The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume II Part 26

(433) One of the pretenders to the throne of Persia, who gained many victories about this time.

(434) When Mr. Walpole was at Florence he saw a fine picture by Vasari of the Great d.u.c.h.ess Bianca Capello, in the palace of the Marchese Vitelli, whose family falling to decay, and their effects being sold twelve years afterwards, Mr. Mann recollected-Mr. Walpole's having admired that picture, bought and sent it to him.

(435) Erasmus Shorter, brother of Catherine Lady Walpole, and of Charlotte Lady Conway, whose surviving children, Edward and Horace Walpole, Francis Earl of Hertford, Henry and Anne Conway, became his heirs.

188 Letter 88 To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, Dec. 6, 1753.

I have at last found a moment to answer your letter; a possession of which, I think, I have not been master these ten days. You must know I have an uncle dead; a sort of event that could not possibly have been disagreeable to me, let his name have been what it would; and to make it still less unpleasant, here am I one of the heirs-at-law to a man worth thirty thousand pounds. One of the heirs, you must construe, one of five. In short, my uncle Erasmus is dead, and think at last we may depend on his having made no will. If a will should appear, we are but where we were; if it does not, it is not uncomfortable to have a little sum of money drop out of the clouds, to which one has as much right as any body, for which one has no obligation, and paid no flattery. This death and the circ.u.mstances have made extreme noise, but they are of an extent impossible to tell you within the compa.s.s of any letter, and I will not raise your curiosity when I cannot satisfy it but by a narration, which I must reserve till I see you.

The only event I know besides within this atmosphere, is the death of Lord Burlington, who, I have just heard, has left every thing in his power to his relict. I tell you nothing of Jew bills and Jew motions, for I dare to say you have long been as weary of the words as I am. The only point that keeps up any attention, is expectation of a mail from Ireland, from whence we have heard, by a side wind, that the court have lost a question by six; you may imagine one wants to know more of this.

The opera is indifferent; the first man has a finer voice than Monticelli, but knows not what to do with it. Ancient Visconti does so much with hers that it is intolerable. There is a new play of Glover's, in which Boadicea the heroine rants as much as Visconti screams; but happily you hear no more of her after the end of the third act, till in the last scene somebody brings a card with her compliments, and she is very sorry she cannot wait upon you, but she is dead. Then there is a scene between Lord Suss.e.x and Lord Cathcart, two captives, which is most incredibly absurd; but yet the parts are so well acted, the dresses so fine, and two or three scenes pleasing enough, that it is worth seeing.(436)

There are new young lords, fresh and fresh: two of them are much in vogue; Lord Huntingdon and Lord Stormont.(437) I supped with them t'other night at Lady Caroline Petersham's; the latter is most cried up; but he is more reserved, seems sly and to have sense, but I should not think extreme: yet it is not fair to judge on a silent man at first. The other is very lively and very agreeable. This is the state of the town you inquire after, and which you do inquire after as one does after Mr. Somebody that one used to see at Mr. Such-a-one's formerly: do you never intend to know more of us? or do you intend to leave me to wither upon the hands of the town, like Charles Stanhope and Mrs. Dunch? My contemporaries seem to be all retiring to their proprerties. If I must too, positively I will go no farther than Strawberry Hill! You are very good to lament our gold fish - their whole history consists in their being stolen a deux reprises, the very week after I came to town.

Mr. Bentley is where he was, and well, and now and then makes me as happy as I can be, having lost him, with a charming drawing. We don't talk of his abode; for the Hecate his wife endeavours to discover it. Adieu! my best compliments to Miss Montagu.

(436) Glover's tragedy of "Boadicea" was acted nine or ten nights at Drury Lane with some success; but was generally considered better adapted to the closet than the stage.

Archbishop Herring, in a letter to Mr. Duncombe, gives the following opinion of this play: "The first page of the play Shocked me, and the sudden and heated answer of the Queen to the Roman amba.s.sador's gentle address is arrant madness. It is another objection, in my opinion, that Boadicea is really not the object of crime and punishment, so much as pity; and, notwithstanding the strong painting of her savageness, I cannot help wis.h.i.+ng she had got the better. However, I admire the play in many pa.s.sages, and think the two last acts admirable, In the fifth, particularly, I hardly ever found myself so strongly touched."-E.

(437) David, Viscount Stormont, He was afterwards amba.s.sador at Vienna and Paris in 1779, one of the secretaries of state; and in 1783, president of the council. Upon the death of his uncle, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, in 1793, he succeeded to the earldom. He died in 1796.-E.

190 Letter 89 To Richard Bentley, Esq.

Arlington Street, Dec. 19, 1753.

