Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2

H >> Horace Walpole >> The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61

But, indeed, Sir, I am now making you only civil excuses; the
real one is, I have no kind of intention of continuing to
write. I could not expect to succeed again with so much
luck,--indeed, I think it so,--as I have done; it Would mortify
me more now, after a little success, to be despised, than it
would have done before; and if I could please as much as I
should wish to do, I think one should dread being a voluminous
author. My own idleness, too, bids me desist. If I continued,
I should certainly take more pains than I did in my Catalogue;
the trouble would not only be more than I care to encounter,
but would probably destroy what I believe the only merit of my
last work, the ease. If I could incite you to tread in steps
which I perceive you don't condemn, and for which it is evident
you are so well qualified, from your knowledge, the grace,
facility, and humour of your expression and manner, I shall
have done a real service, where I expected at best to amuse.

(1042) Now first collected.

(1043) Walter Goodall, librarian of the Advocates' Library,
Edinburgh. He was warmly devoted to Mary Queen of Scots, and
in 1754, published an Examination of the letters said to be
written by Mary to the Earl of Bothwell, in which he
endeavoured to prove them to be forgeries.-E.

(1044) Robert, the third King of Scotland, from the imputation
of bastardy.-E.

499 Letter 324
To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 19, 1759.

Well, I begin to expect you; you must not forget the first of
August. If we do but look as well as we do at present, you
will own Strawberry is still in its bloom. With English
verdure, we have had an Italian summer, and

Whatever sweets Sabaean springs disclose,
Our Indian jasmin, and the Persian rose.

I am forced to talk of Strawberry, lest I should weary you with
what every body wearies me, the French and the militia. They,
I mean the latter only, not the former, passed just by us
yesterday, and though it was my own clan, I had not the
curiosity to go and see them. The crowds in Hyde Park, when
the King reviewed them, were unimaginable. My Lord Orford,
their colonel, I hear, looked gloriously martial and genteel,
and I believe it;(1045) his person and air have a noble
wildness in them; the regiments, too, are very becoming,
scarlet faced with black, buff waistcoats, and gold buttons.
How knights of shires, who have never shot any thing but
woodcocks, like this warfare, I don't know; but the towns
through which they pass adore them; every where they are
treated and regaled. The Prince of Wales followed them to
Kingston, and gave fifty guineas among the private men.

I expect some anecdotes from you of the coronation at Oxford; I
hear my Lord Westmoreland's own retinue was all be-James'd with
true-blue ribands; and that because Sir William Calvert, who
was a fellow of a college, and happened to be Lord Mayor,
attended the Duke of Newcastle at his inthronization, they
dragged down the present Lord Mayor to Oxford, who is only a
dry-salter.

I have your Butler's posthumous works.(1046) The poetry is
most uncouth and incorrect, but with infinite wit; especially
one thing on plagiaries is equal to any thirty in Hudibras.
Have you read my Lord Clarendon's? I am enchanted with it; 'tis
very incorrect, but I think more entertaining than his History.
It makes me quite out of humour with other memoirs. Adieu!

(1045) Mr. Pitt, in a letter of this day, to Lady Hester, says,
"Nothing could make a better appearance than the two Norfolk
battalions. Lord Orford, with the port of Mars himself, and
really the genteelest figure under arms I ever saw, was the
theme of every tongue." Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p.
4.-E.

(1046) "The Genuine Remains, in prose and verse, of Samuel
Butler; with notes by R. Thyer." A very pleasant review of
this work, by Oliver Goldsmith, will be found in the fourth
volume of Mr. Murray's enlarged edition of his Miscellaneous
Works.-E.

500 Letter 325
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, July 26, 1759.

I am dying in a hot street, with my eyes full of dust, and my
table full of letters to be answered--yet I must write you a
line. I am sorry your first of Augustness is disordered; I'll
tell you why. I go to Ragley on the twelfth. There is to be a
great party at loo for the Duchess of Grafton, and thence they
adjourn to the Warwick races. I have been engaged so long to
this, that I cannot put it off; besides, I am under
appointments at George Selwyn's, etc. afterwards. If you
cannot come before all this to let me have enough of your
company, I should wish you to postpone it to the first of
September, when I shall be at leisure for ten or twelve days,
and could go with you from Strawberry to the Vine; but I could
like to know certainly, for as I never make any of my visits
while Strawberry is in bloom, I am a little crowded with them
at the end of the season.

