Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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I find Lord Stafford (841) married to Miss Cantillon; they are
to live half the year in London, half in Paris. Lord Lincoln
is soon to marry his cousin Miss Pelham: it will be great joy
to the whole house of Newcastle.

There is no determination yet come about the Treasury. Most
people wish for Mr. Pelham; few for Lord Carteret; none for
Lord Bath. My Lady TOWnshend said an admirable thing the
other day to this last: he was complaining much of a pain in
his side-"Oh!" said she, "that can't be; you have no side."

I have a new cabinet for my enamels and miniatures Just come
home, which I am sure you would like: it is of rosewood; the
doors inlaid with carvings in ivory.' I wish you could see
'It! Are you to be forever ministerial sans rel`ache? Are you
never to have leave to come and "settle your private affairs,"
as the newspapers call it?

A thousand loves to the Chutes. Does my sovereign lady yet
remember me, or has she lost with her eyes all thought of m!
Adieu!

P.S. Princess Louisa goes soon to her young Denmark: and
Princess Emily, it is now said, will have the man of Lubeck.
If he had missed the crown of Sweden, he was to have taken
Princess Caroline, because, in his private capacity, he was
not a competent match for the now-first daughter of England.
He is extremely handsome; it is fifteen years since Princess
Emily was so.

(841) William-Matthias, third Earl of Stafford. He died in
1751 without issue.-E.

335 letter 115
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, July 31, 1743.

If I went by my last week's reason for not writing to you, I
should miss this post too, for I have no more to tell you than
I had then; but at that rate, there would be great vacuums in
our correspondence. I am still here, waiting for the
Dominichin and the rest of the things. I have incredibly
trouble about them, for they arrived just as the quarantine
was established. Then they found out that the Pembroke had
left the fleet so long before the infection in Sicily began,
and had not touched at any port there, that the admiralty
absolved it. Then the things were brought up; then they were
sent back to be aired; and still I am not to have them in a
week. I tremble for the pictures; for they are to be aired at
the rough discretion of a master
of a hoy, for nobody I could send would be suffered to go
aboard. The city is outrageous; for you know, to merchants
there is no plague so dreadful as a stoppage of their trade.
The regency are so temporizing and timid, especially in this
inter-ministerium, that I am in great apprehensions of our
having the plague an island, so many ports, no power absolute
or active enough to establish the necessary precautions, and
all are necessary! And now it is on the continent too! While
confined to Sicily there were hopes: but I scarce conceive
that it will stop in two or three villages in Calabria. My
dear child, Heaven preserve you from it! I am in the utmost
pain on its being so near you. What will you do! whither will
you go, if it reaches Tuscany? Never think of staying in
Florence: shall I get you permission to retire out of that
State, in case of danger? but sure you would not hesitate on
such a crisis!

We have no news from the army: the minister there communicates
nothing to those here. No answer comes about the Treasury.
All is suspense: and clouds of breaches ready to burst. now
strange is this jumble! France with an unsettled ministry;
England with an unsettled one; a victory just gained over
them, yet no war ensuing, or declared from either side; our
minister still at Paris, as if to settle an amicable
intelligence of the losses on both sides! I think there was
Only wanting for Mr. Thompson to notify to them in form our
victory over them, and for Bussy(843) to have civil letters of
congratulation-'tis so well-bred an age!

I must tell you a bon-mot of Winnington. I was at dinner with
him and Lord Lincoln and Lord Stafford last week, and it
happened to be a maigre day of which Stafford was talking,
though, you may believe, without any scruples; "Why," said
Winnington, "what a religion is yours! they let you eat
nothing, and vet make you swallow every thing!"

My dear child, you will think when I am going to give you a
new commission, that I ought to remember those you give me.
Indeed I have not forgot one, though I know not how to execute
them. The Life of King Theodore is too big to send but by a
messenger; by the first that goes you shall have it. For
cobolt and zingho, your brother and I have made all inquiries,
but almost in vain, except that one person has told him that
there Is some such thing in Lancashire; I have written thither
to inquire. For the tea-trees, it is my brother-'s fault,
whom I desired, as he is at Chelsea, to get some from the
Physic-garden: he forgot it; but now I am in town myself, if
possible, you shall have some seed. After this, I still know
not how to give you a commission, for you over-execute; but on
conditions uninfringeable, I will give you one. I have begun
to collect drawings: now, if you will at any time buy me any
that you meet with at reasonable rates, for I will not give
great prices, I shall be much obliged to you. I would not
have above one, to be sure, of any of the Florentine school,
nor above one of any master after the immediate scholars of
Carlo Maratti. For the Bolognese school, I care not how many;
though I fear they will be too dear. But Mr. Chute
understands them. One condition is, that if he collects
drawings as well as prints, there is an end of the commission;
for you shall not buy me any, when he perhaps would like to
purchase them. The other condition is, that you regularly set
down the prices you pay; otherwise, if you send me any without
the price, I instantly return them unopened to your brother:
this, upon my honour, I will most strictly perform.

