The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume IV Part 55

Letter 304 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 29, 1786. (page 386)

I was sorry not to be apprised of your intention of going to town, where I would have met you; but I knew it too late, both as I was engaged, and as you was to return so soon. I mean to come to Park-place in a week or fortnight: but I should like to know what company you expect, or do not expect; for I had rather fill up your vacancies than be a supernumerary. Lady Ossory has sent me two charades made by Colonel Fitzpatrick: the first she says is very easy, the second very difficult. I have not come within sight of the easy one; and, though I have a guess at the other, I do not believe I am right; and so I send them to you, who are master-general of the Oedipuses.

The first, that is so easy:--

"In concert, song, or serenade, My first requires my second's aid.

To those residing near the pole I would not recommend my whole."

The two last lines, I conclude, neither connect with the two first, nor will help one to deciphering them.

The difficult one:--

"Charades of all things are the worst, But my best have been my first.

Who with my second are concern'd, Will to despise my whole have learn'd."

This sounds like a good one, and therefore I will not tell you my solution; for, if it is wrong, it might lead you astray; and if it is right, it would prove the charade is not a good one. Had I any thing better, I would not send you charades, unless for the name of the author.

I have had a letter from your brother, who tells me that he has his grandson Stewart(578) with him, who is a prodigy. I say to myself, Prodigies are grown so frequent, That they have lost their name.

I have seen prodigies in plenty of late, ah, and formerly too; but, divine as they have all been, each has had a mortal heel, and has trodden back a vast deal of their celestial path 1 1 beg to be excused from any more credulity.

I am sorry you have lost your fac-totum Stokes. I suppose he had discovered that he was too necessary to you. Every day cures one of reliance on others; And we acquire a prodigious stock of experience, by the time that we shall cease to have occasion for any. Well! I am not clear but making or solving charades is as wise as any thing we can do. I should pardon professed philosophers if they would allow that their wisdom is only trifling, instead of calling their trifling wisdom. Adieu!

(578) Robert, eldest son of Robert Stewart, by Lady Sarah-Frances Seymour, second daughter of Francis, first Marquis of Hertford; afterwards so distinguished in the Political world as Viscount Castlereagh. In 1821, he succeeded his father as second Marquis of Londonderry, and died at his seat at North Cray, in August, 1822; at which time he was secretary of state for foreign affairs.-E.

Letter 305 To The Right Hon. Lady Craven.(579) Berkeley Square, Nov. 27, 1786. (page 387)

To my extreme surprise, Madam, when I knew not in what quarter of the known or unknown world you was resident or existent, my maid in Berkeley-square sent me to Strawberry-hill a note from your ladys.h.i.+p, offering to call on me for a moment,-for a whirlwind, I suppose, was waiting at your door to carry you to j.a.pan; and, as balloons have not yet settled any post-offices in the air, you could not, at least did not, give me any direction where to address you, though you did kindly reproach me with my silence.

I must enter into a little justification before I proceed. I heard from you from Venice, then from Poland, and then, having whisked through Tartary, from Petersburgh; but still with no directions. I said to myself, "I will write to Grand Cairo, which, probably, will be her next stage." Nor was I totally in the wrong, for there came a letter from Constantinople, with a design mentioned of going to the Greek islands, and orders to write to you at Vienna; but with no banker or other address specified.

For a great while I had even stronger reasons than these for silence. For several months I was disabled by the gout from holding a pen; and you must know, Madam, that one can't write when one cannot write. Then, how write to la Fianc'ee du Roi de Garbe? You had been in the tent of the Cham of Tartary, and in the harem of the Captain Pacha, and, during your navigation of the AEgean, were possibly fallen into the terrible power of a corsair. How could I suppose that so many despotic infidels would part with your charms? I never expected you again on Christian ground. I did not doubt your having a talisman to make people in love with you; but ant.i.talismans are quite a new specific.

Well, while I was in this quandary, I received a delightful drawing Of the Castle of Otranto; but still provokingly without any address. However, my grat.i.tude for so very agreeable. and obliging a present could not rest till I found you out. I wrote to the d.u.c.h.ess of Richmond, to beg, she would ask your brother Captain Berkeley for a direction to you; and he has this very day been so good as to send me one, and I do not lose a moment in making use of it.

I give your ladys.h.i.+p a million of thanks for the drawing, which was really a very valuable gift to me. I did not even know that there was a Castle of Otranto. When the story was finished, I looked into the map of the kingdom of Naples for a well-sounding name, and that of Otranto was very sonorous. Nay, but the drawing is so satisfactory, that there are two small windows, one over another, and looking into the country, that suit exactly to the small chambers from one of which Matilda heard the young peasant singing beneath her. Judge how welcome this must be to the author; and thence judge, Madam, how much you must have obliged him.