I came this morning in all this torrent of heat from Lord
Waldegrave's at Navestock. It is a dull place, though it does
not want prospect backwards. The garden is small, consisting
of two French all`ees of old limes, that are comfortable, two
groves that are not so, and a green canal; there is besides a
paddock. The house was built by his father, and ill finished,
but an air seigneurial in the furniture; French glasses in
quantities, handsome commodes, tables, screens, etc. goodish
pictures in rich frames, and a deal of noblesse `a la St.
Germain--James the Second, Charles the Second, the Duke of
Berwick, her Grace of Buckingham, the Queen Dowager in the
dress she visited Madame Maintenon, her daughter the Princess
Louisa, a Lady Gerard that died at Joppa, returning from a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and above all La Goqfrey, and not at
all ugly, Though she does not show her thighs. All this is
leavened with the late King, the present King, and Queen
Caroline. I shall take care to sprinkle a little unholy water
from our well.

I am very sorry you have been so ill; take care of yourself.
there are wicked sore-throats in vogue; poor Lady Essex and
Mrs. Charles Yorke died of them in an instant.

Do let me have a line, and do fix a day; for instead of keeping
me at home one by fixing it, you will keep me there five or six
days by not fixing it. Adieu!

501 letter 326
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, August 1, 1759.

I have received your two letters about the watch, the first
came with surprising celerity. I wish, when the watch is
finished, I may be able to convey it to you with equal
expedition.

Nothing is talked of here, as you may imagine, but the
invasion--yet I don't grow more credulous. Their ridiculous
lists of fifty thousand men don't contribute to frighten me--
nay, though they specify the numbers of apothecaries and
chaplains that are to attend. Fifty thousand men cannot easily
steal a march over the sea. Sir Edward Hawke will take care of
them till winter, and by that time we shall have a great force
at land. The very militia is considerable: the spirit, or at
least the fashion of it, catches every day. We are growing
such ancient Britons, that I don't know whether I must not
mount some popguns upon the battlements of my castle, lest I
should not be thought hero enough in these West-Saxon times.
Lord Pulteney has done handsomely, and what is more surprising,
so has his father. The former has offered to raise a regiment,
and to be only lieutenant-colonel, provided the command is
given to a Colonel Crawford, an old soldier, long postponed--
Lord Bath is at the expense, which will be five thousand
pounds. All the country squires are in regimentals --a
pedestal is making for little Lord Mountford, that he may be
placed at the head of the Cambridgeshire militia. In short, we
have two sorts of armies, and I hope neither will be
necessary--what the consequences of this militia may be
hereafter, I don't know. Indifferent I think it cannot be. A
great force upon an old plan, exploded since modern
improvements, must make some confusion. If they do not become
ridiculous, which the real officers are disposed to make them,
the crown or the disaffected will draw considerable
consequences, I think, from an establishment popular by being
constitutional, and of great weight from the property it will
contain.

If the French pursue their vivacity in Germany, they will send
us more defenders; our eight thousand men there seem of very
little use. Both sides seem in all parts weary of the war; at
least are grown so cautious, that a battle will be as great a
curiosity in a campaign as in the midst of peace. For the
Russians, they quite make one smile; they hover every summer
over the north of Germany, get cut to pieces by September,
disappear, have a general disgraced, and in winter out comes a
memorial of the Czarina's steadiness to her engagements, and of
the mighty things she will do in spring. The Swedes follow
them like Sancho Panza, and are rejoiced at not being bound by
the laws of chivalry to be thrashed too.

We have an evil that threatens us more nearly than the French.
The heat of the weather has produced a contagious sore-throat
in London. Mr. Yorke, the solicitor-general, has lost his
wife, his daughter, and a servant. The young Lady Essex(1047)
died of it in two days. Two servants are dead in
Newcastle-house, and the Duke has left it; any body else would
be pitied, but his terrors are sure of being a joke.(1048) My
niece, Lady Waldegrave, has done her part for repairing this
calamity, and is breeding.

Your Lord Northampton has not acted a much more gallant part by
his new mistress than by his fair one at Florence. When it was
all agreed, he refused to marry unless she had eighteen
thousand pounds. Eight were wanting. It looked as if he was
more attached to his old flame than to his new one; but her
uncle, Norborne Berkeley,(1049) has nobly made up the
deficiency.

I told Mr. Fox of the wine that is coming, and he told me what
I had totally forgot, that he has left off Florence, and
chooses to have no more. He will take this parcel, but you
need not trouble yourself again. Adieu! my dear Sir, don't let
Marshal Botta terrify you: when the French dare not stir out of
any port they have, it will be extraordinary if they venture to
come into the heart of us.

