Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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Sure the greater part was his true character; Here is another
epitaph by Rolli;(952) which for the profound fall in some of
the verses', especially in the last, will divert you.

"Spento `e il Pope: de' poeti Britanni
Uno de' lumi che sorge in mille anni:
Pur si vuol che la macchia d'Ingrato
N'abbia reso il fulgor men sereno:
Stato fora e pi`u giusto e pi`u grato.
Men lodando e biasmando ancor meno."

(946) French ambassador at the court of St. Petersburg, and
for some time a favourite of the Empress Elizabeth. The
report of his disgrace was correct. He died in 1758.-E.

(947) A Florentine, but employed as minister by France.

(948) The officers of justice, who are reckoned so infamous in
Italy, that the foreign ministers have always pretended to
hinder them from passing through the streets where they
reside.

(949) Cardinal Alexander Albani, nephew of Clement XI. was
minister of the Queen of Hungary at Rome.

(950) Giovanni Battista Uguecioni, a Florentine nobleman, and
great friend of the Pomfrets.

(951) George Knapton, a portrait painter. Walpole says, he
was well versed in the theory of painting, and had a thorough
knowledge of the hands of the good masters. He died at
Kensington, in 1778, at the age of eighty.-E.

(952) Paolo Antonio Rolli, composer of the operas, translated
and published several things. [Thus hitched into the Dunciad-

"Rolli the feather to his ear conveys
Then his nice taste directs our operas."

Warburton says, "He taught Italian to some fine gentlemen, who
affected to direct the operas."

379 Letter 143
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, July 20, 1744.

My dearest Harry,
I feel that I have so much to say to you, that I foresee there
will be but little method in my letter; but if, upon the
whole, you see My meaning, and the depth of my friendship for
you, I am content.

It was most agreeable to me to receive a letter of confidence
from you, at the time I expected a very different one from
you; though, by the date of your last, I perceive you had not
then received some letters, which, though I did not see, I
must call simple, as they could only tend to make you uneasy
for some months. I should not have thought of communicating a
quarrel to you at a distance, and I don't conceive the sort of
friendship of those that thought it necessary. When I heard
it had been wrote to you, I thought it right to myself to give
you my account of it, but, by your brother's desire,
suppressed my letter, and left it to be explained by him, who
wrote to you so sensibly on it, that I shall say no more but
that I think myself so ill-used that it will prevent my giving
you thoroughly the advice you ask of me for how can I be sure
that my resentment might not make me see in a stronger light
the reasons for your breaking off an affair(953) which you
know before I never approved?

You know my temper is so open to any body I love that I must
be happy at seeing you lay aside a reserve with me, which is
the only point that ever made me dissatisfied with you. That
silence of yours has, perhaps, been one of the chief reasons
that has always prevented my saying much to you on a topic
which I saw was so near your heart. Indeed, its being so near
was another reason; for how could I expect you would take my
advice, even if you bore it? But, my dearest Harry, how can I
advise you now? Is it not gone too far -for me to expect you
should keep any resolution about it, especially in absence,
which must be destroyed the moment you meet again? And if ever
you should marry and be happy, won't you reproach me with
having tried to hinder it? I think you as just and honest as
I think any man living; but any man living in that
circumstance would think I had been prompted by private
reasons. I see as strongly as you can all the arguments for
your breaking off; but, indeed, the alteration of your fortune
adds very little strength to what they had before. You never
had fortune enough to make such a step at all prudent: she
loved you enough to be content with that; I can't believe this
change will alter her sentiments, for I must do her the
justice to say that it is plain she preferred you with nothing
to all the world. I could talk upon this head, but I will
only leave you to consider, without advising YOU On either
side, these two things-whether you think it honester to break
off with her after such engagements as yours (how strong I
don't know), after her refusing very good matches for you, and
show her that she must think of making her fortune; or whether
you will wait with her till some amendment in your fortune can
put it in your power to marry her. '

