Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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The Austrians in Flanders have separated from our troops a
little out of humour, because it was impracticable for them to
march without any preparatory provisions for their reception.
They will probably march in two months, if no peace prevents
it. Adieu!

(741) Upon a motion, made by Sir William Yonge, that 534,763
pounds be granted for defraying the charge of 16,259 men, to
be employed in Flanders. The numbers on the division were 280
against 160.-E.

(742) From Toryism.-D.

(743) Hugh Hume, third Earl of Marchmont.

(744) This alludes to the extravagant encomiums bestowed on
Glover's Leonidas by the young patriots.

(745) H. Jansen, a celebrated gamester, who cheated the late Duke
of Bedford of an immense sum: Pope hints at that affair in this
line, "Or when a duke to Jansen punts at White's."

(746) A famous dancer.

301 Letter 92
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Dec. 23, 1742.

I have had no letter from you this fortnight, and I have heard
nothing this month: judge now how fit I am to write. I hope
it is not another mark of growing old; but, I do assure you,
my writing begins to leave me. Don't be frightened! I don't
mean this as an introduction towards having done with you-I
will write to you to the very stump of my pen, and as Pope
says,

"Squeeze out the last dull droppings of my sense."

But I declare, it is hard to sit spinning out one's brains by
the fireside, without having heard the least thing to set
one's hand a-going. I am so put to it for something to say,
that I would make a memorandum of the most improbable lie that
could be invented by a viscountess-dowager; as the old Duchess
of Rutland (747) does when she is told of some strange
casualty, "Lucy, child, step into the next room and set that
down."-"Lord, Madam!" says Lady Lucy,(748) "it can't be
true!"-"Oh, no matter, child; it will do for news into the
country next post." But do you conceive that the kingdom of
the Dull is come upon earth-not with the forerunners and
prognostics of other to-come kingdoms? No, no; the sun and the
moon go on just as they used to do, without giving us any
hints: we see no knights come prancing upon pale horses, or
red horses; no stars, called wormwood, fall into the Thames,
and turn a third part into wormwood; no locusts, like horses,
with their hair as the hair of women-in short, no
thousand things, each of which destroys a third part of
mankind: the only token of this new kingdom is a woman riding
on a beast, which is the mother of abominations, and the name
in the forehead is whist: and the four-and-twenty elders, and
the woman, and the whole town, do nothing but play with this
beast. Scandal itself is dead, or confined to a pack of
cards; for the only malicious whisper I have heard this
fortnight, is of an intrigue between the Queen of hearts and
the Knave of clubs. Y
our friend Lady Sandwich (749) has got a son; if one may
believe the belly she wore, it is a brave one. Lord
Holderness(750) has lately given a magnificent repast to
fifteen persons; there were three courses of ten, fifteen, and
fifteen, and a sumptuous dessert: a great saloon illuminated,
odours, and violins-and, who do you think were the
invited?-the Visconti, Giuletta, the Galli, Amorevoli,
Monticelli, Vanneschi and his wife, Weedemans the hautboy, the
prompter, etc. The bouquet was given to the Guiletta, who is
barely handsome. How can one love magnificence and low
company at the same instant! We are making great parties for
the Barberina and the Auretti, a charming French girl; and our
schemes succeed so well, that the opera begins to fill
surprisingly; for all those who don't love music, love noise
and party, and will any night give half-a-guinea for the
liberty of hissing-such is English harmony.

I have been in a round of dinners with Lord Stafford, and
Bussy the French minister, who tells one stories of Capuchins,
confessions, Henri Quatre, Louis XIV., Gascons, and the string
which all Frenchmen go through, without any connexion or
relation to the discourse. These very stories, which I have
already heard four times, are only interrupted by English
puns, which old Churchill translates out of jest-books into
the mouth of my Lord Chesterfield, and into most execrable
French.

Adieu! I have scribbled, and blotted, and made nothing out,
and, in short, have nothing to say, so good night!

(747) Lady Lucinda Sherard, widow of John Manners, second Duke
of Rutland. She died in 1751.-E.

(748) Lady Lucy Manners, married, in 1742, to William, second
Duke of Montrose. She died in 1788.-E.

(749) Judith, sister of Lord Viscount Fane, wife of John
Montagu, fifth Earl of Sandwich.-E.

(750) Robert d'Arcy, fourth Earl of Holderness; subsequently
made secretary of State. Upon his death his earldom
extinguished, and what remained of his estate, as well as the
Barony of Conyers, descended to his only daughter, who was
married to Francis Osborne, fifth Duke of Leeds, in 1773.-D.
[From whom she was divorced in 1779. She afterwards married
Captain John Byron, son of Admiral Byron, and father of the
great poet.]

