Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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His Royal Highness is not Regent: there are to be fourteen.
The Earl of Bath and Mr. Pelham, neither of them in
regency-posts, are to be of the number.

I have read your letters about Mystery to Sir Robert. He
denies absolutely having ever had transactions with King
Theodore, and is amazed Lord Carteret can; which he can't help
thinking but he must, by the intelligence about Lady W. Now I
can conceive all that affected friendship for Richcourt! She
must have meant to return to England by Richcourt's interest
with Touissant(799) and then where was her friendship? You are
quite in the right not to have engaged with King Theodore:
your character is not-Furibondo. Sir R. entirely disapproves
all Mysterious dealings; he thinks Furibondo most bad and most
improper, and always did. You mistook me about Lady W.'s
Lord-I meant Quarendon, who is now Earl of Litchfield, by his
father's death, which I mentioned. I think her lucky in
Sturges's death, and him lucky in dying. He had outlived
resentment; I think had almost lived to be pitied.

I forgot to thank you about the model, which I should have
been sorry to have missed. I long for all the things, and my
Lord more. so. Am I not to have a bill of lading, or how!

I never say any thing of the Pomfrets, because in the great
city of London the Countess's follies do not make the same
figure as they did in little Florence. Besides, there are
such numbers here who have such equal pretensions to be
absurd, that one is scarce aware of particular ridicules.

I really don't know whether Vanneschi be dead; he married some
low English woman, who is kept by Amorevoli; so the Abbate
turned the opera every way to his profit. As to
Bonducci,(200) I don't think I could serve him; for I have no
interest with the Lords Middlesex and Holderness, the two sole
managers. Nor if I had, would I employ it, 'to bring over
more ruin to the operas. Gentlemen directors, with favourite
abb`es and favourite mistresses, have almost overturned the
thing in England. You will plead my want of interest to Mr.
Smith(801) too: besides, we had Bufos here once, and from not
understanding the language, people thought it a dull kind of
dumb-show. We are next Tuesday to have the Miserere of Rome.
It must be curious! the finest piece of vocal music in the
world, to be performed by three good voices, and forty bad
ones, from Oxford, Canterbury, and the farces! There is a new
subscription formed for an opera next year, to be carried on
by the Dilettanti, a club, for which the nominal qualification
is having been in Italy, and the real one, being drunk: the
two chiefs are Lord Middlesex and Sir Francis Dashwood, who
were seldom sober the whole time they were in Italy.

The parliament rises next week: every body is going out of
town. My Lord goes the first week in May; but I shall
reprieve myself till towards August. Dull as London is in
summer, there is always more company in it than in any one
place in the country. I hate the country: I am past the
shepherdly age of groves and streams, and am not arrived at
that of hating every thing but what I do myself, as building
and planting. Adieu!

(796) Simon, second Viscount Harcourt, created an earl in
1749; in 1768 appointed ambassador at Paris, and in 1769 Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland. He was accidentally drowned in a well
in his park at Nuncham, in 1777; occasioned, it is believed,
by overreaching himself, in order to save the life of a
favourite dog.-E.

(797) Elizabeth Trevor, daughter of Thomas Lord Trevor, wife
of Charles Spencer, Duke of Marlborough. She died in 1761.-E.

(798) Frances, only daughter of Sir Robert Worseley, first
wife of Lord Carteret.

(799) First minister of the Great Duke.

(800) Bonducci was a Florentine abb`e, who translated some of
Pope's works into Italian.

(801) The English Consul at Venice.

318 Letter 104
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, April 25, 1743.

Nay, but it is serious! the King is gone, and the Duke with
him. The' latter actually to the army. They must sow
laurels, if they design to reap any; for there are no
conquests forward enough for them to come just in time and
finish. The French have relieved Egra and cut to pieces two
of the best Austrian regiments, the cuirassiers. This is
ugly! We are sure, you know, of beating the French afterwards
in France and Flanders; but I don't hear that the heralds have
produced any precedents for our conquering them on the other
side the Rhine.(802) We at home may be excused from trembling
at the arrival of every post; I am sure I shall. If I were a
woman, should support my fears with more dignity; for if one
did lose a husband or a lover, there are those becoming
comforts, weeds and cypresses, jointures and weeping cupids;
but I have only a friend or two to lose, and there are no
ornamental substitutes settled, to be one's proxy for that
sort of grief. One has not the satisfaction of fixing a day
for receiving visits of consolation from a thousand people
whom one don't love, because one has lost the only person one
did love. This is a new situation, and I don't like it.

