Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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9. "At your Admiralty and your Treasury-board,
To save one single man y; u shan't say a word,
For, by God! all your rubbish front both you shall shoot,
Walpole's ciphers and Gasherry'S(725) vassals to boot.

10. "And to guard Prince's ears, as all Statesmen take care,
So, long as yours are-not one man shall come near;
For of all your Court-crew we'll leave only those
Who we know never dare to say boh! to a goose.

11. "So your friend booby Grafton I'll e'en let you keep,
Awake he can't hurt, and is still half asleep;
Nor ever was dangerous, but to womankind,
And his body's as impotent now as his mind.

12. "There's another Court-booby, at once hot and dull,
Your pious pimp, Schutz, a mean, Hanover tool;
For your card-play at night he too shall remain,
With virtuous and sober, and wise Deloraine.(726)

13. "And for all your Court-nobles who can't write or read,
As of such titled ciphers all courts stand in need,
Who, like parliament-Swiss, vote and fight for their pay,
They're as good as a new set to cry yea and nay.

14. "Though Newcastle's as false, as he's silly, I know,
By betraying old Robin to me long ago,
As well as all those who employed him before,
Yet I leave him in place, but I leave him no power.

15. "For granting his heart is as black as his hat,
With no more truth in this, than there's sense beneath that;
Yet as he's a coward, he'll shake when I frown;
You call'd him a rascal, I'll use him like one,

16. "And since his estate at elections he'll spend,
And beggar himself, without making a friend;
So whilst the extravagant fool has a sous,
As his brains I can't fear, so his fortune I'll use,

17. "And as miser Hardwicke, with all courts will draw,
He too may remain, but shall stick to his law;
For of foreign affairs, when he talks like a fool,
I'll laugh in his face,, and will cry 'Go to school!'

18. "The Countess of Wilmington, excellent nurse,
I'll trust with the Treasury, not with its purse,
For nothing by her I've resolved shall be done,
She shall sit at that board, as you sit on the throne.

19. "Perhaps now, you expect that I should begin
To tell you the men I design to bring in;
But we're not yet determined on all their demands
-And you'll know soon enough, when they come to kiss hands.

20. "All that weathercock Pultney shall ask, we must grant,
For to make him a great noble nothing, I want;
And to cheat such a man, demands all my arts,
For though he's a fool, he's a fool with great parts,

21. "And as popular Clodius, the Pultney of Rome,
>From a noble, for power did plebeian become,
So this Clodius to be a Patrician shall choose,
Till what one got by changing, the other shall lose.

22. "Thus flatter'd and courted, and gaz'd at by all,
Like Phaeton, rais'd for a day, he shall fall,
Put the world in a flame, and show he did strive
To get reins in his hand, though 'tis plain he can't drive.

23. "For your foreign affairs, howe'er they turn out,
At least I'll take care you shall make a great rout:
Then cock your great hat, strut, bounce, and look bluff,
For though kick'd and cuffd here, you shall there kick and
cuff.

24. "That Walpole did nothing they all used to say,
So I'll do enough, but I'll make the dogs pay;
Great fleets I'll provide, and great armies engage,
Whate'er debts we make, or whate'er wars we wage."

25. With cordials like these the Monarch's new guest
Revived his sunk spirits and gladden'd his heart;
Till in raptures he cried, " y dear Lord, you shall do
Whatever you will, give me troops to review.

26. "But oh! my dear England, since this is thy state,
Who is there that loves thee but weeps at thy fate?
Since in changing thy masters, thou art just like old Rome,
Whilst Faction, Oppression, and Slavery's thy doom.

27. "For though you have made that rogue Walpole retire,
You're out of the frying-pan into the fire!
But since to the Protestant line I'm a friend,
I tremble to think where these changes may end!"

This has not been printed. You see the burthen of all the
songs Is the rogue Walpole, which he has observed himself, but
I believe is content, as long as they pay off his arrears to
those that began the tune. Adieu!

(722) Admiral Matthews's crew having disturbed some Roman
Catholic ceremonies in a little island on the coast of Italy,
hung a crucifix about a monkey's neck.

(723) It was certainly written by Lord Hervey.

(724) Lady Yarmouth.

(725) Sir Charles Wager's nephew, and Secretary to the
Admiralty.

(726) Countess Dowager of Deloraine, governess to the young
Princesses.

