we are to have one, but I doubt it. Lady Middlesex is
breeding-the child will be well-born; the Sackville is the
worst blood it is supposed to swell with. Lord Holderness has
lost his son. Lady Charlotte Finch, when she saw company on
her lying-in, had two toilets spread in her bedchamber with
her own and Mr. Finch's dressing plate. This was certainly a
stroke of vulgarity, that my Lady Pomfret copied from some
festino in Italy.
Lord Bath and his Countess and his son(1396) have been making
a tour: at Lord Leicester's(1397) they forgot to give any
thing to the servants that showed the house; upon
recollection-and deliberation, they sent back a man and horse
six miles with-half a crown! What loads of money they are
saving for the French!
Adieu! my dear child-perhaps you don't know that I , "cast
many a Southern look"(1398) towards Florence-I think within
this half-year I have thought more of making you a visit, than
in any half-year since I left you. I don't know whether the
difficulties will ever be surmounted, but you cannot imagine
how few they are: I scarce think they are in the plural
number.
(1394) In the letter to Sir Thomas Robinson of the 7th of
November, Sir Everard Fawkener says, "The capture of
Bergen-op-zoom is a subject to make one mad, if any thing had
been done; but the ordinary forms of duty, which never fail in
times of the greatest security, were now, in this critical
time, neglected in the most scandalous manner." Hence it was
surmised that the place was surrendered through treachery.
See Coxe's Pelham, vol. i. p. 361.-E.
(1395) Galfridus Mann, twin-brother of Horace Mann.
(1396) William, Viscount Pulteney, only son of Lord Bath. He
died in his father's lifetime.-D.
(1397) Holkham.
(1398) Shakspeare, Henry IV.-,, "Cast many a northern look to
see his father bring up his powers."
539 Letter 244
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Nov. 10, 1747.
I came to town but last week; but on looking over the dates of
my letters, I find I am six weeks in arrear to you. This is a
period that ought to make me blush, and beyond what I think I
was ever guilty - but I have not a tittle to tell you; that
is, nothing little enough has happened, nor big enough, except
Admiral Hawke's(1399) great victory and for that I must have
transcribed the gazettes.
The Parliament met this morning, the House extremely full, and
many new faces. We have done nothing, but choose a Speaker,
and, in choosing him, flattered Mr. Onslow, who is rechosen.
In about ten days one shall be able to judge of the complexion
of the winter; but there is not likely to be much opposition.
The Duke was Coming, but is gone back to Breda for a few days.
When he does return, it will be only for three weeks. He is
to watch the French and the negotiations for peace, which are
to be opened-I believe not in earnest.
Whithed has made his entrance into Parliament; I don't expect
he will like it. The first session is very tiresome with
elections, and without opposition there will be little spirit.
Lady Middlesex has popped out her child before its time; it is
put into spirits, and my Lord very loyally, cries over it.
Lady Gower carried a niece to Leicester-fields(1400) the other
day, to present her; the girl trembled-she pushed her: "What
are you so afraid of? Don't you see that musical clock? Can
you be afraid of a man that has a musical clock?"
Don't call this a letter; I don't call it one; it only comes
to make my letter's excuses. Adieu!
(1399) Admiral Edward Hawke, afterwards created Lord Hawke,
for his eminent naval services. On the ]5th July 1747, he met
a large fleet of French merchant-vessels going from the ports
of France to the West Indies. and guarded by a strong force of
ships of war. He completely routed them, and took six ships
of war. -It was in his despatch to the Admiralty on this
occasion, that he made use of the Following remarkable
expression: "As the enemy's ships were large, they took a
great deal of drubbing."-D.
(1400) Where the Prince of Wales held his court. Lady Gower
was Mary Tufton, daughter of Thomas, Earl of Thanet, and widow
of Anthony Gray, Earl of Harold, who became, in 1736, third
wife of John, second Lord Gower.-D.
539 Letter 245
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Nov. 24, 1747.
You say so many kind things to me in your letter of Nov. 7th,
on my talking of a journey to Florence, that I am sorry I
mentioned it to you. I did it to show you that my silence is
far from proceeding from any forgetfulness of you; and as I
really think continually of such a journey, I name it now and
then; though I don't find how to accomplish it. In short, my
affairs are not so independent of every body, but that they
require my attending to them to make them go smoothly; and
unless I could get them into another situation, it is not
possible for me to leave them. Some part of my fortune is in
my Lord O.'s(1401) hands; and if I were out of the way of
giving him trouble, he has not generosity enough to do any
thing that would be convenient for me. I will say no more on
this subject, because it is not a pleasant one; nor would I
have said this, but to convince you that I did not mention
returning to Florence out of gaiet`e de coeur. I never was
happy but there; have a million of times repented returning to
England, where I never was happy, nor expect to be.
For Mr. Chute's silence, next to myself, I can answer for him:
He always loves you, and I am persuaded wishes nothing more
than himself at Florence. I did hint to him your kind thought
about Venice, because, as I saw no daylight to it, it could
not disappoint him; and because I knew how sensible he would
be to this mark of your friendship. There is not a glimmering
prospect of our sending a minister to Berlin; if we did, it
would be a person of far greater consideration than Sir James
Grey; and even if he went thither, there are no means of
procuring his succession for Mr. Chute. My dear child, you
know little of England, if you think such and so quiet merit
as his likely to meet friends here. Great assurance, or great
quality, are the only recommendations. My father was abused
for employing low people with parts-that complaint is totally
removed.
You reproach me with telling you nothing of Bergen-op-zoom;
seriously, I know nothing but what was in the papers; and in
general, on those great public events, I must transcribe the
gazette, if you will have me talk to you. You will have seen
by the King's speech that a congress is appointed at
Aix-la-Chapelle, but nobody expects any effect from it.
Except Mr. Pelham, the ministry in general are for the war;
and, what is comical, the Prince and the Opposition are so
too. We have had but one division yet in the House, which was
on the Duke of Newcastle's interfering in the Seaford
election. The numbers were, 247 for the court, against 96.
But I think it very probable that, in a little time, a
stronger opposition will be formed, for the Prince has got
some new and very able speakers; particularly a young Mr.
Potter,(1402) son of the last Archbishop, who promises very
greatly; the world is already matching him against Mr. Pitt.
I sent Niccolini the letter; and here is another from him. I
have not seen him this winter, nor heard of him: he is of very
little consequence, when there is any thing else that is.
I have lately had Lady Mary Wortley's Eclogues(1403)
published; but they don't please, though so excessively good.
I say so confidently, for Mr. Chute agrees with me: he says,
for the epistle to Arthur Gray,(1404) scarce any woman could
have written it, and no man; for a man who had had experience
enough to paint such sentiments so well, would not have had
warmth enough left. Do you know any thing of Lady Mary? her
adventurer son(1405) is come into Parliament, but has not
opened. Adieu! my dear child: nous nous reverrons un jour!
(1401) Lord Orford, the eldest brother of Horace Walpole.-D.
(1402) Thomas, second son of Dr. Potter, Archbishop of
Canterbury, was appointed secretary to the Princess of Wales,
in which post he remained till the death of the Prince: he
made two celebrated speeches on the Seaford election, and on
the contest between Aylesbury and Buckingham for the summer
assizes; but did not long support the character here given of
him. [In 1757, he was made joint vice-treasurer of Ireland,
and died in June 1759. Several letters, addressed by him to
Mr. Pitt, will be found in the first volume of the Chatham
Correspondence.)
(1403) Some of those Eclogues had been printed long before:
they were now published, with other of her poems, by Dodsley,
in quarto, and soon after, with others, reprinted in his
Miscellany. [They will be found in Lord Wharncliffe's edition
of Lady Mary's Works, vol. iii. p. 350.]
(1404) The epistle was from Arthur Grey, the footman, and
addressed to Mrs. Murray, after his condemnation for
attempting to commit violence. The man was tried for the
offence in 1721, and transported. See Works, vol. i. p. 71,
and vol. iii. p. 402, where the epistle is printed.-E.
(1405) Edward Wortley Montagu, after a variety of adventures
in various characters, was taken up -,it Paris with Mr.
Teaffe, another member of Parliament, and imprisoned in Fort
L`eveque, for cheating and robbing a Jew. (Mr. Montagu was
confined in the Grand Chatelet from the 31st of October till
the 2nd of November. For his own account of the affair, see
Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. iv. p. 629.]
541 Letter 246
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Jan. 12, 1748.
I have just received a letter from you of the 19th of last
month, in which you tell me you was just going to complain of
me, when you received one from me: I fear I am again as much
to blame, as far as not having written; but if I had, it would
only be to repeat what you say would be sufficient, but what I
flatter myself I need not repeat. The town has been quite
empty; and the Parliament which met but yesterday, has been
adjourned these three weeks. Except elections, and such
tiresome squabbles, I don't believe it will produce any thing:
it is all harmony. From Holland we every day hear bad news,
which, though we don't believe-at the present, we agree it is
always likely to be true by tomorrow. Yet, with no prospect
of success, and scarce with a possibility of beginning another
campaign, we are as martial as ever: I don't know whether it
is, because we think a bad peace worse than a bad war, or that
we don't look upon misfortunes and defeats abroad as enough
our own, and are willing to taste of both at home. We are in
no present apprehension from domestic disturbances, nor, in my
private opinion, do I believe the French will attempt us, till
it is for themselves. They need not be at the trouble of
sending us Stuarts; that ingenious house could not have done
the work of France more effectually than the Pelhams and the
patriots have.
I will tell you a secret: there is a transaction going on to
send Sir Charles Williams to Turin; he has asked it. and it is
pushed. In my private opinion, I don't believe
Villettes(1406) will be easily overpowered; though I wish it,
from loving Sir Charles and from thinking meanly of the other;
but talents are no passports. Sir Everard Falkener(1407) is
going to Berlin. General Sinclair is presently to succeed
Wentworth: he is Scotchissime, in all the latitude of the
word, and not very able; he made a poor business of it at Port
l'Orient.
Lord Coke(1408) has demolished himself very fast: I mean his
character: you know he was married but last spring; he is
always drunk, has lost immense sums at play, and seldom goes
home to his wife till early in the morning. The world is
vehement on her side; and not only her family, but his own,
give him up. At present, matters are patching up by the
mediation of my brother, but I think can never go on: she
married him extremely against her will, and he is at least an
out-pensioner of Bedlam: his mother's family have many of them
been mad.
I thank you, I have received the eagle's head: the bill is
broken off individually in the same spot with the original;
but, as the piece is not lost, I believe it will serve.
I should never have expected you to turn Lorrain:(1409) is
your Madame de Givrecourt a successor(1410) of my sister? I
think you hint so. Where is the Princess, that you are so
reduced? Adieu! my dear child. I don't say a kind word to
you, because you seem to think it necessary, for assuring you
of the impossibility of my ever forgetting, or loving you
less.
(1406) Minister at Turin, and afterwards in Switzerland.
(1407) He had been ambassador at Constantinople: he was not
sent to Berlin, but was secretary to the Duke, and one of the
general postmasters.
(1408) Edward, only son of Thomas, Earl of Leicester, married
Mary, youngest daughter of John, Duke of Argyll, from whom he
was parted. He died in 1752.
(1409) The Emperor kept a Lorrain regiment at Florence; but
there was little intercourse between the two nations.
(1410) With Count Richcourt.
542 Letter 247
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Jan. 26, 1748.
I have again talked over with our Chute the affair of Venice;
besides seeing no practicability in it, we think you will not
believe that Sir James Grey will be so simple as to leave
Venice, whither with difficulty he obtained to be sent, when
you hear that Mr. Legge(1411) has actually kissed hands, and
sets out on Friday for 'Berlin, as envoy extraordinary and
plenipotentiary. We thought Sir Everard Falkener Sure; but
this has come forth very unexpectedly. Legge is certainly a
wiser choice'-, nobody has better parts; and if art and
industry can obtain success, I know no one would use more: but
I don't think that the King of Prussia,' with half parts and
much cunning, is so likely to be the dupe of more parts and as
much cunning-, as the people with whom Legge has so
prosperously pushed his fortune. My father was fond of him to
the greatest degree of partiality, till he endeavoured to have
a nearer tie than flattery gave him, by trying to marry Lady
Mary: after that my lord could never bear his name. Since
that. he has wiggled himself in with the Pelhams, by being the
warmest friend and servant of their new allies, and is the
first favourite of the little Duke of Bedford. Mr.
Villiers(1412) was desired to go to Berlin, but refused and
proposed himself for the treasury, till they could find
something else for him. They laughed at this; but he is as
fit for one employment as the other. We have a stronger
reason than any I have mentioned against going to Venice;
which is, the excuse it might give to the Vine,(1413) to
forget we were in being; an excuse which his hatred of our
preferment would easily make him embrace, as more becoming a
good Christian brother!
