Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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For a week we heard of the affair at Villafranca in a worse
light than was true: it certainly turns out ill for both
sides. Though the French have had such a bloody loss, I
cannot but think they will carry their point, and force their
passage into Italy.

We have no domestic news, but Lord Lovel's being created Earl
of Leicester, on an old promise which my father had obtained
for him. Earl Berkeley(925) is married to Miss Drax, a very
pretty maid of honour to the Princess; and the Viscount
Fitzwilliam(926) to Sir Matthew Decker's eldest daughter , but
these are people I am sure you don't know.

There is to be a great ball tomorrow at the Duchess of
Richmond's for my Lady Carteret: the Prince is to be there.
Carteret's court to pay her the highest honours, which she
receives with the highest state. I have seen her but once,
and found her just what I expected, tr`es grande dame; full of
herself, and yet not with an air of happiness. She looks ill
and is grown lean, but is still the finest figure in the
world. The mother is not so exalted as I expected- I fancy
Carteret has kept his resolution, and does not marry her too.

My Lord does not talk of' going out of town yet; I don't
propose to be at Houghton till August. Adieu!

(923) Charles Edward, and Henry his brother, afterwards the
Cardinal of York.-D.

(924) The Honourable Philip Yorke, in his MS. Parliamentary
Journal, says, "it was a warm and long d(.-bate, in which I
think as much violence and dislike to the proposition was
shown by the opposers, as in any which had arisen during the
whole winter. I thought neither Mr. Pelham's nor Pitt's
performances equal on this occasion to what they are on most
others. Many of the Prince's friends were absent; for what
reason I cannot learn. This was the parting blow of the
session; for the King came and dismissed us on the 12th, and
the Parliament broke up with a good deal of ill-humour and
discontent on the part of the Opposition, and little
expectation in those who knew the interior of the court, and
the unconnected state of the alliance abroad, that much would
be done in the ensuing campaign to allay it, or infuse a
better temper into the nation."-E.

(925) Augustus. fourth Earl Berkeley, Knight of the Thistle.
He married Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Drax, Esq, of
Charborough, in Dorsetshire; and died in 1755.-D.

(926) Richard, sixth Viscount Fitzwilliam in Ireland, married
Catherine, daughter and heiress of Sir Matthew Decker, Bart.,
and died in 1776.-E.

370 Letter 138
To Sir Horace Mann.
London, May 29, 1744.

Since I wrote I have received two from you of May 6th and
19th. I am extremely sorry you get mine so late. I have
desired your brother to complain to Mr. Preverau: I get yours
pretty regularly.

I have this morning had a letter from Mr. Conway at the army;
he says he hears just then that the French have declared war
against the Dutch: they had in effect before by besieging
Menin, which siege our army is in full march to raise. They
have laid bridges over the Scheldt, and intend to force the
French to a battle. The latter are almost double our number,
but their desertion is prodigious, and their troops extremely
bad. Fourteen thousand more Dutch are ordered, and their six
thousand are going from hence with four more of ours; so we
seem to have no more apprehensions of an invasion. All
thoughts of it are over! no inquiry made into it! The present
ministry fear the detection of conspiracies more than the
thing itself: that is, they fear every thing that they are to
do themselves.

My father has been extremely ill, from a cold he caught last
week at New-park. Princess Emily came thither to fish, and
he, who is grown quite indolent, and has not been out of a hot
room this twelve- month, sat an hour and a half by the water
side. He was in great danger one day, and more low-spirited
than ever I knew him, though I think that grows upon him with
his infirmities. My sister was at his bedside; I came into
the room,-he burst into tears and could not speak to me - but
he is quite well now; though I cannot say I think he will
preserve his life long, as he has laid aside all exercise,
which has been of such vast service to him. he talked the
other day of shutting himself up in the farthest wing at
Houghton; I said, "Dear, my Lord, you will be at a distance
from all the family there!" He replied, "So much the better!"

Pope is given over with a dropsy, which is mounted into his
head: in an evening he is not in his senses; the other day at
Chiswick, he said,- to my Lady Burlington, "Look at our
Saviour there! how ill they have crucified him!"(927)

There is a Prince of Ost-Frize(928) dead, which is likely to
occasion most unlucky broils: Holland, Prussia, and Denmark
have all pretensions to his succession; but Prussia is
determined to make his good. If the Dutch don't dispute it,
he will be too near a neighbour; if they do, we lose his
neutrality, which is now so material.

