Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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343 letter 120
To sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, Sept. 17, 1743.

As much as we laughed at Prince Craon's history of the King
and Lord Stair, you see it was not absolutely without
foundation. I don't just believe that he threatened his
master with the parliament. They say he gives for reason of
his Quitting, their not having accepted one plan of operation
that he has offered. There is a long memorial that he
presented to the King, with which I don't doubt but his
lordship will oblige the public.(856) He has ordered all his
equipages to be sold by public auction in the camp. This is
all I can tell you of this event, and this is more than has
been written to the ministry here. They talk of great
uneasinesses among the English officers, all of which I don't
believe. The army is put into commission. Prince Charles has
not passed the Rhine, nor we any thing but our time. The
papers of to-day tell us of a definitive treaty signed by us
and the Queen of Hungary with the King of Sardinia, which I
will flatter myself will tend to your defence. I am not in
much less trepidation about Tuscany than Richcourt is, though
I scarce think my fears reasonable; but while you are
concerned, I fear every thing.

My lord does not admire the account of the lanfranc; thanks
you, and will let it alone. I am going to town in ten days,
not a little tired of the country, and in the utmost
impatience for the winter; which I am sure from all political
prospects, must be entertaining to one who only intends to see
them at the length of the telescope.
I was lately diverted with an article in the Abecodario
Pittorico, in the article of William Dobson: it says, "Nacque
nel quartiere d'Holbrons in Inghilterra."(857) Did the author
take Holborn for a city, or Inghilterra for the capital of the
island of London? Adieu!

(856) In this memorial Lord Stair complained that his advice
had been slighted, hinted at Hanoverian partialities, and
asked permission to retire, as he expressed it, to his plough.
His resignation was accepted, with marks of the King's
displeasure at the language in which it was tendered.-E.

(857) Charles the First used to call Dobson the English
Tintoret. He is said to have been the first painter who
introduced the practice of obliging persons who sat to him to
pay half the price in advance.-E.

344 letter 121
To Sir Horace Mann.
Newmarket, Oct. 3, 1743.

I am writing to you in an inn on the road to London. What a
paradise should I have thought this when I was in the Italian
inns in a wide barn with four ample windows, which had nothing
more like glass than shutters and iron bars ' no tester to the
bed, and the saddles and portmanteaus heaped on me to keep off
the cold. What a paradise did I think the inn at Dover when I
came back! and what magnificence Were twopenny prints,
saltcellars, and boxes to hold the knives: but the summum
bonum was small-beer and the newspaper.

"I bless'd my stars, and called it luxury!"

Who was the Neapolitan ambassadress (858) that could not live
at Paris, because there was no maccaroni? Now am I relapsed
into all the dissatisfied repinement of a true English
grumbling voluptuary. I could find in my heart to write a
Craftsman against the Government, because I am not quite so
much at my ease as on my own sofa. I could persuade myself
that it is my Lord Carteret's fault that I am only sitting in
a common arm-chair, when I would be lolling in a
p`ech`e-mortel. How dismal, how solitary, how scrub does this
town look and yet it has actually a street of houses better
than Parma or Modena. Nay, the houses of the people of
fashion, who come hither for the races, are palaces to what
houses in London itself were fifteen years ago. People do
begin to live again now, and I suppose in a term we shall
revert to York Houses, Clarendon Houses, etc. But from that
grandeur all the nobility had contracted themselves to live in
coops of a dining-room, a dark back-room, with one eye in a
corner, and a closet. Think what London would be, if the
chief houses were in it, as in the cities in other countries,
and not dispersed like great rarity-plums in a vast pudding of
country. Well, it is a tolerable place as it is! Were I a
physician, I would prescribe nothing but recipe, CCCLXV
drachm. Linden. Would you know why I like London so much?
Why if the world must consist of so many fools as it does, I
choose to take them in the gross, and not made into separate
pills, as they are prepared in the country. Besides, there is
no being alone but in a metropolis: the worst place in the
world to find solitude is in the country: questions grow
there, and that unpleasant Christian commodity, neighbours.
Oh! they are all good Samaritans, and do so pour balms and
nostrums upon one, if one has but the toothache, or a journey
to take, that they break one's head. A journey to take-ay!
they talk over the miles to you, and tell you, you will be
late and My Lord Lovel says, John always goes two hours in the
dark in the morning, to avoid being One hour in the dark in
the evening. I was pressed to set out to-day before seven: I
did before nine; and here am I arrived at a quarter past five,
for the rest of the night.

