Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2

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(662) On the 12th of March, Mr. George Townshend brought in a
bill for better ordering the militia. It passed the House of
Commons on the 10th of May.-E.

(663) The Duke of Cumberlan(l. Mr. George Townshend was very
skilful at drawing caricatures, and published a set of twelve;
to which he affixed the name of Austin.-E.

314 Letter 176
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, March 18, 1756.

I am not surprised to find by your letters of 21st and 28th of
February how much you have been alarmed for your brother. You
have not felt more than I have: but I have the satisfaction of
seeing him mend, while you undergo the terrible suspense of
waiting for posts. He has been pulled much back by the
operation of his quicksilver, which flung him into a severe
looseness and kind of salivation: it weakened him much and kept
him from the air, but it brought off a great load of black
stuff from his stomach, and his spirits are exceedingly better.
He is to go to the Bath as soon as he is able. Would to heaven
I could prevail for his going to Italy, but he will not listen
to it. You may be confident that I do not stop at mere decency
in checking his domestic torment--it is terrible; but when I
saw him in so much danger, I kept no measures-I went lengths
that would be inexcusable in any other situation. No
description can paint the madness, (and when I call it madness,
I know I flatter) the preposterous unreasonableness and
infernal temper of that little white fiend! His temper, which
is equal to yours, bears him up under it. I am with him two or
three mornings every week, and think I shall yet preserve him
for you. The physicians are positive that his lungs are not
touched.

We proceed fiercely in armaments-yet in my own opinion, and I
believe the ministry think so too, the great danger is for Port
Mahon. Admiral Bing sails directly for the Mediterranean. The
Brest fleet that slipped away, is thought on its progress to
Nova Scotia. The Dutch have excused sending us their troops on
the imminence of their own danger. The parliamentary campaign
is almost over; you know I persist in believing that we shall
not have any other here.

Thank you much for your kindness to Mr. Dick; I will repay you
on your brother, though I don't know how to place him to any
account but my own. If I could be more anxious than I am about
him, it would be, my dear child, on what you say to me on
yourself; but be comforted, all will yet be well.

Mr. Chute's picture is not yet arrived; when it comes, he shall
thank you himself. I must now give you a new commission, and
for no less a minister than the chancellor of the exchequer.
Sir George Lyttelton desires that you will send him for his
hall the jesses of the Venus, the dancing Faun, the Apollo
Medicis, (I think there is a cast of it,) the Mercury, and some
other female statue, at your choice: he desires besides three
pair of Volterra vases, of the size to place on tables, and
different patterns. consign the whole to me, and draw the bill
of lading on me.

I have nothing more to tell you but a naivet`e of my Lady
Coventry; the King asked her if she was not sorry that there
are no masquerades this year-(for you must know we have
sacrificed them to the idol earthquake,)-she said, no, she was
tired of them; she was surfeited with most sights; there was
but one left that she wanted to see--and that was a coronation!
The old man told it himself at supper to his family with a
great deal of good humour. Adieu! my dear child.

315 Letter 177
315 Letter 177
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(664)
Arlington Street, March 25, 1756.

In spite of being sorry, as I certainly ought to be, when your
letters are short, I feel quite glad; I rejoice that I am not
much in your debt, when I have not wherewithal to pay. Nothing
happens worth telling you: we have had some long days in the
House, but unentertaining; Mr. Pitt has got the gout in his
oratory, I mean in his head, and does not come out: we are sunk
quite into argument--but you know, when any thing is as it
should be, it is not worth talking of. The plate-tax has made
some noise; the ministry carried one question on it but by
nine. The Duke of Newcastle, who reserves all his heroism for
the war, grew frightened, and would have given up the tax; but
Mr. Fox bolstered up his courage and mustered their forces, and
by that and softening the tax till it was scarce worth
retaining, they carried the next question by an hundred. The
day before yesterday the King notified the invasion to both
Houses, and his having sent for Hessians. There were some
dislikes expressed to the latter; but, in general, fear
preponderated so much that the cry was for Hanoverians too.
Lord George Sackville, in a very artful speech, a little
maliciously even proposed them and noblemen's regiments: which
the Duke had rejected. Lord Ravensworth, in the other House,
moved in form for Hanoverians; the Duke of Newcastle desired a
few days to consider it, and they are to go upon it in the
Lords to-morrow. The militia, which had been dropped for next
year, is sprouted up again out of all this, and comes on
to-day. But we should not be English, if we did not become
still more intent on a very trifle: we are. A new road through
Paddington(665) has been proposed to avoid the stones: the Duke
of Bedford, who is never 'In town in summer, objects to the
dust it will make behind Bedford House, and to some buildings
proposed, though, if he was in town, he is too short-sighted to
see the prospect. The Duke of Grafton heads the other side:
this is carried! you can imagine it---you could compose the
difference! you, grand corrupter, you who can bribe pomp and
patriotism, virtue and a Speaker,(666) you that have pursued
uprightness even to the last foot of land on the globe, and
have disarmed Whiggism almost on the banks of its own Boyne-
-don't you return hither, we shall have you attempt to debauch
even Mr. Onslow, who has preserved his chastity, while all the
band of chosen youths, while every Pultney, Pitt, and Lyttelton
have fallen around him. I could not help laughing at the
picture of Malone bribed out of his virtue and mobbed into it
again!

