the SaddlerS,((612) Company who had told him that this was the
way "to steal the hearts of the people." He is in a
quarrel with Lord Falmouth.(613) There is just dead one
Hammond,(614) a disciple of Lord Chesterfield,
and equerry to his royal highness: he had parts, and was Just
come into parliament, strong of the Cobham faction, or
nepotism, as Sir Robert calls it. The White Prince desired Lord
Falmouth to choose Dr. Lee, who, you know, has disobliged the
party by accepting a lordship of the admiralty. Lord
Falmouth has absolutely refused, and insists upon choosing one of
his own brothers: his highness talks loudly of opposing him. The
borough is a Cornish one.
There is arrived a courier from Lord Stair, with news of
Prince Lobkowitz having cut off five thousand French. We are
hurrying away the rest of our troops to Flanders, and say that we
are in great spirits, and intend to be in greater when we have
defeated the French too.
For my own particular, I cannot say I am well; I am afraid I have
a little fever upon my spirits, or at least have nerves, which,
you know, every body has in England. I begin the
cold-bath to-morrow, and talk of going to Tunbridge, if the
parliament rises soon.
Sir R. who begins to talk seriously of Houghton, has desired me
to go -with him thither;' but that is not all settled. Now I
mention Houghton, you was in the right to miss a gallery there;
but there is one actually fitting up, where the
green-house was, and to be furnished with the spoils of
Downing-street.
I am quite sorry you have [)ad so much trouble with those
odious cats of Malta: dear child, fling them into the Arno, if
there is water enough at this season to drown them; or, I'll tell
you, give them to Stosch, to pay the postage he talked of. I
have no ambition to make my court with them to the old wizard.
I think I have not said any thing lately to you from Patapan; he
is handsomer than ever, and crows fat: his eyes are
charming; they have that agreeable lustre which the vulgar
moderns call sore eyes, but the judicious ancients golden
eyes, ocellos Patapanicos.
The process is begun against her Grace of Beaufort,(615) and
articles exhibited in Doctors' Commons. Lady Townshend has had
them copied, and lent them to me. There is every thing proved to
your heart's content, to the birth of the child, and much
delectable reading.
Adieu! my dear child; you see I have eked out a letter: I hate
missing a post, and yet at this dead time I have almost been
tempted to invent a murder or a robbery. But you are good, and
will be persuaded that I have used my eyes and ears for your
service; when, if it were not for you, I should let them lie by
in a drawer from week's end to week's end. Good night!
(607) An Irish tailor at Florence, who let out ready-furnished
apartments to travelling English. Lady W. had reported that Lord
Orford was flying from England and would come thither.
(608) George Walpole, afterwards the third Earl of Orford. He
succeeded to the earldom in 1751, and was appointed
lord-lieutenant and custos rotulorum of the county of Norfolk Mr,
Pitt, in a letter, written in 1759, says, "Nothing could make a
better appearance than the two Norfolk battalions: Lord Orford,
with the port of Mars himself, and really the
genteelest figure under arms I ever saw, was the theme of
every tongue." Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 4.-E.
(609) George the Second.
(610) Frederic, Prince of Wales.
(611) Dr. Secker, afterwards Bishop of Oxford. (And eventually
Archbishop of Canterbury. According to Walpole, he was bred a
man-midwife.-D.) [Secker had committed in Walpole's eyes, the
unpardonable offence of having "procured a marriage between the
heiress of the Duke of Kent and the chancellor's
(Hardwicke's) son;" he, therefore, readily propagated the
charges of his being "a Presbyterian, a man-midwife, and
president of a very freethinking club," (Memoires, i. p. 56,)
when the fact is, the parents of Secker were Dissenters, and he
for a time pursued the study, though not the practice of medicine
and surgery. The third charge is a mere falsehood. See also
Quarterly Review, xxv'i. p. 187.]
(612) The Prince was a member of the Saddlers' company.
(613) Hugh Boscawen, second Viscount Falmouth, a great dealer in
boroughs. It is of him that Lord Dodington tells the
story, that he went to the minister to ask a favour, which the
minister seemed unwilling to grant; upon which Lord Falmouth
said, "Remember, Sir, we are seven."-D.
(614) Author of Love Elegies. [See ant`e, p. 210.)
(615) Frances, daughter and heir of the last Lord Scudamore, wife
of Henry Somerset, Duke of Beaufort; from whom she was divorced
for adultery with Lord Talbot. She was afterwards married to
Colonel Fitzroy, natural son of the Duke of
Grafton. [The duke Having clearly proved the incontinence of his
wife, obtained a divorce in March 1743-4.)
263 Letter 72
To Sir Horace Mann.
Downing Street, June 14, 1742.
We were surprised last Tuesday with the great good news of the
peace between the Queen and the King of Prussia. it was so
unexpected and so welcome, that I believe he might get an act of
parliament to forbid any one thinking that he ever made a slip in
integrity. Then, the reported accounts of the
successes of Prince Charles and Lobkowitz over the French have
put us into the greatest spirits. Prince charles is extremely
commended for courage and conduct, and makes up a little for
other flaws in the family.
it is at last settled that Lords gower,(616) Cobham, and
Bathurst (617) are to come in. The first is to be privy-seal,
and was to have kissed hands last Friday, but Lord Hervey had
carried the seal with him to Ickworth; but he must bring it back.
Lord Cobham is to be field-marshal, and to command all the forces
in England. Bathurst was to have the
Gentleman-pensioners, but Lord Essex,(618) who is now the
Captain, and was to have had the Beef-eaters, will not change.
Bathurst is to have the Beef-eaters; the Duke of Bolton (619) who
has them, is to have the Isle of Wight, and Lord
lymington,(620) who has that, is to have--nothing!
The Secret Committee are in great perplexities about
Scrope:(621) he would not take the oath, but threatened the
Middlesex justices who tendered it to him "Gentlemen," said he,
"have you any complaint against Me? if you have not,
don't you fear that I will prosecute you for enforcing oaths?"
However, one of them began to read the oath--"I, John
Scrope,"--"I John Scrope:"said he; "I did not say any such thing;
but come, however, let's hear the oath;"--"do promise that I will
faithfully and truly answer all such questions as shall be asked
me by the Committee of Secrecy, and--" they were going on, but
Scrope cried out, "Hold, hold! there is more than I can digest
already." He then went before the
committee, and desired time to consider. Pitt asked him
abruptly, if he wanted a quarter of an hour: he replied, "he did
not want to inform either his head or his heart, for both were
satisfied what to do; but that he would ask the King's leave."
He wants to fight Pitt. He is a most testy little old gentleman,
and about eight years ago would have fought Alderman Perry. It
was in the House, at the time of the
excise: he said we should carry it: Perry said he hoped to see
him hanged first. "You see me hanged, you dog, you!" said
Scrope, and pulled him by the nose. The committee have tried all
ways to soften him, and have offered to let him swear to only
what part he pleased, or only with regard to money given to
members of parliament. Pultney himself has tried to work on him;
but the old gentleman is inflexible, and answered, "that he was
fourscore years old, and did not care whether he spent the few
months he had to live (622) in the Tower or not; that the last
thing he would do should be to betray the King and next to him
the Earl of Orford." It remains in suspense.
The troops continue going to Flanders, but slowly enough. Lady
Vane has taken a trip thither after a cousin (623) of Lord
Berkeley, who is as simple about her as her own husband is, and
has written to Mr. Knight at Paris to furnish her with what money
she wants. He says she is vastly to blame; for he was trying to
get her a divorce from Lord Vane, and then would have married her
himself. Her adventures(624 arc worthy to be bound up with those
of my good sister-in-law,
as the German Princess, and Moll Flanders.
Whom should I meet in the Park last night but Ceretesi! He told
me he was at a Bagne. I will find out his bagnio; for though I
was not much acquainted with him, yet the obligations I had to
Florence make me eager to show any Florentine all the civilities
in my power; though I do not love them near so
well, since what you have told me of their late behaviour;
notwithstanding your letter of June 20th, which I have just
received. I perceive that simple-hearted, good, unmeaning
Ituccilai is of the number of the false, though you do not
directly say so.
I was excessively diverted with your pompous account of the siege
of Lucca by a single Englishman. I do believe that you and the
Chutes might put a certain city into as great a panic. Adieu!
(616) John Leveson Gower, second Lord Gower; in 1746 created an
earl. He died in 1754.-E.
(617) Allan, first Lord Bathurst, one of the twelve Tory peers
created by Queen Anne, in 1711. He was the friend of Pope,
Congreve, Swift, Prior, and other men of letters. He lived to
see his eldest son chancellor of England, and died at the
advanced age of ninety, in 1775; having been created an earl in
1772.-D.
(618) William Capel, third Earl of Essex; ambassador at the court
of Turin. he died in January 1743. The Beef-eaters are otherwise
called the Yeomen of the Guard.-D.
(619) Charles Powlett, third Duke of Bolton. His second wife was
Miss Lavinia Fenton, otherwise Mrs. Beswick, the actress; who
became celebrated in the character of Polly Peacham in the
Beggar's Opera. By her the duke had three sons, born before
marriage. With his first wife, the daughter and sole heiress of
John Vaughan, Earl of Carberry in Ireland, he never
cohabited. He died in 1754.-D.
(620) John Wallop, first Viscount Lymington; in the following
April created Earl of Portsmouth. He died in 1762.-E.
(621) John Scrope, secretary of the treasury. He had been in
Monmouth's rebellion, when very young, and carried
intelligence to Holland in woman's clothes.
(622) He did not die till 1753. Tindal states that, upon
giving this answer he was no further pressed.-E.
(623) Henry Berkeley; killed the next year at the battle of
Dettingen.
(624) Lady Vane's Memoirs, dictated by herself, were actually
published afterward,,; in a book, called "The Adventures of
Peregrine Pickle;" and she makes mention of Lady Orford. [See
ant`e, p. 189, Letter 42. Sir Walter Scott says, that "she not
only furnished Smollett with the materials for recording her own
infamy, but rewarded him handsomely for the insertion of her
story."]
265 Letter 73
To sir Horace Mann.
Midsummer Day, 1742.
One begins every letter with an Io Paean! indeed our hymns are
not so tumultuous as they were some time ago, to the tune of
Admiral Vernon. They say there came an express last night, of
the taking of Prague and the destruction of some thousand
French. It is really amazing the fortune of the Queen! We expect
every day the news of the king of Poland having made his peace;
for it is affirmed that the Prussians left him but sixteen days
to think of it. There is nothing could stop the King of Prussia,
if he should march to Dresden: how long his being at peace with
that king will stop him I look upon as very uncertain.
They say we expect the Report from the Secret Committee next
Tuesday, and then finish. I preface all my news with "they say;"
for I am not at all in the secret, and I had rather that "they
say" should tell you a lie than myself. They have sunk the
affair of Scrope: the Chancellor (625) and Sir John
Rushout spoke in the committee against persecuting him, for he is
secretary to the treasury. I don't think there is so easy a
language as the ministerial in the world-one learns it in a week!
There are few members in town, and most of them no
friends to the committee; so that there is not the least
apprehension of any violence following the Report. I dare say
there is not; for my uncle, who is my political weather-glass,
and whose quicksilver rises and falls with the least variation of
parliamentary weather, is in great spirits, and has spoken three
times in the House within this week; he had not opened his lips
before since the change. Mr. Pultney has his warrant in his
pocket for Earl of Bath, and kisses hands as soon as the
parliament rises. The promotions I mentioned to you are not yet
come to pass; but a
fortnight will settle things wonderfully.
The Italian, (626) who I told you is here, has let me into a
piece of secret history, which you never mentioned: perhaps it is
not true; but he says the mighty mystery of the
Count's (627) elopement from Florence, was occasioned by a letter
from Wachtendonck,(628) which was so impertinent as to talk of
satisfaction for some affront. The great Count very wisely never
answered it-his life, to be sure, is of too great consequence to
be trusted at the end of a rash German's sword! however, the
General wrote again, and hinted at coming himself for an answer.
So it happened that when he arrived, the Count was gone to the
baths of Lucca-those waters
were reckoned better for his health, than steel in the
abstract-How oddly it happened! He Just returned to Florence as
the General was dead! Now was not this heroic lover worth
running after? I wonder, as the Count must have known my
lady's courage and genius for adventures, that he never
thought of putting her in men's clothes, and sending her to
answer the challenge. How pretty it would have been to have
fought for one's lover! and how great the obligation,
when he durst not fight for himself!
