Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2

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The Duke of Devonshire has at last resigned, for the
unaccountable and unenvied pleasure of shutting himself up at
Chatsworth with his ugly mad Duchess;(49) the more
extraordinary sacrifice, as he turned her head, rather than
give up a favourite match for his son. She has consented to
live with him there, and has even been with him in town for a
few days, but did not see either her son or Lady Harrington.
On his resignation he asked and obtained an English barony for
Lord Besborough, whose son Lord Duncannon, you know, married
the Duke's eldest daughter. I believe this is a great
disappointment to my uncle, who hoped he would ask the peerage
for him or Pigwiggin. The Duke of Marlborough succeeds as lord
steward. Adieu!

(46) Henry Lowther, third Viscount Lonsdale, of the first
creation. He was the second son of John, the first Viscount,
and succeeded his elder brother Richard in the title in 1713.
He was a lord of the bedchamber, and at one period of his life
was privy seal.-D.

(47) Madame de Mirepoix, French ambassadress in England, to
whom her father, Prince Craon, had written a letter of
introduction for Horace Walpole.- D.

(48) Count Richcourt, and some Florentines, his creatures, had
been very impertinent about Mr. Mann's family, which was very
good, and which made it necessary to have his pedigree drawn
out, and sent over to Florence.

(49) Coxe, in his Memoirs of Lord Walpole, vol ii. p. 264, says
that the Duke of Devonshire resigned, because be was disgusted
with the feuds in the cabinet, and perplexed with the jealous
disposition of Newcastle and the desponding spirit of Pelham.
He adds, " that the Duke was a man of sound judgment and
unbiased integrity, and that Sir Robert Walpole used to
declare, that, on a subject which required mature deliberation,
he would prefer his sentiments to those of any other person in
the kingdom."-E.

32 Letter 7
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, June 25, 1749.

Don't flatter yourself with your approaching year of jubilee;
its pomps and vanities will be nothing to the shows and
triumphs we have had, and are having. I talk like an
Englishman: here you know we imagine that a jubilee is a season
of pageants, not of devotion but our Sabbath has really been
all tilt and tournament. There have been, I think, no less
than eight masquerades, the fire-works, and a public act at
Oxford: to-morrow is an installation of six Knights of the Bath,
and in August of as many Garters: Saturday, Sunday,
and Monday next, are the banquets(50) at Cambridge, for the
instalment of the Duke of Newcastle as chancellor. The whole
world goes to it: he has invited, summoned, pressed the entire
body of nobility and gentry from all parts of England. His
cooks have been there these ten days, distilling essences of
every living creature, and massacring and confounding all the
species that Noah and Moses took such pains to preserve and
distinguish. It would be pleasant to see the pedants and
professors searching for etymologies of strange dishes, and
tracing more wonderful transformations than any in the
Metamorphoses. How miserably Horace's unde et quo Catius will
be hacked about in clumsy quotations! I have seen some that
will be very unwilling performers at the creation of this
ridiculous MaMaMOUChi.(51) I have set my heart on their giving
a doctor's degree to the Duchess of Newcastle's favourite--this
favourite is at present neither a lover nor an apothecary, but
a common pig, that she brought from Hanover: I am serious; and
Harry Vane, the new lord of the treasury, is entirely employed,
when he is not -,it the Board, in opening and shutting the door
for it. Tell me, don't you very often throw away my letters in
a passion, and believe that I invent the absurdities I relate!
Were not we as mad when you was in England?

The King, who has never dined out of his own palaces, has just
determined to dine at Claremont to-morrow--all the cooks are at
Cambridge; imagine the distress!

Last Thursday, the Monarch of my last paragraph gave away the
six vacant ribands; one to a Margrave of Anspach, a near
relation of the late Queen; others to the Dukes of leeds(52)
and Bedford, lords Albemarle and Granville: the last, you may
imagine gives some uneasiness. The Duke of Bedford has always
been unwilling to take one, having tied himself up in the days
of his patriotism to forfeit great sums if ever he did. The
King told him one day this winter, that he would give none away
but to him and to Anspach. This distinction struck him: he
could not refuse the honour; but he has endeavoured to waive
it, as one imagines, by a scruple he raised against the oath,
which obliges the knights, whenever they are within two miles
of Windsor, to go and offer. The King would not abolish the
oath, but has given a general dispensation for all breaches of
it, past, present, and to come. Lord Lincoln and Lord
Harrington are very unhappy at not being in the list. The
sixth riband is at last given to Prince George; the ministry
could not prevail for it till within half an hour of the
ceremony; then the Bishop of Salisbury was sent
to notify the gracious intention. The Prince was at Kew, so
the message was delivered to Prince George(53) himself. The
child, with great good sense, desired the Bishop to give his
duty and thanks, and to assure the King that he should always
obey him; but that, as his father was out of town, he could
send no other answer. Was not it clever? The design of not
giving one riband to the Prince's children had made great
noise; there was a Remembrancer(54) on that subject ready for
the press. This is the Craftsman of the present age, and is
generally levelled at the Duke,(55) and filled with very
circumstantial cases of his arbitrary behaviour. It has
absolutely written down Hawly, his favourite general and
executioner, who was to have been upon the staff.

