Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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British foot 1237 killed.
Ditto horse 90 ditto.
Ditto foot 1968 wounded.
Ditto horse 232 ditto.
Ditto foot 457 missing.
Ditto horse 18 ditto.
Hanoverian foot 432 killed.
Ditto horse 78 ditto.
Ditto foot 950 wounded.
Ditto horse 192 ditto.
Ditto horse and foot 53 missing.
Dutch 625 killed and wounded.
Ditto 1019 missing.

So the whole hors de combat is above seven thousand three
hundred. The French own the loss of three thousand; I don't
believe many more, for it was a most desperate and rash
perseverance on our side. The Duke behaved very bravely and
humanely;(1038) but this will not have advanced the peace.

However coolly the Duke may have behaved, and coldly his
father, at least his brother, has outdone both. He not only
went to the play the night the news came, but in two days made
a ballad. It is in imitation of the Regent's style, and has
miscarried in nothing but the language, the thoughts, and the
poetry. Did I not tell you in my last that he was going to
act Paris in Congreve's Masque? The song is addressed to the
goddesses.

1. Venez, mes ch`eres D`eesses,
Venez calmer mon chagrin;
Aidez, mes belles Princesses,'
A le noyer dans le vin.
Poussons cette douce Ivresse
Jusqu'au milieu de la nuit,
Et n'`ecoutons que la tendresse
D'un charmant vis-a-vis.

2. Quand le chagrin me d`evore,
Vite `a table je me mets,
Loin des objets que j'abhorre,
Avec joie j'y trouve la paix.
Peu d'amis, restes D'un naufrage
Je rassemble autour de moi,
Et je me ris de l'`etalage.
Qu'a chez lui toujours on Roi.

3. Que m'importe, que l'Europe
Ait Un, ou plusieurs tyrans?
Prions seulement Calliope,
Qu'elle inspire nos vers, nos chants.
Laissons Mars et toute la gloire;
Livrons nous tous `a l'amour;
Que Bacchus nous donne `a boire;
A ces deux fasions la cour.

4. Passons ainsi notre vie,
Sans rover IL ce qui suit;
Avec ma ch`ere Sylvie,(1039)
Le tems trop Vite me fuit.
Mais si, par Un malheur extr`eme,
Je perdois cet objet charmant,
Oui, cette compagnie m`eme
Ne me tiendroit Un moment.

5. me livrant `a ma tristesse,
Toujours plein de mon chagrin,
Je n'aurois plus d'all`egresse
Pour mettre Bathurst(1040) en train:
Ainsi pour vous tenir en joie
Invoquez toujours les Dieux,
Q Qu'elle vive et qu'elle soit
Avec nous toujours heureuse!

Adieu! I am in a great hurry.

(1037) Since called the battle of Fontenoy. (The Marshal de
Saxe commanded the French army, and both Louis XV. and his son
the Dauphin were present in the action. The Duke of
Cumberland commanded the British forces.-D.)

(1037) William, Lord Petersham, eldest son of the Earl of
Harrington.

(1038) The Hon. Philip Yorke, in a letter to Horace Walpole,
the elder, of the following day, says,"the Duke's behaviour
was, by all accounts, the most heroic and gallant imaginable:
he was the whole day in the thickest of the fire. His Royal
Highness drew out a pistol upon an officer whom he saw running
away."-E.

(1038) Frederick, Prince of Wales. The following song was
written immediately after the battle of Fontenoy, and was
addressed to Lady Catherine Hanmer, Lady Fauconberg, and Lady
Middlesex, who were to act the three goddesses, with the
Prince of Wales, in Congreve's Judgment of Paris, whom he was
to represent, and Prince Lobkowitz, Mercury.-E.

(1039) The Princess.

(1040) Allen, Lord Bathurst.

415 Letter 162
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, May 18, 1745.

Dear George,
I am very sorry to renew our correspondence upon so melancholy
a circumstance, but when you have lost so near a friend as
your brother,(1041) 'tis sure the duty of all your other
friends to endeavour to alleviate your loss, and offer all the
increase of affection that is possible to compensate it. This
I do most heartily; I wish I could most effectually.

