The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume IV Part 56

Perhaps the spirit of your command did not mean that I should give you such manual proof of' my remembrance; and you may not know what to make of a subject who avows a mutinous spirit, and at the same time exceeds the measure of his duty. It is, I own, a kind of Irish loyalty; and, to keep up the Irish character, I will confess that I never was disposed to be so loyal to any sovereign that was not a subject. if you collect from all this galai-Datias that I am cordially your humble servant, I shall be content. The Irish have the best hearts in the three kingdoms, and they never blunder more than when they attempt to express their zeal and affection: the reason, I suppose, is, that cool sense never thinks of attempting impossibilities; but a warm heart feels itself ready to do more than is possible for those it loves. I am sure our poor friend in Clarges-street(597) would subscribe to this last sentence. What English heart ever excelled hers? I should have almost said equalled, if I were not writing to one that rivals her.

The last time I saw her before I left London, Miss Burney(598) pa.s.sed the evening there, looking quite recovered and well, and so cheerful and agreeable, that the court seems only to have improved the ease of her manner, instead of stamping more reserve on it, as I feared: but what slight graces it can give, will not compensate to us and the world for the loss of her company and her writings. Not but that some young ladies who can write, can stifle their talent as much as if they were under lock and key in the royal library. I do not see but a cottage is as pernicious to genius as the Queen's waiting-room. Why should one remember people that forget themselves? Oh! I am sorry I used that expression, as it is commonly applied to such self-oblivion as Mrs. -; and light and darkness are not more opposite than the forgetfulness to which I alluded, and hers. The former forgetfulness can forget its own powers and the injuries of others; the latter can forget its own defects, and the obligations and services it has received. How poor is that language which has not distinct terms for modesty and virtue, and for excess of vanity and ingrat.i.tude! The Arabic tongue, I suppose, has specific words for all the shades of oblivion, which, you see, has its extremes. I think I have heard that there are some score of different terms for a lion in Arabic, each expressive of a different quality; and consequently its generosity and its appet.i.te for blood are not confounded in one general word. but if an Arabian vocabulary were as numerous in proportion for all the qualities that can enter into a human composition, it would be more difficult to be learned therein, than to master all the characters of the Chinese.

You did me the honour of asking me for my "Castle of Otranto,"

for your library at Cowslip Green. May I, as a printer, rather than as an author, beg leave to furnish part of a shelf there?

and as I must fetch some of the books from Strawberry Hill, will you wait till I can send them all together? And will you be so good as to tell me whither I shall send them, or how direct and convey them to you at Bristol? I shall have a satisfaction in thinking that they will remain in your rising cottage (in which, I hope, you will enjoy a long series of happy hours); and that they will sometimes, when they and I shall be forgotten in other places, recall to Miss More's memory her very sincere humble servant.

(596) Now first collected.

(597) In a letter to Walpole, written at this time from Cowslip Green, Miss More says, "When I sit in a little hermitage I have built in my garden,-not to be melancholy in, but to think upon my friends, and to read their works and letters,-Mr. Walpole seldomer presents himself to my mind as the man of wit than as the tender-hearted and humane friend of my dear infirm, broken-spirited Mrs. Vesey. One only admires talents, and admiration is a cold sentiment, with which affection has commonly nothing to do; but one does more than admire them when they are devoted to such gentle purposes. My very heart is softened when I consider that she is now out of the way of your kind attentions' and I fear that nothing else on earth gives her the smallest pleasure." Memoirs, VOL ii, p. 72-E.

(598) This highly-gifted young lady had, in the preceding year, been appointed keeper of the robes to the Queen.-E.

Letter 311 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, June 17, 1787. (page 393)

I have very little to tell you since we met but disappointments, and those of no great consequence. On Friday night Lady Pembroke wrote to me that Princess Lubomirski was to dine with her the next day, and desired to come in the morning to see Strawberry.