Garrick is married to the famous Violette, first at a
Protestant, and then at a Roman Catholic chapel. The chapter
of this history is a little obscure and uncertain as to the
consent of the protecting Countess,(56) and whether she gives
her a fortune or not.

Adieu! I believe I tell you strange rhapsodies; but you must
consider that our follies are not only very extraordinary, but
are our business and employment; they enter into our politics,
nay, I think They are our politics(57)--and I don't know which
are the simplest. they are Tully's description of poetry,
"haec studia juventutem alunt, senectutem oblectant; pernoctant
nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur:" so if you will that I
write to you, you must be content with a detail of absurdities.
I could tell you of Lord Mountford's(58) making
cricket-matches, and fetching up parsons by express from
different parts of England to play matches on Richmond-green;
of his keeping aide-de-camps to ride to all parts to lay bets
for him at horse-races, and of twenty other peculiarities; but
I fancy you are tired: in short, you, who know me, will
comprehend all best when I tell you that I live in such a scene
of folly as makes me even think myself a creature of common
sense.

(50) Gray, in giving an account of the installation to his
friend Wharton, says, "Every one, while it lasted, was very gay
and very busy in the morning, and very owlish and very tipsy at
night. I make no exceptions, from the Chancellor to Blewcoat.
Mason's Ode was the only entertainment that had any tolerable
elegance, and for my own part, I think it (with some little
abatements) uncommonly well on such an occasion. Works, vol.
iii. p. 67.-E.

(51) See Moli`ere's Bourgeois Gentilhomme; in which the nouveau
riche is persuaded that the Grand Seigneur has made him a
mamamouchi, a knight of an imaginary order, and goes through
the ceremony of a mock installation.-E.

(52) Thomas Osborne, fourth Duke of Leeds.--D.

(53) Afterwards George the Third.-D.

(54) A weekly paper edited by Ralph. It was undertaken a short
time previous to the rebellion, to serve the purposes of Bubb
Doddington; in whose Diary Ralph is frequently mentioned with
especial approbation.--E.

(55) The Duke of Cumberland-D.

(56) Dorothy, Countess of Burlington. The Violette was a
German dancer, first at the Opera and then at the playhouse;
and in such favour at Burlington-house, that the tickets for
her benefits were designed by Kent, and engraved by Vertue. [In
the Gentleman's Magazine, the lady is stated to have brought
Garrick a fortune of ten thousand pounds.)

(57) This was frequently the case while the Duke of Newcastle
and Mr.-Pelham were ministers; it was true, that in the case of
the Violette just mentioned, one night that she had advertised
three dances and danced but two, Lord Bury and some young men
of fashion began a riot, and would have had her sent from
Burlington-House. It being feared that she would be hissed on
her next appearance, and Lord Hartington, the cherished of Mr.
Pelham, being son-in-law of Lady Burlington, the ministry were
in great agitation to secure a good reception for the Violette
from the audience, and the Duke was even desired to order Lord
Bury (one of his lords) not to hiss.

(58) Henry Bromley, first Lord Montfort, so created in 1741.
He died in 1755.-D.

35 Letter 8
To George Montagu, Esq.
Mistley, July 5, 1749.

Dear George,
I have this moment received your letter, and it makes me very
unhappy,. You will think me a brute for not having immediately
told you how glad I should be to see you and your sisters; but
I trust that you will have seen Mrs. Boscawen, by whom I sent
you a message to invite you to Strawberry Hill, when we should
be returned from Roel and Mistley. I own my message had rather
a cross air; but as you have retrieved all your crimes with me
by your letter, I have nothing to do but to make myself as well
with you as you are with me. Indeed I am extremely unlucky, but
I flatter myself that Messrs. Montagus will not drop their kind
intention, as it is not in my power to receive it now: they
will give me infinite pleasure by a visit. I stay there till
Monday se'nnight; will that be too late to see you before your
journey to Roel? You must all promise, at least, to be engaged
to me at my return. If the least impediment happens
afterwards, I shall conclude my brother has got you from me;
you know jealousy is the mark of my family.

