Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2

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The Houses sit, but no business will be done till after the
holidays. AnStruther's affair will go on, but not with MUCH
spirit. One wants to see faces about again! Dick lyttelton,
one of the patriot officers, had collected depositions on oath
against the Duke for his behaviour in Scotland, but I suppose
he will now throw his papers into Ham/let's grave?

Prince George, who has a most amiable countenance, behaved
excessively well on his father's death. When they told him of
it, he turned pale, and laid his hand on his breast. Ayscough
said, "I am afraid, Sir, you are not well!"-he replied, "I feel
something here, just as I did when I saw the two workmen fall
from the scaffold at Kew." Prince Edward is a very plain boy,
with strange loose eyes, but was much the favourite. He is a
sayer of things! Two men were heard lamenting the death in
Leicester-fields: one said, "He has left a great many small
children!"-"Ay," replied the other, "and what is worse, they
belong to our parish!" But the most extraordinary reflections
on his death were set forth in a sermon at Mayfair chapel. "He
had no great parts, (pray mind, this was the parson said so,
not I,) but he had great virtues; indeed, they degenerated into
vices - he was very generous, but I hear his generosity has
ruined a great many people: and then his condescension was
such, that he kept very bad company."

Adieu! my dear child; I have tried, you see, to blend so much
public history with our private griefs, as may help to
interrupt your too great attention to the calamities in the
former part of my letter. You will, with the properest
good-nature in the world, break the news to the poor girl, whom
I pity, though I never saw. Miss Nicholl is, I am told,
extremely to be pitied too; but so is every body that knew
Whithed! Bear it yourself as well as you can!

(230) Francis Thistlethwaite, who took the name of Whithed for
his uncle's estate and, as heir to him, recovered Mr. Norton's
estate, which he had left to the Parliament for the use of the
poor, etc,; but the will was set aside for insanity. [See
ant`e.)

(231) Vide Gray's Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College.

(232) Walpole, in his Memoires, vol. i. p. 504, says, "The
following which is the elegy alluded to, was probably the
effusion of some Jacobite royalist. That faction could not,
forgive the Duke of Cumberland his excesses or successes in
Scotland; and not content with branding the parliamentary
government of the country as usurpation, indulged in frequent
unfailing and scurrilous personalities on every branch of the
reigning family.

"Here lies Fred,
Who was alive and is dead:
Had it been his father,
I had much rather:
Had it been his brother,
Still better than another;
Had it been his sister,
No one would have missed her;
Had it been the whole generation,
Still better for the nation;
But since 'tis only Fred,
Who was alive and is dead-
There is no more to be said."-E.

(233) The Duke of Cumberland, by his friends styled the Hero of
culloden, by his opponents nicknamed Billy the Butcher.-E.

99 Letter 39
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, April 22, 1751.

I could not help, my dear child, being struck with the
conclusion of your letter of the 2d of this month, which I have
just received; it mentions the gracious assurances you had
received from the dead Prince--indeed, I hope you will not want
them. The person(234) who conveyed them was so ridiculous as
to tell your brother that himself was the most disappointed of
all men, he and the Prince having settled his first ministry in
such a manner that nothing could have defeated the plan.(235)
An admirable scheme for power in England, founded only on two
persons! Some people say he was to be a duke and
secretary of state. I would have him drawn like Edward V. with
the coronet hanging over his head. You will be entertained
with a story of Bootle: his washerwoman came to a friend of
hers in great perplexity, and said, "I don't know what to do,
pray advise me; my master is gone the circuit, and left me
particular orders to send him an express if the King died: but
here's the Prince, dead and he said nothing about him." You
would easily believe this story, if you knew what a mere
law-pedant it is!

The Lord(236) you hint at, certainly did not write the Queries,
nor ever any thing so well: he is one of the few discarded; for
almost all have offered their services, and been accepted. The
King asked the Princess if she had a mind for a master of the
horse; that it must be a nobleman, and that he had objections
to a particular One, Lord Middlesex. I believe she had no
objection to his objections, and desired none. Bloodworth is
at the head of her stables; of her ministry, Dr. Lee; all knees
bow to him. The Duke of Newcastle is so charmed with him, and
so sorry he never knew him before, and can't live without him!
He is a grave, worthy man; as a civilian, not much versed in
the world of this end of the town, but much a gentleman. He
made me a visit the other day on my brother's death, and talked
much of the great and good part the King had taken, (who by the
way, has been taught by the Princess to talk as much of him,)
and that the Prince's servants could no longer oppose, if they
meant to be consistent. I told this to Mr. Chute, who replied
instantly, , "Pho! he meant to be subsistent." You will not be
surprised, though you will be charmed, with a new instance of
our friend's disinterested generosity: so far from resenting
Whithed's neglect of him, he and your brother, on finding the
brute-brothers making difficulties about the child's fortune,
have taken upon them to act as trustees for her, and to stand
all risks. Did not Mr. Whithed know that Mr. Chute would act
just so?

