Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2

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You have quite persuaded me of the mistake in Mindas; till you
mentioned it, I had forgot that they wrote Windsor "Windesore,"
and then by abbreviation the mistake was easy.

The account of Lord Clarendon is printed off; I do mention as
printed his account of Ireland, though I knew nothing of
Borlase. Apropos, Sir, are you not glad to see that the second
part of his history is actually advertised to come out soon
after Christmas?(962)

Lord Nottingham's letter I shall certainly mention.

I yesterday sent to Mr. Whiston a little piece that I have just
mentioned here, and desired him to convey it to you; you must
not expect a great deal from it: yet it belongs so much to my
Catalogue, that I thought it a duty to publish it. A better
return to some of your civilities is to inform you of Dr.
Jortin's Life of Erasmus, with which I am much entertained.
There are numberless anecdotes of men thought great in their
day, now as much forgotten, that it grows valuable again to
hear about them. The book is written with great moderation and
goodness of heart: the style is not very striking, and has some
vulgarisms, and In a work of that bulk I should rather have
taken more pains to digest and connect it into a flowing
narrative, than drily give it as a diary: yet I dare promise it
will amuse you much.

With your curiosity, Sir, and love of information, I am sure
you will be glad to hear of a most valuable treasure that I
have discovered; it is the collection of state papers,(963)
amassed by the two Lords Conway, that were secretaries of
state, and their family: vast numbers have been destroyed; yet
I came time enough to retrieve vast numbers, many, indeed, in a
deplorable condition. They were buried under lumber' upon the
pavement of an unfinished chapel, at Lord Hertford's in
Warwickshire, and during his minority, and the absence of his
father, an ignorant steward delivered them over to the oven and
kitchen, and yet had not been able to destroy them all. It is
a vast work to dry, range, and read them, and to burn the
useless, as bills, bonds, and every other kind of piece of
paper that ever came into a house, and were all jumbled and
matted together. I propose, by degrees, to print the most
curious; of which, I think, I have already selected enough to
form two little volumes of the size of my Catalogue. Yet I
will not give too great expectations about them, because I know
how often the public has been disappointed when they came to
see in print what in manuscript has appeared to the editor
wonderfully choice.

(960) We can hardly account for this expression, unless Mr.
Walpole alludes to Lord Cromerty's political reputation. Macky
states, that " his arbitrary proceedings had rendered him so
obnoxious to the people, he could not be employed;" and,
certainly, his character for consistency and integrity was not
very exalted: but almost all contemporary writers describe him
as a man of great weight and of singular endowments; and
Walpole himself, in his subsequent editions, calls him "a
person eminent for his learning, and for his abilities as a
statesman and general."-C.

(961) That Duke Humphrey had at least a relish for learning,
may be inferred from the following passage. At the close of a
fine manuscript in the Cotton collection (Nero E. v.) is "Origo
et processus gentis Scotorum, ae de superioritate Regum Angliae
super regnum illud." It once belonged to Humphrey Duke of
Gloucester, and has this Sentence in his own handwriting at the
end, "Cest livre est `a moy Homfrey Duc de Gloucestre, lequel
j'achetay des executeurs de maistre Thomas Polton, feu evesque
de Wurcestre." Bishop Polton died in 1436.-C.

(962) The second part of Lord Clarendon's history was printed
in folio, in 1760, and also in three volumes octavo.-C.

(963) The increased and increasing taste of the public for the
materials of history, such as these valuable papers supply,
will, we have reason to hope, be gratified by the approaching
appearance of this collection, publication of which was, we
see, contemplated even as long since as 1758.-C.

456 Letter 288
To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.
Arlington Street, Oct. 17, 1758.

Your ladyship, I hope, will not think that such a strange thing
as my own picture seems of consequence enough to me to write a
letter about it: but obeying your commands does seem so; lest
you should return and think I had neglected it, I must say that
I have come to town three several times on purpose, but Mr.
Ramsay (I will forgive him) has been constantly Out of town.
So much for that.

I would have sent you word that the King of Portugal coming
along the road at midnight, which was in his own room at noon,
his foot slipped, and three balls went through his body; which,
however, had no other consequence than giving him a stroke of a
palsy, of which he is quite recovered, except being dead.(964)
Some, indeed, are so malicious as to say, that the Jesuits, who
are the most conscientious men in the world, murdered him,
because he had an intrigue with another man's wife: but all
these histories I supposed your ladyship knew better than me,
as, till I came to town yesterday, I imagined you was returned.
For my own part, about whom you are sometimes so good as to
interest yourself, I am as well as can be expected after the
murder of a king and the death of a person of the next
consequence to a king, the master of the ceremonies, poor Sir
Clement,(965) who is supposed to have been suffocated by my
Lady Macclesfield's(966) kissing hands.