I little thought when I parted with you, my dear Sir, that your absence(438) could indemnify me so well for itself; I still less expected that I should find you improving daily: but your letters grow more and more entertaining, your drawings more and more picturesque; you write with more wit, and paint with more melancholy, than ever any body did: your woody mountains hang down "somewhat so poetical," as Mr. Ashe(439) said, that your own poet Gray will scarce keep tune with you. All this refers to your cascade scene and your letter. For the library it cannot have the Strawberry imprimatur: the double arches and double pinnacles are most ungraceful; and the doors below the book-cases in Mr. Chute's design had a conventual look, which yours totally wants. For this time, we shall put your genius in commission, and, like some other regents, execute our own plan without minding our sovereign. For the chimney, I do not wonder you missed our instructions: we could not contrive to understand them ourselves; and therefore, determining nothing but to have the old picture stuck in a thicket of pinnacles, we left it to you to find out the how. I believe it will be a little difficult; but as I suppose facere quia impossibile est, is full as easy as credere, why--you must do it.

The present journal of the world and of me stands thus: King George II does not go abroad--Some folks fear nephews,(440) as much as others hate uncles. The Castle of Dublin has carried the Armagh election by one vote only--which is thought equivalent to losing it by twenty. Mr. Pelham has been very ill, I thought of St. Patrick's fire,(441) but it proved to be St. Antony's. Our House of Commons, mere poachers, are piddling wit the torture of Leheup,(442) who extracted so much money out of the lottery.

The robber of Po Yang(443) is discovered, and I hope will be put to death, without my pity interfering, as it has done for Mr. Shorter's servant,(444) or Lady Caroline Petersham's, as it did for Maclean. In short, it was a heron. I like this better than thieves, as I believe the gang will be more easily destroyed, though not mentioned in the King's speech or Fielding's treatises.

Lord Clarendon, Lord Thanet, and Lord Burlington are dead. The second sent for his tailor, and asked him if he could make him a suit of mourning in eight hours: if he could, he would go into mourning for his brother Burlington(445)--but that he did not expect to live twelve hours himself.

There are two more volumes come out of Sir Charles Grandison.

I shall detain them till the last is published, and not think I postpone much of your pleasure. For my part, I stopped at the fourth; I was so tired of sets of people getting together, and saying, "Pray, Miss, with whom are you in love?" and of mighty good young men that convert your Mr. M * * * *'s in the twinkling of a sermon!--You have not been much more diverted, I fear, with Hogarth's book(446)--'tis very silly!--Palmyra(447) is come forth, and is a n.o.ble book; the prints finely engraved, and an admirable dissertation before it. My wonder is much abated: the Palmyrene empire which I had figured, shrunk to a small trading city with some magnificent public buildings out of proportion to the dignity of the place.

The operas succeed pretty well; and music has so much recovered its power of charming that there is started up a burletta at Covent Garden,(448) that has half the vogue of the old Beggar's Opera: indeed there is a soubrette, called the Niccolina, who, besides being pretty, has more vivacity and variety of humour than ever existed in any creature.

(438) Mr. Bentley was now in the island of Jersey; whither he had retired on account of the derangement of his affairs, and whither all the following letters are addressed to him.

(439) A nurseryman at Twickenham. He had served Pope. Mr.

Walpole telling him he Would have his trees planted irregularly, he said, "Yes, Sir, I understand: you would have them hung down somewhat poetical."

(440) Frederick King of Prussia, nephew to George II. Mr.

Walpole alludes to himself, who was upon bad terms with his uncle Horace Walpole, afterwards Lord Walpole of Wolterton.

(441) Alluding to the disturbances and opposition to government, which took place in Ireland during the viceroyalty of Lionel Duke of Dorset.

(442) In framing the act for the purchase of the Sloane Museum and the Harleian Ma.n.u.scripts by lottery Mr. Pelham, who disapproved of this financial expedient, as tending to foster a spirit of gambling, had taken care to restrict the number of tickets to be sold to any single individual. Notwithstanding which, Mr. Leheup, one of the commissioners of the lottery, had sold to one person, under names which he knew to be fict.i.tious, between two and three hundred tickets. The subject was brought before the House of Commons, where a series of resolutions was pa.s.sed against Mr. Leheup, accompanied by an address to the King, praying that the offender might be prosecuted. The result was, that he was prosecuted by the Attorney-general, and fined one thousand pounds.-E.

(443) Mr. Walpole had given this Chinese name to a pond of gold fish at Strawberry Hill.

(444) A Swiss servant of Erasmus Shorter's, maternal uncle to Mr. Walpole, who was not without suspicion of having hastened his master's death.

