Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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You have heard that old lovat's tragedy is over: it has been
succeeded by a little farce, containing the humours of the
Duke of Newcastle and his man Stone. The first event was a
squabble between his grace and the Sheriff about holding up
the head on the scaffold--a custom that has been disused, and
which the Sheriff would not comply with, as he received no
order in writing. Since that, the Duke has burst ten yards of
breeches strings(1360) about the body, which was to be sent
into Scotland; but it seems it is customary for vast numbers
to rise to attend the most trivial burial. The Duke, who is
always at least as much frightened at doing right as at doing
wrong, was three days before he got courage enough to order
the burying in the Tower. I must tell you an excessive good
story of George Selwyn -. Some women were scolding him for
going to see the execution, and asked him, how he could be
such a barbarian to see the head cut off? "Nay," says he, "if
that was such a crime, I am sure I have made amends, for I
went to see it sewed on again." When he was at the
undertaker's, as soon as they had stitched him together, and
were going to put the body into the coffin, George, in my Lord
Chancellor's voice, said "My Lord lovat, your lordship may
rise." My Lady Townshend has picked up a little stable-boy in
the Tower, which the warders have put upon her for a natural
son of Lord Kilmarnock's, and taken him into her own house.
You need not tell Mr. T. this from me.

We have had a great and fine day in the House on the second
reading the bill for taking away the heritable Jurisdictions
in Scotland. Lyttelton made the finest oration imaginable;
the Solicitor General, the new Advocate,(1361) and Hume
Campbell, particularly the last. spoke excessively well for
it, and Oswald against it. The majority was 233 against 102.
Pitt was not there; the Duchess of Queensberry had ordered him
to have the gout.

I will give you a commission once more, to tell Lord
Bury(1362) that he has quite dropped me: if I thought he would
take me up again, I would write to him; a message would
encourage me. Adieu!

(1359) The battle of Culloden.

(1360) Alluding to a trick of the Duke of Newcastle's.

(1361) William Grant, Lord Advocate of Scotland.

(1362) George Keppel, eldest son of William, Earl of
Albemarle, whom he succeeded in the title in 1755. He was
now, together with Mr. Conway, aide-de-camp to the Duke of
Cumberland.

526 Letter 233
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, May 5, 1747.

It is impossible for me to tell you more of the new
Stadtholder(1363) than you must have heard from all quarters.
Hitherto his existence has been of no service to his country.
Hulst, which we had heard was relieved, has surrendered. The
Duke was in it privately, just before it was taken, with only
two aide-de-camps, and has found means to withdraw our three
regiments. We begin to own now that the French are superior:
I never believed they were not, or that we had taken the field
before them; for the moment we had taken it, we heard of
Marshal Saxe having detached fifteen thousand men to form
sieges. There is a print published in Holland of the Devil
weighing the Count de Saxe and Count lowendahl in a pair of
scales, with this inscription:

Tous deux vaillants,
Tous deux galants,
Tous deux constants,

Tous deux galiards,
Tous deux paliards,
Tous deux b`atards,(1364)

Tous deux sans foi.
Tous deux sans loi.
Tous deux `a moi.

We are taken up with the Scotch bills for weakening clanships
and taking away heritable Jurisdictions. I have left them
sitting on it to-day, but was pleased with a period of Nugent.
"These jurisdictions are grievous, but nobody complains of
them; therefore, what? therefore, they are excessively
grievous." We had a good-natured bill moved to-day by Sir
William Yonge, to allow council to prisoners on impeachments
for treason, as they have on indictments. It hurt every body
at old Lovat's trial, all guilty as he was, to see an old
wretch worried by the first lawyers in England, without any
assistance but his own unpractised defence. It had not the
least opposition; yet this was a point struggled for in King
William's reign, as a privilege and dignity inherent in the
Commons, that the accused by them should have no assistance of
council. how reasonable, that men, chosen by their
fellow-subjects for the defence of their fellow-subjects,
should have rights detrimental to the good of the people whom
they are to protect! Thank God! we are a better-natured age,
and have relinquished this savage privilege with a good grace!

Lord Cowper(1365) has resigned the bedchamber, on the
Beef-eaters being given to Lord Falmouth. The latter, who is
powerful in elections, insisted on having it: the other had
nothing but a promise from the King, which the ministry had
already twice forced him to break.

Mr. Fox gave a great ball last week at Holland House. which he
has taken for a long term, and where he is making great
improvements. It is a brave old house, and belonged to the
gallant Earl of Holland, the lover of Charles the First's
Queen. His motto has puzzled every body; it is Ditior est qui
se. I was allowed to hit off an interpretation, which yet one
can hardly reconcile to his gallantry, nor can I decently
repeat it to you. While I am writing, the Prince is going
over the way to Lord Middlesex's, where there is a ball in
mask to-night for the royal children.

