The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume II Part 28

T'other replied,

"Art thou the much more famous Delaval?"

But to leave politics and change of ministries, and to come to something of real consequence, I must apply you to my library ceiling, of which I send you some rudiments. I propose to have it all painted by Clermont; the princ.i.p.al part in chiaro scuro, on the design which you drew for the Paraclete: but as that pattern would be surfeiting, so often repeated in an extension of twenty feet by thirty, I propose to break and enliven it by compartments in colours, according to the enclosed sketch, which you must adjust and dimension. Adieu!

(469) With whom he was at variance.

'202 Letter 95 To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, March 19, 1754.

You will live in the country, and then you are amazed that people use you ill. Don't mistake me: I don't mean that you deserve to be ill-treated for living in the country; at least only by those who love and miss you; but if you inhabited the town a little, you would not quite so much expect uprightness, nor be so surprised at ingrat.i.tude, and . neglect. I am far from disposed to justify the great C'u; but when you had declined being his servant, do you wonder that he will not serve your friends! I will tell you what, if the news of to-day holds at all, which is what no one piece of news of this last fortnight has done, you may be worse used by your cousin as soon as you please; for he is one of the first upon the list for secretary of state, in the room of the Duke of Newcastle.

Now again, are you such a rusticated animal as to suppose that the Duke is dismissed for inability, on the death of his brother. So far from it, it is already certainly known that it was he who supported Mr. Pelham, and the impediments and rubs thrown in the way of' absolute power long ago were the effects of the latter's timidity and irresolution. The Duke, freed from that clog, has declared himself sole minister, and the King has kissed his hand upon it. Mr. Fox, who was the only man in England that objected to this plan, is to be sent to a prison which is building on the coast of Suss.e.x, after the model of Fort l'Ev'eque, under the direction of Mr. Taaffe.

Harry Legge is to be chancellor of the exchequer, but the declared favour rests on Lord Duplin. Sir George Lyttelton is to be treasurer of the navy. The parliament is to be dissolved on the fourth of next month: till when, I suppose, none of the changes will take place. These are the politics of the day; but as they are a little fluctuating, notwithstanding the steadiness of the new first minister, I will not answer that they will hold true to Greatworth: nothing lasts now but the bad weather.

I went two days ago, with Lady Ailesbury, and Mr. Conway, and Miss Anne, to hear the rehearsal of Mrs. Clive's new farce, which is very droll, with pretty music.

202 Letter 96 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, March 28, 1754.

I promised to write to you again soon, and therefore I do: that Is, I stick to the letter, not to the essence; for I not Only have very little to write, but your brother has, I believe, already told you all that has happened. Mr. Fox received almost at once a testimonial that he was the most proper for minister, and a proof that he was not to be so. He on the Tuesday consented to be secretary of state, with the management of the House of Commons, and the very next day refused to be the former, as he found he was not to have the latter. He remains secretary at war, in rupture with the Duke of Newcastle, (who, you know, has taken the treasury,) but declaring against opposition. That Duke is omnipotent; and, to show that power, makes use of nothing but machines. Sir Thomas Robinson is secretary of state; Mr. Legge, chancellor of the exchequer; Lord Duplin,(470) the agent of business.(471) Yesterday an odd event happened: Lord Gower resigned the privy seal: it had been for some time promised to the Duke of Rutland,(472) who having been reported dead, and who really having voided a quarry of stones, is come to town; and his brother, a Lord William Manners, better known in the groom-porter's annals than in those of Europe, and the whole Manners family having intimated to the Duke of Newcastle that unless Lord Gower was dismissed in a month, and the Duke of Rutland instated in his place, they would oppose the prosperous dawn of the new ministry, that poor Earl, who is inarticulate with the palsy, has been drawn into a resignation, and is the first sacrifice to the spirit of the new administration.(473) You will very likely not understand such politics as these, but they are the best we have.

Our old good-humoured friend Prince Craon is dead; don't you think that the Princess will not still despair of looking well in weeds! My Lord Orford's grandmother(474) is dead too; and after her husband's death, (whose life, I believe, she has long known to be not worth a farthing,) has left every thing to her grandson. This makes me very happy, for I had apprehended, from Lord Orford's indolence and inattention, and from his mother's cunning and attention, that she would have wriggled herself into the best clause in the will; but she is not mentioned in it, and the Houghton pictures may still be saved.

Adieu! my dear Sir; I don't call this a letter, but a codicil to my last: one can't write volumes on trifling events.

(470 Eldest son of William Hay, Earl of Kinnoul.

