Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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You tell me of dining with Madame de Modene,(824) but you
don't tell me of being charmed with her. I like her
excessively-I don't mean her person, for she is as plump as
the late Queen; but, sure her face is fine; her eyes vastly
fine! and then she is as agreeable as one should expect the
Regent's daughter to be. The Princess and she must have been
an admirable contrast; one has all the good breeding of a
French court, and the other all the ease of it. I have almost
a mind to go to Paris to see her. She was so excessively
civil to me. You don't tell me if the Pucci goes into France
with her.

I like the Genoese selling Corsica! I think we should follow
their example and sell France; we have about as good a title,
and very near as much possession. At how much may they value
Corsica? at the rate of islands it can't go for much.
Charles the Second sold Great Britain and Ireland to Louis
XIV. for 300,000 pounds. a-year, and that was reckoned
extravagantly dear. Lord Bolingbroke took a single hundred
thousand for them, when they were in much better repair.

We hear to-day that the King goes to the army on the 15th N.
S. that is, to-day; but I don't tell it you for certain.
There has been much said against his commanding it, as it is
only an army of succour, and not acting as principal in the
cause. In my opinion, his commanding will depend upon the
more or less probability of its acting at all. Adieu!

(821) John, first Earl of Poulett, knight of the garter. He
died, aged upwards of eighty, on the 28th May 1743.-D.

(822) Prince Charles of Lorraine, the queen of Hungary's
general against the French.-D.

(823) This distinguished admiral died on the 24th of May, in
his seventy-seventh year; at which time he was member for West
looe. A splendid monument was erected to his memory in
Westminster Abbey.-E.

(824) Dr. Waddington.

(825) It was not the Duchess of Modena, but the Duke's second
sister, who went to Florence.

326 letter 109
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, June 10, 1743.

You must not expect me to write you a very composed, careless
letter; my spirits are all in agitation! I am at the eve of a
post that may bring me the most dreadful news! we expect
to-morrow the news of a decisive battle. Oh! if you have any
friend there, think what apprehensions I (826) must have of
such a post! By yesterday's letters, our army was within
eight miles of the French, who have had repeated orders to
attack them. Lord Stair and Marshal Noailles both think
themselves superior, and have pressed for leave to fight. The
latter call themselves fourscore thousand; ours sixty. Mr.
Pelham and Lord Lincoln come to Houghton to-morrow, so we are
sure of hearing as soon as possible, if any thing has
happened. By this time the King must be with them.- My fears
for one or two friends have spoiled me for any English hopes-I
cannot dwindle away the French army-every man in it appears to
my imagination as big as the sons of Anak! I am conjuring up
the ghosts of all who have perished by French ambition, and am
dealing out commissions to these spectres,

"-To sit heavy on their souls to-morrow!"

Alas! perhaps that glorious to-morrow was a dismal yesterday
at least, perhaps it was to me! The genius of England might
be a mere mercenary man of the world, and employed all his
attention to turn aside cannonballs from my Lord Stair, to
give new edge to his new Marlborough's sword: was plotting
glory for my Lord Carteret, or was thinking of furnishing his
own apartment in Westminster Hall with a new set of
trophies-who would then take care of Mr. Conway? You, who are
a minister, will see all this in still another light, will
fear our defeat, and will foresee the train of
consequences.-Why, they may be wondrous ugly; but till I know
what I have to think about my own friends, I cannot be wise in
my generation.

I shall now only answer your letter; for till I have read
to-morrow's post, I have no thoughts but of a battle.

I am angry at your thinking that I can dislike to receive two
or three of your letters at once. Do you take me for a child,
and imagine, that though I may like one plum-tart, two may
make me sick? I now get them regularly; so I do but receive
them, I am easy.

You are mistaken about the gallery; so far from unfurnishing
any part of the house, there are several pictures undisposed
of, besides numbers at Lord Walpole's, at the Exchequer, at
Chelsea, and at New Park. Lord Walpole has taken a dozen to
Stanno, a small house, about four miles from hence, where he
lives with my lady Walpole's vicegerent.(827) You may imagine
that her deputies are no fitter than she is to come where
there is In a modest, unmarried girl.(828)

I will write to London for the life of Theodore, though you
may depend upon its being a Grub Street piece, without one
true fact. Don't let it prevent your undertaking his Memoirs.
Yet I should say Mrs. Heywood,(829) or Mrs. Behn(830) were
fitter to write his history.

