Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2

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"The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made."

Chinks I am afraid there are, but instead of new light, I find
nothing but darkness visible, that serves only to discover
sights of Wo. I look back through my chinks--I find errors,
follies, faults; forward, old age and death, pleasures fleeting
from me, no virtues succeeding to their place--il faut avouer,
I want all my quicksilver to make such a background receive any
other objects!

I am glad Mr. Frederick Montagu thinks so well of me as to be
sure I shall be glad to see him without an invitation. For
you, I had already perceived that you would not come to
Strawberry this year. Adieu!

463 Letter 292
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 24, 1758.

It is a very melancholy present I send you here, my dear Sir;
yet, considering the misfortune that has befallen us, perhaps
the most agreeable I could send you. You will not think it the
bitterest tear you have shed when you drop one over this plan
of an urn inscribed with the name of your dear brother, and
with the testimonial of my eternal affection to him! This
little monument is at last placed over the pew of your family
at Linton, and I doubt whether any tomb was ever erected that
spoke so much truth of the departed, and flowed from so much
sincere friendship in the living. The thought was my own,
adopted from the antique columbaria, and applied to Gothic.
The execution of the design was Mr. Bentley's, who alone, of
all mankind, could unite the grace of Grecian architecture and
the irregular lightness and solemnity of Gothic. Kent and many
of our builders sought this, but have never found it. Mr.
Chute, who has as much taste @s Mr. Bentley, thinks this little
sketch a perfect model. The soffite is more beautiful than any
thing of either style separate. There is a little error in the
inscription; it should be Horatius Walpole posuit. The urn is
of marble, richly polished; the rest of stone. On the whole, I
think there is simplicity and decency, with a degree of
ornament that destroys neither.

What do you say in Italy on the assassination of the King of
Portugal? Do you believe that Portuguese subjects lift their
hand against a monarch for gallantry? Do you believe that when
a slave murders an absolute prince, he goes a walking with his
wife the next morning and murders her too'! Do you believe the
dead King is alive? and that the Jesuits are as wrongfully
suspected of this assassination as they have been of many
others they have committed? If you do believe this, and all
this, you are not very near turning Protestants. It is scarce
talked of here, and to save trouble, we admit just what the
Portuguese minister is ordered to publish. The King of
Portugal murdered, throws us two hundred years back--the King
of Prussia not murdered, carries us two hundred years forward
again.

Another King, I know, has had a little blow: the Prince de
Soubise has beat some Isenbourgs and Obergs, and is going to be
Elector of Hanover this winter. There has been a great
sickness among our troops in the other German army; the Duke of
Marlborough has been in great danger, and some officers are
dead. Lord Frederick Cavendish is returned from France. He
confirms and adds to the amiable accounts we had received of
the Duc d'Aiguillon's behaviour to our prisoners. You
yourself, the pattern of attentions and tenderness, could not
refine on what he has done both in good-nature and
good-breeding: he even forbad any ringing of bells or
rejoicings wherever they passed--but how your representative
blood will curdle when you hear of the absurdity of one of your
countrymen: the night after the massacre at St. Cas, the Duc
d'Aiguillon gave a magnificent supper of eighty covers to our
prisoners--a Colonel Lambert got up at the bottom of the table,
and asking for a bumper, called out to the Duc, "My Lord Duke,
here's the Roy de France!" You must put all the English you
can crowd into the accent. My Lord Duke was so confounded at
this preposterous compliment, which it was impossible for him
to return, that he absolutely sank back into his chair and
could not utter a syllable: our own people did not scorn to
feel more.

You will read and hear that we have another expedition sailing,
somewhither in the West Indies. Hobson, the commander, has in
his whole life had but one stroke of a palsy, so possibly may
retain half of his understanding at least. There is great
tranquillity at home, but I should think not promising
duration. The disgust in the army on the late frantic measures
will furnish some warmth probably to Parliament--and if the
French should think of returning our visits, should you wonder?
There are even rumours of some stirring among your little
neighbours at Albano--keep your eye on them--if you could
discover any thing in time, it would do you great credit.
Apropos to them,, I will send you an epigram that I made the
other day on Mr. Chute's asking why Taylor the oculist called
himself Chevalier.

Why Taylor the quack calls himself Chevalier,
'Tis not easy a reason to render;
Unless he would own, what his practice makes clear,
That at best he is but a Pretender.