Well, my castle put on its robes, breakfast was prepared, and I shoved another company out of the house, who had a ticket for seeing it. The sun shone, my hay was c.o.c.ked, we looked divinely; and at half an hour after two, n.o.body came but a servant to Lady Pembroke, to say her Polish alt.i.tude had sent her word she had another engagement in town that would keep her too late:-so Lady Pembroke's dinner was addled; and we had nothing to do, but, like good Christians, if we chose it, to compel every body on the road, whether they chose it or not, to come in and eat our soup and biscuits. Methinks this liberum veto was rather impertinent, and I begin to think that the part.i.tion of Poland was very right.

Your brother has sent me a card for a ball on Monday, but I have excused myself. I have not yet compa.s.sed the whole circuit of my own garden, and I have had an inflammation in one of my eyes, and don't think I look as well as my house and my verdure; and had rather see my hayc.o.c.ks, than the d.u.c.h.ess of Polignac and Madame Lubomirski. "The Way to Keep Him" had the way to get me, and I could crawl to it because I had an inclination; but I have a great command of myself when I have no mind to do any thing.

Lady Constant was worth an hundred ars and irskis. Let me hear of you when you have nothing else to do; though I suppose you have as little to tell as you see I had.

Letter 312 To The Earl Of Strafford.

Strawberry Hill, July 28, 1787. (page 394)

St. Swithun is no friend to correspondence, my dear lord. There is not only a great sameness in his own proceedings, but he makes every body else dull-I mean in the country, where one frets at its raining every day and all day. In town he is no more minded than the proclamation against vice and immorality. Still, though he has all the honours of the quarantine, I believe it often rained for forty days long before St. Swithun was born, if ever born he was; and the proverb was coined and put under his patronage, because people observed that it frequently does rain for forty days together at this season. I remember Lady Suffolk telling me, that Lord Dysart's great meadow had never been mowed but once in forty years without rain. I said, "All that that proved was, that rain was good for hay," as I am persuaded the climate of a country and its productions are suited to each other. Nay, rain is good for haymakers too, who get more employment the oftener the hay is made over again. I do not know who is the saint that presides over thunder; but he has made an unusual quant.i.ty in this chill summer, and done a great deal of serious mischief, though not a fiftieth part of what Lord George Gordon did seven years ago, and happily he is fled.

Our little part of the world has been quiet as usual. The Duke of Queensberry has given a sumptuous dinner to the Princess de Lamballe(599)--et voil'a tout. I never saw her, not even in France. I have no particular penchant for sterling princes and princesses, much less for those of French plate.

The only entertaining thing I can tell your lords.h.i.+p from our district is, that old Madam French, who lives close by the bridge at Hampton-court, where, between her and the Thames, she had nothing but one gra.s.s-plot of the width of her house, has paved that whole plot with black and white marble in diamonds, exactly like the floor of a church; and this curious metamorphosis of a garden into a pavement has cost her three hundred and forty pounds:-a tarpaulin she might have had for some s.h.i.+llings, which would have looked as well, and might easily have been removed.

To be sure, this exploit, and Lord Dudley's obelisk below a hedge, with his ca.n.a.l at right angles with the Thames, and a sham bridge no broader than that of a violin, and parallel to the river, are not preferable to the monsters in clipt yews of our ancestors;

Bad taste expellas fursa tamen usque recurret.

On the contrary, Mrs. Walsingham is making her house at Ditton (now baptized Boyle-farm) very orthodox. Her daughter Miss Boyle(600) who has real genius, has carved three tablets in marble with buoys, designed by herself. Those sculptures are for a chimney-piece; and she is painting panels in grotesque for the library, with pilasters of gla.s.s in black and gold. Miss Crewe, who has taste too, has decorated a room for her mother's house at Richmond, which was Lady Margaret Compton's in a very pretty manner. How much more amiable the old women of the next age will be, than most of those we remember, who used to tumble at once from gallantry to devout scandal and cards! and revenge on the young of their own s.e.x the desertion of ours. Now they are ingenious, they will not want amus.e.m.e.nt. Adieu, my dear lord!

(599) Sister to the Prince de Carignan, of the royal house of Sardinia, and wife of the Prince de Lamballe, only son to the Duc de Penthi'evre. She was sur-intendante de la maison de la Reine, and, from her attachment to Marie Antoinette, was one of the first females who fell a victim to the fury of the French revolution. The peculiar circ.u.mstances of horror which attended her death, and the indignities offered to her remains, are in the memory of every one who has read the accounts of that heart.rending event.-E.

