Letter 160To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

February 4, 1779. (page 215)

I have received the manuscript, and though you forbid my naming

the subject more, I love truth, and truth in a friend so much,

that I must tell you, that so far from taking your sincerity ill,

I had much rather you should act with your native honest

sincerity than say you was pleased with my manuscript. I have

always tried as much as is in human nature to divest myself of

the self-love of an author; in the present case I had less

difficulty than ever, for I never thought my Life of Mr. Baker

one of my least indifferent works. You might, believe me, have

sent me your long letter; whatever it contained, it would not

have made a momentary cloud between us. I have not only

friendship, but great gratitude for you, for a thousand instances

of kindness; and should detest any writing of mine that made a

breach with a friend, and still more, if it could make me forget

obligations.

Letter 161 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

February 18, 1779. (page 215)

I sent you my Chattertoniad(344) last week,,in hopes it would

sweeten your pouting; but I find it has not, or has miscarried;

for You have not 'acknowledged the receipt with your usual

punctuality.

Have you seen Hasted's new History of Kent?(345) I am sailing

through it, but am stopped every minute by careless mistakes.

They tell me the author has good materials, but is very

negligent, and so I perceive, He has not even given a list of

monuments in the churches, which I do not remember in any history

of a county; but he is rich in pedigrees; though I suppose they

have many errors too, as I have found some in those I am

acquainted with- It is unpardonable to be inaccurate in a work in

which one nor expects nor demands any thing but fidelity.(346)

We have a great herald arising in a very noble race, Lord de

Ferrers. I hope to make him a Gothic architect too, for he is

going to repair Tamworth Castle and flatters me that I shall give

him sweet counseil! I enjoin him to kernellare. Adieu! Yours

ever.

(344) "A Letter to the Editor of the Miscellanies of Thomas

Chatterton." Strawberry Hill, 1779, 8vo.-E.

(345) "The History and Topographical Survey of the County of

Kent; by Edward Hasted," four volumes, folio, 1778-1799. A

second and improved edition, in twelve volumes, octavo, appeared

in 1797-1801. Mr. Hasted died in 1812 at the age of eighty.-E.

(346) in a memoir of himself, which, he drew up for the

Gentleman's Magazein, to be published after his death, he says,

"his laborious History of Kent took him more than forty years;

during the whole series of which

he spared neither pains nor expense to bring it to maturity."-E.

Letter 162 To Sir David Dalrymple.(347)

Arlington Street, March 12, 1779. (page 216)

I have received this moment from your bookseller, Sir, the

valuable present of the second volume of your "Annals," and beg

leave to return you my grateful thanks for so agreeable a gift,

of which I can only have taken a look enough to lament that you

do not intend to continue the work. Repeated and severe attacks

of the gout forbid my entertaining- visions of pleasures to come;

but though I might not have the advantage of your labours, Sir, I

wish too well to posterity not to be sorry that you check your

hand.

Lord Buchan did me the honour lately of consulting me on

portraits of illustrious Scots. I recollect that there is at

Windsor a very good portrait of your countryman Duns Scotus,(348)

whose name struck me on just turning over your volume. A good

print was made from that picture some years ago, but I believe it

is not very scarce: as it is not worth while to trouble his

lordship with another letter for that purpose only, may I take

the liberty, Sir, of begging you to mention it to his lordship?

(347) Now first collected.

(348) Granger considers the portrait of Windsor not to be

genuine. Of Duns Scotus, he says, "It requires one half of a

man's life to read the works of this profound doctor, and the ,

other to understand his subtleties. His printed works are in

twelve volumes in folio! His manuscripts are sleeping in Merton

College, Oxford. Voluminous works frequently arise from the

ignorance and confused ideas of the authors: if angels, says Mr.

Norris, were writers, we should have few folios. He was the head

of the sect of schoolmen called scotists. He died in 1308."-E.

Letter 163 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Strawberry Hill, March 28, 1779. (page 216)

Your last called for no answer; and I have so little to tell you,

that I only write to-day to avoid the air of remissness. I came

hither on Friday, for this last week has been too hot to stay in

London; but March is arrived this morning with his northeasterly

malice, and I suppose will assert his old-style claim to the

third of April. The poor infant apricots will be the victims to

that Herod of the almanack. I have been much amused with new

travels through Spain by a Mr. Swinburne(349)--at least with the

Alhambra, of the inner parts of which there are two beautiful

prints. The Moors were the most polished, and had the most taste

of any people in the Gothic ages; and I hate the knave Ferdinand

and his bigoted Queen for destroying them. These new travels are

simple, and do tell you a little more than late voyagers, by

whose accounts one would think there was nothing in Spain but

muleteers and fandangos. In truth, there does not seem to be

much worth seeing but prospects; and those, unless I were a bird,

I would never visit, when the accommodations are so wretched.

Mr. Cumberland has given the town a masque, called Calypso,(350)

which is a prodigy of dulness. Would you believe, that such a

sentimental Writer would be so gross as to make cantharides one

of the ingredients of a love-potion, for enamouring Telemachus?

If you think I exaggerate, here are the lines:

"To these, the hot Hispanian fly

Shall bid his languid pulse beat high."

Proteus and Antiope are Minerva's missioners for securing the

prince's virtue, and in recompense they are married and crowned

king and queen!

I have bought at Hudson's sale a fine design of a chimney-piece,

by Holbein, for Henry VIII. If I had a room left I would erect.

It is certainly not so Gothic as that in my Holbein room; but

there is a great deal of taste for that bastard style; perhaps it

was executed at Nonsuch. I do intend, under Mr. Essex's

inspection, to begin my offices next spring. It is late in my

day, I confess, to return to brick and mortar but I shall be glad

to perfect my plan, or the' next possessor will marry my castle

to a Doric stable. There is a perspective through two or three

rooms in the Alhambra, that might easily be improved into Gothic,

though there seems but small affinity between them; and they

might be finished within with Dutch tiles, and painting, or bits

of ordinary marble, as there must be gilding. Mosaic seems to be

their chief ornaments, for walls, ceilings, and floors. Fancy

must sport in the furniture, and mottos might be gallant, and

would be very Arabesque. I would have a mixture of colours, but

with a strict attention to harmony and taste; and some one should

predominate, as supposing it the favourite colour of the lady who

was sovereign of the knight's affections who built the house.

Carpets are classically Mahometans, and fountains--but, alas! our

climate till last summer was never romantic! Were I not so old, I

would at least build a Moorish novel-for you see my head Turns on

Granada-and by taking the most picturesque parts of the Mahometan

and Catholic religions, and with the mixture of African and

Spanish names, one might make something very agreeable--at least

I will not give the hint to Mr. Cumberland. Adieu! Yours ever.