The ministry are triumphant in their Parliament: there have
been great debates on the new taxes, but no division: the
House is now sitting on the Wareham election, espousing George
Pitt's uncle,(1414 one of the most active Jacobites, but of
the coalition and in place, against Drax,(1415) a great
favourite of the Prince, but who has already lost one question
on this election by a hundred.
Admiral Vernon has just published a series of letters to
himself(1416) among which are several of Lord Bath, written in
the height of his opposition: there is one in particular, to
congratulate Vernon on taking Portobello, wherein this great
Virtuous patriot advises him to do nothing more,(1417)
assuring him that his inactivity would all be imputed to my
father. One does not hear that Lord Bath has called him to
any account for this publication, though as villainous to
these correspondents as one of them was in writing such a
letter; or as the Admiral himself was, who used to betray all
his instructions to this enemy of the government. Nobody can
tell why he has published these letters now, unless to get
money. What ample revenge every year gives my father against
his patriot enemies! Had he never deserved well
himself',posterity must still have the greatest opinion of
him, when they see on what rascal foundations were built all
the pretences to virtue which were set up in opposition to
him! Pultney counselling the Admiral who was entrusted with
the war not to pursue it, that its mismanagement might be
imputed to the minister; the Admiral communicating his orders
to such an enemy of his country! This enemy triumphant,
seizing honours and employments for himself and friends, which
he had @ avowedly disclaimed; other friends, whom he had
neglected, pursuing him for gratifying his
ambition-accomplishing his ruin, and prostituting themselves
even more than he had done! all of them blowing up a
rebellion, by every art that could blacken the King in the
eyes of the nation, and some of them promoting the trials and
sitting in judgment on the wretches whom they had misled and
deserted! How black a picture! what odious portraits, when
time shall write the proper names under them!
As famous as you think your Mr. Mill, I can find nobody who
ever heard his name. Projectors make little noise here; and
even any one who only has made a noise, is forgotten as soon
as out of sight. The knaves and fools of the day are too
numerous to leave room to talk of yesterday. The pains that
people, who have a mind to be named, are forced to take to be
very particular, would convince you how difficult it is to
make a lasting impression on such a town as this. Ministers,
authors, wits, fools, patriots, prostitutes, scarce bear a
second edition. Lord Bolingbroke, Sarah Malcolm,(1418) and
old Marlborough. are never mentioned but by elderly folks to
their grandchildren, who had never heard of them. What would
last Pannoni's(1419) a twelvemonth is forgotten here ]it
twelve hours. Good night!
(1411) Henry fourth son of the Earl of Dartmouth, was made
secretary of the treasury by Sir Robert Walpole; and was
afterwards surveyor of the roads, a lord of the admiralty, a
lord of the treasury, treasurer of the navy, and chancellor of
the exchequer. He had been bred to the sea, and was for a
little time minister at Berlin. The Duke of Newcastle, in a
letter to Mr. Pitt, of the 18th of January, says, " I have
thought of a person, to whom the King has this day readily
agreed. It is Mr. Harry Legge. There, is capacity,
integrity, quality, rank and address." See Chatham
Correspondence, vol. i. p. 27.-E.
(1412) Coxe, in his Memoirs of lord Walpole, says, that Mr.
Legge, though a man of great talents for business, "was unfit
for a foreign mission, and of a character ill suited to the
temper of that powerful casuist, whose extraordinary dogmas
were supported by 140,000 of the most effectual but convincing
arguments in the world." Vol. ii. II. 304.-E.
(1413) Thomas Villiers, brother of the Earl of Jersey, had
been minister It Dresden, and was afterwards a lord of the
admiralty.
(1414) Anthony Chute, of the Vine, in Hampshire, elder brother
of J. Chute; died in 1754.
(1415) John Pitt, one of the lords of trade.
1416) Henry Drax, the Prince's secretary. He died in 1755.
(1417) The publication was entitled " Letters to an Honest
Sailor." Walpole's inference is not borne out by the letter
itself. Pulteney's words; are, "Pursue your stroke, but venture
not losing the honour of it by too much intrepidity. Should you
make no more progress than you have done, no one could blame
you but those persons only who ought to have sent some land-
forces with you, and did not. To their slackness it will be
very justly imputed by all mankind, should you make no further
progress till Lord Cathcart joins you."-E.
(1418) A washerwoman at the Temple, executed for three
murders. (She was executed in March 1733, opposite Mitre
Court, in Fleet Street. A portrait of her is given in the
Gentleman's Magazine for that year. So great was the public
expectation for her confession, that the manuscript of it was
sold for twenty pounds.-E.)
(1419) The coffee-house at Florence.
544 Letter 248
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Feb. 16, 1748.
I am going to tell you nothing but what Mr. Chute has told you
already,-that my Lord Chesterfield has resigned the seals,
that the Duke of Newcastle has change] his province, and that
the Duke of Bedford is the new secretary of state. I think
you need be under no apprehension from this change; I should
be frightened enough if you had the least reason, but I am
quite at ease. Lord Chesterfield, who I believe had no
quarrel but with his partner, is gone to Bath; and his
youngest brother, John Stanhope,(1420) comes into the
admiralty, where Sandwich is now first lord. There seems to
be some hitch in Legge's embassy; I believe we were overhasty.
Proposals of peace were expected to be laid before Parliament,
but that talk is vanished. The Duke of Newcastle, who is
going greater lengths in every thing for which he overturned
Lord Granville, is all military; and makes more courts than
one by this disposition. The Duke goes to Holland this week,
and I hear we are going to raise another million. There are
prodigious discontents in the army: the town got a list of a
hundred and fifty officers who desired at once to resign, but
I believe this was exaggerated. We are great and very exact
disciplinarians; our partialities are very strong, especially
on the side of aversions, and none of these articles tally
exactly with English tempers. Lord Robert Bertie(1421)
received a reprimand the other day by an aide-de-camp for
blowing his nose as he relieved the guard under a
window;(1422) where very exact notice is constantly taken of
very small circumstances.
We divert ourselves extremely this winter; plays, balls,
masquerades, and pharaoh are all in fashion. The Duchess of
Bedford has given a great ball, to which the King came with
thirty masks. The Duchess of Queensberry is to give him a
masquerade. Operas are the only consumptive entertainment.
There was a new comedy last Saturday, which succeeds, called
The Foundling. I like the old Conscious lovers better, and
that not much. The story is the same, only that the Bevil of
the new piece is in more hurry, and consequently more natural.
It Is extremely well acted by Garrick and Barry, Mrs. Cibber
and Mrs. Woffington. My sister was brought to bed last night
of another boy. Sir C. Williams, I hear, grows more likely to
go to Turin: you will have a more agreeable correspondent than
your present voluminous brother.(1423) Adieu!
(1420) John Stanhope, third son of Philip, third Earl of
Chesterfield, successively M. P. for Nottingham and Dorhy. He
died in 1748.-D.
(1421) Lord Robert Bertie was third son of Robert, first Duke
of Ancaster, by his second wife. He became a general in the
army and colonel of the second regiment of Guards, and was
also a lord of the bedchamber and a member of parliament. He
died in 1732.-D.
(1422) The Duke's.
(1423) Mr. Villettes.
545 Letter 249
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, March 11, 1748.
I have had nothing lately to tell you but illnesses and
distempers: there is what they call a miliary fever raging,
which has taken off a great many people, It was scarce known
till within these seven or eight years, but apparently
increases every spring and autumn. They don't know how to
treat it, but think that they have discovered that bleeding is
bad for it. The young Duke of Bridgewater(1424) is dead of
it. The Marquis of Powis(1425) is dead too, I don't know of
what: but though a Roman Catholic, he has left his whole
fortune to Lord herbert, the next male of his family, but a
very distant relation. It is twelve thousand pounds a-year,
with a very rich mine upon it; there is a debt, but the money
and personal estate will pay it. After Lord Herbert(1426) and
his brother, who are both unmarried, the estate is to go to
the daughter of Lord Waldegrave's sister, by her first
husband, who was the Marquis's brother.
In defiance of all these deaths, we are all diversions; Lady
Keith(1427) and a company of Scotch nobility have formed a
theatre, and have acted The Revenge several times; I can't say
excellently: the Prince and Princess were at it last night.
The Duchess of Queensberry gives a masquerade tonight, in
hopes of drawing the King to it; but he will not go. I do;
but must own it is wondrous foolish to dress one's self out in
a becoming dress in cold blood. There has been a new comedy
called The Foundling;(1428) far from good, but it took. Lord
Hobart and some more young men made a party to damn it, merely
for the love of damnation. The Templars espoused the play,
and went around with syringes charged with stinking oil, and
with sticking plaisters; but it did not come to action.
Garrick was impertinent, and the pretty men gave over their
plot the moment they grew to be in the right.
I must now notify to you the approaching espousals of the most
illustrious Prince Pigwiggin with Lady Rachel Cavendish, third
daughter of the Duke of Devonshire: the victim does not
dislike it! my uncle makes great settlements; and the Duke is
to get a peerage for Pigwiggin upon the foot that the father
cannot be spared out of the House of Commons! Can you bear
this old buffoon making himself of consequence, and imitating
my father!
The Princess of Orange has got a son, and we have taken a
convoy that was going to Bergen-op-zoom; two trifling
occurrences that are most pompously exaggerated, when The
whole of both is, that the Dutch, who before sold themselves
to France, will now grow excellent patriots when they have a
master entailed upon them; and we shall run ourselves more
into danger, on having got all advantage which the French
don't feel.
Violent animosities are sprung up in the House of Commons upon
a sort of private affair between the Chief Justice Willes and
the Grenvilles, who have engaged the ministry in an
extraordinary step, of fixing the assizes at Buckingham by act
of parliament in their favour. We have had three long days
upon it in our House, and it is not yet over; but though they
will carry it both there and in the lords, it is by a far
smaller majority than any they have had in this
Parliament.(1429) The other day, Dr. Lee and Mr. Potter had
made two very strong speeches @-against Mr. Pelham on this
subject; he rose with the greatest emotion, fell into the most
ridiculous passion, was near crying, and not knowing how to
return it on the two fell upon the Chief Justice (who was not
present), and accused him of ingratitude. The eldest Willes
got up extremely moved, but with great propriety and
cleverness told Mr. Pelham that his father had no obligation
to any man now in the ministry; that he had been obliged to
one of' the greatest Ministers that ever was, who is now no
more; that the person who accused his father of ingratitude
was now leagued with the very men who had ruined that
minister, to whom he (Mr. Pelham) owed his advancement, and
without whom he would have been nothing!" This was
dangers!-not a word of reply.
I had begun my letter before the masquerade, but had not time
to finish it: there Were not above one hundred persons; the
dresses pretty; the Duchess as mad as you remember her. She
had stuck up orders about dancing, as you see in public
bowling-greens; turned half the company out at twelve; kept
those she liked to supper; and, in short, contrived to do an
agreeable thing in the rudest manner imaginable; besides
having dressed her husband in a Scotch plaid, which just now
is One of the things in the world that is reckoned most
offensive; but you know we are all mad, so good night!
(1424) John Egerton, second Duke of Bridgewater, eldest
surviving son of Scroop, the first Duke, by his second wife,
Lady Rachel Russell. He was succeeded by his younger brother
Francis; upon whose death, in 1803, the dukedom of Bridgewater
became extinct.-D.
(1425) William Herbert, second Marquis of Powis, upon whose
death the title became extinct. His father, William, the
First Marquis, was created Duke of Powis and Marquis of
Montgomery, by James the Second, after his abdication, which
titles were in consequence never allowed.-]).
(1426) Henry Arthur Herbert, Lord Herbert, afterwards created
Earl of Powis, married the young lady on whom the estate was
entailed: his brother died unmarried.
(1427) Caroline, eldest daughter of John, Duke of Argyll,
married the eldest son of the Duke of Buccleuch, who dying
before his father, she afterwards married Charles Townshend,
second son of the Lord Viscount Townshend. (She was created
Baroness Greenwich in 1767.-D.
(1428) By Edward Moore. It met with tolerable success during
its run, but on the first night of its appearance the
character of Faddle gave considerable disgust, and was much
curtailed in the ensuing representation.-E.
(1429) The bill passed the Commons on the 15th of March, by
155 to 108. For the debate thereon, see Parliamentary
History, vol. xiv. p. 206.-E.
547 Letter 250
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, April 29, 1748.
I know I have not writ to you the Lord knows when, but I
waited for something to tell you, and I have now what there
was not much reason to expect. The preliminaries to the peace
are actually signed"(1430) by the English, Dutch, and French:
the Queen,(1431) who would remain the only sufferer, though
vastly less than she could expect, protests against this
treaty, and the Sardinian minister has refused to sign too,
till further orders. Spain is not mentioned, but France
answers for them, and that they shall give us a new assiento.
