the Appian is somewhat tiresome. We dined at Pompey's; he indeed was
gone for a few days to his Tusculan, but, by the care of his Villicus,
we made an admirable meal. We had the dugs of a pregnant sow, a peacock,
a dish of thrushes, a noble scarus just fresh from the Tyrrhene, and
some conchylia of the Lake with garum sauce: For my part I never eat
better at Lucullus's table. We drank half-a-dozen cyathi a-piece of
ancient Alban to Pholoe's health; and after bathing, and playing an hour
at ball, we mounted our essedum again, and proceeded up the mount to the
temple. The priests there entertained us with an account of a wonderful
shower of bird's eggs that had fallen two days before, which had no
sooner touched the ground, but they were converted into gudgeons; as
also that, the night past, a dreadful voice had been heard out of the
Adytum, which spoke Greek during a full half-hour, but nobody understood
it. But quitting my Romanities, to your great joy and mine, let me tell
you in plain English, that we come from Albano. The present town lies
within the inclosure of Pompey's Villa in ruins. The Appian way runs
through it, by the side of which, a little farther, is a large old
tomb, with five pyramids upon it, which the learned suppose to be the
burying-place of the family, because they do not know whose it can be
else. But the vulgar assure you it is the sepulchre of the Curiatii, and
by that name (such is their power) it goes. One drives to Castle
Gandolfo, a house of the Pope's, situated on the top of one of the
Collinette, that forms a brim to the basin, commonly called the Alban
lake. It is seven miles round; and directly opposite to you, on the
other side, rises the Mons Albanus, much taller than the rest, along
whose side are still discoverable (not to common eyes) certain little
ruins of the old Alba Longa. They had need be very little, as having
been nothing but ruins ever since the days of Tullus Hostilius. On its
top is a house of the Constable Colonna's, where stood the temple of
Jupiter Latialis. At the foot of the hill Gandolfo, are the famous
outlets of the lake, built with hewn stone, a mile and a half under
ground. Livy you know, amply informs us of the foolish occasion of this
expence, and gives me this opportunity of displaying all my erudition,
that I may appear considerable in your eyes. This is the prospect from
one window of the palace. From another you have the whole Campagna, the
City, Antium, and the Tyrrhene sea (twelve miles distant) so
distinguishable, that you may see the vessels sailing upon it. All this
is charming. Mr. Walpole says, our memory sees more than our eyes in
this country. Which is extremely true; since, for realities, Windsor or
Richmond Hill is infinitely preferable to Albano or Frescati. I am now
at home, and going to the window to tell you it is the most beautiful of
Italian nights, which, in truth, are but just begun (so backward has the
spring been here, and every where else, they say) There is a moon! there
are stars for you! Do not you hear the fountain? Do not you smell the
orange flowers? That building yonder is the convent of S. Isidore; and
that eminence, with the cypress trees and pines upon it, the top of M.
Quirinal. This is all true, and yet my prospect is not two hundred yards
in length.
21. TO WHARTON
Dear Doctor
Whatever my pen may do, I am sure my thoughts expatiate nowhere oftener
or with more pleasure, than to Old-Park. I hope you have made my peace
with Miss Deborah. it is certain, whether her name were in my letter or
not, she was as present to my memory, as the rest of the little family,
& I desire you would present her with two kisses in my name, & one
a-piece to all the others: for I shall take the liberty to kiss them all
(great & small) as you are to be my proxy.
In spite of the rain, w^ch I think continued with very short intervals
till the beginning of this month, & quite effaced the summer from the
year, I made a shift to pass May & June not disagreeably in Kent. I was
surprised at the beauty of the road to Canterbury, which (I know not
why) had not struck me in the same manner before. The whole country is a
rich and well-cultivated garden, orchards, cherry-grounds, hop-gardens,
intermix'd with corn & frequent villages, gentle risings cover'd with
wood, and everywhere the Thames and Medway breaking in upon the
Landscape with all their navigation. It was indeed owing to the bad
weather, that the whole scene was dress'd in that tender emerald-green,
w^ch one usually sees only for a fortnight in the opening of spring, &
this continued till I left the country. My residence was eight miles
east of Canterbury in a little quiet valley on the skirts of
Barhamdown. In these parts the whole soil is chalk, and whenever it
holds up, in half an hour it is dry enough to walk out. I took the
opportunity of three or four days fine weather to go into the Isle of
Thanet, saw Margate (w^ch is Bartholomew-Fair by the sea side),
Ramsgate, & other places there, and so came by Sandwich, Deal, Dover,
Folkstone, & Hithe, back again. The coast is not like Hartlepool: there
are no rocks, but only chalky cliffs of no great height, till you come
to Dover. There indeed they are noble & picturesque, and the opposite
coasts of France begin to bound your view, w^ch was left before to range
unlimited by anything but the horizon: yet it is by no means a
_shipless_ sea, but everywhere peopled with white sails & vessels of all
sizes in motion. And take notice (except in the Isle, w^ch is all
corn-fields, and has very little inclosure) there are in all places
hedgerows & tall trees even within a few yards of the beach.
