Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2

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I beg you will not omit sending me every tittle that happens to
compose my Lady Pomfret's second volume. We see perpetual
articles of the sale of the furniture in the Great Duke's
villas: is there any truth in it? You would know me again, if
you saw me playing at pharaoh on one side of Madame de
Mirepoix, as I used to do by her mother: I like her extremely,
though she likes nothing but gaming. His pleasure is dancing:
don't you envy any body that can have spirits to be so simple
as to like themselves in a minuet after fifty? Don't tell his
brother, but the Chevalier Lorenzi is the object of the
family's entertainment. With all the Italian thirst for
English knowledge, he vents as many absurdities as if he had a
passion for Ireland too. He saw some of the Florentine Gesses
at Lord Lincoln's; he showed them to the Ambassadress with
great transport, and assured her that the Great Duke had the
originals, and that there never had been made any copies of
them. He told her the other day that he had seen a sapphire of
the size of her diamond ring,,, and worth more: she said that
could not be. "Oh!" said he, "I mean, supposing your diamond
were a sapphire."

I want to know Dr. Cocchi's and your opinion of two new French
books, if you have seen them. One is Montesquieu's "Esprit des
Loix;" which I think the best book that ever was written--at
least I never learned half so much from all I ever read. There
is )s much wit as useful knowledge. He is said to have hurt
his reputation by it in France, which I can conceive, for it is
almost the interest of every body there that can understand it
to decry it. The other, far inferior, but entertaining,, is
Hainault's "Abrege Chronologique de l'Histoire de France." It
is very amusing, though very full of Frenchisms; and though an
abridgment, often so minute as to tell you when the
Quinzevingts first wore flower-de-luces on their shoulders: but
there are several little circumstances that give one an idea of
the manners of old time, like Dr. Cocchi's treatise on the old
rate of expenses.

There has been nothing particular in Parliament - all our
conversation has turned on the Westminster election, on which,
after a vast struggle, Lord Trentham had the majority. Then
came on the scrutiny: after a week's squabbling on the right of
election, the High-bailiff declared what he would take to be
the right. They are now proceeding to disqualify votes on that
foot; but as his decision could not possibly please both sides, I
fear it will come to us at last.

Lord Pembroke(87) died last night: he had been at the Bridge
Committee,(88) in the morning, where, according to custom, he
fell into an outrageous passion; as my Lord Chesterfield told
him, that ever since the pier sunk he has constantly been
damming and sinking. The watermen say to-day, that now the
great pier (peer) is quite gone. Charles Stanhope carried him
home in his chariot; he desired the coachman to drive gently,
for he could not avoid those passions; and afterwards, between
shame and his asthma, he always felt daggers, and should
certainly one day or other die in one of those fits.
Arundel,(89) his great friend and relation, came to him soon
after: he repeated the conversation, and said, he did not know
but he might die by night. "God bless you! If I see you no
more, take this as my last farewell!" He died in his chair at
seven o'clock. He certainly is a public loss; for he was
public-spirited and inflexibly honest, though prejudice and
passion were so predominant in him that honesty had not fair
play, whenever he had been set upon any point that had been
given him for right. In his lawsuit with my Lady Portland he
was scurrilously indecent, though to a woman; and so
blasphemous at tennis, that the present primate of Ireland(90)
was forced to leave off playing with him. Last year he went
near to destroy post-chaises, on a quarrel with the postmaster
at Hounslow, who, as he told the Bishop of Chichester, had an
hundred devils and Jesuits in his belly. In short, he was one
of the lucky English madmen who get people to say, that
whatever extravagance they commit "Oh, it is his way." He began
his life with boxing, and ended it with living upon vegetables,
into which system avarice a little entered. At the beginning
of the present war, he very honourably would resign his
regiment, though the King pressed him to keep it, because his
rupture hindered his serving abroad. My father, with whom he
was always well, would at any time have given him the blue
riband; but he piqued himself on its being offered to him
without asking it. the truth was, he did not care for the
expense of the instalment. His great excellence was
architecture: the bridge at Wilton is more beautiful than any
thing of Lord Burlington or Kent. He has left an only son, a
fine boy about sixteen.(91) Last week, Lord Crawford(92) died
too, as is supposed, by taking a large quantity of laudanum,
under impatience at the badness of his circumstances, and at
the seventeenth opening of the wound which he got in Hungary,
in a battle with the Turks. I must tell you a story apropos of
two noble instances of fidelity and generosity. His servant, a
French papist, saw him fall; watched, and carried him off into
a ditch. Lord Crawford told him the Turks would certainly find
them, and that, as he could not live himself, it was in vain
for him to risk his life too, and insisted on the man making
his escape. After a long contest, the servant retired, found a
priest, confessed himself, came back, and told his lord that he
was now prepared to die, and would never leave him. The enemy
did not return, and both were saved. After Lord Crawford's
death, this story was related to old Charles Stanhope, Lord
Harrington's brother, whom I mentioned just now: he sent for
the fellow, told him he could not take him himself, but, as
from his lord's affairs he concluded he had not been able to
provide for him, he would give him fifty pounds, and did.