The armistice is for six weeks, with an exception to
Maestricht; upon which the Duke sent Lord George Sackville to
Marshal Saxe to tell him that, as they are so near being
friends, he shall not endeavour to raise the siege and spill
more blood, but hopes the marshal will give the garrison good
terms, as they have behaved so bravely. The conditions
settled are a general restitution on all sides, as Modena to
its Duke, Flanders to the Queen, the Dutch towns to the Dutch,
Cape Breton to France, and Final to the Genoese; but the
Sardinian to have the cessions made to him by the Queen, who,
you see, is to be made observe the treaty of Worms, though we
do not. Parma and Placentia are to be given to Don Philip;
Dunkirk to remain as it is, on the land-side; but to be
Utrecht'd(1432) again to the sea. The Pretender to be
renounced, with all his descendants, male and female, even in
stronger terms than by the quadruple alliance; and the
cessation of arms to take place in all other parts of the
world, as in the year 1712. The contracting powers agree to
think of means of making the other powers come into this
treaty, in case they refuse.
This is the substance; and wonderful it is what can make the
French give us such terms, or why they have lost so much blood
and treasure to so little purpose! for they have destroyed
very little of the fortifications in Flanders. Monsieur de
St. Severin told Lord Sandwich, that he had full powers to
sign now, but that the same courier that should carry our
refusal, was to call at Namur and Bergen-op-zoom, where are
mines under all the works, which were immediately to be blown
up. There is no accounting for this, but from the King'S
aversion to go to the army, and to Marshal Saxe's fear of
losing his power with the loss of a battle. He told Count
Flemming, the Saxon minister, who asked him if the French were
in earnest in their offer of peace, "Il est vrai, nous
demandons la paix comme des l`aches, et ne pouvons pas
l'obtenir."
Stocks rise; the ministry are in spirits, and ;e s'en faut but
we shall admire this peace as our own doing! I believe two
reasons that greatly advanced it are, the King's wanting to go
to Hanover, and the Duke's wanting to go into a salivation.
We had last night the most magnificent masquerade that ever
was seen: it was by Subscription at the Haymarket: every body
who subscribed five guineas had four tickets. There were
about seven hundred people, all in chosen and very fine
dresses. The supper was in two rooms, besides those for the
King and Prince, who, with the foreign ministers, had tickets
given them.
You don't tell me whether the seal of which you sent me the
impression, is to be sold: I think it fine, but not equal to
the price which you say was paid for it. What is it? Homer or
Pindar?
I am very miserable at the little prospect you have of success
in your own affair: I think the person(1433) you employed has
used you scandalously. I would have you write to my uncle; but
my applying to him would be far from doing you service. Poor
Mr. Chute has
got so bad a cold that he could not go last night to the
masquerade. Adieu! my dear child! there is nothing -well that
I don't wish you, but my wishes are very ineffectual!
(1430) The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.-D.
(1431) Of Hungary.-D.
(1432) That is, the works destroyed, as they were after the
treaty of Utrecht.-D.
(1433) Mr. Stone, the Duke of Newcastle's private
secretary.-E.
549 Letter 251
To George Montagu, Esq.
May 18, 1748.
Here I am with the poor Chutehed,(1434) who has put on a shoe
but to-day for the first time. He sits at the receipt of
custom, and one passes most part, of the day here; the other
part I have the misfortune to pass en Pigwiggin. The ceremony
of dining is not over yet: I cannot say that either the Prince
or the Princess look the comelier for what has happened. The
town says, my Lady Anson(1435) has no chance for looking
different from what she did before she was married: and they
have a story of a gentleman going to the Chancellor to assure
him, that if he gave his daughter to the Admiral, he would be
obliged hereafter to pronounce a sentence of dissolution of
the marriage. The Chancellor replied, that his daughter had
been taught to think of the union of the soul, not of the
body: the gentleman then made the same confidence to the
Chancelloress, and received much such an answer: that her
daughter had been bred to submit herself to the will of God.
I don't at all give you all this for true; but there is an
ugly circumstance in his voyages of his not having the
curiosity to see a beautiful captive, that he took on board a
Spanish ship. There is no record of Scipio's having been in
Doctors' Commons. I have been reading these voyages, and find
them very silly and contradictory. He sets out with telling
you, that he had no soldiers sent with him but old invalids
without legs or arms; and then in the middle of' the book
there is a whole chapter to tell you what they would have done
if they had set out two months sooner, and that was no less
than conquering Peru and Mexico -with this disabled army. At
the end there is an account of the neglect he received from
the Viceroy of Canton, till he and forty of his sailors put
out a great fire in that city, which the Chinese and five
hundred firemen could not do, which he says proceeded from
their awkwardness; a new character of the Chinese! He was then
admitted to an audience, and found two hundred men at the gate
of the city, and ten thousand in the square before the palace,
all new dressed for the purpose. This is about as true as his
predecessor Gulliver * -* * out the fire at Lilliput. The
King is still wind-bound; the fashionable bon mot is, that the
Duke of Newcastle has tied a stone about his neck and sent him
to sea. The city grows furious about the peace; there is one
or two very uncouth Hanover articles, besides a persuasion of
a pension to the Pretender, which is so very ignominious, that
I don't know how to persuade myself it is true. The Duke of
Argyle has made them give him three places for life of a
thousand and twelve hundred a-year for three of his court, to
compensate for their making a man president of the session
against his inclination. the Princess of Wales has got a
confirmed jaundice, but they reckon her much better. Sir
Harry Calthrop is gone mad: he walked down Pall Mall t'other
day with his red riband tied about his hair said he was going
to the King, and would not submit to be blooded till they told
him the King commanded it.
I went yesterday to see Marshal Wade's house, which is selling
by auction: it is worse contrived on the inside than is
conceivable, all to humour the beauty of the front. My Lord
Chesterfield said, that to be sure he could not live in it,
but intended to take the house over against it to look at it.
It is literally true, that all the direction he gave my Lord
Burlington was to have a place for a cartoon of Rubens that he
bought in Flanders; but my lord found it necessary to have so
many correspondent doors, that there was no room at last for
the picture; and the Marshal was forced to sell the picture to
my father: it is now at Houghton.(1436)
As Windsor is so charming, and particularly as you have got so
agreeable a new neighbour at Frogmore, to be sure you cannot
wish to have the prohibition taken off on your coming to
Strawberry Hill. However, as I am an admirable Christian, and
as you seem to repent of your errors, I will give you leave to
be so happy as to come to me when you like, though I would
advise it to be after you have been at Roel,(1437) winch you
would not be able to bear after my paradise. I have told you
a vast deal of something or other, which you will scarce be
able to read; for now Mr. Chute has the gout, he keeps himself
very low and lives upon very thin ink. My compliments to all
your people. Yours ever.
(1434) John Chute, Esq. of the Vine of Hampshire.
(1435) Lord Anson married, on the 25th of April, Lady
Elizabeth Yorke, Lord Chancellor Hardwicke's eldest daughter,
an ingenious woman and a poetess. She died without issue in
1760.-E.
(1436) Walpole gives the following account of this picture, in
his description of Houghton:- "Meleager and Atalanta, a
cartoon, by Rubens, larger than life; brought out of Flanders
by Wade: it being designed for tapestry, all the weapons are
in the left hand of the figure. For the story, see Ovid's
Metamorphoses, lib. 3. When General Wade built his house in
Burlington Garden, Lord Burlington gave the design for it."-E
(1437) A house of Mr. Montagu's in Gloucestershire.
550 Letter 252
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, May 26, 1748.
Good-by to YOU! I am going to my Roel too. I was there
yesterday to dine, and it looked so delightful, think what you
will, that I shall go there to-morrow to settle, and shall
leave this odious town to the * * *, to the regency, and the
dowagers; to my lady Townshend, who is not going to Windsor,
to old Cobham, who is not going out of the world yet, and to
the Duchess of Richmond, who does not -,go out with her
twenty-fifth pregnancy: I shall leave too more disagreeable
Ranelagh, which is so crowded, that going there t'other night
in a string of coaches we had a stop of six-and-thirty
Minutes. Princess Emily, finding no marriage articles for her
settled at the congress, has at last determined to be old and
out of danger; and has accordingly ventured to Ranelagh to the
great improvement of the pleasures of the place. The Prince
has given a silver cup to be rowed for, which carried every
body up the Thames. and afterwards there was a great ball at
Carlton house. There have two good events happened at that
court: the town was alarmed t'other morning by the firing of
guns, which proved to be only from a large merchantman come
into the river. The city construed it into the King's return,
and the peace broke; but Chancellor Bootle and the Bishop of
Oxford, who loves a tabour next to promoting the cause of it,
concluded the Princess was brought to bed, and went to court
upon it. Bootle, finding the Princess dressed, said, "I have
always heard, Madam, that women in your country have very easy
labours; but I could not have believed it was so well as I
see." The other story is of Prince Edward. The King, before
he went away, sent Stainberg to examine the Prince's children
in their learning. The Baron told Prince Edward, that he
should tell the King, what great proficiency his Highness had
made in his Latin, but that he wished he would be a little
more perfect in his German grammar, and that would be of
signal use to him. The child squinted at him, and said,
"German grammar! why any dull child can learn that." There, I
have told you royalties enough!
My Pigwiggin dinners are all over, for which I truly say
grace. I have had difficulties to keep my countenance at the
wonderful clumsiness and uncouth nicknames that the Duke has
for all his offspring: Mrs. Hopefull, Mrs. Tiddle, Puss, Cat,
and Toe, sound so strange in the middle of a most formal
banquet! The day the peace was signed, his grace could find
nobody to communicate joy with him: he drove home, and bawled
out of the chariot to Lady Rachael, "Cat! Cat!" She ran down,
staring over the balustrade; he cried, "Cat! Cat! the peace is
made, and you must be very glad, for I am very glad."
I send you the only new pamphlet worth reading, and this is
more the matter than the manner. My compliments to all your
tribe. Adieu!
P. S. The divine Asheton has got an ague, which he says
prevents his coming amongst us.
551 Letter 253
To sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, June 7, 1748.
Don't reproach me in your own Mind for not writing, but
reproach the world for doing nothing; for making peace as
slowly as they made war. When any body commits an event, I am
ready enough to tell it you; but I have always declared
against inventing news; when I do, I will set up a newspaper.
The Duke of Newcastle is not gone; he has kissed hands, and
talks of going this week: the time presses, and he has not
above three days left to fall dangerously ill. There are a
thousand wagers laid against his going: he has hired a
transport, for the yacht s not big enough to convey all the
tables and chairs and conveniences that he trails along with
him, and which he seems to think don't grow out of England. I
don't know how he proposes to lug them through Holland and
Germany, though any objections that the map can make to his
progress don't count, for he is literally so ignorant, that
when one goes to take leave of him, he asks your commands into
the north, concluding that Hanover is north of Great Britain,
because it is in the northern province, which he has just
taken: you will scarce believe this, but upon my honour it is
true.
The preliminaries wait the accession of Spain, before they can
ripen into peace. Niccolini goes to Aix-la-Chapelle, and will
be much disappointed if his advice is not asked there: he
talks of being at Florence in October.
Sir William Stanhope has just given a great ball to Lady
Petersham, to whom he takes extremely, since his daughter
married herself to Mr. Ellis,(1438) and as the Petershams are
relations, they propose to be his heirs. The Chuteheds agreed
with me, that the house, which is most magnificently
furnished, all the ornaments designed by Kent, and the whole
festino, puts us more in mind of Florence, than any thing we
had seen here. There were silver-pharaoh and whist for the
ladies that did not dance, deep basset and quinze for the men;
the supper very fine.
I am now returning to my villa, where I have been making some
alterations: you shall hear from me from Strawberry Hill,
which I have found out in my lease is the old name of my
house; so pray, never call it Twickenham again. I like to be
there better than I have liked being any where since I came to
England. I sigh after Florence, and wind up all my prospects
with the thought of returning there. I have days when I even
set about contriving a scheme for going to you, and though I
don't love to put you upon expecting me, I cannot help telling
you, that I wish more than ever to be with you again. I can
truly say, that I never was happy but at Florence, and you
must allow that it is very natural to wish to be happy once
more. Adieu!
(1438) The Right Hon. Welbore Ellis, afterwards created Lord
Mendip. His first wife was Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir
William Stanhope, K. B. She died in 1761.-D.
553 Letter 254
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(1439)
Strawberry Hill, June 27th, 1748.
Dear Harry,
I have full as little matter for writing as you can find in a
camp. I do not call myself farmer or country gentleman; for
though I have all the ingredients to compose those characters,
yet, like the ten pieces of card in the trick you found out, I
don't know how to put them together. But, in short, planting
and fowls and cows and sheep are my whole business, and as
little amusing to relate to anybody else as the events of a
stillborn campaign. If I write to any body, I am forced to
live upon what news I hoarded before I came out of town;
and the first article of that, as I believe it is in every
body's gazette, must be about my Lord Coke. They say, that
since he has been at Sunning Hill with Lady Mary,(1440 she has
made him a declaration in form, that she hates him, that she
always did, and that she always will. This seems to have been
a very unnecessary notification. However, as you know his
part is to be extremely in love, he is very miserable upon it;
and relating his woes at White's, probably at seven in the
morning, he was advised to put an end to all this history and
shoot himself-an advice
they would not have given him if he were not insolvent. He
has promised to consider of it.
