The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume III Part 14

(144) the prayer of Sir Robert Walpole, recorded on the foundation-stone, was, that "after its master, to a mature old age, had long enjoyed it in perfection, his latest descendants might safely possess it to the end of time."-E.

Letter 70 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Arlington Street, April 10, 1761. (page 118)

If Prince Ferdinand had studied how to please me, I don't know any method he could have lighted upon so likely to gain my heart, as being beaten out of the field before you joined him. I delight in a hero that is driven so far that n.o.body can follow him. He is as well at Paderborn, as where I have long wished the King of Prussia, the other world. You may frown if you please at my imprudence, you who are gone with all the disposition in the world to be well with your commander; the peace is in a manner made, and the anger of generals will not be worth sixpence these ten years. We peaceable folks are now to govern the world, and you warriors must in your turn tremble at our Subjects the mob, as we have done before your hussars and court-martials.

I am glad you had so pleasant a pa.s.sage.(145) My Lord Lyttelton would say, that Lady Mary c.o.ke, like Venus, smiled over the waves, et mare prestabat eunti. in truth, when she could tame me, she must have had little trouble with the ocean. Tell me how many burgomasters she has subdued, or how many would have fallen in love with her if they had not fallen asleep! Come, has she saved two-pence by her charms? Have they abated a farthing of their impositions for her being handsomer than any thing in the seven provinces? Does she know how political her journey is thought? Nay, my Lady Ailesbury, you are not out of the sc.r.a.pe; you are both reckoned des Mar'echale de Guebriant,(146) going to fetch, and consequently govern the young queen. There are more jealousies about your voyage, than the Duke of Newcastle would feel if Dr. Shaw had prescribed a little ipecacuanha to my Lord Bute.

I am sorry I must adjourn my mirth, to give Lady Ailesbury a pang; poor Sir Harry b.e.l.l.e.n.dine(147) is dead; he made a great dinner at Almac's for the House of Drummond, drank very hard, caught a violent fever, and died in a very few days. Perhaps you will have heard this before; I shall wish so; I do not like, even innocently, to be the cause of sorrow.

I do not at all lament Lord Granby's leaving the army, and your immediate succession. There are persons in the world who would gladly ease you of this burden. As you are only to take the vice-royalty of a coop, and that for a few weeks, I shall but smile if you are terribly distressed. Don't let Lady Ailesbury proceed to Brunswick: you might have had a wife who would not have thought it so terrible to fall into the hands [arms] of hussars; but as I don't take that to be your Countess's turn, leave her with the Dutch, who are not so boisterous as Cossacks or chancellors of the exchequer.

My love, my duty, my jealousy, to Lady Mary, if she is not sailed before you receive this--if she is, I shall deliver them myself Good night! I write immediately on the receipt of your letter, but you see I have nothing yet new to tell you.

(145) From Harwich to Holvoetsluys.

(146) The Mar'echale de Gu'ebriant was sent to the King of Poland with the character of amba.s.sadress by Louis Xiii. to accompany the Princess Marie de Gonzague, who had been married by proxy to the King of Poland at Paris.

(147) Uncle to the Countess of Ailesbury.

Letter 71 To Sir David Dalrymple.(148) Arlington Street, April 14, 1761. (page 119)

Sir, I have deferred answering the favour of your last, till I could tell you that I had seen Fingal. Two journeys into Norfolk for my election, and other accidents, prevented my seeing any part of the poem till this last week, and I have yet only seen the first book. There are most beautiful images in it, and it surprises one how the bard could strike out so many s.h.i.+ning ideas from a few so very simple objects, as the moon, the storm, the sea, and the heath, from whence he borrows almost all his allusions. The particularizing of persons, by "he said," "he replied," so much objected to in Homer, is so wanted in Fingal,(149) that it in some measure justifies the Grecian Highlander; I have even advised Mr. Macpherson (to prevent confusion) to have the names prefixed to the speeches, as in a play. It is too obscure without some such aid. My doubts of the genuineness are all vanished.

I fear, sir, from Dodsley's carelessness, you have not received the Lucan. A gentleman in Yorks.h.i.+re, for whom I consigned another copy at the same time with yours, has got his but within this fortnight. I have the pleasure to find, that the notes are allowed the best of Dr. Bentley's remarks on poetic authors.

Lucan was muscular enough to bear his rough hand.