465 Letter 293
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 26, 1758.

How can you make me formal excuses for sending me a few covers
to frank? Have you so little right to any act of friendship
from me, that you should apologize for making me do what is
scarce any act at all? However, your man has not called for
the covers, although they have been ready this fortnight.

I shall be very glad to see your brother in town, but I cannot
quite take him in full of payment. I trust you will stay the
longer for coming the later. There is not a syllable of news.
The Parliament is met, but empty and totally oppositionless.
Your great Cu moved in the lords, but did not shine much. The
great Cu of all Cues is out of order, not in danger, but
certainly breaking.

My eyes are performing such a strict quarantine, that you must
excuse my brevity. Adieu.

465 Letter 294
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Nov. 27, 1758.

it seems strange that at this time of the year, with armies
still in the field and Parliaments in town, I should have had
nothing to tell you for above a month--yet so it was. The King
caught cold on coming to town, and was very ill,(977) but the
gout, which had never been at court above twice in his reign,
came, seized his foot a little, and has promised him at least
five or six years more--that is, if he will take care of
himself; but yesterday, the coldest day we have felt, he would
go into the drawing-room, as if he was fond of showing the new
stick @e is forced to walk with.

The Parliament is all harmony, and thinks of nothing but giving
away twelve more millions. Mr. Pitt made the most artful
speech he ever made: provoked, called for, defied objections;
promised enormous expense, demanded never to be judged by
events. Universal silence left him arbiter of his own terms.
In short, at present he is absolute master, and if he can coin
twenty millions may command them. He does every thing, the
Duke of Newcastle gives every thing. As long as they can agree
in this partition, they may do what they will.

We have been in great anxiety for twenty-four hours to learn
the fate of Dresden, and of the King of resources, as Mr.
Beckford called the King of Prussia the other day. We heard
that while he was galloped to raise the siege of Neiss, Marshal
Daun was advanced to Dresden; that Schmettau had sent to know
if he meant to attack it, having orders to burn the Fauxbourgs
and defend it street by street; that Daun not deigning a reply,
the Conflagration had been put in execution; that the King was
posting back, and Dohna advancing to join him. We expect to
hear either of the demolition of the city, or of a bloody
decision fought under the walls--an account is just arrived
that Daun(978) is retired, thus probably the campaign is
finished, and another year of massacre to come. One could not
but be anxious at such a crisis-one felt for Dresden, and
pitied the Prince Royal shut up in his own capital, a mere
spectator of its destruction; one trembled for the decisive
moment of the life of such a man as the King of Prussia. It is
put off--yet perhaps he will scarce recover so favourable a
moment. He had assembled his whole force, except a few
thousands left to check the Swedes. Next year this force must
be again parcelled out against Austrians, Russians, Swedes, and
possibly French. He must be more than a King Of resources if
he can for ever weather such tempests!

Knyphausen(979) diverted me yesterday with some anecdotes of
the Empress's college of chastity-not the Russian Empress's.
The King of Prussia asked some of his Austrian prisoners
whether their mistress consulted her college of chastity on the
letters she wrote (and he intercepted) to Madame Pompadour.

You have heard some time ago of the death of the Duke of
Marlborough.(980) The estate is forty-five thousand pounds
a-year--nine of which are jointured out. He paid but eighteen
thousand pounds a-year in joint lives. This Duke and the
estate save greatly by his death, as the present wants a year
of being of age, and would certainly have accommodated his
father in agreeing to sell and pay. Lord Edgcumbe(981) is dead
too, one of the honestest and most steady men in the world.

I was much diverted with your histories of our Princess(982)
and Madame de Woronzow. Such dignity as Madame de Craon's
wants a little absolute power to support it! Adieu! my dear
Sir.

(977) Lord Chesterfield, writing on the 21st to his son, says,
"The King has been ill; but his illness has terminated in a
good fit of the gout. It was generally thought he would have
died, and for a very good reason; for the oldest lion in the
Tower, much about the King's age, died about a fortnight ago.
This extravagancy, I can assure you, was believed by many above
people. So wild and capricious is the human mind!"-E.

(978) "The King of Prussia has just compelled Daun to raise the
siege of Dresden, in spite of his (the King's) late most
disastrous defeat by the same general at Bochkirchen, which had
taken place on the 14th of October, 1758.-D.