The night before I left London, I called at the Duchess of
Richmond's, who has stayed at home with the apprehension of a
miscarriage. The porter told me there was no drawing-room
till Thursday. In short, he did tell me what amounted to as
much, that her grace did not see company till Thursday, then
she should see every body: no excuse, that she was gone out or
not well. I did not stay till Thursday to kiss hands, but
went away to Vauxhall: as I was coming out, I was overtaken by
a great light, and retired under the trees of Marble Hall to
see what it should be. There came a long procession of Prince
Lobkowitz's footmen in very rich new liveries, the two last
bearing torches; and after them the Prince himself', in a new
sky-blue watered tabby Coat, with gold buttonholes and a
magnificent gold waistcoat fringed, leading Madame
ambassadrice de Venise in a green sack with a straw hat,
attended by my Lady Tyrawley, Wall, the private
Spanish agent, the two Miss Molyneux's, and some other men.
They went into one of the Prince of Wales's barges, had
another barge filled with violins and hautboys, and an open
boat with drums and trumpets. This was one of the f`etes des
adieux. The nymph weeps all the morning and says she is sure
she shall be poisoned by her husband's relations when she
returns for her behaviour with this Prince.
I have no other news, but that Mr. Fitzpatrick has married his
Sukey Young, and is very impatient to have the Duchess of
Bedford come to town to visit her new relation.
Is not my Lady Ailesbury(1442) weary of her travels? Pray make
her my compliments,-unless she has made you any such
declaration as Lady Mary Coke's. I am delighted with your
description of the bedchamber of the House of Orange, as I did
not see it; but the sight itself must have been very odious,
as the hero and heroine are so extremely ugly. I shall give
it my Lady Townshend as a new topic of matrimonial satire.
Mr. Churchill and Lady Mary have been with me two or three
days, and are now gone to Sunning. I only tell you this, to
hint that my house will hold a married pair; indeed, it is not
quite large enough for people who lie, like the patriarchs,
with their whole genealogy, and men-servants, and
maid-servants, and oxes, and asses, in the same chamber with
them. Adieu! do let this be the last letter, and come home.
(1440) Now first printed.
(1441) See ant`e, p. 498 (Letter 215).-E.
(1442) On the 19th of the preceding December, Mr. Conway had
married Caroline, widow of Charles Bruce, Earl of Ailesbury,
and only daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel John Campbell,
afterwards fourth Duke of Argyle.-E.
554 Letter 255
To Sir Horace Mann.
Mistley, July 14, 1748.
I would by no means resent your silence while you was at Pisa,
if it were not very convenient; but I cannot resist 'the
opportunity of taking it ill, when it serves to excuse my
being much more to blame; and therefore, pray mind, I am very
angry, and have not written, because you had quite left me
off-and if I say nothing from hence,(1443) do not imagine it
is because I am at a gentleman's house whom you don't know,
and threescore miles from London, and because I have been but
three days in London for above this month: I could say a great
deal if I pleased, but I am very angry, and will not. I know
several pieces of politics from Ipswich that would let you
into the whole secret of the peace; and a quarrel at Denham
assembly, that is capable of involving all Europe in a new
war-nay, I know that Admiral Vernon(1444) knows of what you
say has happened in the West Indies, and of which nobody else
in England knows a word-but please to remember that you have
been at the baths, and don't deserve that I should tell you a
tittle-nor will I. In revenge, I will tell you some- thing
that happened to me four months ago, and which I would not
tell you now. if I had not forgot to tell it you when it
happened-nay, I don't tell it you now for yourself, only that
you may tell it the Princess: I truly and seriously this
winter won and was paid a milleleva at pharaoh; literally
received a thousand and twenty-three sixpences for one: an
event that never happened in the annals of pharaoh, but to
Charles II.'s Queen Dowager, as the Princess herself informed
me: ever since I have treated myself as Queen Dowager, and
have some thoughts of being drawn so.
There are no good anecdotes yet arrived of the Duke of
Newcastle's travels, except that at a review which the Duke
made for him, as he passed through the army, he hurried about
with his glass up to his eye, crying, "Finest troops! finest
troops! greatest General!" then broke through the ranks when
he spied any Sussex man, kissed him in all his
accoutrements,-my dear Tom such an one! chattered of Lewes
races; then back to the Duke with "Finest troops! greatest
General!"-and in short was a much better show than any review.
The Duke is expected over immediately; I don't know if to
stay, or why he comes-I mean, I do know, but am angry, and
will not tell.
I have seen Sir James Grey, who speaks of you with great
affection, and recommends himself extremely to me by it, when
I am not angry with you; but I cannot possibly be reconciled
till I have finished this letter, for I have nothing but this
quarrel to talk of, and I think I have worn that out-so adieu!
you odious, shocking, abominable monster!
(1443) Mistley near Manningtree, in Essex, the seat of Richard
Rigby, Esq.
(1444) He lived near Ipswich.
555 Letter 256
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, ---
I beg you will let me know whether the peace has arrived in
Italy, or if you have heard any thing of it; for in this part
of the world nobody can tell what has become of it. They say
the Empress Queen has stopped it; that she will not take back
the towns in Flanders, which she says she knows are very
convenient for us, but of no kind of use to her, and that she
chooses to keep what she has got in Italy. However, we are
determined to have peace at any rate, and the conditions must
jumble themselves together as they can. These are the
politics of Twickenham, my metropolis; and, to tell you the
truth, I believe pretty near as good as you can have any
where.
As to my own history, the scene is at present a little gloomy:
my Lord Orford is in an extreme bad state of health, not to
say a dangerous state: my uncle(1445) ' is going off in the
same way my father did. I don't pretend to any great feelings
of affection for two men, because they are dying, for whom it
is known I had little before, my brother especially having
been as much my enemy as it was in his power to be; but I
cannot with indifference see the family torn to pieces, and
falling into such ruin as I foresee; for should my brother die
soon, leaving so great a debt, so small an estate to pay it
off, two great places(1446)
sinking, and a wild boy of nineteen to succeed, there would be
an end to the glory of Houghton, which had my father
proportioned more to his fortune, would probably have a longer
duration. This is an unpleasant topic to you who feel for
us-however, I should not talk of it to one who would not feel.
Your brother Gal. and I had a very grave conversation
yesterday morning on this head; he thinks so like you, so
reasonably and with so much good nature, that I seem to be
only finishing a discourse that I have already had with you.
As my fears about Houghton are great, I am a little pleased to
have finished a slight memorial(1447) of It, a description of
the pictures, of which I have just printed an hundred, to give
to particular people: I will send you one, and shall beg Dr.
Cocchi to accept another.
If I could let myself wish to see you in England, it would be
to see you here: the little improvements I am making have
really turned Strawberry Hill into a charming villa: Mr.
Chute, I hope, will tell you how pleasant it is; I mean
literally tell you, for we have a glimmering of' a Venetian
prospect; he is just going from hence to town by water, down
our Brenta.
You never say a word to me from the Princess, nor any of my
old friends: I keep up our intimacy in my own mind; for I will
not part with the idea of seeing Florence again. Whenever I
am displeased here, the thoughts of that journey are my
resource; just as cross would-be devout people, when they have
quarrelled with this world, begin packing up for the other.
Adieu!
(1445) Lord Orford did not die till 1751, and old Horace
Walpole not till 1757.-D.
(1446) Auditor of the exchequer and Master of the buck-hounds.
(1447) "Aedes Walpolianae, or a Description of the Pictures at
Houghton Hall, in Norfolk," first printed in 1747, and again
in 1752.
556 Letter 257
To George Montagu, Esq.
Mistley, July 25, 1748.
Dear George,
I have wished you with me extremely: you would have liked what
I have seen. I have been to make a visit of two or three days
to Nugent, and was carried to see the last remains of the
glory of the old Aubrey de Veres, Earls of Oxford. They were
once masters of' almost this entire county, but quite reduced
even before the extinction of their house: the last Earl's son
died at a miserable cottage, that I was shown at a distance;
and I think another of the sisters, besides Lady Mary Vere,
was forced to live upon her beauty.
Henningham Castle, where Harry the Seventh(1448) was so
sumptuously banqueted, and imposed that villainous fine for
his entertainment, is now shrunk to one vast curious tower,
that stands on a spacious mount raised on a high hill with a
large fosse. It commands a fine prospect, and belongs to Mr.
Ashurst, a rich citizen, who has built a trumpery new house
close to it. In the parish church is a fine square monument
of black marble of one of the Earls; and there are three more
tombs of the family at Earl's Colne, some miles from the
castle. I could see but little of them, as it was very late,
except that one of the Countesses has a headdress exactly like
the description of Mount Parnassus, with two tops. I suppose
you have heard much of Gosfield, Nugent's seat. It is
extremely in fashion, but did not answer to me, though there
are fine things about it; but being situated in a country that
is quite blocked up with hills upon hills, and even too much
wood, it has not an inch of prospect. The park is to be
sixteen hundred acres, and is bounded with a wood of five
miles round; and the lake, which is very beautiful, is of
seventy acres, directly in a line with the house, at the
bottom of a fine lawn, and broke with very pretty groves, that
fall down a Slope into it. The house is vast, built round a
very old court that has never been fine; the old windows and
gateway left, and the old gallery, which is a bad narrow room,
and hung with all the late patriots, but so ill done, that
they look like caricatures done to expose them, since they
have so much disgraced the virtues they pretended to. The
rest of the house is all modernized, but in patches, and in
the bad taste that came between the charming venerable Gothic
and pure architecture. There is a great deal of good
furniture, but no one room very fine - no tolerable pictures.
Her dressing-room is very pretty, and furnished with white
damask, china, japan, loads of easy chairs, bad pictures, and
some pretty enamels. But what charmed me more than all I had
seen, is the library chimney, which has existed from the
foundation of the house; over it is an alto-relievo in wood,
far from being ill done, of the battle of Bosworth Field. It
is all white, except the helmets and trappings, which are
gilt, and the shields, which are properly blazoned with the
arms of all the chiefs engaged. You would adore it.
We passed our time very agreeably; both Nugent and his wife
are very good-humoured, and easy in their house to a degree.
There was nobody else but the Marquis of Tweedale; his new
Marchioness,(1451) who is infinitely good-humoured and good
company, and sang a thousand French songs mighty prettily; a
sister of Nugent's, who does not figure; and a Mrs.
Elliot,(1452) sister to Mrs. Nugent, who crossed over and
figured in with Nugent: I mean she has turned Catholic, as he
has Protestant. She has built herself a very pretty small
house in the path-, and is only a daily visiter. Nugent was
extremely communicative of his own labours; repeated us an ode
of ten thousand stanzas to abuse Messieurs de la Gallerie, and
reid me a whole tragedy, which has really a great many @
pretty things in it; not indeed equal to his glorious ode on
religion and liberty, but with many of those absurdities which
are so blended with his parts. We were overturned coming
back, but, thank YOU, we were not it all hurt, and have been
to-day to see a large house and a pretty park, belonging to a
Mr. Williams; it is to be sold. You have seen in the papers
that Dr. Bloxholme is dead. He cut his throat. He always
was nervous and vapoured; and so good-natured, that he left
off his practice from not being able to bear seeing so many
melancholy objects. I remember him with as much wit as ever I
knew; there was a pretty correspondence of Latin odes that
passed between him and Hodges.
You will be diverted to hear that the Duchess of Newcastle was
received at Calais by Locheil's regiment under arms, who did
duty himself while she stayed. The Duke of Grafton is going
to Scarborough; don't you love that endless back-stairs
policy? and at his time of life! This fit of ill health is
arrived on the Prince's going to shoot for a fortnight at
Thetford, and his grace is afraid of not being civil enough or
too civil.
Since I wrote my letter I have been fishing in Rapin for any
Particulars relating to the Veres, and have already found that
Robert de Vere,(1453) the great Duke of Ireland, and favourite
of Richard the Second, is buried at Earl's COlnE, and probably
under one of the tombs I saw there; I long to be certain that
the lady with the strange coiffure is Lancerona, the joiner's
daughter, that he married after divorcing a princess of the
blood for her. I have found, too, that King Stephen's Queen
died at Henningham, a castle belonging to Alberic de
Vere:,(1454) in short, I am just now Vere mad, and extremely
mortified to have Lancerona and lady Vere Beauclerk's,
Portuguese grandmother blended with this brave old blood.
Adieu! I go to town the day after to-morrow, and immediately
from thence to Strawberry Hill. Yours ever.