How slight you talk of Prince Charles's victory at Brunau! We
thought it of vast consequence; so it was. He took three
posts afterwards, and has since beaten the Prince of Conti,
and killed two thousand men. Prince Charles civilly returned
him his baggage. The French in Bavaria are quite
dispirited-poor wretches! how one hates to wish so ill as one
does to fourscore thousand men!

There is yet no news of the Pembroke. The Dominichin has a
post of honour reserved in the gallery. My Lord says, as to
that Dalton's Raphael, he can say nothing without some
particular description of the picture and the size, and some
hint at the price, which you have promised to get. I leave
the residue of my paper for tomorrow: I tremble, lest I should
be forced to finish it abruptly! I forgot to tell you that I
left a particular commission with my brother Ned, who is at
Chelsea, to get some tea-seed from the physic-garden; and he
promised me to go to Lord Islay, to know what cobolt and
zingho(831) are, and where they are to be got.

Saturday morning.

The post is come: no battle! Just as they were marching
against the French, they received orders from Hanover not to
engage, for the Queen's generals thought they were inferior,
and were positive against fighting. Lord Stair, with only the
English, proceeded, and drew out in order; but though the
French were then so vastly superior, they did not attack him.
The King is now at the army, and, they say, will endeavour to
make the Austrians fight. It wilt make great confusion here
if they do not. The French are evacuating Bavaria as fast as
possible, and seem to intend to join all their force together.
I shall still dread all the events of this campaign. Adieu!

(826) Mr. Conway the most intimate friend of Horace Walpole,
was now serving in Lord Stair's army.

(827) Miss Norsa; she was a Jewess, and had been a singer.

(828) Lady Maria Walpole.

(829) Eliza Heywood, a voluminous writer of indifferent
novels; of which the best known is one called "Betsy
Thoughtless." She was also authoress of a work entitled "The
Female Spectator." - Mrs. Heywood was born in 1693, and died
in 1756.-D.

(830) Mrs. Afra Behn, a woman whose character and writings
were equally incorrect. Of her plays, which were seventeen in
number, Pope says,

"The stage how loosely does Astrea tread,
Who fairly puts all characters to bed."

Her novels and other productions were also marked with similar
characteristics. She died in 1689-D.

(831) Cobalt and Zinc, two metallic substances; the former
composed of silver, copper, and arsenic, the latter of tin and
iron.-D.

328 letter 110
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, June 20, 1743.

I have painted the Raphael to my lord almost as fine as
Raphael himself could; but he will not think of it-. he will
not give a thousand guineas for what he never saw. I wish I
could persuade him. For the other hands, he has already fine
ones of every one of them. There are yet no news of the
Pembroke: we row impatient.

I have made a short tour to Euston this week with the Duke of
Grafton, who came over from thence with Lord Lincoln and Mr.
Pelham. Lord Lovel and Mr. Coke carried me and brought me
back. It is one of the most admired seats in England-in my
opinion, because Kent has a most absolute disposition of it.
Kent is now so fashionable, that, like Addison's Liberty, he

"Can make bleak rocks and barren mountains smile."

I believe the duke wishes he could make them green too. The
house is large and bad; it was built by Lord Arlington, and
stands, as all old houses do for convenience of water and
shelter, in a hole; so it neither sees, nor is seen: he has no
money to build another. The park is fine, the old woods
excessively so: they are much grander than Mr. Kent's passion
clumps-that is, sticking a dozen trees here and there, till a
lawn looks like the ten of spades. Clumps have their beauty;
but in a great extent of country, how trifling to scatter
arbours, where you should spread forests! He is so unhappy in
his heir apparent,(832) that he checks his hand in almost
every thing he undertakes. Last week he heard a new complaint
of his barbarity. A tenant of Lord Euston, in
Northamptonshire, brought him his rent: the Lord said it
wanted three and sixpence: the tenant begged he would examine
the account, that it would prove exact-however, to content
him, he would willingly pay him the three and sixpence. Lord
E. flew into
a rage, and vowed he would write
to the Duke to have him turned out of a little place he has in
the post-office of thirty pounds a-year. The poor man, who
has six children, and knew nothing of my lord's
being upon no terms of power with
his father, went home and shot himself!

I know no syllable of news '. but that my Lady
Carteret is dead at Hanover, and Lord Wilmington dying. So
there will be to let a first
minister's ladyship and a first
lordship of the Treasury. We have nothing from the army,
though the King has now been there some time. As new a thing
as it is, we don't talk much about it.

