Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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The ministry are triumphant in their Parliament: there have
been great debates on the new taxes, but no division: the
House is now sitting on the Wareham election, espousing George
Pitt's uncle,(1414 one of the most active Jacobites, but of
the coalition and in place, against Drax,(1415) a great
favourite of the Prince, but who has already lost one question
on this election by a hundred.

Admiral Vernon has just published a series of letters to
himself(1416) among which are several of Lord Bath, written in
the height of his opposition: there is one in particular, to
congratulate Vernon on taking Portobello, wherein this great
Virtuous patriot advises him to do nothing more,(1417)
assuring him that his inactivity would all be imputed to my
father. One does not hear that Lord Bath has called him to
any account for this publication, though as villainous to
these correspondents as one of them was in writing such a
letter; or as the Admiral himself was, who used to betray all
his instructions to this enemy of the government. Nobody can
tell why he has published these letters now, unless to get
money. What ample revenge every year gives my father against
his patriot enemies! Had he never deserved well
himself',posterity must still have the greatest opinion of
him, when they see on what rascal foundations were built all
the pretences to virtue which were set up in opposition to
him! Pultney counselling the Admiral who was entrusted with
the war not to pursue it, that its mismanagement might be
imputed to the minister; the Admiral communicating his orders
to such an enemy of his country! This enemy triumphant,
seizing honours and employments for himself and friends, which
he had @ avowedly disclaimed; other friends, whom he had
neglected, pursuing him for gratifying his
ambition-accomplishing his ruin, and prostituting themselves
even more than he had done! all of them blowing up a
rebellion, by every art that could blacken the King in the
eyes of the nation, and some of them promoting the trials and
sitting in judgment on the wretches whom they had misled and
deserted! How black a picture! what odious portraits, when
time shall write the proper names under them!

As famous as you think your Mr. Mill, I can find nobody who
ever heard his name. Projectors make little noise here; and
even any one who only has made a noise, is forgotten as soon
as out of sight. The knaves and fools of the day are too
numerous to leave room to talk of yesterday. The pains that
people, who have a mind to be named, are forced to take to be
very particular, would convince you how difficult it is to
make a lasting impression on such a town as this. Ministers,
authors, wits, fools, patriots, prostitutes, scarce bear a
second edition. Lord Bolingbroke, Sarah Malcolm,(1418) and
old Marlborough. are never mentioned but by elderly folks to
their grandchildren, who had never heard of them. What would
last Pannoni's(1419) a twelvemonth is forgotten here ]it
twelve hours. Good night!

(1411) Henry fourth son of the Earl of Dartmouth, was made
secretary of the treasury by Sir Robert Walpole; and was
afterwards surveyor of the roads, a lord of the admiralty, a
lord of the treasury, treasurer of the navy, and chancellor of
the exchequer. He had been bred to the sea, and was for a
little time minister at Berlin. The Duke of Newcastle, in a
letter to Mr. Pitt, of the 18th of January, says, " I have
thought of a person, to whom the King has this day readily
agreed. It is Mr. Harry Legge. There, is capacity,
integrity, quality, rank and address." See Chatham
Correspondence, vol. i. p. 27.-E.

(1412) Coxe, in his Memoirs of lord Walpole, says, that Mr.
Legge, though a man of great talents for business, "was unfit
for a foreign mission, and of a character ill suited to the
temper of that powerful casuist, whose extraordinary dogmas
were supported by 140,000 of the most effectual but convincing
arguments in the world." Vol. ii. II. 304.-E.

(1413) Thomas Villiers, brother of the Earl of Jersey, had
been minister It Dresden, and was afterwards a lord of the
admiralty.

(1414) Anthony Chute, of the Vine, in Hampshire, elder brother
of J. Chute; died in 1754.

(1415) John Pitt, one of the lords of trade.

1416) Henry Drax, the Prince's secretary. He died in 1755.

(1417) The publication was entitled " Letters to an Honest
Sailor." Walpole's inference is not borne out by the letter
itself. Pulteney's words; are, "Pursue your stroke, but venture
not losing the honour of it by too much intrepidity. Should you
make no more progress than you have done, no one could blame
you but those persons only who ought to have sent some land-
forces with you, and did not. To their slackness it will be
very justly imputed by all mankind, should you make no further
progress till Lord Cathcart joins you."-E.

(1418) A washerwoman at the Temple, executed for three
murders. (She was executed in March 1733, opposite Mitre
Court, in Fleet Street. A portrait of her is given in the
Gentleman's Magazine for that year. So great was the public
expectation for her confession, that the manuscript of it was
sold for twenty pounds.-E.)