I heard the other day, that the Primate of Lorrain was dead of
the smallpox. Will you make my compliments of condolence?
though I dare say they are little afflicted: he -was a 'most
worthless creature, and all his wit and parts, I believe little
comforted them for his brutality and other vices.
The fine Mr. Pit (629) is arrived: I dine with him
to-day at Lord Lincoln's, with the Pomfrets. So now the old
partie quarr`ee is complete again. The earl is not quite
cured,(630) and a partner in sentiments may help to open the
wound again. My Lady Townshend dines with us too. She flung the
broadest Wortley-eye (631) on Mr. Pitt, the other night, in the
park!
Adieu! my dear child; are you quite well? I trust the summer will
perfectly re-establish you.
(625) Mr. Sandys, chancellor of the exchequer.
(626) Ceretesi.
(627) Count Richcourt.
(628) General Wachtendonck, commander of the Queen
of Hungary's troops at Leghorn.
(629) George Pitt, of Strathfieldsea: he had
been in love with Lady Charlotte Fermor, second daughter of Lord
Pomfret, who was afterwards married to William Finch,
vice-chamberlain. (Mr. Pitt was created Lord Rivers in 1776.
In 1761 he was British envoy at Turin in 1770, ambassador
extraordinary to Spain. He died in 1803.-D.)
(630) Of his love for lady Sophia Fermor.-D.
(631) Mr. Pitt was very handsome, and Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu had liked him extremely, when he was in Italy.
267 Letter 74
To Sir Horace Mann.
Downing Street, June 30, 1742.
It is about six o'clock, and I am come from the House, where, at
last, we have had another Report from the
Secret Committee. They have been disputing this week among
themselves, whether this should be final or not. The new
ministry, thanked them! were for finishing; but their arguments
were not so persuasive as dutiful, and we are to have yet
another. This lasted two hours and a half in reading, though
confined to the affair of Burrel and Bristow, the Weymouth
election, and secret-service money. They moved to print it; but
though they had fetched most of their members from Ale and the
country, they were not strong enough to divide. Velters
Cornwall, whom I have mentioned to you, I believe, for odd
humour, said, "ie believed the somethingness of this report would
make amends for the nothingness of the last, and that he was for
printing it, if it was only from believing that the King would
not see it, unless it is printed." Perhaps it may be printed at
the conclusion; at least it will without authority-and so you
will see it.
I received yours of June 24, N. S. with
one from Mr. Chute, this morning, and I will now go answer it and
Your last. You seem still to be uneasy about my letters, and
their being retarded. I have not observed, lately, the same
signs of yours being opened; and for my own, I think it may very
often depend upon the packet-boat and winds.
You ask me if Pultney has lately received any new
disgusts.-How can one answer for a temper so hasty,
so unsettled!-not that I know, unless that he finds, what he has
been twenty years undoing, is not yet undone.
I must interrupt the thread of my answer, to tell you that I hear
news came last night that the States of Holland have voted
forty@seven thousand men for the Assistance of the Queen,(632)
and that it was not doubted but the
States--General would imitate this resolution. This seems to be
the consequence of the King of Prussia's proceedings-but how can
they trust him so easily?
I am amazed that your leghorn ministry are so wavering; they are
very old style, above eleven days out of fashion, if they any
longer fear the French: my only apprehension is, lest
these successes should make Richcourt more impertinent.
You have no notion how I laughed at the man that "takes
nothing but Madeira."(633) I told it to my Lady
Pomfret, concluding it would divert her too; and forgetting that
she repines when she should laugh, and reasons when she should be
diverted. She asked gravely what language that was That Madeira
being subject to an European prince, to be sure they talk some
European dialect!" The grave personage! It was a piece with her
saying, "that Swift would have written better, if he had never
written ludicrously."
I met a friend of yours the other day at an auction, and
though I knew him not the least, yet being your friend,
and so like you (for, do you know, he is excessively,) I had a
great need to speak to him-and did. He says, "he has left off
writing to you, for he never could get an answer." I said, you
had never received 'but one from him in all the time I was with
you, and that I was witness to your having Answered it. He was
with his mother, Lady Abercorn,(634) a most frightful
gentlewoman: Mr. Winnington
says, he one day overheard her and the Duchess of Devonshire
(635) talking of "hideous ugly women!" By the way, I find I have
never told you that it was Lord Paisley;(636) but that you will
have perceived.
Amorevoli is gone to Dresden for the
summer; our directors are in great fear that he will serve them
like Farinelli, and not return for the winter.
I am writing to you in one of the charming rooms towards the
park: it is a delightful evening, and I am willing to enjoy this
sweet corner while I may, for we are soon to quit it. Mrs.
Sandys came yesterday to give us warning; Lord Wilmington has
lent it to them. Sir Robert might have had it for his own at
first, but would only take it as first lord of the
treasury.(637) He goes into a small house of his own in
Arlington Street, opposite to where we formerly lived.
Whither I shall travel is yet uncertain: he is for my
living with him; but then I shall be cooped-and besides, I never
found that people loved one another the less for living asunder.
The drowsy Lord Mayor (638) is dead-so the
newspapers say. I think he is not dead, but sleepeth. Lord
Gower is laid up with the gout: this, they say, is the reason of
his not having the privy seal yet. The town has talked of
nothing lately but a plot: I will tell you the circumstances.
last week the Scotch hero (639) sent his brother (640) two
papers, which he said had been left at his house by an Unknown
hand; that he believed it was by Colonel Cecil, agent for the
Pretender--though how could that be, for he had had no
conversation with Colonel Cecil for these two years! He
desired Lord Islay to lay them before the ministry. One of the
papers seemed a letter, though with no address or
subscription, written in true genuine Stuart characters. It was
to thank Mr. Burnus (D. of A.) for his services, and that he
hoped he would answer the assurances given of him. The other was
to command the Jacobites, and to exhort the patriots to continue
what they had mutually so well begun, and to say how pleased he
was with their having removed mr. Tench. Lord Islay showed these
letters to Lord Orford, and then to the King, and told him he had
showed them to my father. "You did well."-Lord Islay, "Lord
Orford says one is of the Pretender's hand."-King, "He
(641) knows it: whenever any thing of this sort comes to your
hand, carry it to Walpole." This private conversation you must
not repeat. A few days afterwards, the Duke wrote to his
brother, "That upon recollection he thought it right to say, that
he had received those letters from Lord Barrimore"(642) who is as
well known for General to the Chevalier, as Montemar is to the
Queen of Spain-or as the Duke of A. would be to either of them.
Lord Islay asked Sir R. if he was against publishing this story,
which he thought was a justification both of his brother and Sir
R. The latter replied, he could certainly have no objection to
its being public-but pray, will his grace's sending these letters
to the secretaries of state Justify him from the assurances that
had been given of' him?(643) However, the Pretender's being of
opinion that the dismission of Mr. Tench was for his service,
will scarce be an argument to the new ministry for making more
noise about these papers.
I am sorry the boy is so uneasy at being on the foot of a
servant. I will send for his mother, and ask her why she did not
tell him the conditions to which we had agreed; at the same time,
I will tell her that she may send any letters for him to me.
Adieu! my dear child: I am going to write to Mr. Chute,
that is, to-morrow. I never was more diverted than with his
letter.
(632) The Queen of Hungary, Maria Theresa.-D.
(633) The only daughter and heiress of the
Marquis Accianoli at Florence, was married to one of the same
name, who was born at Madeira.
'
(634) Anne Plummer, Countess of Abercorn, wife of
James, the seventh earl. She died in 1756.-E.
(635) Catherine, daughter of John Hoskins, Esq. She was
married to the third Duke of Devonshire in 171@, and died in
1777.-E.
(636) James Hamilton succeeded as eighth Earl of Abercorn, on the
death of his father in 1743. He was created Viscount
Hamilton in England in 1786, and died unmarried in 1789.-D.
(637) This is the house, in Downing Street, which is still the
residence of the first lord of the treasury. George the First
gave it to Baron Bothmar, the Hanoverian minister-, for life. On
his death, George the Second offered to give it to Sir
Robert Walpole; who, however, refused it, and begged of the King
that it might be attached to the office of first lord of the
treasury.-D.
(638) Sir Robert Godschall.
(639) The Duke of Argyll.
(640) Earl of Islay.
(641) Besides intercepted letters, Sir R. Walpole had more than
once received letters from the Pretender, making him the greatest
offers, which Sir R. always carried to the King, and got him to
endorse, when he
returned them to Sir R.
(642) James Barry, fourth Earl of Barrymore, succeeded his
half-brother Lawrence in the family titles in 1699, and died in
1747, at the age of eighty. James, Lord Barrymore, was an
adherent of the Pretender, whereas Lawrence had been so great a
supporter of the revolution, that he was attainted, and his
estates sequestered by James the Second's Irish parliament, in
1689.-D.
(643) The Duke of Argyll, in the latter part of his life, was
often melancholy and disordered in his understanding.
After this transaction, and it is supposed he had gone still
farther, he could with difficulty be brought even to write his
name. The marriage of his eldest daughter with the Earl of
Dalkeith was deferred for some time, because the duke could not
be prevailed upon to sign the writings.
269 Letter 75
To Sir Horace Mann.
On the Death of Richard West, Esq.(644)
While surfeited with life, each hoary knave
Grows, here, immortal, and eludes the grave,
Thy virtues immaturely met their fate,
Cramp'd in the limit of too short a date!
Thy mind, not exercised so oft in vain,
In health was gentle, and composed in pain:
successive trials still refined thy soul,
And plastic Patience perfected the whole.
A friendly aspect, not suborn'd by art;
An eye, which look'd the meaning of thy heart;
A tongue, With simple truth and freedom fraught,
The faithful index of thy honest thought.
Thy pen disdain'd to seek the servile ways
Of partial censure, and more partial praise;
Through every tongue it flowed in nervous ease,
With sense to Polish , and With wit to please.
No lurking venom from thy pencil fell;
Thine was the kindest satire, living well:
The vain, the loose, the base, might blush to see
In what thou wert, what they themselves should be,
Let me not charge on Providence a crime,
Who snatch'd thee, blooming, to a better clime,
To raise those virtues to a higher sphere:
Virtues! which only could have starved thee here;
A Receipt To Make A Lord.
Occasioned by a late report of a promotion.(645)
Take a man, who by nature's a true son of earth,'
By rapine enriched, though a beggar by birth;
In genius the lowest, ill-bred and obscene;
In morals most Wicked, most nasty in mien;
By none ever trusted, yet ever employed;
In blunders quite fertile, in merit quite void;
A scold in the Senate, abroad a buffoon,
The scorn and the jest of all courts but his own:
A slave to that wealth that ne'er made him a friend,
And proud of that cunning that ne'er gain'd an end;
A dupe in each treaty, a Swiss in each vote;
In manners and form, a complete Hottentot.
Such an one could you find, of all men you'd commend him; But be
sure let the curse of each Briton attend him.
thus fully prepared, add the grace of the throne,
The folly of monarchs, and screen of a crown--
Take a prince for his purpose, without ears or eyes,
And a long parchment roll stuff'd brimful of lies:
These mingled together, a fiat shall pass,
and the thing be a Peer, that before was an ass.
The former copy I think you will like: it was written by one Mr.
Ashton (646) on Mr. West, two friends of mine, whom you have
heard me often mention. The other copy was printed in the Common
Sense, I don't know by whom composed: the end of it is very bad,
and there are great falsities in it, but some strokes are
terribly like!
I have not a moment to thank the Grifona, nor to answer yours of
June 17, N. S. which I have this instant read. Yours, in great
haste.
(644) See ante, pp. 121, (Letter 1), 251, (Letter 65).
(645) The report, mentioned in a preceding letter, that Horace
Walpole, brother to Sir Robert, was created a peer.
(646)Thomas Ashton, afterwards fellow of Eton College. [See
ant`e, p. 128, Letter 6, footnote 153.)
271 Letter 76
To Sir Horace Mann.
London, July 7, 1742.
Well! you may bid the Secret Committee good night. The House
adjourns to-day till Tuesday, and on Thursday is to be
prorogued. Yesterday we had a bill
of Pultney's, about returning officers and regulating
elections: the House was thin, and he carried it by 93 to 92.