(471) For an account of the political changes which took place upon the death of Mr. Pelham, see Lord Dover's Preface to these Letters, vol. i. p. 29.-E.

(472) John Manners, third Duke of Rutland, the father of the more celebrated Lord Granby. He died in 1779, at the age of eighty-three.-D.

(473) The Duke of Rutland did not succeed to the privy seal; but Charles Spencer, second Duke of Marlborough.-D.

(474) Margaret Tuckfield, second wife of Samuel Rolle, of Haynton in Devons.h.i.+re; by whom she was mother of Margaret Countess of Orford, and afterwards married to John Harris, of Hayne in Devons.h.i.+re, master of the household to the King.

204 Letter 97 To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, April 24, 1754.

Before I received your letter of March 29th, I had already told you the state of our politics, as they seemed fixed--at least for the present. The Duke of Newcastle is alone and all powerful, and, I suppose, smiles at those who thought that we must be governed by a succession of geniuses. I don't know whether there arc not more parts in governing without genius!- -be it as it will, all the world acquiesces: he has placed all the orators in whatever offices they demanded, and the New Parliament, which is almost chosen, will not probably degenerate from the complaisance of its predecessor. Which of the popes was it, who being chosen for his insufficience, said, "I could not have believed that it was so easy to govern!" You will forgive my smiling in my turn at your begging me to lay aside family considerations, and tell you if I do not think my uncle the fittest subject for a first minister. My dear child, you have forgot that three years are past since I so totally laid aside all family considerations, as not to speak or even bow to my uncle. Since the affair of Lord Orford and Miss Nichol], I have not had the least intercourse with the Pigwiggin branch; and should be very sorry if there were any person in the world but you, and my uncle himself, who thought him proper for minister.

I believe there is no manner of intention of sending Lord Albemarle to Ireland: the style toward that island is extremely lofty; and after some faint proposals of giving them some agreeable governor, violent measures have been resumed: the Speaker is removed from being chancellor of the exchequer, more of his friends are displaced, and the Primate, with the Chancellor and Lord Besborough, are again nominated lords Justices. These measures must oppress the Irish spirit, or, what is more likely, inflame it to despair. Lord Rochford certainly returns to Turin. General Wall, who was in the highest favour here, and who was really grown fond of England- -not at all to the prejudice of doing us what hurt he could in his public character, is recalled, to succeed Don Carvalho and Lancaster, as secretary of state for foreign affairs. If he regrets England too much, may not he think of taking Ireland in his way back?

I shall fill up the remainder of an empty letter with transcribing some sentences which have diverted me in a very foolish vulgar book of travels, lately published by one Drummond,(475) consul at Aleppo. Speaking of Florence, he says, that the very evening of his arrival, he was carried by Lord Eglinton and some other English, whom he names, to your house: "Mr. Mann" (these are his words) "is extremely Polite, and I do him barely justice in saying he is a fine gentleman, though indeed this is as much as can be said of any person whatever; yet there are various ways of distinguis.h.i.+ng the qualities that compose this amiable character, and of these, he, in my opinion, possesses the most agreeable. He lives in a fine palace; all the apartments on the ground-floor, which is elegantly furnished, were lighted up; and the garden was a little epitome of Vauxhall. These conversationi resemble our card-a.s.semblies;" (this is called writing travels, to observe that an a.s.sembly is like an a.s.sembly!) "and this was remarkably brilliant, for all the married ladies of fas.h.i.+on in Florence were present; yet were they as much inferior to the fair part of a British a.s.sembly, especially those of York and Edinburgh, as a crew of female Laplanders are to the fairest dames of Florence. Excuse this sally, which is more warm than just; for even this a.s.sembly was not without a few lovely creatures.

Some played at cards, some pa.s.sed the time in conversation; others walked from place to place; and many retired with their gallants into gloomy corners, where they entertained each other, but in what manner I will not pretend to say; though, if I may depend upon my information, which, by-the-by, was very good, their taste and mine would not at all agree. In a word, these countries teem with more singularities than I choose to mention." You will conclude I had very little to say when I had recourse to the observations of such a simpleton; but I thought they would divert you for a moment, as they did me.

One don't dislike to know what even an Aleppo factor would write of one-and I can't absolutely dislike him, as he was not insensible to your agreeableness. I don't believe Orpheus would think even a bear ungenteel when it danced to his music.

Adieu!

(475) Alexander Drummond, Esq. The work was ent.i.tled "Travels through different Cities of Germany, Italy, Greece, and several parts of Asia, as far as the banks of the Euphrates."-.