(1419) The coffee-house at Florence.

544 Letter 248
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Feb. 16, 1748.

I am going to tell you nothing but what Mr. Chute has told you
already,-that my Lord Chesterfield has resigned the seals,
that the Duke of Newcastle has change] his province, and that
the Duke of Bedford is the new secretary of state. I think
you need be under no apprehension from this change; I should
be frightened enough if you had the least reason, but I am
quite at ease. Lord Chesterfield, who I believe had no
quarrel but with his partner, is gone to Bath; and his
youngest brother, John Stanhope,(1420) comes into the
admiralty, where Sandwich is now first lord. There seems to
be some hitch in Legge's embassy; I believe we were overhasty.
Proposals of peace were expected to be laid before Parliament,
but that talk is vanished. The Duke of Newcastle, who is
going greater lengths in every thing for which he overturned
Lord Granville, is all military; and makes more courts than
one by this disposition. The Duke goes to Holland this week,
and I hear we are going to raise another million. There are
prodigious discontents in the army: the town got a list of a
hundred and fifty officers who desired at once to resign, but
I believe this was exaggerated. We are great and very exact
disciplinarians; our partialities are very strong, especially
on the side of aversions, and none of these articles tally
exactly with English tempers. Lord Robert Bertie(1421)
received a reprimand the other day by an aide-de-camp for
blowing his nose as he relieved the guard under a
window;(1422) where very exact notice is constantly taken of
very small circumstances.

We divert ourselves extremely this winter; plays, balls,
masquerades, and pharaoh are all in fashion. The Duchess of
Bedford has given a great ball, to which the King came with
thirty masks. The Duchess of Queensberry is to give him a
masquerade. Operas are the only consumptive entertainment.
There was a new comedy last Saturday, which succeeds, called
The Foundling. I like the old Conscious lovers better, and
that not much. The story is the same, only that the Bevil of
the new piece is in more hurry, and consequently more natural.
It Is extremely well acted by Garrick and Barry, Mrs. Cibber
and Mrs. Woffington. My sister was brought to bed last night
of another boy. Sir C. Williams, I hear, grows more likely to
go to Turin: you will have a more agreeable correspondent than
your present voluminous brother.(1423) Adieu!

(1420) John Stanhope, third son of Philip, third Earl of
Chesterfield, successively M. P. for Nottingham and Dorhy. He
died in 1748.-D.

(1421) Lord Robert Bertie was third son of Robert, first Duke
of Ancaster, by his second wife. He became a general in the
army and colonel of the second regiment of Guards, and was
also a lord of the bedchamber and a member of parliament. He
died in 1732.-D.

(1422) The Duke's.

(1423) Mr. Villettes.

545 Letter 249
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, March 11, 1748.

I have had nothing lately to tell you but illnesses and
distempers: there is what they call a miliary fever raging,
which has taken off a great many people, It was scarce known
till within these seven or eight years, but apparently
increases every spring and autumn. They don't know how to
treat it, but think that they have discovered that bleeding is
bad for it. The young Duke of Bridgewater(1424) is dead of
it. The Marquis of Powis(1425) is dead too, I don't know of
what: but though a Roman Catholic, he has left his whole
fortune to Lord herbert, the next male of his family, but a
very distant relation. It is twelve thousand pounds a-year,
with a very rich mine upon it; there is a debt, but the money
and personal estate will pay it. After Lord Herbert(1426) and
his brother, who are both unmarried, the estate is to go to
the daughter of Lord Waldegrave's sister, by her first
husband, who was the Marquis's brother.

In defiance of all these deaths, we are all diversions; Lady
Keith(1427) and a company of Scotch nobility have formed a
theatre, and have acted The Revenge several times; I can't say
excellently: the Prince and Princess were at it last night.
The Duchess of Queensberry gives a masquerade tonight, in
hopes of drawing the King to it; but he will not go. I do;
but must own it is wondrous foolish to dress one's self out in
a becoming dress in cold blood. There has been a new comedy
called The Foundling;(1428) far from good, but it took. Lord
Hobart and some more young men made a party to damn it, merely
for the love of damnation. The Templars espoused the play,
and went around with syringes charged with stinking oil, and
with sticking plaisters; but it did not come to action.
Garrick was impertinent, and the pretty men gave over their
plot the moment they grew to be in the right.

