Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2

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I have just received your long letter of February 13th, and am
pleased that I had writ this volume to return it. I don't know
how almost to avoid wishing poor Prince Craon dead, to see the
Princess upon a throne.(114) I am sure she would invert Mr.
Vaughan's wish, and compound to have nothing else made for her,
provided a throne were.

I despise your literati enormously for their opinion of
Montesquieu's book. Bid them read that glorious chapter on the
subject I have been mentioning, the selling of African slaves.
Where did he borrow that? In what book in the world is there
half so much wit, sentiment, delicacy, humanity?

I shall speak much more gently to you, my dear child, though
you don't like Gothic architecture. The Grecian is only proper
for magnificent and public buildings. Columns and all their
beautiful ornaments look ridiculous when crowded into a closet
or a cheesecake-house. The variety is little, and admits no
charming irregularities. I am almost as fond of the
Sharavaggi, or Chinese want of symmetry, in buildings, as in
grounds or gardens. I am sure, whenever you come to England,
you will be pleased with the liberty of taste into which we are
struck, and of which you can have no idea! Adieu!

(102) Daughter of John, second Lord Gower. Married in 1751 to
the Hon. John Waldegrave.-D.

(103) madame de Mirepoix, eldest daughter of Prince Craon, and
widow of the Prince of Lixin.

(104) The midwife.

(105) Atina Chamber, wife of Richard Temple, Lord Cobham,
afterwards Earl Temple.

(106) George, eldest son of John, late Lord Hervey, son of the
Earl of Bristol, whom this George succeeded in the title.

(107) George, Lord Hervey, was a very effeminate-looking man;
which probably encouraged Lord Temple to risk this disgusting
act of incivility.-D.

(108) Wraxall, in his historical Memoir Vol:'I. p. 139, relates
the same story, with a few trifling alterations.-E.

(109) The Hon. Richard Leveson Gower, second son of John,
second Lord Gower, member for Lichfield. Born 1726; died
1753.-D.

(110) Archibald Campbell, third Duke of Argyll, during the
lifetime of bis elder brothers Duke John, Earl of Islay. He
died in 1765.-D.

(111) Algernon, last Duke of Somerset, of the younger
branch.-D.

(112) Dodington, in his Diary of the 25th of February, says, "
I met the Prince and Princess, by order, at Lady Middlesex's
where came Madame de Munchausen: we went to a fortune-teller's,
who was young Des Noyers, disguised and instructed to surprise
Madame de Munchausen, which he effectually did."-E.

(113) This sentiment is highly creditable to Walpole's
humanity. It will remind the reader of a passage in Cowper's
Task, written thirty years after:--

" And what man seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush,
And hang his head, to think himself a man!
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned,"-E.

(114) There was a notion that King Stanislaus, who lived in
Lorraine, was in love with her.

58 Letter 21
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, March 11, 1750.

"Portents and prodigies are grown so frequent,
That they have lost their name."(115)

My text is not literally true; but as far -,is earthquakes go
towards lowering the price of wonderful commodities, to be sure
we are overstocked. We have had a second much more violent
than the first; and you must not be surprised if by next post
you hear of' a burning mountain sprung up in Smithfield. In
the night between Wednesday and Thursday last, (exactly a month
since the first shock,) the earth had a shivering fit between
one and two; but so slight that, if no more had followed, I
don't believe it would have been noticed. I had been awake,
and had scarce dozed again-on a sudden I felt my bolster lift
up my head; I thought somebody was getting from under my bed,
but soon found it was a strong earthquake, that lasted near
half a minute, with a violent vibration and great roaring. I
rang my bell; my servant came in, frightened out of his senses-
- in an instant we heard all the windows in the neighbourhood
flung up. I got up and found people running into the streets,
but saw no mischief done: there has been some; two old houses
flung down, several chimneys, and much china-ware. The bells
rung in several houses. Admiral Knowles, who has lived long in
Jamaica, and felt seven there, says this was more violent than
any of them; Francesco prefers it to the dreadful one at Leghorn.
The wise say, that if we have not rain soon, we shall certainly
have more. Several people are going out of town, for it has
nowhere reached above ten miles from London: they say, they are
not frightened, but that it is such fine weather, "Lord! one
can't help going into the country!" The only visible effect it
has had, was on the Ridotto, at which, being the following night,
there were but four hundred people. A parson, who came into
White's the morning of earthquake the first, and heard bets laid
on whether it was an earthquake or the blowing up of
powder-mills, went away exceedingly scandalized, and said, "I
protest, they are such an impious set of people, that I believe
if the last trumpet was to sound, they would bet puppet-show
against Judgment." If we get any nearer still to the torrid zone,
I shall pique myself on sending you a present of cedrati and
orange-flower water: I am already planning a terreno for
Strawberry Hill.