Now I am in a serious strain, I will finish my letter with the
only other serious history I know. My Lady Lincoln has given a
prodigious assembly to show the Exchequer house.(667) She sent
to the porter to send cards to all she visited: he replied, he
could easily do that, for his lady visited nobody but Lady Jane
Scott. As she has really neglected every body, many refusals
were returned. The Duchess of Bedford was not invited, and
made a little opposition-supper, which was foolish enough. As
the latter had refused to return my Lady Falmouth's visit, my
Lady Lincoln singled her out, visited and invited her. The
dignity of the assembly was great- Westminster Hall was
illuminated for chairs; the passage from it hung with green
baize and lamps, and matted. The cloister was the prettiest
sight in the world, lighted with lamps and Volterra vases. The
great apartment is magnificent. Sir Thomas Robinson the Long,
who you know is always propriety itself, told me how much the
house was improved since it was my brother's. The Duchess of
Norfolk gives a great ball next week to the Duke of Cumberland:
so you see that she does not expect the Pretender, at least
this fortnight. Last night, at my Lady Hervey's, Mrs. Dives
was expressing great panic about the French: my Lady Rochford,
looking down on her fan, said with great softness, "I don't
know, I don't think the French are a sort of people that women
need be afraid of." Adieu!

(664) Now first published.

(665) The Paddington or New Road, which the Duke of Bedford
opposed as making a dust behind Bedford House, and from some
intended buildings being likely to interrupt his prospect. The
Duke of Grafton warmly espoused the other side of the question.

(666) The Speaker of the Irish House of Commons.

(667) Lord Lincoln was at this time auditor of the
exchequer.-E.

316 Letter 178
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, April 16, 1756.

You wrong me very much in thinking I omit writing because I
don't hear from you as often as you have a mind I should: you
are kinder to me in that respect than I have reason,
considering your numerous occupations, to expect: the real and
whole truth is, that I have had nothing to tell you; for I
could not tire either you or myself with all the details
relating to this foolish road-bill, which has engrossed the
whole attention of every body lately. I have entered into it
less than any body. What will you say when you are told that
proxies have been sent for to Scotland? that my Lord Harrington
has been dragged into the House of Lords from his coffin, and
Lord Arran(668) carried thither to take the oaths, who I
believe has not appeared there since the Revolution? In short,
it has become quite a trial for power: and though the Dukes of
Grafton and Bedford have lent their names and their vehemence,
you will guess what has been the engine behind the curtain.

The French are so obliging as to wait till we have done with
these important squabbles: the House of Commons takes care too
not to draw off the attention of the nation. The Militia-bill
has passed through that solitude, but I hear will be stopped in
the House of Lords. I have lived lately in a round of great
disagreeable suppers, which you know are always called for my
Lady Yarmouth, as if the poor woman loved nothing but cramming:
I suppose it will so much become the etiquette, that in the
next reign there will be nothing but suppers for my Lord Bute.
I am now come hither to keep my Newmarket, but the weather is
cold and damp: it is uncertain whether the Duke makes that
campaign, or against the French. As the road-bill extinguished
the violence about the two operas of next year, and they made
the invasion forgot, and the invasion the earthquake, I
foresee--and I go almost upon as sure grounds as prophets that
take care to let the event precede the prediction-I foresee
that the Hanoverians will swallow up all: they have already a
general named, who ranks before any one of ours; and there are
to be two Hanoverian aide-de-camps!