Prince George is created Prince of Wales, and his household is
settle(]. Lord Harcourt is his governor, in the room of Lord
North, to whom there was no objection but his having a glimpse
of parts more than the new one, who is a creature of the
Pelhams, and very fit to cipher where Stone is to figure. This
latter is sub-governor, with the Bishop of Norwich,(237)
preceptor; and Scott sub-preceptor. The Bishop is a sensible,
good-humoured gentleman, and believed to be a natural son of
the old Archbishop of York.(238) Lord Waldegrave, long a
personal favourite of the King, who has now got a little
interest at his own court, is warden of the stannaries, in the
room of Tom Pitt; old Selwyn, treasurer; Lord Sussex,(239) Lord
Downe,(240) and Lord Robert Bertle,(241) lords of the
bedchamber; Peachy, a young Schutz, and Digby, grooms: but
those of the House of Commons have not kissed hands yet, a
difficulty being started, whether, as they are now nominated by
the King, it will not vacate their Seats.(242) Potter has
resigned as secretary to the Princess, and is succeeded by one
Cressett, his predecessor, her chief favourite, and allied to
the house of Hanover by a Duchess of Zell,(243) who was of a
French family-not of that of Bourbon. I was going on to talk
to you of the Regency; but as that measure is not complete, I
shall not send away my letter till the end of next week.

My private satisfaction in my nephew of Orford is very great
indeed; he has an equal temper of reason and goodness that is
most engaging. His mother professes to like him as much as
every body else does, but is so much a woman that she will not
hurt him at all the less. So far from contributing to retrieve
his affairs, she talks to him of nothing but mob stories of his
grandfather's having laid up--the Lord knows where!--three
hundred thousand pounds for him; and of carrying him with her
to Italy, that he may converse with sensible people! In
looking over her husband's papers, among many of her
intercepted billets-doux, I was much entertained with one,
which was curious for the whole orthography, and signed
Stitara: if Mr. Shirley was to answer it in the same romantic
tone, I am persuaded he would subscribe himself the dying
Hornadatus. The other learned Italian Countess(244) is
disposing of her fourth daughter, the fair Lady Juliana, to
Penn, the wealthy sovereign of Pennsylvania;(245) but the
nuptials are adjourned till he recovers of a wound in his
thigh, which he got by his pistol going off as he was
overturned in his post-chaise. Lady Caroline Fox has a legacy
of five- thousand pounds from Lord Shelburne,(246) a distant
relation, who never saw her but once, and that three weeks before
his death. Two years ago Mr. Fox got the ten thousand pound
prize.

May 1, 1751.

I find I must send away my letter this week, and reserve the
history of the Regency for another post. The bill was to have
been brought into the House of lords to-day, but Sherlock, the
Bishop of London, has raised difficulties against the
limitation of the future Regent's authority, which he asserts
to be repugnant to the spirit of our Constitution. Lord Talbot
had already determined to oppose it; and the Pitts and
Lyttelton's, who are grown very mutinous on the Newcastle's not
choosing Pitt for his colleague, have talked loudly against it
without doors. The preparatory steps to this great event I
will tell you. The old Monarch grandchildizes exceedingly: the
Princess, who is certainly a wise woman, and who, in a course
of very difficult situations, has never made an enemy nor had a
detractor, has got great sway there. The Pelhams, taking
advantage of this new partiality, of the universal dread of the
Duke, and of the necessity of his being administrator of
Hanover, prevailed to have the Princess Regent, but with a
council of nine of the chief great officers, to be continued in
their posts till the majority, which is fixed for eighteen;
nothing to be transacted without the assent of the greater
number; and the Parliament that shall find itself existing at
the King's death to subsist till the minority ceases: such
restrictions must be almost as unwelcome to the Princess as the
whole regulation is to the Duke. Judge of his resentment: he
does not conceal it. The divisions in the ministry are neither
closed nor come to a decision. Lord Holderness arrived
yesterday, exceedingly mortified at not finding himself
immediate secretary of state, for which purpose he was sent
for; but Lord Halifax would not submit to have this cipher
preferred to him. An expedient was proposed of flinging the
American province into the Board of Trade, but somehow or
other, that has miscarried, and all is at a stand. It is known
that Lord Granville is designed for president-and for what more
don't you think?-he has the inclination of the King--would they
be able again to persuade people to resign unless he is
removed?-and will not all those who did resign with that
intention endeavour to expiate that insult?