I must now notify to you the approaching espousals of the most
illustrious Prince Pigwiggin with Lady Rachel Cavendish, third
daughter of the Duke of Devonshire: the victim does not
dislike it! my uncle makes great settlements; and the Duke is
to get a peerage for Pigwiggin upon the foot that the father
cannot be spared out of the House of Commons! Can you bear
this old buffoon making himself of consequence, and imitating
my father!

The Princess of Orange has got a son, and we have taken a
convoy that was going to Bergen-op-zoom; two trifling
occurrences that are most pompously exaggerated, when The
whole of both is, that the Dutch, who before sold themselves
to France, will now grow excellent patriots when they have a
master entailed upon them; and we shall run ourselves more
into danger, on having got all advantage which the French
don't feel.

Violent animosities are sprung up in the House of Commons upon
a sort of private affair between the Chief Justice Willes and
the Grenvilles, who have engaged the ministry in an
extraordinary step, of fixing the assizes at Buckingham by act
of parliament in their favour. We have had three long days
upon it in our House, and it is not yet over; but though they
will carry it both there and in the lords, it is by a far
smaller majority than any they have had in this
Parliament.(1429) The other day, Dr. Lee and Mr. Potter had
made two very strong speeches @-against Mr. Pelham on this
subject; he rose with the greatest emotion, fell into the most
ridiculous passion, was near crying, and not knowing how to
return it on the two fell upon the Chief Justice (who was not
present), and accused him of ingratitude. The eldest Willes
got up extremely moved, but with great propriety and
cleverness told Mr. Pelham that his father had no obligation
to any man now in the ministry; that he had been obliged to
one of' the greatest Ministers that ever was, who is now no
more; that the person who accused his father of ingratitude
was now leagued with the very men who had ruined that
minister, to whom he (Mr. Pelham) owed his advancement, and
without whom he would have been nothing!" This was
dangers!-not a word of reply.

I had begun my letter before the masquerade, but had not time
to finish it: there Were not above one hundred persons; the
dresses pretty; the Duchess as mad as you remember her. She
had stuck up orders about dancing, as you see in public
bowling-greens; turned half the company out at twelve; kept
those she liked to supper; and, in short, contrived to do an
agreeable thing in the rudest manner imaginable; besides
having dressed her husband in a Scotch plaid, which just now
is One of the things in the world that is reckoned most
offensive; but you know we are all mad, so good night!

(1424) John Egerton, second Duke of Bridgewater, eldest
surviving son of Scroop, the first Duke, by his second wife,
Lady Rachel Russell. He was succeeded by his younger brother
Francis; upon whose death, in 1803, the dukedom of Bridgewater
became extinct.-D.

(1425) William Herbert, second Marquis of Powis, upon whose
death the title became extinct. His father, William, the
First Marquis, was created Duke of Powis and Marquis of
Montgomery, by James the Second, after his abdication, which
titles were in consequence never allowed.-]).

(1426) Henry Arthur Herbert, Lord Herbert, afterwards created
Earl of Powis, married the young lady on whom the estate was
entailed: his brother died unmarried.

(1427) Caroline, eldest daughter of John, Duke of Argyll,
married the eldest son of the Duke of Buccleuch, who dying
before his father, she afterwards married Charles Townshend,
second son of the Lord Viscount Townshend. (She was created
Baroness Greenwich in 1767.-D.

(1428) By Edward Moore. It met with tolerable success during
its run, but on the first night of its appearance the
character of Faddle gave considerable disgust, and was much
curtailed in the ensuing representation.-E.

(1429) The bill passed the Commons on the 15th of March, by
155 to 108. For the debate thereon, see Parliamentary
History, vol. xiv. p. 206.-E.

547 Letter 250
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, April 29, 1748.

I know I have not writ to you the Lord knows when, but I
waited for something to tell you, and I have now what there
was not much reason to expect. The preliminaries to the peace
are actually signed"(1430) by the English, Dutch, and French:
the Queen,(1431) who would remain the only sufferer, though
vastly less than she could expect, protests against this
treaty, and the Sardinian minister has refused to sign too,
till further orders. Spain is not mentioned, but France
answers for them, and that they shall give us a new assiento.
The armistice is for six weeks, with an exception to
Maestricht; upon which the Duke sent Lord George Sackville to
Marshal Saxe to tell him that, as they are so near being
friends, he shall not endeavour to raise the siege and spill
more blood, but hopes the marshal will give the garrison good
terms, as they have behaved so bravely. The conditions
settled are a general restitution on all sides, as Modena to
its Duke, Flanders to the Queen, the Dutch towns to the Dutch,
Cape Breton to France, and Final to the Genoese; but the
Sardinian to have the cessions made to him by the Queen, who,
you see, is to be made observe the treaty of Worms, though we
do not. Parma and Placentia are to be given to Don Philip;
Dunkirk to remain as it is, on the land-side; but to be
Utrecht'd(1432) again to the sea. The Pretender to be
renounced, with all his descendants, male and female, even in
stronger terms than by the quadruple alliance; and the
cessation of arms to take place in all other parts of the
world, as in the year 1712. The contracting powers agree to
think of means of making the other powers come into this
treaty, in case they refuse.