302 Letter 93
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Jan. 6, 1743.

You will wonder that you have not heard from me, but I have
been too ill to write. I have been confined these ten days
with a most violent cough, and they suspected an inflammation
on my lungs; but I am come off with the loss of my eyes and my
voice, both of which I am recovering, and would write to you
to-day. I have received your long letter of December 11th,
and return you a thousand thanks for giving up so much of your
time; I wish I could make as long a letter for you, but we arc
in a neutrality of news. The Elector Palatine (751) is dead;
but I have not heard what alterations that will make. Lord
Wilmington's death, which is reckoned hard upon, is likely to
make more conversation here. He is going to Bath, but that is
only to pass away the time until be dies.

The great Vernon is landed, but we have not been alarmed with
any bonfires or illuminations; he has outlived all his
popularity. There is nothing new but the separation of a Mr.
and Mrs. French, whom it is impossible you should know. She
has been fashionable these two winters; her husband has
commenced a suit in Doctors' Commons against her cat, and
will, they say, recover considerable damages: but the lawyers
are of opinion, that the kittens must inherit Mr. French's
estate, as they were born in lawful wedlock.

The parliament meets again on Monday, but I don't hear of any
fatigue that we are likely to have; in a little time, I
suppose, we shall hear what campaigning we are to make.

I must tell you of an admirable reply of your acquaintance the
Duchess of Queensberry:(752) old Lady Granville, Lord
Carteret's mother, whom they call the Queen-Mother, from
taking upon her to do the honours of her son's power, was
pressing the duchess to ask her for some place for herself or
friends, and assured her that she would procure it, be it what
it would. Could she have picked out a fitter person to be
gracious to? The duchess made her a most grave curtsey, and
said, "Indeed, there was one thing she had set her heart
on."-"Dear child, how you oblige me by asking, any thing! What
is it? tell me." "Only that you would speak to my Lord
Carteret to get me made lady of the bedchamber to the Queen of
Hungary."

I come now to your letter, and am not at all pleased to find
that the Princess absolutely intends to murder you with her
cold rooms. I wish you could come on those cold nights and
sit by my fireside; I have the prettiest warm little
apartment, with all my baubles, and Patapans, and cats!
Patapan and I go to-morrow to New Park, to my lord, for the
air, and come back with him on Monday.

What an infamous story that affair of Nomis is! and how
different the ideas of honour among officers in your world and
ours! Your history of cicisbeosm is more entertaining: I
figure the distress of a parcel of lovers who have so many
things to dread-the government in this world! purgatory in the
next! inquisitions, villeggiaturas, convents, etc.

Lord Essex is extremely bad, and has not strength enough to go
through the remedies that are necessary to his recovery. He
now fancies that he does not exist, will not be persuaded to
walk or talk, because, as he sometimes says, "How should he do
any thing? he is not." You say, "How came I not to see Duc
d'Aremberg?" I did once at the opera; but he went away soon
after: and here it is not the way to visit foreigners, unless
you are of the Court, or are particularly in a way of having
them at your house: consequently Sir R. never saw him
either-we are not of the Court! Next, as to Arlington Street:
Sir R. is in a middling kind of house, which has long been
his, and was let; he has taken a small one next to it for me,
and they are laid together.

I come now to speak to you of the affair of the Duke of
Newcastle; but absolutely, on considering it much myself, and
on talking of it with your brother, we both are against your
attempting any such thing. In the first place, I never heard
a suspicion of the duke's taking presents, and should think he
would rather be affronted: in the next place, my dear child,
though you are fond of that coffee-pot, it would be thought
nothing among such wardrobes as he has, of the finest wrought
plate: why, he has- a set of gold plates that would make a
figure on any sideboard in the Arabian Tales;(753) and as to
Benvenuto cellini, if the duke could take it for his, people
in England understand all work too well to be deceived.
Lastly, as there has been no talk of alterations in the
foreign ministers, and as all changes seem at an end, why
should you be apprehensive? As to Stone,(754) if any thing
was done, to be sure it should be to him though I really can't
advise even that. These are my sentiments sincerely: by no
means think of the duke. Adieu!

(751) Charles Philip of Neubourg, , Elector Palatine. He died
December 31, 1742. He was succeeded by Charles Theodore,
Prince of Sulzbach, descended from a younger branch of the
house of Neubourg, and who, in his old age, became Elector of
Bavaria.-D.