You will always find in me, dear Sir, the utmost inclination
to be of service to you; and let me beg that you will remember
your promise of writing to me. As I am so much in town and in
the world, I flatter myself with having generally something to
tell you that may make my letters agreeable in the country:
you, any where, make yours charming.

Be so good to say any thing you think proper from me to your
sisters, and believe me, dear George, yours most sincerely.

(1041) Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Montagu, killed at the battle
of Fontenoy.

415 Letter 163
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, May 24, 1745.

I have no consequences of the battle of Tournay to tell you
but the taking of the town: the governor has eight days
allowed him to consider whether he will give up the citadel.
The French certainly lost more men than we did. Our army is
still at Lessines waiting for recruits from Holland and
England; ours are sailed. The King is at Hanover. All the
letters are full of the Duke's humanity and bravery: he will
be as popular with the lower class of men as he has been for
three or four years with the low women: he will be the
soldier's Great Sir as well as theirs. I am really glad; it
will be of great service to the family, if any one of them
come to make a figure.

Lord Chesterfield is returned from Holland; you will see a
most simple farewell speech of his in the papers.(1042)

I have received yours of the 4th of May, and am extremely
obliged to you for your expressions of kindness: they did not
at all surprise me, but every instance of your friendship
gives me pleasure. I wish I could say the same to good prince
Craon. Yet I must set about answering his letter: it is quite
an affair; I have so great a disuse of writing French, that I
believe it will be very barbarous.

My fears for Tuscany are again awakened: the wonderful march
Which the Spanish Queen has made Monsieur de Gage take, may
probably end in his turning short to the left; for his route
to Genoa will be full as difficult as what he has already
passed. I watch eagerly every article from Italy, at a time
when nobody will read a paragraph but from the army in
Flanders.

I am diverted with my Lady's(1043) account of the great riches
that are now coming to her. She has had so many foolish
golden visions, that I should think even the Florentines would
not be the dupes of any more. As for her mourning, she may
save it, if she expects to have it notified. Don't you
remember my Lady Pomfret's having a piece of economy of that
sort, when she would not know that the Emperor was dead,
because my Lord Chamberlain had not notified it to her.

I have a good story to tell you of Lord Bath, whose name you
have not heard very lately; have you? He owed a tradesman
eight hundred pounds, and would never pay him: the man
determined to persecute him till he did; and one morning
followed him to Lord Winchilsea's, and sent up word that he
wanted to speak with him. Lord Bath came down, and said,
"Fellow, what do you want with me'!"-"My money," said the man,
as loud as ever he could bawl, before all the servants. He
bade him come the next morning, and then would not see him.
The next Sunday the man followed him to church, and got into
the next pew: he leaned over, and said, , "My money; give me
my money!" My lord went to the end of the pew; the man too:
"Give me my money!" The sermon was on avarice, and the text,
"Cursed are they that heap up riches." The man groaned out,
"O lord!" and pointed to my Lord Bath. In short, he persisted
so much, and drew the eyes of all the congregation, that my
Lord Bath went out and paid him directly. I assure you this
is a fact. Adieu.

(1042) " Have you Lord Chesterfield's speech on taking leave?
It is quite calculated for the language it is wrote in, and
makes but an indifferent figure in English. The thoughts are
common, and yet he strains hard to give them an air of
novelty; and the quaintness of the expression is quite a la
Fran`caise." The Hon. P. Yorke to Horatio Walpole.-E.

(1043) Lady Walpole, now become Countess of Orford.-D.

416 Letter 164
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, May 25, 1745.

Dear George,
I don't write to you now so much to answer your letter as to
promote your diversion, which I am as much obliged to you for
consulting me about, at least as much as about an affair of
honour, or your marriage, or any other important transaction;
any one of which you might possibly dislike more than
diverting yourself. For my part, I shall give you my advice
on this point with as much reflection as I should, if it were
necessary for me, like a true friend, to counsel you to
displease yourself.