Particularly Hithe stands on an eminence cover'd with wood. I shall
confess we had fires of a night (ay, & a day too) several times even in
June: but don't go & take advantage of this, for it was the most
untoward year that ever I remember.
Your Friend Rousseau (I doubt) grows tired of M^r Davenport and
Derbyshire. He has picked a quarrel with David Hume & writes him letters
of 14 pages Folio upbraiding him of all his _noirceurs_. Take one only
as a specimen, he says, that at Calais they chanced to sleep in the same
room together, & that he overheard David talking in his sleep, and
saying, _Ah! Je le tiens, ce Jean-Jacques la._ In short (I fear) for
want of persecution & admiration (for these are real complaints) he will
go back to the Continent.
What shall I say to you about the Ministry? I am as angry as a
Common-council Man of London about my L^d Chatham: but a little more
patient, & will hold my tongue till the end of the year. In the mean
time I do mutter in secret & to you, that to quit the house of Commons,
his natural strength; to sap his own popularity & grandeur (which no one
but himself could have done) by assuming a foolish title; & to hope that
he could win by it and attach to him a Court, that hate him, & will
dismiss him, as soon as ever they dare, was the weakest thing, that ever
was done by so great a Man. Had it not been for this, I should have
rejoiced at the breach between him & L^d Temple, & at the union between
him & the D: of Grafton & M^r Conway: but patience! we shall see!
St:[108] perhaps is in the country (for he hoped for a month's leave of
absence) and if you see him, you will learn more than I can tell you.
Mason is at Aston. He is no longer so anxious about his wife's health,
as he was, tho' I find she still has a cough, & moreover I find she is
not with child: but he made such a bragging, how could one choose but
believe him.
When I was in town, I mark'd in my pocket-book the utmost limits &
divisions of the two columns in your Thermometer, and asked Mr. Ayscough
the Instrument-Maker on Ludgate Hill, what scales they were. He
immediately assured me, that one was Fahrenheit's, & shew'd me one
exactly so divided. The other he took for Reaumur's, but, as he said
there were different scales of his contrivance, he could not exactly
tell, w^ch of them it was. Your Brother told me, you wanted to know,
who wrote Duke Wharton's life in the Biography: I think, it is chiefly
borrowed from a silly book enough call'd _Memoirs of that Duke_: but who
put it together there, no one can inform me. The only person certainly
known to write in that vile collection (I mean these latter volumes) is
D^r Nicholls, who was expell'd here for stealing books.
Have you read the _New Bath-Guide_?[109] it is the only thing in
fashion, & is a new & original kind of humour. Miss Prue's Conversion I
doubt you will paste down, as S^r W: S^t Quintyn did, before he carried
it to his daughter. Yet I remember you all read _Crazy Tales_[110]
without pasting. Buffon's first collection of Monkeys are come out (it
makes the 14^th volume) something, but not much, to my edification: for
he is pretty well acquainted with their persons, but not with their
manners.
I shall be glad to hear, how far M^rs Ettrick has succeeded, & when you
see an end to her troubles. my best respects to Mrs. Wharton, &
compliments to all your family: I will not name them, least I should
affront any body. Adieu, dear S^r,
I am most sincerely yours,
TG:
August 26, 1766, Pembroke College.
Mr. Brown is gone to see his Brother near Margate. When is L^d Str:[111]
to be married? If M^r and M^rs Jonathan are with you, I desire my
compliments.
FOOTNOTES:
[108] "St." is Richard Stonhewer, a Fellow of Peterhouse, secretary to
the Duke of Grafton, and a man of considerable, though not public,
importance in politics.
[109] Anstey's--referred to in the Introduction.
[110] By Sterne's friend, John Hall Stevenson.
[111] Lord Strathmore.
HORACE WALPOLE (1717-1797)
[AND W. M. THACKERAY].