(600) Afterwards married to Lord Henry Fitzgerald.

Letter 313 To Miss Hannah More.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 14, 1787. (page 395)

My dear Madam, I am shocked for human nature at the repeated malevolence of this woman!(601) The rank soil of riches we are accustomed to see overrun with weeds and thistles; but who could expect that the kindest seeds sown on poverty and dire misfortunes should meet with nothing but a rock at bottom? Catherine de' Medici, suckled by popes. and transplanted to a throne, seems more excusable.

Thank heaven, Madam, for giving you so excellent a heart; ay, and so good a head. You are not only benevolence itself: but, with fifty times the genius of a Yearsley, you are void of vanity.

How strange that vanity should expel grat.i.tude! Does not the wretched woman owe her fame to you, as well as her affluence? I can testify your labours for both. Dame Yearsley reminds me of the Troubadours, those vagrants whom I used to admire till I knew their history; and who used to pour out trumpery verses, and flatter or abuse accordingly as they were housed and clothed, or dismissed to the next parish. Yet you did not set this person in the stocks, after procuring an annuity for her! I beg your pardon for renewing so disgusting a subject, and will never mention it again. You have better amus.e.m.e.nt; you love good works, a temper superior to revenge.(602)

I have again seen our poor friend in Clarges-street: her faculties decay rapidly, and of course she suffers less. She has not an acquaintance in town; and yet told me the town was very full, and that she had had a good deal of company. Her health is re-established, and we must now be content that her mind is not restless. My pity now feels most for Mrs. Hanc.o.c.k,(603) whose patience is inexhaustible, though not insensible.

Mrs. Piozzi, I hear, has two volumes of Dr. Johnson's Letters ready for publication.(604) Bruce is printing his Travels; which I suppose will prove that his narratives were fabulous, as he will scarce repeat them by the press. These and two more volumes of Mr. Gibbon's History, are all the literary news I know.

France seems sunk indeed in all respects. What stuff are their theatrical goods, their Richards, Ninas, and Tarares! But when their Figaro could run threescore nights, how despicable must their taste be grown!(605) I rejoice that the political intrigues are not more creditable. I do not dislike the French from the vulgar antipathy between neighbouring nations, but for their insolent and unfounded airs of superiority. In arms we have almost always outshone them: and till they have excelled Newton, and come near to Shakspeare, pre-eminence in genius must remain with us. I think they are most ent.i.tled to triumph over the Italians; as, with the most meagre and inharmonious of all languages, the French have made more of that poverty in tragedy and eloquence, than the Italians have done with the language the most capable of both. But I did not mean to send you a dissertation. I hope it will not be long before you remove to Hampton.--Yet why should I wish that'! You will only be geographically nearer to London till February. Cannot you now and then sleep at the Adelphi on a visit to poor Vesey and your friends, and let one know if you do?

(601) Walpole had recently received a letter from Miss More, in which she had said--"MY old friend the milk-woman has just brought out another book, to which she has prefixed my original preface to her first book, and twenty pages of the scurrility published against me in her second. To all this she has added the deed which I got drawn up by an eminent lawyer to secure her money in the funds, and which she a.s.serts I made Mrs. Montagu sign without reading." Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 80.

(602) Mrs. Yearsley was a woman of strong masculine understanding, and of a powerful independent mind, which could not brook any thing in the nature of dictation or interference.

Whether she then was a widow, or separated from her husband, I know not; but, in 1793, she kept a bookseller and stationer's shop, under the name of Ann Yearsley, at Bristol Hot-wells, a.s.sisted by her son, and there all sorts of literary discussion used to take place daily amongst those who frequented it; and Mrs. Yearsley being somewhat free, both in her political and religious opinions, as well as not a little indignant at Mrs.

More's attempt at holding a control over her proceedings, it is not matter of wonder, that a very unreasonable asperity should have been exhibited on both sides.-G.