(349) "Travels through Spain in the Years 1775 and 1776; in which

several Monuments of Roman and Moorish Architecture are

illustrated by accurate Drawings taken on the spot. By Henry

Swinburne." London, 1779, 4to. Mr. Swinburne also published, in

1783-5 his "Travels in the Two Sicilies during the Years

1777-8-9, and 1780." This celebrated traveller was the youngest

son of Sir John Swinburne, of Capheaton, Northumberland; the

long-established seat of that ancient Roman Catholic family.

Pecuniary embarrassments, arising from the marriage of his

daughter to Paul Benfield, Esq. and consequent involvement in

the misfortunes of that adventurer, induced him to obtain a Place

in the newly-ceded settlement of Trinidad, where he died in

1803.-E.

(350) "Calypso" was brought out at Covent-Garden theatre, but was

performed only a few nights. \ It was imprudently ushered in by

a prelude, in which the author treated the newspaper editors as a

set of unprincipled fellows.-E.

Letter 164 To Edward Gibbon, Esq.(351)

(1779.] (page 218)

The penetration, solidity, and taste, that made you the first of

historians, dear Sir, prevent my being surprised at your being

the best writer of controversial pamphlets too.(352) I have read

you with more precipitation than such a work deserved, but I

could not disobey you and detain it. Yet even in that hurry I

could discern, besides a thousand beauties and strokes of wit,

the inimitable eighty-third page, and the conscious dignity that

you maintain throughout, over your monkish antagonists. When you

are so superior in argument, it would look like insensibility to

the power of your reasoning, to select transient passages for

commendation; and yet I must mention one that pleased me

particularly, from the delicacy of the severity, and from its

novelty too; it is, bold is not the word. This is the feathered

arrow of Cupid, that is more formidable than the club of

Hercules. I need not specify thanks, when I prove how much I

have been pleased. Your most obliged.

(351) Now first collected.

(352) Gibbon's celebrated "Vindication" of the Fifteenth and

Sixteenth Chapters of his History appeared early in the year

1779. "I adhered," he says in his Memoirs, "to the wise

resolution of trusting myself and my writing to the candour of

the public, till Mr. Davis of Oxford presumed to attack, not the

faith but the fidelity of the historian. My Vindication,

expressive of less anger than contempt, amused for a moment the

busy and idle metropolis; and the most rational Part of the

laity, and even of the clergy, appear to have been satisfied of

my innocence and accuracy I would not print it in quarto, lest it

should be bound and preserved with the history itself At the

distance of twelve years, I calmly affirm my judgment of Davis,

Chelsum, etc. A victory over such antagonists was a sufficient

humiliation. They, however were rewarded in this world, Poor

Chelsum was, indeed, neglected; and I dare not boast the making

Dr. Watson a bishop: he is a prelate of a large mind and a

liberal spirit: but I enjoyed the pleasure of giving a royal

pension to Mr. Davis, and of collating Dr. Althorpe to an

archiepiscopal living."-E.

Letter 165 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Arlington Street, April 12, 1779. (page 218)

As your gout was so concise, I will not condole on it, but I am

sorry you are liable to it if you do but take the air. Thank you

for telling me of the vendible curiosities at the Alderman's.

For St. Peter's portrait to hang to a fairie's watch, I shall not

think of it, both as I do not believe it very like, and as it is

composed of invisible Writing, for which my eyes are not young

enough. In truth, I have almost left off making purchases: I

have neither room for any thing more, nor inclination for them,

as I reckon every thing very dear when One has so little time to

enjoy it. However, I cannot say but the plates by Rubens do

tempt me a little--yet, as I do not care to, buy even Rubens in a

poke, I should wish to know if the Alderman would let me see. if

it were but one. Would he be persuaded? I would pay for the

carriage, though I should not buy them.

Lord de Ferrers will be infinitely happy with the sight of the

pedigree, and I will certainly tell him of it, and how kind you

are.

Strype's account, or rather Stow's, of Richard's person is very

remarkable--but I have done with endeavouring at truth. Weeds

grow more naturally than what one plants. I hear your

Cantabrigians are still unshaken Chattertonians. Many men are

about falsehood like girls about the first man that makes love to

them: a handsomer, a richer, or even a sincerer lover cannot

eradicate the first impression--but a sillier swain, or a sillier

legend, sometimes gets into the head of a miss or the learned

man, and displaces the antecedent folly. Truth's kingdom is not

of this world.

I do not know whether our clergy are growing Mahometans or not:

they certainly are not what they profess themselves--but as you

and I should not agree perhaps in assigning the same defects to

them, I will not enter on a subject which I have promised you to

drop. All I allude to now is, the shocking murder of Miss

Ray(353) by a divine. In my own opinion we are growing more fit

for Bedlam, than for Mahomet's paradise. The poor criminal in

question, I am persuaded, is mad--and the misfortune is, the law

does not know how to define the shades of madness; and thus there

-are twenty outpensioners of Bedlam, for the one that is

confined. You, dear Sir, have chosen a wiser path to happiness

by depending on yourself for amusement. Books and past ages draw

one into no scrapes, and perhaps it is best not to know much of

men till they are dead. I wish you health -,You want nothing

else. I am, dear Sir, yours most truly.

(353) On the 7th of April, Miss Reay, who had been the mistress

of Lord Sandwich for twenty years, by whom she was the mother of

many children, was shot, on her leaving Covent-Garden theatre, by

the Rev. James Hackman, who had the living of Wiverton, in

Norfolk, a young man not half her age, who had imbibed a violent

passion for her, whom he first met at Lord Sandwich's seat at

Hinchinbroke, where he had been frequently invited to dine while

commanding a recruiting party at Huntingdon; he being, previously

to his entering the church, a lieutenant in the 68th regiment of

foot. Having shot Miss Reay, he fired a pistol at himself; but,

being only wounded by it, he was tried at the Old Bailey,

convicted, and executed.-E.

Letter 166 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Arlington Street, April 20, 1779. (page 219)

Dear Sir,

I have received the plates very safely, but hope You nor the

Alderman,(354) will take it ill that I return them. They are

extremely pretty, and uncommonly well preserved; but I am sure

they are not by Rubens, nor I believe after his designs, for I am

persuaded they are older than his time. In truth, I have a great

many Of the same sort, and do not wish for more. I shall send

them back on Thursday by the Fly, and will beg you to inquire

after them; and I trust they will arrive as safely as they did to

Yours ever.