To make up for my long silence, and to make up for a long
letter, I will string another old story, which I have just
heard, to this. General Wade was at a low gaming-house, and
had a very fine snuffbox, which on a sudden he missed. Every
body denied having taken it: he insisted on searching the
company. He did: there remained only one man, who had stood
behind him, but refused to be searched, unless the general
would go into another room alone with him: there the man told
him, that he was born a gentleman, was reduced, and lived by
what little bets he could pick up there, and by fragments which
the waiters sometimes gave him. "At this moment I have half a
fowl in my pocket; I was afraid of being exposed; here it is!
Now, Sir, you may search me." Wade was so struck, that he gave
the man a hundred pounds; and immediately the genius of
generosity, whose province is almost a sinecure, was very glad
of the opportunity of making him find his own snuff-box, or
another very like it, in his own pocket again.

Lord Marchmont is to succeed Lord Crawford as one of the
sixteen: the House of Lords is so inactive that at last the
ministry have ventured to let him in there. His brother Hume
Campbell, who has been in a state of neutrality, begins to
frequent the House again.

It is plain I am no moneyed man; as I have forgot, till I came
to My last paragraph, what a ferment the money-changers are in!
Mr. Pelham, who has flung himself entirely into Sir John
Barnard's(93) hands, has just miscarried in a scheme for the
reduction of interest, by the intrigues of the three great
companies and other usurers. They all detest barnard, who, to
honesty and abilities, joins the most intolerable pride. @By my
next, I suppose, you will find that Mr. Pelham is grown afraid
of somebody else, of some director, and is governed by him.
Adieu!--Sure I am out of debt now!

P.S. My dear Sir, I must trouble you with a commission, which I
don't know whether you can execute. I am going to build a
little Gothic castle at Strawberry Hill. If you can pick me up
any fragments of old painted glass, arms, or any thing, I shall
be excessively obliged to you. I can't say I remember any such
things in Italy; but out of old chateaus, I imagine, one might
get it cheap, if there is any.

(87) Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and Groom of the stole.
For Walpole's character of him, see ant`e.-E.

(88) The committee under whose superintendence Westminster
Bridge had been built.-D.

(89) Richard Arundel, treasurer to the chambers: his mother,
the Dowager Lady Arundel, was second wife of Thomas, Earl of
Pembroke, father of Earl Henry.

(90) Dr. George Stone.

(91) Henry, tenth Earl of Pembroke, and seventh Earl of
Montgomery, He died in 1794.-D.

(92) John Lindsey Earl of Crawford, premier Earl of Scotland.
His life, which indeed had little remarkable in it, was
published afterwards, in a large quarto.

(93) An eminent citizen, and long member of Parliament for the
city of London. He at length accomplished his plan for the
reduction of the Interest of the National Debt.-D.

52 Letter 19
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Jan. 31, 1750.

You will hear little news from England, but of robberies;(94)
the numbers of disbanded soldiers and sailors have all taken to
the road, or rather to the street: people are almost afraid of
stirring after it is dark. My Lady Albemarle(95) was robbed
the other night in Great Russell Street, by nine men: the King
gave her a gold watch and chain the next day. She says, "the
manner was all"-and indeed so it was, for I never saw a more
frippery present; especially considering how great a favourite
she is, and my Lady Yarmouth's friend. The monarch is never
less generous than when he has a mind to be so: the only
present he ever made my father was a large diamond, cracked
quite through. Once or twice, in his younger and gallant days,
he has brought out a handful of maimed topazes and amethysts,
and given them to be raffled for by the maids of honour. I
told my Lady Yarmouth it had been a great loss to me that there
was no queen, for then I suppose I should have had a watch too
when I was robbed.