Adieu! write me minutely the history of the plague. If it
makes any progress towards you, I shall be a most unhappy man.
I am far from easy on our own account here.

(843) Mr. Thompson and the Abb`e de Bussy were the English and
French residents.

336 letter 117
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Aug. 14, 1743.

I should write to Mr. Chute to-day, but I won't till next
post: I will tell you why presently. Last week I did not
write at all; because I was every day waiting for the
Dominichin, etc. which I at last got last night-But oh! that
etc.! It makes me write to you, but I must leave it etc. for I
can't undertake to develop it. I can find no words to thank
you from my own fund; but Must apply an expression of the
Princess Craon's to myself, Which the number of charming
things you have sent me absolutely melts down from the
bombast, of which it consisted when she sent it me. "Monsieur,
votre g`en`erosit`e," (I am not sure it was not "votre
magnificence,") "ne me laisse rien `a d`esirer de tout ce qui
se trouve de pr`ecieux en Angleterre, dans la Chine, et aux
Indes." But still this don't express etc. The charming Madame
S`evign`e, who was still handsomer than Madame de Craon, and
had infinite wit, condescended to pun on sending her daughter
an excessively fine pearl necklace-"Voil`a, ma fille, un
pr`esent passant tous les pr`esents pass`es et pr`esents!" Do
you know that these words reduced to serious meaning, are not
sufficient for what you have sent me! If I were not afraid of
giving you all the trouble of airing and quarantine which I
have had with them, I would send them to you back again! It is
well our virtue is out of the ministry! What reproach it
would undergo! Why, my dear child, here would be bribery in
folio! How would mortals stare at such a present as this to
the son of a fallen minister! I believe half of it would
reinstate us again though the vast box of essences would not
half sweeten the treasury after the dirty wretches that have
fouled it since.

The Dominichin is safe; so is every thing. I cannot think it
of the same hand with the Sasso Ferrati you sent me. This
last is not so manier`e as the Dominichin; for the more I look
at it, the more I am convinced it is of him. It goes down
with me to-morrow to Houghton. The Andrea del Sarto is
particularly fine! the Sasso Ferriti particularly graceful-oh!
I should have kept that word for the Magdalen's head, which is
beautiful beyond measure. Indeed, my dear Sir, I am glad,
after my confusion is a little abated, that your part of the
things is so delightful; for I am very little satisfied with
my own purchases. Donato Creti's(844) copy is a wretched, raw
daub; the beautiful Virgin of the original he has made
horrible. Then for the statue, the face is not so broad as my
nail, and has not the turn of the antique. Indeed, La Vall`ee
has done the drapery well, but I can't pardon him the head.
My table I like; though he has stuck in among the ornaments
two vile china jars, that look like the modern japanning by
ladies. The Hermaphrodite, on my seeing it again, is too
sharp and hard-in short, your present has put me out of humour
with every thing of my own. You shall hear next week how my
lord is satisfied with his Dominichin. I have received the
letter and drawings by Crewe. By the way, my drawings of the
gallery are as bad as any thing of my own ordering. They gave
Crewe the letter for you at the-office, I believe, for I knew
nothing of his going, or I had sent you the Life of King
Theodore.

I was interrupted in my letter this morning by the Duke of
Devonshire, who called to see the Dominichin. Nobody knows
pictures better: he was charmed with it, and did not doubt its
Dominichinality.

I find another letter from you to-night of August 6th, and
thank you a thousand times for your goodness about Mr. Conway:
but I believe I told you, that as he is in the Guards, he was
not engaged. We hear nothing but that we are going to cross
the Rhine. All we know is from private letters: the Ministry
hear nothing. When the Hussars went to Kevenhuller for
orders, he said, "Messieurs, l'Alsace est
`a vous; je n'ai point d'autres ordres `a vous donner." They
have accordingly taken up their residence in a fine chateau
belonging to the Cardinal de Rohan, as Bishop of Strasbourg.
We expect nothing but war; and that war expects nothing but
conquest.