(1448) See Hume's History of England, vol. iii. p. 399. ["The
Earl of Oxford, his favourite general, having splendidly
entertained him at his castle of Henningham, was desirous of
making a parade of his magnificence at the departure of his
royal guest; and ordered all his retainers, with their
liveries and badges, to be drawn up in two lines, that their
appearance might be the more gallant and splendid. 'My lord,'
said the King, 'I have heard much of your hospitality; but the
truth far exceeds the report: these handsome gentlemen and
yeomen whom I see on both sides of me are no doubt your menial
servants.' The Earl smiled, and confessed that his fortune was
too narrow for such magnificence. 'They are most of them,'
subjoined he, 'my retainers, who are come to do service at
this time, when they know I am honoured with your Majesty's
presence.' The King started a little, and said, 'By my faith!
my lord, I thank you for your good cheer, but I must not allow
my laws to be broken in my sight: my attorney must speak with
you.' Oxford is said to have paid no less than fifteen
thousand marks, as a compensation for his offence.")
(1449) Daughter of the Earl of Granville.
(1450) Harriot, wife of Richard Elliot, Esq., father of the
first Lord St. Germains, and a daughter of Mr. Secretary
Craggs. For a copy of verses addressed by Mr. Pitt to this
lady, see the Chatham Correspondence, Vol. iv. j. 373.-E.
(1451)) Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was the favourite of
Richard the Second; who created him Marquis of Dublin and Duke
of Ireland, and transferred to him by patent
the entire sovereignty of that island for life.
(1452) Alberic de Vere was an Earl in the reign of Edward the
Confessor.
(1453) Daughter of Thomas Chambers, Esq., and married to Lord
Vere Beauclerc, third son of the first Duke of St. Albans by
his wife Diana, daughter of Aubrey de Vere, Earl of Oxford.
558 Letter 258
To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 11, 1748.
I am arrived at great knowledge in the annals of the house of
Vere but though I have twisted and twined their genealogy and
my own a thousand ways, I cannot discover, as I wished to do,
that I am descended from them any how but from one of their
Christian names the name of Horace having travelled from them
into Norfolk by the marriage of a daughter of Horace Lord Vere
of Tilbury with a Sir Roger Townshend, whose family baptised
some of us with it. But I have made a really curious
discovery! the lady with the strange dress at Earl's Colne,
which I mentioned to you, is certainly Lancerona, the
Portuguese-for I have found in Rapin, from one of the old
chronicles, that Anne of Bohemia, to whom she had been Maid of
Honour, introduced the fashion of piked horns, or high heads,
which is the very attire on this tomb, and ascertains it to
belong to Robert de Vere, the great Earl of Oxford, made Duke
of Ireland by Richard II., who, after the banishment of this
Minister, and his death at Louvain, occasioned by a boar at a
hunting match, caused the body to be brought over, would have
the coffin opened once more to see his favourite, and attended
it himself in high procession to its interment at Earl's
Colne. I don't know whether the "Craftsman" some years ago
would not have found out that we were descended from this
Vere, at least from his name and ministry: my comfort is, that
Lancerona was Earl Robert's second wife. But in this search I
have crossed upon another descent, which I am taking great
pains to verify (I don't mean a pun)., and that is a
probability of my being descended from Chaucer, whose
daughter, the Lady Alice, before her espousals with Thomas
Montagute,'Earl of Salisbury, and afterwards with William de
la Pole, the great Duke of Suffolk, (another famous
favourite), was married to a Sir John Philips, who I hope to
find was of Picton Castle, and had children by her; but I have
not yet brought these matters to a consistency. mr. Chute is
persuaded I shall, for he says any body with two or three
hundred years of pedigree may find themselves descended from
whom they please; and thank my stars and my good cousin, the
present Sir John] Philips,(1454) I have a sufficient pedigree
to work upon; for he drew us up one by which Ego et rex mems
are derived hand in hand from Cadwallader, and the English
baronetage says from the Emperor Maximus (by the Philips's,
who are Welsh, s'entend). These Veres have thrown me into a
deal of this old study: t'other night I was reading to Mrs.
Leneve and Mrs. Pigot,(1455) who has been here a few days, the
description in Hall's Chronicle of the meeting of Harry VIII.
and Francis I. which is so delightfully painted in your
Windsor. We came to a paragraph, which I must transcribe; for
though it means nothing in the world, it is so ridiculously
worded in the old English that it made us laugh for three
days.!
and the wer twoo kinges served with a banket and after mirthe,
had communication in the banket time, and there sheweth the
one the other their pleasure.
Would not one swear that old Hal showed all that is showed in
the Tower? I am now in the act of expecting the house of
Pritchard,(1456) Dame Clive,(1457) and Mrs. Metheglin to
dinner. I promise you the Clive, and I will not show one
another our pleasure during the banket time nor afterwards.
In the evening, we go to a play at Kingston, where the places
are two pence a head. Our great company at Richmond and
Twickenham has been torn to pieces by civil dissensions, but
they continue acting. Mr. Lee, the ape of Garrick, not liking
his part, refused to play it, and had the confidence to go
into the pit as spectator. The actress, whose benefit was in
agitation, made her complaints to the audience, who obliged
him to mount the stage; but since that he has retired from the
company. I am sorry he was such a coxcomb, for he was the
best. . . .
You say, why won't I go to Lady Mary's?(1458) I say, why
won't you go to the Talbots? Mary is busied about many things,
is dancing the hays between three houses; but I will go with
you for a day or two to the Talbots if you like it. and you
shall come hither to fetch me. I have been to see Mr.
Hamilton's, near Cobham, where he has really made a fine place
out of a most cursed hill. Esher(1459) I have seen again
twice, and prefer it to all villas, even to Southcote's--Kent
is Kentissing there. I have been laughing too at Claremont
house; the gardens are improved since I saw them: do you know
that the pineapples are literally sent to Hanover by couriers!
I am serious. Since the Duke of Newcastle went, and upon the
news of the Duke of Somerset's illness, he has transmitted his
commands through the King, and by him through the Bedford to
the University of Cambridge to forbid their electing any body,
but the most ridiculous person they could elect, his grace of
Newcastle. The Prince hearing this, has written to them, that
having heard his Majesty's commands, he should by no means
oppose them. This is sensible: but how do the two secretaries
answer such a violent act of authority? Nolkojumskoi(1460)
has let down his dignity and his discipline, and invites
continually all officers that are members of parliament.
Doddington's sentence of expulsion is sealed: Lyttelton is to
have his place (the second time he has tripped up his heels);
Lord Barrington is to go to the treasury, and Dick Edgecumbe
into the admiralty.
Rigby is gone from hence to Sir William Stanhope's to the
Aylesbury races, where the Grenvilles and Peggy Banks design
to appear and avow their triumph. Gray has been here a few
days, and is transported with your story of Madame Bentley's
diving, and her white man, and in short with all your stories.
Room for cuckolds--here comes my company--
Aug. 15?.
I had not time to finish my letter last night, for we did not
return from the dismal play, which was in a barn at Kingston,
till twelve o'clock at night. Our dinner passed off very
well; the Clive was very good company; you know how much she
admires Asheton's preaching. She says, she is always vastly
good for two or three days after his sermons;' but by the time
that Thursday comes, all their effect is worn out. I never
saw more proper decent behaviour than Mrs. Pritchard's, and I
assure you even Mr. Treasurer Pritchard was far better than I
expected. Yours ever, Chaucerides.
(1454) The grandmother of the Hon. Horace Walpole was daughter
of sir Erasmus Philips, of Picton Castle in Pembrokeshire.
(1455) Niece of Mrs. Leneve, and first wife of Admiral Hugh
Pigot.-E.
(1456/1457) Two celebrated actresses.
(1458) lady Mary Churchill.
(1459) The favourite seat of the Right Honourable Henry
Pelham, which he embellished under the direction of Kent. It
is pleasingly mentioned by Pope, in his Epilogue to the
Imitations of the Satires of Horace:-
"Pleas'd let me own, in Esher's peaceful grove,
Where Kent and Nature vie for Pelham's love,
The scene, the master, opening to my view,
I sit and dream I see my Craggs anew."-E
.
(1460) A cant name for the Duke of Cumberland.
561 Letter 259
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 29, 1748.
Dear Harry,
Whatever you may think, a campaign at Twickenham furnishes as
little matter for a letter as an abortive one in Flanders. I
can't say indeed that my generals wear black wigs, but they
have long full- bottomed hoods which cover as little
entertainment to the full.
There's General my Lady Castlecomer, and General my Lady
Dowager Ferrers! Why, do you think I can extract more out of
them than you can out of Hawley or Honeywood?(1461) Your old
women dress, go to the Duke's levee, see that the soldiers
cock their hats right, sleep after dinner, and soak with their
led-captains till bed-time, and tell a thousand lies of what
they never did in their youth. Change hats for head-clothes,
the rounds for visits, and led-captains for toad-eaters, and
the life is the very same. In short, these are the people I
live in the midst of, though not with; and it is for want of
more important histories that I have wrote to you seldom; not,
I give you my word, from the least negligence. My present and
sole occupation is planting, in which I have made great
progress, and talk very learnedly with the nurserymen, except
that now and then a lettuce run to seed overturns all my
botany, as I have more than once taken it for a curious
West-Indian flowering shrub. Then the deliberation with which
trees grow, is extremely inconvenient to my natural
impatience. I lament living in so barbarous an age, when we
are come to so little perfection in gardening. I am persuaded
that a hundred and fifty years hence it will be as common to
remove oaks a hundred and fifty years old, as it is now to
transplant tulip-roots. I have even begun a treatise or
panegyric on the great discoveries made by posterity in all
arts and sciences, wherein I shall particularly descant on the
great and cheap convenience of making trout-rivers-One Of the
improvements which Mrs. Kerwood wondered Mr. Hedges would not
make at his country-house, but which was not then quite so
common as it will be. I shall talk of a secret for roasting a
wild-boar and a whole pack of hounds alive, without hurting
them, so that the whole chase may be brought up to table; and
for this secret, the Duke of Newcastle's grandson, if he can
ever get a son, is to give a hundred thousand pounds. Then
the delightfulness of having whole groves of hummingbirds,
tame tigers taught to fetch and carry, pocket spying-glasses
to see all that is doing in China, with a thousand other toys,
which we now look upon as impracticable, and which pert
posterity would laugh in one's face for staring at, while they
are offering rewards for perfecting discoveries, of the
principles of which we have not the least conception! If ever
this book should come forth, I must expect to have all the
learned in arms against me, who measure all knowledge
backward: some of them have discovered symptoms of all arts in
Homer; and Pineda(1462) had so much faith in the
accomplishments of his ancestors, that he believed Adam
understood all sciences but politics. But as these great
champions for our forefathers are dead, and Boileau not alive
to hitch me into a verse with Perrault, I am determined to
admire the learning of posterity, especially being convinced
that half our present knowledge sprung from discovering the
errors of what had formerly been called so. I don't think I
shall ever make any great discoveries myself, and therefore
shall be content to propose them to my descendants, like my
Lord Bacon, who, as Dr. Shaw says very prettily in his preface
to Boyle, , had the art of inventing arts:" or rather like a
Marquis of Worcester, of whom I have seen a little book which
he calls A Century of Inventions where he has set down a
hundred machines to do impossibilities with, and not a single
direction how to make the machines themselves.(1463)
If I happen to be less punctual in my correspondence than I
intend to be, you must conclude I am writing my book, which
being designed for a panegyric, will cost me a great deal of
trouble. The dedication, with your leave, shall be addressed
to your son that is coming, or, with my Lady Ailesbury's
leave, to your ninth son, who Will be unborn nearer to the
time I 'am writing of; always provided that she does not bring
three at once, like my Lady Berkeley.
Well! I have here set you the example of' writing nonsense
when one has nothing to say, and shall take it ill if you
don't keep up the correspondence on the same foot. Adieu!
(1461) General Honeywood, governor of Portsmouth.
(1462) Pineda was a Spanish Jesuit, and a professor of
theology. He died in 1637, after writing voluminous
commentaries upon several books of the Holy Scriptures,
besides an universal history of the church.
(1463) Walpole, in his "Royal and Noble Authors," designates
the Marquis as a "fantastic protector and fanatic," and
describes the " Century of Inventions" as "an amazing piece of
folly;" and Hume, who does not even know the title of the
book, boldly pronounces it "a ridiculous compound of lies,
chimeras, and impossibilities." In 18@5, however, an edition
of this curious and very amusing little work was published],
with historical and explanatory notes, by Mr. C. F.
Partington; who clearly proves, that the Marquis was the
person, either in this or any Other country, who gave the
first idea of the steam engine.-E.
563 Letter 260
To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Saturday night, Sept, 3, 1748.
All my sins to Mrs. Talbot you are to expiate; I am here quite
alone, and want nothing but your fetching to go to her. I
have been in town for a day, just to see Lord Bury who is come
over with the Duke; they return next Thursday. The Duke is
fatter, and it is now not denied that he has entirely lost the
sight of one eye. This did not surprise me so much as a bon
mot of his. Gumley, who you know is grown Methodist, came to
tell him, that as he was on duty, a tree in Hyde Park, near
the powder magazine, had been set on fire; the Duke replied,
he hoped it was not by the new light. This nonsensical new
light is extremely in fashion, and I shall not be surprised if
we see a revival of all the folly and cant of the last age.