Mr. Pelham was not there, and Winnington did not vote, for the
gentleman is testy still; when he saw how near he had been to
losing it, he said loud enough to be heard, "I will make the
gentlemen of that side feel me!" and, rising up, he said, "He
was astonished, that a bill so calculated for the freedom of
elections was so near being thrown out; that there was a
report on the table, which showed how necessary such a bill
was, and that though we had not time this year to consider
what was proper to be done in consequence of it, he hoped we
should next,"-with much to the same purpose; but all the
effect this notable speech had, was to
frighten my uncle, and make him give two or three shrugs
extraordinary to his breeches. They now say,(647) that
Pultney will not take out the patent for his earldom, but
remain in the House of Commons in terrorem; however, all his
friends are to have places immediately, or, as the fashion of
expressing it is, they are to go to Court in
the Bath coach!"(648)
Your relation Guise (649) is arrived from Carthagena, madder
than ever. As he was marching up to one of the forts, all his
men deserted him; his lieutenant advised him to
retire; he replied, "He never had turned his back yet, and
would not now," and stood all the fire. When the pelicans
were flying over his head, he cried out, "What would Chloe
(650) give for some of these to make a
pelican pie!" When he is brave enough to perform such actions
as are really almost incredible, what pity it is that he
should for ever persist In saving things that are totally so!
Lord Annandale (651) is at last mad in all the forms: he has
long been an out-pensioner of Bedlam College. Lord and Lady
Talbot,(652) are parted; he gives her three thousand pounds
a-year. Is it not amazing, that in England people will not
find out that they can live separate without parting? The
Duke of Beaufort says, "He pities Lord Talbot to have met with
two such tempers as their two wives!"
Sir Robert Rich (653) is going to Flanders, to try
to make up an affair for his son; who, having quarrelled with
a Captain Vane, as the commanding officer was trying to make
it up at the head of the regiment, Rich came behind Vane, "And
to show you," said he, "that I will not make it up, take
that," and gave him a box on the ear. They were immediately
put in arrest; but the learned in the laws of honour say, they
must fight, for no German officer will serve with Vane, till
he has had satisfaction.
Mr. Harris,(654) who married Lady Walpole's mother, is to be
one of the peace-offerings on the new altar. Bootle is
to be chief-justice; but the Lord Chancellor would not consent
to it, unless Lord Glenorchy,(655) whose daughter is married
to Mr. Yorke, had a place in lieu of the Admiralty, which he
has lost-he is to have Harris's. Lord Edgecumbe's, in
Ireland, they say, is destined to Harry Vane,(656) Pultney's
toad-eater.
Monticelli lives in a manner at our house. I tell my sister
that she is in love with him, and that I am glad it was not
Amorevoli. Monticelli dines frequently with Sir Robert, which
diverts me extremely; you know how low his ideas are of music
and the virtuosi; he calls them all fiddlers.
I have not time now to write more, for I am going to a
masquerade at the Ranelagh amphitheatre: the King is fond of
it, and has pressed people to go; but I don't find that it
will be full. Good night! All love to the Pope for his good
thing.
(647) Sir R. W. to defeat Pultney's ambition persuaded the
++King to insist on his going into the House of Lords: the
day he carried his patent thither, he flung it upon the floor
in a passion, and could scarce be prevailed on to have it
passed. ["I remember," says Horace Walpole, (Reminiscences),
"my father's action and words when he returned from court, and
told me what he had done - 'I have turned the key of the
closet on him!' making that motion with his
hand."]
(648) His title was to be Earl of Bath.
(649) General Guise, a, very brave officer, but apt to
romance; and a great connoisseur in pictures. (He bequested
his collection of pictures, which is a very indifferent one,
to christ church College, Oxford.-D.)
(650) the duke of Newcastle's French cook.
(651) George Johnstone, third Marquis of
Annandale, in Scotland. He was not declared a lunatic till
the year 1748. Upon his death, in
1792, his titles became either extinct or dormant.-D.
(652) Mary, daughter of Adam de Cardonel,
secretary to John the great Duke of Marlborough, married to
William, second Lord Talbot, eldest son of Lord Chancellor
Talbot.-D.
(653) Sir Robert Rich, Bart., of Rose Hall, Suffolk. At his
death, in 1768, he was colonel of the fourth regiment of
dragoons, governor of Chelsea Hospital, and field-marshal of
the forces.-E.
(654) This article did not prove true. Mr. Harris was not
removed, nor Bootle made chief-justice.
(655) John Campbell, Lord Glenorchy, and, on his
father's death, in 1752, third Earl of Breadalbane. His first
wife was Lady Amiable Grey, eldest daughter and coheir of the
Duke of Kent. By her he had an only daughter,
Jemima, who, upon the death of her grandfather, became
Baroness Lucas of Crudwell, and Marchioness de Grey. She
married Philip Yorke, eldest son of the Chancellor
Hardwicke, and eventually himself the second duke of that
title.-D.
(656) Henry Vane, eldest son of Gilbert, second
Lord Barnard, and one of the tribe who came into office upon
the breaking up of Sir Robert Walpole's administration. He
was created Earl of Darlington in 1753, and died in
1758.-D.
273 Letter 77
To Sir Horace Mann.
Downing Street, July 14, 1742.
Sir Robert Brown(657) is displaced from being paymaster of
something, I forget what, for Sir Charles Gilmour, a friend of
Lord Tweedale.(658) Nee Finch (659) is made groom
of the bedchamber, which was vacant; and Will Finch (660) vice
chamberlain, which was not vacant; but they have emptied it of
Lord Sidney Beauclerc.(661) Boone is made commissary-general,
in Hurley's room, and JefFries(662) in Will Stuart's. All
these have been kissing hands to-day, headed by the Earl of
Bath. He went into the King the other day ",it this'long
list, but was told shortly, that unless he would take up his
patent and quit the House of Commons,
nothing should be done-he has consented. I made some of them
very angry; for when they told me who had kissed hands, I
asked, if the Pretender had kissed hands too, for being King? I
forgot to tell you, that Murray is to be solicitor-general,
in Sir John Strange's place, who is made chief justice, or
some such thing.(663)
I don't know who it was that said it, but it was a very good
answer to one who asked why Lord Gower had not kissed hands
sooner--"the Dispensation was not come
from Rome."(664)
I am writing to you up to the ears in packing: Lord Wilmington
has lent this house to Sandys, and he has given us instant
warning; we are moving as fast as possible to Siberia,-Sir
Robert has a house there, within a few mile,, of the Duke of
Courland; in short, child, we are all going to Norfolk,
till we can get a house ready in town: all the furniture is
taken down, and lying about in confusion. I look like St.
John in the Isle of Patmos, writing revelations, and
prophesying "Woe! woe! woe! the kingdom of desolation is at
hand!" -indeed, I have prettier animals about me, than he ever
dreamed of: here is the dear Patapan, and a little Vandyke
cat, with black whiskers -ind boots; you would swear it was of
a very ancient family, in the West of England,
famous for their loyalty.
I told you I was going to the masquerade at Ranelagh gardens,
last week: it was miserable; there were but an hundred men,
six women, and two shepherdesses. The King liked it,--and
that he might not be known, they had dressed him a box with
red damask! Lady Pomfret and her three daughters were there,
all dressed alike, that they might not be known. My Lady
said to Lady Bel Finch,(665) who was dressed like a nun, and
for coolness had cut off the nose of her mask, "Madam, you are
the first nun that ever I saw without a nose!"
As I came home last night, they told me there was a fire in
Downing Street; when I came to Whitehall, I could not get to
the end of the street in my chariot, for the crowd; when I got
out, the first thing I heard was a man enjoying himself:
"Well! if it lasts two hours longer, Sir Robert Walpole's
house will be burnt to the ground!" it was a very comfortable
hearing! but I found the fire was on the opposite side of the
way, and at a good distance. I stood in the crowd an hour to
hear their discourse: one man was relating at how many fires
he had happened to be present, and did not think himself at
all unlucky in passing by, just at this. What diverted me
most, was a servant-maid, who was working, and carrying pails
of water, with the strength of half-a-dozen troopers, and
swearing the mob out of her way-the soft creature's name was
Phillis! When I arrived at our door, I found the house
full of goods, beds, women, and children, and three Scotch
members of parliament, who lodge in the row, and who had sent
in a saddle, a flitch of bacon, and a bottle of ink. There
was no wind, and the house was saved, with the loss of only
its garret, and the furniture.
I forgot to mention the Dominichin last post, as I suppose I
had before, for I always was for buying it; it is one of the
most engaging pictures I ever saw. I have no qualms about its
originality; and even if Sir Robert should not like
it when it comes, which is impossible, I think I would live
upon a flitch of bacon and a bottle of ink, rather than not
spare the money to buy it myself: so my dear Sir, buy it.
Your brother has this moment brought me a letter: I find by
it, that you are very old style with relation to the Prussian
peace. Why, we have sent Robinson (666) and Lord Hyndford
(667) a green ribbon, for it, above a fortnight ago. Muley,
(as Lord Lovel calls him,) Duke of Bedford, (668) is, they
say, to have a blue one, for making his own peace: you know we
always mind home-peaces more than foreign ones.
I am quite sorry for all the trouble you have had about the
Maltese cats; but you know they were for Lord Islay, not for
myself. Adieu! I have no more time.
(657) Sir Robert Brown had been a merchant at Venice, and
British resident there, for which he was created a baronet in
1732. He held the place at this time of" "paymaster of his
Majesty's works, concerning the repairs, new buildings, and
well-keeping of any of his Majesty's houses of access, and
others, in time of progress."-D
(658) John Hay, fourth Marquis of Tweedale. In 1748, he
married Frances, daughter of John Earl Granville, and died in
1762.-E.
(659) The Hon. Edward Finch, fifth son of Daniel, sixth Earl
of Winchilsea and second Earl of Nottingham, and the direct
ancestor of the present Lord Winchilsea. He assumed the name
of Hatton, in 1764, in consequence of inheriting the fortune
of William Viscount Hatton, his mother's brother. He was
employed in diplomacy, and was made master of the robes in
1757. He died in 1771.-D.
(660) The Hon. William Finch, second son of Daniel, sixth Earl of
Winchilsea, had been envoy in Sweden and in Holland. He
continued to hold the office of vice-chamberlain of the
household till his death in 1766. These two brothers, and
their elder brother Daniel, seventh Earl of Winchilsea, are
the persons whom Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, calls, on
account of the blackness of their complexions, "the dark,
funereal
Finches." [His widow, Charlotte, daughter of the Earl of
Pomfret,
was appointed governess to the young princes and princesses.]
(661) Lord Sidney Beauclerk, fifth son of the first Duke of
St. Albans; a man of bad character. Sir Charles Hanbury
Williams calls him "Worthless Sidney." He was notorious for
hunting after the fortunes of the old and childless. Being
very handsome, he had almost persuaded Lady Betty Germain, in
her old age, to marry him; but she was dissuaded from it by
the Duke of Dorset and her relations. He failed also in
obtaining
the fortune of Sir' Thomas Reeve, Chief Justice of the (common
Pleas, whom he used to attend on the circuit, with a view of
ingratiating himself with him. At length he induced Mr.
Topham, of Windsor, to leave his estate to him. He died in
1744, leaving one son, Topham Beauclerk,
Esq.-D. [This son, so celebrated for his conversational,
talents, and described by Dr. Jonson as uniting the eloquent
manners of a gentleman with the mental acccomplishments of a
scholar, married, in 1768, Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of the
Duke of Marlborough, and died in 1780.]
(662) John JefFries, secretary of the treasury.-D.
(663) Sir John Strange was made master of the rolls, but not
till some years afterwards; he died in 1754.
(664) From the Pretender. Lord Gower had been, until he was
made privy-seal, one of the leading Jacobites; and was even
supposed to lean to that party, after he had accepted the
appointment.
(665) Lady Isabella Finch, third daughter of the sixth Earl of
Winchilsea, first lady of the bedchamber to the Princess
Amelia. It was for her that Kent built the pretty and
singular house on the western side of Berkeley Square, with a
fine room in it, of which the ceiling is painted in arabesque
compartments, by Zucchi;-now the residence of C. B. Wall,
Esq.-D. [In this house her ladyship died unmarried, in 1771.)
(666) Sir Thomas Robinson, minister at Vienna; be was made
secretary of state in 1754. (And a peer, by the title of Lord
Grantham, in 1761.-D.)