The two Lords have seen and refused Marquis Riccardi's gems: I
shall deliver them to Pucci; but am so simple (you will laugh
at me) as to keep the four I liked: that is, I will submit to
give him fifty pounds for them, if he will let me choose one
ring more; for I will at least have it to call them at ten
guineas apiece. If he consents, I will remit the money to
you, or pay it to Pucei, as he likes. If not, I return them
with the rest of the car,,o. I can choose no ring for which I
would give five guineas.

I have received yours of April 25th, since I came home. You
will scold me for being so careless about the Pretender's son;
but I am determined not to take up his idea again, till he is
at least on this side Derby. Do excuse me; but when he could
not get to London, with all the advantages which the ministry
had smoothed for him, how can he ever meet more concurring
circumstances? If my lady'S(1366) return has no better
foundation than Niccolini's authority, I assure you you may
believe as little of it as you please. If he knows no more of
her, than he does of every thing else that he pretends to
know, as I am persuaded he does not, knowledge cannot possibly
be thinner spread. He has been a progress to add more matter
to the mass, that he already don't understand. Adieu!

(1363) The Prince of Orange had just been raised to that
dignity in a tumultuary manner.

(1364) The Count de Saxe was a natural son of Augustus the
Second, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, and of the
Countess Konigsmark. The Count de LOWendahl was not a
"b`atard" himself; but his father, Woldemar, Baron of
Lowendahl, was the son of the Count of Gildoniew, who was the
natural son of Frederick the Third, King of Denmark.-D.

(1365) William, second Earl Cowper, son of the Chancellor. He
died in 1764.-D.

(1366) Lady Orford.-D.

527 Letter 234
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, May 19th, 1747,

As you will receive the Gazette at the same time with this
letter, I shall leave you to that for the particulars of the
great naval victory that Anson has gained over the French off
Cape Finisterre.(1367) It is a very big event, and by far one
of the most considerable that has happened during this war.
By it he has defeated two expeditions at once; for the fleet
he has demolished was to have split, part for the recovery of
Cape Breton, part for the East Indies. He has always been
most remarkably fortunate: Captain Granville, the youngest of
the brothers, was as unlucky: he was killed by the cannon that
was fired as a signal for their striking.(1368) He is
extremely commended: I am not partial to the family; but it is
but justice to mention, that when he took a great prize some
time ago, after a thousand actions of generosity to his
officers and crew, he cleared sixteen thousand pounds, of
which he gave his sister ten. The King is in great spirits.
The French fought exceedingly well.

I have no other event to tell you, but the promotion of a new
brother of yours. I condole with you, for they have literally
sent one Dayrolies(1369) resident to Holland, under Lord
Sandwich,

--Minum partes tractare secundas.

This curious minister has always been a led-captain to the
Dukes of Grafton and Richmond; used to be sent to auctions for
them, and to walk in the Park with their daughters, and once
went dry nurse to Holland with them. He has belonged, too, a
good deal to my Lord Chesterfield, to whom, I believe, he owes
this new honour; as he had before made him black-rod in
Ireland, and gave the ingenious reason, that he had a black
face. I believe he has made him a minister, as one year, at
Tunbridge, he had a mind to make a wit of Jacky Barnard, and
had the impertinent vanity to imagine that his authority was
sufficient.

Your brother has gone over the way with Mr. Whithed, to choose
some of Lord Cholmondeley's pictures for his debt; they are
all given up to the creditors, who yet scarce receive forty
per cent. of their money.

It is wrong to send so short a letter as this so far, I know;
but what can one do? After the first fine shower, I will send
you a much longer. Adieu!

(1367) Upon this occasion Admiral Anson took six French men-of
war and four of their East Indiamen, and sunk or destroyed the
rest of their fleet.-D.

(1368) Thomas Grenville, youngest brother of Richard, Earl
Temple. As soon as he was struck by the cannon-ball, he
exclaimed, gallantly, "well! it is better to die thus, than to
be tried by a court-martial!" [His uncle Lord Cobham, erected
a column to his memory in the gardens at Stowe.]

(1369) ,,b Solomon Dayrolles, Esq. There are many letters
addressed to him in Lord Chesterfield's Miscellaneous
Correspondence.-D.