As much has been already said of Horace Walpole's letters,
but practically nothing of his other works except his novel
and his play, something more may be added here to show that
he was not _merely_ a "trifler." His private press at
"Strawberry" was mainly a means of amusement to him, like a
billiard-room or a tennis-court. But it provided some useful
books--such as editions of Anthony Hamilton's _Memoirs of
Grammont_, of Lord Herbert of Cherbury's _Life_ and of part
of Gray's _Poems_. He had neither historic knowledge nor
historic sense enough to deal satisfactorily with such a
subject as _Historic Doubts on Richard III._, though the
subject itself was quite worth dealing with. But his
_Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors_, his _Anecdotes of
Painting in England_, and his _Catalogue of Engravers_ are
not without value; and he could usefully handle the history
of his own time, with proper corrections for his prejudices,
etc. He was weakest of all as a literary critic: and his
dealings with Chatterton were most unfortunate, though the
mischief done was not intentional, and might not have been
serious in any other case. These things have been said with
a definite purpose--that of showing that Horace's interests,
if seldom deep, were unusually wide. Now though width of
interest is not, as Cowper's case shows, indispensable to
goodness of letter-writing, it is a very great qualification
for it, as giving to the result variety, colour, and "bite."
At the same time, unless one had space on a very different
scale from any possible here, it would be _im_possible to
illustrate this "extensive curiosity" as they called it
then: and Horace ought to be shown here in his _most_ native
element as a chronicler of "society." I have thought it
worth while to subjoin for comparison Thackeray's wonderful
_pastiche_ in _The Virginians_, which is almost better
Horace than Horace himself.[112]
22. TO THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY
ARLINGTON STREET,
April 31. 1773
It is most true, madam, that I did purpose to regale myself with a visit
to Ampthill; but this winter, which has trod hard upon last week's
summer, blunted my intention for a while, though revivable in finer
weather. Oh! but I had another reason for changing my mind; you are
leaving Ampthill, and I do not mean only to write my name in your
park-keeper's book. Yes, in spite of your ladyship's low spirited mood,
you are coming from Ampthill, and you are to be at Strawberry Hill
to-morrow se'nnight. You may not be in the secret, but Lord Ossory and I
have settled it, and you are to be pawned to me while he is at
Newmarket. He told me you certainly would if I asked it, and as they
used to say in ancient writ, I do beg it upon the knees of my heart.
Nay, it is unavoidable; for though a lady's word may be ever so
crackable, you cannot have the conscience to break your husband's word,
so I depend upon it. I have asked Mr. Craufurd to meet you, but begged
he would refuse me, that I might be sure of his coming. Mrs Meynel has
taken another year's lease of her house, so you probably, madam, will
not be tired of me for the livelong day for the whole time you shall
honour my mansion. Your face will be well and your fever gone a week
before to-morrow se'nnight, and you will look as well as ever you did in
your life, that is, as you have done lately, which is better than ever
you did before. You must not, in truth, expect that I your shepherd
should be quite so fit to figure in a fan mount. Besides the gout for
six months, which makes some flaws in the bloom of elderly Arcadians, I
have been so far from keeping sheep for the last ten days, that I have
kept nothing but bad hours; and have been such a rake that I put myself
in mind of a poor old cripple that I saw formerly at Hogarth's auction:
he bid for the Rake's Progress, saying, "I will buy my own progress,"
though he looked as if he had no more title to it than I have, but by
limping and sitting up. In short, I have been at four balls since
yesterday se'nnight, though I had the prudence not to stay supper at
Lord Stanley's. That festival was very expensive, for it is the fashion
now to make romances rather than balls. In the hall was a band of French
horns and clarionets in laced uniforms and feathers. The dome of the
staircase was beautifully illuminated with coloured glass lanthorns; in
the ante-room was a bevy of vestals in white habits, making tea; in the
next, a drapery of sarcenet, that with a very funereal air crossed the
chimney, and depended in vast festoons over the sconces. The third
chamber's doors were heightened with candles in gilt vases, and the
ballroom was formed into an oval with benches above each other, not
unlike pews, and covered with red serge, above which were arbours of
flowers, red and green pilasters, more sarcenet, and Lord March's
glasses, which he had lent, as an upholsterer asked Lord Stanley 300l.
for the loan of some. He had burst open the side of the wall to build an
orchestra, with a pendant mirror to reflect the dancers, a la Guisnes;
and the musicians were in scarlet robes, like the candle-snuffers who
represent the senates of Venice at Drury Lane. There were two more
chambers at which I never arrived for the crowd. The seasons, danced by
himself, the younger Storer, the Duc de Lauzun and another, the youngest
Miss Stanley, Miss Poole, the youngest Wrottesley and another Miss, who
is likewise anonymous in my memory, were in errant shepherdly dresses
without invention, and Storer and Miss Wrottesley in banians with furs,
for winter, cock and hen. In six rooms below were magnificent suppers. I
was not quite so sober last night at Mons. de Guisnes', where the
evening began with a ball of children, from eighteen to four years old.