This is the substance; and wonderful it is what can make the
French give us such terms, or why they have lost so much blood
and treasure to so little purpose! for they have destroyed
very little of the fortifications in Flanders. Monsieur de
St. Severin told Lord Sandwich, that he had full powers to
sign now, but that the same courier that should carry our
refusal, was to call at Namur and Bergen-op-zoom, where are
mines under all the works, which were immediately to be blown
up. There is no accounting for this, but from the King'S
aversion to go to the army, and to Marshal Saxe's fear of
losing his power with the loss of a battle. He told Count
Flemming, the Saxon minister, who asked him if the French were
in earnest in their offer of peace, "Il est vrai, nous
demandons la paix comme des l`aches, et ne pouvons pas
l'obtenir."

Stocks rise; the ministry are in spirits, and ;e s'en faut but
we shall admire this peace as our own doing! I believe two
reasons that greatly advanced it are, the King's wanting to go
to Hanover, and the Duke's wanting to go into a salivation.

We had last night the most magnificent masquerade that ever
was seen: it was by Subscription at the Haymarket: every body
who subscribed five guineas had four tickets. There were
about seven hundred people, all in chosen and very fine
dresses. The supper was in two rooms, besides those for the
King and Prince, who, with the foreign ministers, had tickets
given them.

You don't tell me whether the seal of which you sent me the
impression, is to be sold: I think it fine, but not equal to
the price which you say was paid for it. What is it? Homer or
Pindar?

I am very miserable at the little prospect you have of success
in your own affair: I think the person(1433) you employed has
used you scandalously. I would have you write to my uncle; but
my applying to him would be far from doing you service. Poor
Mr. Chute has
got so bad a cold that he could not go last night to the
masquerade. Adieu! my dear child! there is nothing -well that
I don't wish you, but my wishes are very ineffectual!

(1430) The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.-D.

(1431) Of Hungary.-D.

(1432) That is, the works destroyed, as they were after the
treaty of Utrecht.-D.

(1433) Mr. Stone, the Duke of Newcastle's private
secretary.-E.

549 Letter 251
To George Montagu, Esq.
May 18, 1748.

Here I am with the poor Chutehed,(1434) who has put on a shoe
but to-day for the first time. He sits at the receipt of
custom, and one passes most part, of the day here; the other
part I have the misfortune to pass en Pigwiggin. The ceremony
of dining is not over yet: I cannot say that either the Prince
or the Princess look the comelier for what has happened. The
town says, my Lady Anson(1435) has no chance for looking
different from what she did before she was married: and they
have a story of a gentleman going to the Chancellor to assure
him, that if he gave his daughter to the Admiral, he would be
obliged hereafter to pronounce a sentence of dissolution of
the marriage. The Chancellor replied, that his daughter had
been taught to think of the union of the soul, not of the
body: the gentleman then made the same confidence to the
Chancelloress, and received much such an answer: that her
daughter had been bred to submit herself to the will of God.
I don't at all give you all this for true; but there is an
ugly circumstance in his voyages of his not having the
curiosity to see a beautiful captive, that he took on board a
Spanish ship. There is no record of Scipio's having been in
Doctors' Commons. I have been reading these voyages, and find
them very silly and contradictory. He sets out with telling
you, that he had no soldiers sent with him but old invalids
without legs or arms; and then in the middle of' the book
there is a whole chapter to tell you what they would have done
if they had set out two months sooner, and that was no less
than conquering Peru and Mexico -with this disabled army. At
the end there is an account of the neglect he received from
the Viceroy of Canton, till he and forty of his sailors put
out a great fire in that city, which the Chinese and five
hundred firemen could not do, which he says proceeded from
their awkwardness; a new character of the Chinese! He was then
admitted to an audience, and found two hundred men at the gate
of the city, and ten thousand in the square before the palace,
all new dressed for the purpose. This is about as true as his
predecessor Gulliver * -* * out the fire at Lilliput. The
King is still wind-bound; the fashionable bon mot is, that the
Duke of Newcastle has tied a stone about his neck and sent him
to sea. The city grows furious about the peace; there is one
or two very uncouth Hanover articles, besides a persuasion of
a pension to the Pretender, which is so very ignominious, that
I don't know how to persuade myself it is true. The Duke of
Argyle has made them give him three places for life of a
thousand and twelve hundred a-year for three of his court, to
compensate for their making a man president of the session
against his inclination. the Princess of Wales has got a
confirmed jaundice, but they reckon her much better. Sir
Harry Calthrop is gone mad: he walked down Pall Mall t'other
day with his red riband tied about his hair said he was going
to the King, and would not submit to be blooded till they told
him the King commanded it.