When you take another flight towards the bounds of the western ocean, remember to leave a direction. One cannot always shoot flying. Lord Chesterfield directed a letter to the late Lord Pembroke, who was always swimming, "To the Earl of Pembroke in the Thames, over against Whitehall." That was sure of finding him within a certain number of fathom; but your ladys.h.i.+p's longitude varies so rapidly, that one must be a good bowler indeed, to take one's ground so judiciously that by casting wide of the mark one may come in near to the jack.

(579) This celebrated lady was the daughter of Augustus, fourth Earl of Berkeley. In 1767, she was married to William, who, in 1769, succeeded his uncle as sixth Lord Craven: she had seven children by him; but, after a union of thirteen years, a separation taking place, she left England for France, and travelled in Italy, Austria, Poland, Russia, Turkey, and Greece.

In 1789, she published her "Journey through the Crimea to England." Subsequently, she settled at Ans.p.a.ch, and, becoming a widow in September, 1791, was united in the following month to the Margrave of Ans.p.a.ch; who, having sold his princ.i.p.ality to the King of Prussia, settled in England; where he died in 1806. In 1825, the Margravine published her Memoirs, She died at Naples in 1828-E.

Letter 306 To Miss Hannah More.

Berkeley Square, Jan. 1, 1787. (page 388)

Do not imagine, dear Madam, that I pretend in the most distant manner to pay you for charming poetry with insipid prose; much less that I acquit a debt of grat.i.tude for flattering kindness and friends.h.i.+p, by a meagre tale that does not even aim at celebrating you. No; I have but two motives for offering you the accompanying trifle;(580) the first, to prove that the moment I have finished any thing you are of the earliest in my thoughts: the second, that, Coming from my press, I wish it may be added to your Strawberry editions. It is so far from being designed for the public, that I have printed but forty copies; which I do not mention to raise its value, though it will with mere collectors, but lest you should lend it and lose it, when I may not be able to supply its place.

Christina, indeed, has some t.i.tle to connexion with you, both from her learning and her moral writings; as you are justly ent.i.tled to a lodging in her "C it'e des Dames," where I am sure her three patronesses would place you, as a favourite 'el'eve of some of their still more amiable sisters, who must at this moment be condoling With their unfortunate sister Grat.i.tude, whose vagabond foundling has so basely disgraced her and herself. You fancied that Mrs. Yearsley was a spurious issue of a muse; and to be sure, with all their immortal virginity, the parish of Parna.s.sus has been sadly charged with their bantlings; and, as n.o.body knows the fathers, no wonder some of the misses have turned out woful reprobates!

(580) Christine de Pise.

Letter 307 To The Right Hon. Lady Craven.

Berkeley Square, Jan. 2, 1787. (page 389)

Your ladys.h.i.+p tells me, that you have kept a journal of your travels: you know not when your friends at Paris will give you time to put it au net; that is, I conclude and hope, prepare it for the press. I do not wonder that those friends, whether talismanic or others, are so a.s.siduous, if you indulge them - but, unless they are of the former description, they are unpardonable, if they know what they interrupt; and deserve much more that you should wish they had fallen into a ditch, than the poor gentlemen who sigh more to see you in sheets of holland than of paper. To me the mischief is enormous. How proud I should be to register a n.o.ble auth.o.r.ess of my own country, who has travelled over more regions and farther than any female in print!

