Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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I have received yours of the 27th of last month, with the
capitulation of Genoa, and the kind conduct of the Austrians
to us their allies, so extremely like their behaviour whenever
they are fortunate. Pray, by the way, has there been any talk
of my cousin,(1300) the Commodore, in letting slip some
Spanish ships'!-don't mention it as from me, but there are
whispers of court-martial on him. They are all the fashion
now; if you miss a post to me, I will have you tried by a
court-martial. Cope is come off most gloriously, his courage
ascertained, and even his conduct, which every body had given
up, justified. Folkes and Lascelles, two of his generals, are
come off too; but not so happily in the opinion of the world.
Oglethorpe's sentence is not yet public, but it is believed
not to be favourable. He was always a bully, and is now tried
for cowardice. Some little dash of the same sort is likely to
mingle withe the judgment on il furibondo Matthews; though his
party rises again a little, and Lestock's acquittal begins to
pass for a party affair. In short, we are a wretched people,
and have seen our best days.

I must have lost a letter, if you really told me of the sale
of the Duke of Modena's pictures,(1301) as you think you did;
for when Mr. Chute told it me, it struck me as quite new.
They are out of town, good souls; and I shall not see them
this fortnight; for I am here only for two or three days, to
inquire after the battle, in which not one of my friends were.
Adieu!

(1298) The battle of Rocoux; lost by the allies on the 11th of
October.-E.

(1299) About the 18th of September, Prince Charles received
intelligence that two French frigates had arrived at
Lochnannagh, to carry him and other fugitives of his party to
France: accordingly, after numerous wanderings in various
disguises he embarked, on the 20th of September, attended by
Lochiel, Colonel Roy Stuart, and about a hundred others of the
relics of his party; and safely landed at the little port of
Roscoff, near
Morlaix, in Brittany, on the 29th. " During these
wanderings," says Sir Walter Scott, in Tales of a Grandfather,
"the secret of the Adventurer's concealment was intrusted to
hundreds, of every sex, age, and condition; but no individual
was found, in a high or low situation, or robbers even , who
procured their food at the risk of their lives, who thought
for an instant of obtaining opulence at the expense of
treachery to the proscribed and miserable fugitive. Such
disinterested conduct will reflect honour on the Highlands of
Scotland while their mountains shall continue to exist." Prose
Works, vol. xxvi. p. 374.-E.

(1300) George Townshend, eldest son of Charles, Lord Viscount
Townshend, by Dorothy, his second wife, sister of Sir Robert
Walpole. (He was subsequently tried by a court-martial for his
conduct upon this occasion, and honourably acquitted.-D.)

(1301) To the King of Poland.

509 Letter 222
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Windsor, Oct. 24, 1746.

Well, Harry, Scotland is the last place on earth I should have
thought of for turning any body poet: but I begin to forgive
it half its treasons in favour of your verses, for I suppose
you don't think I am the dupe of the highland story that you
tell me: the only use I shall make of it is to commend the
lines to you, as if they really were a Scotchman's. There is
a melancholy harmony in them that is charming, and a delicacy
in the thoughts that no Scotchman is capable of, though a
Scotchwoman(1302 might inspire it. I beg, both for Cynthia's
sake and my own, that you would continue your De Tristibus
till I have an opportunity of seeing your muse, and she of
rewarding her: Reprens ta musette, berger amoureux! If
Cynthia has ever travelled ten miles in fairy-land, she must
be wondrous content with the person and qualifications of her
knight, who in future story will be read of thus: Elmedorus
was tall and perfectly well made, his face oval, and features
regularly handsome, but not effeminate; his complexion
sentimentally brown, with not much colour; his teeth fine, and
forehead agreeably low, round which his black hair curled
naturally and beautifully. His eyes were black too, but had
nothing of fierce or insolent; on the contrary, a certain
melancholy swimmingness, that described hopeless love rather
than a natural amorous languish. His exploits in war, where
he always fought by the side of the renowned Paladine William
of England, have endeared his memory to all admirers of true
chivalry, as the mournful elegies which he poured out among
the desert rocks of Caledonia,(1303) in honour of the peerless
lady and his
heart's idol, the incomparable Cynthia, will for ever preserve
his name in the flowery annals of poesy.

