Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2

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You will be diverted with my distresses at Worcester. I set
out boldly to walk down the high-street to the cathedral: I
found it much more peopled than I intended, and, when I was
quite embarked, discovered myself up to the ears in a contested
election. A new candidate had arrived the night before, and
turned all their heads. Nothing comforted me, but that the
opposition is to Mr. Trevis; and I purchased my passage very
willingly with crying "No Trevis! No Jews!" However, the inn
where I lay was Jerusalem itself, the very head-quarters where
Trevis the Pharisee was expected; and I had scarce got into my
room, before the victorious mob of his enemy, who had routed
his advanced guard, broke open the gates of our inn, and almost
murdered the ostler-and then carried him off to prison for
being murdered. The cathedral is pretty, and has several
tombs, and clusters of light pillars of Derbyshire marble,
lately cleaned. Gothicism and the restoration of that
architecture, and not of the bastard breed, spreads extremely
in this part of the world. Prince Arthur's tomb, from whence
we took the paper for the hall and staircase, to my great
surprise. is on a less scale than the paper, and is not of
brass but stone, and that wretchedly whitewashed. The niches
are very small, and the long slips in the middle are divided
every now and then with the trefoil. There is a fine tomb for
Bishop Hough, in the Westminster Abbey style; but the obelisk
at the back is not loaded with a globe and a human figure, like
Mr. Kent's design for Sir Isatc Newton; an absurdity which
nothing but himself could surpass, when he placed three busts
at the foot of an altar-and, not content with that, placed them
at the very angles--where they have as little to do as they
have with Shakspeare.

>From Worcester I went to see Malvern Abbey. It is situated
half way up an immense mountain of that name: the mountain is
very long, in shape like the prints of a whale's back: towards
the larger end lies the town. Nothing remains but a beautiful
gateway and a church, which is very large: every window has
been glutted with painted glass, of which much remains, but it
did not answer; blue and red there is in abundance, and good
faces; but the portraits are so high, I could not distinguish
them. Besides, the woman who showed me the church would pester
me with Christ and King David, when I was hunting for John of
Gaunt and King Edward. The greatest curiosity, at least what I
had never seen before, was, the whole floor and far up the
sides of the church has been, if I may call it so, wainscoted
with red and yellow tiles, extremely polished, and diversified
with coats of arms, and inscriptions, and mosaic. I have since
found the same at Gloucester, and have even been so fortunate
as to purchase from the sexton about a dozen, which think what
an acquisition for Strawberry! They are made of the natural
earth of the country, which is a rich red clay, that produces
every thing. All the lanes are full of all kind of trees, and
enriched with large old apple-trees, that hang over from one
hedge to another. Worcester city is large and pretty.
Gloucester city is still better situated, but worse built, and
not near so large. About a mile from Worcester you break upon
a sweet view of the Severn. A little farther on the banks is
Mr. Lechmere's house; but he has given strict charge to a troop
of willows never to let him see the river: to his right hand
extends the fairest meadow covered with cattle that ever you
saw - at the end of it is the town of Upton, with a church half
ruined and a bridge of six arches, which I believe with little
trouble he might see from his garden.

The vale increases in riches to Gloucester. I stayed two days
at George Selwyn's house called Matson, which lies on Robin
Hood's Hill: it is lofty enough for an Alp, yet is a mountain
of turf to the very top, has wood scattered all over it,
springs that long to be cascades in twenty places of it: and
from the summit it beats even Sir George Lyttelton's views, by
having the city of Gloucester at its foot, and the Severn
widening to the horizon. His house is small, but neat. King
Charles lay here at the siege; and the Duke of York, with
typical fury, hacked and hewed the window-shutters of his
chamber, as a memorandum of his being there. Here is a good
picture, of Dudley Earl of Leicester in his latter age, which
he gave to Sir Francis Walsingham, at whose house in Kent it
remained till removed hither; and what makes it very curious,
is, his age marked on it, fifty-four in 1572. I had never been
able to discover before in what year he was born. And here is
the very flower-pot and counterfeit association, for which
Bishop Sprat was taken up, and the Duke of Marlborough sent to
the tower. The reservoirs on the hill supply the city. The
late Mr. Selwyn governed the borough by them-and I believe by
some wine too. The Bishop's house is pretty, and restored to
the Gothic by the late Bishop. Price has painted a large
chapel-window for him, which is scarce inferior for colours,
and is a much better picture than any of the old glass. The
eating-room is handsome. As I am a Protestant Goth, I was glad
to worship Bishop Hooper's room, from whence he was led to the
stake: but I could almost have been a Hun, and set fire to the
front of the house, which is a small pert portico, like the
conveniences at the end of a London garden. The outside of the
cathedral is beautifully light; the pillars in the nave
outrageously plump and heavy. There is a tomb of one Abraham
Blackleach, a great curiosity; for, though the figures of him
and his wife are cumbent, they are very graceful, designed by
Vandyck, and well executed. Kent designed the screen; but knew
no more there than he did any where else how to enter into the
true Gothic taste. Sir Christopher Wren, who built the tower
of the great gateway at Christ Church, has catched the graces
of it as happily as you could do: there is particularly a niche
between two compartments of' a window, that is a masterpiece.