My dearest Harry, you must see why I don't care to say more on
this head. My wishing it could be right for you to break off
with her (for, without it is right, I would not have you on
any account take such a step) makes it impossible for me to
advise it; and therefore, I am sure you will forgive my
declining, an act of friendship which your having put in my
power gives me the greatest satisfaction. But it does put
something else in my power, which I am sure nothing can make
me decline, and for which I have long wanted an opportunity.
Nothing could prevent my being unhappy at the smallness of
your fortune, but its throwing it into my way to offer you to
share mine. As mine is so precarious, by depending on so bad
a constitution, I can only offer you the immediate use of it.
I do that most sincerely. My places still (though my Lord
Walpole has cut off three hundred pounds a-year to save
himself the trouble of signing his name ten times for once)
bring me in near two thousand pounds a-year. I have no debts,
no connexions; indeed, no -way to dispose of it particularly.
By living with my father, I have little real use for a quarter
of it. I have always flung it away all in the most idle
manner; but, my dear Harry, idle -,is I am, and thoughtless, I
have sense enough to have real pleasure in denying myself
baubles, and in saving a very good income to make a man happy,
for whom I have a just esteem and most sincere friendship. I
know the difficulties any gentleman and man of spirit must
struggle with, even in having such an offer made him, much
more in accepting it. I hope you will allow there are some in
making it. But hear me: if there is such a thing as
friendship in the world, these are the opportunities of
exerting it, and it can't be exerted without it is accepted.
I must talk of myself to prove to you that it will be right
for 'you to accept it. I am sensible of having more follies
and weaknesses, and fewer real good qualities than most men.
I sometimes reflect on this, though I own too seldom. I
always want to begin acting like a man, and a sensible one,
which I think I might b, if I would. Can I begin better, than
by taking care of my fortune for one I love? You have seen (I
have seen you have) that I am fickle, and foolishly fond of
twenty new people; but I don't really love them-I have always
loved you constantly: I am willing to convince you and the
world, what I have always told you, that I loved you better
than any body. If I ever felt much for any thing, which I
know may be questioned, it was certainly my mother. I look on
you as my nearest relation by her, and I think I can never do
enough to show my gratitude and affection to her. For these
reasons, don't deny me what I have set my heart on-the making
your fortune easy to you.

[The rest of this letter is wanting.]

(953) This was an early attachment of Mr. Conway's. By his
having complied with the wishes and advice of his friends on
this subject, and got the better of his passion, he probably
felt that he, in some measure, owed to Mr. Walpole the
subsequent happiness of his life, in his marriage with another
person. (the lady alluded to was Lady Caroline Fitzroy,
afterwards Countess of Harrington, whose sister, Lady
Isabella, had, three years before, married Mr. Conway's elder
brother, afterwards Earl and Marquis of Hertford.]

381 Letter 144
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, July 22, 1744.

I have not written to you, my dear child, a good while, I know
but, indeed, it was from having nothing to tell you. You know
I love you too well for it to be necessary to be punctually
proving it to you; so, when I have nothing worth your knowing,
I repose myself upon' the persuasion that you must have of my
friendship. But I will never let that grow into any
negligence, I should say, idleness, which is always mighty
ready to argue me out of every thing I ought to do; and
letter-writing is one of the first duties that the very best
people let perish out of their rubric. Indeed, I pride myself
extremely in having been so good a correspondent; for, besides
that every day grows to make one hate writing, more, it is
difficult, you must own, to keep up a correspondence of this
sort with any spirit, when long absence makes one entirely out
of all the little circumstances of each other's society, and
which are the soul of letters. We are forced to deal only in
great events, like historians; and, instead of being Horace
Mann and Horace Walpole, seem to correspond as Guicciardin and
Clarendon would:

Discedo Alceus puncto Illius; ille meo quis!
Quis nisi Callimachus?

Apropos to writing histories and Guicciardin; I wish to God,
Boccalini was living! never was such an opportunity for
Apollo's playing off a set of looks, as there is now! The good
city of London, who, from long dictating to the government,
are now come to preside over taste and letters, have given one
Carte,(954) a Jacobite parson, fifty pounds a-year, for seven
years, to write the history of England; and four aldermen and
six common councilmen are to .inspect his materials and the
progress of the work. Surveyors and common sewers turned
supervisors of literature! To be sure, they think a history of
England is no more than Stowe's Survey of the Parishes!
Instead of having books published with the imprimatur of an
university, they Will be printed, as churches are whitewashed,
John Smith and Thomas Johnson, churchwardens.

But, brother historian, you will wonder I should have nothing
to communicate, when all Europe is bursting with events, and
every day "big with the fate of Cato and of Rome." But so it
is; I know nothing; Prince Charles's great passage of the
Rhine has hitherto produced nothing, more: indeed, the French
armies are moving towards him from Flanders; and they tell us,
ours is crossing the Scheldt to attack the Count de Saxe, now
that we arc equal to him, from our reinforcement and his
diminutions. In the mean time, as I am at least one of the
principal heroes of my own politics, being secure of any
invasion, I am going to leave all my lares, that is, all my
antiquities, household gods and pagods, and take a journey
into Siberia for six weeks, where my father's grace of
Courland has been for some time.