What a pity it is I was not born in the golden age of Louis
the Fourteenth, when it was not only the fashion to write
folios, but to read them too! or rather , it is a pity the
same fashion don't subsist NOW, when one need not be at the
trouble of invention, nor of turning the whole Roman history
into romance for want of proper heroes. Your campaign in
Scotland, rolled out and well be-epitheted, would make a
pompous work, and make one's fortune; at sixpence a number,
one should have all the damsels within the liberties for
subscribers: whereas now, if one has a mind to be read, one
must write metaphysical poems in blank verse, which, though I
own to be still easier, have not half the imagination of
romances, and are dull without any agreeable absurdity. Only
think of the gravity of this wise age, that have exploded
"Cleopatra and Pharamond," and approve "The Pleasures of the
Imagination," "The Art of Preserving Health," and "Leonidas!"
I beg the age's pardon: it has done approving these poems, and
has forgot them.

Adieu! dear Harry. Thank you seriously for the poem. I am
going to town for the birthday, and shall return hither till
the Parliament meets; I suppose there is no doubt of our
meeting then. Yours ever.

P.S. Now you are at Stirling, if you should meet with
Drummond's history of the five King Jameses, pray look it
over.(1304) I have read it, and like it much. It is wrote in
imitation of Livy; the style is masculine, and the whole very
sensible; only he ascribes the misfortunes of one reign to the
then king's loving architecture and

"In trim gardens taking pleasure."

(1302) Caroline Campbell, Countess of Ailesbury.-E.

(1303) Mr. Conway was now in Scotland.

(1304) Drummond of Hawthorne's History of Scotland, from 1423
to 1542, did not appear until after his death. This work, in
which the doctrine of unlimited authority and passive
obedience is advocated to an extravagant extent, is generally
considered to have added little to his reputation. He died in
December 1649, in his sixty-fourth year.
Ben Jonson is said to have so much admired the genius of this
"Scotian Petrarch," as to travel on foot to Scotland, out of
love and respect for him.-E.

510 Letter 523
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 3, 1746.

Dear George,
Do not imagine I have already broken through all my wholesome
resolutions and country schemes, and that I am given up body
and soul to London for the winter. I shall be with you by the
end of the week; but just now I am under the maiden
palpitation of an author. My epilogue will, I believe, be
spoken to-morrow night;(1305) and I flatter myself I shall
have no faults to answer for but what are in it, for I have
kept secret whose it is. It is now gone to be licensed; but
as the Lord Chamberlain is mentioned,(1306)' though rather to
his honour, it is possible it may be refused.

Don't expect news, for I know no more than a newspaper.
Asheton would have written it if there were any thing to tell
you. Is it news that my Lord Rochford is an oaf? He has got a
set of plate buttons for the birthday clothes, with the Duke's
head in every one. Sure my good lady carries her art too far
to make him so great a dupe. How do all the comets? Has Miss
Harriet found out any more ways at solitaire? Has Cloe left
off evening prayer on account of the damp evenings? How is
Miss Rice's cold and coachman? Is Miss Granville better? Has
Mrs. Masham made a brave hand of this bad season, and lived
upon carcases like any vampire? Adieu! I am just going to see
Mrs. Muscovy,(1307) and will be sure not to laugh if my old
lady should talk of Mr. Draper's white skin, and tickle his
bosom like Queen Bess.

(1305) Rowe's tragedy of Tamerlane was written in compliment
to William the Third, whose character the author intended to
display under that of Tamerlane, as he meant to be understood
to draw that of Louis the Fourteenth in Bajazet. Tamerlane
was always acted on the 4th and 5th of November, the
anniversaries of King William's birth and landing; and this
year Mr. Walpole had written an epilogue for it, on the
suppression of the rebellion.-E.

(1306) The Duke of Grafton.

(1307) Mrs. Boscawen, wife of the Hon. George Boscawen, fifth
son of Viscount Falmouth.-E.

511 Letter 224
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Nov. 4, 1746.

Mr. Chute and I a,,reed not to tell you of any new changes
till we could tell you more of them, that you might not be
"put into a taking," as you was last winter with the
revolution of three days; but I think the present has ended
with a single fit. Lord Harrington,(1308) quite on a sudden,
resigned the seals; it is said, on some treatment not over-
gracious; but he is no such novice to be shocked with that,
though I believe it has been rough ever since his resigning
last year, which he did more boisterously than he is
accustomed to behave to Majesty. Others talk of some quarrel
with his brother secretary, who, in complaisance, is all for
drums and trumpets. Lord Chesterfield was immediately named
his successor; but the Duke of Newcastle has taken the
northern provinces, as of more business, and consequently
better suited to his experience and abilities! I flatter
myself that this can no way affect you. Ireland is to be
offered to Lord Harrington, or the Presidentship; and the Duke
of Dorset, now President, is to have the other's refusal. The
King has endured a great deal with your old complaint; and I
felt for him, recollecting all you underwent.