The town has been in a great bustle about a private match; but
which, by the ingenuity of the ministry, has been made
politics. Mr. Fox fell in love with Lady Caroline
Lennox;(929) asked her, was refused, and stole her. His
father(930) was a footman; her great grandfather a king: hinc
illae, lachrymae! all the blood royal have been up in arms.
The Duke of Marlborough, who was a friend of the Richmonds,
gave her away. If his Majesty's Princess Caroline had been
stolen, there could not have been more noise made. The
Pelhams, who arc much attached to the Richmonds, but who have
tried to make Fox and all that set theirs, wisely entered into
the quarrel, and now don't know how to get out of it. They
were for hindering Williams,(931) who is Fox's great friend,
and at whose house they were married, from having the red
riband; but he has got it, with four others, the Viscount
Fitzwilliam, Calthorpe, Whitmore, and Harbord. Dashwood, Lady
Carteret's quondam lover, has stolen a great fortune, a Miss
Bateman; the marriage had been proposed, but the fathers could
not agree on the terms.

I am much obliged to you for all your Sardinian and Neapolitan
journals. I am impatient for the conquest of Naples, and have
no notion of neglecting sure things, which may serve by way of
d`edommagement.

I am very sorry I recommended such a troublesome booby to you.
Indeed, dear Mr. Chute, I never saw him, but was pressed by
Mr. Selwyn, whose brother's friend he is, to give him that
letter to you. I now hear that he is a warm Jacobite; I
suppose you somehow disobliged him politically.

We are now mad about tar-water, on the publication of a book
that I will send you, written by Dr. Berkeley, Bishop of
Cloyne.(932) The book contains every subject from tar-water
to the Trinity; however, all the women read, and understand it
no more than they would if it were intelligible. A man came
into an apothecary's shop the other day, "Do you sell
tar-water?" "Tar-water!" replied the apothecary, "why, I sell
nothing else!" Adieu!

(927) Pope died the day after this letter was written; "in the
evening," says Spence, "but they did not know the exact time;
for his departure was so easy, that it was imperceptible even
to the standers by."

(928) The Prince of East Friesland.

(929) Eldest daughter of Charles Duke of Richmond, grandson of
King Charles II.

(930) Sir Stephen Fox.

(931) Sir C. Hanbury Williams.

(932) Having cured himself of a nervous colic by the use of
tar-water, the bishop this year published a book entitled
"Philosophical Reflections and Enquiries concerning the
Virtues of Tar-water.',-E.

372 Letter 139
To Sir Horace Mann.
June 11, 1744.

Perhaps you expect to hear of great triumphs and victories; of
General Wade grown into a Duke of Marlborough; or of the King
being in Flanders, with the second part of the battle of
Dettingen-why, ay: you are bound in conscience, as a good
Englishman, to expect all this -but what if all these 10
paeans should be played to the Dunkirk tune? I must prepare
you for some such thing; for unless the French are as much
their own foes as we are our own, I don't see what should
hinder the festival to-day(933) being kept next year a day
sooner. But I will draw no consequences; only sketch you out
our present situation: and if Cardinal Tencin can miss making
his use of it, we may burn our books and live hereafter upon
good fortune.

The French King's army is at least ninety thousand strong; has
taken Menin already, and Ypres almost. Remains then only
Ostend; which you will look in the map and see does not lie in
the high road to the conquest of the Austrian Netherlands.
Ostend may be laid under water, and the taking it an affair of
time. But there lies all our train of artillery Which cost
two hundred thousand pounds; and what becomes of our
communication with our army? Why, they may go round by
Williamstadt, and be in England just time enough to be some
other body's army! It turns out that the whole combined army,
English, Dutch, Austrians, and Hanoverians, does not amount to
above thirty-six thousand fighting men! and yet forty thousand
more French, under the Duc d'Harcourt are coming into
Flanders. When their army is already so superior to ours, for
what can that reinforcement be intended, but to let them spare
a triumph to Dunkirk? Now you will naturally ask me three
questions: where is Prince Charles? where are the Dutch?
what force have you to defend England? Prince Charles is
hovering about the Rhine to take Lorrain, which they seem not
to care whether he does or not, and leaves you to defend the
-Netherlands. The Dutch seem indifferent, whether their
barrier is in the hands of the Queen or the Emperor and while
you are so mad, think it prudent not to be so themselves. For
our own force, it is too melancholy to mention: six regiments
go away to-morrow to Ostend, with the six thousand Dutch.
Carteret and Botzlaer, the Dutch envoy extraordinary, would
have hurried them away without orders; but General Smitsart,
their commander, said, he was too old to be hanged. This
reply was told to my father yesterday: "Ay," said he, "so I
thought I was, but I may live to be mistaken!" When these
troops are gone, we shall not have in the whole island above
six thousand men, even when the regiments are complete; and
half of those pressed and new-listed men. For our sea-force,
I wish it may be greater in proportion! Sir Charles Hardy,
whose name(934) at least is ill-favoured, is removed, and old
Balchen, a firm Whig, put at the head of the fleet. Fifteen
ships are sent for from Matthews; but they may come as
opportunely as the army from Williamstadt-in short-but I won't
enter into reasonings-the King is not gone. The Dutch have
sent word, that they can let us have but six of the twenty
ships we expected. My father is going into Norfolk, quite
shocked at living to see how terribly his own conduct is
justified. In the city the word is, "Old Sunderland'S(935)
game is acting over again." Tell me if you receive this
letter: I believe you will scarce give it about in memorials.