(1047) Frances, eldest daughter of Sir Charles Hanbury
Williams. See ant`e, p. 216, letter 108.-E.

(1048) "I have heard the Duke of Newcastle is much broke ever
since his sister Castlecorner died; not that he cared for her,
or saw her above once a year: but she was the last of the brood
that was left; and he now goes regularly to church, which he
never did before." Gray, Works, vol. iii. p. 218.-E.

(1049) Brother of the Duchess of Beaufort, mother of Lady Anne
Somerset, whom Lord Northampton did marry. (Norborne Berkeley
afterwards established his claim to the ancient barony of
Botetourt.-D.)

502 Letter 327
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Aug. 8, 1759.

If any body admires expedition, they should address themselves
to you and me, who order watches, negotiate about them by
couriers, and have them finished, with as little trouble as if
we had nothing to do, but, like the men of business in the
Arabian tales, rub a dark lantern, a genie appears, one
bespeaks a bauble worth two or three Indies, and finds it upon
one's table the next morning at breakfast. The watch was
actually finished, and delivered to your brother yesterday. I
trust to our good luck for finding quick conveyance. I did
send to the White@horse cellar here in Piccadilly, whence all
the stage-coaches set out, but there was never a genie booted
and spurred, and going to Florence on a sunbeam. If you are
not charmed with the watch, never deal with us devils any more.
If any thing a quarter so pretty was found in Herculaneum, One
should admire Roman enamellers more than their Scipios and
Caesars. The device of the second seal I stole; it is old, but
uncommon; a Cupid standing on two joined hands over the sea; si
la foy manque, l'amour perira--I hope for the honour of the
device. it will arrive before half the honeymoon is over!--But,
alack! I forget the material point; Mr. Deard, who has forty
times more virtue than if he had been taken from the plough to
be colonel of the militia, instead of one hundred and sixteen
pounds to which I pinned him down, to avoid guineas, will
positively take but one hundred and ten pounds. I did all I
could to corrupt him with six more, but he is immaculate--and
when our posterity is abominably bad, as all posterity always
is till it grows one's ancestors, I hope Mr. Deard's integrity
will be quoted to them as an instance of the virtues that
adorned the simple and barbarous age of George the Second. Oh!
I can tell you the age of George the Second is likely to be
celebrated for more primitivity than the disinterestedness of
Mr. Deard-here is such a victory come over that--it can't get
over. Mr. Yorke has sent word that a Captain Ligonier is
coming from Prince Ferdinand to tell us that his Serene
Highness has beaten Monsieur Contades to such a degree, that
every house in London is illuminated, every street has two
bonfires, every bonfire has two hundred squibs, and the poor
charming moon yonder, that never looked so well in her life, is
not at all minded, but seems only staring out of a garret
window at the frantic doings all over the town.(1050) We don't
know a single particular, but we conclude that Prince Ferdinand
received all his directions from my Lord Granby, who is the
mob's hero. We are a little afraid, if we could fear any thing
to-night, that the defeat of the Russians by General Weidel was
a mistake for this victory of Prince Ferdinand. Pray Heaven!
neither of these glories be turned sour, by staying so long at
sea! You said in your last, what slaughter must be committed
by the end of August! Alas! my dear Sir, so there is by the
beginning of it; and we, wretched creatures, are forced to be
glad of it, because the greatest part falls on our enemies.

Fifteen hundred men have stolen from Dunkirk, and are said to
be sailed northward--some think, to Embden--too poor a pittance
surely where they thought themselves so superior, unless they
meaned to hinder our receiving our own troops from thence--as
paltry, too, if this is their invasion--but if to Scotland, not
quite a joke. However, Prince Ferdinand seems to have found
employment for the rest of their troops, and Monsieur de Botta
will not talk to you in so high a style.

D'Aubreu, the pert Spanish minister, said the other day at
court to poor Alt, the Hessian, "Monsieur, je vous f`elicite;
Munster est pris." Mr. Pitt, who overheard this cruel
apostrophe, called out, "Et moi, Monsieur Alt, Je vous
f`elicite; les Russes sont battus."

I am here in town almost every day; Mrs. Leneve, who has long
lived with my father, and with me, is at the point of death;
she is seventy-three, and has passed twenty-four of them in
continual ill health; so I can but wish her released. Her long
friendship with our family makes this attention a duty;
otherwise I should certainly not be in town this most gorgeous
of all summers! I should like to know in how many letters this
wonderful summer has been talked of.