Whitfield preaches continually at my Lady Huntingdon's,(1464)
at Chelsea; my Lord Chesterfield, my Lord Bath, my Lady
Townshend, my Lady Thanet, and others, have been to hear
him.(1465) What will you lay that, next winter, he is not run
after, instead of Garrick?
I am just come from the play at Richmond, where I found the
Duchess of Argyle and Lady Betty Campbell, and their court.
We had a new actress, a Miss Clough; an extremely fine tall
figure, and very handsome: she spoke very justly, and with
spirit. Garrick is to produce her next winter; and a Miss
Charlotte Ramsey, a poetess and deplorable actress. Garrick,
Barry, and some more of the players, were there to see these
new comedians; it is to be their seminary.
Since I came home I have been disturbed with a strange,
foolish woman, that lives at the great corner house yonder;
she is an attorney's wife, and much given to the bottle. By
the time she- has finished that and daylight, she grows afraid
of thieves, and makes the servants fire minute guns out of the
garret windows. I remember persuading Mrs. Kerwood that there
was a great smell of thieves, and this drunken dame seems
literally to smell it. The divine Asheton, whom I suppose you
will have seen when you receive this, will give you an account
of the astonishment we were in last night at hearing guns; I
began to think that the Duke had brought some of his defeats
from Flanders.
I am going to tell you a long story, but you will please to
remember that I don't intend to tell it well; therefore, if
you discover any beauties in the relation where I never
intended them, don't conclude, as you did in your last, that I
know they are there. If I had not a great command of my pen,
and could not force it to write whatever nonsense I had heard
last, you would be enough to pervert all one's letters, and
put one upon keeping up one's character; but as I write merely
to satisfy you, I shall take no care but not to write well: I
hate letters that are called good letters.
You must know then,-but did you not know a young fellow that
was called Handsome Tracy? he was walking in the Park with
some of his acquaintance, and overtook three girls; one was
very pretty: they followed them; but the girls ran away, and
the company grew tired of pursuing them, all but Tracy. (There
are now three more guns gone off; she must be very drunk.) He
followed to Whitehall gate, where he gave a porter a crown to
dog them: the porter hunted them-he the porter. The girls ran
all round Westminster, and back to the Haymarket, where the
porter came up with them. He told the pretty one she must go
with him, and kept her talking till Tracy arrived, quite out
of breath, and exceedingly in love. He insisted on knowing
where she lived, which she refused to tell him; and after much
disputing , went to the house of one of her companions, and
Tracy with them. He there made her discover her family, a
butterwoman in Craven Street, and engaged her to meet him the
next morning in the Park; but before night he wrote her four
love-letters, and in the last offered two hundred pounds
a-year to her, and a hundred a-year to Signora la Madre.
Griselda made a confidence to a staymaker's wife, who told her
that the swain was certainly in love enough to marry her, if
she could determine to be virtuous and refuse his offers.
"Ay," says she, "but if I should, and should lose him by it."
However, the measures of the cabinet council were decided for
virtue: and when she met Tracy the next morning in the park,
she was convoyed by her sister and brother-in-law, and stuck
close to the letter of her reputation. She would do nothing
she would go nowhere. At last, as an instance of prodigious
compliance, she told him, that if he would accept such a
dinner as a butterwoman's daughter could give him, he should
be welcome. Away they walked to Craven Street: the mother
borrowed some silver to buy a leg of mutton, and they kept the
eager lover drinking till twelve at night, when a chosen
committee waited on the faithful pair to the minister of
May-fair. The doctor was in bed, and swore he would not get
up to marry the King, but that he had a brother over the way
who perhaps would, and who did. The mother borrowed a pair of
sheets, and they consummated at her house; and the next day
they went to their own palace. In two or three days the scene
grew gloomy; and the husband coming home one night, swore he
could bear it no longer. "Bear! bear what?"--"Why, to be
teased by all my acquaintance for marrying a butterwoman's
daughter. I am determined to go to France, and will leave you
a handsome allowance."--"Leave me! why you don't fancy you
shall leave me? I will go with you."--"What, you love me
then?"--"No matter whether I love you or not, but you shan't
go without me." And they are gone! If you know any body that
proposes marrying and travelling, I think they cannot do it in
a more commodious method.
I agree with you most absolutely in your opinion about Gray;
he is the worst company in the world. From a melancholy turn.
living reclusely, and from a little too much dignity, he never
converses easily all his words are measured and chosen, and
formed into sentences his writings are admirable; he himself
is not agreeable.'(1466)
There are still two months to London; if you could discover
your own mind for any three or four days of that space, I will
either go with you to the Tigers or be glad to see you here;
but I positively will ask you neither one nor t'other any
more. I have raised seven-and-twenty bantams from the
patriarchs you sent me. Adieu!
(1464) Daughter of Washington, Earl Ferrers.
(1465) Lord Bolingbroke, in a letter to the Earl of Marchmont
of the 1st of November, says,
"I hope you heard from me by myself, as well of me by Mr.
Whitfield. This apostolical person preached some time ago at
Lady Huntingdon's, and I should have been curious to hear him.
Nothing kept me from going, but an imagination that there was
to be a select auditory. That saint, our friend Chesterfield,
was there; and I hear from him an extreme good account of the
sermon." Marchmont Papers, vol. ii. p. 377.-E.
(1466) Dr. Beattie says, in a letter to Sir W. Forbes, "Gray's
letters very much resemble what his conversation was: he had
none of the airs of either a scholar or a poet; and though on
those and all other subjects he spoke to me with the utmost
freedom, and without any reserve, he was in general company
much more silent than one could have wished."-E.
565 Letter 261
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 18, 1748.
I have two letters of yours to account for, and nothing to
plead but my old insolvency. Oh! yes, I have to scold you,
which you find is an inexhaustible fund with me. You sent me
your d`em`el`e(1467) with the whole city of Florence, and
charged me to keep it secret-and the first person I saw was my
Lord Hobart, who was full of the account he had received from
you. You might as well have told a woman an improper secret,
and expected to have it kept! but you may be very easy, for
unless it reaches my Lady Pomfret or my Lady Orford, I dare
say it will never get back to Florence; and for those two
ladies, I don't think it likely that they should hear it, for
the first is in a manner retired from the world, and the world
is retired from the second. Now I have vented my anger, I am
seriously sorry for you, to be exposed to the impertinence of
those silly Florentine women: they deserve a worse term than
silly, since they pretend to any characters. How could you
act with so much temper? If they had treated me in this
manner, I should have avowed ten times more than they
pretended you had done; but you are an absolute minister!
I am much obliged to Prince Beauvau for remembering me, and
should be extremely pleased to show him all manner of
attentions here: you know I profess great attachment to that
family for their civilities to me. But how gracious the
Princess has been to you! I am quite jealous of her dining
with you: I remember what a rout there was to get her for half
of half a quarter of an hour to your assembly.
The Bishop of London is dead; having luckily for his family,
as it proves, refused the archbishopric.*1468) We owe him the
justice to say, that though he had broke with my father, he
always expressed himself most handsomely about him, and
without any resentment or ingratitude.
Your brothers are coming to dine with me; your brother Gal. is
extremely a favourite with me: I took to him for his
resemblance to you, but am grown to love him upon his own
fund.
The peace is still in a cloud: according to custom, we have
hurried on our complaisance before our new friends were at all
ready with theirs. There was a great Regency(1469) kept in
town, to take off the prohibition of commerce with Spain: when
they were met, somebody asked if Spain was ready to take off
theirs? "Oh, Lord! we never thought of that!" They sent for
Wall,(1470) and asked him if his court would take the same
step with us? He said, "he believed they might, but he had no
orders about it." However, we proceeded, and hitherto are
bit.
Adieu! by the first opportunity I shelf send you the two books
of Houghton, for yourself and Dr. Cocchi. My Lord Orford is
much mended: my uncle has no prospect of ever removing from
his couch.
(1467) A Madame Ubaldini having raised a scandalous story of
two persons whom she saw together in Mr. Mann's garden at one
of his assemblies, and a scurrilous sonnet having been made
upon the occasion, the Florentine ladies for some time
pretended that it would hurt their characters to come any more
to his assembly.
(1468) Dr. Edmund Gibson had been very intimate with Sir
Robert Walpole, and was designed by him for archbishop after
the death of Wake; but setting himself at the head of the
clergy against the Quaker bill, he broke with Sir Robert and
lost the archbishoprick which was given to Potter; but on his
death, the succeeding ministry offered it to Dr. Gibson. [The
Doctor declined it, on account of his advanced age and
increasing infirmities. He died on the 6th of February,
1748.)
(1469) This means a meeting of the persons composing the
Regency during the King's absence in Hanover.-D.
(1470) General Wall, the Spanish ambassador.
566 Letter 262
To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 25, 1748.
I shall write you a very short letter, for I don't know what
business we have to be corresponding when we might be
together. I really wish to see you, for you know I am
convinced of what you say to me. It is few people I ask to
come hither, and if possible, still fewer that I wish to see
here. The disinterestedness of your friendship for me has
always appeared, and is the only sort that for the future I
will ever accept, and consequently I never expect any more
friends. As to trying to make any by obligations, I have had
such woful success, that, for fear of thinking still worse
than I do of the world, I will never try more. But you are
abominable to reproach me with not letting you go to Houghton:
have not I offered a thousand times to carry you there? I
mean, since it was my brother's: I did not expect to prevail
with you before; for you are so unaccountable, that you not
only will never do a dirty thing, but you won't even venture
the appearance of it. I have often applied to you in my own
mind a very pretty passage that I remember in a letter of
Chillingworth; "you would not do that for preferment that you
would not do but for preferment." You oblige me much in what
you say about my nephews, and make me happy in the character
you have heard of Lord Malpas;(1471) I am extremely inclined
to believe he deserves it. I am as sorry to hear what a
companion lord Walpole has got: there has been a good deal of
noise about him, but I had laughed at it, having traced the
worst reports to his gracious mother, who is now sacrificing
the character of her son to her aversion for her husband. If
we lived under the Jewish dispensation, how I should tremble
at my brother's leaving no children by her, and its coming to
my turn to raise him up issue!
Since I gave you the account of the Duchess of Ireland's piked
horns among the tombs of the Veres, I have found a long
account in Bayle of the friar, who, as I remember to have read
somewhere, preached so vehemently against that fashion: it was
called Hennin, and the monk's name was Thomas Conecte. He was
afterwards burnt at Rome for censuring the lives of the
clergy. As our histories say that Anne of Bohemia introduced
the fashion here, it is probable that the French learnt it
from us, and were either long before they caught it, Or long
in retaining the mode; for the Duke of Ireland died in 1389,
and Connect was burnt at Rome in 1434. There were, indeed,
several years between his preaching down Hennins and his
death, but probably not near five-and-forty years, and half
that term was a long duration for so outrageous a fashion.
But I have found a still more entertaining fashion in another
place in Bayle which was, the women wearing looking-glasses
upon their bellies': I don't conceive for what use. Adieu!
don't write any more, but come.
(1471) Eldest son of George, third Earl of Cholmondoley, and
grandson of Sir Robert Walpole.
567 Letter 263
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 6, 1748.
Dear harry,
I am sorry our wishes clash so much. Besides that I have no
natural inclination for the Parliament, it will particularly
disturb me now in the middle of all my planting; for which
reason I have never inquired when it will meet, and cannot
help you to guess--but I should think not hastily-for I
believe the peace, at least the evacuations, are not in so
prosperous a way as to be ready to make any figure in the
King's speech. But I speak from a distance; it may all be
very toward: our ministers enjoy the consciousness of their
wisdom, as the good do of their virtue, and take no pains to
make it shine before men. In the mean time, we have several
collateral emoluments from the pacification: all our
milliners, tailors, tavern keepers, and young gentlemen are
tiding to France for our improvement in luxury; and as I
foresee we shall be told on their return that we have lived in
a total state of blindness for these six years. and gone
absolutely retrograde to all true taste in every particular, I
have already begun to practise walking on my head, and doing
every thing the wrong way. Then Charles Frederick has turned
all his virt`u into fireworks, and, by his influence at the
ordnance, has prepared such a spectacle for the proclamation
of the peace as is to surpass all its predecessors of bouncing
memory. It is to open with a concert of fifteen hundred
hands, and conclude with so many hundred thousand crackers all
set to music, that all the men killed in the war are to be
wakened with the crash, as if it was the day of judgment, and
fall a dancing, like the troops in the Rehearsal. I wish you
could see him making squibs of his papillotes, and bronzed
over with a patina of gunpowder, and talking himself still
hoarser on the superiority that his firework will have over
the Roman naumachia.