Your account of our officers was very false; for, instead of
the soldiers going on without commanders, some of them were
ready to go without their soldiers. I am sorry you have such
plague with your Neptune(845) and the Sardinian-we know not of
them scarce.

I really forget any thing of an Italian greyhound for the
Tesi. I promised her, I remember, a black spaniel-but how to
send it! I did promise one of the former to Marquis Mari at
Genoa, which I absolutely have not been able to get yet,
though I have often tried; but since the last Lord Halifax
died, there is no meeting with any of the breed. If I can, I
will get her one. I am sorry you are engaged in the opera. I
have found it a most dear undertaking. I was not in the
management: Lord Middlesex was chief. We were thirty
subscribers, at two hundred pounds each, which was to last
four years, and no other demands ever to be made. Instead of
that, we have been made to pay fifty-six pounds over and above
the subscription in one winter. I told the secretary in a
passion, that it was the last money I would ever pay for the
follies of directors.

I tremble at hearing that the plague is not over, as we
thought, but still spreading. You will see in the papers That
Lord Hervey is dead-luckily, I think. for himself; for he had
outlived the last inch of character. Adieu!

(844) A copy of a celebrated picture by Guido at Bologna, of
the Patron Saints of that city. VOL. 1. 29.-D.

(845) Admiral Matthews.

338 letter 117
To John Chute, Esq.(846)
Houghton, August 20, 1743.

Indeed, my dear Sir, you certainly did not use to be stupid,
and till you give me more substantial proof that you are so, I
shall not believe it. As for your temperate diet and milk
bringing about such a metamorphosis, I hold it impossible. I
have such lamentable proofs every day before my eyes of the
stupefying qualities of beef, ale, and wine, that I have
contracted a most religious veneration for your spiritual
nouriture. Only imagine that I here every day see men, who
are mountains of roast beef, and only seem just roughly hewn
out into the outlines of human form, like the giant-rock at
Pratolino! I shudder when I see them brandish their knives in
act to carve, and look on them as savages that devour one
another. I should not stare at all more than I do, if yonder
alderman at the lower end of the table was to stick his fork
into his neighbour's jolly cheek, and cut a brave slice of
brown and fat. Why, I'll swear I see no difference between a
country gentleman and a sirloin; whenever the first laughs, or
the latter is cut, there runs out the same stream of gravy!
Indeed, the sirloin does not ask quite so many questions. I
have an aunt here, a family piece of goods, an old remnant of
inquisitive hospitality and economy, who, to all intents and
purposes is as beefy as her neighbours. She wore me so down
yesterday with interrogatories, that I dreamt all night she
was at my ear with who's and why's, and when's and where's,
till at last in my very sleep I cried out, For God in heaven's
sake, Madam, ask me no more questions!

Oh! my dear Sir, don't you find that nine parts in ten of the
world are of no use but to make you wish yourself with that
tenth part? I am so far from growing used to mankind by living
amongst them, that my natural ferocity and wildness does but
every day grow worse. They tire me, they fatigue me; I don't
know what to do with them; I don't know what to say to them; I
fling open the windows and fancy I want air; and when I get by
myself, I undress myself, and seem to have had people in my
pockets, in my plaits, -and on my shoulders! I indeed find
this fatigue worse in the country than in town, because one
can avoid it there, and has more resources; but it is there
too. I fear 'tis growing old; but I literally seem to have
murdered a man whose name was Ennui, for his ghost is ever
before me. They say there is no English word for ennui;(847)
I think you may translate it most literally by what is called
"entertaining people," and "doing the honours:" that is, you
sit an hour with somebody you don't know, and don't care for,
talk about the wind and the weather, and ask a thousand
foolish questions, which all begin with, "I think you live a
good deal in the country," or, "I think you don't love this
thing or that." Oh! 'tis dreadful!