Mr. Rigby makes you a thousand compliments, and wishes you
would ever think his Roel worth your seeing: you cannot imagine
how he has improved it! You have always heard me extravagant in
the praises of the situation. he has demolished all his
paternal intrenchments of walls and square gardens, opened
lawns, swelled out a bow-window, erected a portico, planted
groves, stifled ponds, and flounce himself with flowering
shrubs and Kent fences. You may imagine that I have a little
hand in all this. Since I came hither, I have projected a
colonnade to join his mansion to the offices, have been the
death of a tree that intercepted the view of the bridge, for
which, too, I have drawn a white rail, and shall be absolute
travelling Jupiter at Baucis and Philemon's; for I have
persuaded him to transform a cottage into a church, by exalting
a spire upon the end of it, as Talbot has done. By the way, I
have dined at the Vineyard.(59) I dare not trust you with what
I think, but I was a little disappointed. To-morrow we go to
the ruins of the Abbey of St. Osyth; it is the seat of the
Rochfords, but I never chose to go there while they were there.
You will probably hear from Mr. Lyttelton (if in any pause of
love he rests) that I am going to be first minister to the
Prince: in short, I have occasioned great speculation, and
diverted myself with the important mysteries that have been
alembicked out of a trifle. In short, he had seen my AEdes
Walpolianae at Sir Luke Schaub's, and sent by him to desire
one. I sent him one bound quite in coronation robes, and went
last Sunday to thank him for the honour. There were all the
new knights of the garter. After the prince had whispered
through every curl of lord Granville's periwig, he turned to me,
and said such a crowd of civil things that I did not know
what to answer; commended the style and the quotations; said I
had sent him back to his Livy; in short, that there were but
two things he disliked--one, that I had not given it to him of
my own accord, and the other, that I had abused his friend
Andrea del Sarto; and that he insisted, when I came to town
again, I should come and see two very fine ones that he has
lately bought of that master. This drew on a very long
conversation on painting, every word of which I suppose will be
reported at the other court as a plan of opposition for the
winter. Prince George was not there: when he went to receive
the riband, the Prince carried him to the closet door, where
the Duke of Dorset received and carried him. Ayscough,(60) or
Nugent. or some of the geniuses, had taught him a speech; the
child began it', the Prince cried "No, no!" When the boy had a
little recovered his fright, he began again; but the same
tremendous sounds were repeated, and the oration still-born.

I believe that soon I shall have a pleasanter tale to tell you;
it is said my Lady Anson, not content with the profusion of the
absurdities she utters, (by the way, one of her sayings, and
extremely in the style of Mr. Lyttelton's making love, was, as
she sat down to play at brag at the corner of a square table:
Lady Fitzwalter said she was sorry she had not better room; "O!
Madam," said my Lady Anson, "I can sit like a nightingale, with
my breast against a thorn;") in short, that, not content with
so much wit, she proposes to entertain the town to the tune of
Doctors' Commons. She does not mince her disappointments: here
is an epigram that has been made on the subject:-

"As Anson his voyage to my lady was reading,
And recounting his dangers--thank God she's not breeding!
He came to the passage, where, like the old Roman,
He stoutly withstood the temptation of woman;
The Baroness smiled; when continuing, he said,
"Think what terror must there fill the poor lover's head."
"Alack!" quoth my lady, "he had nothing to fear,
Were that Scipio as harmless as you are, my dear."

(59) Mr. Chute's.

(60) Francis Ayscough, Dean of Bristol, tutor to Prince
George.-E.

36 Letter 9
To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 20th, 1749.

I am returned to my Strawberry, and find it in such beauty,
that I shall be impatient till I see you and your sisters here.
They must excuse me if I don't marry for their reception; for
it is said the Drax's have impeached fifteen more damsels, and
till all the juries of matrons have finished their inquest, one
shall not care to make one's choice: I was going to say, "throw
one's handkerchief," but at present that term would be a little
equivocal.