528 Letter 235
To Sir Horace Mann
Arlington Street, June 5, 1747.

Don't be more frightened at hearing the Parliament is to be
dissolved in a fortnight, than you are obliged to be as a good
minister. Since this Parliament has not brought over the
Pretender, I trust the death of it will not. You will want to
know the reason of this sudden step: several are given, as the
impossibility of making either peace or war, till they are
secure of a new majority; but I believe the true motive is to
disappoint the Prince, who was not ready with his elections.
In general, people seem to like the measure, except the
Speaker, who is very pompous about it, and speaks
constitutional paragraphs. There are rumours of changes to
attend its exit. People imagine Lord Chesterfield(1370) is to
quit, but I know no other grounds for this belief, than that
they conclude the Duke of Newcastle must be jealous of him by
this time. Lord Sandwich is looked upon as his successor,
Whenever it shall happen. He is now here, to look after his
Huntingdonshire boroughs. We talk nothing but
elections-however, it is better than talking them for a year
together. Mine for Callington (for I would not come in for
Lynn, which I have left to Prince Pigwiggin(1371)) is so easy,
that I shall have no trouble, not even the dignity of being
carried in triumph, like the lost sheep, on a porter's
shoulders but may retire to a little new farm that I have
taken just out of Twickenham. The house is so small, that I
can send it you in a letter to look at: the prospect is as
delightful as possible, commanding the river, the town, and
Richmond Park; and being situated on a hill descends to the
Thames through two or three little meadows, where I have some
Turkish sheep and two cows, all studied in their colours for
becoming the view. This little rural bijou was Mrs.
Chenevix's, the toy-woman `a la mode, who in every dry season
is to furnish me with the best rain-water from Paris, and now
and then with some Dresden-china cows, who are to figure like
wooden classics in a library: so I shall grow as much a
shepherd as any swain in the Astrea.

Admiral Anson(1372) is made a baron, and Admiral Warren(1373)
Knight of the Bath-so is Niccolini to be-when the King
dies.(1374) His Majesty and his son were last night at the
masquerade at Ranelagh, where there was so little company,
that I was afraid they would be forced to walk about together.

I have been desired to write to you for two scagliola tables;
will you get them? I will thank you, an pay you too.

You will hardly believe that I intend to send you this for a
letter, but I do. Mr. Chute said he would write to you
to-day, so mine goes as page to his. Adieu!

(1370) He was now secretary of state, which office he did not
resign till Feb. 1748.-D.

(1371) Eldest son of Horatio, brother of Sir Robert Walpole.

(1372) George Anson, created Lord Anson of Soberton. He is
well known for his voyages round the world, as well as for his
naval successes. He was long first lord of the admiralty; but
did not distinguish himself as a statesman. He died suddenly,
while walking in his garden at Moor Park in Hertfordshire,
June 6th, 1762.-D.

(1373) Sir Peter Warren was the second in command in the
victory off Cape Finisterre.-D.

(1374) The Abb`e Niccolini was in much favour with the Prince
of Wales.-D.

530 Letter 236
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Twickenham, June 8, 1747.

You perceive by my date that I am got into a new camp, and
have left my tub at Windsor. It is a little plaything-house
that I got out of Mrs. Chenevix's shop, and is the prettiest
bauble you ever saw. It is set in enamelled meadows, with
filigree hedges:

"A small Euphrates through the piece is roll'd,
And little finches wave their wings in gold"

Two delightful roads, that you would call dusty, supply me
continually with coaches and chaises; barges as solemn as
barons of the exchequer move under my window; Richmond Hill
and Ham Walks bound my prospect; but, thank God! the Thames is
between me and the Duchess of Queensberry. Dowagers (-As
plenty as flounders inhabit all around, and Pope's ghost is
just now skimming under my window by a most poetical
moonlight. I have about land enough to keep such a farm as
Noah's, when he set up in the ark with a pair of each kind;
but my cottage is rather cleaner than I believe his was after
they had been cooped up together forty days. The Chenevixes
had tricked it out for themselves: up two pair of stairs is
what they call Mr. Chenevix's library, furnished with three
maps, one shelf, a bust of Sir Isaac Newton, and a lame
telescope without any glasses. Lord John Sackville
predeceased me here, and instituted certain games called
cricketalia, which have been celebrated this very evening in
honour of him in a neighbouring meadow.

You will think I have removed my philosophy from Windsor with
my tea-things hither; for I am writing to you in all this
tranquillity, while a Parliament is bursting about my ears.
You know it is going to be dissolved: I am told, you are taken
care of, though I don't know where, nor whether any body that
chooses you will quarrel with me because he does choose you,
as that little bug the Marquis of Rockingham did; one of the
calamities of my life which I have bore as abominably well as
I do most about which I don't care. They say the Prince has
taken up two hundred thousand pounds, to carry elections which
he won't carry:--he had much better have saved it to buy the
Parliament after it is chosen. A new set of peers are in
embryo, to add more dignity to the silence of the House of
Lords.