But here is a modernity, which beats all antiquities for
curiosity: just by the high altar is a small pew hung with
green damask, with curtains of the same; a small corner
cupboard, painted, carved, and gilt, for books, in one corner,
and two troughs of a bird-cage, with seeds and water. If any
mayoress on earth was small enough to enclose herself in this
tabernacle, or abstemious enough to feed on rape and canary, I
should have sworn that it was the shrine of the queen of the
aldermen. It belongs to a Mrs. Cotton, who, having lost a
favourite daughter, is convinced her soul is transmigrated into
a robin-redbreast; for which reason she passes her life in
making an aviary of the cathedral of Gloucester. The chapter
indulge this whim, as she contributes abundantly to glaze,
whitewash, and ornament the church.

King Edward the Second's tomb is very light and in good repair.
The old wooden figure of Robert, the Conqueror's unfortunate
eldest son, is extremely genteel, and, though it may not be so
ancient as his death, is in a taste very superior to any thing
of much later ages. Our Lady's Chapel has a bold kind of
portal, and several ceilings of chapels, and tribunes in a
beautiful taste: but of all delight, is what they call the
abbot's cloister. It is the very thing that you would build,
when you had extracted all the quintessence of trefoils,
arches, and lightness. In the church is a star-window of eight
points, that is prettier than our rose-windows.

A little way from the town are the ruins of Lantony Priory:
there remains a pretty old gateway, which G. Selwyn has begged,
to erect on the top of his mountain, and it will have a
charming effect.

At Burford I saw the house of Mr. Lenthal the descendant of the
Speaker. The front is good and a chapel connected by two or
three arches, which let the garden appear through, has a pretty
effect; but the inside of the mansion is bad and ill-furnished.
Except a famous picture of Sir Thomas More's family, the
portraits are rubbish, though celebrated. I am told that the
Speaker, who really had a fine collection, made his peace by
presenting them to Cornbury, where they were well known, till
the Duke of Marlborough bought that seat.

I can't go and describe so known a place as Oxford, which I saw
pretty well on my return. The whole air of the town charms me;
and what remains of the true Gothic un-Gibbs'd, and the
profusion of painted glass, were entertainment enough to me.
In the picture-gallery are quantities of portraits; but in
general they are not only not so much as copies, but proxies-so
totally unlike they arc to the persons they pretend to
represent. All I will tell you more of Oxford is, that Fashion
has so far prevailed over her collegiate sister, Custom, that
they have altered the hour of dinner from twelve to one. Does
not it put one in mind of reformations in religion? One don't
abolish Mahommedism; one only brings it back to where the
impostor himself left it. I think it is at the
South-Sea-house, where they have been forced to alter the hour
of payment, instead of from ten to twelve, to from twelve to
two; so much do even moneyed citizens sail with the current of
idleness!

Was not I talking of religious sects? Methodism is quite
decayed in Oxford, its cradle. In its stead, there prevails a
delightful fantastic system, called the sect of the
Hutchinsonians,(429) of whom one seldom hears any thing in
town. After much inquiry, all I can discover is, that their
religion consists in driving Hebrew to its fountain-head, till
they find some word or other in every text of the Old
Testament, which may seem figurative of something in the New,
or at least of something, that may happen God knows when, in
consequence of the New. As their doctrine is novel, and
requires much study, or at least much invention, one should
think that they could not have settled half the canon of what
they are to believe-and yet they go on zealously, trying to
make and succeeding in making converts.(429) I could not help
smiling at the thoughts of etymological salvation; and I am
sure you will smile when I tell you, that according to their
gravest doctors, "Soap Is an excellent type of Jesus Christ,
and the York-buildings waterworks of the Trinity."--I don't
know whether this is not as entertaining as the passion of the
Moravians for the "little side-hole!" Adieu, my dear sir!