This will be a melancholy letter, for I have nothing to tell
your ladyship but tragical stories. Poor Dr. Shawe(967) being
sent for in great haste to Claremont--(It seems the Duchess had
caught a violent cold by a hair of her own whisker getting up
her nose and making her sneeze)--the poor Doctor, I say, having
eaten a few mushrooms before he set out, was taken so ill, that
he was forced to stop at Kingston; and, being carried to the
first apothecary's, prescribed a medicine for himself which
immediately cured him. This catastrophe so alarmed the Duke of
Newcastle, that he immediately ordered all the mushroom beds to
be destroyed, and even the toadstools in the park did not
escape scalping in this general massacre. What I tell you is
literally true. Mr. Stanley, who dined there last Sunday, and
is not partial against that court, heard the edict repeated,
and confirmed it to me last night. And a voice of lamentation
was heard at Ramah in Claremont, Chlo`e(968) weeping for her
mushrooms, and they are not!

After all these important histories, I would try to make you
smile, If I was not afraid you would resent a little freedom
taken with a great name. May I venture?

"Why Taylor the quack calls himself Chevalier,
'Tis not easy a reason to render;
Unless blinding eyes, that he thinks to make clear,
Demonstrates he's but a Pretender.

A book has been left at your ladyship's house; it is Lord
Whitworth's Account of Russia.(969) Monsieur Kniphausen has
promised me some curious anecdotes of the Czarina Catherine-so
my shop is likely to flourish. I am your ladyship's most
obedient servant.

(964) Alluding to the incoherent stories told at the time of
the assassination of the King of Portugal. [The following is
the correct account:--As the King was taking The air in his
coach on the 3d September, attended by only one domestic, he
was attacked in a solitary lane near Belem by three men, one of
whom discharged his carbine at the coachman, and wounded him
dangerously; the other two fired their blunderbusses at the
King, loaded with pieces of iron, and wounded him in the face
and several parts of his body, but chiefly in the right arm,
which disabled him for a long time.

(965) Sir Clement Cotterel.

(966) She had been a common woman.

(967) Physician to the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle.

(968) The Duke of Newcastle's cook.

(969) A small octavo printed at the Strawberry Hill press, to
which Walpole prefixed a preface. Charles Whitworth, in 1720,
created Baron Whitworth of Galway, was ambassador to the court
of petersburgh in the reign of Peter the Great. On his death,
in 1725, the title became extinct.-E.

457 Letter 289
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(970)
Arlington Street, Oct. 17, 1758.

I have read your letter, as you may believe, with the strictest
attention, and will tell you my thoughts as sincerely as you do
and have a right to expect them.