I am more convinced every day, that there is not only no
knowledge of the world out of a great city, but no decency, no
practicable society-I had almost said, not a virtue. I will
only instance in modesty, which all old Englishmen are
persuaded cannot exist within the atmosphere of Middlesex.
Lady Mary has a remarkable taste and knowledge of music, and
can sing; I don't say, like your sister, but I am sure she
would be ready to die if obliged to sing before three people,
or before One with whom she is not intimate. The other day
there came to see her a Norfolk heiress: the young gentlewoman
had not been three hours in the house, and that for the first
time of her life, before she notified her talent for singing,
and invited herself up-stairs, to Lady Mary's harpsichord;
where, with a voice
like thunder, and with as little harmony, she sang to nine or
ten people for an hour. "Was ever nymph like Rossvmonde?"-no,
d'honneur. We told her, she had a very strong voice. "Lord,
Sir! my master says it is nothing to what it was." My dear
child, she brags abominably; if it had been a thousandth
degree louder, you must have heard it at Florence.

I did not write to you last post, being overwhelmed with this
sort of people - I will be more punctual in London. Patapan
is in my lap: I had him wormed lately, which he took famously:
I made it up with him by tying a collar of rainbow-riband
about his neck, for a token that he is never to be wormed any
more.

I had your long letter of two sheets of Sept. 17th, and wonder
at your perseverance in telling me so much as you always do,
when I, dull creature, find so little for you. I can only
tell you that the more you write, the happier you make me; and
I assure you, the more details the better: I so often lay
schemes for returning to you, that I am persuaded I shall, and
would keep up my stock of Florentine ideas.

I honour Matthew's punctilious observance of his Holiness's
dignity. How incomprehensible Englishmen are! I should have
sworn that he would have piqued himself on calling the Pope
the w- of Babylon, and have begun his remonstrance, with "you
old d-d-." What extremes of absurdities! to flounder from
Pope Joan to his Holiness! I like your reflection, "that
every body can bully the Pope." There was a humourist called
Sir James of the Peak, who had been beat by a felony, who
afterwards underwent the same operation from a third hand.
"Zound," said Sir James, "that I did not know this fellow
would take a beating!" Nay, my dear child, I don't know that
Matthews would!

You know I always thought the Tesi comique, pendant que `ca
devroit, `etre tragique. I am happy that my sovereign lady
expressed my opinion so well-by the way, is De Sade still with
you? Is he still in pawn by the proxy of his clothes? has
the Princess as constant retirements to her bedchamber with
the colique and Amenori? Oh! I was struck the other day with
a resemblance of mine hostess at Brandon to old Sarah. You
must know, the ladies of Norfolk universally wear periwigs,
and affirm that it is the fashion at London. "lord! Mrs.
White, have you been ill, that you have shaved your head?"
Mrs. White, in all the days of my acquaintance with her, had a
professed head of red hair: to-day, she had no hair at all
before, and at a distance above her ears, I descried a smart
brown bob, from beneath which had escaped some long strands of
original scarlet--so like old Sarazin at two in the morning,
when she has been losing at Pharoah, and clawed her wig aside,
and her old trunk is shaded with the venerable white ivy of
her own locks.

i agree with you, that it would be too troublesome to send me
the things now the quarantine exists, except the gun-barrels
for Lord Conway, the length of which I know nothing about,
being, as you conceive, no sportsman. I must send you, with
the Life of Theodore, a vast pamphlet (859) in defence of' the
new administration, which makes the greatest noise. It is
written, as supposed, by Dr. Pearse,(860) of St. Martin's,
whom Lord Bath lately made a dean; the matter furnished by
him. There is a good deal of useful ]Knowledge of the famous
change to be found in it, and much more impudence. Some parts
are extremely fine; in particular, the answer to the
Hanoverian pamphlets, where he has collected the flower of all
that was said in defence of that measure.(861) Had you those
pamphlets? I will make up a parcel: tell me what other books
you would have: I will send you nothing else, for if I give
you the least bauble, it puts you to infinite expense, which I
can't forgive, and indeed will never bear again: you would
ruin yourself, and there is nothing I wish so much as the
contrary.

Here is a good Ode, written on the supposition of that new
book being Lord Bath's; I believe by the same hand as those
charming ones which I sent you last year: the author is not
yet known.(862)

The Duke of Argyle is dead-a death of how little moment, and
of how much it would have been a year or two ago.(863) It is
provoking, if one must die, that one can't even die a propos!

How does your friend Dr. Cocchi? You never mention him: do
only knaves and fools deserve to be spoken of? Adieu!