You propose making a visit at Englefield Green, and ask me, if
I think it right? Extremely so. I have heard it is a very
pretty place. You love a jaunt--have a pretty chaise, I
believe, and, I dare swear, very easy; in all probability, you
have a fine evening too ; and, added to all this, the
gentleman you would go to see is very agreeable and good
humoured.(1044) He has some very Pretty children, and a
sensible, learned man that lives with him, one Dr.
Thirlby,(1045) whom, I believe you know. The master of the
house plays extremely well on the bass-viol, and has generally
other musical people with him. He knows a good deal of the
private history of a late ministry; and, my dear George, you
love memoires. Indeed, as to personal acquaintance with any
of the court beauties, I can't say you will find your account
in him ; but, to make amends, he is perfectly master of all
the quarrels that have been fashionably on foot about Handel,
and can give you a very perfect account of all the modern
rival painters. In short, you may pass a very agreeable day
with him; and if he does but take to you, as I can't doubt,
who know you both, you will contract a great friendship with
him, which he will preserve with the greatest warmth and
partiality.

In short, I can think of no reason in the world against your
going there but one: do you know his youngest brother? If you
to be so unlucky, I can't flatter you so far as to advise you
to make him a visit; for there is nothing in the world the
Baron of Englefield has such an aversion for as for his
brother.

(1044) Mr. Walpole's brother, Sir Edward. See Ant`e, p.189,
letter 42.

(1045) Styan Thirlby, fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge,
published an edition of Justin Martyr, and, I think, wrote
something against Middleton. He communicated several notes to
Theobald for his Shakspeare, and in the latter part of his
life, took to study the common law. He lived chiefly for his
last years with Sir Edward Walpole, who had procured for him a
small place in the Custom house, and to whom he left his
papers: he had lost his intellects some time before his death.
[He died a martyr to intemperance, in 1751, in his sixty-first
year. Mr. Nichols says, that, while in Sir Edward's houses,
he kept a miscellaneous book of Memorables, containing
whatever was said or done amiss by Sir Edward, or any part of
his family.]

417 Letter 165
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, May 27, 1745.

My dear Harry,
As gloriously as you have set out, yet I despair of seeing you
a perfect hero! You have none of the charming violences that
are so essential to that character. You write as coolly,
after behaving well in battle, as you fought in it. Can your
friends flatter themselves with seeing you, one day or other,
be the death of thousands, when you wish for peace in three
weeks after four first engagements and laugh at the ambition
of those men who have given you this opportunity of
distinguishing yourself? With the person of an Orondates, and
the courage, you have all the compassion, the reason, and the
'reflection of one that never read a romance. Can one ever
hope you will make a figure, when you only fight because it
was right you should, and not because you hated the French or
loved destroying mankind? This is so un-English, or so
un-heroic, that I despair of you!

Thank Heaven, you have one spice of madness! Your admiration
of your master(1047) leaves me a glimmering of hope, that you
will not be always so unreasonably reasonable. Do you
remember the humorous lieutenant, in one of Beaumont and
Fletcher's plays, that is in love with the king? Indeed, your
master is not behindhand with you; you seem to have agreed to
puff one another.

If you are acting up to the strictest rules of war and
chivalry in Flanders, we are not less scrupulous on this side
the water in fulfilling all the duties of the same order. The
day the young volunteer(1048 departed for the army (unluckily
indeed, it was after the battle), his tender mother
Sisygambis, and the beautiful Statira,(1049) a lady formerly
known in your history by the name of Artemisia, from her
cutting off her hair in your absence, were so afflicted and SO
inseparable, that they made a party together to Mr.
graham'S(1050) (you may read lapis if you please) to be
blooded. It was settled that this was a more precious way of
expressing Concern than shaving the head, which has been known
to be attended with false locks the next day.

For the other princess you wot of, who is not entirely so tall
as the former, nor so evidently descended from a line of
monarchs--I don't hear her talk of retiring. At present she
is employed in buying up all the nose-gays in Covent Garden
and laurel leaves at the pastry cooks, to where chaplets for
the return of her hero. Who that is I don't pretend to know
or guess. All I know is, that in this age retirement is not
one of the fashionable expressions of passion.