You will have seen in the papers all the histories of our
glorious expeditions(1309) and invasions of France, which have
put Cressy and Agincourt out of all countenance. On the first
view, indeed, one should think that our fleet had been to
victual; for our chief prizes were cows and geese and turkeys.
But I rather think that the whole was fitted out by the Royal
Society, for they came back quite satisfied with having
discovered a fine bay! Would one believe, that in the year of
our Lord one thousand seven hundred and forty-six, we should
boast of discovering something on the coast of France, as if
we had found out the Northeast passage, or penetrated into
some remote part of America? The Guards are come back too, who
never went: in one Single day they received four several
different orders!

Matthews is broke at last. Nobody disputes the justice of the
sentence; but the legality of it is not quite so
authenticated. Besides some great errors in the forms,
whenever the Admiralty perceived any of the court-martial
inclined to favour him, they were constantly changed. Then,
the expense has been enormous; two hundred thousand pounds!
chiefly by employing young captains, instead of old half-pay
officers; and by these means, double commissions. Then there
has been a great fracas between the court-martial and
Willes.(1310) He, as Chief Justice, sent a summons in the
ordinary form of law, to Mayerne, to appear as an evidence in
a trial where a captain had prosecuted Sir Chaloner Ogle for
horrid tyranny: the ingenious court-martial sat down and drew
up articles of impeachment, like any House of Commons, against
the Chief Justice for stopping their proceedings! and the
Admiralty, still more ingenious, had a mind to complain of him
to the house! He was charmed to catch them at such
absurdities--but I believe at last it is all compromised.

I have not heard from you for some time, but I don't pretend
to complain: you have real occupation; my idleness is for its
own sake. The Abb`e Niccolini and Pandolfini are arrived; but
I have not yet seen them. Rinuncini cannot bear England--and
if the Chutes speak their mind, I believe they are not
captivated yet with any thing they have found: I am more and
more with them: Mr. Whithed is infinitely improved: and Mr.
Chute has absolutely more Wit, knowledge, and good-nature,
than, to their great surprise, ever met together in one
man.(1311) he has a bigotry to you, that even astonishes me,
who used to think that I was pretty well in for loving you;
but he is very often ready to quarrel with me for not thinking
you all pure gold. Adieu!

(1308) William Stanhope, Earl of Harrington, secretary of
state.

(1309) The expedition to Quiberon; the troops under General
St. Clair, the fleet under Admiral Lestock. The object was to
surprise Port l'Orient, and destroy the stores and ships of
the French East India Company, but the result attained was
only the plunder and burning of a few helpless villages. The
fleet and troops returned, however, with little loss. "The
truth is," says Tindal, "Lestock was too old and infirm for
enterprise, and, as is alleged, was under the shameful
direction of a woman he carried along with him; and neither
the soldiers nor the sailors seem to have been under any kind
of discipline."-E.

(1310) John Willes, Lord Chief Justice of the Common
Pleas(1311) Grey, in a letter to Mr. Chute of the 12th of
October says, "Mr. Walpole is full, I assure you, of your
panegyric. Never any man had half so much wit as Mr. Chute,
(which is saying every thing with him, you know,) and Mr.
Whitehead is the finest young man that was ever imported."
Works, vol. iii. p. 22.-E.

513 Letter 225
To Sir Horace Mann.
Windsor, Nov. 12, 1746.

Here I AM come hither, per saldare; but though the country is
excellently convenient, from the idleness of it, for beginning
a letter, yet it is not at all commode for finishing one: the
same ingredients that fill a basket by the carrier, will not
fill half a sheet of paper; I could send you a cheese, or a
hare; but I have not a morsel of news. Mr. Chute threatened
me to tell you the distress I was in last week, when I starved
Niccolini and Pandolfini on a fast-day, when I had thought to
banquet them sumptuously. I had luckily given a guinea for
two pine-apples, which I knew they had never seen in Italy,
and upon which they revenged themselves for all the meat that
they dared not touch. Rinuncini could not come. How you
mistook me, my dear' child! I meant simply that you had not
mentioned his coming; very far from reproving you for giving
him a letter. Don't I give letters for you every day to cubs,
ten times cubber than Rinuncini! and don't you treat them as
though all their names were Walpole? If you was to send me all
the uncouth productions of Italy, do you think any of them
would be so brutal as Sir William Maynard? I am exactly like
you; I have no greater pleasure than to make them value your
recommendation, by showing how much I value it. Besides, I
love the Florentines for their own sakes and to indemnify
them, poor creatures! a little for the Richcourts, the
Lorraines, and the Austrians. I have received per mezzo di
Pucci,(1312) a letter from Marquis Riccardi, with orders to
consign to the bearer all his treasure in my hands, which I
shall do immediately with great satisfaction. There are four
rings that I should be glad he would sell me; but they are
such trifles, and he will set such a value on them the moment
he knows I like them, that it is scarce worth while to make
the proposal, because I would give but a little for them.
However, you may hint what plague I have had with his roba,
and that it will be a gentillezza to sell me these four dabs.
One is a man's head, small, on cornelian, and intaglio; a fly,
ditto; an Isis, cameo; and an inscription in Christian Latin:
the last is literally not worth two sequins.

