Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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With all these reflections, as I love to make myself easy,
especially politically, I comfort myself with what St.
Evremond (a favourite philosopher of mine, for he thought what
he liked, not liked what he thought) said in defence of
Cardinal Mazarin, when he was reproached with neglecting the
good of the kingdom that he might engross the riches of it:
"Well, let him get all the riches, and then he will think of
the good of the kingdom, for it will all be his own." Let the
French but have England, and they won't want to conquer it.
We may possibly contract the French spirit of being supremely
content with the glory of our monarch, and then-why then it
will be the first time we ever -were contented yet. We hear
of nothing but your retiring,(1067 and of Dutch treachery: in
short, 'tis an holy scene!

I know of no home news but the commencement of the gaming
act,(1068) for which they are to put up a scutcheon at
White's--for the death of play; and the death of Winnington's
wife, which may be an unlucky event for my Lady Townshend. As
he has no children, he will certainly marry again; and who
will give him their daughter, unless he breaks off that
affair, which I believe he will now very willingly make a
marriage article? We want him to take Lady -Charlotte Fermor.
She was always his beauty, and has so many charming qualities,
that she would make any body happy. He will make a good
husband; for he is excessively good-natured, and was much
better to that strange wife than he cared to own.

You wondered at my journey to Houghton; now -wonder more, for
I am going to Mount Edgecumbe. Now my summers are in my own
hands, and I am not obliged to pass great part of them in
Norfolk, I find it is not so very terrible to dispose of them
up and down. In about three weeks I shall set out, and see
Wilton and Doddington's in my way. Dear Harry, do but get a
victory, and I will let off every cannon at Plymouth:
reserving two, till I hear particularly that you have killed
two more Frenchmen with your own hand.(1069) Lady Mary(1070)
sends you her compliments; she is going to pass a week with
Miss Townshend(1071) at Muffits; I don't think you will be
forgot. Your sister Anne has got a new distemper, which she
says feels like something jumping in her. You know my style
on such an occasion, and may be sure I have not spared this
distemper. Adieu! Yours ever.

(1066) The author of Leonidas.

(1067) Mr. Conway was still with the army in Flanders.

(1068) An act had recently passed to prevent excessive and
deceitful gaming.-E.

(1069) Alluding to Mr. Conway's having been engaged with two
French grenadiers at once in the battle of Fontenoy.

(1070) Lady Mary Walpole, youngest daughter of Sir R. Walpole,
afterwards married to Charles Churchill, Esq.

(1071) DAUGHTER of Charles Viscount Townshend, afterwards
married to Edward Cornwallis, brother to Earl Cornwallis, and
groom of the bedchamber to the King.

424 Letter 170
To sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, July 5, 1745.

All yesterday we were in the utmost consternation an express
came the night before from Ostend with an account of the
French army in Flanders having seized Ghent and Bruges, cut
off a detachment of four thousand men, surrounded our army,
who must be cut to pieces or surrender themselves prisoners,
and that the Duke was gone to the Hague, but that the Dutch
had signed a neutrality. You will allow that here was ample
subject for confusion! To-day we are a little relieved, by
finding that we have lost but five hundred men(1072) instead
of four thousand, and that our army, which is inferior by half
to theirs, is safe behind a river. With this came the news of
the Great Duke's victory over the Prince of Conti:(1073) he
has killed fifteen thousand, and taken six thousand prisoners.
Here is already a third great battle this summer! But Flanders
is gone! The Dutch have given up all that could hinder the
French from overrunning them, upon condition that the French
should not overrun them. Indeed, I cannot be so exasperated
at the Dutch as it is the fashion to be; they have not forgot
the peace of Utrecht, though we have. Besides, how could they
rely on any negotiation with a people whose politics alter so
often as ours? Or why were we to fancy that my Lord
Chesterfield's parts would have more weight than my uncle had,
whom, ridiculous as he was, they had never known to take a
trip to Avignon to confer with the Duke of Ormond?(1074)

Our communication with the army is cut off through Flanders
and we are in great pain for Ostend: the fortifications are
all out of repair. Upon Marshal Wade's reiterated
remonstrances, we did cast thirty cannon and four mortars for
it-and then the economic ministry would not send them. "What!
fortify the Queen of Hungary's towns? there will be no end of
that." As if Ostend was of no more consequence to us, than
Mons or Namur! Two more battalions are ordered over
immediately; and the old pensioners of Chelsea College are to
mount guard at home! Flourishing in a peace of twenty years,
we were told that we were trampled upon by Spain and France.
Haughty nations, like those, who can trample upon an enemy
country, do not use to leave it in such wealth and happiness
as we enjoyed; but when the Duke of Marlborough's old
victorious veterans are dug out of their colleges and repose,
to guard the King's palace, and to keep up the show of an army
which we have buried in America, or in a manner lost in
Flanders, we shall soon know the real feel of being trampled
upon! In this crisis, you will hear often from me; for I will
leave you in no anxious uncertainty from which I can free you.