(1046) The battle of Fontenoy, where Mr. Conway greatly
distinguished himself.

(1047) The Duke of Cumberland, to whom Mr. Conway was
aide-de-camp.

(1048) George, afterwards Marquis Townshend.

(1049) Ethelreda Harrison, Viscountess Townshend, and her
daughter, the Hon. Audrey Townshend, afterwards married to
Robert Orme, Esq.

(1050) A celebrated apothecary in Pall-mall.

418 Letter 166
To Sir Horace Mann.

I have the pleasure of recommending you a new acquaintance,
for which I am sure you will thank me. Mr. Hobart(1051)
proposes passing a little time at Florence, which I am sure
you will endeavour to make as agreeable to him as possible. I
beg you will introduce him to all my friends, who, I don't
doubt, will show him the same civilities that I received.
Dear Sir, this will be a particular obligation to me, who am,
etc.

1051) Eldest son of John, Earl of Buckinghamshire, (The Hon.
John Hobart, afterwards second Earl of Buckinghamshire, and
lord Lieutenant of Ireland.-D.)

419 Letter 167
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, June 24, 1745.

I have been a fortnight in the country, and had ordered all my
to be kept till I came to town, or I should have written to
you sooner about my sister-countess. She is not arrived yet,
but is certainly coming: she has despatched several letters to
notify her intentions: a short one to her mother, saying,
"Dear Madam, as you have often desired me to return to
England, I am determined to set out, and hope you will give me
reasons to subscribe myself your most affectionate daughter."
This "often desired me to return" has never been repeated
since the first year of her going away. The poor
signora-madre is in a terrible fright, and will not come to
town till her daughter is gone again, which all advices agree
will be soon. Another letter is to my Lady Townshend, telling
her, "that, as she knows her ladyship's way of thinking, she
does not fear the continuance of her friendship." Another, a
long one, to my Lord Chesterfield; another to Lady Isabella
Scot,(1052) an old friend of hers; and another to Lady
Pomfret. This last says, that she hears from guccioni, my
Lady O. will stay here a very little time, having taken a
house at Florence for three years. She is to come to my Lady
Denbigh.(1053) My brother is extremely obliged to you for all
your notices about her, though he is very indifferent about
her motions. If she happens to choose law (though on what
foot no mortal can guess), he is prepared; having from the
first hint of her journey, fee'd every one of the considerable
lawyers. In short, this jaunt is as simple as all the rest of
her actions have been hardy. Nobody wonders at her bringing
no English servants with her-they know, and consequently might
tell too much.

I feel excessively for you, my dear child, on the loss of Mr.
Chute!--so sensible and so good-natured a man would be a loss
to any body; but to you, who are so meek and helpless, it is
irreparable! who will dry you when you are very wet
brown-paper?(1054) Though I laugh, you know how much I pity
you: you will want somebody to talk over English letters, and
to conjecture with ),on; in short, I feel your distress in all
its lights.

The citadel of Tournay is gone;(1055) our affairs go ill.
Charles of Lorrain(1056) has lost a great battle grossly! He
was constantly drunk, and had no kind of intelligence. Now he
acts from his own head, his head turns out a very bad one. I
don't know, indeed, what they can say in defence of the great
general to whom we have just given the garter, the Duke of
Saxe Weissenfels; he is not of so serene a house but that he
might have known something of the motions of the Prussians.
Last night we heard that the Hungarian insurgents had cut to
pieces two Prussian regiments. The King of Prussia and
Prince Charles are so near, that we every day expect news of
another battle. We don't know yet what is to be the next step
in Flanders. Lord Cobham has got Churchill'S(1057) regiment,
and Lord Dunmore his government of Plymouth. At the Prince's
court there is a great revolution; he, or rather Lord
Granville, or perhaps the Princess, (who, I firmly believe, by
all her quiet sense, will turn out a Caroline,) have at last
got rid of Lady Archibald,(1058) who was strongly attached to
the coalition. They have civilly asked her, and Crossly
forced her to ask civilly to go away, which she has done, with
a pension of twelve hundred a-year. Lady Middlesex,(1059) is
mistress of the robes: she lives with them perpetually, and
sits up till five in the morning at their suppers. Don't
mistake!-not for her person, which is wondrous plain and
little: the town says it is for her friend Miss Granville, one
of the maids of honour; but at least yet, that is only
scandal. She is a fair, red-haired girl, scarce pretty;
daughter of the poet, Lord Lansdown.(1060) Lady Berkeley is
lady of the bedchamber, and Miss Lawson maid of honour. Miss
Neville, a charming beauty, and daughter of the pretty,
unfortunate Lady Abergavenny,(1061) is named for the next
vacancy.