(667) John Carmichael, third Earl of Hyndford. He had been
sent as envoy to the King of Prussia, during the first war of
Silesia. He was afterwards sent ambassador to St. Petersburgh
and Vienna, and died in 1767.-D.
(668) The Duke of Bedford had not the
Garter till some years after this.
275 Letter 78
To Sir Horace Mann.
You scolded me so much about my little paper, that I dare not
venture upon it even now, when I have very little to say to
you. The long session is over, and the Secret Committee
already forgotten. Nobody remembers it but poor Paxton, who
has lost his place(669) by it. saw him the day after he came
out of Newgate: he came to Chelsea:(670) Lord Fitzwilliam was
there, and in the height of zeal, took him about the neck and
kissed him. Lord Orford had been at Court that morning, and
with his usual spirits, said to the new ministers, "So! the
parliament is up, and Paxton, Bell, and I have got our
liberty!" The King spoke in the kindest manner to him at his
levee, but did not call him into the closet, as the new
ministry feared he would, and as perhaps, the old ministry
expected he would. The day before, when the King went to put
an end to the session, Lord Quarendon asked Winnington
"whether Bell would be let out time enough to hire a mob to
huzza him as he went to the House of Lords."
The few people that are left in town have been much diverted
with an adventure that has befallen the new ministers. Last
Sunday the Duke of Newcastle gave them a dinner at Claremont,
where their servants got so drunk, that when they came to the
inn over against the gate of Newpark,(671) the coachman, who
was the only remaining fragment of their suite, tumbled off
the box, and there they were planted. There were Lord Bath,
Lord Carteret, Lord Limerick, and Harry Furnese (672) in the
coach: they asked the innkeeper if he could contrive no way to
convey them to town. , No," he said, "not unless it was to get
Lord Orford's coachman to drive them." They demurred; but Lord
Carteret said "Oh, I dare say, Lord Orford will willingly let
us have him." So they sent and he drove them home.(673)
Ceretesi had a mind to see this wonderful Lord Orford, of whom
he had heard so much; I carried him to dine at Chelsea. You
know the earl don't speak a word of any language but English
and Latin,(674) and Ceretesi not a word of either; yet he
assured me that he was very happy to have made cosi bella
conascenza! He whips out his pocket-book every moment, and
writes descriptions in issimo of every thing he sees: the
grotto alone took up three pages. What volumes he will
publish at his return, in usum Serenissimi Pannom!(675)
There has lately been the most shocking scene of murder
imaginable; a parcel of drunken constables took it into their
heads to put the laws in execution against disorderly persons,
and so took up every woman they met, till they had collected
five and six or twenty, all of whom they thrust into St.
Martin's roundhouse, where they kept them all night, with
doors and windows closed. The poor creatures, who could not
stir or breathe, screamed as long as they had any breath left,
begging at least for water: one poor wretch said she was worth
eighteen-pence, and would gladly give it for a draught of
water, but in vain! So well did they keep them there, that in
the morning four were found stifled to death, two died soon
after, and a dozen more are in a shocking way. In short, it
is horrid to think what the poor creatures suffered: several
of them were beggars, who, from having no lodging, were
necessarily found in the street, and others honest labouring
women. One of the dead was a poor washerwoman, big with
child, who was returning home late from washing. One of the
constables is taken, and others absconded; but I question(676)
if any of them will suffer death, though the greatest
criminals in this town are the officers of justice; there is
no tyranny they do not exercise, no villainy of which they do
not partake. These same men, the same night, broke into a
bagnio in Covent-Garden, and took up Jack Spencer,(677) Mr.
Stewart, and Lord George Graham,(678) and would have thrust
them into the round-house with the poor women, if they had not
been worth more than eighteen-pence!
I have just now received yours of the 15th of July, with a
married letter from both Prince and Princess:(679) but sure
nothing ever equalled the setting out of it! She says, "The
generosity of your friendship for me, Sir, leaves me nothing
to desire of all that is precious in England, China, and the
Indies!" Do you know, after such a testimony under the hand of
a princess, that I am determined, after the laudable example
of the house of Medici, to take the title of Horace the
Magnificent! I am only afraid it should be a dangerous example
for my posterity, who may ruin themselves in emulating the
magnificence of their ancestor. It happens comically, for the
other day, in removing from Downing-street, Sir Robert found
an old account-book of his father, wherein he set down all
his, expenses. In three months and ten days that he was in
London one winter as member of parliament, he spent-what do
you think?-sixty-four pounds seven shillings and five-pence!
There are many articles for Nottingham ale, eighteen-pences
for dinners, five shillings to Bob (now Earl of Orford), and
one memorandum of six shillings given in exchange to Mr.
Wilkins for his wig-and yet this old man, my grandfather, had
two thousand pounds a-year, Norfolk sterling! He little
thought that what maintained him for a whole session, would
scarce serve one of his younger grandsons to buy japan and
fans for princesses at Florence!
Lord Orford has been at court again to-day: Lord Carteret came
up to thank him for his coachman; the Duke of Newcastle
standing by. My father said, "My lord, whenever the duke is
near overturning you, you have nothing to do but to send to
me, and I will save you." The duke said to Lord Carteret, "Do
you know, my lord, that the Venison you eat that day came out
of Newpark?" Lord Orford laughed, and said, "So, you see I am
made to kill the fatted calf for the return of the prodigals!"
The King passed by all the new ministry to speak to him, and
afterwards only spoke to my Lord Carteret.
Should I answer the letters from the court of Petraria again?
there will be no end of our magnificent correspondence!-but
would it not be too haughty to let a princess write last?
Oh, the cats! I can never keep them, and yet It is barbarous
to send them all to Lord Islay: he will shut them up and
starve them, and then bury them under the stairs with his
wife. Adieu!
(669) Solicitor to the treasury. See ante, p. 246.
(670) Sir R. Walpole's house at Chelsea.-D.
(671) Lord Walpole was ranger of Newpark. (Now called
Richmond Park.-D.)
(672) One of the band of incapables who obtained power and
place on the fall of Walpole. Horace Walpole, in his
Memoires, calls him "that old rag of Lord Bath's quota to an
administration, the mute Harry Furnese."-D.
(673) This occurrence was celebrated in a ballad which is
inserted in C. Hanbury Williams's works, and begins thus.
"As Caleb and Carteret, two birds of a feather,
Went down to a feast at Newcastle's together."
Lord Bath is called "Caleb," in consequence of the name of
Caleb DAnvers having been used in The Craftsman, of which he
was the principal author.-D.
(674) It was very remarkable that Lord Orford could get and
keep such an ascendant with King George 1. when they had no
way of conversing but very imperfectly in Latin.
(675) The coffee-house at Florence where the nobility meet.
(676) The keeper of the round-house was tried but acquitted of
wilful murder. [The keeper, whose name was William Bird, was
tried at the Old Bailey in October, and received sentence of
death; which was afterwards transmuted to transportation.]
(677) The Honourable John Spencer, second son of Charles,
third Earl of Sunderland, by Anne his wife, second daughter of
the great Duke of Marlborough. He was the favourite grandson
of old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough who left him a vast
fortune, having disinherited, to the utmost of her power, his
eldest brother, Charles, Duke of Marlborough. The condition
upon which she made this bequest was that neither he nor his
heirs should take any place or pension from any government,
except the rangership of Windsor Park. He was the ancestor of
the present Earl Spencer, and died in 1746.- D.
(678) Lord George Graham, youngest son of the Duke of
Montrose, and a captain in the navy. He died in 1747.-D.
(679) Prince and Princess Craon.
278 Letter 79
To Sir Horace Mann.
Chelsea, July 29, 1742.
I am quite out of humour; the whole town is melted away; you
never saw such a desert. You know what Florence is in the
vintage-season, at least I remember what it was: London is
just as empty, nothing but half-a-dozen private gentlewomen
left, who live upon the scandal that they laid up in the
winter. I am going too! this day se'nnight we set out for
Houghton, for three months; but I scarce think that I shall
allow thirty days apiece to them. Next post I shall not be
able to write to you; and when I am there shall scarce find
any materials to furnish a letter above every other post. I
beg, however, that you will write constantly to me: it will be
my only entertainment, for I neither hunt, brew, drink, nor
reap. When I return in the winter, I will make amends for
this barren season of our correspondence.
I carried Sir Robert the other night to Ranelagh for the first
time: my uncle's prudence, or fear, would never let him go
before. It was pretty full, and all its fulness flocked round
us: we walked with a train at our heels, like two chairmen
going to fight; but they were extremely civil, and did not
crowd him, or say the least impertinence--I think he grows
popular already! The other day he got it asked, whether he
should be received if he went to Carleton House?-no,
truly!-but yesterday morning Lord Baltimore' came (680) to
soften it a little; that his royal highness -did not refuse to
see him, but that now the Court was out of town, and he had no
drawing-room, he did not see any body.
They have given Mrs. Pultney an admirable name, and one that
is likely to stick by her-instead of Lady Bath, they call her
the wife of Bath.(681) Don't you figure her squabbling at the
gate with St. Peter for a halfpenny.
Cibber has published a little pamphlet against Pope, which has
a great deal of spirit, and, from some circumstances, will
notably vex him.(682) I will send it to you by the first
opportunity, with a new pamphlet, said to be Doddington's,
called "A Comparison of the Old and New Ministry:" it is much
liked. I have not forgot your magazines, but will send them
and these pamphlets together. Adieu! I am at the end of my
tell.
P. S. Lord Edgecumbe is just made lord-lieutenant of Cornwall,
at which the Lord of Bath looks sour. He said, yesterday, that
the King would give orders for several other considerable
alterations; but gave no orders, except for this, which was
not asked by that earl.
(680) Lord of the bedchamber to the Prince.
(681) In allusion to the old ballad.
(682) This pamphlet, which was entitled "A Letter from Mr.
Cibber to Mr. Pope; inquiring into the motives that might
induce him, in his satirical works to be so frequently fond of
Mr. Cibber's name," so "notably vexed" the great poet, that,
in a new edition of the Dunciad, he dethroned Theobald from
his eminence as King of the dunces, and enthroned Cibber in
his stead.-E.
279 Letter 80
To Sir Horace Mann.
(From Houghton.)
Here are three new ballads,(683) and you must take them as a
plump part of a long letter. Consider, I am in the barren
land of Norfolk, where news grows as slow as any thing green;
and besides, I am in the house of a fallen minister! The
first song I fancy is Lord Edgcumbe's; at least he had reason
to write it. The second I do not think so good as the real
Story that occasioned it. The last is reckoned vastly the
best, and is much admired: I cannot say I see all those
beauties in it, nor am charmed with the poetry, which is cried
up. I don't find that any body knows whose it is.(684) Pultney
is very anoyed, especially as he pretends, about his wife, and
says, "it is too much to abuse ladies!" You see, their twenty
years' satires come back home! He is gone to the Bath in
great dudgeon: the day before he went, he went in to the King
to ask him to turn out Mr. Hill of the customs, for having
opposed him at Heydon. "Sir," said the King, "was it not when
you was opposing me? I won't turn him out: I will part with no
more of my friends." Lord Wilmington was waiting to receive
orders accordingly, but the King gave him none.
We came hither last Saturday; as we passed through
Grosvenor-square, we met Sir Roger Newdigate, (685) with a
vast body of Tories, proceeding to his election at Brentford:
we might have expected some insult, but only one single fellow
hissed. and was not followed. Lord Edgcumbe, Mr. Ellis, and
Mr. Hervey, in their way to Coke's,(686)
and Lord Chief Justice Wills (on the circuit) are the Only
company here yet. My Lord invited nobody, but left it to
their charity. The other night, as soon as he had gone
through showing Mr. Wills the house, Well," said he, "here I
am to enjoy 't, and my Lord of Bath may--." I forgot to tell
you, in confirmation of what you see in the song of the wife
of Bath having shares of places, Sir Robert told me, that when
formerly she got a place for her own father, she took the
salary and left him only the perquisites!
It is much thought that the King will go abroad, if he can avoid
leaving the Prince in his place--. Imagine all this!
I received to-day yours of July 21), and two from Mr. Chute
and Madame Pucci,(687) which I will answer very soon: where is
she now? I delight in Mr. Villiers's, (688) modesty-in one
place you had written it villette's; I fancy on purpose, for
it would do for him.
Good night, my dear child! I have written myself threadbare.
I know you will hate my campaign, but what can one do!