I make no remarks on your campaign,(1375) because, as you say,
you do nothing at all; which, though very proper nutriment for
a thinking head, does not do quite so well to write upon. If
any one of you can but contrive to be shot upon your post, it
is all we desire, shall look upon it as a great curiosity, and
will take care to set up a monument to the person so slain; as
we are doing by vote to Captain Cornwall, who was killed at
the beginning Of the action in the Mediterranean four years
ago.(1376) In the present dearth of glory, he is canonized;
though, poor man! he had been tried twice the year before for
cowardice.(1377)

I could tell you much election news, none else; though not
being thoroughly attentive to so important a subject, as to be
sure one ought to be, I might now and then mistake, and give
you a candidate for Durham in place of one for Southampton, or
name the returning-officer instead of the candidate. In
general, I believe, it is much as usual-those sold in detail
that afterwards will be sold in the representation--the
ministers bribing Jacobites to choose friends of their own-
-the name of well-wishers to the present establishment, and
patriots outbidding ministers that they may make the better
market of their own patriotism:-in short, all England, under
some flame or other, is just now to be bought and sold;
though, whenever we become posterity and forefathers, we shall
be in high repute for wisdom and virtue. My
great-great-grandchildren will figure me with a white beard
down to my girdle; and Mr. Pitt's will believe him unspotted
enough to have walked over nine hundred hot ploughshares,
without hurting the sole of his foot. How merry my ghost will
be, and shake its ears to hear itself quoted as a person of
consummate prudence! Adieu, dear Harry! Yours ever.

(1375) Mr Conway was in Flanders with the Duke of Cumberland.

(1376) The House of Commons, on the 28th of May, had agreed to
erect a monument in Westminster Abbey to the memory of Captain
Cornwall, of the Marlborough; who was slain while bravely
defending his ship. The monument, designed and executed bye
Taylor, was completed in 1755. --E.

(1377) And honourably acquitted on both occasions.-E.

531 Letter 237
To sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, June 26, 1747.

You can have no idea of the emptiness of London, and of the
tumult every where else. To-day many elections begin. The
sums of money disbursed within this month would give any body
a very faint idea of the poverty of this undone country! I
think the expense and contest is greater now we are said to be
all of a mind, than when parties ran highest. Indeed, I
ascribe part of the solitude in town to privilege being at an
end; though many of us can afford to bribe so high, it is not
so easy to pay debts. Here am I, as Lord Cornbury(1378) says,
sitting for a borough, while every body else stands for one.
He diverted me extremely the other day with the application of
a story to the King's speech. It says, the reason for
dissolving the Parliament is its being so near
dissolution:(1379) Lord Cornbury said it put him in mind of a
gaoler in Oxfordshire who was remarkably humane to his
prisoners; one day he said to one of them, "My good friend,
you know you are to be hanged on Friday se'nnight; I want
extremely to go to London; would you be so kind as to be
hanged next Friday?"

Pigwiggin is come over, more Pigwiggin than ever! He
entertained me with the horrid ugly figures that he saw at the
Prince of Orange's court; think of his saying ugly figures!
He is to be chosen for Lynn,-whither I would not go, because I
must have gone; I go to Callington again, whither I don't go.
My brother chooses Lord luxborough(1380) for Castlerising.
Would you know the connexion? This Lord keeps Mrs. Horton the
player; we keep Miss Norsa the player: Rich the harlequin is
an intimate of all; and to cement the harlequinity, somebody's
brother (excuse me if I am not perfect in such genealogy) is
to marry the Jewess's sister. This coup de th`eatre procured
Knight his Irish coronet, and has now stuffed him into
Castlerising, about which my brother has quarrelled with me,
for not looking upon it, as, what he called, a family-borough.
Excuse this ridiculous detail; it serves to introduce the
account of the new peers, for Sir Jacob Bouverie, a
considerable Jacobite, who is made Viscount Folkestone, bought
his ermine at twelve thousand pound a-yard of the Duchess of
Kendal(1381) d'aujourd'hui. Sir Harry Liddel is Baron
Ravensworth, and Duncombe Baron Feversham; Archer and Rolle
have only changed their Mr.ships for Lordships. Lord
Middlesex has lost one of his Lordships, that of the Treasury;
is succeeded by the second Grenville, and he by Ellis,(1382)
at the admiralty. Lord Ashburnham had made a magnificent
summer suit to wait, but Lord Cowper at last does not resign
the bedchamber. I intend to laugh over this disgrazia with
the Chuteheds, when they return triumphant from Hampshire,
where Whitehed has no enemy. A-propos to enemies! I believe
the battle in Flanders is compromised, for one never hears of
it.