(752) Catherine Hyde, daughter of the Earl of Clarendon, and
wife of Charles Douglas, Duke of Queensberry; a famous beauty,
celebrated by Prior in that pretty poem which begins, "Kitty,
beautiful and young," and often mentioned in Swift and Pope's
letters, She was forbid the Court for promoting subscriptions
to the second part of the Beggar's Opera, when it had been
prohibited from being acted. She and the duke erected the
monument to Gay in Westminster Abbey. [And to which Pope
supplied the epitaph, "the first eight lines of which," says
Dr. Johnson, "have no grammar; the adjectives without
substantives, and the epithets without a subject." The duchess
died in 1777, and her husband in the year following.]

(753) Walpole, in his Memoires, says that the duke's houses,
gardens, table, and equipages swallowed immense treasures, and
that the sums he owed were only exceeded by those he wasted.
He employed several physicians, without having had apparently
much need of them. His gold plate appears to have been almost
as dear to him as his health; for he usually kept it in pawn,
except when he wished to display it on great occasions.

(754) Andrew Stone, at this time private secretary to the Duke
of Newcastle. he subsequently filled the offices of under-
secretary of state, sub-governor to Prince George, keeper of
the state-paper office, and, on the marriage of George the
third, treasurer to the Queen. he died in 1773.-E.

304 Letter 94
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Jan. 13, 1743,

Your brother brought me two letters together this morning, and
at the same time showed me yours to your father. How should I
be ashamed, were I he, to receive such a letter! so dutiful,
so humble, and yet so expressive of the straits to which he
has let you be reduced! My dear child, it looks too much like
the son of a minister, when I am no longer so; but I can't
help repeating to you offers of any kind of service that you
think I can do for you any way.

I am quite happy at your thinking Tuscany so secure from
Spain, unless the wise head of Richcourt works against the
season; but how can I ever be easy while a provincial
Frenchman, Something half French, half German, instigated by a
mad Englishwoman is to govern an Italian dominion?

I laughed much at the magnificent presents made by one of the
first families in Florence to their young accouch`ee. Do but
think if a Duke or Duchess of Somerset were to give a Lady
Hertford fifty pounds and twenty yards of velvet for bringing
an heir to the blood of Seymour!

It grieves me that my letters drop in so slowly to you: I have
never missed writing, but when I have been absolutely too much
out of order, or once or twice when I had no earthly thing to
tell you. This winter is so quiet, that one must inquire much
to know any thing. The parliament is met again, but we do not
hear of any intended opposition to any thing. the tories have
dropped the affair of the Hanoverians in the House of Lords,
in compliment to Lord Gower. there is a second pamphlet on
that subject which makes a great noise.(755) The ministry are
much distressed on the ways and means for raising the money
for this year: there is to be a lottery, but that will not
supply a quarter of what they want. They have talked of a new
duty on tea, to be paid by every housekeeper for all the
persons in their families; but it will scarce be proposed.
Tea is so universal, that it would make a greater clamour than
a duty on wine. Nothing is determined; the new folks do not
shine at expedients. Sir Robert's health is now drunk at all
the clubs in the city; there they are for having him made a
duke, and placed again at the head of the Treasury; but I
believe nothing could prevail on him to return thither. He
says he will keep the 12th of February,.-the day he resigned,
with his family as long as he lives. They talk of Sandys
being raised to the peerage, by way of getting rid of him; he
is so dull they can scarce draw him on.(756)

The English troops in Flanders march to-day, whither we don't
know, but "probably to Liege: from whence they imagine the
Hanoverians are going into Juliers and Bergue.(757) The
ministry have been greatly alarmed with the King of Sardinia's
retreat, and suspected that it was a total one from the
Queen's interest; but it seems he sent for Villettes and the
Hungarian minister, and had their previous approbations of his
deserting Chamberry, etc.

Vernon is not yet got to town, we are impatient for what will
follow the arrival of this mad hero. Wentworth will certainly
challenge him, but Vernon does not profess personal valour: he
was once knocked down by a merchant, who then offered him
satisfaction-but he was satisfied.

Lord Essex' is dead:(758) Lord Lincoln will have the
bedchamber; Lord Berkeley of Stratton(759) (a disciple of
Carteret's) the Pensioners; and Lord Carteret himself probably
the riband.