(683) As these ballads are to be found in the edition of Sir
Charles Hanbury Williams's works, published in 1822, it has
been deemed better to omit them here. They are called,
"Labour in Vain," "The Old Coachman," and "The Country
Girl."-D.
(684) it was written by Hanbury Williams.
(685) Sir Roger Newdigate, the fifth baronet of the family.
He was elected member for Middlesex, upon the vacancy
occasioned by Pultney's being created Earl of Bath. He
belonged to the Tory or Jacobite party.-D. [Sir Roger
afterwards represented the University of Oxford in five
parliaments, and died in 1806, in his eighty-seventh year.
Among other benefactions to his Alma Mater, he gave the noble
candelabra in the Radcliffe library, and founded an annual
prize
for English verses on ancient painting, sculpture, and
architecture.]
(686) Holkham. Coke was the son of Lord Lovel, afterward
Viscount Coke, when his father was created Earl of
Leicester.-D.
(687) She was the daughter of the Conte di Valvasone, of
Friuli, sister of Madame Suares, and of the bedchamber to the
Duchess of Modena.
(688) Thomas Villiers a younger son of william, second Earl of
Jersey, at this time British minister at the court of Dresden,
and eventually created Lord Hyde, and Earl of clarendon. Sir
H. Mann had alluded in one of his letters to a speech
attributed to Mr. Villiers, in which he took great credit to
himself for having induced the King of Poland to become a
party to the peace of Breslau, recently concluded between the
Queen of Hungary and the King, of Prussia; a course of
proceeding, which, in fact, his Polish Majesty had no
alternative but to adopt. Villettes was an inferior
diplomatic agent from England to some of the Italian courts,
and was at this moment resident at the court of Turin.-D.
280 Letter 81
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, Aug. 20, 1742
By the tediousness of the post, and distance of place, I am
still receiving letters from you about the Secret Committee,
which seems strange, for it is as much forgotten now, as if it
had happened in the last reign. Thus much I must answer you
about it, that it is possible to resume the inquiry upon the
Report next session; but you may judge whether they will,
after all the late promotions.
We are willing to believe that there are no news in town, for
we hear none at all: Lord Lovel sent us word to-day, that he
heard, by a messenger from the post office, that Montemar
(689) is put under arrest. I don't tell you this for news,
for you must know it long ago: but I expect the confirmation
of it from you next post. Since we came hither I have heard
no more of the king's journey to Flanders: our troops are as
peaceable there as On Hounslow Heath, except some bickerings
and blows about beef with butchers, and about sacraments with
friars. You know the English can eat no meat, nor be civil to
any God but their own.
As much as I am obliged to you for the description of your
Cocchiata,(690) I don't like to hear of it. It is very
unpleasant, instead of being at it, to be prisoner, in a
melancholy, barren province, which would put one in mind of
the deluge, only that we have no water. Do remember exactly
how your last was; for I intend that you shall give me just
such another Cocchiata next summer, if it pleases the kings
and queens of this world to let us be at peace For "it rests
that without fig-leaves," as my Lord Bacon says in one of his
letters , "I do ingenuously confess and acknowledge," (691)
that I like nothing so well as Italy.
I agree with you extremely about Tuscany for Prince
Charles,(692) but I can only agree with you on paper; for as
to knowing anything of it, I am sure Sir Robert himself knows
nothing of it: the Duke of Newcastle and my Lord Carteret keep
him in as great ignorance as possible, especially the latter;
and even in other times, you know how little he ever thought
on those things. Believe me, he will every day know less.
Your last, which I have been answering, was the. 5th of
August; I this minute receive another of the 12th. How I am
charmed with your spirit and usage of Richcourt! Mais ce
n'est pas d'aujourdhui que je commence `a les m`epriser! I am
so glad that you have quitted your calm, to treat them as they
deserve. You don't tell me if his opposition in the council
hindered your intercession from taking place for the valet de
chambre. I hope not! I could not bear his thwarting you!
I am now going to write to your brother, to get you the
overtures; and to desire he will send them with some pamphlets
and the magazines which I left in commission for you, at my
leaving London. I am going to send him, too, des pleins
pouvoirs, for nominating a person to represent me at his new
babe's christening.
I am sorry Mrs. Goldsworthy is coming to England, though I
think it can be of no effect. Sir Charles (692) has no sort
of interest with the new powers, and I don't think the
Richmonds have enough to remove foreign ministers. However, I
will consult with Sir Robert about it, and see if he thinks
there is any danger for you, which I do not in the least; and
whatever can be done by me, I think you know, will.
P. S. I inclose an answer to Madame Pucci's letter. Where is
she in all this Modenese desolation
(689) Montemar was the General of the King of Spain, who
commanded the troops of that sovereign against the
Imperialists in Italy.-D.
(690) A sort of serenade. Sir H. Mann had mentioned, that he
was about to give an entertainment of this kind in his garden
to the society of Florence.-D.
(691) Prince Charles of Lorraine, younger brother of Francis,
who was now Grand Duke of Tuscany. He was a general of some
abilities; but it was his misfortune to be so often opposed to
the superior talents of the King of Prussia.-D.
(692) Sir Charles Wager.
281 Letter 82
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, August 28, 1742.
I did receive your letter of the 12th, as I think I mentioned
in my last; and to-day another of the 19th. Had I been you,
instead of saying that I would have taken my lady's(693) woman
for my spy, I should have said, that I would hire Richcourt
himself: I dare to say that one might buy the count's own
secrets of himself.
I am sorry to hear that the Impressarii have sent for the
Chiaretta; I am not one of the managers; I should have
remonstrated against her, for she will not do on the same
stage with the Barbarina. I don't know who will be glad of
her coming, but Mr. Blighe and Amorevoli.
'Tis amazing, but we hear not a syllable of Prague taken,(694)
it must be! Indeed, Carthagena, too, was certain of being
taken! but it seems, Maillebois is to stop at Bavaria. I hope
Belleisle (695) will be made prisoner? I am indifferent about
the fate of the great Broglio-but Belleisle is able, and is
our most determined enemy: we need not have more, for to-day
it is confirmed that Cardinal Tencin (696) and M. d'Argenson
are declared of the prime ministry. The first moment they
can, Tencin will be for transporting the Pretenders into
England. Your advice about Naples was quite judicious: the
appearance of a bomb will have great weight in the councils of
the little king.
We don't talk now of any of the Royals passing into Flanders;
though the Champion (697) this morning had an admirable
quotation, on the supposition that the King would go himself:
it was this line from the Rehearsal:-
"Give us our fiddle; we ourselves will play."
The lesson for the Day (698) that I sent you, I gave to Mr.
Coke, who came in as I was writing it, and by his dispersing
it, it has got into print, with an additional one, which I
cannot say I am proud should go under my name. Since that,
nothing but lessons are the fashion: first and second lessons,
morning and evening lessons, epistles, etc. One of the Tory
papers published so abusive an one last week on the new
ministry, that three gentlemen called on the printer, to know
how he dared to publish it. Don't you like these men who for
twenty years together led the way, and published every thing
that was scandalous, that they should wonder at any body's
daring to publish against them! Oh! it will come home to them!
Indeed, every body's fame now is published at length: last
week the Champion mentioned the Earl of Orford and his natural
daughter, Lady Mary, at length (for which he had a great mind
to prosecute the printer). To-day, the London Evening Post
says, Mr. Pane, nephew of Mr. Scrope, is made first clerk of
the treasury, as a reward for his uncle's taciturnity before
the Secret Committee. He is in the room of old Tilson, who
was so tormented by that Committee that it turned his brain,
and he is dead.
I am excessively shocked at Mr. Fane's (699) behaviour to you;
but Mr. Fane is an honourable man! he lets poor you pay him
his salary for eighteen months, without thinking of returning
it! But if he had lost that sum to Jansen,(700) or to any of
the honourable men at White's, he would think his honour
engaged to pay it. There is nothing, sure, so whimsical as
modern honour! You may debauch a woman upon a promise of
marriage, and not marry her; you may ruin your tailor's or
your baker's family by not paying them; you may make Mr. Mann
maintain you for eighteen months, as a public minister, out of
his own pocket, and still be a man of honour! But, not to pay
a common sharper, or not to murder a man that has trod upon
your toe, is such a blot in your scutcheon, that you could
never recover your honour, though you had in your veins "all
the blood of all the Howards!"
My love to Mr. Chute: tell him, as he looks on the east front
of Houghton, to tap under the two windows in the left-hand
wing, up stairs, close to the colonnade-there are Patapan and
I, at this instant, writing to you; there we are almost every
morning, or in the library; the evenings, we walk till dark;
then Lady Mary, Miss Leneve, and I play at comet; the Earl,
Mrs. Leneve, and whosoever is here, discourse; car telle est
notre vie! Adieu!
(693) Lady Walpole. Richcourt, the Florentine minister, was
her lover, and both, as has been seen in the former part of
these letters, were enemies of Sir . H. Mann.-D.
(694) This means retaken by the Imperialists from the French,
who had obtained possession of it on the 25th of November,
1741. The Austrian troops drove the French out of Prague, in
December, 1742.-D.
(695) This wish was gratified, though not in this year.
Marshal Belleisle was taken prisoner in 1745, by the
Hanoverian dragoons, was confined for some months in Windsor
Castle, and exchanged after the battle of Fontenoy.-D.
(696) A profligate ecclesiastic, who was deeply engaged in the
corrupt political intrigues of the day. In these he was
assisted by his sister Madame Tencin, an unprincipled woman of
much ability, who had been the mistress of the still more
infamous Cardinal Dubois. Voltaire boasts in his Memoirs, of
having killed the Cardinal Tencin from vexation, at a sort of
political hoax, which he played off upon him.-D. [The cardinal
was afterwards, made Archbishop of Lyons. In 1752, he
entirely quitted the court, and retired to his diocese, where
he died in 1758, ,greatly esteemed," says the Biog. Univ. for
his extensive charities." His sister died in 1749. She was
mother of the celebrated D'Alembert by Destouches Canon, and
authoress of "Le Comte de Comminges," "Les Malheurs de
l'Amour," and other romances.]
(697) 'The Champion was an opposition Journal, written by
Fielding. [Assisted by Ralph, the historian.)
(698) Entitled " The Lessons for the Day, 1742." Published in
Sir Charles Hanbury Williams's works, but written by
Walpole.-D.
(699) Charles Fane, afterwards Lord Fane, had been minister at
Florence before Mr. Mann.
(700) A notorious gambler. He is mentioned by Pope, in the
character of the young man of fashion, in the fourth canto of
the Dunciad,
"As much estate, and principle, and wit,
As Jansen, Fleetwood, Cibber, shall think fit."-D.
284 Letter 83
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, Sept. 11, 1742.
I could not write to you last week, for I was at
Woolterton,(701) and in a course of visits, that took up my
every moment. I received one from you there, of August 26th,
but have had none at all this week.
You know I am not prejudiced in favour of the country, nor
like a place because it bears turnips well, or because you may
gallop over it without meeting a tree: but I really was
charmed with Woolterton; it is all wood and water! My uncle
and aunt may, without any expense, do what they have all their
lives avoided, wash themselves and make fires.(702) Their
house is more than a good one; if they had not saved
eighteen pence in every room, it would have been a fine one.
I saw several of my acquaintance,(703) Volterra vases,
Grisoni landscapes, the four little bronzes, the
raffle-picture, etc.
We have printed about the expedition to Naples: the affair at
Elba, too, is in the papers, but we affect not to believe it.
We are in great apprehensions of not taking Prague--the only
thing that has been taken on our side lately, I think, is my
Lord Stair's journey hither and back again-we don't know for
what-he is such an Orlando! The papers are full of the most
defending King'S Journey to Flanders;our private letters say
not a word of it-I say our, for at present I
think the earl's intelligences and mine are pretty equal as to
authority.
Here is a little thing which I think has humour in it.
A CATALOGUE OF NEW FRENCH BOOKS.
1. Jean-sans-terre, on l'Empereur en pet-en-l'air; imprim`e `a
Frankfort.
2. La France mourante d'une suppression
d'hommes et d'argent: dedi`e au public.
3. L'art de faire les Neutralit`es, invent`e
en Allemagne, et `ecrit en cette langue, par Un des Electeurs,
et nouvellement traduit en Napolitain; par le Chef d'Escadre
Martin.