You will see the Regency in the newspapers. I think the
Prince might have been of it when my Lord Gower is. I don't
think the latter more Jacobite than his Royal Highness.

The Prince is to come to town every Sunday fortnight to hold
drawing-rooms; the Princesses stay all the summer at St.
James's-would I did! but I go in three weeks to Norfolk; the
only place that could make me wish to live at St. James's. My
Lord has pressed me so much, that I could not with decency
refuse: he is going to furnish and hang his picture-gallery,
and wants me. I can't help wishing that I had never known a
Guido from a Teniers: but who could ever suspect any connexion
between painting and the wilds of Norfolk.

Princess Louisa's contract with the Prince of Denmark was
signed the morning before the King Went; but I don't hear when
she goes. Poor Caroline misses her man of Lubeck,(803) by his
missing the crown of Sweden.

I must tell you an odd thing that happened yesterday at
Leicester House. The Prince's children were in the circle:
Lady Augusta(804) heard somebody call Sir Robert Rich by his
name. She concluded there was but one Sir Robert in the
world, and taking him for Lord Orford, the child went staring
up to him, and said, "Pray, where is your blue string! and
pray what has become of your fat belly?" Did one ever hear of
a more royal education, than to have rung this mob cant in the
child's ears till it had made this impression on her!

Lord Stafford is come over to marry Miss Cantillon, a vast
fortune, of his own religion. She is daughter of the
Cantillon who was robbed and murdered, and had his house
burned by his cook(805) a few years ago. She is as ugly as
he; but when she comes to Paris, and wears a good deal of
rouge, and a separate apartment, who knows but she may be a
beauty! There is no telling what a woman is, while she is as
she is. There is a great fracas in Ireland in a noble family
or two, heightened by a pretty strong circumstance of Iricism.
A Lord Belfield(806) married a very handsome daughter of a
Lord Molesworth.(807) A certain Arthur Rochfort, who happened
to be acquainted in the family, by being Lord Belfield's own
brother, looked on this woman, and saw that she was fair.
These ingenious people, that their history might not be
discovered, corresponded under feigned names-And what names do
you think they chose?-Silvia and Philander! Only the very same
that Lord Grey(808) and his sister-in-law took upon a parallel
occasion, and which arc printed in their letters!

Patapan sits to Wootton to-morrow for his picture. He is to
have a triumphal arch at a distance, to signify his Roman
birth, and his having barked at thousands of Frenchmen in the
very heart of Paris. If you can think of a good Italian motto
applicable to any part of his history send it to me. If not,
he shall have this antique one-for I reckon him a senator of
Rome, while Rome survived,-"O, et Presidium et dulce decus
meum!" He is writing an ode on the future campaign of this
summer; it is dated from his villa, where he never was, and
being truly in the classic style, "While you, great Sir," etc.
Adieu!

(802) Walpole seems to have forgotten the battle of
Blenheim.-D;

(803) Adolphus Frederick of Holstein, Bishop of Lubeck, was
elected successor, and did succeed to the crown of Sweden. He
married the Princess Louisa Ulrica of Prussia.

(804) Afterwards Duchess of Brunswick.-D.

(805) Cantillon was a Paris wine-merchant and banker, who had
been engaged with Law in the Mississippi scheme. He
afterwards brought his riches to England and settled in this
country. In May 1734, some of his servants, headed by the
cook, conspired to murder him, knowing that he kept large sums
of money in his house. They killed him, and then set fire to
the house; but the fire was extinguished, and the body, with
the wounds upon it, found. The cook fled beyond sea; but in
December, three of his associates were tried at the Old Bailey
for the murder, and acquitted.-E.

(806) Robert Rochfort, created Lord Belfield in Ireland in
1737, Viscount Belfield in 1751, and Earl of Belvedere in
1756. His second wife, whom be married in 1736, was the Hon.
Mary Molesworth. D.

(807) Richard, third Viscount Molesworth, in Ireland. He had
been aide-de-camp to the great Duke of Marlborough, and in
that capacity distinguished himself greatly at the battle of
Ramilies. He became afterwards master-general of the ordnance
in Ireland, and commander of the forces in that kingdom, and a
field-marshal. He died in 1758.-D.