Lord Middlesex is going to be married to Miss Boyle,(955) Lady
Shannon's daughter; she has thirty thousand pounds, and may
have as much more, if her mother, who is a plain widow, don't
happen to Nugentize.(956) The girl is low and ugly, but a
vast scholar.

Young Churchill has got a daughter by the Frasi;(957) Mr.
Winnington calls it the opera-comique ; the mother is an opera
girl; the grandmother was Mrs. Oldfield.

I must tell you of a very extraordinary print, which my Lady
Burlington gives away, of her daughter Euston, -with this
inscription:

Lady Dorothy Boyle,
Once the pride, the joy, the -comfort of her parents,
The admiration of all that saw her,
The delight of all that knew her.
Born May 14, 1724, married alas! Oct. 10, 1741, an
delivered from extremest misery May 2, 1742.

This print was taken from a picture drawn by memory seven
weeks after her death, by her most afflicted mother;
DOROTHY BURLINGTON.(958)

I am forced to begin a new sheet, lest you should think my
letter came from my Lady Burlington, as it ends so patly with
her name. But is it not a most melancholy way of venting
oneself? She has drawn numbers of these pictures: I don't
approve her having them engraved; but sure the
inscription(959) is pretty.

I was accosted the other night by 'a little, pert petit-maitre
figure, that claimed me for acquaintance. Do you remember to
have seen at Florence an Abb`e Durazzo, of Genoa? well, this
was he: it is mighty dapper and French: however, I will be
civil to it: I never lose opportunities of paving myself an
agreeable passage back to Florence. My dear Chutes, stay for
me: I think the first gale of peace will carry me to you. Are
you as fond of Florence as ever? of me you are not, I am sure,
for you never write me a line. You would be diverted with the
grandeur of our old Florence beauty, Lady Carteret. She
dresses more extravagantly, and grows more short-sighted every
day: she can't walk a step without leaning on one of her
ancient daughters-in law. Lord Tweedale and Lord Bathurst are
her constant gentlemen-ushers. She has not quite digested her
resentment to Lincoln yet. He was walking with her at
Ranelagh the other night, and a Spanish refugee marquis,(960)
who is of the Carteret court, but who, not being quite perfect
in the carte du pais, told my lady, that Lord Lincoln had
promised him to make a very good husband to Miss Pelham. Lady
Carteret, with an accent of energy, replied, "J'esp`ere qu'il
tiendra sa promesse!" Here is a good epigram that has been
made on her:

"Her beauty, like the Scripture feast,
To which the invited never came,
Deprived of its intended guest,
Was given to the old and lame."

Adieu! here is company; I think I may be excused leaving off
at the sixth side.

(954) Thomas Carte, a laborious writer of history. His
principal works are, his Life of the Duke of Ormonde, in three
volumes, folio, and his History of England, in four. He
died in 1754.-D. [The former, though
ill-written, was considered by Dr. Johnson as a work of
authority; and of the latter Dr. Warton remarks, "You may read
Hume for his eloquence, but Carte is the historian for
facts."]

(955) Grace Boyle, daughter and sole heiress of Richard,
Viscount Shannon. She became afterwards a favourite of
Frederick, Prince of Wales, and died in 17 63.-D.

(956) See ant`e, p. 205. (Letter 48)

(957 Prima donna at the opera.

(958) This is an incorrect copy of the inscription on Lady
Euston's picture given in a note at 329 of this volume.-D.
(Letter 110, p. 328/9)

(959) It is said to be Pope's.

(960) The Marquis Tabernego.

383 Letter 145
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Aug. 6, 1744.

I don't tell you any thing about Prince Charles, for you must
hear all his history as soon as we do: at least much sooner
than it can come to the very north, and be despatched back to
Italy. There is nothing from Flanders: we advance and they
retire-just as two months ago we retired and they advanced:
but it is good to be leading up this part of the tune. Lord
Stair is going into Scotland: the King is grown wonderfully
fond of him, since he has taken the resolution of that
journey. He said the other day, "I wish my Lord Stair was in
Flanders! General Wade is a very able officer, but he is not
alert." I, in my private litany, am beseeching the Lord, that
he may contract none of my Lord Stair's alertness.