We have had nothing remarkable in Parliament, but a sort of
secession the other day on the Mutiny-bill, when Lord Egmont
and the Opposition walked out of the House, because the
ministry would go upon the Report, when they did not like It.
It is a measure of the Prince's court to lie by, and let the
ministry demolish one another, which they are hurrying to do.
The two secretaries(96) are on the brink of declaring war: the
occasion is likely to be given by a Turnpike-bill, contested
between the counties of Bedford and Northampton; and it (,rows
almost as vehement a contest as the famous one between
Aylesbury and Buckingham. The Westminster election is still
hanging in scrutiny: the Duke of Bedford paid the election,(97)
which he owns to have cost seven thousand pounds; and Lord
Gower pays the scrutiny, which will be at least as much. This
bustling little Duke has just had another miscarriage in
Cornwall, where he attacked a family-borough of the Morrices.
The Duke(97) espouses the Bedford; and Lord Sandwich is
espoused by both. He goes once or twice a-week to hunt with the
Duke; and as the latter has taken a turn of gaming, Sandwich, to
make his court and fortune carries a box and dice in his pocket;
and so they throw a main, whenever the hounds are at a fault,
"upon every green hill, and under every green tree."

But we have one shocking piece of news, the dreadful account of
the hurricane in the East Indies: you will see the particulars
in the papers; but we reckon that we don't yet know the worst..
Poor Admiral Boscawen(99) has been most unfortunate during his
whole expedition; and what increases the horror is, that I have
been assured by a very intelligent person, that Lord Anson
projected this business on purpose to ruin Boscawen, who, when
they came together from the victory off Cape Finisterre,
complained loudly of Anson's behaviour. To silence and to hurt
him, Anson despatched him to Pondicherry, upon slight
intelligence and upon improbable views.

Lord Coke's suit is still in suspense; he has been dying; she
was to have died, but has recovered wonderfully on his taking
the lead. Mr. Chute diverted me excessively with a confidence
that Chevalier Lorenzi made him the other night-I have told you
the style of his bon-mots! He said he should certainly return
to England again, and that whenever he did, he would land at
Bristol, because baths are the best places to make
acquaintance, just as if Mr. Chute, after living seven years in
Italy, and keeping the best company, should return thither, and
land at Leghorn, in order to make Italian acquaintance at Pisa!

Among the robberies, I might have told you of the eldest Miss
Pelham leaving a pair of diamond earrings, which she had
borrowed for the birth-day, in a hackney chair; she had put
them under the seat for fear of being attacked, and forgot
them. The chairmen have sunk them. The next morning, when
they were missed, the damsel began to cry: Lady Catherine(100)
grew frightened, lest her infanta should vex herself sick, and
summoned a jury of matrons to consult whether she should give
her hartshorn or lavender drops? Mrs. Selwyn,(101) who was on
the panel, grew very peevish, and said, "Pho! give her
brilliant drops." Such are the present anecdotes of the court
of England! Adieu!

(94) On the preceding day, in consequence of the number of
persons of distinction who had recently been robbed in the
streets, a proclamation appeared in the London Gazette,
offering a reward of one hundred pounds for the apprehension of
any robber.-E.

(95) Lady Anne Lenox, sister of the Duke of Richmond, wife of
William Anne Keppel, Earl of Albemarle, ambassador at Paris,
and lady of the bedchamber to Queen Caroline.

(96) the Dukes of Newcastle and Bedford.

(97) The Duke of Bedford's second wife was sister of Lord
Trentham, the candidate.

(98) Of Cumberland.

(99) Edward, next brother of Lord Falmouth.

(100) Lady Catherine Manners, sister of John, Duke of Rutland,
and wife of Henry Pelham, Chancellor of the exchequer.

(101) Mary Farenden, wife of John Selwyn, treasurer to Queen
Caroline, and woman of the bedchamber.

53 letter 20
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, Feb. 25, 1750.

I am come hither for a little repose and air. The fatigue of a
London winter, between Parliaments and rakery, is a little too
much without interruption for an elderly personage, that verges
towards--I won't say what. This accounts easily for my wanting
quiet--but air in February will make you smile--yet it is
strictly true, that the weather is unnaturally hot: we have had
eight months of' warmth beyond what was ever known in any other
country; Italy is quite north with respect to us!-You know we
have had an earthquake. Mr. Chute's Francesco says, that a few
evenings before it there was a bright cloud, which the mob
called the bloody cloud; that he had been told there never were
earthquakes in England, or else he should have known by that
symptom that there would be one within a week. I am told that
Sir Isaac Newton foretold a great alteration in Our climate in
the year '50, and that he wished he could live to see it.
Jupiter, I think, has jogged us three degrees nearer to the
sun.