Adieu! the family are gone a fishing: I thought I stayed at
home to write to you, but I have so little to say that I don't
believe you will think so.

(832) George, Earl of Euston, who died in the lifetime of his
father. He seems to have been a man of the most odious
character. He has been already mentioned in the course
of these letters, upon the
occasion of his marriage with the ill-fated lady Dorothy
Boyle, who died from his ill-treatment of her. Upon a picture
of lady Dorothy at the Duke of Devonshire's at Chiswick, is
the following touching inscription, written by her mother,
which commemorates her virtues and her fate:-

"lady Dorothy Boyle,
Born May the 14th, 1724.
She was the comfort and joy of her parents, the delight of all
who knew her angelick of temper, and the admiration of all who
saw her beauty. She was marry'd October the 10th, 1741, and
delivered (by death) from misery, May the 2nd, 1742. This
picture was drawn seven weeks after her death (from memory) by
her most affectionate mother, Dorothy Burlington."-D.

329 letter 111
To Sir Horace Mann.
Friday noon, July 29, 1743.

I don't know what I write-I am all a flurry of thoughts-a
battle-a victory! I dare not yet be glad-I know no
particulars of my friends. This instant my lord has had a
messenger from the Duke of Newcastle, who has sent him a copy
of Lord Carteret's letter from the field of battle. The King
was in all the heat of the fire, and safe--the Duke is wounded
in the calf of the leg, but slightly; Duc d'Aremberg in the
breast; General Clayton and Colonel Piers are the only
officers of note said to be killed-here is all my trust! The
French passed the Mayne that morning with twenty-five thousand
men, and are driven back. We have lost two thousand, and they
four-several of their general officers, and of the Maison du
Roi, are taken prisoners: the battle lasted from ten in the
morning till four. The Hanoverians behaved admirably. The
Imperialists(833) were the aggressors; in short, 'In all
public views, it is all that could be wished-the King in the
action, and his son wounded-the Hanoverians behaving well-the
French beaten: what obloquy will not all this wipe out!
Triumph, and write it to Rome! I don't know what our numbers
were; I believe about thirty thousand, for there were twelve
thousand Hessians and Hanoverians who had not joined them. O!
in my hurry, I had forgot the place-you must talk of the
battle of Dettingen!

After dinner. My child, I am calling together all my
thoughts, and rejoice in this victory as much as I dare; for
in the raptures of' conquest, how dare I think that my Lord
Carteret, or the rest of those who have written, thought just
of whom I thought? The post comes in tomorrow morning, but it
is not sure that we shall learn any particular certainties so
soon as that. Well! how happy it is that the King has had
such an opportunity of distinguishing himself'!(834) what a
figure he will make! They talked of its being below his
dignity to command an auxiliary army: my lord says it will not
be thought below his dignity to have sought dangers These were
the flower of the French troops: I flatter myself they will
tempt no more battles. such, and we might march from one end
of France to the other. So we are in a French war, at least
well begun! My lord has been drinking the healths of Lord
Stair and Lord Carteret: he says, "since it was well done, he
does not care by whom it was done." He thinks differently
from the rest of the world: he thought from the first, that
France never missed such an opportunity as when they undertook
the German war, instead of joining with Spain against us. If
I hear any more tomorrow before the post goes out, I will let
you know. Tell me if this is the first you hear of the
victory: I would fain be the first to give you so much
pleasure.

Saturday morning.

Well, my dear child, all is safe! I have not so much as an
acquaintance hurt. The more we hear the greater it turns out.
Lord Cholmondeley writes my lord from London that we gained
the victory with only fifteen regiments, not eleven thousand
men, and SO not half in number to the French. I fancy their
soldiery behaved ill, by the Gallantry of their officers; for
Ranby, the King'S private surgeon, writes that he alone has
150 officers of distinction desperately wounded under his
care. Marquis Fenelon's son is among the prisoners, and says
Marshal Noailles is dangerously wounded; so is Duc d'Aremberg.
Honeywood's regiment sustained the attack, and are almost all
killed: his natural son has five wounds, and cannot live. The
horse were pursuing when the letters came away, so there is no
certain account of the slaughter. Lord Albemarle had his
horse shot under him. In short, the victory is complete.
There is no describing what one hears of the spirits and
bravery of our men. One of them dressed himself up in the
belts of three officers, and swore he would wear them as long
as he lived. Another ran up to Lord Carteret, who was in a
coach near the action the whole time, and said, "Here, my
lord, do hold this watch for me; I have just killed a French
officer and taken it, and I will go take another."