4. Voyage d'Allemaune, par Monsieur de Maupertuis; avec un
t`elescope, invent`e pendant son voyage; `a l'usage des
H`eros, pour regarder leur victoires de loin.
5. M`ethode court et facile pour faire entrer les troupes
Fran`coies en Allemagne:-mais comment faire, pour les en faire
sortir?
6. Trait`e tr`es salutaire et tr`es utile sur la
reconnoissance envers les bienfaicteurs, par le Roy de
Pologne. Folio, imprim`e `a Dresde.
7. Obligation sacr`ee des Trait`es, Promesses, et
Renonciations, par le Grand Turc; avec des Remarques
retractoires, par un Jesuite.
8. Probleme; combien il faut d'argent FranSois pour payer le
sang Su`edois circul`e par le Comte de Gyllembourg
9. Nouvelle m`ethode de friser les cheveux `a la Francoise;
par le Colonel Mentz et sa Confrairie.
10. Recueil de Dissertations sur la meilleure mani`ere de
faire la partition des successions, par le Cardinal de Fleury;
avec des notes, historiques et politiques, par la Reine
d'Espagne.
11. Nouveau Voyage de Madrid `a Antibes, par l'Infant Dom
Philippe.
12. Lart de chercher les ennemis sans lea trouver; par le
Marechal de Maillebois.
13. La fid`elit`e couronn`ee, par le G`en`eral Munich et le
Comte d'Osterman.
14. Le bal de Lintz et les amusements de DOnawert; pi`ece
pastorale et galante,
en un acte, par le Grand Duc.
15. l'Art de maitriser les Femmes, par sa Majest`e
Catliolique.
16. Avantures Boh`emiennes, tragi-comiques, tr`es curieuses,
tr`es int`erressantes, et charg`ees d'incidents. Tom. i. ii.
iii.
N.B. Le dernier tome, qui fera le denouement, est sous presse.
Adieu! my dear child; if it was not for this secret of
transcribing, what should one do in the country to make out a
letter?
285 Letter 84
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, Sept. 25th, 1742.
At last, my dear child, I have got two letters from you! I
have been in strange pain, between fear of your being ill, and
apprehensions of your letters being stopped; but I have
received that by Crew, and another since. But you have been
ill! I am angry with Mr. Chute for not writing to let me know
it. I fancied you worse than you say, or at least than you
own. But I don't wonder you have fevers! such a busy
politician as Villettes,(704) and such a blustering negotiator
as il Furibondo (705) are enough to put all your little
economy of health and spirits in confusion. I agree with you,
that " they don't pique themselves upon understanding sense,
any more than Deutralities!" The grand journey to
Flanders(706) is a little -it a stand: the expense has been
computed at two thousand pounds a day! Many dozen of
embroidered portmanteaus full of laurels and bays have been
prepared this fortnight. The Regency has been settled and
unsettled twenty times: it is now said, that the weight of it
is not to be laid on the Prince. The King is to return by his
birthday; but whether he is to bring back part of French
Flanders with him, or will only have time to fetch Dunkirk, is
uncertain. In the mean time, Lord Carteret is gone to the
Hague; by which jaunt it seems that Lord Stair's journey was
not conclusive. The converting of the siege of Prague into a
blockade makes no great figure in the journals on this side
the water and question-but it is the fashion not to take towns
that one was sure of taking. I cannot pardon the Princess for
having thought of putting off her `epuisements and lassitudes
to take a trip to Leghorn, "pendant qu'on ne donnoit `a manger
`a Monsieur le Prince son fils, que de la chair de chevaux!"
Poor Prince Beauvau!(707) I shall be glad to hear he is safe
from this siege. Some of the French princes of the blood have
been stealing away a volunteering, but took care to be missed
in time. Our Duke goes with his lord and father-they say, to
marry a princess of Prussia, whereof great preparations have
been making in his equipage and in his breeches.
Poor Prince Craon! where did De Sade get fifty sequins. When
I was at Florence, you know all his clothes were in pawn to
his landlord; but he redeemed them by pawning his Modenese
bill of credit to his landlady! I delight in the style of the
neutrality maker(708)-his neutralities and his English arc
perfectly of a piece.
You have diverted me excessively with the history of the
Princess Eleonora's(709) posthumous issue-but how could the
woman have spirit enough to have five children by her footman,
and yet not have enough to own them. Really, a woman so much
in the great world should have known better! Why, no yeoman's
dowager could have acted more prudishly! It always amazes me,
when I reflect on the women, who are the first to propagate
scandal of one another. If they would but agree not to
censure what they all agree to do, there would be no more loss
of characters among them than amongst men. A woman cannot
have an affair, but instantly all her sex travel about to
publish it, and leave her off: now, if a man cheats another of
his estate at play, forges a will, or marries a ward to his
own son, nobody thinks of leaving him off for such trifles.
The English parson at Stosch's, the archbishop on the chapter
of music, the Fanciulla's persisting in her mistake, and old
Count Galli's distress, are all admirable stories.(710) But
what is the meaning of Montemar's writing to the Antinora?--I
thought he had left the Galia for my illustrissima,(711) her
sister. lord! I am horridly tired of that romantic love and
correspondence! Must I answer her last letter? there were but
six lines--what can I say? I perceive, by what you mention of
the cause of his disorder, that Rucellai does not turn out
that simple, honest man you thought him-come, own it
I just recollect a story, which perhaps will serve your
archbishop on his Don Pilogio(712)-the Tartuffe was meant for
the then archbishop of Paris, who, after the first night,
forbad its being acted. Moliere came forth, and told the
audience, "Messieurs, on devoit vous donner le Tartuffe, mais
MOnSeigneur l'Archev`eque ne veut pas qu'on le joue."
My lord is very impatient for his Dominichin; so you will send
it by the first safe conveyance. He is making a gallery, for
the ceiling of which I have given the design of that in the
little library of St. Mark at Venice: Mr. Chute will remember
how charming it was; and for the frieze, I have prevailed to
have that of the temple at Tivoli. Naylor(713) came here the
other day with two coaches full of relations: as his
mother-in-law, who was one of the company is widow of Dr.
Hare, Sir Robert's old tutor at Cambridge, he made them stay
to dine: when they were gone, he said, "Ha, child! what is
that Mr. Naylor, Horace ? he is the absurdest man I ever
saw!" I subscribed to his opinion; won't you? I must tell you
a story of him. When his father married this second wife,
Naylor said,"Father, they say you are to be married to-day,
are you?" "Well," replied the bishop, "and what is that to
you?" "Nay, nothing; only if you had told me, I would have
powdered my hair."
(704) Mr. Villettes was minister at Turin.
(705) Admiral Matthews; his ships having committed some
outrages on the coast of Italy, the Italians called him it
Furibondo.
(706) Of George the Second.-D.
(707) Afterwards a marshal of France. He was a man of some
ability, and the friend and patron of St. Lambert, and of
other men of letters of the time of Lewis XV.-D. [He was made
a marshal in 1783 by the unfortunate Louis XVI. and in 1789 a
minister of state. He died in 1793, a few weeks after the
murder of his royal master.]
(708) Admiral Matthews.
(709) Eleonora of Guastalla, widow of the last cardinal of
Medici, died at Venice. (The father of the children was a
French running footman.-D.) [Cosmo the Third was sixty-seven
years old at the period of the marriage: "une fois le marriage
conclu," says the Biog. Univ. "El`eonore refusa de la
consommer, rebut`ee par la figure, par l'age et surtout par
les d`esordres de son `epouse." Cosmo died at the age of
eighty-one. A translation of his Travels through England, in
1669, was published in 1820.
(710) These are stories in a letter of Sir H. Mann's, which
are neither very decent nor very amusing.-D.
(711) Madame Grifoni.
(712) The Archbishop of Florence had forbid the acting of a
burlettae called Don Pilogio, a sort of imitation of Tartuffe.
When the Impresario of the Theatre remonstrated upon the
expense he had been put to in preparing the music for it, the
archbishop told him he might use it for some other opera.-D.
(713) He was the son of Dr. Here, Bishop of Chichester, and
changed his name for an estate.
287 Letter 85
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, Oct. 8th, 1742.
I have not heard from you this fortnight; if I don't receive a
letter to-morrow, I shall be quite out of humour. It is true,
of late I have written to you but every other post; but then I
have been in the country, in Norfolk, in Siberia! You were
still at Florence, in the midst of Kings of Sardinia,
Montemars, and Neapolitan neutralities; your letters are my
only diversion. As to German news, it is all so simple that I
am peevish: the raising of the siege of Prague,((714) and
Prince Charles and Marechal Maillebois playing at hunt the
squirrel, have disgusted me from inquiring about the war. The
earl laughs in his great chair, and sings a bit of an old
ballad,
"They both did fight, they both did beat, they both did run
away,
They both strive again to meet, the quite contrary way."
Apropos! I see in the papers that a Marquis de Beauvau escaped
out of Prague with the Prince de Deuxpons and the Duc de
Brissac; was it our Prince Beauvau?
At last the mighty monarch does not go to Flanders, after
making the greatest preparations that ever were made but by
Harry the Eighth, and the authors of the grand Cyrus and the
illustrious Hassa: you may judge by the quantity of napkins,
which were to the amount of nine hundred dozen-indeed, I don't
recollect that ancient heroes were ever so provident of
necessaries, or thought how they were to wash their hands and
face after a victory. Six hundred horses, under the care of
the Duke of Richmond, were even shipped; and the clothes and
furniture of his court magnificent enough for a bull-fight at
the conquest of Granada. Felton Hervey's(715) war-horse,
besides having richer caparisons than any of the expedition,
had a gold net to keep off the flies-in winter! Judge of the
clamours this expense to no purpose will produce! My Lord
Carteret is set out from the Hague, but was not landed when
the last letters came from London: there are no great
expectations from this trip; no more than followed from my
Lord Stair's.
I send you two more odes on Pultney,(716) I believe by the
same hand as the former, though none are equal to the Nova
Progenies, which has been more liked than almost ever any
thing was. It is not at all known whose they are; I believe
Hanbury Williams's. The note to the first was printed with
it: the advice to him to be privy seal has its foundation; for
when the consultation was held who were to have places, and my
Lord Gower was named to succeed Lord Hervey, Pultney said with
some warmth, "I designed to be privy seal myself!"
We expect some company next week from Newmarket: here is at
present only Mr. Keene and Pigwiggin,(717)-you never saw so
agreeable a creature!-oh yes! you have seen his parents! I
must tell you a new story of them Sir Robert had given them a
little horse for Pigwiggin, and somebody had given them
another: both which, to save the charge of keeping, they sent
to grass in Newpark. After three years that they had not used
them, my Lord Walpole let his own son ride them, while he was
at the park, in the holidays. Do you know, that the woman
Horace sent to Sir Robert, and made him give her five guineas
for the two horses, because George had ridden them? I give
you my word this is fact.
There has been a great fracas at Kensington: one of the
Mesdames(718) pulled the chair from under Countess
Deloraine(719) at cards, who, being provoked that her monarch
was diverted with her disgrace, with the malice of a
hobby-horse, gave him just such another fall. But alas! the
Monarch, like Louis XIV. is mortal in the part that touched
the ground, and was so hurt and so angry, that the countess is
disgraced, and her German rival (720) remains in the sole and
quiet possession of her royal master's favour.
October 9th.
Well! I have waited till this morning, but have no letter from
you; what can be the meaning of it? Sure, if you was ill, Mr.
Chute would write to me! Your brother protests he never lets
your letters lie at the office.
Sa Majest`e Patapanique(721) has had a dreadful
misfortune!-not lost his first minister, nor his purse--nor
had part of his camp equipage burned in the river, nor waited
for his secretary of state, who is perhaps blown to
Flanders--nay, nor had his chair pulled from under him-worse!
worse! quarrelling with a great pointer last night about their
countesses, he received a terrible shake by the back and a
bruise on the left eye--poor dear Pat! you never saw such
universal consternation! it was at supper. Sir Robert, who
makes as much rout with him as I do, says, he never saw ten
people show so much real concern! Adieu! Yours, ever and
ever-but write to me.
(714) The Marshal de Maillebois and the Count de Saxe had been
sent with reinforcements from France, to deliver the Marshal
de Broglio and the Marshal de Belleisle, who, with their army,
were shut up in Prague, and surrounded by the superior forces
of the Queen of Hungary, commanded by Prince Charles of
Lorraine. They succeeded in facilitating the escape of the
Marshal de Broglio, and of a portion of the French troops; but
the Marshal de Belleisle continued to be blockaded in Prague
with twenty-two thousand men, till December 1742, when he made
his escape to Egra.-D.