As to my Lady Walpole's dormant title,(760) it was in her
family; but being in the King's power to give to which sister
in equal claim he pleased, it was bestowed on Lord Clinton,
who descended from the younger sister of Lady W.'s
grandmother, or great grand-something. My Lady Clifford,(761)
Coke's mother, got her barony so, in preference to Lady
Salisbury and Lady Sondes, her elder sisters, who had already
titles for their children. It is called a title in abeyance.

Sir Robert has just bid me tell you to send the Dominichin by
the first safe conveyance to Matthews, who has had orders from
Lord Winchilsea (762) to send it by the first man-of-war to
England; or if you meet with a ship going to Port Mahon, then
you must send it thither to Anstruther, and write to him that
Lord Orford desires that he will take care of it, and send it
by the first ship that comes directly home. He is so
impatient for it, that he will have it thus; but I own I
should not like to have my things tumbled out of one ship into
another, and beg mine may stay till they can come at once.
Adieu!

(755) Entitled "The Case of the Hanover Forces in the Pay of
Great Britain examined." It was written by Lord Chesterfield,
and excited much attention.-E.

(756) In December he was created a peer, by the title of Lord
Sandys, Baron of Ombersley, and made cofferer of the
household.-E.

(757) The British troops began their march from Flanders at
the end of February, under the command of the Earl of Stair;
but were so tardy in their movements, that it was the middle
of May before they crossed the Rhine and fixed their station
at Hochst, between Mayence and Frankfort.-E.

(758) William Capel, third Earl of Essex. [A lord of the
bedchamber, knight of the garter, and captain of the yeomen of
the guard.)

(759) John, fifth and last Lord Berkeley of Stratton. He died
in 1773.-D.

(760) The barony of Clinton in fee descended to the daughters
of Theophilus, Earl of Huntingdon, who died without male
issue. One of those ladies died without children, by which
means the title lay between the families of Rolle and
Fortescue. King George I. gave it to Hugh Fortescue,
afterwards Created an earl; on whose death it descended to his
only sister, a maiden lady, after whom, without issue, it
devolved on Lady Orford.

(761) Lady Margaret Tufton, third daughter of Thomas, sixth
Earl of Thanet. the barony of De Clifford had descended to
Lord Thanet, from his mother, Lady Margaret Sackville,
daughter of Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and
Montgomery. Upon Lord Thanet's death, the barony of De
Clifford fell into abeyance between his five daughters. These
were Lady Catherine, married to Edward Watson, Viscount
Sondus; Lady Anne, married to James Cecil, Earl of Salisbury;
Lady Margaret, before mentioned; Lady Mary, married first to
Anthony Grey, Earl of Harold, and secondly to John Earl Gower;
and Lady Isabella, married to Lord Nassau Powlett.-D.

(762) First lord of the admiralty.-]).

306 Letter 95
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Jan. 27, 1743.

I could not write you last Thursday, I was so much out of
order with a cold; your brother came and found me in bed.
TO-night, that I can write, I have nothing to tell you; except
that yesterday the welcome news (to the ministry) came of the
accession of the Dutch to the King's measures. They are in
great triumph; but till it Is clear what part his Prussian
Uprightness is acting, other people take the liberty to be
still in suspense. So they are about all our domestic matters
too. It is a general stare! the alteration that must soon
happen in the Treasury will put some end to the uncertainties
of this winter. Mr. Pelham is universally named to the head
of it; but Messrs. Prince,(263) Carteret, Pultney, and
Companies must be a little considered. how they will like it:
the latter the least.

You will wonder, perhaps be peevish, when I protest I have not
another paragraph by me in the world. I want even common
conversation; for I cannot persist, like the royal family, in
asking people the same questions, "Do you love walking?" "Do
you love music'!" "Was you at the opera?" "When do you go into
the country!" I have nothing else to say: nothing happens;
scarce the common episodes of a newspaper, of a man falling
off a ladder and breaking his leg; or of a countryman cheated
out of his leather pouch, with fifty shillings in it. We are
in such a state of sameness, that I shall begin to wonder at
the change of seasons, and talk of the spring as a strange
accident. Lord Tyrawley, who has been fifteen years in
Portugal, is of my opinion; he says he finds nothing but a
fog, whist, and the House of Commons.

In this lamentable state, when I know not what to write even
to you, what can I do about my serene Princess Grifoni? Alas!
I owe her two letters, and where to find a beau sentiment, I
cannot tell! I believe I may have some by me in an old chest
of draws, with some exploded red-heel shoes and full-bottom
wigs; but they would come out so yellow and moth-eaten! Do bow
to her, in every superlative degree in the language, that my
eyes have been so bad, that as I wrote you word, over and
over, I have not been able to write a line. That will move
her, when she hears what melancholy descriptions I write, of
my not being able to write-nay, indeed it will not be so
ridiculous as you think; for it is ten times worse for the
eyes to write in a language one don't much practise! I
remember a tutor at Cambridge, who had been examining some
lads in Latin, but in a little while excused himself, and said
he must speak English, for his mouth was very sore.