The Middlesex election is carried against the court: the
Prince, in a green frock, (and I won't swear, but in a Scotch
plaid waistcoat,) sat under the park-wall in his chair, and
hallooed the voters on to Brentford. The Jacobites are so
transported, that they are opening subscriptions for all
boroughs that shall be vacant--this is wise! They will spend
their money to carry a few more seats in a Parliament where
they will never have the majority, and so have none to carry
the general elections. The omen, however, is bad for
Westminster; the High-bailiff went to vote for the Opposition.

I now jump to another topic; I find all this letter will be
detached scraps; I can't at all contrive to hide the scams: but
I don't care. I began my letter merely to tell you of the
earthquake, and I don't pique myself upon doing any more than
telling you what you would be glad to have told you. I told
you too how pleased I was with the triumphs of another old
beauty, our friend the Princess.(116) Do you know, I have
found a history that has a great resemblance to hers; that is,
that will be very like hers, if hers is but like it. I will
tell it you in as few words as I can. Madame la Marechale de
l'H`opital was the daughter of a sempstress;(117) a young
gentleman fell in love with her, and was going to be married to
her, but the match was broken off. An old fermier-general, who
had retired into the province where this happened, hearing the
story, had a curiosity to see the victim; he liked her, married
her, died, and left her enough not to care for her inconstant.
he came to Paris, where the Marechal de l'H`opital married her
for her riches. After the Marechal's death, Casimir, the
abdicated King of Poland, who was retired into
France, fell in love with the Marechale, and privately married
her. If the event ever happens, I shall certainly travel to
Nancy, to hear her talk of ma belle-fille la Reine de France.
What pains my lady Pomfret would take to prove(118) that an
abdicated King's wife did not take place of an English
countess; and how the Princess herself would grow still fonder
of the Pretender(119) for the similitude of his fortune with
that of le Roi mon mari! Her daughter, Mirepoix, was frightened
the other night, with Mrs. Nugent's calling out, un voleur! un
voleur! The ambassadress had heard so much of robbing, that
she did not doubt but dans ce pais cy, they robbed in the
middle of an assembly. It turned out to be a thief in the
candle! Good night!

(115) Dryden's All for Love."

(116) The Princess Craon, who, it had been reported, was to
marry Stanislaus Leczinsky, Duke of Loraine and ex-King of
Poland, whose daughter Maria Leczinska was married to Louis the
Fifteenth, King of France.-D.

(117) "This is the story of a woman named Mary Mignot. She was
near marrying a young man of La Gardie, who afterwards entered
the Swedish service, and became a field-marshal in that
country. Her first husband was, if I mistake not, a Procureur
of Grenoble; her second was the Marshal de l'H`opital; and her
third is supposed to have been Casimir, the ex-King of Poland,
who had retired, after his abdication, to the monastery of St
Germain des Pr`es. It does not, however, appear certain
whether Casimir actually married her or not.-D.

(118) Lady Pomfret and Princess Craon did not visit at
Florence, upon a dispute of precedence.

(119) The Pretender, when in Lorraine, lived in Prince Craon's
house.

60 Letter 22
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, April 2, 1750.

You will not wonder so much at our earthquakes as at the
effects they have had. All the women in town have taken them
up upon the foot of Judgments; and the clergy, who have had no
windfalls of a long season, have driven horse and foot into
this opinion. There has been a shower of sermons and
exhortations; Secker, the jesuitical Bishop of Oxford, began
the mode. He heard the women were all going out of town to
avoid the next shock; and so: for fear of losing his Easter
offerings, he set himself to advise them to await God's good
pleasure in fear and trembling. But what is more astonishing,
Sherlock,(120) who has much better sense, and much less of the
Popish confessor has been running a race with him for the old
ladies, and has written a pastoral letter, of which ten
thousand were sold in two days; and fifty thousand have been
subscribed for, since the two first editions.

I told you the women talked of going out of town: several
families are literally gone, and many more going to-day and
to-morrow; for what adds to the absurdity, is, that the second
shock having happened exactly a month after the former, it
prevails that there will be a third on Thursday next, another
month, which is to swallow up London. I am almost ready to
burn my letter now I have begun it, lest you should think I am
laughing at you: but it is so true, that Arthur of White's told
me last night, that he should put off the last ridotto, which
was to be on Thursday, because he hears nobody would come to
it. I have advised several who are going to keep their next
earthquake in the country, to take the bark for it, as it is so
periodic.(121) Dick Leveson and Mr. Rigby, who had supped and
strived late at Bedford House the other night, knocked at several
doors, and in a watchman's voice cried, "Past four o'clock, and a
dreadful earthquake!" But I have done with this ridiculous
panic: two pages were too much to talk of it.