(808) Fordo, the infamous Lord Grey of werke, and his
sister-in-law, Lady Henrietta Berkeley, whose "Love Letters,"
under these romantic names, were published in three small
volumes. They are supposed to have been compiled by Mrs.
Behn.-D. [Lord Grey commanded the horse at Sedgmoor, and is
accused of flying at the first charge, and preserving his life
by giving evidence against his associates. He married Lady
Mary, daughter of George, first Earl of Berkeley, and died in
1701.)

320 Letter 105
To Sir Horace Mann.
May 4, 1743.

The King was detained four or five days at Sheerness but
yesterday we heard that he was got to Helvoetsluys. They
talk' of an interview between him and his nephew of Prussia-I
never knew any advantage result from such conferences. We
expect to hear of the French attacking our army, though there
are accounts of their retiring, which would necessarily
produce a peace-I hope so! I don't like to be at the eve, even
of an Agincourt; that, you know, every Englishman is bound in
faith to expect: besides, they say my Lord Stair has in his
pocket, from the records of the Tower, the original patent,
empowering us always to conquer. I am told that Marshal
Noailles is as mad as Marshal Stair. Heavens! twice fifty
thousand men trusted to two mad captains, without one Dr.
Monroe(809) over
them!

I am sorry I could give you so little information about King
Theodore; but my lord knew nothing of him, and as little of
any connexion between Lord Carteret and him. I am sorry you
have him on your
hands. He quite mistakes his
province: an adventurer should come hither;(810) this is the
soil for mobs and patriots it is the country of
the world to make one's fortune - with parts never so scanty,
one's dulness is not discovered, nor one's dishonesty, till
one obtains the post one wanted-and then, if they do not come
to light-why, one slinks into one's green velvet bag,(811) and
lies so snug! I don't approve of your hinting at the
falsehoods(812) of Stosch's intelligence; nobody
regards it but the King , it pleases
him-e basta.

I was not in the House at Vernon's frantic speech;(813) but I
know he made it, and have heard him pronounce several such:
but he has worn out even laughter, and did not make impression
enough on me to remember till the next post that he had
spoken.

I gave your brother the translated paper; he will take care of
it. Ceretesi is gone to Flanders with Lord Holderness. Poor
creature!
he was reduced, before he went, to borrow five guineas of Sir
Francis Dashwood. How will he ever scramble back to Florence?

We are likely at last to have no opera next year: Handel has
had a palsy, and can't compose; and the Duke of Dorset has set
himself strenuously to oppose it, as Lord Middlesex is the
impresario, and must ruin the house of Sackville by a course
of these follies. Besides what he will lose this year, he has
not paid his share to the losses of the last; and yet is
singly undertaking another for next season, with
the almost certainty of losing
between four or five thousand pounds, to which the
deficiencies of the opera generally amount now. The
Duke of Dorset has desired the King
not to subscribe; but Lord Middlesex is so obstinate, that
this will probably only make him lose a
thousand pounds more.

The Freemasons are in so low repute now in England, that one
has scarce heard the proceedings at Vienna against them
mentioned. I believe nothing but a persecution could bring
them into vogue again here. You know, as great as our follies
are, we even grow tired of them, and are always changing.

(809) Physician of Bedlam-

"Those walls where Folly holds her throne,
And laughs to think Monroe would take her down."-E.

(810) He afterwards came to England, where he suffered much
from poverty and destitution, and was finally arrested by his
creditors and confined in the King,'s Bench prison. He was
released from thence under the Insolvent Act, having
registered the kingdom of Corsica for the use of his
creditors. Shortly after this event he died, December 11,
1756, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Anne's, Soho,
where Horace Walpole erected a marble slab to his memory. He
was an adventurer, whose name was Theodore Anthony, Baron
Newhoff, and was born at Metz, in 1686. Walpole, who had seen
him, describes him as "a comely, middle-sized man, very
reserved, and affecting much dignity,"-D.

(811) The secretaries of state and lord treasurer carry their
papers in a green velvet bag.

(812) Stosch used to pretend to send over an exact journal of
the life of the Pretender and his sons, though he had been
sent out of Rome at the Pretender's request, and must have
had very bad, or no intelligence, of
what passed in that family.

(813) The admiral had recently said, in the House of Commons,
that "there was not, on this side Hell, a nation so burthened
with taxes as England."-E.

322 Letter 106
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, May 12, 1743.

It is a fortnight since I got any of your letters, but I will
expect two at once. I don't tell you by way of news, because
you will have had expresses, but I must talk of the great
Austrian victory!(814) We have not heard the exact
particulars yet, nor whether it was Kevenhuller or lobkowitz
who beat the Bavarians; but their general, Minucci, is
prisoner. At first, they said Seckendorffe was too; I am glad
he is not: poor man, he has suffered enough by the house of
Austria! But my joy is beyond the common, for I flatter myself
this victory will save us one: we talk of nothing, but its
producing a peace, and then one's friends will return.