It is above two years, I think, since you sent home any of my
letters--will you by any convenient opportunity?

Adieu! There is great impatience, as you may believe, to learn
the welfare of our young lords and heroes--there are the Duke
of Richmond, Lord Granby, Lord George Sackville, Lord Downe,
Fitzroy, General Waldegrave, and others of rank.

(1050) "I have the joy to tell you," writes Mr. Pitt, on the
6th, to Lady Hester, "that our happy victory ne fait que
croitre et embellir: by letters come this day, the hereditary
Prince, with his troops, had passed the Weser, and attacked,
with part of them, a body of six thousand French, defeated it,
took many prisoners, some trophies and
cannon: M. de Contades's baggage, coaches, mules, letters, and
correspondences have fallen into our hands. Words in letters
say, 'qu'on se lasse de prendre des prisoniers.'" Chatham
Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 8.-E.

504 Letter 328
To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 9, 1759.

Unless your Colonel Johnson is a man of no note, he is well.
for we have not lost one officer of any note--now will you
conclude that we are beaten, and will be crying and roaring all
night for Hanover. Lord! where do you live? If you had any
ears, as I have none left with the noise, you would have heard
the racket that was made from morning till night yesterday on
the news of the victory(1051) gained by Prince Ferdinand over
the French. He has not left so many alive as there are at any
periwig-maker's in London. This is all we know, the
particulars are to come at their leisure, and with all the
gravity due to their importance. If the King's heart were not
entirely English, I believe he would be complimented with the
title of Germanicus from the name of the country where this
great event happened; for we don't at all know the precise
spot, nor has the battle yet been christened--all that is
certain is, that the poor Duke(1052) is neither father nor
godfather.

I was sent for to town yesterday, as Mrs. Leneve was at the
point of death: but she has had a surprising change, and may
linger on still. I found the town distracted, and at night it
was beautiful beyond description. As the weather was so hot,
every window was open, and all the rails illuminated; every
street had one or two bonfires, the moon was in all its glory,
the very middle of the streets crowded with officers and people
of fashion talking of the news. Every squib in town got drunk,
and rioted about the streets till morning. Two of our
regiments are said to have suffered much, of which Napier's
most. Adieu! If you should be over-English with this, there is
a party of one thousand five hundred men stolen out of Dunkirk,
that some weeks hence may bring you to your senses again,
provided they are properly planted and watered in Scotland.

(1051) At the battle of Minden.

(1052) Duke of Cumberland.

505 Letter 329
To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, Thursday, 3 o'clock, August 9, 1759.

My dear lord,
Lord Granby has entirely defeated the French!--The foreign
gazettes, I suppose, will give this victory to Prince
Ferdinand: but the mob of London, whom I have this minute left,
and who must know best, assure me that it is all their own
Marquis's doing. Mr. Yorke(1053) was the first to send this
news, "to be laid with himself and all humility at his
Majesty's feet",(1054) about eleven o'clock yesterday morning.
At five this morning came Captain Ligonier, who was despatched
in such a hurry that he had not time to pack up any particulars
in his portmanteau: those we are expecting with our own army,
who we conclude are now at Paris, and will be tomorrow night at
Amiens. All we know is, that not one Englishman is killed, nor
one Frenchman left alive. If you should chance to meet a
bloody wagon-load of heads, you will be sure that it is the
part of the spoils that came to Downe's share, and going to be
hung up in the great hall at Cowick.(1055)

We have a vast deal of other good news; but as not one word of
it is true, I thought you would be content with this victory.
His Majesty is in high spirits, and is to make -,a triumphal
entry into Hanover on Tuesday fortnight. I envy you the
illuminations and rejoicings that will be made at Worksop on
this occasion.

Four days ago we had a great victory over the Russians; but in
the hurry of this triumph it has somehow or other been mislaid,
and nobody can tell where to find it:--however, it is not given
over for lost.

Adieu, my dear lord! As I have been so circumstantial in the
account of this battle, I will not tire you with any thing
else. My compliments to the lady of the menagerie. I see your
new offices rise(1056) every day in a very respectable manner.

(1053) Afterwards Lord Dover,, then Minister at the Hague.

(1054) The words of his despatch.

(1055) Lord Downe's seat in Yorkshire.

(1056) At Lord Strafford's house at Twickenham.