The Bedford Turnpike, which I announced to you in my last, is
thrown out by a majority of fifty-two against the Duke of
Bedford. The Pelhams, who lent their own persons to him, had
set up the Duke of Grafton, to list their own dependents under
against their rival. When the Chamberlain would head a party,
you may be sure the opposite power is in the wane. The
Newcastle is at open war, and has left off waiting on the Duke,
who espouses the Bedfords. Mr. Pelham tries to patch it up,
and is getting the Ordnance for the Duke; but there are scarce
any terms kept. Lord Sandwich, who governs the little Duke
through the Duchess, is the chief object of the Newcastle
hatred. Indeed there never was such a composition! he is as
capable of all little knavery, as if he was not practising all
great knavery. During the turnpike contest, in which he
laboured night and day against his friend Halifax, he tried the
grossest tricks to break agreements, when the opposite side
were gone away on the security of a suspension of action: and
in the very middle of that I came to the knowledge of a cruel
piece of flattery which he paid to his protector. He had made
interest for these two years for one Parry, a poor clergyman,
schoolfellow and friend of his, to be fellow of Eton, and had
secured a majority for him. A Fellow died: another wrote to
Sandwich to know if he was not to vote for Parry according to
his engagement,--"No, he must vote for one who had been tutor
to the Duke of Bedford," who by that means has carried it. My
Lady Lincoln was not suffered to go to a ball which Sandwich
made the other night for the Duke, who tumbled down in the
middle of a country dance; they imagined he had beat his nose
flat, but he lay like a tortoise on the topshell, his face
could not touch the ground by some feet. My Lady Anson was
there, who insisted on dancing minuets, though against the rule
of the night, with as much eagerness as you remember in my Lady
Granville. Then she proposed herself for a Louvre; all the men
vowed they had never heard of such a dance, upon which she
dragged out Lady Leveson,(102) and made her dance one with her.

At the last ball at the same house, a great dispute of
precedence, which the Duchess of Norfolk had set on foot but
has dropped, came to trial. Lord Sandwich contrived to be on
the outside of the door to hand down to supper whatever lady
came out first. Madame de Mirepoix and the Duchess of Bedford
were the rival queens; the latter made a faint offer to the
ambassadress to go first; she returned it, and the other
briskly accepted it; upon which the ambassadress, with great
cleverness, made all the other women go before her, and then
asked the Duke of Bedford if he would not go too. However,
though they continue to visit, the wound is incurable: you
don't imagine that a widow(103) of the House of Lorraine, and a
daughter of Princess Craon, can digest such an affront. It
certainly was very absurd, as she is not only an ambassadress
but a stranger; and consequently all English women, as being at
home, should give her place. King George the Second and I
don't agree in our explication of this text of ceremony; he
approves the Duchess-so he does Miss Chudleigh, in a point
where ceremony is out of the question. He opened the trenches
before her a fortnight ago, at the masquerade- but at the last
she had the gout, and could not come; he went away flat, cross.
His son is not so fickle. My Lady Middlesex has been
miscarrying; he attends as incessantly as Mrs. Cannon.(104)
The other morning the Princess came to call him to go to Kew;
he made her wait in her coach above half an hour at the door.
You will be delighted with a bon-mot of a chair-maker, whom he
has discarded for voting for Lord Trentham; one of his
black-caps was sent to tell this Vaughan that the Prince would
employ him no more: "I am going to bid another person make his
Royal Highness a chair."--"With all my heart," said the
chair-maker; "I don't care what they make him, so they don't
make him a throne."

