The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume II Part 5

48 letter 18 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Jan. 10, 1750.

I don't at all know what to say to you, for not having writ to you since the middle of November: I only know that nothing has happened, and so I have omitted telling you nothing. I have had two from you in the interim, one of Nov. @8th, and one without a date, in which you are extremely kind about my robbery, of which in my last I a.s.sured you there were no consequences: thank you a thousand times for having felt so much on my account. Gibberne has been with me again to-day, as his mother was a fortnight ago: she talked me to death, and three times after telling me her whole history, she said, "Well then, Sir, upon the whole," and began it all again. Upon the whole, I think she has a mind to keep her son in England; (-ind he has a mind to be kept, though in my opinion he is very unfit for living in England--he is too polished! For trade, she says, he is in a cold sweat if she mentions it; and so they propose, by the acquaintance, he says,. his mother has among the quality, to get him that nothing called something. I a.s.sured them, you had too much friends.h.i.+p for him to desire his return, if it would be a prejudice to his interest--did not I say right? He seems a good creature; too good to make his way here.

I beg you will not omit sending me every t.i.ttle 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 pa.s.sion for Ireland too. He saw some of the Florentine Gesses at Lord Lincoln's; he showed them to the Amba.s.sadress with great transport, and a.s.sured 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 circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.sion; 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 pa.s.sions; 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. "G.o.d 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 pa.s.sion 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 quant.i.ty of laudanum, under impatience at the badness of his circ.u.mstances, 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 n.o.ble 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 gla.s.s, 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 a.s.sured 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 c.o.ke'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, amba.s.sador 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 c.u.mberland.

(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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 d.u.c.h.ess, 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 topsh.e.l.l, 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 d.u.c.h.ess of Bedford were the rival queens; the latter made a faint offer to the amba.s.sadress to go first; she returned it, and the other briskly accepted it; upon which the amba.s.sadress, 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 amba.s.sadress 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 d.u.c.h.ess-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 Middles.e.x 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 fas.h.i.+onable proverb, which I must construe to you. About ten days ago, at the new Lady Cobham's(105) a.s.sembly, 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 pa.s.s 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 gla.s.s."--"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 t.i.tle 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 t.i.tle, 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 Middles.e.x, and has opened a contest for the county, before even that for Westminster is decided. The d.u.c.h.ess 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 pet.i.ts 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.