(445) The Countesses of Thanet and Burlington were sisters.

(446) The a.n.a.lysis of Beauty.

(447) "The Ruins of Palmyra, otherwise Tadmor in the Desert,"

by Robert Wood, Esq.; a splendid volume in folio, with a number of elegant engravings. In 1757, Mr. Wood published a similar description of the "Ruins of Balbec."-E.

(448) Harlequin Sorcerer.-E.

191 Letter 90 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Jan. 28, 1754.

Her Serene Highness, the great d.u.c.h.ess Bianca Capello,(449) is arrived safe at a palace lately taken for her in Arlington Street. She has been much visited by the quality and gentry, and pleases universally by the graces of her person and comeliness of her deportment--my dear child, this is the least that the newspapers would say of the charming Bianca. I, who feel all the agreeableness of your manner, must say a great deal more, or should say a great deal more, but I can only commend the picture enough, not you. The head is painted equal to t.i.tian; and though done, I suppose, after the 'clock had struck five-and-thirty, yet she retains a great share of beauty. I have bespoken a frame for her, with the grand-ducal coronet at top, her story on a label at bottom, which Gray is to compose in Latin, as short and expressive as Tacitus, (one is lucky when one can bespeak and have executed such an inscription!) the Medici arms on one side, and the Capello's on the other. I must tell you a critical discovery of mine apropos: in an old book of Venetian arms, there are two coats of Capello, who from their name bear a hat; on one of them is added a fleur-de-lis on a blue ball, which I am persuaded was given to the family by the Great Duke, in consideration of this alliance; the Medicis, you know, bore such a badge at the top of their own arms. This discovery I made by a talisman, which Mr. Chute calls the Sortes Walpolianae, by which I find every thing I want, 'a pointe nomm'ee, whenever I dip for it. This discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word, which, as I have nothing better to tell you, I shall endeavour to explain to you: you will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called "The Three Princes of Serendip;" as their Highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of: for instance, one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately, because the gra.s.s was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right--now do you understand Serendipity? One of the most remarkable instances of this accidental Sagacity, (for you must observe that no discovery of a thing you are looking for comes under this description,) was of my Lord Shaftsbury, who, happening to dine at Lord Chancellor Clarendon's, found out the marriage of the Duke of York and Mrs. Hyde, by the respect with which her mother treated her at table. I will send you the inscription in my next letter; you see I endeavour to grace your present as it deserves.

Your brother would have me say something of my opinion about your idea of taking the name of Guise;(450) but he has written so fully that I can only a.s.sure you in addition, that I am stronger even than he is against it, and cannot allow of your reasoning on families, because, however families may be prejudiced about them, and however foreigners (I mean, great foreigners) here may have those prejudices too, vet they never operate here, where there is any one reason to counterbalance them. A minister who has the least disposition to promote a creature of his, and to set aside a Talbot or a Nevil, will at one breath puff away a genealogy that would reach from hence to Herenhausen. I know a great foreigner, who always says that my Lord Denbigh is the best gentleman in England, because he is descended from the old Counts of Hapsburg; and yet my Lord Denbigh, (and though he is descended from what one should think of much more consequence here, the old Counts of Denbigh,) has for many years wanted a place or a pension, as much as if he were only what I think the first Count of Hapsburg was, the Emperor's butler. Your instance of the Venetians refusing to receive Valenti can have no weight: Venice might bully a Duke of Mantua, but what would all her heralds signify against a British envoy? In short, what weight do you think family has here, when the very last minister whom we have despatched is Sir James Gray,--nay, and who has already been in a public character at Venice! His father was first a box-keeper, and then footman to James the Second; and this is the man exchanged against the Prince de San Severino! One of my father's maxims was quieta non movere; and he was a wise man in that his day.

My dear child, if you will suffer me to conclude with a pun, content yourself with your Manhood and Tuscany: it would be thought injustice to remove you from thence for any body else: when once you s.h.i.+ft about, you lose the benefit of prescription, and subject yourself to a thousand accidents. I speak very seriously; I know the carte du pais.

We have no news: the flames in Ireland are stifled, I don't say extinguished, by adjourning the Parliament, which is to be prorogued. A catalogue of dismissions was sent over thither, but the Lord Lieutenant durst not venture to put them in execution. We are sending a strong squadron to the East Indies, which may possibly bring back a war with France, especially as we are going to ask money of our Parliament for the equipment. We abound in diversions, which flourish exceedingly on the demise of politics. There are no less than five operas every week, three of which are burlettas; a very bad company, except the Niccolina, who beats all the actors and actresses I ever saw for vivacity and variety. We had a good set four years ago, which did not take at all; but these being at the playhouse, and at play prices, the people, instead of resenting it, as was expected, are transported with them, call them their own operas, and I will not swear that they do not take them for English operas. They huzzaed the King twice the other night, for bespeaking one on the night of the Haymarket opera.