Next winter I hope to be able to send you Vertue's History of the Arts, as I have put it together from his collections. Two volumes are finished, the first almost printed and the third begun. There will be a fourth, I believe, relating solely to engravers. You will be surprised, sir, how the industry of one man could at this late period ama.s.s so near a complete history of our artists. I have no share in it, but in arranging his materials. Adieu!

(148) Now first collected.

(149) "For me," writes Gray, it this time, to Dr. Wharton, "I admire nothing but Fingal; yet I remain still in doubt about the authenticity of these poems, though inclining rather to believe them genuine in spite of the worio. Whether they are the inventions of antiquity, or of a modern Scotchman, either case to me is alike unaccountable. Je m'y perds." Dr. Johnson, on the contrary, all along denied their authenticity. "The subject,"

says Boswell, "having been introduced by Dr. Fordyce, Dr. Blair, relying on the external evidence of their antiquity, asked Johnson whether he thought any man of modern age could have written such poems? Johnson replied, 'Yes, Sir, many men, many women, and many children.' He, at this time, did not know that Dr. Blair had just published a dissertation, not only defending their authenticity, but seriously ranking them with the poems of Homer and Virgil; and when he was afterwards informed of this circ.u.mstance, he expressed some displeasure at Dr. Fordyce's having suggested the topic, and said, 'I am not sorry that they got thus much for their pains: Sir, it was like leading one to talk of a book, when the author is concealed behind the door.'"-E.

Letter 72 To The Countess Of Suffolk.(150) Friday night, April 1761. (page 120)

We are more successful, Madam, than I could flatter myself we should be. Mr. Conway--and I need say no more--has negotiated so well, that the Duke of Grafton is disposed to bring Mr.

Beauclerk(151) in for Thetford. It will be expected, I believe, that Lord Vere should resign Windsor in a handsome manner to the Duke of c.u.mberland. It must be your ladys.h.i.+p's part to prepare this; which I hope will be the means of putting an end to these unhappy differences. My only fear now is, lest the Duke should have promised the Lodge.' Mr. Conway writes to Lord Albemarle, who is yet at Windsor, to prevent this, if not already done, till the rest is ready to be notified to the Duke of c.u.mberland. Your ladys.h.i.+p's good sense and good heart make it unnecessary for me to say more.

(150) Now first collected.

(151) The Hon. Aubrey Beauclerk, son of Lord Vere; afterwards Duke of St. Albans.

Letter 73 To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, April 16, 1761. (page 121)

You are a very mule; one offers you a handsome stall and manger in Berkeley Square, and you will not accept it. I have chosen your coat, a claret colour, to suit the complexion of the country you are going to visit; but I have fixed nothing about the lace.

Barrett had none of gauze, but what were as broad as the Irish Channel. Your tailor found a very reputable one at another place, but I would not determine rashly; it will be two or three-and-twenty s.h.i.+llings the yard: you might have a very substantial real lace,' which would wear like your buffet, for twenty. The second order of gauzes are frippery, none above twelve s.h.i.+llings, and those tarnished, for the species are out of fas.h.i.+on. You will have time to sit in judgment upon these important points; for Hamilton(152) your secretary told me at the Opera two nights ago, that he had taken a house near Busby, and hoped to be in my neighbourhood for four months.

I was last night at your plump Countess's who is so shrunk, that she does not seem to be composed of above a dozen ha.s.socs. Lord Guildford rejoiced mightily over your preferment. The d.u.c.h.ess of Argyle was playing there, not knowing that the great Pam was just dead,, to wit, her brother-in-law. He was abroad in the morning, was seized with a palpitation after dinner, and was dead before the surgeon could arrive. There's the crown of Scotland too fallen upon my Lord Bute's head! Poor Lord Edgec.u.mbe is still alive, and may be so for some days; the physicians, who no longer ago than Friday se'nnight persisted that he had no dropsy, in order to prevent his having Ward,(153) on Monday last proposed that Ward should be called in, and at length they owned they thought the mortification begun. It is not clear it is yet; at times he is in his senses, and entirely so, composed, clear, and most rational; talks of his death, and but yesterday, after such a conversation with his brother, asked for a pencil to amuse himself with drawing. What parts, genius, agreeableness thrown away at a hazard table, and not permitted the chance of being saved by the villainy of physicians!

You will be pleased with the Anacreontic, written by Lord Middles.e.x upon Sir Harry b.e.l.l.e.n.dine: I have not seen any thing so antique for ages; it has all the fire, poetry, and simplicity of Horace.