(354) Alderman John Boydell, an English engraver; distinguished

as an encourager of the fine arts. In 1790 he held the office of

Lord Mayor of London, and died in 1804.-E.

Letter 167 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

April 23, 1779. (page 220)

I ought not to trouble you so often when you are not well; but

that is the very cause of my writing now. You left off abruptly

from disorder, and therefore I wish to know it is gone. The

plates I hope got home safe. They are pretty, especially the

reverses; but the drawing in general is bad.

Pray tell me what you mean by a priced catalogue of the pictures

at Houghton. Is it a printed one? if it is, where is it to be

had?--odd questions from me, and which I should not wish to have

mentioned as coming from me. I have been told to-day that they

are actually sold to the Czarina--sic transit! mortifying enough,

were not every thing transitory! we must recollect that our

griefs and pains are so, as well as our joys and glories; and, by

balancing the account, a grain of comfort is to be extracted!

Adieu! I shall be heartily glad to receive a better account of

you.

Letter 168 To Mrs. Abington.(355)

(1779.] (page 220)

Mr. Walpole cannot express how much he is mortified that he

cannot accept of Mrs. Abington's obliging invitation, as he had

engaged company to dine with him on Sunday at Strawberry-hill;

whom he would put off, if not foreigners who are leaving England.

Mr. Walpole hopes, however, that this accident will not prevent

an acquaintance, which his admiration of Mrs. Abington'S genius

has made him long desire; and which he hopes to cultivate at

Strawberry Bill, when her leisure will give him leave to trouble

her with an invitation.

(355) Now first collected.

Letter 169 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Arlington Street, May 21, 1779. (page 221)

As Mr. Essex has told me that you still continue out of order, I

am impatient to hear from yourself how you are. Do send me a

line: I hope it will be a satisfactory one. you know that Dr.

Ducarel has published a translation of a

History of the Abbey of Bec! There is a pretty print to it: and

one very curious circumstance, at least valuable to us disciples

of Alma Mater Etonensis. The ram-hunting was derived from the

manor of Wrotham in Norfolk, which formerly belonged to Bec, and

being forfeited, together with other alien priories, was bestowed

by Henry VI. on our college. I do not repine at reading any

book from which I can learn a single fact that I wish to know.

For the lives of the abbots, they were, according to the author,

all pinks of piety and holiness but there are few other facts

amusing, especially with regard to the customs of those savage

times-excepting that the Empress Matilda was buried in a bull's

hide, and afterwards had a tomb covered with silver. There is

another new book called "Sketches from Nature," in two volumes,

by Mr. G. Keate, in which I found one fact too, that, if

authentic, is worth knowing. The work is an imitation of Sterne,

and has a sort of merit, though nothing that arrives at

originality.

For the foundation of the church of Reculver, he quotes a

manuscript said to be written by a Dominican friar of Canterbury,

and preserved at Louvain. The story is evidently metamorphosed

into a novel. and has very little of an antique air; but it

affirms that the monkish author attests the beauty of Richard

III. This is very absurd, if invention has nothing to do with

the story; and therefore one should suppose it genuine. I have

desired Dodsley to ask Mr. Keate, if there truly exists such, a

manuscript: if there does, I own I wish he had printed it rather

than his own production; for I am with Mr. Gray, "that any man

living may make a book worth reading, if he will but set down

with truth what he has seen or heard, no matter whether the book

is well written or not." Let those who can write, glean.

Letter 170 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Arlington Street, May 22, 1779. (page 221)

If you hear of us no oftener than we of you, you will be as much

behindhand in news as my Lady Lyttelton. We have seen a

traveller that saw you in your island,(356) but it sounds like

hearing of Ulysses. Well! we must be content.

YOU are not only not dethroned, but owe the safety of your

dominions to your own skill in fortification. if we do not hear

of your extending your conquests, why, is it not less than all

our modern heroes have done, whom prophets have foretold and

gazettes celebrated--or who have foretold and celebrated

themselves. Pray be content to be cooped up in an island that

has no neighbours, when the Howes and Clintons and Dunmores and

Burgoynes and Campbells are not yet got beyond the great river--

Inquiry!(357) To-day's papers say, that the little Prince of

Orange(358) is to invade you again; but we trust Sir James

Wallace has clipped his wings so close, that they will not grow

again this season, though he is so ready to fly.

Nothing material has happened since I wrote last-so, as every

moment of a civil war is precious, every one has been turned to

the interest of diversion. There have been three masquerades, an

Installation, and the ball of the knights at the Haymarket this

week; not to mention Almack's festino, Lady Spencer's, Ranelagh

and Vauxhall, operas and plays. The Duchess of Bolton too saw

masks--so many, that the floor gave way, and the company in the

dining-room were near falling on the heads of those in the

parlour, and exhibiting all that has not yet appeared in Doctors'

Commons. At the knights' ball was such a profusion of

strawberries, that people could hardly get into the supper-room.

I could tell you more, but I do not love to exaggerate. Lady

Ailesbury told me this morning that Lord Bristol has got a calf

with two feet to each leg--I am convinced it is by the Duchess

of Kingston, who has got two of every thing where others have but

one.(359) Adieu! I am going to sup with Mrs. Abington--and hope

Mrs. Clive will not hear of it.

(356) Mr. Conway was now at his government of Jersey.

(357) The parliamentary inquiry which took place in the House of

Commons on the conduct of the American war.

(358) The Prince of Nassau, who had commanded the attack upon

Jersey, claiming relationship to the great house of Nassau Mr.

Walpole calls him the "little Prince of Orange." Gibbon, in a

letter to Mr. Holroyd, of the 7th, says, "You have heard of the

Jersey invasion; every body praises Arbuthnot's decided spirit.

Conway went last night to throw himself into the island."-E.

(359) "Do you know, my lord," said the Duchess, then Miss

Chudleigh, to Lord Chesterfield, "the world says I have had

twins!" "Does it?" said his lordship; "I make a point of

believing only one-half of what it says."-E.

Letter 171 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Strawberry Hill, June 2, 1779. (page 222)

I am most sincerely rejoiced, dear Sir, that you find yourself at

all better, and trust it is an omen of farther amendment. Mr.