The Duchess of Kendal(815) is dead-eighty-five years old: she
was a year older than her late King. Her riches were immense;
but I believe my Lord Chesterfield will get nothing by her
death-but his wife: (816) she lived in the house with the
duchess, where he had played away all his credit.

Hough,(817) the good old Bishop of Worcester, is dead too. I
have been looking at the "Fathers in God" that have been
flocking over the way this Morning to Mr. Pelham, who is just
come to his new house. This is absolutely the ministerial
street Carteret has a house here too; and Lord Bath seems to
have lost his chance by quitting this street. Old Marlborough
has made a good story of the latter; she says, that when he
found he could not get the privy seal, he begged that at least
they would offer it to him, and upon his honour he would not
accept it, but would plead his vow of never taking a place; in
which she says they humoured him. The truth is, Lord Carteret
did hint an offer to him, upon which he went with a nolo
episcopari to the King-he bounced, and said, "Why I never
offered it to you:" upon which he recommended my Lord
Carlisle, with equal Success.

Just before the King went, he asked my Lord Carteret, " Well,
when am I to get rid of those fellows in the Treasury?" They
are on so low a foot, that somebody said Sandys had hired a
stand of hackney-coaches, to look like a levee.

Lord Conway has begged me to send you a commission, which you
will oblige me much by executing. It is to send him three
Pistoia barrels for guns: two of them, of two feet and a half
in the barrel in length; the smallest of the inclosed buttons
to be the size of the bore, hole, or calibre, of the two guns.
The third barrel to be three feet and an inch in length; the
largest of these buttons to be the bore of it; these feet are
English measure. You will be so good to let me know the price
of them.

There has happened a comical circumstance at Leicester House:
one of the Prince's coachmen, who used to drive the Maids of
Honour, was so sick of them, that he has left his son three
hundred pounds, upon condition that he never carries a Maid of
Honour!

Our journey to Houghton is fixed to Saturday se'nnight; 'tis
unpleasant, but I flatter myself that I shall get away in the
beginning of August. Direct your letters as you have done all
this winter; your brother will take care to send them to me.
Adieu!

(814) There was no great victory this year till the battle of
Dettingen, which took place in June; but the Austrians
obtained many advantages during the spring over the Bavarians
and the French, and obliged the latter to recross the
Rhine.-D.

(815) Erangard Melusina Schulembergh, the mistress of George
I. George I. created her Duchess of Munster and Marchioness
of Dungannon in Ireland in 1719; Ind Duchess of Kendal,
Countess of Feversham, and Baroness of Glastonbury. in
England, in 1723. All these honours were for life only. He
also persuaded the Emperor to create her Princess of eberstein
in the Roman empire in 1723.-D.

(816) Melusina Schulembergh, Countess of Walsingham, niece of
the Duchess of Kendal, and her heiress.

(817) Hough Was a man of piety, ability, and integrity, and
had distinguished himself early in his life by his resistance
to the arbitrary proceedings of James II. against Magdalen
College, Oxford, of which he was the president. Pope, with
much justice, speaks of "Hough's unsullied mitre."-D. [He was
nominated Bishop of Oxford in 1690; and translated to
Worcester in 1717.]

323 Letter 107
To Sir Horace Mann.
May 19, 1743.

I am just come tired from a family dinner at the Master of the
Rolls;(818) but I have received two letters from you since my
last, and will write to you, though my head aches with maiden
sisters' healths, forms, and Devonshire and Norfolk. With
yours I received one from Mr. Chute, for which I thank him a
thousand times, and will answer as soon as I get to Houghton.
Monday is fixed peremptorily, though we have had no rain this
month; but we travel by the day of the week, not by the day of
the sky.

We are in more confusion than we care to own. There lately
came up a highland regiment from Scotland, to be sent abroad.
One heard of nothing but their good discipline and quiet
disposition. When the day came for their going to the water
side, an hundred and nine of them mutinied, and marched away
in a body. They did not care to go where it would not be
equivocal for what King they fought. Three companies of
dragoons are sent after them. If you happen to hear of any
rising don't be surprised-I shall not, I assure you. Sir
Robert Monroe, their lieutenant-colonel, before their leaving
Scotland, asked some of the ministry, " "But suppose there
should be any rebellion in Scotland, what should we do for
these eight hundred men?" It was answered, "Why, there would
be eight hundred fewer rebels there."