I'll tell you what is delightful-the Dominichin!(848) My dear
Sir, if ever there was a Dominichin, if ever there was an
original picture, this is one. I am quite happy; for my
father is as much transported with it as I am. It is hung in
the gallery, where are all his most capital pictures, and he
himself thinks it beats all but the two Guido'S. That of the
Doctors and The Octagon-I don't know if you ever saw them?
What a chain of thought this leads me into! but why should I
not indulge it? I will flatter myself with your, some time or
other, passing a few days with me. Why must I never expect to
see any thing but Beefs in a gallery which would not yield
even to the Colonna! If I do not most unlimitedly wish to see
you and Mr. Whithed in it this very moment, it is only because
I would not take you from our dear Mann. Adieu! you charming
people all. Is not Madam Bosville a Beef? Yours, most
sincerely.

(846) this very lively letter is the first of a series,
hitherto unpublished, addressed by Mr. Walpole to John Chute,
Esq. of the Vine, in the county of Hants. Mr. Chute was the
grandson of Chaloner Chute, Esq. Speaker of the House of
Commons to Richard Cromwell's parliament. On the death of his
brother Anthony, in 1754, he succeeded to the family estates,
and died in 1776.-E.

(847) According to Lord Byron--

"Ennui is a growth of English root,
Though nameless in our language: we retort
The fact for words, and let the French translate
That awful yawn, which sleep cannot abate."

(848) Thus described by Walpole in his Description Of the
Pictures at Houghton Hall:-
"The Virgin and Child, a most beautiful, bright, and capital
picture, by Dominichino: bought out of the Zambeccari palace
at Bologna by Horace Walpole, junior."-E.

340 Letter 118
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, Aug. 29, 1743.

You frighten me about the Spaniards entering Tuscany: it is so
probable, that I have no hopes against it but in their
weakness. If all the accounts of their weakness and desertion
are true, it must be easy to repel them. If their march to
Florence is to keep pace with Prince Charles's entering
Lorrain, it is not yet near: hitherto, he has not found the
passage of the Rhine practicable. The French have assembled
greater armies to oppose it than was expected. We are
marching to assist him: the King goes on with the army. I am
extremely sorry for the Chevalier de Beauvau's(849) accident;
as sorry, perhaps, as the prince or princess; for you know he
was no favourite. The release of the French prisoners
prevents the civilities which I would have taken care to have
had shown him. You may tell the princess, that though it will
be so much honour to us to have any of her family it) our
power, vet I shall always be extremely concerned to have such
an opportunity of showing my attention to them. there's a
period in her own style-"Comment! Monsieur des attentions:
qu'il est poli! qu'il s`cait tOUrner une civilit`e!"

"Ha!(850) la brave Angloise! e viva!" What would I have given
to have overheard you breaking it to the gallant! But of all,
commend me to the good man Nykin! Why, Mamie (851) himself
could not have cuddled up an affair for his sovereign lady
better.

I have a commission from my lord to
send you ten thousand thanks for his bronze-. He admires it
beyond measure. It came down last Friday, on his
birthday,(852) and was placed at the upper end of the gallery,
which was illuminated on the occasion: indeed, it is
incredible what a magnificent appearance it made. There were
sixty-four candles, which showed all the pictures to great
advantage. The Dominichin did itself and us honour. There is
not the least question of its being original: one might as
well doubt the originality of King Patapan! His patapanic
majesty is not one of the least curiosities of Houghton. The
crowds that come to see the house stare at him, and ask what
creature it is. As he does not speak one word of Norfolk,
there are strange conjectures made about him. Some think that
he is a foreign prince come to marry Lady Mary. The
disaffected say he is a Hanoverian: but the common people, who
observe my lord's vast fondness for him, take him for his good
genius, which they call his familiar.

You will have seen in the papers that Mr. Pelham is at last
first lord of the Treasury. Lord Bath had sent over Sir John
Rushout's valet de chambre to Hanau to ask it. It is a great
question now what side he will take; or rather, if any side
will take him. It is not yet known what the good folks in the
Treasury will do-I believe, what they can. Nothing farther
will be determined till the King's return.

(849) Third son of Prince Craon, and knight of Malta.

(850) This relates to an intrigue which was observed in a
church between an English gentleman and a lady who was at
Florence with her husband. Mr. Mann was desired to speak to
the lover to choose more proper places.

(851) Prince Craon's name for the princess. She was mistress
of Leopold, the last Duke of Lorrain, who married her to M. de
Beauvau, and prevailed on the Emperor to make him a prince of
the empire. Leopold had twenty children by her, who all
resembled him; and he got his death by a cold which he
contracted in standing to sea a new house, which he had built
for her, furnished. The duchess was extremely jealous, and
once retired to Paris, to complain to her brother the Regent;
but he was not a man to quarrel with his brother-in-law for
things of that nature, and sent his sister back. Madame de
Craon gave into devotion after the Duke's death.