You will hear by this post of the death of Sir William Lowther,
whose vast succession falls to Sir James, and makes him
Croesus: he may hire the Dukes of Bedford and Marlborough for
led captains. I am sorry for this young man, though I did not
know him; but it is hard to be cut off so young and so rich:
old rich men seldom deserve to live, but he did a thousand
generous acts. You will be diverted with a speech of Lord
Shelburne,(669) one of those second-rate fortunes who have not
above five-and-thirty thousand pounds a year. He says, every
body may attain some one point if they give all their attention
to it; for his part, he knows he has no great capacity, he
could not make a figure by his parts; he shall content himself
with being one of the richest men in England! I literally saw
him t'other day buying pictures for two-and-twenty shillings,
that I would not hang in my garret, while I, who certainly have
not made riches my sole point of view, was throwing away
guineas, and piquing myself for old tombstones against your
father-in-law the General.(670) I hope Lady Ailesbury will
forgive my zeal for Strawberry against Coombank! Are you never
to see your Strawberry Hill again'? Lord Duncannon flatters us
that we shall see you in May. If I did not hope it, I would
send you the only two new fashionable pieces; a comic
elegy(671) by Richard Owen Cambridge, and a wonderful book by a
more wonderful author, Greville.(672) It is called "Maxims and
Characters:" several of the former are pretty: all the latter
so absurd, that one in particular, which at the beginning you
take for the character of a man, turns out to be the character
of a postchaise.

You never tell me now any of Missy's bons-mots. I hope she has
not resided in Ireland till they are degenerated into bulls?
Adieu!

(668) Charles Butler, second son of Thomas, Earl of Ossory,
created Earl of Arran in 1693. At his death, in 1759, his
title became extinct.-E.

(669) John, fifth son of Thomas Fitzmaurice, first Earl of
Kerry. He inherited, pursuant to the will of his uncle, Henry
Petty, Earl of Shelburne, his lordship's opulent fortune, and
assumed his surname in 1751. He was created Earl of Shelburne
in the kingdom of Ireland; and, in 1760, was raised to the
dignity of a British peer, by the title Of Lord Wycombe. He
died in 1761.-E.

(670) General John Campbell, who, upon the death of Archibald
Duke of Argyle, succeeded to that title.

(671) An Elegy on an Empty Assembly-room.-E.

(672) Fulke Greville, Esq. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, in a
letter to her daughter, dated Louvere, Oct. 9, 1757, says, "We
have had many English here. Mr. Greville, his lady, and her
suite of adorers deserved particular notice: he was so good as
to present me with his curious book: since the days of the
Honourable Edward Howard, nothing has been published like it.
I told him the age wanted an Earl of Dorset to celebrate it
properly; and he was so well pleased with that speech, that he
visited me every day, to the great comfort of Madame, who was
entertained, meanwhile, with parties of pleasure of another
kind, though I fear I lost his esteem at last, by refusing to
correspond with him."-E.

318 Letter 179
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, April 18, 1756.

I wish I could send you accounts of your brother's amendment in
proportion to your impatience, and to my own: he does mend
certainly, but it is slowly: he takes the air every day, and
they talk of his riding, though I don't think him strong enough
yet to sit a horse; when he has rid a little he is to go to the
Bath. I wish it much; for though he is at Richmond, there is
no keeping him from doing too much business. Dr. Cocchi has
showed his usual sagacity: the case is pronounced entirely
asthmatic. As they have acquitted him of a consumption, I feel
easy, though the complaint he has is so uneasy to himself'.
You must not be discouraged by my accounts; for I see your
brother so very often, that it is not possible for me to
discern the progress of alteration in him.

YOU Will not believe how little we have thought of the French
lately! We are engaged in a civil war-not between St. James's
and Leicester House, but between the Dukes of Grafton and
Bedford, about a new turnpike-road on the back of the town: as
you may imagine, it grows politics; and if it is not
compromised during the recess, the French may march deep into
the kingdom before they become greater politics.

We think them not ready for Minorca, and that we shall be
prepared to receive them there. The Hessians are expected
immediately; and soon after them the Hanoverians; and soon
after them many jealousies and uneasinesses.

These are all the politics I can tell you; and I have as little
else to tell you. Poor Lady Drumlanrig(673) Whose lord
perished so unfortunately about a ear and a half ago, is dead
of a consumption from that shock; and Sir William Lowther, one
of the two heirs of old Sir James, died two days ago of a
fever. He was not above six-and-twenty, master of above twenty
thousand pounds a-year - sixteen of which comes to young Sir
James, who was equally rich: think what a fortune is here
assembled-will any Florentine believe this when reduced to
sequins or scudi?