(422) The seat of Sir George, afterwards Lord Lyttelton.-E.

(423) Sir Charles Lyttelton, distinguished in the M`emoires de
Grammont as "le s`erieux Lyttelton." He died in 1716, at the
age of eighty-six.-E.

(424) The beautiful Frances Stuart, who married Esme, Duke of
Richmond; which greatly displeased Charles the Second, who was
in love with her.

(425) Anne, daughter of William, second Duke of Hamilton, and
wife of Robert, third Earl of Southesk.-E.

(426) Sir Thomas Clifford, created Lord Clifford of Chudleigh.
He was one of "The Cabal."-E.

(427) Lucy, daughter of Hugh Fortescue, Esq. of Filleigh; upon
whose death, in 1746-7, Lord Lyttelton wrote his Celebrated
monody.-E.

(428) John Hutchinson, the founder of this sect, was born in
1674, and died in 1737, leaving a number of works on the Hebrew
language, which were collected in 1748, in twelve volumes
octavo. He imagined all knowledge to be contained in the
Hebrew Scriptures, and, rejecting the points, he gave a
fanciful meaning to every one of the Hebrew letters. He
possessed great mechanical skill, and invented a chronometer
for the discovery of the longitude, which was much approved by
Sir Isaac Newton.-E.

(429) Among his followers were the amiable Dr. Horne, Bishop of
Norwich, who published
an "Abstract" of his writings, and Parkhurst, the author of the
Hebrew Lexicon.-E.

186 Letter 86
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 6, 1753.

I fear the letter of July 21st, which you tell me you have
received, was the last I wrote. I will make no more excuses
for my silence; I think they take up half my letters. The time
of year must be full excuse; and this autumn is so dead a time,
that people even don't die.

You have puzzled me extremely by a paragraph in yours about one
Wilton, a sculptor, who, you say, is mentioned with encomiums
one of the Worlds:(430) I recollected no such thing. The first
parcel your brother sends you shall convey the other numbers of
that paper, and I will mark all the names I know of the
authors: there are several, and of our first writers;(431) but
in general you will not find that the paper answers the idea
you have entertained of it.

I grieve for my Florentine friends, and for the doubling of
their yoke: the Count has shown great art. I am totally
ignorant, not to say indifferent, about the Modenese
treaty;(432) indeed, I have none of that spirit which was
formerly so much objected to some of my family, the love of
negotiations during a settled peace. Treaties within treaties
are very dull businesses: contracts of marriage between
baby-princes and miss-princesses give me no curiosity. If I
had not seen it in the papers, I should never have known that
Master Tommy the Archduke was playing at marrying Miss Modena.
I am as sick of the hide-and-seek at which all Europe has been
playing about a King of the Romans! Forgive me, my dear child,
you who are a minister, for holding your important affairs so
cheap. I amuse myself with Gothic and painted glass, and am as
grave about my own trifles as I could be at Ratisbon. I shall
tell you one or two events within my own very small sphere, and
you must call them a letter. I believe I mentioned having made
a kind of armoury: my upper servant, who is full as dull as his
predecessor, whom you knew, Tom Barney, has had his head so
filled with arms, that the other day, when a man brought home
an old chimney-back, which I had bought for having belonged to
Harry VII, he came running in, and said, "Sir, Sir! here is a
man has brought some more armour!"

Last week, when I was in town, I went to pay a bill to the
glazier who fixed up the painted glass: I said, "Mr. Palmer,
you charge me seven shillings a-day for your man's work: I know
you give him but two shillings; and I am told that it is
impossible for him to earn seven shillings a-day."--"Why no,
Sir," replied be, "it is not that; but one must pay house-rent,
and one must eat, and one must wear." I looked at him, and he
had on a blue silk waistcoat with an extremely broad gold lace.
I could not help smiling. I turned round, and saw his own
portrait, and his wife's, and his son's. "And I see," said I,
"one must sit for one's picture; I am very sorry that I am to
contribute for all you must do!" Adieu! I gave you warning
that I had nothing to say.

(430) Mr. Mann mistook; I think it was in a paper called "The
Adventurer."

(431) Lord Chesterfield, Lord Bath, Mr. W. Whithed, Sir Charles
Williams, Mr. Soame Jennings, Mr. Cambridge, Mr. Coventry, etc.