Essex surprised me by telling me, that you, who keep yourself so

warm and so numerously clothed, do yet sometimes, if the sun

shines, sit and write in your garden for hours at a time. It is

more than I should readily do, whose habitudes are so very

different from yours. Your complaints seem to demand

perspiration--but I do not venture to advise. I understand no

constitution but my own, and should kill Milo, if I managed him

as I treat myself. I sat in a window on Saturday, with the east

wind blowing on my neck till near two in the morning-and it seems

to have done me good, for I am better within these two days than

I have been these six months. My spirits have been depressed,

and my nerves so aspen, that the smallest noise disturbed me.

To-day I do not feel a complaint; which is something at near

sixty-two.

I don't know whether I have not misinformed you, nor am sure it

was Dr. Ducarel who translated the account of the Abbey of Bec--

he gave it to Mr. Lort; but I am not certain he ever published

it. You was the first that notified to me the fifth volume of

the Archaeologia--I am not much more edified than usual; but

there are three pretty prints of Reginal Seats. Mr. Pegge's

tedious dissertation, which he calls a brief one, about the

foolish legend of St. George, is despicable: all his arguments

are equally good for proving the existence of the dragon. What

diversion might laughers make of the society! Dolly Pentraeth,

the old woman of Mousehole, and Mr. Penneck's nurse. p. 81, would

have furnished Foote with two personages for a farce. The same

grave dissertation on patriarchal customs seems to have as much

to do with British antiquities, as the Lapland: witches that sell

wind--and pray what business has the Society With Roman

inscriptions in Dalmatia! I am most pleased With the account of

Nonsuch, imperfect as it is: it appears to have been but a villa,

and not considerable for a royal one. You see lilacs were then a

novelty. Well, I am glad they publish away. The vanity of

figuring in these repositories will make many persons contribute

their manuscripts, and every now and then something valuable Will

come to light, which its own intrinsic merit might not have

saved.

\

I know nothing more of Houghton. I should certainly be glad to

have the priced catalogue; and if you will lend me yours, my

printer shall transcribe it-but I am in no hurry. I Conceive

faint hopes, as the sale is not concluded: however, I take care

not to flatter myself.

I think I told you I had purchased, at Mr. Ives's sale, a

handsome coat in painted glass, of Hobart impaling Boleyn--but I

can find no such match in my pedigree--yet I have heard that

Blickling belonged to Ann Boleyn's father. Pray reconcile all

this to me. '

Lord de Ferrers is to dine here on Saturday; and I have got to

treat him with an account of ancient painting, formerly in the

hall of Tammworth Castle; they are mentioned in Warton's

Observations on the Fairy Queen, Vol i. p. 43.

Do not put yourself' to pain to answer this--only be assured I

shall be happy to know when you are able to write with ease. You

must leave Your cloister, if Your transcribing leaves you.

Believe me, dear Sir, Ever most truly.

Letter 172 To The Rev. Dr. Lort.

Strawberry Hill, June 4, 1779. (page 224)

I am sorry, dear Sir, you could not let me have the pleasure of

your company; but, I own, you have partly, not entirely, made me

amends by the sight of your curious manuscript, which I return

you, with your other book of inaugurations.

The sight of the manuscript was particularly welcome to me,

because the long visit of Henry VI. and his uncle Gloucester, to

St. Edmund's Bury, accounts for those rare altar tablets that I

bought at Mr. Ives's sale, on which are incontestably the

portraits of Duke Humphrey, Cardinal Beaufort, and the same

archbishop that is in my Marriage of Henry VI. I know the house

of Lancaster were patrons of St. Edmund's Bury; but so long a

visit is demonstration.

The fourth person on my panels is unknown. Over his head is a

coat of arms. but may be that of W. Curteys the abbot, or the

alderman, as he is in scarlet. His figure and the Duke's are far

superior to the other two, and worthy of a good Italian master.

The Cardinal and the Archbishop are in the dry hard manner of the

age. I wish you would call and look at them; they are at Mr.

Bonus's in Oxford-road; the two prelates are much damaged. I

peremptorily enjoined Bonus to repair only, and not to repaint

them; and thus, by putting him out of his way, I have put him so

much out of humour too, that he has kept them these two years,

and not finished them yet. I design them for the four void

spaces in my chapel, on the sides of the shrine. The Duke of

Gloucester's face is so like, though younger, that it proves I

guessed right at his figure in my Marriage. The tablets came out

of the abbey of Bury; were procured by old Peter Le Neve, Norroy;

and came by his widow's marriage to Tom Martin, at whose sale Mr.

Ives bought them. We have very few princely portraits so

ancient, so authentic, and none so well painted as the Duke and

fourth person. These were the insides of the doors, which I had

split into two, and value them extremely. This account I think

will be more satisfactory to you than notes.

Pray tell me how you like the pictures when you have examined

them. I shall search in Edmondson's new Vocabulary of Arms for

the coat which contains three bulls' heads on six pieces; but the

colours are either white and black. or the latter is become so

by time. I hope you are not going out of town yet; I shall

probably be there some day in next week.

I see advertised a book something in the way of your

inaugurations, called Le Costume; do you know any thing of it?

Can YOU tell me who is the author of the Second Anticipation on

the Exhibition? Is not it Barry the painter?

Letter 173 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, Saturday, June 5, 1779. (page 225)

I write to you more seldom than I am disposed to do, from having

nothing positive to tell you, and from being unwilling to say and

unsay every minute something that is reported positively. The

confident assertions of the victory over D'Estaing are totally

vanished-and they who invented them, now declaim as bitterly

against Byron, as if he had deceived them-and as they did against

Keppel. This day se'nnight there was a great alarm about

Ireland-which was far from being all invention, though not an

absolute insurrection, as it was said." The case, I believe, was

this:-The court, in order to break the volunteer army established

by the Irish themselves, endeavoured to persuade a body in Lady

Blayney's county of Monaghan to enlist in the militia--which they

took indignantly. They said, they had great regard for Lady

Blayney and Lord Clermont; but to act under them, would be acting

under the King, and that was by no means their intention. There

have since been motions for inquiries what steps the ministers

have taken to satisfy the Irish-and these they have imprudently

rejected-which will not tend to pacification. The ministers have

been pushed too on the article of Spain, and could not deny that

all negotiation is at an end--though they will not own farther.

However, the Spanish ambassador is much out of humour. From

Paris they write confidently of the approaching declaration;(360)

and Lord Sandwich, I hear, has said in a very mixed company, that

it was folly not to expect it. There is another million asked,

and given on a vote of credit; and Lord North has boasted of such

mines for next year,,that one would think he believed next year

would never Come.

The Inquiry(361) goes on,

and Lord Harrington did honour himself and Burgoyne. Barr`e and

Governor Johnstone have had warm words,(362) and Burke has been

as frantic for the Roman Catholics as Lord George Gordon against

them. The Parliament, it is said, is to rise on the 21st.