(979) The Prussian minister.

(980) Charles Spencer, second Duke of Marlborough. He died, on
the 28th of October at Munster, in Westphalia.-E.

(981) Richard, first Lord Edgcumbe; an intimate friend of Sir
Robert Walpole.

(982) The Princess Craon.

467 Letter 295
To The Rev. Henry Zouch.
Arlington Street, Dec. 9, 1758.

Sir,
I have desired Mr. Whiston to convey to you the second edition
of my Catalogue, not so complete as it might have been, if
great part had not been printed before I received your remarks,
but yet more correct than the first sketch with which I
troubled you. Indeed, a thing of this slight and idle nature
does not deserve to have much more pains employed upon it.

I am just undertaking an edition of Lucan, my friend Mr.
Bentley having in his possession his father's notes and
emendations on the first seven books. Perhaps a partiality for
the original author concurs a little. with this circumstance of
the notes, to make me fond of printing, at Strawberry Hill, the
works of a man who, alone of all the classics, was thought to
breathe too brave and honest a spirit for the perusal of the
Dauphin and the French. I don't think that a good or bad taste
in poetry is of so serious a nature, that I should be afraid of
owning too, that, with that great judge Corneille, and with
that, perhaps, no judge Heinsius, I prefer Lucan to Virgil. To
speak fairly, I prefer great sense to poetry with little sense.
There are hemistics in Lucan that go to one's soul and one's
heart;--for a mere epic poem, a fabulous tissue of
uninteresting battles that don't teach one even to fight, I
know nothing more tedious. The poetic images, the
versification and language of the Aeneid are delightful; but
take the story by itself, and can any thing be more silly and
unaffeCting? There are a few gods without power, heroes
without character, heaven-directed wars without justice,
inventions without probability, and a hero who betrays one
woman with a kingdom that he might have had, to force himself
upon another woman and another kingdom to which he had no
pretensions, and all this to show his obedience to the gods! In
short, I have always admired his numbers so much, and his
meaning so little, that I think I should like Virgil better if
I understood him less.

Have you seen, Sir, a book which has made some noise--Helvetius
de l'Esprit? The author is so good and moral a man, that I
grieve he should have published a system of as relaxed morality
as can well be imagined.-. 'tis a large quarto, and in general
a very superficial one. His philosophy may be new in France,
but is greatly exhausted here. He tries to imitate
Montesquieu, and has heaped commonplaces upon commonplaces,
which supply or overwhelm his reasoning; yet he has often wit,
happy allusion;, and sometimes writes finely: there is merit
enough to give an obscure man fame; flimsiness enough to
depreciate a great man. After his book was licensed, they
forced him to retract it by a most abject recantation. Then
why print this book? If zeal for his system pushed him to
propagate it, did not he consider that a recantation would hurt
his cause more than his arguments could support it.

We are promised Lord Clarendon in February from Oxford, though
I hear shall have the surreptitious edition from Holland much
sooner.

You see, Sir, I am a sceptic as well as Helvetius, but of a
more moderate complexion. There is no harm in telling mankind
that there is not so much divinity in the Aeneid as they
imagine; but, (Even if I thought so,) I would not preach that
virtue and friendship are mere names, and resolvable into
self-interest; because there are numbers that would remember
the grounds of the principle, and forget what was to be
engrafted on it. Adieu!

468 Letter 296
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, Christmas-day, 1758.

Adieu! my dear Sir--that is, adieu to our correspondence, for I
am neither dying nor quarrelling with you; but as we, Great-
Britons, are quarrelling with all Europe, I think very soon I
shall not be able to convey a letter to you, but by the way of
Africa, and am afraid the post-offices are not very well
regulated. In short, we are on the brink of a Dutch war too.
Their merchants are so enraged that we will not only not suffer
them to enrich themselves by carrying all the French trade, and
all kinds of military stores to the French settlements, but
that they lose their own ships into the bargain, that they are
ready to despatch the Princess Royal(983) into the other world
even before her time; if her death arrives soon, and she is
thought in great danger, it will be difficult for any body else
to keep the peace. Spain and Denmark are in little better
humour--well, if We have not as many lives as a cat or the King
of Prussia! However, our spirits do not droop; we are raising
thirteen millions, we look upon France as totally undone, and
that they have not above five loaves and a few small fishes
left; we intend to take all America from them next summer, and
then if Spain and Holland are not terrified, we shall be at
leisure to deal with them. Indeed, we are rather in a hurry to
do all this, because people may be weary of paying thirteen
millions; and besides it may grow decent for Mr. Pitt to visit
his gout, which this year he has been forced to send to the
Bath without him. I laugh, but seriously we are in a critical
situation; and it is as true, that if Mr. Pitt had not exerted
the spirit and activity that he has, we should ere now have
been past a critical situation. Such a war as ours carried on
by my Lord Hardwicke, with the dull dilatoriness of a Chancery
suit, would long ago have reduced us to what suits in Chancery
reduce most people! At present our unanimity is prodigious--
you Would as soon hear No from an old maid as from the House of
Commons--but I don't promise you that this tranquillity will
last.(984) One has known more ministries overturned of late
years by their own squabbles than by any assistance from
Parliaments.