Adieu! my dear Sir: May the rest of the war be as glorious as
the beginning!

(833) The Bavarians.

(834) Frederick the Great, in his "Histoire de mon Temps,"
gives the Following account of George the Second at the battle
of Dettingen. "The King was on horseback, and rode forward to
reconnoitre the enemy: his horse, frightened at the
cannonading, ran away with his Majesty, and nearly carried him
into the midst of the French lines: fortunately, one of his
attendants succeeded in stopping him. George then abandoned
his horse, and fought on foot, at the head of his Hanoverian
battalions. With his sword drawn, and his body placed in the
attitude of a fencing-master, who is about to make a lunge in
carte, he continued to expose himself, without Circling, to
the enemy's fire."-D.

To Mr. Chute.

My dear Sir, I wish you joy, and you wish me joy, and Mr.
Whithed, and Mr. Mann, and Mrs. Bosville, etc. Don't get
drunk and get the gout. I expect to be drunk with hogsheads
of the Mayne-water, and with odes to his Majesty and the Duke,
and Te Deums. Patapan begs you will get him a dispensation
from Rome to go and hear the thanksgiving at St. Paul's. We
are all mad-drums, trumpets, bumpers, bonfires! The mob are
wild, and cry, "Long live King George and the Duke of
Cumberland, and Lord Stair and Lord Carteret, and General
Clayton that's dead!" My Lord Lovel says, "Thanks to the gods
that John(835) has done his duty!"

Adieu! my dear Dukes of Marlborough! I am ever your
JOHN DUKE OF MARLBOROUGh.

(835) John Bull.-D.

331 Letter 112
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, July 4, 1743.

I hear no particular news here, and I don't pretend to send
you the common news; for as I must have it first from London,
you will have it from thence sooner in the papers than in my
letters. There have been great rejoicings for the victory;
which I am convinced is very considerable by the pains the
Jacobites take to persuade it is not. My Lord Carteret's
Hanoverian articles have much offended; his express has been
burlesqued a thousand ways. By all the letters that arrive,
the loss of the French turns out more considerable than by the
first accounts: they have dressed up the battle into a victory
for themselves-I hope they will always have such! By their not
having declared war with us, one should think they intended a
peace. It is allowed that our fine horse did us no honour -
the victory was gained by the foot. Two of their princes of
the blood, the Prince de Dombes, and the Count d'Eu(836) his
brother, were wounded, and several of their first nobility.
Our prisoners turn out but seventy-two officers, besides the
private men; and by the printed catalogue, I don't think of
great family. Marshal Noailles's mortal wound is quite
vanished, and Duc d'Aremberg's shrunk to a very slight one.
The King's glory remains in its first bloom.

Lord Wilmington is dead. I believe the civil battle for his
post will be tough. Now we shall see what service Lord
Carteret's Hanoverians will do him. You don't think the
crisis unlucky for him, do you? If you wanted a treasury,
should you choose to have been in Arlington Street,(837) or
driving by the battle of Dettingen? You may imagine our Court
wishes for Mr. Pelham. I don't know any one who wishes for
Lord Bath but himself-I believe that is a pretty substantial
wish.

I have got the Life of King Theodore, but I don't know how to
convey it--I will inquire for some way.

We are quite alone. You never saw any thing so unlike as
being here five months out of place, to the congresses of a
fortnight in place. but you know the "Justum et tenacem
propositi virum" can amuse himself without the "Civium ardor!"
As I have not so much dignity of character to fill up my time,
I could like a little more company. With all this leisure,
you may imagine that I might as well be writing an ode or so
upon the victory; but as I cannot build upon the Laureate's
place till I know whether Lord Carteret or Mr. Pelham will
carry the Treasury, I have vounded my compliments to a slender
collection of quotations against I should have any occasion
for them. Here are some fine lines from Lord Halifax's (838)
poem on the battle of the Boyne-

"The King leads on, the King does all inflame,
The King!-and carries millions in the name."

Then follows a simile about a deluge, which you may imagine,
but the next lines are very good -

"So on the foe the firm battalions prest,
And he, like the tenth wave, drove on the rest.
Fierce, gallant, young, he shot through every place,
Urging their flight, and hurrying on the chase,
He hung upon their rear, or lighten'd in their face."