293 Letter 87
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, Oct. 23, 1742.

At last I see an end of my pilgrimage; the day after tomorrow
I am affirming it to you as earnestly as if' you had been
doubting of it like myself: but both my brothers are here, and
Sir Robert will let me go. He must follow himself soon: the
Parliament meets the 16th of November, that the King may go
abroad the first of March: but if all threats prove true
prophecies, he will scarce enter upon heroism so soon, for we
are promised a winter just like the last-new Secret Committees
to be tried for, and impeachments actually put into execution.
It is horrid to have a prospect of a session like the last.

In the meantime, my Lord of Bath and Lord Hervey, who seem
deserted by every body else, are grown the greatest friends in
the world at Bath; and to make a complete triumvirate, my Lord
Gower is always of their party: how they must love one
another, the late, the present, and the would-be Privy Seal!

Lord Hyndford has had great honours in Prussia: that King
bespoke for him a service of plate to the value of three
thousand pounds. He asked leave for his Majesty's arms to be
put upon it: the King replied, "they should, with the arms of
Silesia added to his paternal coat for ever." I will tell you
Sir ]Robert's remark on this: "He is rewarded thus for having
obtained Silesia for the King of Prussia, which he was sent to
preserve to the Queen of Hungary!" Her affairs begin to take
a little better turn again; Broglio is prevented from joining
Maillebois, who, they affirm, can never bring his army off, as
the King of Poland is guarding all the avenues of Saxony, to
prevent his passing through that country.

I wrote to you in my last to desire that the Dominichin and my
statue might come by a man-of-war. Now. Sir Robert, who is
impatient for his picture, would have it sent in a Dutch ship,
as he says he can easily get it from Holland. If you think
this conveyance quite safe, I beg my statue may bear it
company.

Tell me if you are tired of ballads on my Lord Bath; if you
are not, here is another admirable one,(727) I believe by the
same hand as the others; but by the conclusion certainly ought
not to be Williams's. I only send you the good ones, for the
newspapers are every day full of bad ones on this famous earl.

My compliments to the Princess; I dreamed last night that she
was come to Houghton, and not at all `epuis`ee with her
journey. Adieu!

P.S. I must add a postscript, to mention a thing I have often
designed to ask you to do for me. Since I came to England I
have been buying drawings, (the time is well chosen, when I
had neglected it in Italy!) I saw at Florence two books that
I should now be very glad to have, if you could get them
tolerably reasonable; one was at an English painter's; I think
his name was Huckford, over against your house in via Bardi;
they were of Holbein: the other was of Guercino, and brought
to me to see by the Abb`e Bonducci; my dear child, you will
oblige me much if you can get them.

(727) Sir Charles Hanbury Williams's ode, beginning "What
Statesman, what Hero, what King-." It is to be found in all
editions of his poems.-D.

294 Letter 88
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Nov. 1, 1742.

I have not felt so pleasantly these three months as I do at
present, though I have a great cold with coming into an
unaired house, and have been forced to carry that cold to the
King's levee and the drawing-room. There were so many new
faces that I scarce knew where I was; I should have taken 'it
for Carlton House, or my Lady Mayoress's visiting-day, only
the people did not seem enough at home, but rather as admitted
to see the King dine in public. 'Tis quite ridiculous to see
the numbers of old ladies, who, from having been wives of
patriots, have not been dressed these twenty years; out they
come, in all the accoutrements that were in use in Queen
Anne's days. Then the joy and awkward jollity of them is
inexpressible! They titter, and, wherever you meet them, are
always going to court, and looking at their watches an hour
before the time. I met several on the birthday, (for I did
not arrive time enough to make clothes,) and they were dressed
in all the colours of the rainbow: they seem to have said to
themselves twenty years ago, ,Well, if ever I do go to court
again, I will have a pink and silver, or a blue and silver,"
and they keep their resolutions.- But here's a letter from
you, sent to me back from Houghton; I must stop to read
it.-Well, I have read it, and am diverted with Madame
Grifoni's being with child; I hope she was too. I don't
wonder that she hates the country; I dare to say her child
does not owe its existence to the Villeggiatura. When you
wrote, it seems you had not heard what a speedy determination
was put to Don Philip's reign in Savoy. I suppose he will
retain the title: you know great princes are fond of titles,
which proves they are not so great as they once were.