Sir George Lee, formerly an heir-apparent(985) to the ministry
is dead. it was almost sudden, but he died with great
composure. Lord Arran(986) went off with equal philosophy. Of
the great house of Ormond there now remains only his sister,
Lady Emily Butler, a young heiress of ninety-nine.

It is with great pleasure I tell you that Mr. Conway is going
to Sluys to settle a cartel with the French. The commission
itself is honourable, but more pleasing as it re-establishes
him--I should say his merit re-establishes him. All the world
now acknowledges it--and the insufficiency of his
brother-generals makes it vain to oppress him any longer.

I am happy that you are pleased with the monument, and vain
that you like the Catalogue(987)--if it would not look too
vain, I would tell you that it was absolutely undertaken and
finished within five months. Indeed, the faults in the first
edition and the deficiencies show it was; I have just printed
another more correct.

Of the Pretender's family one never hears a word: unless our
Protestant brethren the Dutch meddle in their affairs, they
will be totally forgotten; we have too numerous a breed of our
own, to want Princes from Italy. The old Chevalier by your
account is likely to precede his rival, who with care may still
last a few years, though I think will scarce appear again out
of his own house.

I want to ask you if it is possible to get the royal edition of
the Antiquities of Herculaneum?(988) and I do not indeed want
you to get it for me unless I am to pay for it. Prince San
Severino has told the foreign ministers here that there are to
be twelve hundred volumes, of it--and they believe it. I
imagine the fact is, that there are but twelve hundred copies
printed. Could Cardinal Albani get it for me? I would send
him my Strawberry-editions, and the Birmingham-editions(988) in
exchange--things here much in fashion.

The night before I came from town, we heard of the fall of the
Cardinal de Bernis,(989) but not the cause of it(990)--if we
have a Dutch war, how many cardinals will fall in France and in
England, before you hear of these or I of the former! I have
always written to you with the greatest freedom, because I care
more that you should be informed of the state of your own
country, than what secretaries of state or their clerks think
of me,--but one must be more circumspect if the Dey of Algiers
is to open one's letters. Adieu!

(983) The Princess Dowager of Orange, eldest daughter of George
II.

(984) Lord Chesterfield, in a letter of the 15th, says, "The
estimates for the expenses of the year 1759 are made up. I
have seen them; and what do you think they amount to? No less
than twelve millions three hundred thousand pounds: a most
incredible sum, and its yet already all subscribed, and even
more offered! The unanimity in the House of Commons in voting
such a sum, and such forces, both by sea and land, is not less
astonishing. This is Mr. Pitt's doing, and it is marvellous in
our eyes."-E.

(985) Frederick, Prince of Wales, had designed, if he outlived
the King, to make Sir George Lee chancellor of the exchequer.

(986) He was Charles Butler, the second and last surviving son
of Thomas, Earl of Ossory, eldest son of the first Duke of
Ormond. He had been created, in 1693, Baron Clogligrenan,
Viscount Tullough, and Earl of Arran, in Ireland; and at the
same time Baron Butler of Weston, in the Peerage of England.
Dying without issue his titles became extinct.-D.

(987) The Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors.

(988) Editions printed with the Baskerville types.-D.

(989) The Cardinal de Bernis was a frivolous and incapable
minister, who was equally raised and overthrown by the
influence of the King of France's mistress, Madame de
Pompadour.-D.