The next are a magnificent compliment, and, as far as verse
goes, to be sure very applicable.

"Stop, stop! brave Prince, allay that inner flame;
Enough is given to England and to fame.
Remember, Sir, you in the centre stand;
Europe's divided interests you command,
All their designs uniting in your hand.
Down from your throne descends the golden chain
Which does the fabric of our world sustain,
That once dissolved by any fatal stroke,
The scheme of all our happiness is broke."

Adieu! my dear Sir: pray for peace!

(836) The two sons of the Duke du Maine, a natural son, but
legitimated, of Lewis the Fourteenth, by Madame de
Montespan.-E.

(837) Where Mr. Pelham lived.

(838) Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax, the "Bufo" of Pope

"Proud as Apollo, on his forked hill
Sate full-blown Bufo, I)uff'd by every quill;
Fed with soft dedication all day long,
Horace and he went hand in hand in song."-E.

333 Letter 113
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, July 11, 1743.

The Pembroke is arrived! Your brother slipped a slice of paper
into a letter which he sent me from you the other day, with
those pleasant words, "The Pembroke is arrived." I am going to
receive it. I shall be in town the end of this week, only stay
there about ten days, and wait on the Dominichin hither. Now
I tremble! If it should not stand the trial among the number
of capital pictures here! But it must; It will.

O, sweet lady!(839) What shall I do about her letter? I must
answer it-and where to find a penful of Italian in the world,
I know not. Well, she must take what she can get: gold and
silver I have not, but what I have I give unto her. Do you
say a vast deal of my concern for her illness, and that I
could not find decompounds and superlatives enough to express
myself. You never tell me a syllable from my sovereign lady
the princess: has she forgot me? What is become of Prince
Beauvau?(840) is he warring against us? Shall I write to Mr.
Conway to be very civil to him for my sake, if he is taken
prisoner? We expect another battle every day. Broglio has
joined Noailles, and Prince Charles is on the Neckar.
Noailles says, "Qu'il a fait une folie, mais qu'il est pr`et
`a la r`eparer." There is great blame thrown on Baron Ilton,
the Hanoverian General for having hindered the Guards from
en(,aging. If they had, and the horse, who behaved
wretchedly, had done their duty, it is agreed that there would
be no second engagement. The poor Duke is in a much worse way
than was at first apprehended: his wound proves a bad one; he
is gross, and has had a shivering fit, which is often the
forerunner of a mortification. There has been much thought of
making knights-banneret, but I believe the scheme is laid
aside; for, in the first place, they are never made but on the
field of battle, and now it was not thought on till some days
after; and besides, the King intended to make some who were
not actually in the battle.

Adieu! Possibly I may hear something in town worth telling
you.

(839) Madame Grifoni.

(840) Son of Prince Craon.

334 letter 114
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, July 19.

Here am I come a-Dominichining! and the first thing, I hear
is, that the Pembroke must perform quarantine fourteen days
for coming from the Mediterranean, and a week airing. It is
forty days, if they bring the plague from Sicily. I will bear
this misfortune as heroically as I can; and considering I have
London to bear it in, may possibly support it well enough.

The private letters from the army all talk of the King's going
to Hanover, 2nd of August, N. S. If he should not, one shall
be no longer in pain for him; for the French have repassed the
Rhine, and think only of preparing against Prince Charles, who
is marching sixty-two thousand men, full of conquest and
revenge, to regain his own country. I most cordially wish him
success, and that his bravery may recover what his abject
brother gave up so tamely, and which he takes as little
personal pains to regain. It is not at all determined whether
we are to carry the war into France. It is ridiculous enough!
we have the name of war with Spain, without the thing and war
with France, without the name!

The maiden heroes of the Guards are in great wrath with
General Ilton, who kept them out of harm's way. They call him
"the Confectioner," because he says he preserved them.

The week before I left Houghton my father had a most dreadful
accident: it had near been fatal; but he escaped miraculously.
He dined abroad, and went up to sleep. As he was coming down
again, not quite awakened, he was surprised at seeing the
company through a glass-door which he had not observed: his
foot slipped, and he, who is now entirely unwieldy and
helpless, fell at once down the stairs against the door,
which, had it not been there, he had dashed himself to pieces,
in a stone hall. He cut his forehead two inches long to the
pericranium, and another gash upon his temple; but, most
luckily, did himself' no other hurt, and was quite well again
before I came away.