Here are arrived two Florentines, not recommended to me, but I
have been very civil to them, Marquis Salviati and Conte
Delci; the latter remembers to have seen me at Madame
Grifoni's. The Venetian ambassador met my father yesterday at
my Lady Brown's: you would have laughed to have seen how he
stared and @eccellenza'd him. At last they fell into a broken
Latin chat, and there was no getting the ambassador away from
him.

If you have the least interest in any one Madonna in Florence,
pay her well for all the service she can do us. If she can
work miracles, now is her time. If she can't, I believe we
all shall be forced to adore her. Adieu! Tell Mr. Chute I
fear we should not be quite so well received at the
conversazzioni, at Madame de Craon's, and the Casino,(936)
when we are but refugee heretics. Well, we must hope! Yours I
am, and we will bear our wayward fate together.

(933) The 10th of June was the Pretender's birthday, and the 11th
the accession of George II.

(934) He was of a Jacobite family.

(935) Lord Sunderland, who betrayed James II.

(936) The Florentine coffee-house.

373 Letter 140
To Sir Horace Mann.
London, June 18, 1744.
I have not any immediate bad news to tell you in consequence
of my last. The siege of Ypres does not advance so
expeditiously as was expected; a little time gained in sieges
goes a great way in a campaign. The Brest squadron is making
just as great a figure in our channel as Matthews does before
Toulon and Marseilles. I should be glad to be told by some
nice computers of national glory, how much the balance is on
our side.

Anson(937) is returned with vast fortune, substantial and
lucky. He has brought the Acapulca ship into Portsmouth, and
its treasure is at least computed at five hundred thousand
pounds. He escaped the Brest squadron by a mist. You will
have all the particulars in a gazette.

I will not fail to make your compliments to the Pomfrets and
Carterets. I see them seldom, but I am in favour; so I
conclude, for my Lady Pomfret told me the other night, that I
said better things than any body. I was with them all at a
subscription-ball at Ranelagh last week, which my Lady
Carteret thought proper to look upon as given to her, and
thanked the gentlemen, who were not quite so well pleased at
her condescending to take it to herself. My lord stayed with
her there till four in the morning. They are all fondness
-walk together, and stop every five steps to kiss. Madame de
Craon is a cypher to her for grandeur. The ball was on an
excessively hot night: yet she was dressed in a magnificent
brocade, because it was new that morning for the
inauguration-day. I did the honours of all her dress:-"How
charming your ladyship's cross is! I am sure the design was
your own."-"No, indeed; my lord sent it me just as it
is."-"How fine your ear-rings are!"-"Oh! but they are very
heavy." Then as much to the mother. Do you wonder I say
better things than any body?

I send you by a ship going to Leghorn the only new books at
all worth reading. The Abuse(938) of Parliaments is by
Doddington and Waller, circumstantially scurrilous. The
dedication of the Essay(939) to my father is fine; pray mind
the quotation from Milton. There is Dr. Berkeley's mad book
on tar-water, which has made every body as mad as himself.

I have lately made a great antique purchase of all Dr.
Middleton's collection which he brought from Italy, and which
he is now publishing. I will send you the book as soon as it
comes out. I would not buy the things till the book was half
printed, for fear of an `e Museo Walpoliano.-Those honours are
mighty well for such known and learned men as Mr. Smith,(940)
the merchant of Venice. My dear Mr. Chute, how we used to
enjoy the title-page(941) of his understanding! Do you
remember how angry he was when showing us a Guido, after
pompous roomsfull of Sebastian Riccis, which he had a mind to
establish for capital pictures, you told him he had now made
amends for all the rubbish he had showed us before?