Amid all this new clash of politics Murray has had an
opportunity for one or two days of making himself talked of. A
month ago his brother(247) obtained leave, on pretence of his
health, to remove him into the custody of the sergeant-at-arms;
but he refused to go thither, and abused his brother for
meanness in making such submissive application. On this his
confinement was straitened. Last week, my worthy cousin, Sir
John Philips, moved the King's Bench for a rule to bring him
thither, in order to his having his habeas corpus. He was
produced there the next day; 'but the three Judges, onhearing he
was committed by the House of Commons, acknowledged the
authority, and remanded him back. There was a disposition to
commit Sir John, but we have liked to be-pleased with this
acknowledgment of our majesty.

Stitara(248) has declared to her son that she is marrying
Shirley, but ties him up strictly. I am ready to begin again
with a panegyric of My nephew, but I will rather answer a
melancholy letter I have Just received from you. His affairs
are putting into the best situation we can, and we are
agitating a vast match for him, which, if it can be brought to
bear, will even save your brother, whose great tenderness to
mine has left him exposed to greater risks than any of the
creditors. For myself, I think I shall escape tolerably, as my
demands are from my father, whose debts are likely to be
satisfied. My uncle Horace is indefatigable in adjusting all
this confusion. Do but figure him at seventy-four, looking,
not merely well for his age, but plump, ruddy, and without a
wrinkle or complaint; doing every body's business, full of
politics as ever, from morning till night, and then roaming the
town to conclude with a party at whist! I have no
apprehensions for your demands on Doddington; but your brother,
who sees him, will be best able to satisfy you on that head.

Madame de Mirepoix's brother-in-law was not Duke, but Chevalier
de Boufflers. Here is my uncle come to drop me a bit of
marriage-settlements on his road to his rubbers, so I must
finish--you will not be sorry; at least I have given you some
light to live upon. Adieu!

(234) George Bubb Dodington.

(235) The following is Dodington's own account of this plan:-
-"March 21. When this unfortunate event happened, I had set on
foot a project for a union between the independent Whigs and
Tories, by a writing, renouncing all tincture of Jacobitism,
and affirming short constitutional Revolution principles.
These parties, so united, were to lay this paper, containing
these principles, before the Prince, offering to appear as his
party now, and upon those principles to undertake the
administration when he was King, in the subordination and rank
among themselves that he should please to appoint. Father of
mercy! thy hand that wounds alone can save!" Diary, P. 88.-E.

(236) Lord Middlesex.

(237) Thomas Hayter, Bishop of Norwich.

(238) Dr. Lancelot Blackburne. (See vol. i. The Quarterly
Reviewer of Walpole's Memoires, alluding to a similar statement
made in that work says,--"As to the accusations of bastardy and
profligacy brought against the Bishop and Archbishop, they
were, probably, either the creatures of Walpole's own anxiety
to draw striking characters, or the echoes of some of those
slanderous murmurs which always accompany persons who rise from
inferior stations to eminence. He tells us without any
hesitation, that Bishop Hayter was a natural son of archbishop
Blackburne's. Now we have before us extracts from the
registers of the parish of Chagford, in Devonshire, which prove
that the Bishop Thomas Hayter was 'the son of George Hayter,
rector of this parish, and of Grace his wife,' and that Thomas
was one of a family of not fewer, we believe, than ten children
Vol. xxvii. p. 186.-E.)

(239) George Augustus Yelverton, second Earl of Sussex, died
1758.-D.

(240) Henry Pleydell Dawnay, third Viscount Downe in Ireland.
He distinguished himself greatly in the command of a regiment
at the battle of Minden; and died Dec. 9th, 1760, of the wounds
he had received at the battle of Campen, Oct. 16th of that
year.-D.

(241) The third son of Robert, first Duke of Ancaster and
Kesteven. He died in 1782.-D.

(242) "May 3.-Sense of the House taken, if the young Prince of
Wales's new servants should be reelected: it was agreed not.
The act was read; but those who seemed to favour a re-election
forgot to call for the warrants that appointed them servants to
the Prince: by whom are they signed? if by the King, the case
would not have admitted a word of dispute." Dodington, p.
104.-E.