In the first place, I think you far from being under any
obligation for this notice. If Mr. Pitt is sensible that he
has used you very ill, is it the part of an honest man to
require new submissions, new supplications from the person he
has injured? If he thinks you proper to command, as one must
suppose by this information, is it patriotism that forbids him
to employ an able officer, unless that officer sues to be
employed? Does patriotism bid him send out a man that has had
a stroke of a palsy, preferable to a young man of vigour and
capacity, only because the latter has made' no Application
within these two months!--But as easily as I am inclined to
believe that your merit makes its way even through the cloud of
Mr. Pitt's proud prejudices, yet I own in the present case I
question it. I can see two reasons why he should wish to
entice you to this application: the first is, the clamour
against his giving all commands to young or improper officers
is extreme; Holmes, appointed admiral of the blue but six weeks
ago, has writ a warm letter on the chapter of subaltern
commanders: the second, and possibly connected in his mind with
the former, may be this; he would like to refuse you, and then
say, you had asked when it was too late; and at the same time
would have to say that he would have employed you if you had
asked sooner. This leads me to the point of time: Hobson is
not Only appointed,(971) but Haldane, though going governor to
Jamaica, is made a brigadier and joined to him,--Colonel
Barrington set out to Portsmouth last night. All these
reasons, I think, make it very improper for you to ask this
command now. You have done more than enough to satisfy your
honour, and will certainly have opportunities again of
repeating offers of your service. But though it may be right
to ask in general to serve, I question much if it is advisable
to petition for particulars, any failure in which would be
charged entirely on you. I should wish to have you vindicated
by the rashness of Mr. Pitt and the miscarriages of others, as
I think they hurry to -make you be; but while he bestows only
impracticable commands, knowing that, if there is blood enough
shed, the city of London will be content even with
disappointments, I hope you will not be sacrificed either to
the mob or the minister. And this leads me to the article of
the expedition itself. Martinico is the general notion; a
place the strongest in the world, with a garrison of ten
thousand men. Others now talk of Guadaloupe, almost as strong
and of much less consequence. Of both, every body that knows,
despairs. It is almost impossible for me to find out the real
destination.' I avoid every one of the three factions--and
though I might possibly learn the secret from the chief of one
of them, if he knows it, yet I own I do not care to try; I
don't think it fair to thrust myself into secrets with a man
(972) of whose ambition and views I do not think well, and
whose purposes (in those lights) I have declined and will
decline to serve. Besides, I have reason just now to think
that he and his court are meditating some attempt which may
throw us again into confusion; and I had rather not be told
what I am sure I shall not approve: besides, I cannot ask
secrets of this nature without hearing more with which I would
not be trusted, and which, if divulged, would be imputed to me.
I know you will excuse me for these reasons, especially as you
know how much I would do to serve you, and would even in this
case, if I was not convinced that it is too late for you to
apply; and being too late, they would be glad to say you had
asked too late. Besides if any information could be got from
the channel at which I have hinted, the Duke of Richmond could
get it better than I; and the Duke of Devonshire could give it
you without.

I can have no opinion of the expedition itself, which certainly
started from the disappointment at St. Cas, if it can be called
a disappointment where there was no object. I have still more
doubts on Lord Milton's authority; Clarke(973) was talked to by
the Princess yesterday much more than any body in the room.
Cunningham is made quartermaster-general to this equipment;
these things don't look as if your interest was increased. As
Lord George has sent over his commands for Cunningham, might
not his art at the same time have suggested some application to
you--tell me, do you think he would ask this command for
himself I, who am not of so honest and sincere a nature as you
are, suspect that this hint is sent to you with some bad view-I
don't mean on Lord Milton's part, who I dare say is deceived by
his readiness to serve you; and since you do me the honour of
letting me at all judge for you, which in one light I think I
am fit to do, I mean, as your spirit naturally makes you
overlook every thing to get employed, I would wish you to
answer to Lord Milton,,"that you should desire of all things to
have had this command, but that having been discouraged from
asking what you could not flatter yourself would be granted, it
would look, you think, a vain offer, to sue for what is now
given away, and would not be consistent with your honour to ask
when it is too late." I hint this, as such an answer would
turn their arts on themselves, if, as I believe, they mean to
refuse you, and to reproach you with asking too late.

If the time is come for Mr. Pitt to want you, you will not long
be unemployed; if it is not, then you would get nothing by
asking. Consider, too, how much more graceful a reparation of
your honour it will be, to have them forced to recall you, than
to force yourself on desperate service, as if you yourself, not
they, had injured your reputation.

I can say nothing now on any other chapter, this has so much
engrossed all my thoughts. I see no one reason upon earth for
your asking now. If you ever should ask again, you will not
want opportunities; and the next time you ask, will have just
the same merit that this could have, and by asking in time,
would be liable to none of the objections of that sort which I
have mentioned! Adieu! Timeo Lord George et dona.

(970) Now first printed.

(971) To the command of an expedition against Martinique.-E.

(972) Mr. Fox.

(973) Lord Bute says, in a letter to Mr. Pitt, of the 8th of
September, "With regard to Clarke, I know him well: he must be
joined to a general in whom he has confidence, or not thought
of. Never was man so cut out for bold and hardy enterprises;
but the person who commands him must think in the same way of
him, or the affair of Rochfort will return." Chatham
Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 350.-E.

459 Letter 290
To The Rev. Henry Zouch.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 21st, 1758.

Sir,
Every letter I receive from you is a new obligation, bringing
me new information; but, sure, my Catalogue was not worthy of
giving you so much trouble. Lord Fortescue is quite new to me:
I have sent him to the press. Lord Dorset's poem it will be
unnecessary to mention separately, as I have already said that
his works are to be found among those of the minor poets.