The Countess(1075) is at Hanover, and, we hear, extremely well
received. It is conjectured, and it is not impossible, that
the Count may have procured for her some dirty dab of a
negotiation about some 'acre of territory more for Hanover, in
order to facilitate her reception. She has been at Hesse
Cassel, and fondled extremely Princess Mary'S(1076) children;
just as you know she used to make a rout about the Pretender's
boys. My Lord Chesterfield laughs at her letter to him; and,
what would anger her more than the neglect, ridicules the
style and orthography. Nothing promises well for her here.

You told me you wished I would condole with Prince Craon on
the death of his son:(1077) which son? and where was he
killed? You don't tell me, and I never heard. Now it would
be too late. I should have been uneasy for Prince Beauvau,
but that you say he is in Piedmont.

Adieu! my dear child: we have much to wish! A little good
fortune will not re-establish us. I am in pain for your
health from the great increase of your business.

(1072 The French had been successful in a skirmish against the
English army, at a place called Melle. The consequence of
this success was their obtaining the possession of Ghent.-D.

(1073) The army of the Prince of Conti, posted near the Maine,
had been so weakened by the detachments sent from it to
reinforce the army in Flanders, that it was obliged to retreat
before the Austrians. This retrograde movement was effected
with considerable loss, both of soldiers and baggage; but it
does not appear that any decisive general engagement took
place during the campaign between the French and Austrians.-D.

(1074) ant`e, p. 195; Letter 45 (note 334).

(1075) Lady Orford.

(1076) Princess Mary of England, daughter of George the
Second; married in 1740 to the Prince of Hesse Cassel, who
treated her with great inhumanity. She died in June, 1771.-E.

(1077) The young Prince de Craon was killed at the head of his
regiment at the battle of Fontenoy.-D.

425 Letter 171
To sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, July 12, 1745.

I am charmed with the sentiments that Mr. Chute expresses for
you; but then you have lost him! Here is an answer to his
letter; I send it unsealed, to avoid repealing what I have
thought on our affairs. Seal it and send it. Its being open,
prevented my saying half so much about you as I should have
done.

There is no more news - the Great Duke's victory, of which we
heard so much last week, is come to nothing! So far from
having defeated the Prince of Conti, it is not at all
impossible but the Prince may wear the imperial coat of
diamonds, though I am persuaded the care of that will be the
chief concern of the Great Duke, (next to his own person,) in
a battle. Our army is retreated beyond Brussels; the French
gather laurels, and towns, and prisoners, as one would a
nosegay. In the mean time you are bullying the King of
Naples, in the person of the English fleet; and I think may
possibly be doing so for two months after that very fleet
belongs to the King of France; as astrologers tell one that we
should see stars shine for I don't know how long after they
were annihilated. But I like your spirit; keep it up!
Millamant, in the Way of the World, tells Mirabel, that she
will be solicited to the very last; nay, and afterwards. He
replies, "What! after the last?"

I am in great pain about your arrears; it is a bad season for
obtaining payment. In the best times, they make a custom of
paying foreign ministers Ill; which may be very politic, when
they send men of too great fortunes abroad in order to lessen
them: but, my dear child, God knows that is not your case!

I have some extremely pretty dogs of King Charles's breed, if
I knew how to convey them to you: indeed they are not
Patapans. I can't tell how they would like travelling into
Italy, when there is a prospect of the rest of their race
returning from thence: besides, you must certify me that none
of them shall ever be married below themselves; for since the
affair of Lady Caroline Fox, one durst not hazard the Duke of
Richmond's resentment even about a dog and bitch of that
breed.

Lord Lempster(1078) is taken prisoner in the affair of the
detachment to Ghent. My lady,(1079) who has heard of Spartan
mothers, (though you know she once asserted that nobody knew
any thing of the Grecian Republics,) affects to bear it with a
patriot insensibility. She told me the other day that the
Abb`e Niccolini and the eldest Pandolfini are coming to
England: is it true? I shall be very Clad to be civil to them,
especially to the latter, who, you know, was one of my
friends.