We have had nothing in Parliament but trade-bills, on one of
which the Speaker humbled the arrogance of Sir John Barnard,
who had reflected upon the proceedings of the House. It is to
break up on Thursday Se'nnight, and the King goes this day
fortnight. He has made Lord Vere Beauclerc a baron,(122) at
the solicitation of the Pelhams, as this Lord had resigned upon
a pique with Lord Sandwich. Lord Anson, who is treading in the
same path, and leaving the Bedfords to follow his
father-in-law, the Chancellor, is made a privy councillor, with
Sir Thomas Robinson and Lord Hyndford. Lord Conway is to be an
earl,(123) and Sir John Rawdon(124) (whose follies you
remember, and whose boasted loyalty of having been kicked
downstairs for not drinking the Pretender's health, though even
that was false, is at last rewarded,) and Sir John Vesey are to
be Irish lords; and a Sir William Beauchamp Proctor, and a Mr.
Loyd, Knights of the Bath.

I was entertained the other night at the house of much such a
creature as Sir John Rawdon, and one whom you remember too,
Naylor. he has a wife who keeps the most indecent house of all
those that are called decent: every Sunday she has a contraband
assembly: I had had a card for Monday a fortnight before. As
the day was new, I expected a great assembly, but found scarce
six persons. I asked where the company was--I was answered,
"Oh! they are not come yet: they will be here presently; they
all supped here last night, stayed till morning, and I suppose
are not up yet."

My Lord Bolinbroke has lost his wife. When she was dying, he
acted grief; flung himself upon her bed, and asked her if she
could forgive him. I never saw her, but have heard her wit and
parts excessively commended.(125) Dr. Middleton told me a
compliment she made him two years ago, which I thought pretty.
She said she was persuaded that he was a very great writer, for
she understood his works better than any other English book, and
that she had observed that the best writers were always the most
intelligible.

Wednesday.

I had not time to finish my letter on Monday. I return to the
earthquake, which I had mistaken; it is to be to-day. This
frantic terror is so much, that within these three days seven
hundred and thirty coaches have been counted passing Hyde Park
corner, with whole parties removing into the country. Here is
a good advertisement which I cut out of the papers to-day;

"On Monday next will be published (price 6d.) A true and exact
List of all the Nobility and Gentry who have left, or shall
leave, this place through fear of another Earthquake."

Several women have made earthquake gowns; that is, warm gowns
to sit out of doors all to-night. These are of the more
courageous. One woman, still more heroic, is come to town on
purpose: she says, all her friends are in London, and she will
not survive them. But what will you think of Lady Catherine
Pelham, Lady Frances Arundel,(126) and Lord and Lady
Galway,(127) who go this evening to an inn ten miles out of
town, where they are to play at brag till five in the morning,
and then come back-I suppose, to look for the bones of their
husbands and families under the rubbish.(128) The prophet of
all this (next to the Bishop of London) is a trooper of Lord
Delawar's who was yesterday sent to Bedlam. His colonel sent
to the man's wife, and asked her if her husband had ever been
disordered before. She cried, "Oh dear! my lord, he is not mad
now; if your lordship would but get any sensible man to examine
him, you would find, he is quite in his right mind."

I shall now tell you something more serious: Lord Dalkeith(129)
is dead of the small-pox in three days. It is so dreadfully
fatal in his family, that besides several uncles and aunts, his
eldest boy died of it last year; and his only brother, who was
ill but two days, putrefied so fast that his limbs fell off as
they lifted the body into the coffin. Lady Dalkeith is five
months gone with child; she was hurrying to him, but was
stopped on the road by the physician, who told her that it was
a miliary fever. They were remarkably happy.

The King goes on Monday se'nnight;(130) it is looked upon as a
great event that the Duke of Newcastle has prevailed on him to
speak to Mr. Pitt, who has detached himself from the Bedfords.
The Monarch, who had kept up his Hanoverian resentments, though
he had made him paymaster, is now beat out of the dignity of
his silence: he was to pretend not to know Pitt, and was to be
directed to him by the lord in waiting. Pitt's jealousy is of
Lord Sandwich, who knows his own interest and unpopularity so
well, that he will prevent any breach, and thereby what you
fear, which yet I think you would have no reason to fear. I
could not say enough of my anger to your father, but I shall
take care to say nothing, as I have not forgot how my zeal for
you made me provoke him once before.

