letter?

285 Letter 84
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, Sept. 25th, 1742.

At last, my dear child, I have got two letters from you! I
have been in strange pain, between fear of your being ill, and
apprehensions of your letters being stopped; but I have
received that by Crew, and another since. But you have been
ill! I am angry with Mr. Chute for not writing to let me know
it. I fancied you worse than you say, or at least than you
own. But I don't wonder you have fevers! such a busy
politician as Villettes,(704) and such a blustering negotiator
as il Furibondo (705) are enough to put all your little
economy of health and spirits in confusion. I agree with you,
that " they don't pique themselves upon understanding sense,
any more than Deutralities!" The grand journey to
Flanders(706) is a little -it a stand: the expense has been
computed at two thousand pounds a day! Many dozen of
embroidered portmanteaus full of laurels and bays have been
prepared this fortnight. The Regency has been settled and
unsettled twenty times: it is now said, that the weight of it
is not to be laid on the Prince. The King is to return by his
birthday; but whether he is to bring back part of French
Flanders with him, or will only have time to fetch Dunkirk, is
uncertain. In the mean time, Lord Carteret is gone to the
Hague; by which jaunt it seems that Lord Stair's journey was
not conclusive. The converting of the siege of Prague into a
blockade makes no great figure in the journals on this side
the water and question-but it is the fashion not to take towns
that one was sure of taking. I cannot pardon the Princess for
having thought of putting off her `epuisements and lassitudes
to take a trip to Leghorn, "pendant qu'on ne donnoit `a manger
`a Monsieur le Prince son fils, que de la chair de chevaux!"
Poor Prince Beauvau!(707) I shall be glad to hear he is safe
from this siege. Some of the French princes of the blood have
been stealing away a volunteering, but took care to be missed
in time. Our Duke goes with his lord and father-they say, to
marry a princess of Prussia, whereof great preparations have
been making in his equipage and in his breeches.

Poor Prince Craon! where did De Sade get fifty sequins. When
I was at Florence, you know all his clothes were in pawn to
his landlord; but he redeemed them by pawning his Modenese
bill of credit to his landlady! I delight in the style of the
neutrality maker(708)-his neutralities and his English arc
perfectly of a piece.

You have diverted me excessively with the history of the
Princess Eleonora's(709) posthumous issue-but how could the
woman have spirit enough to have five children by her footman,
and yet not have enough to own them. Really, a woman so much
in the great world should have known better! Why, no yeoman's
dowager could have acted more prudishly! It always amazes me,
when I reflect on the women, who are the first to propagate
scandal of one another. If they would but agree not to
censure what they all agree to do, there would be no more loss
of characters among them than amongst men. A woman cannot
have an affair, but instantly all her sex travel about to
publish it, and leave her off: now, if a man cheats another of
his estate at play, forges a will, or marries a ward to his
own son, nobody thinks of leaving him off for such trifles.

The English parson at Stosch's, the archbishop on the chapter
of music, the Fanciulla's persisting in her mistake, and old
Count Galli's distress, are all admirable stories.(710) But
what is the meaning of Montemar's writing to the Antinora?--I
thought he had left the Galia for my illustrissima,(711) her
sister. lord! I am horridly tired of that romantic love and
correspondence! Must I answer her last letter? there were but
six lines--what can I say? I perceive, by what you mention of
the cause of his disorder, that Rucellai does not turn out
that simple, honest man you thought him-come, own it

I just recollect a story, which perhaps will serve your
archbishop on his Don Pilogio(712)-the Tartuffe was meant for
the then archbishop of Paris, who, after the first night,
forbad its being acted. Moliere came forth, and told the
audience, "Messieurs, on devoit vous donner le Tartuffe, mais
MOnSeigneur l'Archev`eque ne veut pas qu'on le joue."

My lord is very impatient for his Dominichin; so you will send
it by the first safe conveyance. He is making a gallery, for
the ceiling of which I have given the design of that in the
little library of St. Mark at Venice: Mr. Chute will remember
how charming it was; and for the frieze, I have prevailed to
have that of the temple at Tivoli. Naylor(713) came here the
other day with two coaches full of relations: as his
mother-in-law, who was one of the company is widow of Dr.
Hare, Sir Robert's old tutor at Cambridge, he made them stay
to dine: when they were gone, he said, "Ha, child! what is
that Mr. Naylor, Horace ? he is the absurdest man I ever
saw!" I subscribed to his opinion; won't you? I must tell you
a story of him. When his father married this second wife,
Naylor said,"Father, they say you are to be married to-day,
are you?" "Well," replied the bishop, "and what is that to
you?" "Nay, nothing; only if you had told me, I would have
powdered my hair."

(704) Mr. Villettes was minister at Turin.

(705) Admiral Matthews; his ships having committed some
outrages on the coast of Italy, the Italians called him it
Furibondo.

(706) Of George the Second.-D.

(707) Afterwards a marshal of France. He was a man of some
ability, and the friend and patron of St. Lambert, and of
other men of letters of the time of Lewis XV.-D. [He was made
a marshal in 1783 by the unfortunate Louis XVI. and in 1789 a
minister of state. He died in 1793, a few weeks after the
murder of his royal master.]