(715) Felton Hervey, tenth son of John, first Earl of Bristol;
in 1737, appointed groom of the bedchamber to the Duke of
Cumberland. He died in 1775.-E.
(716) These are "The Capuchin," and the ode beginning, "'Great
Earl of Bath, your reign is o'er;" As they have been
frequently published, they are omitted. The "Nova Progenies"
is the well-known ode beginning, "See, a new progeny
descends."-D.
(717) Eldest son of old Horace Walpole. [Afterwards the second
Lord Walpole of Wolterton, and in 1806, at the age of
eighty-three created Earl of Orford. He died in 1809.-E.]
(718) The Princesses, daughters of George II.-D.
(719) Elizabeth Fenwick, widow of Henry Scott, third Earl of
Deloraine. She was a favourite of George II. and lived much
in his intimate society. From the ironical epithets applied
to her in Lord Hervey's ballad in the subsequent letter, it
would appear, that her general conduct was not considered to
be very exemplary. She died in 1794.-D.
(720) Lady Yarmouth.
289 Letter 86
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, Oct. 18, 1742.
I have received two letters from you since last post; I
suppose the wind stopped the packet-boat.
Well! was not I in the right to persist in buying the
Dominichin? don't you laugh at those wise connoisseurs, who
pronounced it a copy? If it is one, where is the original? or
who was that so great master that could equal Dominichin? Your
brother has received the money for it, and Lord Orford is in
great impatience for it; yet he begs, if you can find any
opportunity, that it may be sent in a man-of-war. I must
desire that the statue may be sent to Leghorn, to be shipped
with it, and that you will get Campagni and Libri to transact
the payment as they did for the picture, and I will pay your
brother.
Villettes' important despatches to you are as ridiculous as
good Mr. Matthews's devotion. - I fancy Mr. Matthews's own god
(722) would make as foolish a figure about a monkey's neck, as
a Roman Catholic one. You know, Sir Francis Dashwood used to
say that Lord Shrewsbury's providence was an old angry man in
a blue cloak: another person-that I knew, believed providence
was like a mouse, because he is invisible. I dare to say
Matthews believes, that providence lives upon beef and
pudding, loves prize-fighting and bull-baiting, and drinks fog
to the health of Old England.
I go to London in a week, and then will send you cart-loads of
news: I know none now, but that we hear to-day of the arrival
of Duc d'Aremberg-I suppose to return my Lord Carteret's
visit. The latter was near being lost; he told the King that
being in a storm, he had thought it safest to put into
Yarmouth roads, at which he laughed, hoh! hoh! hoh!
For want of news, I live upon ballads to you; here is one that
has made a vast noise, and by Lord Hervey's taking great pains
to disperse it, has been thought his own-if it is,(723) he has
taken true care to disguise the niceness of his style.
1. O England, attend. while thy fate I deplore,
Rehearsing the schemes and the conduct of power.
And since only of those who have power I sing,
I am sure none can think that I hint at the King.
2. From the time his son made him old Robin depose,
All the power of a King he was well-known to lose;
But of all but the name and the badges bereft,
Like old women, his paraphernalia are left.
3. To tell how he shook in St. James's for fear,
When first these new Ministers bullied him there,
Makes my blood boil with rage, to think what a thing
They have made of a man We 'obey as a King.
4. Whom they pleas'd they put in, whom they pleas'd they put
out,
And just like a top they all lash'd him about,
Whilst he like a top with a murmuring noise,
Seem'd to grumble, but turn'd to these rude lashing boys.
5. At last Carteret arriving, spoke thus to his grief,
If you'll make me your Doctor, I'll bring you relief;
You see to your closet familiar I come,
And seem like my wife in the circle-at home."
6. Quoth the King, "My good Lord, perhaps you've been told,
That I used to abuse you a little of old;
'But now bring whom you will, and eke turn away,
But let me and my money, and Walmoden(724) stay."
7." For you and Walmoden, I freely consent,
But as for your money, I must have it spent;
I have promised your son (nay, no frowns,) shall have some,
Nor think 'tis for nothing we patriots are come.
8. "But, however, little King, since I find you so good,
Thus stooping below your high courage and blood,
Put yourself in my hands, and I'll do what I can,
To make you look yet like a King and a man.
9. "At your Admiralty and your Treasury-board,
To save one single man y; u shan't say a word,
For, by God! all your rubbish front both you shall shoot,
Walpole's ciphers and Gasherry'S(725) vassals to boot.
10. "And to guard Prince's ears, as all Statesmen take care,
So, long as yours are-not one man shall come near;
For of all your Court-crew we'll leave only those
Who we know never dare to say boh! to a goose.
11. "So your friend booby Grafton I'll e'en let you keep,
Awake he can't hurt, and is still half asleep;
Nor ever was dangerous, but to womankind,
And his body's as impotent now as his mind.
12. "There's another Court-booby, at once hot and dull,
Your pious pimp, Schutz, a mean, Hanover tool;
For your card-play at night he too shall remain,
With virtuous and sober, and wise Deloraine.(726)
13. "And for all your Court-nobles who can't write or read,
As of such titled ciphers all courts stand in need,
Who, like parliament-Swiss, vote and fight for their pay,
They're as good as a new set to cry yea and nay.
14. "Though Newcastle's as false, as he's silly, I know,
By betraying old Robin to me long ago,
As well as all those who employed him before,
Yet I leave him in place, but I leave him no power.
15. "For granting his heart is as black as his hat,
With no more truth in this, than there's sense beneath that;
Yet as he's a coward, he'll shake when I frown;
You call'd him a rascal, I'll use him like one,
16. "And since his estate at elections he'll spend,
And beggar himself, without making a friend;
So whilst the extravagant fool has a sous,
As his brains I can't fear, so his fortune I'll use,
17. "And as miser Hardwicke, with all courts will draw,
He too may remain, but shall stick to his law;
For of foreign affairs, when he talks like a fool,
I'll laugh in his face,, and will cry 'Go to school!'
18. "The Countess of Wilmington, excellent nurse,
I'll trust with the Treasury, not with its purse,
For nothing by her I've resolved shall be done,
She shall sit at that board, as you sit on the throne.
19. "Perhaps now, you expect that I should begin
To tell you the men I design to bring in;
But we're not yet determined on all their demands
-And you'll know soon enough, when they come to kiss hands.
20. "All that weathercock Pultney shall ask, we must grant,
For to make him a great noble nothing, I want;
And to cheat such a man, demands all my arts,
For though he's a fool, he's a fool with great parts,
21. "And as popular Clodius, the Pultney of Rome,
>From a noble, for power did plebeian become,
So this Clodius to be a Patrician shall choose,
Till what one got by changing, the other shall lose.
22. "Thus flatter'd and courted, and gaz'd at by all,
Like Phaeton, rais'd for a day, he shall fall,
Put the world in a flame, and show he did strive
To get reins in his hand, though 'tis plain he can't drive.
23. "For your foreign affairs, howe'er they turn out,
At least I'll take care you shall make a great rout:
Then cock your great hat, strut, bounce, and look bluff,
For though kick'd and cuffd here, you shall there kick and
cuff.
24. "That Walpole did nothing they all used to say,
So I'll do enough, but I'll make the dogs pay;
Great fleets I'll provide, and great armies engage,
Whate'er debts we make, or whate'er wars we wage."
25. With cordials like these the Monarch's new guest
Revived his sunk spirits and gladden'd his heart;
Till in raptures he cried, " y dear Lord, you shall do
Whatever you will, give me troops to review.
26. "But oh! my dear England, since this is thy state,
Who is there that loves thee but weeps at thy fate?
Since in changing thy masters, thou art just like old Rome,
Whilst Faction, Oppression, and Slavery's thy doom.
27. "For though you have made that rogue Walpole retire,
You're out of the frying-pan into the fire!
But since to the Protestant line I'm a friend,
I tremble to think where these changes may end!"
This has not been printed. You see the burthen of all the
songs Is the rogue Walpole, which he has observed himself, but
I believe is content, as long as they pay off his arrears to
those that began the tune. Adieu!
(722) Admiral Matthews's crew having disturbed some Roman
Catholic ceremonies in a little island on the coast of Italy,
hung a crucifix about a monkey's neck.
(723) It was certainly written by Lord Hervey.
(724) Lady Yarmouth.
(725) Sir Charles Wager's nephew, and Secretary to the
Admiralty.
(726) Countess Dowager of Deloraine, governess to the young
Princesses.
293 Letter 87
To Sir Horace Mann.
Houghton, Oct. 23, 1742.
At last I see an end of my pilgrimage; the day after tomorrow
I am affirming it to you as earnestly as if' you had been
doubting of it like myself: but both my brothers are here, and
Sir Robert will let me go. He must follow himself soon: the
Parliament meets the 16th of November, that the King may go
abroad the first of March: but if all threats prove true
prophecies, he will scarce enter upon heroism so soon, for we
are promised a winter just like the last-new Secret Committees
to be tried for, and impeachments actually put into execution.
It is horrid to have a prospect of a session like the last.
In the meantime, my Lord of Bath and Lord Hervey, who seem
deserted by every body else, are grown the greatest friends in
the world at Bath; and to make a complete triumvirate, my Lord
Gower is always of their party: how they must love one
another, the late, the present, and the would-be Privy Seal!
Lord Hyndford has had great honours in Prussia: that King
bespoke for him a service of plate to the value of three
thousand pounds. He asked leave for his Majesty's arms to be
put upon it: the King replied, "they should, with the arms of
Silesia added to his paternal coat for ever." I will tell you
Sir ]Robert's remark on this: "He is rewarded thus for having
obtained Silesia for the King of Prussia, which he was sent to
preserve to the Queen of Hungary!" Her affairs begin to take
a little better turn again; Broglio is prevented from joining
Maillebois, who, they affirm, can never bring his army off, as
the King of Poland is guarding all the avenues of Saxony, to
prevent his passing through that country.
I wrote to you in my last to desire that the Dominichin and my
statue might come by a man-of-war. Now. Sir Robert, who is
impatient for his picture, would have it sent in a Dutch ship,
as he says he can easily get it from Holland. If you think
this conveyance quite safe, I beg my statue may bear it
company.
Tell me if you are tired of ballads on my Lord Bath; if you
are not, here is another admirable one,(727) I believe by the
same hand as the others; but by the conclusion certainly ought
not to be Williams's. I only send you the good ones, for the
newspapers are every day full of bad ones on this famous earl.
My compliments to the Princess; I dreamed last night that she
was come to Houghton, and not at all `epuis`ee with her
journey. Adieu!
P.S. I must add a postscript, to mention a thing I have often
designed to ask you to do for me. Since I came to England I
have been buying drawings, (the time is well chosen, when I
had neglected it in Italy!) I saw at Florence two books that
I should now be very glad to have, if you could get them
tolerably reasonable; one was at an English painter's; I think
his name was Huckford, over against your house in via Bardi;
they were of Holbein: the other was of Guercino, and brought
to me to see by the Abb`e Bonducci; my dear child, you will
oblige me much if you can get them.
(727) Sir Charles Hanbury Williams's ode, beginning "What
Statesman, what Hero, what King-." It is to be found in all
editions of his poems.-D.
294 Letter 88
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Nov. 1, 1742.
I have not felt so pleasantly these three months as I do at
present, though I have a great cold with coming into an
unaired house, and have been forced to carry that cold to the
King's levee and the drawing-room. There were so many new
faces that I scarce knew where I was; I should have taken 'it
for Carlton House, or my Lady Mayoress's visiting-day, only
the people did not seem enough at home, but rather as admitted
to see the King dine in public. 'Tis quite ridiculous to see
the numbers of old ladies, who, from having been wives of
patriots, have not been dressed these twenty years; out they
come, in all the accoutrements that were in use in Queen
Anne's days. Then the joy and awkward jollity of them is
inexpressible! They titter, and, wherever you meet them, are
always going to court, and looking at their watches an hour
before the time. I met several on the birthday, (for I did
not arrive time enough to make clothes,) and they were dressed
in all the colours of the rainbow: they seem to have said to
themselves twenty years ago, ,Well, if ever I do go to court
again, I will have a pink and silver, or a blue and silver,"
and they keep their resolutions.- But here's a letter from
you, sent to me back from Houghton; I must stop to read
it.-Well, I have read it, and am diverted with Madame
Grifoni's being with child; I hope she was too. I don't
wonder that she hates the country; I dare to say her child
does not owe its existence to the Villeggiatura. When you
wrote, it seems you had not heard what a speedy determination
was put to Don Philip's reign in Savoy. I suppose he will
retain the title: you know great princes are fond of titles,
which proves they are not so great as they once were.