(432) It was between the Empress-Queen and the Duke of Modena,
for settling the duchy of Milan on one of the little Archdukes,
on his marrying the Duke's granddaughter, and in the mean time
the Duke was made administrator of Milan.

187 Letter 87
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Dec 6, 1753.

In a very long, and consequently a very agreeable letter, which
I received from you yesterday, you set me an example which I
despair of following, keeping up a correspondence with spirit
when the world furnishes no events. I should not say no
events, for France is big with matter, but to talk of the
parliamentary wars of another country would be only
transcribing gazettes: and as to Prince Heracilus,(433) the
other phenomenon of the age, it is difficult to say much about
a person of whom one knows nothing at all. The only scene,
that promises to Interest one, lies in Ireland, from whence we
are told that the Speaker's party has carried a question
against the Lord Lieutenant's; but no particulars are yet
arrived. Foundations have formerly been laid in Ireland of
troubles that have spread hither: I have read somewhere this
old saw,

"He that would England win,
Must with Ireland-first begin."

The only novelty I know, and which is quite private history,
is, that there is a man(434) in the world, who has so much
obligingness and attention in his friendships, that in the
middle of public business, and teased to death with all kind of
commissions, and overrun with cubs and cubaccioni's of every
kind, he can for twelve years together remember any single
picture, or bust, or morsel of virtu, that a friend of his ever
liked; and what is forty times more extraordinary than this
circumstantial kindness, he remembers it just at the time when
others, who might be afflicted with as good a memory, would
take pains to forget it, that is, when it is to be
obtained:-exactly then this person goes and purchases the thing
in question, whips it on board a ship, and sends it to his
friend, in the manner in the world to make it most agreeable,
except that he makes it impossible to thank him, because you
must allow that one ought to be possessed of the same manner of
obliging, before one is worthy of thanking such a person. I
don't know whether you will think this person so extraordinary
as I do; but I have one favour to beg; if you should ever hear
his name, which, for certain reasons, I can't tell you, let me
entreat you never to disclose it, for the world in general is
so much the reverse of him, that they would do nothing but
commend to him every thing they saw, in order to employ his
memory and generosity. For this reason you will allow that the
prettiest action that ever was committed, ought not to be
published to all the world.

You, who love your friends, will not be sorry to hear a little
circumstance that concerns, in a tolerable manner, at least two
of them. The last of my mother's surviving brothers(435) is
dead, and dead without a will, and dead rich. Mr. Conway and I
shall share about six thousand pounds apiece in common with his
brother and sister and my brother. I only tell you this for a
momentary pleasure, for you are not a sort of person to
remember any thing relative to your friends beyond the present
instant!

After writing me two sheets of paper, not to mention the
episode of Bianca Capello, I know not how to have the
confidence to put an end to my letter already; and yet I must,
and you will admit the excuse: I have but just time to send my
brother an account of his succession: you who think largely
enough to forgive any man's deferring such notice to you, would
be the last man to defer giving it to any body else; and
therefore, to spare you any more of the compliments and thanks,
which surely I owe you, you shall let me go make my brother
happy. Adieu!

(433) One of the pretenders to the throne of Persia, who gained
many victories about this time.

(434) When Mr. Walpole was at Florence he saw a fine picture by
Vasari of the Great duchess Bianca Capello, in the palace of
the Marchese Vitelli, whose family falling to decay, and their
effects being sold twelve years afterwards, Mr. Mann
recollected-Mr. Walpole's having admired that picture, bought
and sent it to him.

(435) Erasmus Shorter, brother of Catherine Lady Walpole, and
of Charlotte Lady Conway, whose surviving children, Edward and
Horace Walpole, Francis Earl of Hertford, Henry and Anne
Conway, became his heirs.

188 Letter 88
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 6, 1753.

I have at last found a moment to answer your letter; a
possession of which, I think, I have not been master these ten
days. You must know I have an uncle dead; a sort of event that
could not possibly have been disagreeable to me, let his name
have been what it would; and to make it still less unpleasant,
here am I one of the heirs-at-law to a man worth thirty
thousand pounds. One of the heirs, you must construe, one of
five. In short, my uncle Erasmus is dead, and think at last we
may depend on his having made no will. If a will should
appear, we are but where we were; if it does not, it is not
uncomfortable to have a little sum of money drop out of the
clouds, to which one has as much right as any body, for which
one has no obligation, and paid no flattery. This death and
the circumstances have made extreme noise, but they are of an
extent impossible to tell you within the compass of any letter,
and I will not raise your curiosity when I cannot satisfy it
but by a narration, which I must reserve till I see you.