They danced amazingly well, yet disappointed me, so many of them were
ugly; but Dr. Delawarr's two eldest daughters and the Ancaster infanta
performed a pas de trois as well as Mlle. Heinel, and the two eldest
were pretty; yet I promise you, madam, the next age will be a thousand
degrees below the present in beauty. The most interesting part was to
observe the anxiety of the mothers while their children danced or
supped; they supped at ten in three rooms. I should not omit telling you
that the Vernons, especially the eldest, were not the homeliest part of
the show. The former quadrilles then came again upon the stage, and
Harry Conway the younger was so astonished at the agility of Mrs.
Hobart's bulk, that he said he was sure she must be hollow. The tables
were again spread in five rooms, and at past two in the morning we went
to supper. To excuse _we_, I must plead that both the late and present
chancellor, and the solemn Lord Lyttleton, my predecessors by some
years, stayed as late as I did--and in good sooth the watchman went four
as my chairman knocked at my door.
Such is the result of good resolutions! I determined during my illness
to have my colt's tooth drawn, and lo! I have cut four new in a week.
Well! at least I am as grave as a judge, looked as rosy as Lord
Lyttleton, and much soberer than my Lord Chancellor. To shew some marks
of grace, I shall give up the opera, (indeed it is very bad) and go and
retake my doctor's degrees among the dowagers at Lady Blandford's; and
intending to have no more diversions than I have news to tell your
ladyship, I think you shall not hear from me again till we meet, as I
shall think it, in heaven.
23. (_Thackeray imitating_). TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY
ARLINGTON STREET, Friday night.
I have come away, child, for a day or two from my devotions to our Lady
of Strawberry. Have I not been on my knees to her these three weeks, and
aren't the poor old joints full of rheumatism? A fit took me that I
would pay London a visit, that I would go to Vauxhall and Ranelagh.
_Quoi!_ May I not have my rattle as well as other elderly babies?
Suppose, after being so long virtuous, I take a fancy to cakes and ale,
shall your reverence say nay to me? George Selwyn and Tony Storer and
your humble servant took boat at Westminster t'other night. Was it
Tuesday?--no, Tuesday I was with their Graces of Norfolk, who are just
from Tunbridge--it was Wednesday. How should I know?
Wasn't I dead drunk with a whole pint of lemonade I took at White's?
The Norfolk folk had been entertaining me on Tuesday with the account of
a young savage Iroquois, Choctaw, or Virginian, who has lately been
making a little noise in our quarter of the globe. He is an offshoot of
that disreputable family of Esmond-Castlewood, of whom all the men are
gamblers and spendthrifts, and all the women--well, I shan't say the
word, lest Lady Ailesbury should be looking over your shoulder. Both the
late lords, my father told me, were in his pay, and the last one, a beau
of Queen Anne's reign, from a viscount advanced to be an earl through
the merits and intercession of his notorious old sister Bernstein, late
Tusher, _nee_ Esmond--a great beauty, too, of her day, a favourite of
the old Pretender. She sold his secrets to my papa, who paid her for
them; and being nowise particular in her love for the Stuarts, came over
to the august Hanoverian house at present reigning over us. "Will Horace
Walpole's tongue never stop scandal?" says your wife over your shoulder.
I kiss your ladyship's hand. I am dumb. The Bernstein is a model of
virtue. She had no good reasons for marrying her father's chaplain. Many
of the nobility omit the marriage altogether. She _wasn't_ ashamed of
being Mrs. Tusher, and didn't take a German _Baroncino_ for a second
husband, whom nobody out of Hanover ever saw. The Yarmouth bears no
malice. Esther and Vashti are very good friends, and have been cheating
each other at Tunbridge at cards all the summer.
"And what has all this to do with the Iroquois?" says your ladyship. The
Iroquois has been at Tunbridge, too--not cheating, perhaps, but winning
vastly. They say he has bled Lord March of thousands--Lord March, by
whom so much blood hath been shed, that he has quarrelled with
everybody, fought with everybody, rode over everybody, been fallen in
love with by everybody's wife except Mr. Conway's, and _not_ excepting
her present Majesty, the Countess of England, Scotland, France and
Ireland, Queen of Walmoden and Yarmouth, whom heaven preserve to us.