(708) Admiral Matthews.

(709) Eleonora of Guastalla, widow of the last cardinal of
Medici, died at Venice. (The father of the children was a
French running footman.-D.) [Cosmo the Third was sixty-seven
years old at the period of the marriage: "une fois le marriage
conclu," says the Biog. Univ. "El`eonore refusa de la
consommer, rebut`ee par la figure, par l'age et surtout par
les d`esordres de son `epouse." Cosmo died at the age of
eighty-one. A translation of his Travels through England, in
1669, was published in 1820.

(710) These are stories in a letter of Sir H. Mann's, which
are neither very decent nor very amusing.-D.

(711) Madame Grifoni.

(712) The Archbishop of Florence had forbid the acting of a
burlettae called Don Pilogio, a sort of imitation of Tartuffe.
When the Impresario of the Theatre remonstrated upon the
expense he had been put to in preparing the music for it, the
archbishop told him he might use it for some other opera.-D.

(713) He was the son of Dr. Here, Bishop of Chichester, and
changed his name for an estate.

287 Letter 85
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, Oct. 8th, 1742.

I have not heard from you this fortnight; if I don't receive a
letter to-morrow, I shall be quite out of humour. It is true,
of late I have written to you but every other post; but then I
have been in the country, in Norfolk, in Siberia! You were
still at Florence, in the midst of Kings of Sardinia,
Montemars, and Neapolitan neutralities; your letters are my
only diversion. As to German news, it is all so simple that I
am peevish: the raising of the siege of Prague,((714) and
Prince Charles and Marechal Maillebois playing at hunt the
squirrel, have disgusted me from inquiring about the war. The
earl laughs in his great chair, and sings a bit of an old
ballad,

"They both did fight, they both did beat, they both did run
away,
They both strive again to meet, the quite contrary way."

Apropos! I see in the papers that a Marquis de Beauvau escaped
out of Prague with the Prince de Deuxpons and the Duc de
Brissac; was it our Prince Beauvau?

At last the mighty monarch does not go to Flanders, after
making the greatest preparations that ever were made but by
Harry the Eighth, and the authors of the grand Cyrus and the
illustrious Hassa: you may judge by the quantity of napkins,
which were to the amount of nine hundred dozen-indeed, I don't
recollect that ancient heroes were ever so provident of
necessaries, or thought how they were to wash their hands and
face after a victory. Six hundred horses, under the care of
the Duke of Richmond, were even shipped; and the clothes and
furniture of his court magnificent enough for a bull-fight at
the conquest of Granada. Felton Hervey's(715) war-horse,
besides having richer caparisons than any of the expedition,
had a gold net to keep off the flies-in winter! Judge of the
clamours this expense to no purpose will produce! My Lord
Carteret is set out from the Hague, but was not landed when
the last letters came from London: there are no great
expectations from this trip; no more than followed from my
Lord Stair's.

I send you two more odes on Pultney,(716) I believe by the
same hand as the former, though none are equal to the Nova
Progenies, which has been more liked than almost ever any
thing was. It is not at all known whose they are; I believe
Hanbury Williams's. The note to the first was printed with
it: the advice to him to be privy seal has its foundation; for
when the consultation was held who were to have places, and my
Lord Gower was named to succeed Lord Hervey, Pultney said with
some warmth, "I designed to be privy seal myself!"

We expect some company next week from Newmarket: here is at
present only Mr. Keene and Pigwiggin,(717)-you never saw so
agreeable a creature!-oh yes! you have seen his parents! I
must tell you a new story of them Sir Robert had given them a
little horse for Pigwiggin, and somebody had given them
another: both which, to save the charge of keeping, they sent
to grass in Newpark. After three years that they had not used
them, my Lord Walpole let his own son ride them, while he was
at the park, in the holidays. Do you know, that the woman
Horace sent to Sir Robert, and made him give her five guineas
for the two horses, because George had ridden them? I give
you my word this is fact.

There has been a great fracas at Kensington: one of the
Mesdames(718) pulled the chair from under Countess
Deloraine(719) at cards, who, being provoked that her monarch
was diverted with her disgrace, with the malice of a
hobby-horse, gave him just such another fall. But alas! the
Monarch, like Louis XIV. is mortal in the part that touched
the ground, and was so hurt and so angry, that the countess is
disgraced, and her German rival (720) remains in the sole and
quiet possession of her royal master's favour.

October 9th.

Well! I have waited till this morning, but have no letter from
you; what can be the meaning of it? Sure, if you was ill, Mr.
Chute would write to me! Your brother protests he never lets
your letters lie at the office.

Sa Majest`e Patapanique(721) has had a dreadful
misfortune!-not lost his first minister, nor his purse--nor
had part of his camp equipage burned in the river, nor waited
for his secretary of state, who is perhaps blown to
Flanders--nay, nor had his chair pulled from under him-worse!
worse! quarrelling with a great pointer last night about their
countesses, he received a terrible shake by the back and a
bruise on the left eye--poor dear Pat! you never saw such
universal consternation! it was at supper. Sir Robert, who
makes as much rout with him as I do, says, he never saw ten
people show so much real concern! Adieu! Yours, ever and
ever-but write to me.