I had a letter from you yesterday of January 7th, N. S. which
has wonderfully excited my compassion for the necessities of
the princely family,(764) and the shifts the old Lady' is put
to for quadrille.(765)

I triumph much on my penetration about the honest
Rucellai(766)-we little people, who have no honesty, virtue,
nor shame, do so exult when a good neighbour, who was a
pattern, turns out as bad as oneself! We are like the good
woman in the Gospel, who chuckled so much on finding her lost
bit; we have more joy on a saint's fall, than in ninety-nine
devils, who were always de nous autres! I am a little pleased
too, that Marquis BagneSi'(767) whom you know I always liked
much, has behaved so well; and am more pleased to hear what a
Beffana(768) the Electress(769) is-Pho! here am I sending you
back your own paragraphs, cut and turned! it is so silly to
think that you won't know them again! I will not spin myself
any longer; it is better to make a short letter. I am going
to the masquerade, and will fancy myself in via della
Pergola.(770) Adieu! "Do you know me?"-"That man there with
you, in the black domino, is Mr. Chute.,, Good night!

(763) Frederick, Prince of Wales.-D.

(764) Prince and Princess Craon.

(765) Madame Sarasin.

(766) Sir H. Mann says, in his letter of January 7, 1743, 11 I
must be so just as to tell you, @my friend, the Senator
Rucellai, is, as you always thought, a sad fellow. He has
quite abandoned me for fear of offending."-D.

(767) "Apropos of duels, two of our young nobles, Marquis
BagneSi and Strozzi, have fought about a debt of' fifteen
shillings; the latter, the creditor and the occasion of the
fight, behaved ill."-Letter from Sir H. Mann, dated Jan. 7,
1743.-D.

(768) A Beffana was a puppet, which was carried about the town
on the evening of the Epiphany. The word is derived from
Epifania. It also means an ugly woman. The Electress
happened to go out for the first time after an illness on the
Epiphany, and said in joke to Prince Craon, that the "Beffane
all went abroad on that day."-D.

(769) The Electress Palatine Dowager, the last of the House of
Medici.

(770) A street at Florence, in which the Opera house stands.

308 Letter 96
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Feb. 2, 1743.

Last night at the Duchess of Richmond's I saw Madame
Goldsworthy: what a pert, little, unbred thing it is! The
duchess presented us to one another; but I cannot say that
either of us stepped a foot beyond the first civilities. The
good duchess was for harbouring her and all her brood: how it
happened to her I don't conceive, but the thing had decency
enough to refuse it. She is going to live with her father at
Plymouth-tant mieux!

The day before yesterday the lords had a great day: Earl
Stanhope(771) moved for an address to his Britannic Majesty,
in consideration of the heavy wars, taxes, etc. far exceeding
all that ever were known, to exonerate his people of foreign
troops, Hanoverians,) which are so expensive, and can In no
light answer the ends for which they were hired. Lord
Sandwich seconded: extremely well, I hear, for I was not
there. Lord Carteret answered, but was under great concern.
Lord Bath spoke too, and would fain have persuaded that this
measure was not Solely Of one minister, but that himself and
all the council were equally concerned in it. The late Privy
Seal(772) Spoke for an hour and a half, with the greatest
applause, against the Hanoverians: and my Lord Chancellor
extremely well for them. The division was, 90 for the Court,
35 against it The present Privy Seal(773) voted with the
Opposition: so there will soon be another. Lord Halifax, the
Prince's new Lord, was with the minority too; the other, Lord
Darnley,(774) with the Court. After the division, Lord
Scarborough, his Royal Highness's Treasurer, moved an address
of approbation of the measure, which was carried by 78 to the
former 35. Lord Orford was ill, and could not be there, but
sent his proxy: he has got a great cold and slow fever, but
does not keep his room. If Lord Gower loses the Privy Seal,
(as it is taken for granted he does not design to keep it,)
and Lord Bath refuses it, Lord Cholmondeley stands the fairest
for it.

I will conclude abruptly, for you will be tired of my telling
you that I have nothing to tell you-but so it is literally-
oh! yes, you will want to know what the Duke of Argyle did-he
was not there; he is every thing but superannuated. Adieu!