As to Mr. Townshend, I now know all 'the particulars, and that
Lord SandWich(1313) was at the bottom of it. What an
excellent heart his lordship will have by the time he is
threescore, if he sets out thus! The persecution(1314) is on
account of the poor boy's relation to my father; of whom the
world may judge pretty clearly already, from the abilities and
disinterestedness of such of his enemies as have succeeded;
and from their virtue in taking any opportunity to persecute
any Of his relations; in which even the public interest of
their country can weigh nothing, when clashing with their
malice. The King of Sar dinia has written the strongest
letter imaginable to complain of the grievous prejudice the
Admiralty has don@his affairs by this step.

Don't scold me for not sending you those Lines to
Eckardt:(1315) I never wrote any thing that I esteemcd less,
or that was seen so incorrect ; nor can I at all account for
their having been so much liked,
especially as the thoughts were so old and so common. I was
hurt at their getting into print. I enclose you an
epilogue(1316) that I hae vwritten since, merely for a
specimen of something more correct. You know, or have known,
that Tamerlane is always acted on King William's birthday,
with an occasional prologue ; this was the epilogue to it, and
succeeded to flatter me. Adieu!

(1312) Minister from the Great Duke.

(1313) John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the
Admiralty.

1314) See letter 221 of the 14th October.

((1315) The Beauties, an Epistle to Eckardt, the painter;
reprinted in Dodsley's Miscellanieg in Walpole's Works, vol.
i. p. 19.]

(1316) On the suppression of the rebellion. [See Works, vol.
i. p. 25.]

514 Letter 226
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Dec. 5, 1746.

We are in such a newsless situation, that I have been some
time without writing to you; but I now answer one I received
from you yesterday. You will excuse me, if I am not quite so
transported as Mr. Chute is, at the extremity of
Aquaviva.(1317) I can't afford to hate people so much at such
a distance: my aversions find employment within their own
atmosphere.

Rinuncini returns to you this week, not at all contented with
England: Niccolini is extremely, and turns his little talent
to great account; there is nobody of his own standard but
thinks him a great genius. The Chutes and I deal extremely
together; but they abuse me, and tell me I am grown so
English! lack-a-day! so I am; as folks that have been in the
Inquisition, and did not choose to broil, come out excellent
Catholics.

I have been unfortunate in my own family; my nephew, Captain
Cholmondeley,(1318) has married a player's sister; and I fear
Lord Malpas(1319) is on the brink of matrimony with another
girl of no fortune. Here is a ruined family! their father
totally undone, and all be has seized for debt!

The Duke is gone to Holland to settle the operations of the
campaign, but returns before the opening of it. A great
reformation has been made this week in the army; the horse are
broke, and to be turned into dragoons, by which sixty thousand
pounds a-year will be saved. Whatever we do in Flanders, I
think you need not fear any commotions here, where Jacobitism
seems to have gasped its last. Mr. Radcliffe, the last
Derwentwater's brother, is actually named to the gallows for
Monday; but the imprudence of Lord Morton,(1320) who has drawn
himself into the Bastile, makes it doubtful whether the
execution will be so quick. The famous orator Henley is taken
up for treasonable flippancies.(1321)

You know Lord Sandwich is minister at the Hague. Sir Charles
Williams, who has resigned the paymastership of the marines,
is talked of for going to Berlin, but it is not yet done. The
Parliament has been most serene, but there is a storm in the
air: the Prince waits for an opportunity of erecting his
standard, and a disputed election between him and the
Grenvilles is likely very soon to furnish the occasion. We
are to have another contest about Lord Bath's borough,(1322)
which Mr. Chute's brother formerly lost, and which his
colleague, Lu@e Robinson, has carried by a majority of three,
though his competitor is returned. Lord Bath wrote to a man
for a list of all that would be against him: the man placed
his own and his brother's names at the head of the list.