I find a very different face of things from what we had
conceived in the country. There are, indeed, thoughts of
renewing attacks on Lord Orford, and Of stepping the supplies;
but the new ministry laugh at these threats, having secured a
vast majority in the House: the Opposition themselves own that
the Court will have upwards of a hundred majority: I don't,
indeed, conceive how; but they are confident of carrying every
thing. They talk of Lord Gower's not keeping the privy seal;
that he will either resign it, or have it taken away: Lord
Bath, who is entering into all the court measures, is most
likely to succeed him. The late Lord Privy Seal(728) has had
a most ridiculous accident at Bath: he used to play in a
little inner room; but one night some ladies had got it, and
he was reduced to the public room; but being extremely absent
and deep in politics, he walked through the little room to a
convenience behind the curtain, from whence (still absent) he
produced himself in a situation extremely diverting to the
women: imagine his delicacy, and the passion he was in at
their laughing!
I laughed at myself prodigiously the other day for a piece of
absence; I was writing on the King's birthday, and being
disturbed with the mob in the street, I rang for the porter,
and, with an air of grandeur, as if I was still at Downing
Street, cried, "Pray send away those marrowbones and
cleavers!" The poor fellow with the most mortified air in the
world, replied, "Sir, they are not at our door, but over the
way at my Lord Carteret's." "Oh," said I, "then let them
alone; may be he does not dislike the noise!" I pity the poor
porter, who sees all his old customers going over the way too.
Our operas begin to-morrow with a pasticcio, full of most of
my favourite songs: the Fumagalli has disappointed us; she had
received an hundred ducats, and then wrote word that she had
spent them, and was afraid of coming through the Spanish
quarters; but if they would send her an hundred more, she
would come next year. Villettes has what been written to in
the strongest manner to have her forced hither (for she is at
Turin.) I tell you this by way of key, in case you should
receive a mysterious letter in cipher from him about this
important business.
I have not seen Due d'Aremberg; but I hear that all the
entertainments for him are suppers, for he -will dine at his
own hour, eleven in the morning. He proposed it to the
Duchess of Richmond when she invited him; but she said she did
not know where to find company to dine with him at that hour.
I must advise YOU to be cautious how you refuse humouring our
captains (729) in any of their foolish schemes; for they are
popular, and I should be very sorry to have them out of humour
with you when they come home, lest it should give any handle
to your enemies. Think of it, my dear child! The officers in
Flanders, that are members of parliament, have had
intimations, that if they asked leave to come on their private
affairs, and drop in, not all together, they will be very well
received; this is decorum. Little Brook's little wife is a
little with child. Adieu!
(728) Lord Hervey.
(729) The captains of ships in the English fleet at Leghorn.
296 Letter 89
To Sir Horace Mann.
London, Nov. 15, 1742.
I have not written to you lately, expecting letters from you;
last I have received two. I still send mine through France,
as I am afraid they would get to you with still more
difficulty through Holland.
Our army is just now ordered to march to Mayence, at the
repeated instances of the Queen of Hungary; Lord Stair goes
with them, but almost all the officers that arc in parliament
arc come over, for the troops are only to be in garrison till
March, when, it is said, the King will take the field with
them. This step makes a great noise, for the old remains of
the Opposition are determined to persist, and have termed this
a H(inoverian measure. They begin to-morrow, with opposing
the address on the King's speech: Pitt is to be the leading
mail; there are none but he and Lyttelton of the Prince's
court, who do not join with the ministry: the Prince has told
them, that he will follow the advice they long ago gave him,
"turning out all his people who do not vote as he would have
them."
Lord Orford is come to town, and was at the King's levee
to-day; the joy the latter showed to see him was very visible:
all the new ministry came and spoke to him; and he had a long,
laughing conversation with my Lord Chesterfield, who is still
in Opposition.
You have heard, I suppose, of the revolution in the French
Court; Madame de Mailly is disgraced, and her handsome sister
De la Tournelle(730) succeeds: the latter insisted on three
conditions; first, that the Mailly should quit the palace
before she entered it; next, that she should be declared
mistress, to which post, they pretend, there is a large salary
annexed, (but that is not probable,) and lastly, that she may
always have her own parties at supper: the last article would
very well explain what she proposes to do with her salary.
There are admirable instructions come up from Worcester to
Sandys and Winnington; they tell the latter how little hopes
they always had of him. "But for you, Mr. Sandys, who have
always, etc., you to snatch at the first place you could get,"
etc. In short, they charge him, who is in the Treasury and
Exchequer not to vote for any supplies.(731)
I write to you in a vast hurry, for I am going to the meeting
at the Cockpit, to hear the King's speech read to the members:
Mr. Pelham presides there. They talk of a majority of
fourscore: we shall see to-morrow.
The Pomfrets stay in the country most part of the winter-.
Lord Lincoln and Mr. (George) Pitt have declared off in
form.(732) So much for the schemes of my lady! The Duke of
Grafton used to say that they put him in mind of a troop of
Italian comedians; Lord Lincoln was Valere, Lady Sophia,
Columbine, and my lady the old mother behind the scenes.
Our operas go on au plus miserable: all our hopes lie in a new
dancer, Sodi, who has performed but once, but seems to please
as much as the Fausan. Did I tell you how well they had
chosen the plot of the first opera? There was a prince who
rebels against his father, who had before rebelled against
his.(733) The Duke of Montagu says, there is to be an opera
of dancing, with singing between the acts.
My Lord Tyrawley(734) is come from Portugal, and has brought
three wives and fourteen children; one of the former is a
Portuguese, with long black hair plaited down to the bottom of
her back. He was asked the other night at supper, what he
thought of England; whether he found much alteration from
fifteen years ago? "No," he said, "not at all: why, there is
my Lord Bath, I don't see the least alteration in him; he is
just what he was: and then I found Lord Grantham (735) walking
on tiptoe, as if he was still afraid of waking the Queen."
Hanbury Williams is very ill at Bath, and his wife in the same
way in private lodgings in the city. Mr. Doddington has at
last owned his match with his old mistress.(736) I suppose he
wants a new one.
I commend your prudence about Leghorn; but, my dear child,
what pain I am in about you! Is it possible to be easy while
the Spaniards are at your gates! write me word every minute as
your apprehensions vanish or increase. I ask every moment
what people think; but how can they tell here? You say nothing
of Mr. Chute, sure he is with You Still! When I am in such
uneasiness about you, I want you every post to mention your
friends being with you: I am sure you have none so good or
sensible as he is. I am vastly obliged to you for the thought
of the book of shells, and shall like -it much; and thank you
too about my Scagliola table; but I am distressed about your
expenses. Is there any way one could get your allowance
increased? You know how low my interest is now; but you know
too what a push I would make to be of any service to you-tell
me,, and adieu!
(730) Afterwards created Duchess of Chateauroux. (Mary Anne
(le Mailly, widow of the Marquis de la Tournelle. She
succeeded her sister Madame de Mailly, as mistress of Louis
XV., as the latter had succeeded the other sister, Madame de
Vintimille, in the same situation. Madame de Chateauroux was
sent away from the court during the illness of Louis at Metz;
but on his recovery he recalled her. Shortly after which she
died, December 10, 1744, and on her deathbed accused M. de
Maurepas, the minister, of having poisoned her. The intrigue,
by means of which she supplanted her sister, was conducted
principally by the Marshal de Richelieu.-D.
(731) "We earnestly entreat, insist, and require, that you
will postpone the supplies until you have renewed the secret
committee of inquiry."-E.
(732) An admirer of Lady Sophia Fermor.-D.
(733) This was a pasticcio, called "Mandane," another name for
Metastasio's drama of "Artaserse."-E.
(734) Lord Tyrawley was many years ambassador at Lisbon. Pope
has mentioned his and another ambassador's seraglios in one of
his imitations of Horace, "Kinnoul's lewd cargo, or Tyrawley's
crew." [James O'Hara, second and last Lord Tyrawley of that
family, He died in 1773, at the age of eighty-five.]
(735) Henry Nassau d'Auverquerque, second Earl of Grantham.
He had been chamberlain to Queen Caroline. He died in 1754,
when his titles became extinct.-E.
(736) Mrs. Beghan.
298 Letter 90
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Dec. 2, 1742.,
You will wonder that it is above a fortnight Since I wrote to
you; but I have had an inflammation in one of my eyes, and
durst not meddle with a pen. I have had two letters from you
of Nov. 6th and 13th, but I am in the utmost impatience for
another, to hear you are quite recovered of your Trinculos and
FuribOndos. You tell me you was in a fever; I cannot be easy
till I hear from you again. I hope this will come much too
late for a medicine, but it will always serve for sal volatile
to give you spirits. Yesterday was appointed for considering
the army; but Mr. Lyttelton stood up and moved for another
Secret Committee, in the very words of last year; but the
whole debate ran, not upon Robert Earl of Orford, but Robert
Earl of Sandys:(737) he is the constant butt of the party;
indeed he bears it notably. After five hours' haranguing, we
came to a division, and threw out the motion by a majority of
sixty-seven, 253 against 186. The Prince had declared so
openly for union and agreement in all measures, that, except
the Nepotism,(738) all his servants but one were with us. I
don't know whether they will attempt any thing else, but with
these majorities we must have an easy winter. The union of
the Whigs has saved this parliament. It is expected that Pitt
and Lyttelton will be dismissed by the Prince. That faction
and Waller are the only Whigs of any note that do not join
with the Court. I do not count Doddington, who must now
always be with the minority, for no majority will accept him.
It is believed that Lord Gower will retire, or be desired to
do so. I suppose you have heard from Rome,(739) that Murray
is made Solicitor-general, in the room of Sir John Strange,
who has resigned for his health. This is the sum of politics;
we can't expect any winter, (I hope no winter will be) like
the last. By the crowds that come hither, one should not know
that Sir Robert is out of place, only that now he is scarce
abused.
De reste, the town is wondrous dull; operas unfrequented,
plays not in fashion, amours as old as marriages-in short,
nothing but whist! I have not yet learned to play, but I find
that I wait in vain for its being left off.
I agree with you about not sending home the Dominichin in an
English vessel; but what I mentioned to you of its coming in a
Dutch vessel, if you find an opportunity, I think will be very
safe, if you approve it; but manage that as you like. I shall
hope for my statue at the same time; but till the conveyance
is absolutely safe, I know you will not venture them. Now I
mention my statue, I must beg you will send me a full bill of
all my debts to you, which I am sure by this time must be
infinite; I beg to know the particulars, that I may pay your
brother. Adieu, my dear Sir; take care of yourself, and
submit to popery and slavery rather than get colds with
sea-heroes.(740)
(737) Samuel Sandys, chancellor of the Exchequer, in the room
of Sir R. Walpole.
(738) Lord Cobham's nephews and cousins.-D.
(739) This alludes to the supposed Jacobite principles of
Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield.-D.
(740) Sir H. Mann had complained, in one of his letters, of
the labours he had gone through in doing the honours of
Florence to some of Admiral Matthews's (il Furibondo)
officers. The English fleet was now at Leghorn, upon the plea
of defending the Tuscan territories, in case of their being
attacked by the Spaniards.-D.
299 Letter 91
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Dec. 9, 1742.
I shall have quite a partiality for the post of Holland; it
brought me two letters last week, and two more yesterday, of
November 20th and 27th; but I find you have your perpetual
headaches-how can you say that you shall tire me with talking
Of them? you may make me suffer by your pains, but I will hear
and insist upon your always telling me of your health. Do you
think I only correspond with you to know the posture of the
Spaniards or the `epuisements of the Princess! I am anxious,
too, to know how poor Mr. Whithed does, and Mr. Chute's gout.
I shall look upon our sea captains with as much horror as the
King of Naples can, if they bring gouts, fits, and headaches.
You will have had a letter from me by this time, to give up
sending the Dominichin by a man-of-war, and to propose its
coming in a Dutch ship. I believe that will be safe.