(858) The Princess of Campoflorido.

(859) Called " Faction Detected."

(860) Mr. Pearse, afterwards Bishop of Bangor. He was not the
author, but Lord Perceval, afterwards Earl of Egmont.

(861) Sir John Hawkins says, that Osborne the bookseller, held
out to Dr. Johnson a strong temptation to answer this
pamphlet; which he refused, being convinced that the charge
contained in it was unanswerable.-E.

(862) The Ode by Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, beginning,
"Your sheets I've perused."-D.

(863) "Leaving no male issue, Argyle was succeeded in his
titles and estates by his brother, and of late his bitter
enemy, the Earl of Islay. With all his faults and follies,
Argyle was still brave, eloquent, and accomplished, a skilful
officer, and a princely nobleman."-lord Mahon, vol. iii. p.
271.

347 letter 122
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Oct. 12, 1743.

They had sent your letter of Sept. 24th to Houghton the very
night I came to town. I did not receive it back till
yesterday, and soon after another, with Mr. Chute's inclosed,
for which I will thank him presently. But, my dear child, I
can, like you, think Of nothing but your bitter father's
letter.--! and that I should have contributed to it! how I
detest myself!(864) My dearest Sir, you know all I ever said
to him:(865) indeed, I never do see him, and I assure you that
I would worship him as the Indians do the Devil, for fear-he
should hurt you: tempt you I find he will not. He is so
avaricious, that I believe,
if you asked for a fish, he would think it even extravagance
to give you a stone: in these bad times, stones may come to be
dear, and if he loses his place and his lawsuit, who knows but
he may be reduced to turn paviour? Oh! the brute! and how
shocking, that, for your sake, one can't literally wish to see
him want bread! But how can you feel the least tenderness,
when the wretch talks of his bad health, and of not denying
himself comforts! It is weakness in you: whose health is
worse, yours or his? or when did he ever deny himself a
comfort to please any mortal? My dear child, what is it
possible to do for you? is there any thing in my power? What
would I not do for you? and, indeed, what ought I not, if I
have done you any disservice? I don't think there is any
danger of your father's losing his place,(866) for whoever
succeeds Mr. Pelham is likely to be a friend
to this house, and would not turn out one so connected with
it.

I should be very glad to show my lord an account of those
statues you mention: they are much wanted in his hall, where,
except the Laocoon, he has nothing but busts. For Gaburri's
drawings, I am extremely pleased with what you propose to me.
I should be well content with two of each master. I can't
well fix any price; but would not the rate of a sequin apiece
be sufficient? to be sure he never gave any thing like that:
when one buys the quantity you mention to me, I can't but
think that full enough, one 'with another. At
least, if I bought so many as two hundred, I would not venture
to go beyond that.

I am not at all easy from what you tell me of the Spaniards. I
have now no hopes but in the winter, and what it may produce.
I fear ours will be most ugly-the disgusts about Hanover swarm
and increase every day. The King and Duke have left the army,
which is marching to winter-quarters in Flanders, He will not
be here by his birthday, but it will be kept when he comes.
The parliament meets the 22d of November. All is distraction!
no union in the Court: no certainty about the House of
Commons: Lord Carteret making no friends, the King making
enemies: Mr. Pelham in vain courting Pitt, etc. Pultney
unresolved. How will it end? No joy but in the Jacobites. I
know nothing more, so turn to Mr. Chute.

My dear Sir, how I am obliged to you for your poem! Patapan is
so vain with it, that he will read nothing else; I only
offered him a Martial to compare it with the original, and the
little coxcomb threw it into the fire, and told me, "He had
never heard of a lapdog's reading Latin; that it was very well
for house-dos and pointers that live in the country, and have
several hours upon their hands: for my part," said he,

"I am so nice, who ever saw
A Latin book on my sofa?
You'll find as soon a primer there
Or recipes for pastry ware.
Why do ye think I ever read
But Crebillon or Calpren`ede?
This very thing of Mr. Chute's
Scarce with my taste and fancy suits,
oh! had it but in French been writ,
'Twere the genteelest, sweetest bit!
One hates a vulgar English poet:
I vow t' ye, I should blush to show it
To women de ma connoissance,
Did not that agr`eable stance.
Cher double entendre! furnish means
Of making sweet Patapanins!"(867)