As I came to town I was extremely entertained with some
excursions I made out of the road in search of antiquities. At
Layer Marney is a noble old remnant of the palace of the Lords
of Marney, with three very good tombs in the church well
preserved. At Messing I saw an extreme fine window of painted
glass in the church; it is the duties prescribed in the Gospel
of visiting the sick and prisoners, etc. I mistook, and
called it the seven deadly sins. There is a very old tomb of
Sir Robert Messing, that built the church. The hall-place is a
fragment of an old house belonging to Lord Grimston;(61) Lady
Luckyn his mother, of fourscore and six, lives in it with an
old son and daughter. The servant who showed it told us much
history of another brother that had been parson there: this
history was entirely composed of the anecdotes of the doctor's
drinking. who, as the man told us, had been a blood. There are
some Scotch arms taken from the rebels in the '15, and many old
coats of arms on glass brought from Newhall, which now belongs
to Olmius. Mr. Conyers bought a window(62) there for only a
hundred pounds, on which is painted Harry the Eighth and one of
his queens at full length: he has put it up at Copt-hall, a
seat which he has bought that belonged to Lord North and Grey.
You see I persevere in my heraldry. T'other day the parson of
Rigby's parish dined with us; he has conceived as high an
opinion of my skill in genealogies, as if I could say the first
chapter of Matthew by heart. Rigby drank my health to him, and
that I might come to be garter king at arms: the poor man
replied with great zeal, "I wish he may with all my heart."
Certainly, I am born to preferment; I gave an old woman a penny
once, who prayed that I might live to be lord mayor of London!
What pleased me most in my travels was Dr. Sayer's parsonage at
Witham, which, with Southcote's help, whose old Roman Catholic
father lives just by him, he has made one of the most charming
villas in England. There are sweet meadows falling down a
hill, and rising again on t'other side of the pretiest little
winding stream you ever saw. You did not at all surprise me
with the relation of the keeper's brutality to your family, or
of his master's to the dowager's handmaid. His savage temper
increases every day. George Boscawen is in a scrape with him
by a court-martial, of which he is one; it was appointed on a
young poor soldier, who to see his friends had counterfeited a
furlough only for a day. They ordered him two hundred lashes;
but Molkejunskoi, who loves blood like a leech, insisted it was
not enough-has made them sit three times (though every one
adheres to the first sentence,) and swears they shall sit these
six months till they increase the punishment. The fair Mrs.
Pitt has been mobbed in the Park, and with difficulty rescued
by some gentlemen, only because this bashaw is in love with
her. You heard, I suppose, of his other amour with the
Savoyard girl. He sent her to Windsor and offered her a hundred
pounds, which she refused because he was a heretic; he sent her
back on foot. Inclosed is a new print on this subject, which I
think has more humour than I almost ever saw in one of that sort.

Should I not condole with you upon the death of the head of the
Cues?(63) If' you have not heard his will, I will tell you.
The settled estate of eight thousand a year is to go between
the two daughters, out of which is a jointure of three thousand
a year to the Duchess-dowager, and to that he has added a
thousand more out of the unsettled estate, which is nine
thousand. He gives, together with his blessing, four thousand
per annum rent-charge to the Duchess of Manchester in present,
provided she will contest nothing with her sister, who is to
have all the rest, and the reversion of the whole after Lady
Cardigan and her children; but in case she disputes, Lady
Hinchinbrooke and hers are in the entail next to the Cardigans,
who are to take the Montagu name and livery. I don't know what
Mr. Hussey will think of the blessing, but they say his Duchess
will be inclined to mind it; she always wanted to be well with
her father, but hated her mother. There are two codicils, one
in favour of his servants, and the other of' his dogs, cats,
and creatures; which was a little unnecessary, for lady
Cardigan has exactly his turn for saving every thing's life.
As he was making the codicil, One of his cats jumped on his
knee; "What," says he, "have you a mind to be a witness too!
You can't, for you are a party concerned." Lord Stafford is
going to send his poor wife with one maid and one horse to a
farm-house in Shropshire for ever. The Mirepoix's are come;
but I have not yet seen them. A thousand compliments to your
sisters.

(61) Sir Samuel Grimston, Bart. left an heiress, who married
Sir Capel Luckyn, bart. Their son changed his name to
Grimston, and was created a baron and a Viscount.

(62) This window is now in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster.

(63) John, Duke of Montague.

38 letter 10
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, July 24, 1749.