205 Letter 98 To John Chute, Esq.

Arlington Street, April 30, 1754.

My G.o.d! Farinelli, what has this nation done to the King of Spain, that the moment we have any thing dear and precious he should tear it from us!-This is not the beginning of my letter to you, nor does it allude to Mr. Bentley; much less is it relative to the captivity of the ten tribes; nor does the King signify Benhadad or Tiglath-pileser; nor Spain, a.s.syria, as Dr.

Poc.o.c.ke or Warburton, misled by dissimilitude of names, or by the Septuagint, may, for very good reasons, imagine--but it is literally the commencement of my lady Rich's(476) epistle to Farinelli on the recall of General Wall, as she relates it herself. It serves extremely well for my own lamentation, when I sit down by the waters of Strawberry, and think of ye, O Chute and Bentley!

I have seen "Creusa,"(477) and more than agree with you: it is the only new tragedy that I ever saw and really liked. The plot is most interesting, and, though so complicated quite clear and natural. The circ.u.mstance of so much distress being brought on by characters, every one good, yet acting consistently with their principles towards the misfortunes of the drama, is quite new and pleasing. Nothing offended me but that lisping Miss Haughton, whose every speech is inarticulately oracular.

I was last night at a little ball at Lady Anne Furnese's for the new Lords, Dartmouth and North, but nothing pa.s.sed worth relating; indeed, the only event since you left London was the tragicomedy that was acted last Sat.u.r.day at the Opera. One of the dramatic guards fell flat on his face and motionless in an apoplectic fit. The Princess(478) and her children were there.

Miss Chudleigh, who apparemment had never seen a man fall on his face before, went into the most theatric fit of kicking and shrieking that ever was seen. Several other women, who were preparing their fits, were so distanced that she had the whole house to herself; and, indeed such a confusion for half an hour I never saw! The next day, at my Lady Townshend's, old Charles Stanhope asked what these fits were called? Charles Townshend replied, "The true convulsive fits, to be had only of the maker." Adieu! my dear Sir. To-day looks summerish, but we have no rain yet.

(476) One of the daughters and coheiresses of the Lord Mohun, killed in a duel with Duke Hamilton.

(477) William Whitehead's tragedy of "Creusa" was brought out at Drury Lane theatre with considerable applause. Mrs.

Pritchard performed the character of Creusa with great effect; and as Garrick and Mossop also took parts in it, the performance was so perfect, that it was hardly possible for it not to succeed in the representation; yet it has seldom been revived.-E.

(478) The Princess of Wales, mother to George the Third.-E.

]206 Letter 99 To John Chute, Esq.

Arlington Street, May 14, 1754.

My dear sir, I wrote to you the last day of last month: I only mention it to show you that I am- punctual to your desire. It is my only reason for writing to-day, for I have nothing new to tell you.

The town is empty, dusty, and disagreeable; the country is cold and comfortless; consequently I daily run from one to t'other', as if both were so charming that I did not know which to prefer. I am at present employed in no very lively manner, in reading a treatise on commerce, which Count Perron has lent me, of his own writing: this obliges me to go through with it, though the subject and the style of the French would not engage me much. It does not want sense.

T'other night a description was given me of the most extraordinary declaration of love that ever was made. Have you seen young Poniatowski?(479) he is very handsome. You have seen the figure of the d.u.c.h.ess of Gordon,(480) who looks like a raw-boned Scotch metaphysician that has got a red face by drinking water. One day at the drawing-room, having never spoken to him, she sent one of the foreign ministers to invite Poniatowski to dinner with her for the next day. He bowed and went. The moment the door opened, her two little sons, attired like Cupids, with bows and arrows, shot at him; and one of them literally hit his hair, and was very near putting his eye out, and hindering his casting it to the couch

"Where she another sea-born Venus lay."

The only company besides this Highland G.o.ddess were two Scotchmen, who could not speak a word of any language but their own Erse; and to complete his astonishment at this allegorical entertainment, with the dessert there entered a little horse, and galloped round the table; a hieroglyphic I cannot solve.

Poniatowski accounts for this profusion of kindness by his great-grandmother being a Gordon: but I believe it is to be accounted for by * * * * Adieu! my dear Sir.

(479) Stanislaus, the ill-fated King of Poland.

(480) Lady Catherine Gordon, daughter of the Earl of Aberdeen, widow of Cosmo Duke of Gordon, who died in 1752. She married, secondly, Colonel Saates Morris.-E.

207 Letter 100 To Richard Bentley, Esq.

Arlington Street, May 18, 1754.