(714) The Marshal de Maillebois and the Count de Saxe had been
sent with reinforcements from France, to deliver the Marshal
de Broglio and the Marshal de Belleisle, who, with their army,
were shut up in Prague, and surrounded by the superior forces
of the Queen of Hungary, commanded by Prince Charles of
Lorraine. They succeeded in facilitating the escape of the
Marshal de Broglio, and of a portion of the French troops; but
the Marshal de Belleisle continued to be blockaded in Prague
with twenty-two thousand men, till December 1742, when he made
his escape to Egra.-D.

(715) Felton Hervey, tenth son of John, first Earl of Bristol;
in 1737, appointed groom of the bedchamber to the Duke of
Cumberland. He died in 1775.-E.

(716) These are "The Capuchin," and the ode beginning, "'Great
Earl of Bath, your reign is o'er;" As they have been
frequently published, they are omitted. The "Nova Progenies"
is the well-known ode beginning, "See, a new progeny
descends."-D.

(717) Eldest son of old Horace Walpole. [Afterwards the second
Lord Walpole of Wolterton, and in 1806, at the age of
eighty-three created Earl of Orford. He died in 1809.-E.]

(718) The Princesses, daughters of George II.-D.

(719) Elizabeth Fenwick, widow of Henry Scott, third Earl of
Deloraine. She was a favourite of George II. and lived much
in his intimate society. From the ironical epithets applied
to her in Lord Hervey's ballad in the subsequent letter, it
would appear, that her general conduct was not considered to
be very exemplary. She died in 1794.-D.

(720) Lady Yarmouth.

289 Letter 86
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, Oct. 18, 1742.

I have received two letters from you since last post; I
suppose the wind stopped the packet-boat.

Well! was not I in the right to persist in buying the
Dominichin? don't you laugh at those wise connoisseurs, who
pronounced it a copy? If it is one, where is the original? or
who was that so great master that could equal Dominichin? Your
brother has received the money for it, and Lord Orford is in
great impatience for it; yet he begs, if you can find any
opportunity, that it may be sent in a man-of-war. I must
desire that the statue may be sent to Leghorn, to be shipped
with it, and that you will get Campagni and Libri to transact
the payment as they did for the picture, and I will pay your
brother.

Villettes' important despatches to you are as ridiculous as
good Mr. Matthews's devotion. - I fancy Mr. Matthews's own god
(722) would make as foolish a figure about a monkey's neck, as
a Roman Catholic one. You know, Sir Francis Dashwood used to
say that Lord Shrewsbury's providence was an old angry man in
a blue cloak: another person-that I knew, believed providence
was like a mouse, because he is invisible. I dare to say
Matthews believes, that providence lives upon beef and
pudding, loves prize-fighting and bull-baiting, and drinks fog
to the health of Old England.

I go to London in a week, and then will send you cart-loads of
news: I know none now, but that we hear to-day of the arrival
of Duc d'Aremberg-I suppose to return my Lord Carteret's
visit. The latter was near being lost; he told the King that
being in a storm, he had thought it safest to put into
Yarmouth roads, at which he laughed, hoh! hoh! hoh!

For want of news, I live upon ballads to you; here is one that
has made a vast noise, and by Lord Hervey's taking great pains
to disperse it, has been thought his own-if it is,(723) he has
taken true care to disguise the niceness of his style.

1. O England, attend. while thy fate I deplore,
Rehearsing the schemes and the conduct of power.
And since only of those who have power I sing,
I am sure none can think that I hint at the King.

2. From the time his son made him old Robin depose,
All the power of a King he was well-known to lose;
But of all but the name and the badges bereft,
Like old women, his paraphernalia are left.

3. To tell how he shook in St. James's for fear,
When first these new Ministers bullied him there,
Makes my blood boil with rage, to think what a thing
They have made of a man We 'obey as a King.

4. Whom they pleas'd they put in, whom they pleas'd they put
out,
And just like a top they all lash'd him about,
Whilst he like a top with a murmuring noise,
Seem'd to grumble, but turn'd to these rude lashing boys.

5. At last Carteret arriving, spoke thus to his grief,
If you'll make me your Doctor, I'll bring you relief;
You see to your closet familiar I come,
And seem like my wife in the circle-at home."

6. Quoth the King, "My good Lord, perhaps you've been told,
That I used to abuse you a little of old;
'But now bring whom you will, and eke turn away,
But let me and my money, and Walmoden(724) stay."

7." For you and Walmoden, I freely consent,
But as for your money, I must have it spent;
I have promised your son (nay, no frowns,) shall have some,
Nor think 'tis for nothing we patriots are come.

8. "But, however, little King, since I find you so good,
Thus stooping below your high courage and blood,
Put yourself in my hands, and I'll do what I can,
To make you look yet like a King and a man.