I find a very different face of things from what we had
conceived in the country. There are, indeed, thoughts of
renewing attacks on Lord Orford, and Of stepping the supplies;
but the new ministry laugh at these threats, having secured a
vast majority in the House: the Opposition themselves own that
the Court will have upwards of a hundred majority: I don't,
indeed, conceive how; but they are confident of carrying every
thing. They talk of Lord Gower's not keeping the privy seal;
that he will either resign it, or have it taken away: Lord
Bath, who is entering into all the court measures, is most
likely to succeed him. The late Lord Privy Seal(728) has had
a most ridiculous accident at Bath: he used to play in a
little inner room; but one night some ladies had got it, and
he was reduced to the public room; but being extremely absent
and deep in politics, he walked through the little room to a
convenience behind the curtain, from whence (still absent) he
produced himself in a situation extremely diverting to the
women: imagine his delicacy, and the passion he was in at
their laughing!

I laughed at myself prodigiously the other day for a piece of
absence; I was writing on the King's birthday, and being
disturbed with the mob in the street, I rang for the porter,
and, with an air of grandeur, as if I was still at Downing
Street, cried, "Pray send away those marrowbones and
cleavers!" The poor fellow with the most mortified air in the
world, replied, "Sir, they are not at our door, but over the
way at my Lord Carteret's." "Oh," said I, "then let them
alone; may be he does not dislike the noise!" I pity the poor
porter, who sees all his old customers going over the way too.

Our operas begin to-morrow with a pasticcio, full of most of
my favourite songs: the Fumagalli has disappointed us; she had
received an hundred ducats, and then wrote word that she had
spent them, and was afraid of coming through the Spanish
quarters; but if they would send her an hundred more, she
would come next year. Villettes has what been written to in
the strongest manner to have her forced hither (for she is at
Turin.) I tell you this by way of key, in case you should
receive a mysterious letter in cipher from him about this
important business.

I have not seen Due d'Aremberg; but I hear that all the
entertainments for him are suppers, for he -will dine at his
own hour, eleven in the morning. He proposed it to the
Duchess of Richmond when she invited him; but she said she did
not know where to find company to dine with him at that hour.

I must advise YOU to be cautious how you refuse humouring our
captains (729) in any of their foolish schemes; for they are
popular, and I should be very sorry to have them out of humour
with you when they come home, lest it should give any handle
to your enemies. Think of it, my dear child! The officers in
Flanders, that are members of parliament, have had
intimations, that if they asked leave to come on their private
affairs, and drop in, not all together, they will be very well
received; this is decorum. Little Brook's little wife is a
little with child. Adieu!

(728) Lord Hervey.

(729) The captains of ships in the English fleet at Leghorn.

296 Letter 89
To Sir Horace Mann.
London, Nov. 15, 1742.

I have not written to you lately, expecting letters from you;
last I have received two. I still send mine through France,
as I am afraid they would get to you with still more
difficulty through Holland.

Our army is just now ordered to march to Mayence, at the
repeated instances of the Queen of Hungary; Lord Stair goes
with them, but almost all the officers that arc in parliament
arc come over, for the troops are only to be in garrison till
March, when, it is said, the King will take the field with
them. This step makes a great noise, for the old remains of
the Opposition are determined to persist, and have termed this
a H(inoverian measure. They begin to-morrow, with opposing
the address on the King's speech: Pitt is to be the leading
mail; there are none but he and Lyttelton of the Prince's
court, who do not join with the ministry: the Prince has told
them, that he will follow the advice they long ago gave him,
"turning out all his people who do not vote as he would have
them."

Lord Orford is come to town, and was at the King's levee
to-day; the joy the latter showed to see him was very visible:
all the new ministry came and spoke to him; and he had a long,
laughing conversation with my Lord Chesterfield, who is still
in Opposition.

You have heard, I suppose, of the revolution in the French
Court; Madame de Mailly is disgraced, and her handsome sister
De la Tournelle(730) succeeds: the latter insisted on three
conditions; first, that the Mailly should quit the palace
before she entered it; next, that she should be declared
mistress, to which post, they pretend, there is a large salary
annexed, (but that is not probable,) and lastly, that she may
always have her own parties at supper: the last article would
very well explain what she proposes to do with her salary.

There are admirable instructions come up from Worcester to
Sandys and Winnington; they tell the latter how little hopes
they always had of him. "But for you, Mr. Sandys, who have
always, etc., you to snatch at the first place you could get,"
etc. In short, they charge him, who is in the Treasury and
Exchequer not to vote for any supplies.(731)

I write to you in a vast hurry, for I am going to the meeting
at the Cockpit, to hear the King's speech read to the members:
Mr. Pelham presides there. They talk of a majority of
fourscore: we shall see to-morrow.