(243) Mademoiselle d'Olbreuse. It is this m`esalliance which
prevents our Royal Family from being what is called chapitrate
in Germany. Mademoiselle d'Olbreuse was the mother of George
the First's unhappy wife.-D.

(244) Lady Pomfret.

(245) See ant`e.-E.

(246) Henry Petty, Earl of Shelburne in Ireland, the last of
the male descendants of Sir William Petty. Upon his death his
titles extinguished; but his estates devolved on his nephew,
the Lord John Fitz Maurice, in whose favour the title of
Shelburne was revived.-D.

(247) Lord Elibank.

(248) Lady Orford. She did marry Mr. Shirley.

103 Letter 40
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, May 30, 1751.

In your last of May 14th, you seem uneasy at not having heard
from me in two posts. I have writ you so exactly all the
details that I know you would wish to hear, that I think my
letters must have miscarried. I will mention all the dates of
this year; Feb. 8th, March 14th and 21st, April 1st, and May
1st; tell me if you have received all these. I don't pretend
to say any thing to alleviate your concern for the late
misfortunes, but will only recommend to you to harden yourself
against every accident, as I endeavour to do. The
mortifications and disappointments I have experienced have
taught me the philosophy that dwells not merely in speculation.
I choose to think about the world, as I have always found, when
I most wanted its comfort, it thought about me, that is, not at
all. It is a disagreeable dream which must end for every body
else as well as for oneself. Some try to supply the emptiness
and vanity of present life by something still more empty, fame.
I choose to comfort myself, by considering that even while I am
lamenting any present uneasiness it is actually passing away. I
cannot feel the comfort of folly, because I am not a fool, and I
scarce know any other being that it is worth one's while to wish
to be. All this looks as if it proceeded from a train of
melancholy ideas--it does so: but misfortunes have that good in
them that they teach one indifference.

if I Could be mortified anew, I should be with a new
disappointment, The immense and uncommon friendship of Mr.
Chute had found a method of saving both my family and yours.
In short, in the height of his affliction for Whithed, whom he
still laments immoderately, he undertook to get Miss Nicholl,
the vast fortune, a fortune of above 150,000 pounds, whom
Whithed was to have had, for Lord Orford. He actually
persuaded her to run away from her guardians, who used her
inhumanly, and are her next heirs. How clearly he is
justified, you will see, when I tell you that the man, who has
eleven hundred a-year for her maintenance, with which he
stopped the demands Of his own creditors, instead of employing
it for her maintenance and education, is since gone into the
Fleet. After such fair success, Lord Orford has refused to
marry her; why, nobody can guess. Thus had I placed him in a
greater situation than even his grandfather hoped to bequeath
to him, had retrieved all the oversights of my family, had
saved Houghton and all our glory!-Now, all must go!-and what
shocks me infinitely more, Mr. Chute, by excess of treachery,
(a story too long for a letter,) is embroiled with his own
brother the story, with many others, I believe I shall tell you
in person; for I do not doubt but the disagreeable scenes which
I have still to go through, will at last drive me to where I
have long proposed to seek some peace. But enough of these
melancholy ideas!

The Regency-bill has passed with more ease than could have been
expected from so extraordinary a measure; and from the warmth
with which it was taken up one day in the House of Commons. In
the Lords there were but 12 to 106, and the former, the most
inconsiderable men in that House. Lord Bath and Lord Grenville
spoke vehemently for it: the former in as wild a speech, with
much parts, as ever he made in his patriot days; and with as
little modesty he lamented the scrambles that he had seen for
power! In our House, Mr. Pelham had four signal mortifications:
the Speaker, in a most pathetic and fine speech, Sir John
Barnard, and Lord Cobham,(249) speaking against, and Mr. Fox,
though voting for it, tearing it to pieces. Almost all the
late Prince's people spoke or voted for it; most, pretending
deference to the Princess, though her power is so much abridged
by it. However, the consolation that resides in great
majorities balanced the disagreeableness of particular
oppositions. We sit, and shall sit, till towards the end of
June, though with little business of importance. If there
happens any ministerial struggle, which seems a little asleep at
present, it will scarce happen till after the prorogation.

Adieu! my dear child; I have nothing else worth telling you at
present--at least, the same things don't strike me that used to
do; or what perhaps is more true, when things of consequence
takes one up, one can't attend to mere trifling. When I say
this, you will ask me, where is my philosophy! Even where the
best is: I think as coolly as I can, I don't exaggerate what is
disagreeable, and I endeavour to lessen it, by undervaluing
what I am inclined to think would be a happier state.