My father has asked, and with some difficulty got, his pension
of four thousand pounds a-year, which the King gave him on his
resignation and which he dropped, by the wise fears of my
uncle and the Selwyns. He has no reason to be satisfied with
the manner of obtaining it now, or with the manner of the
man(942) whom he employed to ask it - yet it was not a point
that required capacity-merely gratitude. Adieu!

(937) The celebrated circumnavigator, afterwards a peer, and
first lord of the admiralty.-D.

(938) Detection of the Use and Abuse of Parliaments, by Ralph,
under the direction of Doddington and Waller.

(939) Essay on Wit, Humour, and Ridicule, by Corbyn Morris.

(940) Mr. Smith, consul at Venice, had a fine library" of
which he knew nothing at all but the title-pages.

(941) Expression of Mr. Chute.

(942) Mr. Pelham.

375 Letter 141

To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(943)
Arlington Street, June 29, 1744.

My dearest Henry,
I don't know what made my last letter so long on the road:
yours got hither as soon as it could. I don't attribute it to
any examination at the post-office. God forbid I should
suspect any branch of the present administration of attempting
to know any one kind of thing! I remember when I was at Eton,
and Mr. Bland(944) had set me an extraordinary task, I used
sometimes to pique myself upon not getting it, because it was
not immediately my school business. What! learn more than I
was absolutely forced to learn! I felt the weight of learning
that; for I was a blockhead, and pushed up above my parts.

Lest you maliciously think I mean any application of this last
sentence any where in the world, I shall go and transcribe
some lines out of a new poem, that pretends to great
impartiality, but is evidently wrote by some secret friend of
the ministry. It is called Pope's, but has no good lines but
the following. The plan supposes him complaining of being put
to death by the blundering discord of his two physicians.
Burton and Thompson; and from thence makes a transition to
show that all the present misfortunes of the world flow from a
parallel disagreement; for instance, in politics:

"Ask you what cause this conduct can create?
The doctors differ that direct the state.
Craterus, wild as Thompson, rules and raves,
A slave himself yet proud of making slaves;
Fondly believing that his mighty parts
Can guide all councils and command all hearts;
Give shape and colour to discordant things,
Hide fraud in ministers and fear in kings.
Presuming on his power, such schemes he draws
For bribing Iron(945) and giving Europe laws,
That camps, and fleets, and treaties fill the news,
And succours unobtain'd and unaccomplish'd views.

"Like solemn Burton grave Plumbosus acts;
He thinks in method, argues all from facts;
Warm in his temper, yet affecting ice,
Protests his candour ere he gives advice;
Hints he dislikes the schemes he recommends,
And courts his foes-and hardly courts his friends;
Is fond of power, and yet concerned for fame-
>From different parties would dependents claim
Declares for war, but in an awkward way,
Loves peace at heart, which he's afraid to say;
His head perplex'd, altho' his hands are pure-
An honest man,-but not a hero sure!"

I beg you will never tell me any news till it has past every
impression of the Dutch gazette; for one is apt to mention
what is wrote to one: that gets about, comes at last to, the
ears of the ministry, puts them in a fright, and perhaps they
send to beg to see your letter. Now, you know one should hate
to have one's private correspondence made grounds for a
measure,-especially for an absurd one, which is just possible.

If I was writing to any body but you, who know me so well, I
should be afraid this would be taken for pique and pride, and
be construed into my thinking all ministers inferior to my
father but, my dear Harry, you know it was never my foible to
think over-abundantly well of him. Why I think as I do of the
great geniuses, answer for me, Admiral Matthews, great British
Neptune, bouncing in the Mediterranean, while the Brest
squadron is riding in the English Channel, and an invasion
from Dunkirk every moment threatening your coasts: against
which you send for six thousand Dutch troops, while you have
twenty thousand of your own in Flanders, which not being of
any use, you send these very six thousand Dutch to them, with
above half of the few of your own remaining in England; a
third part of which half of which few you countermand, because
you are again alarmed with the invasion, and yet let the six
Dutch go, who came for no other end but to protect you. And
that our naval discretion may go hand-in-hand with our
military, we find we have no force at home; we send for
fifteen ships from the Mediterranean to guard our coasts, and
demand twenty from the Dutch. The first fifteen will be here,
perhaps in three months. Of the twenty Dutch, they excuse all
but six, of which six they send all but four; and your own
small domestic fleet, five are going to the West Indies and
twenty a hunting for some Spanish ships that are coming from
the Indies. Don't it put you in mind of a trick that is done
by calculation: Think of a number: halve it-double it-and
ten-subtract twenty-add half the first number-take away all
you added: now, what remains?