The Pomfrets stay in the country most part of the winter-.
Lord Lincoln and Mr. (George) Pitt have declared off in
form.(732) So much for the schemes of my lady! The Duke of
Grafton used to say that they put him in mind of a troop of
Italian comedians; Lord Lincoln was Valere, Lady Sophia,
Columbine, and my lady the old mother behind the scenes.

Our operas go on au plus miserable: all our hopes lie in a new
dancer, Sodi, who has performed but once, but seems to please
as much as the Fausan. Did I tell you how well they had
chosen the plot of the first opera? There was a prince who
rebels against his father, who had before rebelled against
his.(733) The Duke of Montagu says, there is to be an opera
of dancing, with singing between the acts.

My Lord Tyrawley(734) is come from Portugal, and has brought
three wives and fourteen children; one of the former is a
Portuguese, with long black hair plaited down to the bottom of
her back. He was asked the other night at supper, what he
thought of England; whether he found much alteration from
fifteen years ago? "No," he said, "not at all: why, there is
my Lord Bath, I don't see the least alteration in him; he is
just what he was: and then I found Lord Grantham (735) walking
on tiptoe, as if he was still afraid of waking the Queen."

Hanbury Williams is very ill at Bath, and his wife in the same
way in private lodgings in the city. Mr. Doddington has at
last owned his match with his old mistress.(736) I suppose he
wants a new one.

I commend your prudence about Leghorn; but, my dear child,
what pain I am in about you! Is it possible to be easy while
the Spaniards are at your gates! write me word every minute as
your apprehensions vanish or increase. I ask every moment
what people think; but how can they tell here? You say nothing
of Mr. Chute, sure he is with You Still! When I am in such
uneasiness about you, I want you every post to mention your
friends being with you: I am sure you have none so good or
sensible as he is. I am vastly obliged to you for the thought
of the book of shells, and shall like -it much; and thank you
too about my Scagliola table; but I am distressed about your
expenses. Is there any way one could get your allowance
increased? You know how low my interest is now; but you know
too what a push I would make to be of any service to you-tell
me,, and adieu!

(730) Afterwards created Duchess of Chateauroux. (Mary Anne
(le Mailly, widow of the Marquis de la Tournelle. She
succeeded her sister Madame de Mailly, as mistress of Louis
XV., as the latter had succeeded the other sister, Madame de
Vintimille, in the same situation. Madame de Chateauroux was
sent away from the court during the illness of Louis at Metz;
but on his recovery he recalled her. Shortly after which she
died, December 10, 1744, and on her deathbed accused M. de
Maurepas, the minister, of having poisoned her. The intrigue,
by means of which she supplanted her sister, was conducted
principally by the Marshal de Richelieu.-D.

(731) "We earnestly entreat, insist, and require, that you
will postpone the supplies until you have renewed the secret
committee of inquiry."-E.

(732) An admirer of Lady Sophia Fermor.-D.

(733) This was a pasticcio, called "Mandane," another name for
Metastasio's drama of "Artaserse."-E.

(734) Lord Tyrawley was many years ambassador at Lisbon. Pope
has mentioned his and another ambassador's seraglios in one of
his imitations of Horace, "Kinnoul's lewd cargo, or Tyrawley's
crew." [James O'Hara, second and last Lord Tyrawley of that
family, He died in 1773, at the age of eighty-five.]

(735) Henry Nassau d'Auverquerque, second Earl of Grantham.
He had been chamberlain to Queen Caroline. He died in 1754,
when his titles became extinct.-E.

(736) Mrs. Beghan.

298 Letter 90
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Dec. 2, 1742.,

You will wonder that it is above a fortnight Since I wrote to
you; but I have had an inflammation in one of my eyes, and
durst not meddle with a pen. I have had two letters from you
of Nov. 6th and 13th, but I am in the utmost impatience for
another, to hear you are quite recovered of your Trinculos and
FuribOndos. You tell me you was in a fever; I cannot be easy
till I hear from you again. I hope this will come much too
late for a medicine, but it will always serve for sal volatile
to give you spirits. Yesterday was appointed for considering
the army; but Mr. Lyttelton stood up and moved for another
Secret Committee, in the very words of last year; but the
whole debate ran, not upon Robert Earl of Orford, but Robert
Earl of Sandys:(737) he is the constant butt of the party;
indeed he bears it notably. After five hours' haranguing, we
came to a division, and threw out the motion by a majority of
sixty-seven, 253 against 186. The Prince had declared so
openly for union and agreement in all measures, that, except
the Nepotism,(738) all his servants but one were with us. I
don't know whether they will attempt any thing else, but with
these majorities we must have an easy winter. The union of
the Whigs has saved this parliament. It is expected that Pitt
and Lyttelton will be dismissed by the Prince. That faction
and Waller are the only Whigs of any note that do not join
with the Court. I do not count Doddington, who must now
always be with the minority, for no majority will accept him.
It is believed that Lord Gower will retire, or be desired to
do so. I suppose you have heard from Rome,(739) that Murray
is made Solicitor-general, in the room of Sir John Strange,
who has resigned for his health. This is the sum of politics;
we can't expect any winter, (I hope no winter will be) like
the last. By the crowds that come hither, one should not know
that Sir Robert is out of place, only that now he is scarce
abused.