The only event I know besides within this atmosphere, is the
death of Lord Burlington, who, I have just heard, has left
every thing in his power to his relict. I tell you nothing of
Jew bills and Jew motions, for I dare to say you have long been
as weary of the words as I am. The only point that keeps up
any attention, is expectation of a mail from Ireland, from
whence we have heard, by a side wind, that the court have lost
a question by six; you may imagine one wants to know more of
this.

The opera is indifferent; the first man has a finer voice than
Monticelli, but knows not what to do with it. Ancient Visconti
does so much with hers that it is intolerable. There is a new
play of Glover's, in which Boadicea the heroine rants as much
as Visconti screams; but happily you hear no more of her after
the end of the third act, till in the last scene somebody
brings a card with her compliments, and she is very sorry she
cannot wait upon you, but she is dead. Then there is a scene
between Lord Sussex and Lord Cathcart, two captives, which is
most incredibly absurd; but yet the parts are so well acted,
the dresses so fine, and two or three scenes pleasing enough,
that it is worth seeing.(436)

There are new young lords, fresh and fresh: two of them are
much in vogue; Lord Huntingdon and Lord Stormont.(437) I
supped with them t'other night at Lady Caroline Petersham's;
the latter is most cried up; but he is more reserved, seems sly
and to have sense, but I should not think extreme: yet it is
not fair to judge on a silent man at first. The other is very
lively and very agreeable. This is the state of the town you
inquire after, and which you do inquire after as one does after
Mr. Somebody that one used to see at Mr. Such-a-one's formerly:
do you never intend to know more of us? or do you intend to
leave me to wither upon the hands of the town, like Charles
Stanhope and Mrs. Dunch? My contemporaries seem to be all
retiring to their proprerties. If I must too, positively I
will go no farther than Strawberry Hill! You are very good to
lament our gold fish - their whole history consists in their
being stolen a deux reprises, the very week after I came to
town.

Mr. Bentley is where he was, and well, and now and then makes
me as happy as I can be, having lost him, with a charming
drawing. We don't talk of his abode; for the Hecate his wife
endeavours to discover it. Adieu! my best compliments to Miss
Montagu.

(436) Glover's tragedy of "Boadicea" was acted nine or ten
nights at Drury Lane with some success; but was generally
considered better adapted to the closet than the stage.
Archbishop Herring, in a letter to Mr. Duncombe, gives the
following opinion of this play: "The first page of the play
Shocked me, and the sudden and heated answer of the Queen to
the Roman ambassador's gentle address is arrant madness. It is
another objection, in my opinion, that Boadicea is really not
the object of crime and punishment, so much as pity; and,
notwithstanding the strong painting of her savageness, I cannot
help wishing she had got the better. However, I admire the
play in many passages, and think the two last acts admirable,
In the fifth, particularly, I hardly ever found myself so
strongly touched."-E.

(437) David, Viscount Stormont, He was afterwards ambassador at
Vienna and Paris in 1779, one of the secretaries of state; and
in 1783, president of the council. Upon the death of his
uncle, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, in 1793, he succeeded to
the earldom. He died in 1796.-E.

190 Letter 89
To Richard Bentley, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 19, 1753.

I little thought when I parted with you, my dear Sir, that your
absence(438) could indemnify me so well for itself; I still
less expected that I should find you improving daily: but your
letters grow more and more entertaining, your drawings more and
more picturesque; you write with more wit, and paint with more
melancholy, than ever any body did: your woody mountains hang
down "somewhat so poetical," as Mr. Ashe(439) said, that your
own poet Gray will scarce keep tune with you. All this refers
to your cascade scene and your letter. For the library it
cannot have the Strawberry imprimatur: the double arches and
double pinnacles are most ungraceful; and the doors below the
book-cases in Mr. Chute's design had a conventual look, which
yours totally wants. For this time, we shall put your genius
in commission, and, like some other regents, execute our own
plan without minding our sovereign. For the chimney, I do not
wonder you missed our instructions: we could not contrive to
understand them ourselves; and therefore, determining nothing
but to have the old picture stuck in a thicket of pinnacles, we
left it to you to find out the how. I believe it will be a
little difficult; but as I suppose facere quia impossibile est,
is full as easy as credere, why--you must do it.