My Lady Orford is at Hanover, most Graciously received by "the
Father of all his people!" In the papers of yesterday was this
paragraph; "Lady O. who has spent several years in Italy,
arrived here (Hanover) the 3d, on her return to England, and
was Graciously received by his Majesty." Lady Denbigh is gone
into the country so I don't know where she is to lodge-perhaps
at St. James's, out of' regard to my father's memory.

Trust me, you escaped well in Pigwiggin's(1079) not accepting
your invitation of living with you: you must have aired your
house, as Lady Pomfret was forced to air Lady Mary Wortley's
bedchamber. He has a most unfortunate breath: so has the
Princess his sister. When I was at their country-house, I
used to sit in the library and turn over books of prints: out
of good breeding they would not quit me; nay, would look over
the prints with me. A whiff would come from the east, and I
turned short to the west, whence the Princess would puff me
back with another gale full as richly perfumed as her
brother's. Adieu!

(1078) George Fermor: who, on the death of his father in 1753,
became second Earl of Pomfret. He died in 1785.-E.

(1079) Henrietta Louisa, Countess of Pomfret, mother of Lord
Lempster.

(1080) A nickname given by Walpole to his cousin Horace,
eldest son of "Old Horace Walpole," afterwards first Earl of
Orford of the second creation. He died in 1809, at the age of
eighty-six.-E.

427 Letter 172
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, July 13, 1745.

Dear George,
We are all Cabob'd and Cocofagoed, as my Lord Denbigh says.
We, who formerly, you know, could any one of us beat three
Frenchmen, are now so .degenerated, that three Frenchmen(1081)
can evidently beat One Englishman. Our army is running away,
all that is left to run; for half of it is picked up by three
or four hundred at a time. In short, we must step out of the
high pantoufles that were made by those cunning shoemakers at
Poitiers and Ramilies, and go clumping about perhaps in wooden
ones. My Lady Hervey, who you know dotes upon every thing
French, is charmed with the hopes of these new shoes, and has
already bespoke herself a pair of pigeon wood. How did the
tapestry at Blenheim look? Did it glow with victory, or did
all our glories look overcast?

I remember a very admired sentence in one of my Lord
Chesterfield's speeches, when he was haranguing for this war;
with a most rhetorical transition, he turned to the tapestry
in the House of Lords,(1082) and said, with a sigh, he feared
there were no historical looms at work now! Indeed, we have
reason to bless the good patriots, who have been for employing
our manufactures so historically. The Countess of that wise
Earl, with whose two expressive words I began this letter,
says, she is very happy now that my lord had never a place
upon the coalition, for then all this bad situation of our
affairs would have been laid upon him.

Now I have been talking of remarkable periods in our annals, I
must tell you what my Lord Baltimore thinks one:--He said to
the Prince t'other day, "Sir, your Royal Highness's marriage
will be an area in English history."

If it were not for the life that is put into the town now and
then by very bad news from abroad, one should be quite
stupefied. There is nobody left but two or three solitary
regents; and they are always whisking backwards and forwards
to their villas; and about a dozen antediluvian dowagers,
whose carcasses have miraculously resisted the wet, and who
every Saturday compose a very reverend catacomb at my old Lady
Strafford's. She does not take money at the door for showing
them, but 'you pay twelvepence apiece under the denomination
of card-money. Wit and beauty, indeed, remain in the persons
of Lady Townshend and Lady Caroline Fitzroy; but such is the
want of taste of this age, that the former is very often
forced to wrap up her wit in plain English before it can be
understood; and the latter is almost as often obliged to have
recourse to the same artifices to make her charms be taken
notice of.

Of beauty, I can tell you an admirable story. One Mrs.
Comyns, an elderly gentlewoman, has lately taken a house in
St. James's Street: some young gentlemen went there t'other
night;--"Well, Mrs. Comyns, I hope there won't be the same
disturbances here that were at your other house in Air
Street."--"Lord, Sir, I never had any disturbances there: mine
was as quiet a house as any in the neighbourhood, and a great
deal of company came to me: it was only the ladies of quality
that envied Me."--"Envied you! why, your house was pulled down
about your ears."--"Oh, dear Sir! don't you know how that
happened?"--"No; pray how?"--"Why, dear Sir, it was my Lady
**** who gave ten guineas to the mob to demolish my house,
because her ladyship fancied I got women for Colonel Conway."

My dear George, don't you delight in this story? If poor
Harry(1083) comes back from Flanders, I intend to have
infinite fun with his prudery about this anecdote, which is
full as good as if it was true. I beg you will visit Mrs.
Comyns when you come to town- she has infinite humour.