YOU Will not collect from all this that our prospect clears up.

I fear there is not more discretion in the treatment of Ireland

than of America. The court seems to-be infatuated and to think

that nothing is of any consequence but a majority in

Parliament-though they have totally lost all power but that of

provoking. Fortunate it had been for the- King and kingdom, had

the court had no majority for these six years! America had still

been ours -and all the lives and all the millions we have

squandered! A majority that has lost thirteen provinces by

bullying and vapouring, and the most childish menaces, will be a

brave countermatch for France and Spain, and a rebellion in

Ireland! In short, it is plain that there is nothing a majority

in Parliament can do, but outvote a minority; and by their own

accounts one would think they could not even do that. I saw a

paper t'other day that began with this Iriscism, "As the minority

have lost us thirteen provinces," etc. I know nothing the

minority have done, or been suffered to do, but restore the Roman

Catholic religion-and that too was by the desire of the court.

This is however the present style. They announced with infinite

applause a new production of Tickell:--it has appeared, and is a

most paltry performance. It is called the Cassette Verte of M.

de Sartine, and pretends to be his correspondence with the

opposition. Nay, they are so pitifully mean as to laugh at Dr.

Franklin, who has such thorough reason to sit and laugh at them.

What triumph it must be to him to see a miserable pamphlet all

the revenge they can take! There is another, still duller, called

Opposition Mornings, in which you are lugged in. In truth, it is

a compliment to any man to except him out of the number of those

that have contributed to the shocking disgraces inflicted on this

undone country. When Lord Chatham was minister, he never replied

to abuse but by a victory.

I know no private news: I have been here ever since Tuesday,

enjoying my tranquillity, as much as an honest man can do who

sees his country ruined. It is just such a period as makes

philosophy wisdom. There are great moments when every man is

called on to exert himself-but when folly, infatuation, delusion,

incapacity, and profligacy fling a nation away, and it concurs

itself, and applauds its destroyers, a man who has lent no hand

to the mischief, and can neither prevent nor remedy the mass of

evils, is fully justified in sitting aloof and beholding the

tempest rage, with silent scorn and indignant compassion. Nay, I

have, I own, some comfortable reflections. I rejoice that there

is still a great continent of Englishmen who will remain free and

independent, and who laugh at the impotent majorities of a

prostitute Parliament. I care not whether General Burgoyne and

Governor Johnstone cross over and figure in, and support or

oppose; nor whether Mr. Burke, or the superior of the Jesuits, is

high commissioner to the kirk of Scotland. My ideas are such as

I have always had, and are too plain and simple to comprehend

modern confusions; and, therefore, they suit with those of few

men. What will be the issue of this chaos, I know not, and,

probably, shall not see. I do see with satisfaction, that what

was meditated has failed by the grossest folly; and when one has

escaped the worst, lesser evils must be endured with patience.

After this dull effusion, I will divert you with a story that

made me laugh this morning till I cried. You know my Swiss

David, and his incomprehensible pronunciation. He came to me,

and said, "Auh! dar is Meses Ellis wants some of your large flags

to put in her great O." With much ado, I found out that Mrs.

Ellis had sent for leave to take up some flags out of my meadow

for her grotto.

I hope in a few days to see Lady Ailesbury and Miss Jennings

here; I have writ to propose it. What are your intentions? Do

you stay till you have made your island impregnable? I doubt it

will be our only one that will be so.

(360) On the breaking out of the war between this country and

America, Spain had offered to mediate between them; but,

receiving a refusal, she at once declared herself a principal in

the war and ready to fulfil the terms of the family compact.-E.

(361) The Inquiry into the Conduct of the American war.

(362) In the course of a debate in the House of Commons, on the

3d of June,

Governor Johnstone told Colonel Barr`e, that he was making a

scaramouch of himself. The Colonel got up to demand an

explanation, but the Speaker put an end to the altercation.-E.

Letter 174 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, June 16, 1779. (page 227)

Your Countess was here last Thursday, and received a letter from

you, that told us how slowly you receive ours. When you will

receive this I cannot guess; but it dates a new era, which you

with reason did not care to look at as possible. In a word,

behold a Spanish war! I must detail a little to increase your

wonder. I heard here the day before yesterday that it was

likely; and that night received a letter from Paris, telling me

(it was of the 6th) that Monsieur de Beauveau was going, they

knew not whither, at the head of twenty-five thousand men, with

three lieutenant-generals and six or eight mar`echaux de camp

under him. Yesterday I went to town, and Thomas Walpole happened

to call on me. He, who used to be informed early, did not

believe a word either of a Spanish war or a French expedition. I

saw some other persons in the evening as ignorant. At night I

went to sup at Richmond-house. The Duke said the Brest fleet was

certainly sailed, and had got the start of ours by twelve days:

that Monsieur de Beauveau was on board with a large sum of money,

and with white and red cockades; and that there would certainly

be a Spanish war. He added, that the Opposition were then

pressing in the House of Commons to have the Parliament continue

sitting, and urging to know if we were not at the eve of a

Spanish war; but the ministers persisted in the prorogation ,for

to-morrow or Friday, and would not answer on Spain.

I said I would make you wonder-But no-Why should the Parliament

continue to sit? Are not the ministers and the Parliament the

same thing? And how has either House shown that it has any

talent for war?

The Duke of Richmond does not guess whither the Brest fleet is

gone. He thinks, if to Ireland, we should have known it by this

time. He has heard that the Prince of Beauveau has said he was

going on an expedition that would be glorious in the eyes of

posterity. asked, if that might not mean Gibraltar? The Duke

doubts, but hopes it, as he thinks it no wise measure on their

side: yet he was very melancholy, as you will be, on this heavy

accession to our distresses.

Well! here we are, aris et

focis and all at stake! What can we be meaning? Unable to

conquer America before she was assisted--scarce able to keep

France at bay--are we a match for both, and Spain too? What can

be our view? nay, what can be Our expectation? I sometimes

think we reckon it will be more creditable to be forced by France

and Spain to give up America, than to have the merit with the

latter of doing it with grace.-But, as Cato says,

"I'm weary of conjectures--this must end them;"

that is, the sword:--and never, I believe, did a Country Plunge

itself into such difficulties step by step, and for six years,

together, without once recollecting that each foreign war

rendered the object of the civil war more unattainable; and that

in both the foreign wars we have not an object in prospect.