My dear Sir, your translation shall stand foremost in the
Patapaniana: I hope in time to have poems upon him, and
sayings of his own, enough to make a notable book. En
attendant, I have sent you some pamphlets to amuse your
solitude; for, do you see, tramontane as I am, and as much as
I love Florence, and hate the country, while we make such a
figure in the world, or at least such a noise in it, one must
consider you other Florentines as country gentlemen. Tell our
dear Miny that when he unfolds the enchanted carpet, which his
brother the wise Galfridus sends him, he will find all the
kingdoms of the earth portrayed in it. In short, as much
history as was described on the ever-memorable and wonderful
piece of silk which the puissant White Cat(868) inclosed in a
nutshell, and presented to her paramour Prince. In short, in
this carpet, which (filberts being out of season) I was
reduced to pack up in a walnut, he will find the following
immense library of political lore: Magazines for October,
November, December; with an Appendix for the year 1741; all
the Magazines for 1742, bound in one volume; and nine
Magazines for 17'43. The Life of King Theodore, a certain
fairy monarch; with the Adventures of this Prince and the fair
Republic of Genoa. The miscellaneous thoughts of the fairy
Hervey. 'The Question Stated. Case of the Hanover Troops; and
the Vindication of the Case. Faction Detected. Congratulatory
Letter to Lord Bath. The Mysterious Congress; and @our Old
England Journals. Tell Mr. Mann, or Mr. Mann tell himself, that
I would send him nothing but this enchanted carpet, which he
can't pretend to return. I will accept nothing under
enchantment. Adieu all ! Continue to love the two Patapans.

(864) Sir Horace Mann in a letter to Walpole, dated Sept.
24th, 1743, gives an account of his father's refusal to give
him any money; and then quotes the following passage from
his father's letter-"He tells me he has been baited by you and
your uncle on my account, which was very disagreeable, and
believes he may charge it to me."-D.

(865) See ant`e, p.325. (letter 108)

(866) Mr. Robert Mann, father of Sir Horace Mann, had a place
in Chelsea College, under the Paymaster of the Forces.

(867) Mr. Chute had sent Mr. Walpole the following imitation
of an epigram of Martial:

"Issa est passere nequior Catulli,
Issa est pUrior osculo columbae."
Martial, Lib. i, Ep. 110.

"Pata is frolicksome and smart,
As Geoffry once was-(Oh my heart!)
He's purer than a turtle's kiss,
And gentler than a little miss;
A jewel for a lady's ear,
And Mr. Walpole's pretty dear.
He laughs and cries with mirth or spleen;
He does not speak, but thinks, 'tis plain.
One knows his little Guai's as well
As if he'd little words to tell.
Coil'd in a heap, a plumy wreathe,
He sleeps, you hardly hear him breathe.
Then he's so nice, who ever saw
A drop that sullied his sofa?
His bended leg!-what's this but sense?-
Points out his little exigence.
He looks and points, and whisks about,
And says, pray, dear Sir, let me out.
Where shall we find a little wife,
To be the comfort of his life,
To frisk and skip, and furnish means
Of making sweet Patapanins?
England, alas! can boast no she,
Fit only for his cicisbee.
Must greedy Fate then have him all?-
No; Wootton to our aid we'll call-
The immortality's the same,
Built on a shadow, or a name.
He shall have one by Wootton's means,
The other Wootton for his pains."

(868) See the story of the White Cat in the fairy tales.

349 Letter 123
To Sir Horace Mann.
London, Nov. 17, 1743.

I would not write on Monday till I could tell you the King was
come. He arrived at St. James's between five and six on
Tuesday. We were in great fears of his coming through the
city, after the treason that has been publishing for these two
months; but it is incredible how well his reception was beyond
what it had ever been before: in short, you would have thought
it had not been a week after the victory at Dettingen. They
almost carried him into -the palace on their shoulders; and at
night the whole town was illuminated and bonfired. He looks
much better than he has for these five years, and is in great
spirits. The Duke limps a little. The King's reception of
the Prince, who was come to St. James's to wait for him, and
who met him on the stairs with his two sisters and the privy
councillors, was not so gracious-pas un mot-though the
Princess was brought to bed the day before, and Prince George
is ill of the small-pox. It is very Unpopular! You will
possibly, by next week, hear great things: hitherto, all is
silence, expectation, struggle, and ignorance. The birthday
is kept on Tuesday, when the parliament was to have met; but
that can't be yet.

Lord Holderness has brought home a Dutch bride:(869) I have
not seen her. The Duke of Richmond had a letter yesterday
from Lady Albemarle,(870) at Altona. She says the Prince of
Denmark is not so tall as his bride, but. far from a bad
figure: he is thin, and not ugly, except having too wide a
mouth. When she returns, as I know her particularly, I will
tell you more; for the present, I think I have very handsomely
despatched the chapter of royalties. My lord comes to town
the day after to-morrow.