The Westminster election, which is still scrutinizing, produced
us a parliamentary event this week, and was very near producing
something much bigger. Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt moved to Send for
the High-bailiff to inquire into the delay. The Opposition
took it up very high, and on its being carried against them,
the Court of Requests was filled next day with the mob, and the
House crowded, and big with expectation. Nugent had flamed and
abused Lord Sandwich violently, as author of this outrageous
measure. When the Bailiff appeared, the pacific spirit of the
other part of the administration had operated so much, that he
was dismissed with honour; and Only instructed to abridge all
delays by authority of the House-in short, "we spit in his hat
on Thursday, and wiped it off on Friday." This is a now
fashionable proverb, which I must construe to you. About ten
days ago, at the new Lady Cobham's(105) assembly, Lord
Hervey(106) was leaning over a chair, talking to some women,
and holding his hat in his hand. Lord Cobham came up and spit in
it--yes,
spit in it!--and then, with a loud laugh, turned to Nugent, and
said, "Pay me my wager." In short, he had laid a guinea that
he committed this absurd brutality, and that it was not
resented. Lord Hervey, with great temper and sensibility,
asked if he had any farther occasion for his hat?--"Oh! I see
you are angry!"--"Not very well pleased." Lord Cobham took the
fatal hat and wiped it, made a thousand foolish apologies, and
wanted to pass it for a joke. Next morning he rose with the
sun, and went to visit Lord Hervey; so did Nugent: he would not
see them, but wrote to the Spitter, (or, as he is now called,
Lord Gob'em,) to say, that he had affronted him very grossly
before company, but having involved Nugent in it, he desired to
know to which he was to address himself for satisfaction. Lord
Cobham wrote him a most submissive answer, and begged pardon
both in his own and Nugent's name. Here it rested for a few
days; till getting wind, Lord Hervey wrote again to insist on
an explicit apology under Lord Cobham's own hand, with a
rehearsal of the excuses that had been made to him. This, too,
was complied with, and the fair conqueror(107) shows all the
letters.(108) Nugent's disgraces have not ended here: the
night of his having declaimed so furiously he was standing by
Lady Catherine Pelham, against Lord Sandwich at the masquerade,
without his mask: she was telling him a history of a mad dog,
(which I believe she had bit herself.) young Leveson, the
Duchess of Bedford's brother, came up, without his mask too,
and looking at Nugent, said, , I have seen a mad dog to-day,
and a silly dog too."--"I suppose, Mr. Leveson,(109) you have
been looking in a glass."--"No, I see him now." Upon which
they walked off together, but were prevented from fighting, (if
Nugent would have fought,) and were reconciled at the
side-board. You perceive by this that our factions are
ripening. The Argyll(110) carried all the Scotch against the
turnpike: they were willing to be carried, for the Duke of
Bedford, in case it should have come into the Lords, had writ
to the sixteen Peers to solicit their votes; but with so little
deference, that he enclosed all the letters under one cover,
directed to the British Coffee-house!

The new Duke of Somerset(111) is dead: that title is at last
restored to Sir Edward Seymour, after his branch had been most
unjustly deprived of it for about one hundred and fifty years.
Sir Hugh Smithson and Sir Charles Windham are Earls of
Northumberland and Egremont, with vast estates; the former
title, revived for the blood of Percy, has the misfortune of
being coupled with the blood of a man that either let or drove
coaches--such Was Sir Hugh's grandfather! This peerage vacates
his seat for Middlesex, and has opened a contest for the county,
before even that for Westminster is decided. The Duchess of
Richmond takes care that house shall not be extinguished: she
again lies in, after having been with child seven-and-twenty
times: but even this is not so extraordinary as the Duke's
fondness for her, or as the vigour of her beauty: her complexion
is as fair and blooming as when she was a bride.

We expect some chagrin on the new regency, at the head of which
is to be the Duke; "Au Augustum fess`a aetate totiens in
Germaniam commeare potuisse," say the mutineers in Tacitus--
Augustus goes in April. He has notified to my Lord Orford his
having given the reversion of New Park to his daughter Emily;
and has given him leave to keep it in the best repair. One of
the German women, Madame Munchausen, his minister's wife,
contributes very kindly to the entertainment of the town. She
is ugly, devout, and with that sort of coquetry which proceeds
from a virtue that knows its own weakness so much as to be
alarmed, even when nothing is meant to its prejudice.(112) At
a great dinner which they gave last -week, somebody observed
that all the sugar figures in the dessert were girls: the Baron
replied, "Sa est frai; ordinairement les petits cupitons sont
des garsons; mais ma femme s'est amus`ee toute la matin`ee `a
en `oter tout sa par motestie." This improvement of hers is a
curious refinement, though all the geniuses of the age are
employed in designing new plans for desserts. The Duke of
Newcastle's last was a baby Vauxhall, illuminated with a
million of little lamps of various colours.

We have been sitting this fortnight on the African Company: we,
the British Senate, that temple of liberty, and bulwark of
Protestant Christianity, have this fortnight been pondering
methods to make more effectual that horrid traffic of selling
negroes. It has appeared to us that six-and-forty thousand of
these wretches are sold every year to our plantations alone!--
It chills one's blood. I would not have to say that I voted in
it for the continent of America!(113) The destruction of the
miserable inhabitants by the Spaniards was but a momentary
misfortune, that flowed from the discovery of the New World,
compared to this lasting havoc which it brought upon Africa.
We reproach Spain, and yet do not even pretend the nonsense of
butchering these poor creatures for the good of their souls!