506 Letter 330
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(1057)
Arlington Street, Aug. 14, 1759.

I am here in the most unpleasant way in the world, attending
poor Mrs. Leneve's deathbed, a spectator of all the horrors of
tedious suffering and clear sense, and with no one soul to
speak to-but I will not tire you with a description of what has
quite worn me out.

Probably by this time you have seen the Duke of Richmond or
Fitzroy--but lest you should not, I will tell you all I can
learn, and a wonderful history it is. Admiral Byng was not
more unpopular than Lord George Sackville. I should scruple
repeating his story, if Betty(1058) and the waiters at Arthur's
did not talk of it publicly, and thrust Prince Ferdinand's
orders into one's hand.

You have heard, I suppose, of the violent animosities that have
reigned for the whole campaign between him and Lord Granby--in
which some other warm persons have been very warm too. In the
heat of the battle, the Prince, finding thirty-six squadrons of
French coming down upon our army, sent Ligonier to order our
thirty-two squadrons, under Lord George to advance. During
that transaction, the French appeared to waver; and Prince
Ferdinand, willing, as it is supposed, to give the honour to
the British horse of terminating the day, sent Fitzroy to bid
Lord George bring up only the British cavalry. Ligonier had
but just delivered his message, when Fitzroy came with his.-
-Lord George said, "This can't be so--would he have me break
the line? here is some mistake." Fitzroy replied, he had not
argued upon the orders, but those were the orders. "Well!" said
Lord George, "but I want a guide." Fitzroy said, he would be
his guide. Lord George, "Where is the Prince?" Fitzroy, "I
left him at the head of the left wing, I don't know where he is
now." Lord George said he would go seek him, and have this
explained. Smith then asked Fitzroy, to repeat the orders to
him; which being done, Smith went and whispered Lord George,
who says he then bid Smith carry up the cavalry: Smith is come,
and says he is ready to answer any body any question. Lord
George says, Prince Ferdinand's behaviour to him has been most
infamous, has asked leave to resign his command, and to come
over, which is granted., Prince Ferdinand's behaviour is summed
up in the enclosed extraordinary paper; which you will doubt as
I did, but which is certainly genuine. I doubted, because, in
the military, I thought direct disobedience of orders was
punished with an immediate -arrest, and because the last
paragraph seemed to me very foolish. The going Out Of the way
to compliment Lord Granby with what he would have done, seems
to take off a little from the compliments paid to those that
have done something; but, in short, Prince Ferdinand or Lord
George, one of them, is most outrageously in the wrong, and the
latter has much the least chance of being thought in the right.

The particulars I tell you, I collect from the most accurate,
authorities.--I make no comments on Lord George, it would look
like a little dirty court to you; and the best compliment I can
make you, is to think, as I do, that you will be the last man
to enjoy this revenge.

You will be sorry for poor M'Kinsey and Lady Betty, who have
lost their only child at Turin. Adieu!

(1057) Now first printed.

(1058) A celebrated fruit-shop in St. James's Street.

(1059) Mr. Pitt in a letter of the 15th to Lord Bute, says,
"The king has given leave to Lord George Sackville to return to
England; his lordship having in a letter to Lord Holderness,
requested to be recalled from his command. This mode of
returning, your lordship will perceive, is a very considerable
softening of his misfortune. The current in all parts bears
hard upon him. As I have already, so I shall continue to give
him, as a most unhappy man, all the offices of humanity which
our first, sacred duty, the public good, will allow." Chatham
Correspondence, vol. i. p. 417.-E.

507 Letter 331
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, August 29, 1759.

Truly I don't know whether one is to be rejoicing or lamenting!
Every good heart is a bonfire for Prince Ferdinand's success,
and a funeral pile for the King of Prussia's defeat.(1060) Mr.
Yorke, who every week," "lays himself most humbly at the King's
feet" with some false piece of news, has almost ruined us in
illuminations for defeated victories--we were singing Te Deums
for the King of Prussia, when he was actually reduced to be
King of Custrin, for he has not only lost his neighbour's
capital, but his own too. Mr. Bentley has long said, that we
should see him at Somerset House next winter; and really I
begin to be afraid that he will not live to write the history
of the war himself-I shall be content, if he is forced to do it
even by subscription. Oh, that Daun! how he sits silent on his
drum, and shoves the King a little and a little farther out of
the world! The most provoking part of all is, (for I am mighty
soon comforted when a hero tumbles from the top of Fame's
steeple and breaks his neck,) that that tawdry toad,
Bruhl(1061) Will make a triumphant entry into the ruins of
Dresden, and rebuild all his palaces with what little money
remains in the country!