The opera is begun, but is not so well as last year. The Rosa
Maricini, who is second woman, and whom I suppose you have
heard, is now old. In the room of Amorevoli, they have got a
dreadful bass, who, the Duke of Montagu says he believes, was
organist at Aschaffenburgh.

DO you remember a tall Mr. Vernon,(871) who travelled with Mr.
Cotton? He is going to be married to a sister of Lord
Strafford.

I have exhausted my news, and you shall excuse my being short
to-day. For the future, I shall overflow with preferments,
alterations, and parliaments.

Your brother brought me yesterday two of yours together, of
Oct. 22 and 27, and I find you still overwhelmed with
Richcourt's folly and the Admiral's explanatory ignorance. It
is unpleasant to have old Pucci (872) added to your
embarrassments.

Chevalier Ossorio (873) was with me the other morning, and we
were talking over the Hanoverians, as every body does. I
complimented him very sincerely on his master's great bravery
and success: he answered very modestly and sensibly, that he
was glad amidst all the clamours, that there had been no cavil
to be found with the subsidy paid to his King. Prince
Lobkowitz makes a great figure, and has all my wishes and
blessings for having put Tuscany out of the question.

There is no end of my giving you trouble with packing me up
cases: I shall pay the money to your brother. Adieu! Embrace
the Chutes, who are heavenly good to you, and must have been
of great use in all your illness and disputes.

(869) Her name was Mademoiselle Doublette, and she is called
in the Peerages "the niece of M. Van Haaren, of the Province
of Holland."-D.

(870) Lady Anne Lennox, sister of the Duke of Richmond, and
wife of William Anne van Keppel, Earl of Albemarle: she had
been lady of the bedchamber to the Queen; and this year
conducted Princess Louisa to Altona, to be married to the
Prince Royal of Denmark.

(871) Henry Vernon, Esq. a nephew of Admiral Vernon, married
to Lady Henrietta Wentworth, daughter of Thomas, first Earl of
Strafford, of the second creation.-D.

(872) Signor Pucci was resident from Tuscany at the Court of
England.

(873) Chevalier Ossorio was several years minister in England
from the King of Sardinia, to whom he afterwards became first
minister.

351 Letter 124
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Nov. 30, 1743.

I have had two letters from you since I wrote myself This I
begin against to-morrow, for I should have little time to
write. The parliament opens, and we are threatened with a
tight Opposition, though it must be vain, if the numbers turns
out as they are calculated; three hundred for the Court, two
hundred and five opponents; that is, in town; for, you know,
the whole amounts to five hundred and fifty-eight. The
division of the ministry has been more violent than between
parties; though now, they tell you, it is all adjusted. The
Secretary,(874) since his return, has carried all with a high
hand, and treated the rest as ciphers; but he has been so
beaten in the cabinet council, that in appearance he submits,
though the favour is most evidently with him. All the old
ministers have flown hither as zealously as in former days;
and of the three lev`ees (875) in this street, the greatest is
in this house, as my Lord Carteret told them the other day; "I
know you all go to Lord Orford - he has more company than any
of us-- do you think I can't go to him too?" He is never
sober; his rants are amazing; so are his parts and spirits.
He has now made up with the Pelhams, though after naming to
two vacancies in the Admiralty without their knowledge; Sir
Charles Hardy and Mr. Philipson. The other alterations are at
last fixed. Winnington is to be paymaster; Sandys, cofferer,
on resigning the exchequer to Mr. Pelham; Sir John Rushout,
treasurer of the navy; and Harry Fox, lord of the treasury.
Mr. Compton,(876) and Gybbons remain at that board. Wat.
Plumber, a known man, said, the other day, "Zounds! Mr.
Pultney took those old dishclouts to wipe out the 'treasury,
and now they are going to lace them and lay them up!" It is a
most just idea: to be sure, Sandys and Rushout, and their
fellows, are dishclouts, if dishclouts there are in the world:
and now to lace them!

The Duke of Marlborough has resigned every thing, to reinstate
himself in the old duchess's will. She said the other day,
"It is very natural: he listed as soldiers do when they are
drunk, and repented when he was sober." So much for news: now
for your letters.

All joy to Mr. Whithed on the increase of his family! and joy
to you; for now he is established in so comfortable a way, I
trust you will not lose him soon-and la Dame s'appelle?