That you may think I employ my time as idly as the great men I
have been talking of, you must be informed that every night
constantly I go to Ranelagh; which has totally beat Vauxhall.
Nobody goes any where else-every body goes there. My Lord
Chesterfield is so fond of it, that he says he has ordered all
his letters to be directed thither. If you had never seen it,
I would make you a most pompous description of it, and tell
you how the floor is all of beaten princes-you can't set your
foot without treading on a Prince of Wales or Duke of
Cumberland. The company is universal: there is from his Grace
of Grafton down to Children out of the Foundling Hospital-
from my Lady Townshend to the kitten--from my Lord Sandys to
your humble cousin and sincere friend.

(943) Now first printed.

(944) Dr. Henry Bland, head-master, and from 1732 to his
death, in 1746, provost of Eton College. In No. 628 of the
Spectator is a Latin version by him of Cato's soliloquy.-E.

(945) This is nonsense@H. W.

377 Letter 142
To Sir Horace Mann.
London, June 29, 1744.

Well, at last this is not to be the year of our captivity!
There is a cluster of good packets come at once. The Dutch
have marched twelve thousand men to join our army; the King of
Sardinia (but this is only a report) has beaten the Spaniards
back over the Varo, and I this moment hear from the
Secretary's office, that Prince Charles has undoubtedly passed
the Rhine at the head of fourscore thousand men-where, and
with what circumstances, I don't know a word; ma basta cos`i.
It is said, too, that the Marquis de la Ch`etardie(946) is
sent away from Russia: but this one has no occasion to
believe. False good news are always produced by true good,
like the waterfall by the rainbow. But why do I take upon me
to tell you all this?-you, who are the centre of ministers and
business! the actuating genius in the conquest of Naples! You
cannot imagine how formidable you appear to me. My poor
little, quiet Miny, with his headache and `epuisements, and
Cocchio, and coverlid of cygnet's down, that had no dealings
but with a little spy-abb`e at Rome, a civil whisper with
Count Lorenzi,(947) or an explanation on some of Goldsworthy's
absurdities, or with Richcourt about some sbirri,(948) that
had insolently passed through the street in which the King of
Great Britain's arms condescended to hang! Bless me! how he
is changed, become a trafficking plenipotentiary with Prince
lobkowitz, Cardinal Albani(949) and Admiral Matthews! Why, my
dear child, I should not know you again; I should not dare to
roll you up between a finger and thumb like wet brown paper.
Well, heaven prosper your arms! But I hate you, for I now
look upon you as ten times fatter than I am.

I don't think it would be quite unadvisable for Bistino(950)
to take a journey hither. My Lady Carteret would take
violently to any thing that came so far as to adore her
grandeur. I believe even my Lady Pomfret would be persuaded
he had seen the star of their glory travelling westward to
direct him. For my part, I expect soon to make a figure too
in the political magazine, for all our Florence set is coming
to grandeur; but you and my Lady Carteret have outstripped me.
I remain with -the Duke of Courtland in Siberia-my father has
actually gone thither for a long season. I met my Lady
Carteret the other day at Knaptons,(951) and desired leave to
stay while she sat for her picture. She is drawn crowned with
corn, like the Goddess of Plenty, and a mild dove in her arms,
like Mrs. Venus. We had much of my lord and my lord. The
countess-mother was glad my lord was not there-he was never
satisfied with the eyes; she was afraid he would have had them
drawn bigger than the cheeks. I made your compliments
abundantly, and cried down the charms of the picture as
politically as if' you yourself had been there in person.

To fill up this sheet, I shall transcribe some very good lines
published to-day in one of the papers, by I don't know whom,
on Pope's death.

"Here lies, who died, as most folks die, in hope,
The mouldering, more ignoble part of Pope;
The hard, whose sprightly genius dared to wage
Poetic war with an immoral age;
Made every vice and private folly known
In friend and foe--a stranger to his own
Set Virtue in its loveliest form to view,
And still professed to be the sketch he drew.
As humour or as interest served, his verse
Could praise or flatter, libel or asperse:
Unharming innocence with guilt could load,
Or lift the rebel patriot to a god:
Give the censorious critic standing laws-
The first to violate them with applause;
The just translator and the solid wit,
Like whom the passions few so truly hit:
The scourge of dunces whom his malice made-
The impious plague of the defenceless dead:
To real knaves and real fools a sore-
Beloved by many but abhorr'd by more,
If here his merits are not full exprest,
His never-dying strains shall tell the rest."