Your genealogical affair Is in great train, and will be quite
finished in a week or two. Mr. Chute has laboured at it
indefatigably: General Guise has been attesting the
authenticity of it to-day before a justice of peace. You will
find yourself mixed with every drop of blood in England that is
worth bottling up-. the Duchess of Norfolk and you grow on the
same bough of the tree. I must tell you a very curious
anecdote that Strawberry King-at-Arms(131) has discovered by
the way, as he was tumbling over the mighty dead in the
Heralds' office. You have heard me speak of the great
injustice that the Protector Somerset did to the children of
his first wife, in favour of those by his second; so much, that
he not only had the dukedom settled on the younger brood, but
to deprive the eldest of the title of Lord Beauchamp, which he
wore by inheritance, he caused himself to be anew created
Viscount Beauchamp. Well, in Vincent's Baronage, a book of
great authority, speaking of the Protector's wives, are these
remarkable words: "Katherina, filia et una Coh. Gul: Fillol de
Fillol's hall in Essex, uxor prima; repudiata, quia Pater ejus
post nuptias eam cognovit." The Speaker has since referred me
to our journals, where are some notes of a trial in the reign
of James the First, between Edward, the second son of Katherine
the dutiful, and the Earl of Hertford, son of Anne Stanhope,
which in some measure confirms our MS; for it says, the Earl of
Hertford objected, that John, the eldest son of all, was
begotten while the Duke was in France. This title, which now
comes back at last to Sir Edward Seymour is disputed: my Lord
Chancellor has refused him the writ, but referred his case to
the Attorney General,(132) the present great Opinion of
England, who, they say, is clear for Sir Edward's
succession.(133)

I shall now go and show you Mr. Chute in a different light from
heraldry, and in one in which I believe you never saw him. He
will shine as usual; but, as a little more severely than his
good-nature is accustomed to, I must tell you that he was
provoked by the most impertinent usage. It is an epigram on
Lady Caroline Petersham, whose present fame, by the way, is
coupled with young Harry Vane.

WHO IS THIS?

Her face has beauty, we must all confess,
But beauty on the brink of ugliness:
Her mouth's a rabbit feeding on a rose;
With eyes-ten times too good for such a nose!
Her blooming cheeks-what paint could ever draw 'em?
That Paint, for which no mortal ever saw 'em.
Air without shape--of royal race divine--
'Tis Emily--oh! fie!--It'S Caroline.

Do but think of my beginning a third sheet! but as the
Parliament is rising, and I shall probably not write you a
tolerably long letter again these eight months, I will lay in a
stock of merit with you to last me so long Mr. Chute has set me
too upon making epigrams; but as I have not his art, mine is
almost a copy of verses: the story he told me, and is literally
true, of an old Lady Bingley.(134)

Celia now had completed some thirty campaigns,
And for new generations was hammering chains;
When whetting those terrible weapons, her eyes,
To Jennny, her handmaid, in anger she cries,
"Careless creature! did mortal e'er see such a glass!
Who that saw me in this, could e'er guess what I was!
Much you mind what I say! pray how oft have I bid you
Provide me a new one? how oft have I chid you?"
"Lord, Madam!" cried Jane, "you're so hard to be pleased
I am sure every glassman in town I have teased:
I have hunted each shop from Pall-mall to Cheapside:
Both Miss Carpenter's(135) man and Miss Banks's(136) I've
tried."
"Don't tell me of those girls!-all I know, to my cost,
Is, the looking-glass art must be certainly lost!
One used to have mirrors so smooth and so bright,
They did one's eyes justice, they heighten'd one's white,
And fresh roses diffused o'er ones bloom--but, alas!
In the glasses made now, one detests one's own face;
They pucker one's cheeks up and furrow one's brow,
And one's skin looks as yellow as that of Miss(137) Howe!"(138)

After an epigram that seems to have found out the longitude, I
shall tell you but one more, and that wondrous short. It is
said to be made by a cow. YOU Must not wonder; we tell as many
strange stories as Baker and Livy:

"A warm winter, a dry spring,
A hot summer, a new King."

Though the sting is very epigrammatic, the whole of the
distitch has more of the truth than becomes prophecy; that is,
it is false, for the spring is wet and cold.

There is come from France a Madame Bocage, who has translated
Milton. my Lord Chesterfield prefers the copy to the original;
but that is not uncommon for him to do, who is the patron of
bad authors and bad actors. She has written a play too, which
was damned, and worthy my lord's approbation.' You would be
more diverted with a Mrs. Holman, whose passion is keeping an
assembly, and inviting literally every body to it. She goes to
the drawing-room to watch for sneezes; whips out a curtsey, and
then sends next morning to know how your cold does, and to
desire your company next Thursday.