(1081) Alluding to the success of the French army in Flanders,
under the command of Mareschal Saxe.

(1082) Representing the defeat of the Spanish armada in 1588,
and surrounded by portraits of the principal officers who
commanded the fleet. This noble suit of hangings was wrought
in Holland, at the expense of the Earl of Nottingham, lord
high admiral.-E.

(1083) The Honourable Henry Seymour Conway.

428 Letter 173
To Sir Horace Mann.
July 15, 1745.

You will be surprised at another from me so soon, when I wrote
to you but four days ago. This is not with any news, but upon
a private affair. You have never said any thing to Me about
the extraordinary procedure of Marquis Riccardi, of which I
wrote you word. Indeed, as his letter came just upon my
father's death, I had forgot it too; so much so, that I have
lost the catalogue which he sent me. Well, the other day I
received his cargo. Now, My dear child, I don't write to him
upon it, because, as he Sent the things without asking my
leave, I am determined never to acknowledge the receipt of
them because I will in no manner be liable to pay for them if
they are lost: which I think highly probable; and as I have
lost the catalogue, I cannot tell whether I have received all
or not.

I beg you will just say what follows to him. That I am
extremely amazed he should think of employing me to sell his
goods for him, especially without asking my consent, that an
English gentleman, just come from France, has brought me a box
of things, of which he himself had no account; nor is there
any letter or catalogue with them; that I suppose they may be
the Marquis's collection: I have lost the catalogue, and
consequently cannot tell whether I have received all or not,
nor whether they are his: that as they came in so blind a
manner, and have been opened at several custom-houses, I will
not be answerable especially having never given my consent to
receive them, and having opened the box ignorantly, without
knowing the contents: that when I did open it, I concluded it
came from Florence, having often refused to buy most of the
things, which had long lain upon the jeweller's hands on the
old bridge, and which are very improper for sale here, as all
the English for some years have seen them, and not thought
them worth purchasing - that I remember in the catalogue the
price for the whole was fixed at two thousand pistoles; that
they are full as much worth two-and-twenty thousand; and that
I have been laughed at by people to whom I have showed them
for naming so extravagant a price: that nobody living would
think of buying all together: that for myself, I have entirely
left off making any collection; and if I had not, would not
buy things dear now which I have formerly refused at much
lower prices. That, after all, though I cannot think myself
at all well used by Marquis Riccardi, either in sending me the
things, in the price he has fixed on them, or in the things
themselves, which to my knowledge he has picked up from the
shops on the old bridge, and were no family collection, yet,
as I received so many civilities at Florence from the
nobility, and in particular from his wife, Madame Riccardi, if
he will let me do any thing that is practicable, I will sell
what I can for him. That if he will send me A new and distinct
catalogue, with the price of each piece, and a price
considerably less than what he has set upon the whole, I will
endeavour to dispose of what I can for him. But as most of
them are very indifferent, and the total value most
unreasonable, I absolutely will not undertake the sale of them
upon any other terms, but will pack them up, and send them
away to Leghorn by the first ship that sails; for as we are at
war with France, I cannot send them that way, nor will I
trouble any gentleman to carry them, as he might think himself
liable to make them good if they met with any accident; nor
will I answer for them by whatever way they go, as I did not
consent to receive them, nor am sure that I have received the
Marquis's collection.

My dear Sir, translate this very distinctly for him, for he
never shall receive any other notice from me; nor will I give
them up to Wasner or Pucci,(1084) or any body else, though he
should send me an order for it; for nobody saw me open them,
nor shall any body be able to say I had them, by receiving
them from me. In short, I think I cannot be too cautious in
such a negotiation. If a man will send Me things to the value
of two thousand pistoles, whether they are really worth it or
not, he shall take his chance for losing them, and shall
certainly never come upon me for them. He must absolutely
take his choice, of selling them at a proper price and
separately, or of having them directly sent back by sea; for
whether he consents to either or not, I shall certainly
proceed in my resolution about them
the very instant I receive an answer from you; for the sooner
I am clear of them the better. If he will let me sell them
without setting a price, he may depend upon my taking the best
method for his service; though really, my dear child, it will
be for my own honour, not for his sake, who has treated me so
impertinently. I am sorry to give you this trouble, but judge
how much the fool gives me! Adieu!

(1084) Ministers of the Queen of Hungary and the Great Duke.