I receive such packets of thanks of Lady Harry Beauclerc,
transmitted to her from Mr. Dick, that you must bear to have
some of them returned to you. I know you enough to believe
that you will be still better pleased with new trouble than
with my gratitude, therefore I will immediately flounce into
more recommendation; but while I do recommend, I must send a
bill of discount at the same time: in short, I have been
pressed to mention a Sir Robert Davers to you; but as I have
never seen him, I will not desire much more than your usual
civility for him; sure he may be content with that! I remember
Sir William Maynard,(674) and am cautious.

Since I began this, I receive yours of April 2d, full of
uneasiness for your brother's quicksilver and its effects. I
did not mention it to you, because, though it put him back, his
physicians were persuaded that he would not suffer, and he has
not. As to reasoning with them, my dear child, it is
impossible: I am more ignorant in physic than a child of six
years old; if it were not for reverence for Dr. Cocchi, and out
of gratitude to Dr. Pringle, who has been of such service to
your brother, I should say, I am as ignorant as a physician. I
am really so sensible of the good your brother has received
from this doctor, that I myself am arrived so far towards being
ill, that I now know, if I was to be ill, who should be my
physician. The weather has been so wet and cold that your
brother has received very little benefit from it: he talked to
me again this morning of riding but I don't yet think him able;
if you had seen him as I saw him the day I wrote my first
letter to you, you would be as happy as I am now: without that
I fear you would be shocked to see how he is emaciated; but his
eyes, his spirits, his attention, give me great hopes, though I
absolutely think it a tedious astigmatic case. Adieu! my dear
child; be in better spirits, and don't expect either sudden
amendment or worse change.

(673) Daughter of the Earl of Hopton.-E.

(674) Whom Mr. Walpole recommended to Sir H. Mann, to whom Sir
William, who was a Jacobite, behaved very impertinently.

319 Letter 180
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, April 20, 1756.

Your steward called on me just as I was going to keep my
Newmarket at Strawberry Hill; he promised to leave me the
direction to the statuary, but as I have not heard from him, I
wish you would send it me

The cold and the wet have driven me back to London, empty
London! where we are more afraid of the deluge than of the
invasion. The French are said to be sailed for Minorca, which
I hold to be a good omen of their not coming hither; for if
they took England, Port Mahon, I should think, would scarcely
hold out.

Pray don't die, like a country body, because it is a fashion
for gentlefolks to die in London; it li's the bon ton now to
die; one can't show one's face without being a death's-head.
Mrs. Bethel and I are come strangely into fashion; but true
critics in mode object to our having underjaws, and maintain
that we are not dead comme il faut. The young Lady Exeter(675)
died almost suddenly, and has handsomely confirmed her father's
will, by leaving her money to her lord only for his life, and
then to Thomas Townshend.(676) Sir William Lowther has made a
charming will, and been as generous at his death as he was in
his short life; he has left thirteen legacies of five thousand
pounds each to friends; of which you know by sight,
Reynolds,(677) Mrs. Brudenel's son, (678) and young Turner. He
has given seventeen hundred pounds a-year; that is, I suppose,
seventeen hundred Pounds, to old Mrs. Lowther.(679) What an
odd circumstance! a woman passing an hundred years to receive a
legacy from a man of twenty-seven; after her it goes to Lord
George Cavendish. Six hundred pounds per year he gives to
another Mrs. Lowther, to be divided afterwards between Lord
Frederick and Lord John. Lord Charles, his uncle, is residuary
legatee. But what do you think of young Mr. James Lowther, who
not of age becomes master of one or two and forty thousand
pounds a-year? England will become a heptarchy, the property of
six or seven people! The Duke of Bedford is fallen to be not
above the fourth rich man in the island.

Poor Lord Digby(680) is like to escape happily at last, after
being cut for the stone, and bearing the preparation and
execution with such heroism, that waking with the noise of the
surgeons, he asked if that was to be the day? "Yes."--"How
soon will they be ready?"--"Not for some time."--"Then let me
sleep till they are?" He was cut by a new instrument of
Hawkins, which reduces an age of torture to but one minute.