(603) "What a blessing for Mrs. Vesey, that Mrs. Hanc.o.c.k is alive and well! I do venerate that woman beyond words; her faithful, quiet, patient attachment makes all showy qualities and s.h.i.+ning talents appear little in my eyes. Such characters are what Mr.

Burke calls I the soft quiet green, on which the soul loves to rest!"' Hannah More's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 80.-E.

(604) In speaking of these Letters, which appeared shortly after, Hannah More says--:They are such as ought to have been written, but ought not to have been printed: a few of them are very good: sometimes he is moral, and sometimes he is kind. The imprudence of editors and executors is an additional reason why men of parts should be afraid to die. Burke said to me the other day, in allusion to the innumerable lives, anecdotes, remains, etc. of this great man, 'How many maggots have crawled out of that great body!'" Memoirs, vol. ii-P. 101-E.

(605) Mr. Walpole had never seen Figaro acted, nor had he been at Paris for many years before it appeared: he was not, therefore, aware of the bold, witty, and continued allusions of almost every scene and of almost every incident of that comedy, to the most popular topics and the most distinguished characters of the day.

The freedom with which it treated arbitrary government and all its establishments, while they all yet continued in unwelcome force- in France, and the moral conduct of each individual of the piece exactly suiting the no-morality of the audience, joined to the admirable manner in which it was acted, certainly must be allowed to have given it its greatest vogue. But even now, when most of these temporary advantages no longer exist, whoever was well acquainted with the manners, habits, and anecdotes of Paris at the time of the first appearance of Figaro, will always admire in it a combination of keen and pointed satire, easy wit, and laughable incident.-B.

Letter 314 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Berkeley Square, Nov. 11, 1787. (page 397)

>From violent contrary winds,(606) and by your letter going to Strawberry Hill, whence I was 'come, I have but just received it, and perhaps shall Only be able to answer it by s.n.a.t.c.hes, being up to the chin in nephews and nieces.

I find you knew nothing of the pacification when you wrote, When I saw your letter, I hoped it would tell me you was coming back, as your island is as safe as if it was situated in the Pacific Ocean, or at least as islands there used to be, till Sir Joseph Banks chose to put them up. I sent you the good news on the very day before you wrote, though I imagined you would learn it by earlier intelligence. Well, I enjoy both your safety and your great success, which is enhanced by its being owing to your character and abilities. I hope the latter will be allowed to operate by those who have not quite so much of either. I shall be wonderful glad to see little Master Stonehenge(607) at Park- place; it will look in character there: but your own bridge is so stupendous in comparison, that hereafter the latter will be thought to have been a work of the Romans. Dr. Stukeley will burst his cerements to offer mistletoe in your temple; and Mason, on the contrary, will die of vexation and spite that he cannot have Caractacus acted on the spot. Peace to all such!

--But were there one whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires,

he would immortalize you, for all you have been carrying on in Jersey, and for all you shall carry off. Inigo Jones, or Charlton,- or somebody, I forget who, called Stonehenge "Ch.o.r.ea Gigantum:" this will be the ch.o.r.ea of the pigmies; and, as I forget too what is Latin for Lilliputians, I will make a bad pun, and say,

----Portantur avari Pygmalionis opes.--

Pygmalion is as well-sounding a name for such a monarch as Oberon. Pray do not disappoint me, but transport the cathedral(608) of your island to your domain on our continent. I figure unborn antiquaries making pilgrimages to visit your bridge, your daughter's bridge,(609) and the Druidic temple; and if I were not too old to have any imagination left, I would add a sequel to Mi Li.(610) Adieu!

(606) Mr. Conway was at this time at his government in Jersey.

(607) Mr. Walpole thus calls the small Druidic temple discovered in Jersey, which the States of that island had presented to General Conway, to be transported to and erected at Park-place.

Dr. Walter Charlton published a dissertation on Stonehenge in 1663, ent.i.tled "Ch.o.r.ea Gigantum." it was reprinted in 1715.-E.

(608) The Druidic temple.

(609) The keystones of the centre arch of the bridge at Henley are ornamented with heads of the Thames and Isis, designed by the Hon. Mrs. Damer, and executed by her in Portland stone.