430 Letter 174
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, July 26, 1745.

It is a pain to me to write to you, when all I can tell you
will but distress you. How much I wish myself with you!
anywhere, where I should have my thoughts detached in some
degree by distance and by length of time from England! With
all the reasons that I have for not loving great part of it,
it is impossible not to feel the shock of living at the period
of all its greatness! to be one of the Ultimi Romanorum! I
will not proceed upon the chapter of reflections, but mention
some facts, which will supply your thoughts with all I should
say.

The French make no secret of their intending to come hither;
the letters from Holland speak of it as a notoriety. Their
Mediterranean fleet is come to Rochfort, and they have another
at Brest. Their immediate design is to attack our army, the
very lessening which will be victory for them. Our six
hundred men, which have lain cooped up in the river till they
had contracted diseases, are at last gone to Ostend. Of all
this our notable ministry still make a secret: one cannot
learn the least particulars from them. This anxiety for my
friends in the army, this uncertainty about ourselves, if it
can be called uncertain that we are undone, and the provoking
folly that one sees prevail, have determined me to go to the
Hague. I shall at least hear sooner from the army, and shall
there know better what is likely to happen here. The moment
the crisis is come I shall return hither, which I can do from
Helvoetsluys in twelve hours. At all events, I shall
certainly not stay there above a month or six weeks: it
thickens too fast for something important not to happen by
that time.

You may judge of our situation by the conversation of Marshal
Belleisle: he has said for some time, that he saw we were so
little capable of making any defence that he would engage,
with five thousand scullions of the French army, to conquer
England--yet, just now, they choose to release him! he goes
away in a week.(1085) When he was told of the taking Cape
Breton, he said. "he could believe that, because the ministry
had no hand in it." We are making bonfires for Cape Breton,
and thundering over Genoa, while our army in Flanders is
running away, and dropping to pieces by detachments taken
prisoners every day; while the King is at Hanover, the regency
at their country-seats, not five thousand men in the island,
and not above fourteen or fifteen ships at home! Allelujah!

I received yours yesterday, with the bill of lading for the
gesse figures, but you don't tell me their price; pray do in
your 'next. I don't know what to say to Mr. Chute's eagle; I
would fain have it; I can depend upon his taste-but would not
it be folly to be buying curiosities now! how can I tell that
I shall have any thing in the world to pay for it, by the time
it is bought? You may present these reasons to Mr. Chute; and
if he laughs at them, why then he will buy the eagle for me;
if he thinks them of weight, not.

Adieu! I have not time or patience to say more.

(1085) The Marshal and his brother left England on the 13th of
August.-E.

431 Letter 175
To George Montagu, Esq.
[August 1, 1745.]

Dear George,
I cannot help thinking you laugh at me when you say such very
civil things of my letters, and yet, coming from you, I would
fain not have it all flattery:

So much the more, as, from a little elf,
I've had a high opinion of myself,
Though sickly, slender, and not large of limb.

With this modest prepossession, you may be sure I like to have
you commend me, whom, after I have done with myself, I admire
of all men living. I only beg that you will commend me no
more: it is very ruinous; and praise, like other debts, ceases
to be due on being paid. One comfort indeed is, that it is as
seldom paid as other debts.

I have been very fortunate lately: I have met with an extreme
good print of M. de Grignan;(1086) I am persuaded, very like;
and then it has his toufie `ebouriff`ee; I don't, indeed, know
what that was, but I am sure it Is in the-print. None of the
critics could ever make out what Livy's Patavinity is though
they are confident it is in his writings. I have heard within
these few days, what, for your sake, I wish I could have told
you sooner-that there is in Belleisle's suite the Abb`e
Perrin, who published Madame S`evign`e's letters, and who has
the originals in his hands. How one should have liked to have
known him! The Marshal was privately in london last Friday.
He is entertained to-day at Hampton Court by the Duke of
Grafton.(1087) Don't you believe it was to settle the binding
the scarlet thread in the window, when the French shall come
in unto the land to possess it? I don't at all wonder at any
shrewd observations the Marshal has made on our situation.
The bringing him here at all--the sending him away now--in
short, the whole series of our conduct convinces me that, we
shall soon see as silent a change as that in the Rehearsal, of
King Usher and King Physician. It may well be so, when the
disposition of the drama is in the hands of the Duke of
Newcastle--those hands that are always groping and sprawling,
and fluttering and hurrying on the rest of his precipitate
person. But there is no describing him, but as M. Courcelle,
a French prisoner, did t'other day: "Je ne scais pas," dit il,
"je ne scaurois m'exprimer, mais il a un certain tatillonage." If
one could conceive a dead body hung in chains, always wanting to
be hung somewhere else, one should have a comparative idea of
him.