(990) "Cardinal Bernis's disgrace," says Lord Chesterfield, "is
as sudden, and hitherto as little understood, as his elevation
was. I have seen his poems printed at Paris, not by a friend,
I dare say; and, to judge by them, I humbly conceive his
excellency is a puppy. I will say nothing of that excellent
headpiece that made him and unmade him in the same month,
except O King, live for ever!"-E.

470 Letter 297
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 26th, 1758.

it is so little extraordinary to find you doing what is
friendly and obliging, that one don't take half notice enough
of it. Can't you let Mr. Conway go to Sluys without taking
notice of it? How would you be hurt, if he continued to be
oppressed? what is it to you whether I am glad or sorry? Can't
you enjoy yourself whether I am happy or not'--'@ I suppose If
I were to have a misfortune, you would immediately be concerned
at it! How troublesome it is to have you sincere and
good-natured! Do be a little more like the rest of the world.

I have been at Strawberry these three days, and don't know a
tittle. The last thing I heard before I went was that Colonel
Yorke is to be married to one or both of the Miss Crasteyns,
nieces of the rich grocer that died three years ago. They have
two hundred and sixty thousand pounds apiece. A marchioness--
or a grocer---nothing comes amiss to the digestion of that
family.(991) If the rest of the trunk was filled with money, I
believe they would really marry Carafattatouadaht--what was the
lump of deformity called in the Persian Tales, that was sent to
the lady in a coffer? And as to marrying both the girls, it
would cost my Lord Hardwicke but a new marriage-bill: I suppose
it is all one to his conscience whether he prohibits matrimony
or licenses bigamy. Poor Sir Charles Williams is relapsed, and
strictly confined.

As you come so late, I trust you will stay with us the longer.
Adieu!

(991) Colonel Yorke, afterwards Lord Dover, married in 1783 the
Dowager Baroness de Boetzalaer, widow of the first noble of the
province of Holland.-E.

471 Letter 298
To The Rev. Henry Zouch.
Strawberry Hill, Jan. 12, 1759.

Sir,
I shall certainly be obliged to you for an account of that
piece of Lord Lonsdale:(992) besides my own curiosity in any
thing that relates to a work in which I have engaged so far, I
think it a duty to the public to perfect, as far as one can,
whatever one gives to it; and yet I do not think of another
edition; two thousand have peen printed, and though nine
hundred went off at once, it would be presumption in me to
expect that the rest will be sold in any short time. I only
mean to add occasionally to my private copy whatever more I can
collect and correct; and shall perhaps, but leave behind me
materials for a future edition, in which should be included
what I have hitherto omitted. Yet it is very vain in me to
expect that any body should care for such a trifle after the
novelty is worn off; I ought to be content with the favourable
reception I have found; so much beyond my first expectations,
that, except in two Magazines, not a word of censure has passed
on me in print. You may easily believe, Sir, that having
escaped a trial, I am not mortified by having dirt thrown at me
by children in the kennel. With regard to the story of Lord
Suffolk, I wish I had been lucky enough to have mentioned it to
you in time, it should not have appeared: yet it was told me by
Mr. Mallet, who did not seem to have any objection that I
should even mention his name as the very person to whom it
happened. I must suppose that Lord Suffolk acted that foolish
scene in imitation of Lord Rochester.(993)

I am happy, Sir, that I have both your approbation to my
opinion of Lucan, and to my edition of him; but I assure you
there will not be one word from me. I am sensible that it
demands great attention to write even one's own language well:
how can one pretend to purify a foreign language? to any merit
in a dead one? I would not alone undertake to correct the
press; but I am so lucky as to live in the strictest friendship
with Dr. Bentley's Only Son, Who, to all the ornament of
learning, has the amiable turn of mind, disposition, and easy
wit. Perhaps you have heard that his drawings and architecture
are admirable,--perhaps you have not: he is modest--he is poor-
-he is consequently little known, less valued.

I am entirely ignorant of Dr. Burton and his Monasticon,(994)
and after the little merit you tell me it has, I must explain
to you that I have a collection of books of that sort, before I
own that I wish to own it; at the same time, I must do so much
justice to myself as to protest that I don't know so
contemptible a class of writers as topographers, not from the
study itself, but from their wretched execution. Often and
often I have had an inclination to show how topography should
be writ, by pointing out the curious particulars of places,
with descriptions of principal houses, the pictures, portraits,
and Curiosities they contain.