The Duke had appeared in form on the causeway in Hyde Park with
my lady Coventry: it is the new office, where all lovers are
entered. How happy she must be with Billy and Bully!(681) I
hope she will not mistake, and call the former by the nickname
of the latter. At a great supper t'other night at Lord
Hertford's, if she was not the best-humoured creature in the
world, I should have made her angry: she said in a very vulgar
accent, if she drank any more, she should be muckibus. "Lord!"
said Lady Mary Coke, "what is that?"-"Oh! it is Irish for
sentimental."

There is a new Morocco ambassador, who declares for Lady
Caroline Petersham, preferably to Lady Coventry. Lady Caroline
Fox says he is the best bred of all the foreign ministers, and
at one dinner said more obliging things than Mirepoix did
during his whole embassy. He is so fashionable, that George
Selwyn says he is sure my lady Winchelsea will ogle him instead
of Haslang.

I shall send you soon the fruits of my last party to
Strawberry; Dick Edgcumbe, George Selwyn, and Williams were
with me: we composed a coat of arms for the two clubs at
White's, which is actually engraving from a very pretty
painting of Edgcumbe, whom Mr. Chute, as Strawberry king at
arms, has appointed our chief herald painter; here is the
blazon:

Vert (for card-table,) between three -parolis proper on a
chevron table (for hazard-table) two rouleaus in saltire
between two dice proper: in a canton, sable, a white ball (for
election) argent.

Supporters. An old knave of clubs on the dexter; a young knave
on the sinister side; both accoutred proper.

Crest. Issuing out of an earl's coronet (Lord Darlington) an
arm shaking a dice-box, all proper.

Motto. (Alluding to the crest,) Cogit amor nummi. The arms
encircled by a claret bottle ticket, by way of order.

By the time I hope to see you at Strawberry Hill, there will be
a second volume of the Horatiana ready for the press; or a full
and true account of the bloody civil wars of the house of
Walpole, being a narrative of the unhappy differences between
Horatio and Horace Walpoles; in short, the old wretch, who
aspires to be one of the heptarchy, and who I think will live
as long as old Mrs. Lowther, has accomplished such a scene of
abominable avarice and dirt, that I, notwithstanding my desire
to veil the miscarriages of my race, have been obliged to drag
him and all his doings into light-but I won't anticipate.
Adieu!

(675)Daughter and heir of horatio, son of the first Viscount
Townshend.

(676) The Honourable Thomas Townshend, second son of Charles
second Viscount Townshend, member for the University of
Cambridge.-E.

(677) Francis Reynolds, of strangeways, Esq.-E.

(678) George Brudenel, Esq. afterwards member for Rutlandshire,
and equerry to George the Second.-E.

(679) Hannah, youngest daughter of alderman Lowther. She had
been maid of honour to Queens Mary and Anne, and died in 1757,
at the age of one hundred and three.-E.

(680) Edward sixth Lord Digby. he died in the following
year.-E.

(681) The Duke of cumberland and Lord Bolingbroke.-E.

321 Letter 181
To George Montagu, Esq.
May 12.

Don't imagine I write to you for any thing but form; there is
nothing like news, except the Prussian victories, which you see
in the papers: by next courier we expect he will send us at
least a leg or an arm of the Empress Queen.

Our domestic politics are far from settled. The King is gone
to Kensington, and when any ministry can be formed, it is to be
sent after him. The Parliament draggles on, till any two of
the factions can unite. I have not got my tickets yet, but
will certainly reserve what you want. Adieu!

322 Letter 182
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, May 16, 1756.

You will hear with great satisfaction that your brother rides
out every day, and bears it pretty well. I sent to him
yesterday morning, and my Swiss boy told me with great joy at
his return, that he saw your brother's servants cutting a plate
of bread and butter for him, big enough, said he, for you, Sir,
and Mr. Bentley, and Mr. Muntz--who is a Swiss painter that I
keep in the house--you perceive I deal much in Swiss. I saw
your brother this morning myself; he does not mend so fast as I
wish, but I still attribute it to the weather. I mentioned to
him Dr. Cocchi's desire of seeing his case and regimen in
writing by Dr. Pringle, but I found he did not care for it; and
you may imagine I would not press it. I sifted Dr. Pringle
himself, but he would not give me a positive answer: I fear he
still thinks that it is not totally an asthma. If you had seen
him so much worse, as I have, you would be tolerably comforted
now. Lord Malpas(682) saw him to-day for the first time, and
told me alone that he found him much better than he expected.
His spirits and attention to every thing are just as good as
ever, which was far from being the case three months ago.