Your ladys.h.i.+p has visited those islands and sh.o.r.es whence formerly issued those travelling sages and legislators who sought and imported wisdom, laws, and religion into Greece; and though we are so perfect as to want none Of those commodities, the fame of those philosophers is certainly diminished when a fair lady has gone so far in quest of knowledge. You have gone in an age when travels are brought to a juster standard, by narrations being limited to truth. Formerly the performers of the longest voyages destroyed half the merit of their expeditions by relating, not what they had, but had not seen; a sort of communication that they might have imparted without stirring a foot from home. Such exaggerations drew discredit on travels, till people would not believe that there existed in other countries any thing very different from- what they saw in their own; and because no Patagonians, or gentry seven or eight feet high, were really discovered, they would not believe that there were Laplanders or pigmies of three and four. Incredulity went so far, that at last it Was doubted whether China so much as existed; and our countryman Sir John Mandeville(581) got an ill name, because, though he gave an account of it, he had not brought back its right name:(582) at least if I do not mistake, this was the case; but it is long since I read any thing about the matter, and I am willing to begin my travels again under your ladys.h.i.+p's auspices. I am sorry to hear, Madam, that by your account Lady Mary Wortley was not so accurate and faithful as modern travellers. The invaluable art of inoculation, which she brought from Constantinople, so dear to all admirers of beauty, and to which we owe, perhaps, the preservation of yours, stamps her an universal benefactress; and as you rival her in poetic talents, I had rather you would employ them to celebrate her for her nostrum, than detect her for romancing. However, genuine accounts of the interior of seraglios would be precious; and I was in hopes would become the greater rarities, as I flattered myself that your friends the Empress of Russia and the Emperor were determined to level Ottoman tyranny. His Imperial Majesty, who has demolished the prison bars of so many nunneries, would perform a stilt more Christian act in setting free so many useless sultanas; and her Czarish Majesty, I trust, would be as great a benefactress to our s.e.x, by ,abolis.h.i.+ng The barbarous practice that reduces us to be of none. Your ladys.h.i.+p's indefatigable peregrinations should have such great objects in view, when you have the ear of sovereigns.

Peter the Hermit conjured up the first crusadoes against the infidels by running about from monarch to monarch. Lady Craven should ,be as zealous and as renowned; and every fair Circa.s.sian would acknowledge, that one English lady had repaid their country for the secret which another had given to Europe from their practice.

(581) As an instance of the monstrous exaggerations of this ancient Munchausen, take the following:--"I am a liar if I have not seen in Java, a single sh.e.l.l in which three men might completely hide themselves, and all white!" He also states himself to have met with whole nations of giants, twenty-fie feet high; and of pigmies, as many inches.-E.

(582) In a conversation with Mr. Windham, Dr. Johnson, a few days before his death, recommended, for an account of China, Sir John Mandeville's Travels." See Boswell's Johnson, vol. ix. p. 317, ed. 1835.-E.

Letter 308 To Miss Hannah More.

Berkeley Square, Feb. 8, 1787. (page 390)

Dear madam, I not only send you "La Cit'e des Dames," but Christina's Life of Charles the Fifth, which will entertain you more; and which, when I wrote my brief history of her, I did not know she had actually composed. Mr. Dutens told me of it very lately, and actually borrowed it for me; and but yesterday my French bookseller sent me three-and-twenty other volumes of those M'emoires Historiques,(583) which I had ordered him to get for me, and which will keep my eyes to the oar for some time, whenever I have leisure to sail through such an ocean; and yet I shall embark with pleasure, late as it is for me to undertake such a hugeous voyage: but a crew of old gossips are no improper company, and we shall sit in a warm cabin, and hear and tell old stories of past times.

Pray keep the volume as long as you please, and borrow as many more as you please, for each volume is a detached piece. Yet I do not suppose your friends will allow you much time for reading; and I hope I shall often be the better for their hindering you.(584) Yours most sincerely.

(583) "Collection des meilleurs Ouvrages Francais compos'es par des Femmes." by Mademoiselle Keralio.

(584) Miss More, in a letter written a few days after, says--"Mr.

Walpole is remarkably well: yesterday he sent me a very agreeable letter, with some very thick volumes of curious French M'emoires, desiring me, if I like them, to send for the other twenty-three volumes; a pretty light undertaking, in this mad town and this sort of life." memoirs, vol. ii. p. 49.-E.

Letter 309 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.(585) Berkeley Square, March 13, 1787. (page 391)

It is very true, Sir, as Lord Strafford told you, that I have taken care that letters of living persons to me shall be restored to the writers when I die. I have burnt a great many, and, as you desire it, would do so by yours; but, having received a like intimation some time ago, I put yours into a separate paper, with a particular direction that they should be delivered to you: and, therefore, I imagine it will be more satisfaction to you, as it will be to me too, that you should receive them yourself; and therefore if you please to let me know how I shall convey them, I will bring them from Strawberry Hill, where they are, the first time I go thither. I hope you enjoy your health, and I have the honour to be, Sir, etc.

(585) Now first printed.

Letter 310 To Miss Hannah More.(596) Strawberry Hill, June 15, 1787. (page 391)

In your note, on going out of town, you desired me to remember you; but as I do not like the mere servile merit of obedience, I took time, my dear Madam, to try to forget you; and, having failed as to my wish, I have the free-born pleasure of thinking of you in spite of my teeth, and without any regard to your injunction. No queen upon earth, as fond as royal persons are of their prerogative, but would prefer being loved for herself rather than for her power; and I hope you have not more majesty

"Than the whole race of queens!"