When I first wrote you word of la Ch`etardie's disgrace, I did
not believe it; but you see it is now public. What I like is,
her Russian Majesty's making her amour keep exact pace with
her public indignation. She sent to demand her picture and
other presents. "Other presents," to be sure, were
billet-doux, bracelets woven of her own bristles-for I look
upon the hair of a Muscovite Majesty in the light of the
chairs which Gulliver made out of the combings of the Empress
of Brobdignag's tresses: the stumps he made into very good
large-tooth combs. You know the present is a very Amazon. she
has grappled with all her own grenadiers. I should like to
see their loves woven into a French opera: La Ch`etardie's
character is quite adapted to the civil discord of their
stage: and then a northern heroine to reproach him in their
outrageous quavers, would make a most delightful crash of
sentiment, impertinence, gallantry, contempt, and screaming.
The first opera that I saw at Paris, I could not believe was
in earnest, but thought they had carried me to the
op`era-comique. The three acts of the piece(961) were three
several interludes, of the Loves of Antony and Cleopatra, of
Alcibiades and the Queen of Sparta, and of Tibuilus with a
niece of Macenas; besides something of Circe, who was screamed
by a Mademoiselle Hermans, seven feet high. She was in
black, with a nosegay of black (for on the French stage they
pique themselves on propriety,) and without powder: whenever
you are a widow, are in distress, or are a witch, you are to
leave off powder.

I have no news for you, and am going to have less, for I a)n
going into Norfolk. I have stayed till I have not one
acquaintance left: the next billow washes me last off the
plank. I have not cared to stir, for fear of news from
Flanders; but I have convinced myself that there will be
none. Our army is much superior to the Count de Saxe;
besides, they have ten large towns to garrison, which will
reduce their army to nothing; or they must leave us the towns
to walk into coolly.

I have received yours of July 21. Did neither I nor your
brother tell you, that we had received the Neapolitan
snuff-box?(962) it is above a month ago: how could I be so
forgetful? but I have never heard one word of the cases, nor
of Lord Conway's guns, nor Lord Hartington's melon-seeds, all
which you mention to have sent. Lestock has long been
arrived, so to be sure the cases never came with him: I hope
Matthews will discover them. Pray thank Dr. Cocchi very
particularly for his book.

I am very sorry too for your father's removal; it was not done
in the most obliging manner by Mr. Winnington; there was
something exactly like a breach of promise in it to my father,
which was tried to be softened by a civil alternative, that
was no alternative at all. He was forced to it by my Lady
Townshend, who has an implacable aversion to all my father's
people; and not having less to Mr. Pelham's, she has been as
brusque with Winnington about them. He has no principles
himself, and those no principles of his are governed
absolutely by hers, which are no-issimes.

I don't know any of your English. I should delight in your
Vauxhall-ets: what a figure my Grifona must make in such a
romantic scene! I have lately been reading the poems of the
Earl of Surrey,(963) in Henry the Eighth's time; he was in
love with the fair Geraldine of Florence; I have a mind to
write under the Grifona's picture these two lines from one of
his sonnets:

"From Tuscane came my lady's worthy race,
Fair Florence was some time her auncient seat."

And then these:

"Her beauty of kinde, her vertue from above;
Happy is he that can obtaine her love!"

I don't know what of kinde means, but to be sure it was
something prodigiously expressive and gallant in those days,
by its being unintelligible now. Adieu! Do the Chutes
cicisb`e it?

(961) I think it was the ballet de la paix.

(962) It was for a present to Mr. Stone, the Duke of
Newcastle's secretary

(963) Henry Howard, son of the Duke of Norfolk. Under a
charge of high-treason, of which he was manifestly innocent,
this noble soldier and accomplished poet was found guilty, and
in 1547, in his thirty-first year, was beheaded on Tower Hill.
History is silent as to the name of fair Geraldine.-E.