I am going to dinner with Lady Sophia Thomas(1472) at Hampton
Court, where I was to meet the Cardigans; but I this minute
receive a message that the Duchess of Montagu(1473) is
extremely ill, which I am much concerned for on Lady
Cardigan's(1474) account, whom I grow every day more in love
with; you may imagine, not her person, which is far from
improved lately; but, since I have been here, I have lived
much with them, and, as George Montagu says, in all my
practice I never met a better understanding, nor more really
estimable qualities: such a dignity in her way of thinking; so
little idea of any thing mean or ridiculous, and such proper
contempt for both! Adieu! I must go dress for dinner, and you
perceive that I wish I had, but have nothing to tell you.
(1472) Daughter of the first Earl of Albemarle, and wife of
General Thomas.-E.
(1473) She was mother to Lady Cardigan, and daughter to the
great Duke of Marlborough.
(1474) Lady Mary Montagu, third daughter of John, Duke of
Montagu, and wife of George Brudenell, Earl of Cardigan,
afterwards created Duke of Montagu.
568 Letter 264
To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 20, 1748.
You are very formal to send me a ceremonious letter of thanks;
you see I am less punctilious, for having nothing to tell you,
I did not answer your letter. I have been in the empty town
for a day: Mrs.
Muscovy and I cannot devise where you have planted Jasmine; I
am all plantation, and sprout away like any chaste nymph in
the Metamorphosis.
They say the old Monarch at Hanover has got a new mistress; I
fear he ought to have got * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Now I talk of getting, Mr. Fox has got the ten thousand pound
prize; and the Violette, as it is said, Coventry for a
husband. It is certain that at the fine masquerade he was
following her, as she was under the Countess's arm, who,
pulling off her glove, moved her wedding-ring up and down her
finger, which it seems was to signify that no other terms
would be accepted. It is the year for contraband marriages,
though I do not find Fanny Murray's is certain. I liked her
spirit in an instance I heard t'other night: she was
complaining of want of money; Sir Robert Atkins immediately
gave her a twenty pound note; she said, "D-n your twenty
pound! what does it signify?" clapped it between two pieces of
bread and butter, and ate it. Adieu! nothing should make me
leave off so shortly but that my gardener waits for me, and
you must allow that he is to be preferred to all the world.
569 Letter 265
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, October 24, 1748.
I have laughed heartily at your adventure of Milord Richard
Onslow;(1475) it is an admirable adventure! I am not sure
that Riccardi's absurdity was not the best part of it. Here
were the Rinuncinis, the Panciaticis, and Pandolfinis? were
they as ignorant too? What a brave topic it would have been
for Niccolini, if he had been returned, to display all his
knowledge of England!
Your brothers are just returned from Houghton, where they
found my brother extremely recovered: my uncle too, I hear, is
better; but I think that an impossible recovery.(1476) Lord
Walpole is setting out on his travels; I shall be impatient to
have him in Florence; I flatter myself you will like him: I,
who am not troubled with partiality to my family, admire him
much. Your brother has got the two books of Houghton, and
will send them by the first Opportunity: I am by no means
satisfied with then; they are full of' faults, and the two
portraits wretchedly unlike.
The peace is signed between us, France, and Holland, but does
not give the least joy; the stocks do not rise, and the
merchants are unsatisfied; they say France will sacrifice us
to Spain, which has not yet signed: in short, there has not
been the least symptom of public rejoicing; but the government
is to give a magnificent firework.
I believe there are no news, but I am here all alone,
planting. The Parliament does not meet till the 29th of next
month: I shall go to town but two or three days before that.
The Bishop of Salisbury,(1477) who refused Canterbury, accepts
London, upon a near prospect of some fat fines. Old Tom
Walker(1478) is dead, and has left vast wealth and good
places; but have not heard where either are to go. Adieu! I
am very paragraphical, and you see have nothing to say.
(1475) One Daniel Bets, a Dutchman or Fleming, who called
himself my Lord Richard Onslow, and pretended to be the
Speaker's son, having forged letters of credit Ind drawn money
from several bankers, came to Florence, and was received as an
Englishman of quality by Marquis Riccardi, who could not be
convinced by Mr. Mann of the imposture till the adventurer ran
away on foot to Rome in the night.
(1476) Yet he did in great measure recover by the use of soap
and limewater.
(1477) Dr. Sherlock.
(1478) He was surveyor of the roads; had been a kind of
toad-eater to Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Godolphin; was a
great frequenter of Newmarket, and a notorious usurer. His
reputed wealth is stated, in the Gentleman's Magazine, at
three hundred thousand pounds.]
570 Letter 266
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Dec. 2, 1748.
Our King is returned and our parliament met: we expected
nothing but harmony and tranquillity, and love of the peace;
but the very first day opened with a black cloud, that
threatens a stormy session. To the great surprise of the
ministry, the Tories appear in intimate league with the
Prince's party, and both agreed in warm and passionate
expressions on the treaty: we shall not have the discussion
till after Christmas. My uncle, who is extremely mended by
soap, and the hopes of a peerage is come up, and the very
first day broke out in a volley of treaties: though he is
altered, you would be astonished at his spirits.
We talk much of the Chancellor's(1479) resigning the seals,
from weariness of the fatigue, and being made president of the
council, with other consequent changes, which I will write you
if they happen; but as this has already been a discourse of
six months, I don't give it you for certain.
Mr. Chute, to whom alone I communicated Niccolini's
banishment, though it is now talked of from the Duke of
Bedford's office, says "he is sorry the Abb`e is banished for
the only thing which he ever saw to commend in him,-his
abusing the Tuscan ministry." I must tell you another
admirable bon mot of Mr. Chute, now I am mentioning him.
Passing by the door of Mrs. Edwards, who died of drams, be saw
the motto which the undertakers had placed to her escutcheon,
Mors janua vitae, he said "it ought to have been Mors aqua
vita."
The burlettas are begun; I think, not decisively liked or
condemned yet: their success is certainly not rapid, though
Pertici is excessively admired. Garrick says he is the best
comedian he ever saw: but the women are execrable, not a
pleasing note amongst them. Lord Middlesex has stood a trial
with Monticelli for arrears of salary, in Westminster-hall,
and even let his own handwriting be proved against him! You
may imagine he was cast. Hume Campbell, lord Marchmont's
brother, a favourite advocate, and whom the ministry have
pensioned out of the Opposition into silence, was his council,
and protested, striking his breast, that he had never set his
foot but once into an opera-house in his life. This
affectation 'of British patriotism is excellently ridiculous
in a man so known: I have often heard my father say, that of
all the men he ever ](new, Lord Marchmont and Hume Campbell
were the most abandoned in their professions to him on their
coming into the world: he was hindered from accepting their
services by the present Duke of Argyll, of whose faction they
were not. They then flung themselves into the Opposition,
where they both have made great figures, till the elder was
shut out of Parliament by his father's death, and the younger
being very foolishly dismissed from being solicitor to the
Prince, in favour of Mr. Bathurst, accepted a pension from the
court, and seldom comes into the House, and has lately taken
to live on roots and study astronomy.(1480) Lord Marchmont,
you know, was one of Pope's heroes, had a place in Scotland on
Lord Chesterfield's coming into the ministry, though he had
not power to bring him into the sixteen: and was very near
losing his place last winter, on being Supposed the author of
the famous apology for Lord Chesterfield's resignation. This
is the history of these Scotch brothers, which I have told you
for want of news.
Two Oxford scholars are condemned to two years' imprisonment
for treason;(1481) and their vice-chancellor, for winking at
it, is soon to be tried. What do you say to the young
Pretender's persisting to stay in France? It will not be easy
to persuade me that it is without the approbation of that
court. Adieu!
(1479) Lord Hardwicke.-D.
(1480) In the preceding March, Lord Marchmont had married a
second wife.@, Miss Crampton. The circumstances attending
this marriage are thus related by David Hume, in a letter to
Mr. Oswald, dated January 29, 1748:-" Lord Marchmont has had
the most extraordinary adventure in the world. About three
weeks ago he was at the play, when he espied in one of the
boxes a fair virgin, whose looks, airs, and manners had such a
wonderful effect upon him, as was visible by every bystander.
His raptures were so undisguised, his looks so expressive of
passion, his inquiries so earnest, that every person took
notice of it. He soon was told that her name was Crampton, a
linendraper's daughter, who had been bankrupt last year. He
wrote next morning to her father, desiring to visit his
daughter on honourable terms, and in a few days she will be
the Countess of Marchmont. Could you ever suspect the
ambitious, the severe, the bustling, the impetuous, the
violent Marchmont of becoming so tender and gentle a swain-an
Orondates!"-E.
(1481) In drinking the Pretender's health, and using seditious
expressions against the King. They were also sentenced "to
walk round Westminster-hall with a label affixed to Their
foreheads, denoting their crime and sentence, and to ask
pardon of the several courts;" which they accordingly
performed.-E.
571 Letter 267
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Dec. 15, 1748.
I conclude your Italy talks of nothing but the young
Pretender's imprisonment at Vincennes. I don't know whether he
be a Stuart, but I am sure, by his extravagance he has proved
himself' of English extraction! What a mercy that we had not
him here! with a temper so, impetuous and obstinate, as to
provoke a French government when in their power, what would he
have done with an English Government in his power?(1482) An
account came yesterday that he, with his Sheridan and a Mr.
Stafford (who was a creature of my Lord Bath,) are transmitted
to Pont de Beauvoisin, under a solemn promise never to return
into France (I suppose unless they send for him). It is said
that a Mr. Dun, who married Alderman Parsons's eldest
daughter, is in the Bastile for having struck the officer when
the young man was arrested.
Old Somerset(1483) is at last dead, and the Duke of Newcastle
Chancellor of Bainbridge, to his heart's content. Somerset
tendered his pride even beyond his hate; for he has left the
present Duke all the furniture of his palaces, and forbore to
charge the estate, according to a power he had, with
five-and-thirty thousand pounds. To his Duchess,(1484) who
has endured such a long slavery with him, he has left nothing
but one thousand pounds and a small farm, besides her
jointure; giving the whole of his unsettled estate, which is
about six thousand pounds a-year, equally between his two
daughters, and leaving it absolutely in their own powers now,
though neither are of age; and to Lady Frances, the eldest, he
has additionally given the fine house built by Inigo Jones, in
Lincoln's-inn-fields, (which he had bought of the Duke of
Ancaster for the Duchess,) hoping that his daughter will let
her mother live with her. To Sir Thomas Bootle he has given
half a borough, and a whole one,(1485) to his grandson Sir
Charles Windham,(1486) with an estate that cost him fourteen
thousand pounds. To Mr. Obrien,(1487) Sir Charles Windham's
brother, a single thousand; and to Miss Windham an hundred
a-year, which he gave her annually at Christmas, and is just
Such a legacy as you would give to a housekeeper to prevent
her from going to service again. She is to be married
immediately to the second Grenville;(1488) they have waited
for a larger legacy. The famous settlement(1489) is found,
which gives Sir Charles Windham about twelve thousand pounds
a-year of the Percy estate after the present Duke's death; the
other five, with the barony of Percy, must go to Lady Betty
Smithson.(1490) I don't know whether you ever heard that, in
Lord Grenville's administration, he had prevailed with the
King to grant the earldom of Northumberland to Sir Charles;
Lord Hertford represented against it; at last the King said he
would give it to whoever they would make it appear was to have
the Percy estate; but old Somerset refused to let any body see
his writings, and so the affair dropped, every body believing
that there was no such settlement.
John Stanhope of the admiralty is dead, and Lord Chesterfield
gets thirty thousand pounds for life: I hear Mr. Villiers is
most likely to succeed to that board. You know all the
Stanhopes are a family aux bon-mots: I must tell you one of
this John. He was sitting by an old Mr. Curzon, a nasty
wretch, and very covetous: his nose wanted blowing, and
continued to want it: at last Mr. Stanhope, with the greatest
good-breeding, said, "Indeed, Sir, if you don't wipe your
nose, you will lose that drop."
I am extremely pleased with Monsieur de Mirepoix's(1491) being
named for this embassy; and I beg you will desire Princess
Craon to recommend me to Madame, for I would be particularly
acquainted with her as she is their daughter. Hogarth has run
a great risk since the peace; he went to France, and was so
imprudent as to be taking a sketch of the drawbridge at
Calais. He was seized and carried to the governor, where he
was forced to prove his vocation by producing several
caricatures of the French; particularly a scene(1492) of the
shore, with an immense piece of beef landing for the
lion-d'argent, the English inn at Calais, and several hungry
friars following it.(1493) They were much diverted with his
drawings, and dismissed him.
Mr. Chute lives at the herald's office in your service, and
yesterday got particularly acquainted with your
great-great-grandmother. I says, by her character, she would
be extremely shocked at your wet-brown-paperness, and that she
was particularly famous for breaking her own pads. Adieu!
(1482) At the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle the French court
proposed to establish Prince Charles at Fribourg in
Switzerland, with the title of Prince of Wales, a company of
guards, and a sufficient pension; but he placed a romantic
point of Honour in 'braving 'the orders from Hanover,' as he
called them, and positively refused to depart from Paris.
