The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume IV Part 30

I am actually printing my Justification about Chatterton, but only two hundred copies to give away; for I hate calling in the whole town to a fray, of which otherwise probably not one thousand persons would ever hear. You shall have a copy as soon as ever it is finished, which my printer says will be in three weeks.

You know my printer is my secretary too: do not imagine I am giving myself airs of a numerous household of officers. I shall be glad to see the letter of Mr. Baker you mentioned. You will perceive two or three notes in my ma.n.u.script in a different hand from mine, or that of my amanuensis (still the same officer;) they were added by a person I lent it to, and I have effaced part of the last.

I must finish, lest Dr. Jacob should call, and my parcel not be ready. I hope your sore throat is gone; my gout has returned again a little with taking the air only, but did not stay-- however, I am still confined, and almost ready to remain so, to prevent disappointment. Yours most sincerely.

Letter 159 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Arlington Street, Jan. 28, 1779. (page 214)

I write in as much hurry as you did, dear Sir, and thank you for the motive of yours mine is to prevent your fatiguing yourself in copying my ma.n.u.script, for which I am not in the least haste: pray keep it till another safe conveyance presents itself. You may bring the gout, that is, I am sorry to hear, flying about you, into your hand by wearying it.

How can you tell me I may well be cautious about my ma.n.u.script and yet advise me to print it?--No-I shall not provoke nests of hornets, till I am dust, as they will be too.

If I dictated tales when ill in my bed, I must have been worse than I thought; for, as I know nothing of it, I must have been light-headed. Mr. Lort was certainly misinformed, though he seems to have told you the story kindly to the honour of my philosophy or spirits-but I had rather have no fame than what I do not deserve.

I am fretful or low-spirited at times in the gout, like other weak old men, and have less to boast than most men. I have some strange things in my drawer, even wilder than the Castle of Otranto, and called Hieroglyphic Tales; but they were not written lately, nor in the gout, nor, whatever they may seem, written when I was out of my senses. I showed one or two of them to a person since my recovery, who may have mentioned them, and occasioned Mr. Lort's misintelligence. I did not at all perceive that the latter looked ill; and hope he is quite recovered. You shall see Chatterton soon. Adieu!

Letter 160To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

February 4, 1779. (page 215)

I have received the ma.n.u.script, and though you forbid my naming the subject more, I love truth, and truth in a friend so much, that I must tell you, that so far from taking your sincerity ill, I had much rather you should act with your native honest sincerity than say you was pleased with my ma.n.u.script. I have always tried as much as is in human nature to divest myself of the self-love of an author; in the present case I had less difficulty than ever, for I never thought my Life of Mr. Baker one of my least indifferent works. You might, believe me, have sent me your long letter; whatever it contained, it would not have made a momentary cloud between us. I have not only friends.h.i.+p, but great grat.i.tude for you, for a thousand instances of kindness; and should detest any writing of mine that made a breach with a friend, and still more, if it could make me forget obligations.

Letter 161 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

February 18, 1779. (page 215)

I sent you my Chattertoniad(344) last week,,in hopes it would sweeten your pouting; but I find it has not, or has miscarried; for You have not 'acknowledged the receipt with your usual punctuality.

Have you seen Hasted's new History of Kent?(345) I am sailing through it, but am stopped every minute by careless mistakes.

They tell me the author has good materials, but is very negligent, and so I perceive, He has not even given a list of monuments in the churches, which I do not remember in any history of a county; but he is rich in pedigrees; though I suppose they have many errors too, as I have found some in those I am acquainted with- It is unpardonable to be inaccurate in a work in which one nor expects nor demands any thing but fidelity.(346)

We have a great herald arising in a very n.o.ble race, Lord de Ferrers. I hope to make him a Gothic architect too, for he is going to repair Tamworth Castle and flatters me that I shall give him sweet counseil! I enjoin him to kernellare. Adieu! Yours ever.

(344) "A Letter to the Editor of the Miscellanies of Thomas Chatterton." Strawberry Hill, 1779, 8vo.-E.

(345) "The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent; by Edward Hasted," four volumes, folio, 1778-1799. A second and improved edition, in twelve volumes, octavo, appeared in 1797-1801. Mr. Hasted died in 1812 at the age of eighty.-E.