Mr. Whithed has taken my Lord Pembroke's house at Whitehall; a
glorious situation, but as madly built as my Lord himself was.
He has bought some delightful pictures too, of Claude, Gaspar,
and good masters, to the amount of four hundred pounds.

Good night! I have nothing more to tell you, but that I have
lately seen a Sir William Boothby, who saw you about a year
ago, and adores you, as all the English you receive ought to
do. He is much in my favour.

(120) Thomas Sherlock, Master of the Temple; first, Bishop of
Salisbury, and afterwards of London.

(121) " I remember," says Addison, in the 240th Tatler, "when
our whole island was Shaken With an earthquake some years ago,
that there was an impudent mountebank, who sold pills, which,
as he told the country people, were "very good against an
earthquake."'-E.

(122) lord Vere of Haworth, in Middlesex.-D.

(123( Lord Conway was made Earl of Hertford.-D.

(124) Sir John Rawdon was created in this year Baron Rawdon,
and in 1761 Earl of Moira, in Ireland. Sir John Vesey was
created Lord Knapton; and his son was made Viscount de Vesey in
Ireland, in 1766.-D.

(125) She was a Frenchwoman, of considerable fortune and
accomplishments, the widow of the Marquis de Villette, and
niece to Madame de Maintenon. She died on the 15th of March.
>From the following passage in a letter written by Bolingbroke
to Lord Marchmont a few days before her death, it is difficult
to believe that he "acted grief" upon this occasion:--"You are
very good to take my share in that affliction which has lain
upon me so long, and which still continues, with the fear of
being increased by a catastrophe I am little able to bear.
Resignation is a principal duty in my system of religion:
reason shows that it ought to be willing if not cheerful; but
there are passions and habitudes in human nature which reason
cannot entirely subdue. I should be ashamed not to feel them
in the present case."-E.

(126) Lady Frances Arundell was the daughter of John Manners,
second Duke of Rutland, and was married to the Hon. Richard
Arundell, second son of John, Lord Arundell of Trerice, and a
lord of the treasury. Lady Frances was sister of Lady
Catherine Pelham, the wife of the minister.-D.

(127) John Monckton, first Viscount Galway in Ireland. The
Lady Galway mentioned here was his second wife, Jane, daughter
of henry Westenra, Esq., of Dublin. His first wife, who died
in 1730, was Lady Elizabeth Manners, the sister of Lady
Catherine Pelham and Lady Frances Arundell.-D.

(128) " Incredible numbers of people left their houses, and
walked in the fields or lay in boats all night: many persons of
fashion in the neighbouring villages sat in their coaches till
daybreak; others went to a greater distance, so that the roads
were never more thronged." Gentleman's Magazine.-E.

(129) Francis Scott, eldest son of the Duke of Buccleugh.

(130) To Hanover.

(131) Mr. Chute.

(132) Sir Dudley Ryder.

(133) Sir Edward Seymour, when he became Duke of Somerset, did
not inherit the title of Beauchamp.-D.

(134) Lady Elizabeth Finch, eldest daughter of Heneage, Earl of
Aylesford, and widow of Robert Benson, Lord Bingley.

(135) Countess of Egremont.

(136) Miss Margaret Banks, a celebrated beauty.

(137) Charlotte, sister of Lord Howe, and wife of Mr.
Fettiplace.

(138) These lines are published in Walpole's Works.-D.

(139) Madame du Boccage published a poem in imitation of
Milton, and another founded on Gesner's Death of Abel. She
also translated Pope's Temple of Fame; but her principal work
was ,La Columbiade." It was at the house of this lady, at
Paris, in 1775, that Johnson was annoyed at her footman's
taking the sugar in his fingers and throwing it into his
coffee. "I was going," says the Doctor, "to put it aside, but
hearing it was made on purpose for me, I e'en tasted Tom's
fingers." She died in 1802.-E.

65 Letter 23
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, May 15, 1750.

The High-bailiff, after commending himself and his own
impartiality for an hour this morning, not unlike your cousin
Pelham, has declared Lord Trentham. The mob declare they will
pull his house down to show their impartiality. The Princess
has luckily produced another boy; so Sir George Vandeput may be
recompensed with being godfather. I stand to-morrow, not for a
member, but for godfather to my sister's girl, with Mrs. Selwyn
and old Dunch: were ever three such dowagers? when shall three
such meet again? If the babe has not a most sentimentally
yellow complexion after such sureties, I will burn my books,
and never answer for another skin.