You and Dr. Cocchi have made me ashamed with the civilities you
showed to my book-I hope it blushed!

You have seen the death of the Duke of Montagu(64) in all the
papers. His loss will be extremely felt! he paid no less than
2700 pounds a year in private pensions, which ought to be
known, to balance the immense history of his places; of which
he was perpetually obtaining new, and making the utmost of all:
he had quartered on the great wardrobe no less than thirty
nominal tailors and arras-workers. - This employment is to be
dropped; his others are not yet given away. My father had a
great opinion of his understanding, and at the beginning of the
war was most desirous of persuading him to be Generalissimo;
but the Duke was very diffident of himself, and, having seen
little service, would not accept it, In short, with some foibles,
he was a most amiable man, and one of the most feeling I ever
knew. His estate is 17,000 pounds a year; the Duchess of
Manchester must have four of it; all the rest he has given,
after four thousand a year to the Duchess-dowager shall fall
in, to his other daughter Lady Cardigan. Lord Vere
Beauclerc(65) has thrown his into the list of vacant
employments: he resigned his lordship of the admiralty on
Anson's being preferred to him for vice-admiral of England; but
what heightened the disgust, was Lord Vere's going to a party
to visit the docks with Sandwich and Anson, after this was
done, and yet they never mentioned it to him. It was not
possible to converse with them upon good terms every day
afterwards. You perceive our powers and places are in a very
fluctuating situation: the Prince will have a catalogue of
discontented ready to fill the whole civil list. My Lord
Chancellor was terrified the other day with a vision of such a
revolution; he saw Lord Bath kiss hands, and had like to have
dropped the seals with the agony of not knowing what it was
for--it was only for his going to Spa. However, as this is an
event which the Chancellor has never thought an impossible one,
he is daily making Christian preparation against it. He has
just married his other daughter to Sir John Heathcote's
son;(66) a Prince little inferior to Pigwiggin in person; and
procreated in a greater bed of money and avarice than Pigwiggin
himself: they say, there is a peerage already promised to him
by the title of Lord Normanton. The King has consented to give
two earldoms to replace the great families of Somerset and
Northumberland in their descendants; Lady Betty Smithson is to
have the latter title after the Duke of Somerset's death, and
Sir Charles Windham any other appellation he shall choose. You
know Lord Granville had got a grant of Northumberland for him,
but it was stopped. These two hang a little, by the Duke of
Somerset's wanting to have the earldom for his son-in-law,(67)
instead of his daughter.(68)

You ask me about the principles of the Methodists: I have tried
to learn them, and have read one of their books. The visible
part seems to be nothing but stricter practice than that of our
church, clothed in the old exploded cant of mystical devotion.
For example, you take a metaphor; we will say our passions are
weeds; you immediately drop every description of the passions,
and adopt every thing peculiar to weeds: in five minutes a true
Methodist will talk with the greatest compunction of hoeing--this
catches women of fashion and shopkeepers.

I have now a request to make to you: Mrs. Gibberne is extremely
desirous of having her son come to England for a short time.
There is a small estate left to the family, I think by the
uncle; his presence is absolutely necessary: however, the poor
woman is so happy in his situation with you, that she talks Of
giving up every thing rather than disoblige you by fetching him
to England. She has been so unfortunate as to lose a favourite
daughter ' that was just married greatly to a Lisbon merchant:
the girl was so divided in her affections, that she had a mind
not to have followed her husband to Portugal. Mrs. Leneve, to
comfort the poor woman, told her what a distress this would
have been either way: she was so struck with this position,
that she said, "Dear Madam, it is very lucky she died!"--and
since that, she has never cried, but for joy! Though it is
impossible not to smile at these awkward sensations of
unrefined nature, yet I am sure your good nature will agree
with me in giving the poor creature this satisfaction; and
therefore I beg it. Adieu!

(64) John, the last Duke of Montague, was knight of the garter,
great master of the order of the Bath, master of the great
wardrobe, Colonel of the Blues, etc. etc.

(65) Lord Vere Beauclerc, brother of the Duke of St. Albans,
afterwards created Lord Vere of Hanworth.

(66) Sir John Heathcote, Bart. of Normanton Park, in
Rutlandshire. He was the son of Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Lord
Mayor of London, who acquired a vast fortune, and was created a
baronet in 1733. Sir John's son, Sir Gilbert, the third
baronet, married to his first wife, Margaret, youngest daughter
of the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke.-D.