"Utor permisso, caudeque pilos ut equinae
Paulatim cello; demo unum, demo etiam unum,
Dum-"

My dear child, I am surprised to hear you enter so seriously
into earnest ideas of my lord's passing into Italy! Could you
think (however he, you, or I might wish it) that there could
be any probability of it? Can you think his age could endure
it, or him so indifferent, so totally disministered, as to
leave all thoughts of what he has been, and ramble like a boy,
after pictures and statues? Don't expect it.

We had heard of the Duke of Modena's command before I had your
letter. I am glad, for the sake of the duchess, as she is to
return to France. I never saw any body wish anything more!
and indeed, how can one figure any particle of pleasure
happening to the daughter of the Regent,(819) and a favourite
daughter too, full of wit and joy, buried in a dirty, dull
Italian duchy, with an ugly, formal object for a husband, and
two uncouth sister-princesses for eternal companions? I am so
near the eve of going into Norfolk, that I imagine myself
something in her situation, and married to some Hammond or
Hoste (820) who is Duke of Wootton or Darsingham. I remember
in the fairy tales where a yellow dwarf steals a princess, and
shows her his duchy, of which he is very proud: among the
blessings of grandeur, of which he makes her mistress, there
is a most beautiful ass for her palfrey, a blooming meadow of
nettles and thistles to walk in, and a fine troubled ditch to
slake her thirst, after either of the above mentioned
exercises.

Adieu! My next will be dated from some of the doleful castles
in the principality of your forlorn friend, the duchy of
Reepham.

(818) William Fortescue, master of the rolls, a relation of
Margaret Lady Walpole. ffortescue was made master of the rolls
in 1741, and continued so until his death in 1749. He was the
friend and correspondent of Pope, and assisted the poet in
drawing up the humorous report, "Stradling versus Stiles." He
was a man of great humour, talents, and integrity.]

(819) Mademoiselle de Valois, who had made herself notorious
during the regency of her father, by her intrigue with the
Duke of Richelieu. She consented to marry the Duke of Modena,
in order to obtain the liberty of her lover, who was confined
in the Bastille, for conspiring against the Regent. The Duke
of Richelieu, in return, followed her afterwards secretly to
Modena.-D.

(820) The Hammonds and Hostes are two Norfolk families, nearly
allied to the Walpoles.

324 letter 108
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, Jan. 4, 1743.

I wrote, this week to Mr. Chute, addressed to you; I could not
afford two letters in one post from the country, and in the
dead of summer. I have received one from you of May 21st,
since I came I must tell you a smart dialogue between your
father and me the morning we left London: he came to wish my
lord a good journey: I found him in the parlour. "Sir," said
he, "I may ask you how my son does; I think you hear from him
frequently: I never do." I replied, "Sir, I write him kind
answers; pray do you do so?" He coloured, and said with a
half mutter, "Perhaps I have lived too long for him!" I
answered shortly, "Perhaps you have." My dear child, I beg
your pardon, but I could not help this. When one loves any
body, one can't help being warm for them at a fair
opportunity. Bland and Mr. Legge were present-your father
could have stabbed me. I told your brother Gal, who was glad.

We are as private here as if we were in devotion-. there is
nobody with us now but Lord Edgecumbe and his son. The Duke
of Grafton and Mr. Pelham come next week, and I hope Lord
Lincoln with them. Poor Lady Sophia is at the gasp of her
hopes; all is concluded for his match with Miss Pelham. It is
not to be till the winter. He is to have all Mr. Pelham and
the Duke of Newcastle can give or settle; unless Lady
Catherine should produce a son, or the duchess should die, and
the duke marry again.

Earl Poulett(821) is dead, and makes vacant another riband.
I imagine Lord Carteret will have one; Lord Bath will ask it.
I think they should give Prince Charles(822) one of the two,
for all the trouble he saves us. The papers talk of nothing
but a suspension of arms: it seems toward, for at least we
hear of no battle, though there are so many armies looking at
one another.

Old Sir Charles Wager(823) is dead at last, and has left the
fairest character. I can't help having a little private
comfort, to think that Goldsworthy-but there is no danger.

Madox of St. Asaph has wriggled himself into the see of
Worcester. He makes haste; I remember him only domestic
chaplain to the late Bishop of Chichester.(824) Durham is not
dead, as I believe I told you from a false report.