De reste, the town is wondrous dull; operas unfrequented,
plays not in fashion, amours as old as marriages-in short,
nothing but whist! I have not yet learned to play, but I find
that I wait in vain for its being left off.

I agree with you about not sending home the Dominichin in an
English vessel; but what I mentioned to you of its coming in a
Dutch vessel, if you find an opportunity, I think will be very
safe, if you approve it; but manage that as you like. I shall
hope for my statue at the same time; but till the conveyance
is absolutely safe, I know you will not venture them. Now I
mention my statue, I must beg you will send me a full bill of
all my debts to you, which I am sure by this time must be
infinite; I beg to know the particulars, that I may pay your
brother. Adieu, my dear Sir; take care of yourself, and
submit to popery and slavery rather than get colds with
sea-heroes.(740)

(737) Samuel Sandys, chancellor of the Exchequer, in the room
of Sir R. Walpole.

(738) Lord Cobham's nephews and cousins.-D.

(739) This alludes to the supposed Jacobite principles of
Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield.-D.

(740) Sir H. Mann had complained, in one of his letters, of
the labours he had gone through in doing the honours of
Florence to some of Admiral Matthews's (il Furibondo)
officers. The English fleet was now at Leghorn, upon the plea
of defending the Tuscan territories, in case of their being
attacked by the Spaniards.-D.

299 Letter 91
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Dec. 9, 1742.

I shall have quite a partiality for the post of Holland; it
brought me two letters last week, and two more yesterday, of
November 20th and 27th; but I find you have your perpetual
headaches-how can you say that you shall tire me with talking
Of them? you may make me suffer by your pains, but I will hear
and insist upon your always telling me of your health. Do you
think I only correspond with you to know the posture of the
Spaniards or the `epuisements of the Princess! I am anxious,
too, to know how poor Mr. Whithed does, and Mr. Chute's gout.
I shall look upon our sea captains with as much horror as the
King of Naples can, if they bring gouts, fits, and headaches.
You will have had a letter from me by this time, to give up
sending the Dominichin by a man-of-war, and to propose its
coming in a Dutch ship. I believe that will be safe.

We have had another great day in the House on the army in
Flanders, which the Opposition were for disbanding; but we
carried 'it by a hundred and twenty.(741) Murray spoke for
the first time, with the greatest applause; Pitt answered him
with all his force and art of language, but on an ill-founded
argument. In all appearances, they will be great rivals.
Shippen was in great rage at Murray's apostacy;(742) if any
thing can really change his principles, possibly this
competition may. To-morrow we shall have a tougher battle on
the sixteen thousand Hanoverians. Hanover is the word given
out for this winter: there is a most bold pamphlet come out,
said to be Lord
Marchmont's,(743) which affirms that in every treaty made
since the accession of this family, England has been
sacrificed to the interest of Hanover, and consequently
insinuates the incompatibility of the two. Lord Chesterfield
says, "that if we have a mind effectually to prevent the
Pretender from ever obtaining this crown, we should make him
Elector of Hanover, for the people of England will never fetch
another king from thence." Adieu! my dear child. I am sensible
that I write you short letters, but I write you all I know. I
don't know how it is, but the wonderful seems worn out. In this
our day, we have no rabbit women-no elopements-no epic
poems,(744) finer than Milton's-no contest about harlequins and
Polly Peachems. Jansen (745) has won no more estates, and the
Duchess of Queensberry is grown as tame as her neighbours. Whist
has spread an universal opium over the whole nation; it makes
courtiers and patriots sit down to the same pack of cards.
The only thing extraordinary, and which yet did not seem to
surprise any body, was the Barberina's(746) being attacked by
four men masqued, the other night, as she came out of the
opera house, who would have forced her away, but she
screamed, and the guard came. Nobody knows who set them on,
and I believe nobody inquired.