The Duchess of Queensberry(1383) has at last been at court, a
point she has been intriguing these two years. Nobody gave in
to it. At last she snatched at the opportunity of her son
being obliged to the King for a regiment in the Dutch service,
and would not let him go to thank, till they sent for her too.
Niccolini, who is next to her in absurdity and importance, is
gone electioneering with Doddington.

I expect Pucci every day to finish my trouble with Riccardi; I
shall take any ring, though he has taken care I shall not take
another tolerable one. If you will pay him, which I fancy
will be the shortest way to prevent any fripponnerie, I will
put the money into your brother's hands.

My eagle(1384) is arrived-my eagle tout court, for I hear
nothing of the pedestal: the bird itself was sent home in a
store-ship; I was happy that they did not reserve the statue,
and send its footstool. It is a glorious fowl! I admire it,
and every body admires it as much as it deserves. There never
was so much spirit and fire preserved, with so much labour and
finishing. It stands fronting the Vespasian: there are no two
such morsels in England!

Have you a mind for an example of English bizarrerie? there
is a Fleming here, who carves exquisitely in ivory, one
Verskovis; he has done much for me, and where I have
recommended him; but he is starving, and returning to Rome, to
carve for-the English, for whom, when he was there before, he
could not work fast enough.(1385)

I know nothing, nor ever heard of the Mills's and Davisons;
and know less than nothing Of whether they are employed from
hence. There is nobody in town of whom to inquire; if there
were, they would ask me for what borough these men were to
stand, and wonder that I could name people from any other
motive. Adieu!

(1378) Henry Hyde, only son of the last Earl of Clarendon. He
died before his father.

(1379) King's words are, "As this Parliament would necessarily
determine in a short time, I have judged it expedient speedily
to call a new one."-E.

(1380) Robert Knight, eldest son of the famous cashier of the
South Sea Company. (Created Lord Luxborough in Ireland 1746,
and Earl of Catherlough in 1763. He died in 1772.-D.)

(1381) Lady Yarmouth, the mistress of George II.-D.

(1382) Right Honourable Welbore Ellis.-D.

(1383) She had quarrelled with the court, in consequence of
the refusal to permit Gray's sequel to the Beggar's Opera,
called "Polly," to be acted.-D.

(1384) The eagle found in the gardens of Boccapadugli within
the precincts of Caracalla's baths, at Rome, in the year 1742;
one of the finest pieces of Greek sculpture in the world. See
Walpole's Works, vol. ii. p. 463, and Gray's Ode on the
Progress of Poesy.-E.

(1385) Verskovis is also mentioned by Walpole in his Anecdotes of
Painting. he had a son, who to the art of carving in ivory,
added painting, but died young, in 1749, before his father.
The latter did not survive above a year.-E.

533 Letter 238
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, July 2, 1747.

Dear George,
Though we have no great reason to triumph, as we have
certainly been defeated,(1386) yet the French have as
certainly bought their victory dear: indeed, what would be
very dear to us, is not so much to them. However, their least
loss is twelve thousand men; as our least loss is five
thousand. The truth of the whole is, that the Duke was
determined to fight at all events, which the French, who
determined not to fight but at great odds, took advantage of.
His Royal Highness's valour has shone extremely, but at the
expense of his judgment. Harry Conway, whom nature always
designed for a hero of romance, and who is d`eplac`e in
ordinary life, did wonders; but was overpowered and flung
down, when one French hussar held him by the hair, while
another was going to stab him: at that instant, an English
sergeant with a soldier came up, and killed the latter; but
was instantly killed himself; the soldier attacked the other,
and Mr. Conway escaped; but was afterwards taken prisoner; is
since released on parole, and may come home to console his
fair widow,,(1387) whose brother, Harry Campbell, is certainly
killed, to the great concern of all widows who want
consolation. The French have lost the Prince of Monaco, the
Comte de Bavi`ere, natural brother to the last Emperor, and
many officers of great rank. The French King saw the whole
through a spying-glass, from Hampstead Hill, environed with
twenty thousand men.' Our Guards did shamefully, and many
officers. The King had a line from Huske in Zealand on the
Friday night, to tell him we were defeated; of his son not a
word - judge of his anxiety till three o'clock on Saturday!
Lord Sandwich had a letter in his pocket all the while, and
kept it there, which said the Duke was well.