I am glad you are aware of Miss Pitt: pray continue your awaredom: I a.s.sure you, before she set out for Italy, she was qualified to go any Italian length of pa.s.sion. Her very first slip was with her eldest brother: and it is not her fault that she has not made still blacker trips. Never mention this, and forget it as soon as she is gone from Florence. Adieu!

(449) Bianca Capello was the daughter of a n.o.ble Venetian. She had been seduced and carried off from her father's house by a young Florentine of low origin, named Peter Bonaventuri. They came to Florence, where she became the mistress of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Francis of Medicis. He was very anxious to have a child by her; upon which she pretended to be brought to bed of a son, who had in reality been bought of one of the lower orders. He was called Don Anthony of Medicis. In order to prevent the Grand Duke from discovering her fraud, Bianca caused several of the persons who had had a part in the deception to be a.s.sa.s.sinated. At length the wife of Francis, the Archd.u.c.h.ess Joan of Austria, died in childbed; and Bianca intrigued so successfully, that she persuaded her lover to marry her. Her marriage with the Grand Duke took place on the 12th of October, 1579, and was so sumptuous that it cost one hundred thousand Florentine ducats. Her tyranny and rapacity soon made her universally hated. She is supposed, as well as her husband, to have died by poison, administered to them through the means of his brother, the Cardinal Ferdinand of Medicis, who succeeded him as Grand I)uke.-D.

(451) Mr. Mann's mother was an heiress of that house.

194 Letter 91 To Richard Bentley, Esq.

Arlington Street, March 2, 1754.

After calling two or three times without finding him, I wrote yesterday to Lord Granville,' and received a most gracious answer, but desiring to see me. I went. He repeated all your history with him, and mentioned your vivacity at parting; however, consented to give you the apartment, with great good humour, and said he would write to his bailiff; and added, laughing, that he had an old cross housekeeper, who had regularly quarrelled with all his grantees. It is well that some of your desires, though unfortunately the most trifling, depend on me alone, as those at least are sure of being executed. By Tuesday's coach there will go to Southampton two orange trees, two Arabian jasmines, some tuberose roots, and plenty of cypress seeds, which last I send you in lieu of the olive trees, none of which are yet come over.

The weather grows fine, and I have resumed little flights to Strawberry. I carried George Montagu thither, who was in raptures, and screamed, and hooped and hollaed, and danced, and crossed himself a thousand times over. He returns to-morrow to Greatworth, and I fear will give himself up entirely to country squirehood. But what will you say to greater honour which Strawberry has received? Nolkejumskoi(453) has been to see it, and liked the windows and staircase. I can't conceive how he entered it. I should have figured him like Gulliver cutting down some of the largest oaks in Windsor Forest to make joint-stools, in order to straddle over the battlements and peep in at the windows of Lilliput. I can't deny myself this reflection (even though he liked Strawberry,) as he has not employed you as an architect.

Still there is little news. To-day it is said that Lord George Sackville is summoned in haste from Ireland, where the grand juries are going to pet.i.tion for the resitting Of the Parliament. Hitherto they have done nothing but invent satirical healths, which I believe gratify a taste more peculiar to Ireland than politics, drinking. We have had one Considerable day in the House of Commons here. Lord Egmont, in a very long and fine speech, opposed a new Mutiny-bill for the troops going to the East Indies (which I believe occasioned the reports with you of an approaching war.) Mr. Conway got infinite reputation by a most charming speech in answer to him, in which he displayed a system of military learning, which was at once new, striking and entertaining.(454) I had carried Monsieur de Gisors thither, who began to take notes of all I explained to him: but I begged he would not; for, the question regarding French politics, I concluded the Speaker would never have done storming at the Gaulls collecting intelligence in the very senate-house. Lord Holderness made a magnificent ball for these foreigners last week: there were a hundred and forty people, and most stayed supper. Two of my Frenchmen learnt country-dances, and succeeded very well. T'other night they danced minuets for the entertainment of the King at the masquerade; and then he sent for Lady Coventry to dance: it was quite like Herodias-and I believe if he had offered her a boon, she would have chosen the head of St. John--I believe I told you of her pa.s.sion for the young Lord Bolingbroke.

Dr. Mead is dead, and his collection going to be sold. I fear I have not virtue enough to resist his miniatures. I shall be ruined!(455)