We have operas, but no company at them; the Prince and Lord
Middlesex Impresarii. Plays only are in fashion: at one house
the best company that perhaps ever were together, quin,
Garrick, Mrs. Pritchard, and Mrs. Cibber: at the other, Barry,
a favourite young actor, and the Violette, whose dancing our
friends don't like; I scold them, but all the answer is,
"Lord! you are so English!" If I do clap sometimes when they
don't, I can fairly say with Oedipus,

"My hands are guilty, but my heart is free."
'

Adieu!

(1317) Cardinal Acquaviva, Protector of Spain, and a great
promoter of the interests of the Pretender

(1318) Robert, second son of George, Earl of Cholmondeley,
married Mary, sister of Mrs. Margaret Woffington, the actress.
He afterwards quitted the army and took orders. [Besides two
church livings, he enjoyed the office of auditor of the King's
revenues in America. He died in 1804.]

(1319) George, eldest son of Lord Cholmondeley, married, in
January 1747, Miss Edwards. (She was the, daughter and
heiress of Sir Francis Edwards, Bart. of Grete, in
Shropshire.-D.)

(1320) James Douglas, ninth Earl of Morton.-D.

(1321) He was, a few days after, admitted to bail.-E.

(1322) Heydon.

515 Letter 227
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Christmas-day, 1746.

We are in great expectation of farther news from Genoa, which
the last accounts left in the greatest confusion, and I think
in the hands of the Genoese;,(1323) a circumstance that may
chance to unravel all the fine schemes in Provence! Marshal
Bathiani, at the Hague, treated this revolt as a trifle; but
all the letters by last post make it a reconquest. The Dutch
do all the Duke asks: we talk of an army of 140,000 men in
Flanders next campaign. I don't know how the Prince of Orange
relishes his brother-in-law's dignities and success.

Old Lovat has been brought to the bar of the House of Lords:
he is far from having those abilities for which he has been so
cried up. He saw Mr. Pelham at a distance and called to him,
and asked him if it were worth while to make all this fuss to
take off a gray head fourscore years old? In his defence he
complained of his estate being seized and kept from him. Lord
Granville took up this complaint very strongly, and insisted
on having it inquired into. Lord Bath went farther, and, as
some people think, intended the Duke; but I believe he only
aimed at the Duke of Newcastle, who was so alarmed with this
motion, that he kept the House above a quarter of an hour in
suspense, till he could send for Stone,(1324) and consult what
he should do. They made a rule to order the old creature the
profits of his estate till his conviction. He is to put in
his answer the 13th of January.

Lord Lincoln is cofferer at last, in the room of Waller,(1325)
who is dismissed. Sir Charles Williams has kissed hands, and
sets out for Dresden in a month: he has hopes of Turin, but I
think Villettes is firm. Don't mention this.

Did I ever talk to you of a Mr. Davis, a Norfolk gentleman,
who has taken to painting? He has copied the Dominichin, the
third picture he ever copied in his life: how well, you may
judge; for Mr. Chute, who, I believe you think, understands
pictures if any body does, happened to come in, just as Mr.
Davis brought his copy hither. "Here," said I, "Mr. Chute,
here is your Dominichin come to town to be copied." He
literally did not know it; which made me very happy for Mr.
Davis, who has given me this charming picture. Do but figure
to yourself a man of fifty years old, who was scarce ever out
of the county of Norfolk, but when his hounds led him; who
never saw a tolerable picture till those at Houghton four
years ago who plays and composes as well as he paints, and who
has no more of the Norfolk dialect than a Florentine! He is
the most decent, sensible man you ever saw.

Rinuncini is gone: Niccolini sups continually with the Prince
of Wales, and learns the Constitution! Pandolfini is put
to-bed, like children, to be out of the way. Adieu!

P. S. My Lady O. who has entirely settled her affairs with my
brother, talks of going abroad again, not being able to live
here on fifteen hundred pounds a-year--many an old 'lady, and
uglier too, lives very comfortably upon less. After I had
writ this, your brother brought me another letter with a
confirmation of all we had heard about Genoa. You may be easy
about the change of provinces,(1326) which has not been made
as was designed. Echo Mons`u Chute

>From Mr. Chute.

Mr. Walpole gives me a side, and I catch hold of it to tell
you that I parted this minute with your charming brother, who
has been in the council with me about your grand affair:(1327)
it is determined now to be presented to the King by way of
memorial; and to-morrow we meet again to draw it up: Mr. Stone
has graciously signified that this is a very proper
opportunity - one should think he must know.