I was scarcely settled in my joy for the Spaniards having
taken the opposite route to Tuscany, when I heard of Mr.
Chute's leaving you. I long to have no reason to be uneasy
about you. I am obliged to you for the gesse figures, and beg
you will send me the bill in your first letter. Rysbrach has
perfectly mended the Ganymede and the model, which to me
seemed irrecoverably smashed.

I have just been giving a recommendatory letter for you to Mr.
Hobart; he is a particular friend of mine, but is Norfolk, and
in the world; so you will be civil to him. He is of the
Damon-kind, and not one of whom you will make a Chute. madame
Suares may make something of him. Adieu!

(1052) Daughter of Anne, Countess of Buccleuch, and Duchess of
Buccleuch and Monmouth, the wife of James, the unhappy Duke of
Monmouth. Lady Isabella Scott was the daughter of the duchess
by her second husband, Charles, third Lord Cornwallis. She
died unmarried, Feb. 18, 1748.-D.

(1053) Isabella de Jonghe, a Dutch lady, and wife of William
Fielding, fifth Earl of Denbigh. She died in 1769.-D.

(1054) Mr. Mann was so thin and weak that Mr. Walpole used to
compare him to wet brown-paper.

(1055) The treachery of the principal engineer, who deserted
to the enemy, and the timidity of other officers in the
garrison, produced a surrender of the city in a fortnight, and
Of the citadel in another week.-E.

(1056) He was brother of Francis, at this time Grand Duke of
Tuscany. On the 3d of June, the King of Prussia had gained a
signal victory over him at Friedberg.-E.

(1057) General Churchill, or, as he was commonly called, "Old
Charles Churchill," was just dead.-D.

(1058) Lady Archibald Hamilton, daughter of Lord Abercorn, and
wife of Lord Archibald Hamilton.

(1059) Daughter of Lord Shannon, and wife of Charles, Earl of
Middlesex, eldest son of Lionel, Duke of Dorset. Her favour
grew to be thought more than platonic.

(1060) George Granville, Lord Lansdowne, one of Queen Ann,-'s
twelve Tory Peers styled by Pope, who addressed his Windsor
Forest to him, "the polite." He died in 1735.-E.

(1061) Catherine Tatton, daughter of Lieutenant-General
Tatton. She married, first, Edward Neville-,, thirteenth Lord
Abergavenny, who died without issue in his nineteenth year, in
1724. She remarried with his cousin and successor, William,
fourteenth Lord Abergavenny, by whom she had issue, one son,
George, afterwards fifteenth Lord Abergavenny, and one
daughter, Catherine, who is mentioned above. Lady Abergavenny
herself died in childbed, Dec. 4, 1729, in less than one month
after the detection of an intrigue between her and Richard
Lyddel, Esq. against whom Lord Abergavenny brought an action
for damages, and recovered five thousand pounds. In a poem
written on her death by Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, she is
praised for her gentleness, and pitied for her " cruel
wrongs." Her husband is also called "that stern lord." All
further details respecting her are, however, now unknown.-D.