Unable to recruit our remnant of an army in America, are we to

make conquests on France and Spain? They may choose their

attacks: we can scarce choose what we will defend.

Ireland, they say, is more temperate than was expected. That is

some consolation-yet many fear the Irish will be tempted to unite

with America, which would throw all that trade into their

convenient harbours; and I own I have apprehensions that the

Parliament's rising without taking a step in their favour may

offend them. Surely at least we have courageous ministers. I

thought my father a stout man:--he had not a tithe of their

spirit.

The town has wound up the season perfectly in character by a

f`ete at the Pantheon by subscription. Le Texier managed it; but

it turned out sadly. The company was first shut into the

galleries to look down on the supper, then let to descend to it.

Afterwards they were led into the subterraneous apartment, which

was laid with mould, and planted with trees, and crammed with

nosegays: but the fresh earth, and the dead leaves, and the

effluvia of breaths made such a stench and moisture, that they

were suffocated; and when they remounted, the legs and wings of

chickens, and remnants Of ham (for the supper was not removed)

poisoned them more. A druid in an arbour distributed verses to

the ladies; then the Baccelli(363) and the dancers of the Opera

danced; and then danced the company; and then it being morning,

and the candles burnt out, the windows were opened; and then the

stewed-danced assembly were such shocking figures, that they fled

like ghosts as they looked.--I suppose there

will be no more balls unless the French land, and then we shall

show we do not mind it.

Thus I have told you all I know. You will ponder over these

things in your little distant island, when we have forgotten

them. There is another person, one Doctor Franklin, who, I

fancy, is not sorry that we divert ourselves so well. Yours

ever.

(363) After the departure of Mademoiselle Heinel, no dancing so

much delighted the frequenters of the Opera as that of

Mademoiselle Baccelli and M. Vestris le jeune.-E.

Letter 175 To The Hon. George Hardinge.(364)

Strawberry Hill, July 4, 1779. (page 229)

I have now received the drawings of Grignan, and know not how to

express my satisfaction and gratitude but by a silly witticism

that is like the studied quaintness of the last age. In short,

they are so much more beautiful than I expected, that I am not

surprised at your having surprised me by exceeding even what I

expected from your well-known kindness to me; they are charmingly

executed, and with great taste. I own too that Grignan is

grander, and in a much finer situation, than I had imagined; as I

concluded that the witchery of Madame de S`evign`e's ideas and

style had spread the same leaf-gold over places with which she

gilded her friends. All that has appeared of them since the

publication of her letters has lowered them. A single letter of

her daughter, that to Paulina, with a description of the Duchess

of Bourbon's toilette, is worthy of the mother. Paulina's own

letters contain not a little worth reading: one just divines that

she might have written well if she had had any thing to write

about (which, however, would not have signified to her

grandmother.) Coulanges was a silly good-humoured glutton, that

flattered a rich widow for her dinners. His wife was sensible,

but dry, and rather peevish at growing old. Unluckily nothing

more has come to light of Madame de S`evign`e's son, whose short

letters in the collection I am almost profane enough to prefer to

his mother's; and which makes me astonished that she did not love

his wit, so unaffected, and so congenial to her own, in

preference to the eccentric and sophisticated reveries of her

sublime and ill-humoured daughter. Grignan alone maintains its

dignity, and shall be consecrated here among other monuments of

that bewitching period, and amongst which one loves to lose

oneself, and drink oblivion of an era so very unlike; for the

awkward bigots to despotism of our time have not Madame de

S`evign`e's address, nor can paint an Indian idol with an hundred

hands as graceful as the Apollo of the Belvidere. When will you

come and accept my thanks? will Wednesday next suit you? But do

you know that I must ask you not to leave your gown behind You,

which indeed I never knew you put on Willingly, but to come in

it. I shall want your protection at Westminster Hall. Yours

most cordially.

(364) Son of Nicholas Hardinge, Esq. one of the joint secretaries

of the treasury, and member for the borough of Eye. He was

educated at Eton school, and finished his studies at Trinity

College, Cambridge, where Dr. Watson was his tutor, He was called

to the bar in 1769, and was subsequently appointed solicitor-

general to the Queen. in 1787, he was made a Welsh judge, and

died in 1816. In 1818, the works of this clever and eccentric

scholar were published, with an account of his life, by Mr. John

Nichols.-E.

Letter 176 To The Countess Of Ailesbury.

Saturday night, July 10, 1779. (page 230)

I could not thank your ladyship before the post went out to-day,

as I was getting into my chaise to go and dine at Carshalton with

my cousin Thomas Walpole when I received your kind inquiry about

my eye. It is quite well again, and I hope the next attack of

the gout will be any where rather than in that quarter.

I did not expect Mr. Conway would think of returning just now.

As you have lost both Mrs. Damer and Lady William Campbell, I do

not see why your ladyship should not go to Goodwood.

The Baroness's increasing peevishness does not surprise me. When

people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun

with nettles. She knows nothing of politics, and no wonder talks

nonsense about them. It is silly to wish three nations had but

one neck; but it is ten times more absurd to act as if it was so,

which the government has done;--ay, and forgetting, too, that it

has not a scimitar large enough to sever that neck, which they

have in effect made one. It is past the time, Madam, of making

Conjectures. How can one guess whither France and Spain will

direct a blow that is in their option? I am rather inclined to

think that they will have patience to ruin us in detail.

Hitherto France and America have carried their points by that

manoeuvre. Should there be an engagement at sea, and the French

and Spanish fleets, by their great superiority, have the

advantage, one knows not what might happen. Yet, though there

are such large preparations making on the French coast, I do not

much expect a serious invasion, as they are sure they can do us

more damage by a variety of other attacks, where we can make

little resistance. Gibraltar and Jamaica can but be the

immediate objects of Spain. Ireland is much worse guarded than

this island:--nay, we must be undone by our expense, should the

summer pass without any attempt. My cousin thinks they will try

to destroy Portsmouth and Plymouth--but I have seen nothing in

the present

French ministry that looks like bold enterprise. We are much

more adventurous, that set every thing to the hazard: but there

are such numbers of baronesses that both talk and act with

passion, that one would think the nation had lost its senses.