"Ye sons of Bacchus, come and join in solemn dirge, while tapers s.h.i.+ne Around the grape-embowered shrine Of honest Harry b.e.l.l.e.n.dine.

Pour the rich juice of Bourdeaux's wine, Mix'd with your falling tears of brine, In full libation o'er the shrine Of honest Harry b.e.l.l.e.n.dine.

Your brows let ivy chaplets twine, While you push round the sparkling wine, And let your table be the shrine Of honest Hairy b.e.l.l.e.n.dine."

He died in his vocation, of a high fever, after the celebration of some orgies. Though but six hours in his senses, he gave a proof of his usual good humour, making it his last request to the sister Tuftons to be reconciled; which they are. His pretty villa, in my neighbourhood, I fancy he has left to the new Lord Lorn. I must tell you an admirable bon-mot of George Selwyn, though not a new one; when there was a malicious report that the eldest Tufton was to marry Dr. Duncan, Selwyn said, "How often will she repeat that line of Shakspeare,

"Wake Duncan with this knocking--would thou couldst!"

I enclose the receipt from your lawyer. Adieu!

(152) William Gerard Hamilton, commonly called Single-speech Hamilton, was, on the appointment of Lord Halifax to the viceroyalty of Ireland, selected as his secretary, and was accompanied thither by the celebrated Edmund Burke, partly as a friend and partly as his private secretary.-E.

(153) The celebrated empiric, see ant'e, p. 37, letter 10. His drops were first introduced in 1732, by Sir Thomas Robinson; upon which occasion, Sir C. H. Williams addressed to him his poem, commencing,

"Say, knight, for learning most renown'd, What is this wondrous drop?"-E.

Letter 74 To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, April 28, 1761. (page 122)

I am glad you will relish June for Strawberry; by that time I hope the weather will have recovered its temper. At present it is horridly cross and uncomfortable; I fear we shall have a cold season; we cannot eat our summer and have our summer.

There has been a terrible fire in the little traverse street, at the upper end of Sackville Street. Last Friday night, between eleven and twelve, I was sitting with Lord Digby in the coffee-room at Arthur's; they told us there was a great fire somewhere about Burlington Gardens. I, who am as constant at a fire as George Selwyn at an execution, proposed to Lord Digby to go and see where it was. We found it within two doors of that pretty house of Fairfax, now General Waldegrave's. I sent for the latter, who was at Arthur's; and for the guard, from St.

James's. Four houses were in flames before they could find a drop of water; eight were burnt. I went to my Lady Suffolk, in Saville Row, and pa.s.sed the whole night, till three in the morning, between her little hot bedchamber and the spot up to my ancles in water, without catching cold.(154) As the wind, which had sat towards Swallow Street, changed in the middle of the conflagration, I concluded the greater part of Saville Row would be consumed. I persuaded her to prepare to transport her most valuable effects--"portantur avari Pygmalionis opes miserae."

She behaved with great composure, and observed to me herself how much worse her deafness grew with the alarm. Half the people of fas.h.i.+on in town were in the streets all night, as it happened in such a quarter of distinction. In the crowd, looking on with great tranquillity, I saw a Mr. Jackson, an Irish gentleman, with whom I had dined this winter, at Lord Hertford's. He seemed rather grave; I said, "Sir, I hope you do not live hereabouts."

"Yes, Sir," said he, "I lodged in that house that is Just burnt."

Last night there was a mighty ball at Bedford-house; the royal Dukes and Princess Emily were there; your lord-lieutenant, the great lawyer, lords, and old Newcastle, whose teeth are tumbled out, and his mouth tumbled in; hazard very deep; loo, beauties, and the Wilton Bridge in sugar, almost as big as the life. I am glad all these joys are near going out of town. The Graftons go abroad for the d.u.c.h.ess's health; Another climate may mend that--I will not answer for more. Adieu! Yours ever.

(154) This accident was owing to a coachman carrying a lighted candle into the stable, and, agreeably to Dean Swift's Advice to Servants, sticking it against the rack; the straw being set in a flame in his absence, by the candle falling. Eight or nine horses perished, and fourteen houses were burnt to the ground.

Walpole was, most probably, not an idle spectator for the newspapers relate, that the "gentlemen in the neighbourhood, together with their servants, formed a ring, kept off the mob, and handed the goods and movables from one another, till they secured them in a place of safety; a n.o.ble instance of neighbourly respect and kindness."-E.