I went yesterday to see Marshal Wade's house, which is selling
by auction: it is worse contrived on the inside than is
conceivable, all to humour the beauty of the front. My Lord
Chesterfield said, that to be sure he could not live in it,
but intended to take the house over against it to look at it.
It is literally true, that all the direction he gave my Lord
Burlington was to have a place for a cartoon of Rubens that he
bought in Flanders; but my lord found it necessary to have so
many correspondent doors, that there was no room at last for
the picture; and the Marshal was forced to sell the picture to
my father: it is now at Houghton.(1436)

As Windsor is so charming, and particularly as you have got so
agreeable a new neighbour at Frogmore, to be sure you cannot
wish to have the prohibition taken off on your coming to
Strawberry Hill. However, as I am an admirable Christian, and
as you seem to repent of your errors, I will give you leave to
be so happy as to come to me when you like, though I would
advise it to be after you have been at Roel,(1437) winch you
would not be able to bear after my paradise. I have told you
a vast deal of something or other, which you will scarce be
able to read; for now Mr. Chute has the gout, he keeps himself
very low and lives upon very thin ink. My compliments to all
your people. Yours ever.

(1434) John Chute, Esq. of the Vine of Hampshire.

(1435) Lord Anson married, on the 25th of April, Lady
Elizabeth Yorke, Lord Chancellor Hardwicke's eldest daughter,
an ingenious woman and a poetess. She died without issue in
1760.-E.

(1436) Walpole gives the following account of this picture, in
his description of Houghton:- "Meleager and Atalanta, a
cartoon, by Rubens, larger than life; brought out of Flanders
by Wade: it being designed for tapestry, all the weapons are
in the left hand of the figure. For the story, see Ovid's
Metamorphoses, lib. 3. When General Wade built his house in
Burlington Garden, Lord Burlington gave the design for it."-E

(1437) A house of Mr. Montagu's in Gloucestershire.

550 Letter 252
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, May 26, 1748.

Good-by to YOU! I am going to my Roel too. I was there
yesterday to dine, and it looked so delightful, think what you
will, that I shall go there to-morrow to settle, and shall
leave this odious town to the * * *, to the regency, and the
dowagers; to my lady Townshend, who is not going to Windsor,
to old Cobham, who is not going out of the world yet, and to
the Duchess of Richmond, who does not -,go out with her
twenty-fifth pregnancy: I shall leave too more disagreeable
Ranelagh, which is so crowded, that going there t'other night
in a string of coaches we had a stop of six-and-thirty
Minutes. Princess Emily, finding no marriage articles for her
settled at the congress, has at last determined to be old and
out of danger; and has accordingly ventured to Ranelagh to the
great improvement of the pleasures of the place. The Prince
has given a silver cup to be rowed for, which carried every
body up the Thames. and afterwards there was a great ball at
Carlton house. There have two good events happened at that
court: the town was alarmed t'other morning by the firing of
guns, which proved to be only from a large merchantman come
into the river. The city construed it into the King's return,
and the peace broke; but Chancellor Bootle and the Bishop of
Oxford, who loves a tabour next to promoting the cause of it,
concluded the Princess was brought to bed, and went to court
upon it. Bootle, finding the Princess dressed, said, "I have
always heard, Madam, that women in your country have very easy
labours; but I could not have believed it was so well as I
see." The other story is of Prince Edward. The King, before
he went away, sent Stainberg to examine the Prince's children
in their learning. The Baron told Prince Edward, that he
should tell the King, what great proficiency his Highness had
made in his Latin, but that he wished he would be a little
more perfect in his German grammar, and that would be of
signal use to him. The child squinted at him, and said,
"German grammar! why any dull child can learn that." There, I
have told you royalties enough!