Every thing has miscarried that has been undertaken, and the

worse we succeed, the more is risked;--yet the nation is not

angry! How can one conjecture during such a delirium? I

sometimes almost think I must be in the wrong to be of so

contrary an opinion to most men--yet, when every Misfortune that

has happened had been foretold by a few, why should I not think I

have been in the right? Has not almost every single event that

has been announced as prosperous proved a gross falsehood, and

often a silly one? Are we not at this moment assured that

Washington cannot possibly amass an army of above 8000 men! and

yet Clinton, with 20,000 men, and with the hearts, as we are

told, too, of three parts of the colonies, dares not show his

teeth without the walls of New York? Can I be in the wrong in not

believing what is so contradictory to my senses We could not

Conquer America when it stood alone; then France supported it,

and we did not mend the matter. To make it still easier, we have

driven Spain into the alliance. Is this wisdom? Would it be

presumption, even if one were single, to think that we must have

the worst in such a contest? Shall I be like the mob, and expect

to conquer France and Spain, and then thunder upon America? Nay,

but the higher mob do not expect such success. They would not be

so angry at the house of Bourbon, if not morally certain that

those kings destroy all our passionate desire and expectation of

conquering America. We bullied, and threatened, and begged, and

nothing would do. Yet independence was still the word. Now we

rail at the two monarchs--and when they have banged us, we shall

sue to them as humbly as We did to the Congress. All this my

senses, such as they are, tell me has been and will be the case.

What is worse, all Europe is of the same opinion; and though

forty thousand baronesses may be ever SO angry, I venture to

prophesy that we shall make but a very foolish figure whenever we

are so lucky as to obtain a peace; and posterity, that may have

prejudices of its own, will still take the liberty to pronounce,

that its ancestors were a woful set of politicians from the year

1774 to--I wish I knew when.

If I might advise, I would recommend Mr. Burrell to command the

fleet in the room of Sir Charles Hardy. The fortune of the

Burrells is powerful enough to baffle calculation. Good night,

Madam!

P. S. I have not written to Mr. Conway since this day sevennight,

not having a teaspoonful of news to send him. I will beg your

ladyship to tell him so.

Letter 177 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Strawberry Hill, July 12, 1779. (page 231)

I am concerned, dear sir, that you gave yourself the trouble of

transcribing the catalogue and prices, which I received last

night, and for which I am exceedingly obliged to you. Partial as

I am to the pictures at Houghton, I confess I think them much

overvalued. My father's whole collection, of which alone he had

preserved the prices, cost but 40,000 pounds; and after his death

there were three sales of pictures, among which were all the

whole-lengths of Vandyke but three, which had been sent to

Houghton, but not fitting any of the ,spaces left, came back to

town. Few of the rest sold were very fine, but no doubt Sir

Robert had paid as dear for many of them; as purchasers are not

perfect connoisseurs at first. Many of the valuations are not

only exorbitant, but injudicious. They who made the estimate

seem to have considered the rarity of the hands more than the

excellence. Three-The, Magi's Offering, by Carlo Maratti, as it

is called, and two supposed Paul Veronese,-are very indifferent

copies, and yet all are roundly valued, and the first

ridiculously. I do not doubt of another picture in the

collection but the Last Supper, by Raphael, and yet this is set

down at 500 pounds. I miss three pictures, at least they are not

set down, the Sir Thomas Wharton, and Laud and Gibbons. The

first is most capital; yes, I recollect I have had some doubts on

the Laud, though the University of Oxford once offered 400 pounds

for it--and if Queen Henrietta is by Vandyke, it is a very

indifferent One. The affixing a higher value to the Pietro

Cortona than to the octagon Guido is most absurd--I have often

gazed on the latter, and preferred it even to the Doctor's. In

short, the appraisers were determined to see what the Czarina

Could give, rather than what the pictures were really worth--I am

glad she seems to think so, for I hear no more of the sale--it is

not very wise in me still to concern myself, at my age, about

what I have SO little interest in-it is still less wise to be so

anxious on trifles, when one's country is sinking. I do not know

which is most Mad, my nephew, or our ministers--both the one and

the other increase my veneration for the founder of Houghton!

I will not rob you of the prints you mention, dear Sir; one of

them at least I know Mr. Pennant gave me. I do not admire him

for his punctiliousness with you. Pray tell me the name Of your

glass-painter; I do not think I shall want him, but it is not

impossible. Mr. Essex agreed With me, that Jarvis's windows for

Oxford, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, will not succeed. Most of his

colours are opake, and their great beauty depending on a spot of

light for Sun or moon, is an imposition. When his paintings are

exhibited at Charing-cross, all the rest of the room is darkened

to relieve them. That cannot be done at New College; or if done,

the chapel would be too dark. If there are other lights, the

effect will be lost.

This sultry weather will, I hope, quite restore YOU; People need

not go to Lisbon and Naples, if we continue to have such summers.

Yours most sincerely.

Letter 178 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Strawberry Hill, August 12, 1779. (page 232)

I write from decency, dear Sir, not from having any thing

particular to say, but to thank you for your offer of letting me

see the arms of painted glass; which, however, I will decline,

lest it should be broken, and as at present I have no occasion to

employ the painter. If I build my offices, perhaps I may have;

but I have dropped that thought for this year. The disastrous

times do not inspire expense. Our alarms, I conclude, do not

ruffle your hermitage. We are returning to our state of

islandhood, and shall have little, I believe, to boast but of

what we have been.

I see a History of Alien Priories announced;(365) do you know any

thing of it, or of the author? I am ever yours.

(365) This was Mr. Gough's well-known work, entitled "Some

Account of the Alien Priories, and of such Lands as they are

known to have possessed in England and Wales," in two volumes

octavo.-E.

Letter 179 To The Countess Of Ailesbury.

Strawberry Hill, Friday night, 1779. (page 233)

I am not at all surprised, my dear Madam, at the intrepidity of

Mrs. Damer;(366) she always was the heroic daughter of a hero.

Her sense and coolness never forsake her. I, who am not so firm,

shuddered at your ladyship's account. Now that she has stood

fire for four hours, I hope she will give as clear proofs of her

understanding, of which I have as high opinion as of her courage,

and not return in any danger.

I am to dine at Ditton to-morrow, and will certainly talk on the

subject You recommend; yet I am far, till I have heard more, from

thinking with your ladyship, that more troops and artillery at

Jersey would be desirable. Any considerable quantity of either,

especially of the former, cannot be spared at this moment, when

so big a cloud 'hangs over this island, nor would any number

avail if the French should be masters at sea. A large garrison

would but tempt the French thither, were it but to distress this

country; and, what is worse, would encourage Mr. Conway to make

an impracticable defence. If he is to remain in a situation so

unworthy of him, I confess I had rather he was totally incapable

of making any defence. I love him enough not to murmur at his

exposing himself where his country and his honour demand him; but

I would not have him measure himself in a place untenable against

very superior force. My present comfort is, as to him, that

France at this moment has a far vaster object. I have good

reason to believe the government knows that a great army is ready

to embark at St. Maloes, but will not stir till after a

sea-fight, which we do not know but may be engaged at this

moment. Our fleet is allowed to be the finest ever set forth by

this country; but it is inferior in number by seventeen ships to

the united squadron of the Bourbons. France, if successful,

means to pour in a vast many thousands on us, and has threatened

to burn the capital itself, Jersey, my dear Madam, does not enter

into a calculation of such magnitude. The moment is singularly

awful; yet the vaunts of enemies are rarely executed successfully

and ably. Have we trampled America under our foot?