385 Letter 146
To Sir Horace Mann.
London, Aug. 16, 1744.

I am writing to you two or three days beforehand, by way of
settling my affairs-not that I am going to be married or to
die; but something as bad as either if it were to last as
long. You will guess that it can only be going to Houghton;
but I make as much an affair of that, as other people would of
going to Jamaica. Indeed I don't lay in store of cake and
bandboxes, and citron-water, and cards, and cold meat, as
country-women do after the session. My packing-up and
travelling concerns lie in very small compass; nothing but
myself and Patapan, my footman, a cloak-bag, and a couple of
books. My old Tom is even reduced upon the article of my
journey; he is at the Bath, patching together some very bad
remains of a worn-out constitution. I always travel without
company; for then I take my own hours and my own humours,
which I don't think the most tractable to shut up in a coach
with any body else. You know, St. Evremont's rule for
conquering the passions, was to indulge them mine for keeping
my temper in order, is never to leave it too long with another
person. I have found out that it will have its way, but I
make it take its way by itself. It is such sort of reflection
as this, that makes me hate the country: it is impossible in
one house with one set of company, to be always enough upon
one's guard to make one's self agreeable, which one ought to
do, as one always expects it from others. If I had a house of
my own in the country, and could live there now and then
alone, or frequently changing my company, I am persuaded I
should like it; at least, I fancy I should; for when one
begins to reflect why one don't like the country, I believe
one grows near liking to reflect in it. I feel very often
that I grow to correct twenty things in myself, as thinking
them ridiculous at my age; and then with my spirit of whim and
folly, I make myself believe that this is all prudence, and
that I wish I were young enough to be as thoughtless and
extravagant as I used to be. But if I know any thing of the
matter, this is all flattering myself. I grow older, and love
my follies less-if I did not, alas! poor prudence and
reflection!

I think I have pretty well exhausted the chapter of myself. I
will now go talk to YOU Of another fellow, who makes me look
upon myself as a very perfect character; for as I have little
merit naturally, and only pound a stray virtue now @ind then
by chance, the other gentleman seems to have no vice, rather
no villainy, but what he nurses in himself and metliodizes
with as much pains as a stoic would patience. Indeed his
pains are not thrown away. This painstaking person's name is
Frederic, King of Prussia. Pray remember for the future never
to speak of him and H. W. without giving the latter the
preference. Last week we were all alarm! He was before
Prague with fifty thousand men, and not a man in Bohemia to
ask him, "What dost thou?" This week we have raised a hundred
thousand Hungarians, besides vast militias and loyal
nobilities. The King of Poland is to attack him on his march,
and the Russians to fall on Prussia.(964) In the mean time,
his letter or address to the people of England(965) has been
published here: it is a poor performance! His Voltaires and
his litterati should correct his works before they are
printed. A careless song, with a little nonsense in it now
and then, does not misbecome a monarch; but to pen manifestoes
worse than the lowest commis that is kept jointly by two or
three margraves, is insufferable!

We are very strong in Flanders, but still expect to do nothing
this campaign. The French are so entrenched, that it is
impossible to attack them. There is talk of besieging
Maubeuge; I don't know how certainly.

Lord Middlesex's match is determined, and the writings signed.
She proves an immense fortune; they pretend a hundred and
thirty thousand pounds-what a fund for making operas!

My Lady Carteret is going to Tunbridge--there is a hurry for a
son: his only one is gone mad: about a fortnight ago he was at
the Duke of Bedford's, and as much in his few senses as ever.
At five o'clock in the morning he waked the duke and duchess
all bloody, and with the lappet of his coat held up full of
ears: he had been in the stable and cropped all the horses! He
is shut up.(966) My lady is in the honeymoon of her grandeur:
she lives in public places, whither she is escorted by the old
beaux of her husband's court; fair white-wigged old gallants,
the Duke of Bolton,(967) Lord Tweedale, Lord Bathurst, and
Charles Fielding;(968) and she all over knots, and small
hoods, and ribands. Her brother told me the other night,
"Indeed I think my thister doesth countenanth Ranelagh too
mutch." They call Lord Pomfret, King Stanislaus, the queen's
father.

I heard an admirable dialogue, which has been written at the
army on the battle of Dettingen, but one can't get a copy; I
must tell you two or three strokes in it that I have heard.
Pierot asks Harlequin, "Que donne-t'on aux g`en`eraux qui ne
se sont pas trouv`es `a la bataille!" Harl. "On leur donne le
cordon rouge." Pier. "Et que donne-t'on au g`en`eral en
Chef(969 qui a gagn`e la victoire!" Harl. "Son cong`e."
Pier. "Qui a soin des bless`es?" Harl. "L'ennemi." Adieu!

(964) This alludes to the King of Prussia's retreat from
Prague, on the approach of the Austrian army commanded by
Prince Charles Lorraine.-D.