I don't wonder, Sir, that you prefer Lord Clarendon to
Polybius; nor can two authors well be more unlike: the
former(974) wrote a general history in a most obscure and
almost unintelligible style; the latter-, a portion of private
history, in the noblest style in the world. Whoever made the
comparison, I will do them the justice to believe that they
understood bad Greek better than their own language in its
elevation.

For Dr. Jortin's Erasmus, which I have very nearly finished, it
has given me a good opinion of the author, and he has given me
a very bad one of his subject. By the Doctor's labour and
impartiality, Erasmus appears a begging parasite, who had parts
enough to discover truth, and not courage enough to profess it:
whose vanity made him always writing; yet Ills writings ought
to have cured his vanity, as they were the most abject things
in the world. Good Erasmus's honest mean was alternate
time-serving. I never had thought much about him, and now
heartily despise him.

When I speak my opinion to you, Sir, about what I dare say you
care as little for as I do, (for what is the merit of a mere
man of letters?) it is but fit I should answer you as sincerely
on a question about which you are so good as to interest
yourself. that my father's life is likely to be written, I
have no grounds for believing. I mean I know nobody that
thinks of it. For myself, I certainly shall not, for many
reasons, which you must have the patience to hear. A reason to
me myself is, that I think too highly of him, and too meanly of
myself, to presume I am equal to the task. They who do not
agree with me in the former part of my position, will
undoubtedly allow the latter part. In the next place, the very
truths that I should relate would be so much imputed to
partiality, that he would lose of his due praise by the
suspicion of my prejudice. In the next place, I was born too
late in his life to be acquainted with him in the active part
of it. Then I was at school, at the university, abroad, and
returned not till the last moments of his administration. What
I know of him I could only learn from his own mouth in the last
three years of his life; when, to my shame, I was so idle, and
young, and thoughtless, that I by no means profited of his
leisure as I might have done; and, indeed, I have too much
impartiality in my nature to care, if I could, to give the
world a history, collected solely from the person himself of
whom I should write. With the utmost veneration for his truth,
I can easily conceive, that a man who had lived a life of
party, and who had undergone such persecution from party,
should have had greater bias than he himself could be sensible
of. The last, and that a reason which must be admitted, if all
the others are not--his papers are lost. Between the confusion
of his affairs, and the indifference of my elder brother to
things of that sort, they were either lost, burnt, or what we
rather think, were stolen by a favourite servant of my brother,
who proved a great rogue, and was dismissed in my brother's
life; and the papers were not discovered to be missing till
after my brother's death. Thus, Sir, I should want vouchers
for many things I could say of much importance. I have another
personal reason that discourages me from attempting this task,
or any other, besides the great reluctance that I have to being
a voluminous author. Though I am by no means the learned man
you are so good as to call me in compliment; though, on the
contrary, nothing can be more superficial than my knowledge, or
more trifling than my reading,--yet, I have so much strained my
eyes, that it is often painful to me to read even a newspaper
by daylight. In short, Sir, having led a very dissipated life,
in all the hurry of the world of pleasures scarce ever read,
but by candlelight, after I have come home late at nights. As
my eyes have never had the least inflammation or humour, I am
assured I may still recover them by care and repose. I own I
prefer my eyes to any thing I could ever read, much more to any
thing I could write. However, after all I have said, perhaps I
may now and then, by degrees, throw together some short
anecdotes of my father's private life and particular story, and
leave his public history to more proper and more able hands, if
such will undertake it. Before I finish on this chapter, I can
assure you he did forgive my Lord Bolingbroke(975)--his nature
was forgiving: after all was over, and he had nothing to fear
or disguise, I can say with truth, that there were not three
men of whom he ever dropped a word with rancour. What I meant
of the clergy not forgiving Lord Bolingbroke, alluded not to
his doctrines, but to the direct attack and war he made on the
whole body. And now, Sir, I will confess my own weakness to
you. I do not think so highly of that writer, as I seem to do
in my book; but I thought it would be imputed to prejudice in
me, if I appeared to undervalue an author of whom so many
persons of sense still think highly. My being Sir Robert
Walpole's son warped me to praise, instead of censuring, Lord
Bolingbroke. With regard to the Duke of Leeds, I think you
have misconstrued the decency of my expression. I said, Burnet
had treated him severely; that is, I chose that Burnet should
say so, rather than myself. I have never praised where my
heart condemned. Little attentions, perhaps, to worthy
descendants, were excusable in a work of so extensive a nature,
and that approached so near to these times. I may, perhaps,
have an opportunity at one day or other of showing you some
passages suppressed on these motives, which yet I do not intend
to destroy.