(249) Richard Grenville, eldest son of Richard Grenville, of
Wotton, Esq. and of Esther Temple, Countess Temple and
Viscountess Cobham, in her own right. Lord Cobham became well
known in the political world as Earl Temple; which title he
succeeded to on the decease of his mother in 1752.-D.

105 Letter 41
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, May 30, 1751.

Mrs. Boscawen says I ought to write to you. I don't think so.
you desired I would, if I had any things new to tell you; I
have not. Lady Caroline and Miss Ashe had quarrelled, about
reputations before you went out of town. I suppose you would
not give a straw to know all the circumstances of a Mr. Paul
killing a Mr. Dalton, though the town, who talks of any thing,
talks of nothing else. Mrs. French and her Jeffery are parted
again. Lady Orford and Shirley married: they say she was much
frightened; it could not be for fear of what other brides dread
of happening, but for fear it should not happen.

My evening yesterday was employed, how wisely do You think? in
trying to procure for the Duchess of Portland a scarlet spider
from Admiral Boscawen. I had just seen her collection, which
is indeed magnificent, chiefly composed of the spoils of her
father's, and the Arundel collections. The gems of all sorts
are glorious. I was diverted with two relics of St. Charles
the Martyr; one, the pearl you see in his pictures, taken out
of his ear after his foolish head was off; the other, the cup
out of which he took his last sacrament. They should be given
to that nursery of nonsense and bigotry, Oxford.

I condole with you on your journey, am glad Miss Montagu is in
better health, and am yours sincerely.

105 Letter 42
To The Rev. Joseph Spence.(250)
Arlington Street, June 3, 1751.

Dear sir,
I have translated the lines, and send them to you; but the
expressive conciseness and beauty of the original, and my
disuse of turning
106
verses, made it so difficult, that I beg they may be of no
other use than that of showing you how readily I complied with
your request.

"Illam, quicquid agit, quoquo vestilia vertit,
Componit furtim subsequiturque decor."

"If she but moves or looks, her step, her face,
By stealth adopt unmeditated grace."

There are twenty little literal variations that may be made,
and are of no consequence, as 'move' or 'look'; 'air' instead
of 'step', and 'adopts' instead of 'adopt': I don't know even
whether I would not read 'steal and adopt', instead of 'by
stealth adopt'. But none of these changes will make the copy
half so pretty as the original. But what signifies that? I am
not obliged to be a poet because Tibullus was one; nor is it
just now that I have discovered I am not. Adieu!

(250) Now first collated. See Singer's edition of Spence's
Anecdotes, p. 349.-E.

106 Letter 43
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, June 13, 1751.

You have told me that it is charity to write you news into
Kent; but what if my news should shock you! Won't it rather be
an act of cruelty to tell you, your relation, Sandwich,(251) is
immediately to be removed; and that the Duke of Bedford and all
the Gowers will resign to attend him? Not quite all the Gowers,
for the Earl himself keeps the privy-seal and plays on at brag,
with Lady Catherine Pelham, to the great satisfaction of the
Staffordshire Jacobites, who desire, at least expect, no better
diversion than a division in that house. Lord Trentham does
resign. Lord Hartington is to be master of the horse, and
called up to the House of Peers. Lord Granville is to be
president; if he should resent any former resignations and
insist on victims, will Lord Hartington assure the menaced that
they shall not be sacrificed?

I hear your friend Lord North is wedded: somebody said it is
very hot weather to marry so fat a bride; George Selwyn
replied, "Oh! she was kept in ice for three days before."

The first volume of Spenser is published with prints, designed
by Kent; but the most execrable performance you ever beheld.
The graving not worse than the drawing; awkward knights,
scrambling Unas, hills tumbling down themselves, no variety Of
prospect and three or four perpetual spruce firs.

Our charming Mr. Bentley is doing Gray as much more honour as
he deserves than Spencer. He is drawing vignettes for his
Odes; what a valuable MS. I shall have! Warburton publishes
his edition of Pope next week, with the famous piece of prose
on Lord Hervey,(252) which he formerly suppressed at my uncle's
desire; who had got an abbey from Cardinal Fleury for one
Southcote, a friend of Pope's.(253) My Lord Hervey pretended
not to thank him. I am told the edition has waited, because
Warburton has cancelled above a hundred sheets (in which he had
inserted notes) since the publication of the Canons of
Criticism.(254) The new history of Christina is a most
wretched piece of trumpery, stuffed with foolish letters and
confutations of Mademoiselle de Montpensier and Madame de
Motteville. Adieu! Yours ever.