(852) August 26.

341 letter 119
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, Sept. 7, 1743.

My letters are now at their ne plus ultra of nothingness so
you may hope they will grow better again. I shall certainly
go to town soon, for my patience is worn out. Yesterday, the
weather grew cold: I put on a new waistcoat for its being
winter's birthday-the season I am forced to love; for summer
has no charms for me when I pass it in the country.

We are expecting another battle, and a congress at the same
time. Ministers seem to be flocking to Aix la Chapelle: and,
what will much surprise you, unless you have lived long enough
not to be surprised, is, that Lord Bolingbroke has hobbled the
same way too-you will suppose, as a minister for France; I
tell you, no. My uncle, who is here, was yesterday stumping
along the gallery with a very political march: my lord asked
him whither he was going. Oh, said he, to Aix la Chapelle.

You ask me about the marrying princesses. I know not a
tittle. Princess Louisa(853) seems to be going, her clothes
are bought; but marrying our daughters makes no conversation.
For either of the other two, all thoughts seem to be dropped
of it. The senate of Sweden design themselves to choose a
wife for their man of Lubeck. The city, and our supreme
governors, the mob, are very angry that there @is a troop of
French players at Clifden.(854) One of them was lately
impertinent to a countryman, who thrashed him. His Royal
Highness sent angrily to know the cause. The fellow replied,
"he thought to have pleased his Highness in beating one of
them, who had tried to kill his father and had wounded his
brother." This was not easy to answer.

I delight in Prince Craon's exact intelligence! For his
satisfaction, I can tell him that numbers, even here, would
believe any story full as absurd as that of the King and my
Lord Stair; or that very one, if any body will ever write it
over. Our faith in politics will match any Neapolitan's in
religion. A political missionary will make more converts in a
county progress than a Jesuit in the whole empire of China,
and will produce more preposterous miracles. Sir Watkin
Williams, at the last Welsh races, convinced the whole
principality (by reading a letter that affirmed it), that the
King was not within two miles of the battle of Dettingen. We
are not good at hitting off anti-miracles, the only way of
defending one's own religion. I have read -,in admirable
story of the Duke of Buckingham, who, when James II. sent a
priest to him to persuade him to turn Papist, and was plied by
him with miracles, told the doctor, that if miracles were
proofs of a religion, the Protestant cause was as well
supplied as theirs. We have lately had a very extraordinary
one near my estate in the country. A very holy man, as you
might be, doctor, was travelling on foot, and was benighted.
He came to the cottage of a poor dowager, who had nothing in
the house for herself and daughter but a couple of eggs and a
slice of bacon. However, as she was a pious widow, she made
the good man welcome. In the morning, in taking leave, the
saint made her over to God for payment, and prayed that
whatever she should do as soon as he was gone she might
continue to do all day. This was a very unlimited request,
and, unless the saint was a prophet too, might not have been
very pleasant retribution. The good woman, who minded her
affairs, and was not to be put out of her way, went about her
business. She had a piece of coarse cloth to make a couple of
shifts for herself and child. She no sooner began to measure
it but the yard fell a-measuring, and there was no stopping
it. It was sunset before the good woman had time to take
breath. She was almost stifled, for she was up to her ears in
ten thousand yards of cloth. She could have afforded to have
sold Lady Mary Wortley a clean shift' of the usual coarseness
she wears, for a groat halfpenny.

I wish you would tell the Princess this story. Madame
Riccardi, or the little Countess d'Elbenino, will doat on it.
I don't think it will be out of Pandolfini's way, if you tell
it to the little Albizzi. You see that I have not forgot the
tone of my Florentine acquaintance. I know I should have
translated it to them: you remember what admirable work I used
to make of such stories in broken Italian. I have heard old
Churchill tell Bussy English puns out of jest-books:
particularly a reply about eating hare, which he translated,
"j'ai mon ventre plein de poil." Adieu!

(853) Youngest daughter of George the Second. She was married
in the following October, and died in 1751, at the age of
twenty-seven.-E.

(854) The residence of the Prince of Wales. This noble
building was burnt to the ground in 1795, and nothing of its
furniture preserved but the tapestry that represents the Duke
of Marlborough's victories.-E.