Crew, Bishop of Durham, was is abject a tool as possible. I
would be very certain he is an author before I should think him
worth mentioning. If ever you should touch on Lord
Willoughby's sermon, I should be obliged for a hint of it. I
actually have a printed copy of verses by his son, on the
marriage of the Princess Royal; but they are so ridiculously
unlike measure, and the man was so mad and so poor,(976) that I
determined not to mention them.

If these details, Sir, which I should have thought interesting
to no mortal but myself', should happen to amuse you, I shall
be glad; if they do not, you will learn not to question a man
who thinks it his duty to satisfy the curiosity of men of sense
and honour, and who, being of too little consequence to have
secrets, is not ambitious of the less consequence of appearing
to have any.

P. S. I must ask you one question, but to be answered entirely
at your leisure. I have a play in rhyme called Saul, said to
be written by a peer. I guess Lord Orrery. If ever you happen
to find out, be so good to tell me.

(974) It is evident that Mr. Walpole has here transposed,
contrary to his meanings the references to lord Clarendon and
Polybius: the latter wrote the general history, the former the
portion of history.-C.

(975) This alludes to an epigrammatic passage in the article
"Bolingbroke" in the Noble Authors. "He wrote against Sir
Robert Walpole, who did forgive him; and against the clergy,
who never will forgive him."@.

(976) this seems a singular reason for excluding him from a
list of authors@-C.

462 Letter 291
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Oct. 24, 1758.

I am a little sorry that my preface, like the show-cloth to a
sight, entertained you more than the bears it invited you in to
see. I don't mean that I am not glad to have written any thing
that meets your approbation, but if Lord Whitworth's work is
not better than my preface, I fear he has much less merit than
I thought he had.

Your complaint of your eyes makes me feel for you: mine have
been very weak again, and I am taking the bark, which did them
so much service last year. I don't know how to give up the
employment of them, I mean reading; for as to writing, I am
absolutely winding up my bottom, for twenty reasons. The
first, and perhaps the best, I have writ enough. The next; by
what I have writ, the world thinks I am not a fool, which was
just what I wished them to think, having always lived in terror
of that oracular saying Ermu naidex luchoi, which Mr. Bentley
translated with so much more parts than the vain and malicious
hero could have done that set him the task, --I mean his
father, the sons of heroes are loobies. My last reason is, I
find my little stock of reputation very troublesome, both to
maintain and to undergo the consequences--it has dipped me in
erudite correspondences--I receive letters every week that
compliment my learning; now, as there is nothing I hold so
cheap as a learned man, except an unlearned one, this title Is
insupportable to me; if' I have not a care, I shall be called
learned, till somebody abuses me for not being learned, as
they, not I, fancied I was. In short, I propose to have
nothing more to do with the world, but divert myself in it as
an obscure passenger--pleasure, virt`u, politics, and
literature, I have tried them all, and have had enough of them.
Content and tranquillity, with now and then a little of three
of them, that I may not grow morose, shall satisfy the rest of
a life that is to have much idleness, and I hope a little
goodness; for politics--a long adieu! With some of the Cardinal
de Retz's experience, though with none of his genius, I see the
folly of taking a violent part without any view, (I don't mean
to commend a violent part with a view, that is still worse;) I
leave the state to be scrambled for by Mazarine, at once
cowardly and enterprising, ostentatious, jealous, and false; by
Louvois, rash and dark; by Colbert, the affecter of national
interest, with designs not much better; and I leave the Abb`e
de la Rigbi`ere to sell the weak Duke of Orleans to whoever has
money to buy him, or would buy him to get money; at least these
are my present reflections--if I should change them to-morrow,
remember I am not only a human creature, but that I am I, that
is, one of the weakest of human creatures, and so sensible of
my fickleness that I am sometimes inclined to keep a diary of
my mind, as people do of the weather. To-day you see it
temperate, to-morrow it may again blow politics and be stormy;
for while I have so much quicksilver left, I fear my
passionometer will be susceptible of sudden changes. What do
years give one? Experience; experience, what? Reflections;
reflections, what? nothing that I ever could find--nor can I
well agree with Waller, that