Threats, entreaties, arguments, were tried on him in vain. He
withstood even a letter obtained from his father at Rome, and
commanding his departure. He still nourished some secret
expectation, that King Louis would not venture to use force
against a kinsman; but he found himself deceived. As he went
to the Opera on the evening of the 11th of December, his coach
was stopped by a party of French guards, himself seized, bound
hand and foot, and conveyed, with a single attendant, to the
state-prison of Vincennes, where he was thrust into a dungeon
seven feet wide and eight feet long. After this public
insult, he was carried to Pont de Beauvoisin, on the frontier
of Savoy, and there restored to his wandering and desolate
freedom." lord Mahon, vol .iii. p. 552.-E.
(1483) The proud Duke of Somerset.-D.
(1484) Charlotte Finch, sister of the Earl of Winchilsea and
Nottingham, second wife of Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset;
by whom she had two daughters, Lady Frances, married to the
Marquis of Granby, and lady Charlotte to Lord Guernsey, eldest
son of the Earl of Aylesford.
(1485) Midhurst, in Sussex.-D.
(1486) Afterwards Earl of Egremont.-D.
(1487) Afterwards created Earl of Thomond in Ireland.-D.
(1488) George Grenville. issue of that marriage were the late
Marquis of Buckingham, the Right Honourable Thomas Grenville,
and Lord Grenville; besides several daughters.-D.
(1489) The Duke's first wife was the heiress of the house of
Northumberland - she made a settlement of her estate, in case
her sons died without heirs male, on the children of her
daughters. Her eldest daughter, Catherine, married Sir
William Windham, whose son, Sir Charles, by the death of Lord
Beauchamp, only son of Algernon, Earl of Hertford, and
afterwards Duke of Somerset, succeeded to the greatest part of
the Percy estate, preferably to Elizabeth, daughter of the
same Algernon, who was married to Sir Hugh Smithson.
(1490) Elizabeth daughter of Algernon, last Duke of Somerset
of the younger branch. She was married to Sir Hugh Smithson,
Bart. who became successively Earl and Duke of
NorthUmberland.-D.
(1491) The Marquis de Mirepoix, marshal of France, and
ambassador to England. His wife was a woman of ability, and
was long in great favour with Louis the Fifteenth and his
successive mistresses.-D.
(1492) He engraved and published it on his return.
(1493) Hogarth's well known print, entitled
"The Roast Beef of Old England." The original picture is in
the possession of the Earl of Charlemont, in Dublin.-D.
574 Letter 268
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, Dec. 26, 1748.
Did you ever know a more absolute country-gentleman? Here am
I come down to what you call keep my Christmas! indeed it is
not in all the forms; I have stuck no laurel and holly in my
windows, I eat no turkey and chine, I have no tenants to
invite, I have not brought a single soul With me. The weather
is excessively stormy, but has been so warm, and so entirely
free from frost the whole winter, that not only several of' my
honeysuckles are come out, but I have literally a blossom upon
a nectarine-tree, which I believe was never seen in this
climate before on the 26th of December. I am extremely busy
here planting; I have got four more acres, which makes my
territory prodigious in a situation where land is so scarce,
and villas as abundant as formerly at Tivoli and Baiae. I
have now about fourteen acres, and am making a terrace the
whole breadth of my garden on the brow of a natural hill, With
meadows at the foot, and commanding the river, the village,
Richmond-hill, and the park, and part of Kingston-but I hope
never to show it you. What you hint at in your last, increase
of character, I should be extremely against your stirring in
now: the whole system of embassies is in confusion, and more
candidates than employments. I would have yours pass, as it
is, for settled. If you were to be talked especially for a
higher character at Florence, one don't know whom the
-,additional dignity might tempt. Hereafter, perhaps, it
might be practicable for you, but I would by no means advise
your soliciting it at present. Sir Charles Williams is the
great obstacle to all arrangement: Mr. Fox makes a point of
his going to Turin; the ministry, Who do not love him, are not
for his going any where. Mr. Villiers is talked of for
Vienna, though just made a lord of the admiralty. There were
so many competitors, that at last Mr. Pelham said he would
carry in two names to the King, and he should choose (a great
indulgence!) Sir Peter Warren and Villiers were carried in;
the King chose the latter. I believe there is a little of
Lord Granville in this, and in a Mr. Hooper, who was turned
out with the last ministry, and is now made a commissioner of
the customs: the pretence is, to vacate a seat in Parliament
for Sir Thomas Robinson, who is made a lord of trade; a scurvy
reward after making the peace. Mr. Villiers, you know, has
been much gazetted, and had his letters to the King of Prussia
printed; but he is a very silly fellow. I met him the other
day at Lord Granville's, where, on the subject of a new play,
he began to give the Earl an account of CoriolanUS, with
reflections on his history. Lord Granville at last grew
impatient, and said, "Well! well! it is an old story; it may
not be true." As we went out together, I said, "I like the
approach to this house."'(1494) "Yes,"said Villiers, "and I
love to be in it; for I never come here but I hear something I
did not know before." Last year, I asked him to attend a
controverted election in which I was interested; he told me he
would with all his heart, but that he had resolved not to vote
in elections for the first session, for that he owned he could
not understand them--not understand them!
Lord St. John(1495) is dead; he had a place in the
custom-house of 1200 pounds a year, which his father had
bought of the Duchess of Kendal for two lives, for 4000
pounds. Mr. Pelham has got it for Lord Lincoln and his child.
I told you in my last a great deal about old Somerset's will:
they have since found 150,000 which goes, too, between the two
daughters. It had been feared that he would leave nothing to
the youngest; two or three years ago, he waked after dinner
and found himself upon the floor; she used to watch him, had
left him, and he had fallen from his couch. He forbade every
body to speak to her, but yet to treat her with respect as his
daughter. She went about the house for a year, without any
body daring openly to utter a syllable to her; and it was
never known that he had forgiven her. His whole stupid life
was a series of pride and tyranny.
There have been great contests in the Privy Council about the
trial of the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford: the Duke of' Bedford
and Lord Gower pressed it extremely. The latter asked the
Attorney-General(1496) his opinion, who told him the evidence
did not appear strong enough: Lord Gower said, "Mr. Attorney,
you Seem to be very lukewarm for your party." He replied, "My
lord, I never was lukewarm for my party, nor ever was but Of
one party." There is a scheme for vesting in the King the
nomination of' the Chancellor of that University,(1497) who
has much power--and much noise it would make! The Lord
Chancellor is to be High Steward of Cambridge, in succession
to the Duke of Newcastle.
The families of Devonshire and Chesterfield have received a
great blow at Derby, where, on the death of John Stanhope,
they set up another of the name. One Mr. Rivett, the Duke's
chief friend and manager. stood himself, and carried it by a
majority of seventy-one. Lord Chesterfield had sent down
credit for ten thousand pounds. The Cavendish's. however, are
very happy, for Lady Hartington(1498) has produced a
son.(1499)
I asked a very intelligent person if there could be any
foundation for the story of Niccolini's banishment taking its
rise from complaints of our court: he answered very sensibly,
that even if our court had complained, -which was most
unlikely, it was not at all probable that the court of Vienna
would have paid any regard to it. There is another paragraph
in your same letter in which I must set you right: you talk Of
the sudden change of my opinion about Lord Walpole:(1500) I
never had but one opinion about him, and that was always most
favourable: nor can I imagine what occasioned your mistake,
unless my calling him a wild boy, where I talked of the
consequences of his father's death. I meant nothing in the
world by wild, but the thoughtlessness of a boy of nineteen,
who comes to the possession of a peerage and an estate. My
partiality, I am sure, could never let me say any thing else
of him.
Mr. Chute's sister is dead. When I came from town Mr. Whithed
had heard nothing of her will - she had about four thousand
pounds. The brother is so capricious a monster, that we
almost hope she has not given the whole to our friend.
You will be diverted with a story I am going to tell You; it
is very long, and so is my letter already; but you perceive I
am in the country and have nothing to hurry me. There is
about town a Sir William Burdett,*1501) a man of a very good
family, but most infamous character. He formerly was at Paris
with a Mrs. Penn, a Quaker's wife, whom he there bequeathed to
the public, and was afterwards a sharper at Brussels, and
lately came to England to discover a plot for poisoning the
Prince of Orange, in which I believe he was poisoner, poison,
and informer all himself. In short, to give you his character
at once, there is a wager entered in the bet-book at White's
(a MS. of which I may one day or other give you an account),
that the first baronet that will be hanged is this Sir William
Burdett. About two months ago he met at St. James's, a Lord
Castledurrow,(1502) a young Irishman, and no genius as you
will find, and entered into conversation with him: the Lord,
seeing a gentleman, fine, polite, and acquainted with every
body, invited him to dinner for next day, and a Captain
Rodney,(1503) a young seaman, who has made a fortune by very
gallant behaviour during the war. At dinner it came out, that
neither the Lord nor the Captain had ever been at any
Pelham-levees. "Good God!" said Sir William, "that must not
be so any longer; I beg I may carry you to both the Duke and
Mr. Pelham: I flatter myself I am very well with both." The
appointment was made for the next Wednesday and Friday; in the
mean time, he invited the two young men to dine with him the
next day. When they came, he presented them to a lady,
dressed foreign, as a princess of the house of' Brandenburg:
she had a toadeater, and there was another man, who gave
himself for a count. After dinner Sir William looked at his
watch, and said, "J-s! it is not so late as I thought by an
hour; Princess, will your Highness say how we shall divert
ourselves till it is time to go to the play!" "Oh!" said she,
"for my part you know I abominate every thing but pharaoh." "I
am very sorry, Madam," replied he, very gravely, "but I don't
know whom your Highness will get to tally to you; you know I
am ruined by dealing'." "Oh!" says she, "the Count will deal
to us." "I would with all my soul." said the Count, "but I
protest I have no money about me." She insisted: at last the
Count said, "Since your Highness commands us peremptorily, I
believe Sir William has four or five hundred pounds of mine,
that I am to pay away in the city to-morrow: if he will be so
good as to step to his bureau for that Sum, I will make a bank
of it." Mr. Rodney owns he was a little astonished at seeing
the Count shuffle with the faces of the cards upwards; but
concluding that Sir 'William Burdett, at whose house he was,
was a relation or particular friend of Lord Castledurrow, he
was unwilling to affront my lord. In short, my lord and he
lost about a hundred and fifty apiece, and it was settled that
they should meet for payment the next morning at breakfast at
Ranelagh, In the mean time Lord C. had the curiosity to
inquire a little int the character of his new friend the
Baronet; and being au fait, he went up to him at Ranelagh and
apostrophized him; "Sir William, here is the sum I think I
lost last night; since that I have heard that you are a
professed pickpocket, and therefore desire to have no further
acquaintance with you." Sir William bowed, took the money and
no notice; but as they were going away, he followed Lord
Castledurrow and said, "Good God, my lord, my equipage is not
come; will you be so good as to set me down at
Buckingham-gate?" and without staying for an answer, whipped
into the chariot and came to town with him. If you don't
admire the coolness of this impudence, I shall wonder. Adieu!
I have written till I can scarce write my name.(1504)
(1494) Lord Granville's house in Arlington Street was the
lowest in the street on the side of the Green-park-D.
(1495) John, second Viscount St. John, the only surviving son
of Henry, first Viscount St. John, by his second wife,
Angelica Magdalene, daughter of George Pillesary,
treasurer-general of the marines in France, He was half-
brother of the celebrated Henry, Viscount Bolingbroke, who was
the only son of the said Henry, first Viscount St. John, by
his first wife Mary, second daughter of Robert Rich, Earl of
Warwick. John, second Viscount St. John, was the direct
ancestor of the present Viscount Bolingbroke and St. John.-D.
(1496) Sir Dudley Ryder.
(1497) In consequence of the University's always electing
Jacobites to that office.-D.
(1498) Lady Charlotte Boyle, second daughter of Richard, Earl
of Burlington and Cork, and wife of William, Marquis of
Hartington.
(1499) William Cavendish, afterwards fifth Duke of Devonshire,
and Knight of the Garter. He died in 1811.-D.
(1500) George, third Earl of Orford.
(1501) Sir William Vigors Burdett, of Dunmore, in the county
of Carlow.-E.
(1502) Henry Flower, Lord Castledurrow, and afterwards created
Viscount Ashbrook.
(1503) George Brydges Rodney. He had distinguished himself in
Lord Hawke's victory, In 1761 he took the French island of
Martinique. In 1779 he met and defeated the Spanish fleet
commanded by Don Juan de Langara, and relieved the garrison of
gibraltar, which was closely besieged; and in 1789, he
obtained his celebrated victory over the French fleet
commanded by Count de Grasse. For this latter service he was
created a peer, by the title of Baron Rodney, of Rodney Stoke
in the county of Somerset. He died May 24, 1792.
The letter which immediately followed this miscarried.