421 Letter 168
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, June 25, 1745.

Dear George,
I have been near three weeks in Essex, at Mr. Rigby's,(1062)
and had left your direction behind me, and could not write to
you. It is the charmingest place by nature, and the most
trumpery by art, that ever I saw. The house stands on a high
hill, on an arm of the sea, which winds itself before two
sides of the house. On the right and left, at the very foot
of this hill, lie two towns; the one of market quality, and
the other with a wharf where ships come up. This last was to
have a church, but by a lucky want of religion in the
inhabitants, who would not contribute to building a steeple,
it remains an absolute antique temple, with a portico on the
very strand. Cross this arm of the sea, you see six churches
and charming woody hills in Suffolk. All this parent Nature
did for this place; but its godfathers and godmothers, I
believe, promised it should renounce all the pomps and
vanities of this world, for they have patched up a square
house, full of windows, low rooms, and thin walls; piled up
walls wherever there was a glimpse of prospect; planted
avenues that go nowhere, and dug fishponds where there should
be avenues. We had very bad weather the whole time I was
there! but however I rode about and sailed, not having the
same apprehensions Of catching cold that Mrs.
Kerwood had once at Chelsea, when I persuaded her not to go
home by water, because it would be damp after rain.

The town is not quite empty yet. My Lady Fitzwatter, Lady
Betty Germain,(1063) Lady Granville,(1064) and the dowager
Strafford have their At-homes, and amass company. Lady Brown
has done with her Sundays, for she is changing her house into
Upper Brook Street. In the mean time, she goes to
Knightbridge, and Sir Robert to the woman he keeps at
Scarborough: Winnington goes on with the Frasi; so my lady
Townshend is obliged only to lie of people. You have heard of
the disgrace of the Archibald, and that in future scandal she
must only be ranked with the Lady Elizabeth Lucy and Madam
Lucy Walters, instead of being historically noble among the
Clevelands, Portsmouths, and Yarmouths. It is said Miss
Granville has the reversion of her coronet;
others say, she won't accept the patent.

Your friend Jemmy Lumley,(1065)--beg pardon, I mean your kin,
is not he? I am sure he is not your friend;--well, he has had
an assembly, and he would write all the cards himself, and
every one of them was to desire he's company and she's
company, with other pieces of curious orthography. Adieu,
dear George! I wish you a merry farm, as the children say at
Vauxhall. My compliments to your sisters.

(1062) Mistley Hall, near Manningtree.

(1063) Second daughter of the Earl of Berkeley, and married to
Sir John Germain.

(1064) Daughter of rhomms, Earl of Pomfret. She was Lord
Granville's second wife.

(1065) Seventh son of the first Earl of Scarborough. He died
in 1766, unmarried.-E.

422 Letter 169
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, July 1, 1745.

My dear harry,
If it were not for that one slight inconvenience, that I
should probably be dead now, I should have liked much better
to have lived in the last war than in this; I mean as to the
pleasantness of writing letters. Two or three battles won,
two or three towns taken, in a summer, were pretty objects to
keep up the liveliness of a correspondence. But now it hurts
one's dignity to be talking of English and French armies, at
the first period of our history in which the tables are
turned. After having learnt to spell out of the reigns of
Edward the Third and Harry the Fifth, and begun lisping with
Agincourt and Cressy, one uses one's self but awkwardly to the
sounds of Tournay and Fontenoy. I don't like foreseeing the
time so near, when all the young orators in Parliament will be
haranguing out of Demosthenes upon the imminent danger we are
in from the overgrown power of King Philip. As becoming as
all that public spirit will be, which to be sure will now come
forth, I can't but think we were at least as happy and as
great when all the young Pitts and Lytteltons were pelting
oratory at my father for rolling out a twenty years' peace,
and not envying the trophies which he passed by every day in
Westminster Hall. But one must not repine; rather reflect on
the glories which they have drove the nation headlong into.
One must think all our distresses and dangers well laid out,
when they have purchased us Glover'S(1066) Oration for the
merchants, the Admiralty for the Duke of Bedford, and the
reversion of Secretary at war for Pitt, which he will
certainly have, unless the French King should happen to have
the nomination; and then I fear, as much obliged as that court
is to my Lord Cobham and his nephews, they would be so partial
as to prefer some illiterate nephew of Cardinal Tencin's, who
never heard of Leonidas or the Hanover troops.