You know an offensive little creature _de par le monde_, one Jack
Morris, who skips in and out of all the houses of London. When we were
at Vauxhall, Mr. Jack gave us a nod under the shoulder of a pretty young
fellow enough, on whose arm he was leaning, and who appeared hugely
delighted with the enchantments of the garden. Lord, how he stared at
the fireworks! Gods, how he huzzayed at the singing of a horrible
painted wench who shrieked the ears off my head! A twopenny string of
glass beads and a strip of tawdry cloth are treasures in Iroquois-land,
and our savage valued them accordingly.
A buzz went about the place that this was the fortunate youth. He won
three hundred at White's last night very genteelly from Rockingham and
my precious nephew, and here he was bellowing and huzzaying over the
music so as to do you good to hear. I do not love a puppet-show, but I
love to treat children to one, Miss Conway! I present your ladyship my
compliments, and hope we shall go and see the dolls together.
When the singing-woman came down from her throne, Jack Morris must
introduce my Virginian to her. I saw him blush up to the eyes, and make
her, upon my word, a very fine bow, such as I had no idea was practised
in wigwams. "There is a certain _jenny squaw_ about her, and that's why
the savage likes her," George said--a joke certainly not as brilliant as
a firework. After which it seemed to me that the savage and the savagess
retired together.
Having had a great deal too much to eat and drink three hours before, my
partners must have chicken and rack-punch at Vauxhall, where George fell
asleep straightway, and for my sins I must tell Tony Storer what I knew
about this Virginian's amiable family, especially some of the
Bernstein's antecedents and the history of another elderly beauty of the
family, a certain Lady Maria, who was _au mieux_ with the late Prince of
Wales. What did I say? I protest not half of what I knew, and of course
not a tenth part of what I was going to tell, for who should start out
upon us but my savage, this time quite red in the face; and in his _war
paint_. The wretch had been drinking fire-water in the next box!
He cocked his hat, clapped his hand to his sword, asked which of the
gentlemen was it that was maligning his family? so that I was obliged to
entreat him not to make such a noise, lest he should wake my friend Mr.
George Selwyn. And I added, "I assure you, sir, I had no idea that you
were near me, and I most sincerely apologize for giving you pain."
The Huron took his hand off his tomahawk at this pacific rejoinder, made
a bow not ungraciously, said he could not, of course, ask more than an
apology from a gentleman of my age (_Merci, Monsieur!_) and, hearing the
name of Mr. Selwyn, made another bow to George, and said he had a letter
to him from Lord March, which he had had the ill-fortune to mislay.
George has put him up for the club, it appears, in conjunction with
March, and no doubt these three lambs will fleece each other. Meanwhile,
my pacified savage sat down with us, and _buried the hatchet_ in another
bowl of punch, for which these gentlemen must call. Heaven help us! 'Tis
eleven o'clock, and here comes Bedson with my gruel!
H. W.
FOOTNOTES:
[112] There is an amicable dispute among Thackerayans whether this or
the imitation-_Spectator_ paper in _Esmond_ is the more wonderful of
their joint kind. To facilitate this comparison the letter part (for
there is one) of that paper will be given here under Thackeray's own
name.
TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT (1721-1771)
Smollett's reputation has been of course always mainly,
indeed almost wholly, that of a novelist, though his
miscellaneous work is of no small merit. But that he wrote
his best novel _in_ letters and that perhaps it is one of
the best so written, has been mentioned. His _Travels_ are
also of the letter-kind--especially of the
ill-tempered-letter-kind. Of his actual correspondence we
have not much. But the following has always seemed to the
present writer an admirable and agreeably characteristic
example. Smollett's outwardly surly but inwardly kindly
temper, and his command of phrase ("great Cham of
literature" has, as we say now, "stuck") both appear in it:
and the matter is interesting. We have, so far as I
remember, no record of any interview between Johnson and
Smollett, though they must have met. They were both Tories,
and Johnson wrote in the _Critical Review_ which Smollett
edited. But Johnson's gibes at Scotland are not likely to
have conciliated Smollett: and there was just that
combination of likeness and difference between the two men
which (especially as the one was as typically English as the
other was Scotch) generates incompatibility. How
victoriously Wilkes got over Johnson's personal dislike to
him all readers of Boswell know: and it is one of the most
amusing passages in the book. On this occasion, too, he did
what was asked of him. "Frank" had not been _pressed_, but
had joined for some reason of his own. However, he accepted
his discharge and returned to his master, staying till that
master's death.
24. TO JOHN WILKES, ESQ.