(346) in a memoir of himself, which, he drew up for the Gentleman's Magazein, to be published after his death, he says, "his laborious History of Kent took him more than forty years; during the whole series of which he spared neither pains nor expense to bring it to maturity."-E.

Letter 162 To Sir David Dalrymple.(347) Arlington Street, March 12, 1779. (page 216)

I have received this moment from your bookseller, Sir, the valuable present of the second volume of your "Annals," and beg leave to return you my grateful thanks for so agreeable a gift, of which I can only have taken a look enough to lament that you do not intend to continue the work. Repeated and severe attacks of the gout forbid my entertaining- visions of pleasures to come; but though I might not have the advantage of your labours, Sir, I wish too well to posterity not to be sorry that you check your hand.

Lord Buchan did me the honour lately of consulting me on portraits of ill.u.s.trious Scots. I recollect that there is at Windsor a very good portrait of your countryman Duns Scotus,(348) whose name struck me on just turning over your volume. A good print was made from that picture some years ago, but I believe it is not very scarce: as it is not worth while to trouble his lords.h.i.+p with another letter for that purpose only, may I take the liberty, Sir, of begging you to mention it to his lords.h.i.+p?

(347) Now first collected.

(348) Granger considers the portrait of Windsor not to be genuine. Of Duns Scotus, he says, "It requires one half of a man's life to read the works of this profound doctor, and the , other to understand his subtleties. His printed works are in twelve volumes in folio! His ma.n.u.scripts are sleeping in Merton College, Oxford. Voluminous works frequently arise from the ignorance and confused ideas of the authors: if angels, says Mr.

Norris, were writers, we should have few folios. He was the head of the sect of schoolmen called scotists. He died in 1308."-E.

Letter 163 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Strawberry Hill, March 28, 1779. (page 216)

Your last called for no answer; and I have so little to tell you, that I only write to-day to avoid the air of remissness. I came hither on Friday, for this last week has been too hot to stay in London; but March is arrived this morning with his northeasterly malice, and I suppose will a.s.sert his old-style claim to the third of April. The poor infant apricots will be the victims to that Herod of the almanack. I have been much amused with new travels through Spain by a Mr. Swinburne(349)--at least with the Alhambra, of the inner parts of which there are two beautiful prints. The Moors were the most polished, and had the most taste of any people in the Gothic ages; and I hate the knave Ferdinand and his bigoted Queen for destroying them. These new travels are simple, and do tell you a little more than late voyagers, by whose accounts one would think there was nothing in Spain but muleteers and fandangos. In truth, there does not seem to be much worth seeing but prospects; and those, unless I were a bird, I would never visit, when the accommodations are so wretched.

Mr. c.u.mberland has given the town a masque, called Calypso,(350) which is a prodigy of dulness. Would you believe, that such a sentimental Writer would be so gross as to make cantharides one of the ingredients of a love-potion, for enamouring Telemachus?

If you think I exaggerate, here are the lines:

"To these, the hot Hispanian fly Shall bid his languid pulse beat high."

Proteus and Antiope are Minerva's missioners for securing the prince's virtue, and in recompense they are married and crowned king and queen!

I have bought at Hudson's sale a fine design of a chimney-piece, by Holbein, for Henry VIII. If I had a room left I would erect.

It is certainly not so Gothic as that in my Holbein room; but there is a great deal of taste for that b.a.s.t.a.r.d style; perhaps it was executed at Nonsuch. I do intend, under Mr. Ess.e.x's inspection, to begin my offices next spring. It is late in my day, I confess, to return to brick and mortar but I shall be glad to perfect my plan, or the' next possessor will marry my castle to a Doric stable. There is a perspective through two or three rooms in the Alhambra, that might easily be improved into Gothic, though there seems but small affinity between them; and they might be finished within with Dutch tiles, and painting, or bits of ordinary marble, as there must be gilding. Mosaic seems to be their chief ornaments, for walls, ceilings, and floors. Fancy must sport in the furniture, and mottos might be gallant, and would be very Arabesque. I would have a mixture of colours, but with a strict attention to harmony and taste; and some one should predominate, as supposing it the favourite colour of the lady who was sovereign of the knight's affections who built the house.

Carpets are cla.s.sically Mahometans, and fountains--but, alas! our climate till last summer was never romantic! Were I not so old, I would at least build a Moorish novel-for you see my head Turns on Granada-and by taking the most picturesque parts of the Mahometan and Catholic religions, and with the mixture of African and Spanish names, one might make something very agreeable--at least I will not give the hint to Mr. c.u.mberland. Adieu! Yours ever.

(349) "Travels through Spain in the Years 1775 and 1776; in which several Monuments of Roman and Moorish Architecture are ill.u.s.trated by accurate Drawings taken on the spot. By Henry Swinburne." London, 1779, 4to. Mr. Swinburne also published, in 1783-5 his "Travels in the Two Sicilies during the Years 1777-8-9, and 1780." This celebrated traveller was the youngest son of Sir John Swinburne, of Capheaton, Northumberland; the long-established seat of that ancient Roman Catholic family.

Pecuniary embarra.s.sments, arising from the marriage of his daughter to Paul Benfield, Esq. and consequent involvement in the misfortunes of that adventurer, induced him to obtain a Place in the newly-ceded settlement of Trinidad, where he died in 1803.-E.

(350) "Calypso" was brought out at Covent-Garden theatre, but was performed only a few nights. It was imprudently ushered in by a prelude, in which the author treated the newspaper editors as a set of unprincipled fellows.-E.

Letter 164 To Edward Gibbon, Esq.(351) (1779.] (page 218)

The penetration, solidity, and taste, that made you the first of historians, dear Sir, prevent my being surprised at your being the best writer of controversial pamphlets too.(352) I have read you with more precipitation than such a work deserved, but I could not disobey you and detain it. Yet even in that hurry I could discern, besides a thousand beauties and strokes of wit, the inimitable eighty-third page, and the conscious dignity that you maintain throughout, over your monkish antagonists. When you are so superior in argument, it would look like insensibility to the power of your reasoning, to select transient pa.s.sages for commendation; and yet I must mention one that pleased me particularly, from the delicacy of the severity, and from its novelty too; it is, bold is not the word. This is the feathered arrow of Cupid, that is more formidable than the club of Hercules. I need not specify thanks, when I prove how much I have been pleased. Your most obliged.

(351) Now first collected.

(352) Gibbon's celebrated "Vindication" of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters of his History appeared early in the year 1779. "I adhered," he says in his Memoirs, "to the wise resolution of trusting myself and my writing to the candour of the public, till Mr. Davis of Oxford presumed to attack, not the faith but the fidelity of the historian. My Vindication, expressive of less anger than contempt, amused for a moment the busy and idle metropolis; and the most rational Part of the laity, and even of the clergy, appear to have been satisfied of my innocence and accuracy I would not print it in quarto, lest it should be bound and preserved with the history itself At the distance of twelve years, I calmly affirm my judgment of Davis, Chelsum, etc. A victory over such antagonists was a sufficient humiliation. They, however were rewarded in this world, Poor Chelsum was, indeed, neglected; and I dare not boast the making Dr. Watson a bishop: he is a prelate of a large mind and a liberal spirit: but I enjoyed the pleasure of giving a royal pension to Mr. Davis, and of collating Dr. Althorpe to an archiepiscopal living."-E.

Letter 165 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Arlington Street, April 12, 1779. (page 218)

As your gout was so concise, I will not condole on it, but I am sorry you are liable to it if you do but take the air. Thank you for telling me of the vendible curiosities at the Alderman's.

For St. Peter's portrait to hang to a fairie's watch, I shall not think of it, both as I do not believe it very like, and as it is composed of invisible Writing, for which my eyes are not young enough. In truth, I have almost left off making purchases: I have neither room for any thing more, nor inclination for them, as I reckon every thing very dear when One has so little time to enjoy it. However, I cannot say but the plates by Rubens do tempt me a little--yet, as I do not care to, buy even Rubens in a poke, I should wish to know if the Alderman would let me see. if it were but one. Would he be persuaded? I would pay for the carriage, though I should not buy them.

Lord de Ferrers will be infinitely happy with the sight of the pedigree, and I will certainly tell him of it, and how kind you are.