You have too good sense, Madam, to be imposed upon by my

arguments, if they are insubstantial. You do know that I have

had my terrors for Mr. Conway; but at present they are out of the

question, from the insignificance of his island. DO not listen

to rumours, nor believe a single one till it has been canvassed

over and over. Fear, folly, fifty Motives, Will coin new reports

every hour at such a conjuncture. When one is totally void of

credit and power, patience is the only wisdom. I have seen

dangers still more imminent. They were dispersed. Nothing

happens in proportion to what is meditated. Fortune, whatever

fortune is, is more constant than is the common notion. I do not

give this as one of my solid arguments, but I have encouraged

myself in being superstitious on the favourable side. I never,

like most superstitious people, believe auguries against my

wishes. We have been fortunate in the escape of Mrs. Damer, and

in the defeat at Jersey even before Mr. Conway arrived-, and

thence I depend on the same future prosperity. From the

authority of persons who do not reason on such airy hopes, I am

seriously persuaded, that if the fleets engage, the enemy will

not gain advantage without deep-felt loss, enough probably to

dismay their invasion. Coolness may succeed, and then

negotiation. Surely, if we, can weather the summer, we shall,

obstinate as we are against conviction, be compelled by the want

of money to relinquish our ridiculous pretensions, now proved to

be utterly impracticable; for, with an inferior navy at home, can

we assert sovereignty over America? It is a contradiction in,

terms and in fact. It may be hard of digestion to relinquish it,

but it is impossible to pursue it. Adieu, my dear Madam! I have

not left room for a line more.

(366) The packet in which she was crossing from Dover to Ostend

was taken by a French frigate, after a running fight of several

hours.

Letter 180 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 13, 1779. (page 234)

I am writing to you at random; not knowing whether or when this

letter will go: but your brother told me last night that an

officer, whose name I have forgot, was arrived from Jersey, and

would return to you soon. I am sensible how very seldom I have

written to you-but you have been few moments out of my thoughts.

What they have been, you who know me so minutely may well guess,

and why they do not pass my lips. Sense, experience,

circumstances, can teach One to command one's self. outwardly,

but do not divest a most friendly heart of its feelings. I

believe the state of my Mind has contributed to bring on a very

weak and decaying body my present disorders. I have not been

well the whole summer; but for these three weeks much otherwise.

It has at last ended in the gout, which to all appearance will be

a short fit.

On public affairs I cannot speak. Every thing is so exaggerated

on all sides, that what grains of truth remain in the sieve would

appear cold and insipid; and the great manoeuvres you learn as

soon as I. In the naval battle between Byron and D'Estaing, our

captains were worthy of any age in our story.

You may imagine how happy I am at Mrs. Damer's return, and at her

not being at Naples, as she was likely to have been, at the

dreadful explosion of Vesuvius.(367) Surely it will have glutted

Sir William's rage for volcanoes! How poor Lady Hamilton's nerves

stood it I do not conceive. Oh, mankind! mankind! Are there not

calamities enough in store for us, but must destruction be our

amusement and pursuit?

I send this to Ditton,(368) where it may wait some days; but I

would not suffer a sure opportunity to slip without a line. You

are more obliged to me for all I do not say, than for whatever

eloquence itself could pen.

P. S. I unseal my letter to add, that undoubtedly you will come

to the Meeting of Parliament, which will be in October. Nothing

can or ever did make me advise you to take a step unworthy of

yourself. But surely you have higher and more sacred duties than

the government of a mole-hill!

(367) On the 10th of August when the eruption was so great, that

several villages were destroyed; a hunting seat belonging to the

King of Naples, called Caccia Bella, shared the like fate.-E.

(368) Where Lord Hertford had then a

villa.

Letter 181 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Berkeley Square, Nov. 16, 1779. (page 235)

You ought not to accuse yourself only, when I have been as silent

as you. Surely we have been friends too long to admit ceremony

as a go-between. I have thought of writing to you several times,

but found I had nothing worth telling you. I am rejoiced to hear

your health has been better: mine has been worse the whole summer

and autumn than ever it was without any positive distemper, and

thence I conclude it is a failure in my constitution-of which,

being a thing of course, we will say no more-nobody but a

physician is bound to hear what he cannot cure-and if we will pay

for what we cannot expect, it is our own fault.

I have seen Doctor Lort, who seems pleased with becoming a limb

of Canterbury. I heartily wish the mitre may not devolve before

it has beamed substantially on him. In the meantime he will be

delighted with ransacking the library at Lambeth; and, to do him

justice, his ardour is literary, not interested.

I am much obliged to you, dear Sir, for taking the trouble of

transcribing Mr. Tyson's Journal, which is entertaining. But I

am so Ignorant as not to know where Hatfield Priory is. The

three heads I remember on the gate at Whitehall; there were five

more. The whole demolished structure was transported to the

great Park at Windsor, by the late Duke of Cumberland, who

intended to re-edify it, but never did; and now I suppose

Its ruins ruined, as its Place no more.

I did not know what was become of the heads, and am glad any are

preserved. I should doubt their being the works of Torregiano.

Pray who is Mr. Nichols, who has published the Alien Priories;

there are half a dozen or more pretty views of French cathedrals.

I cannot say that I found any thing else in the book that amused

me-but as you deal more in ancient lore than I do, perhaps you

might be better pleased.

I am told there is a new History of Gloucestershire, very large,

but ill executed, by one Rudder(369)--still I have sent for it,

for Gloucestershire is a very historic country.

It was a wrong scent on which I employed you. The arms I have

impaled were certainly not Boleyn's. You lament removal of

friends -alas! dear Sir, when one lives to our age, one feels

that in a higher degree than from their change of place! but one

must not dilate those common moralities. You see by my date I

have changed place myself. I am got into an excellent,

comfortable, cheerful house; and as, from necessity and

inclination, I live much more at home than I used to do, it is

very agreeable to be so pleasantly lodged, and to be in a warm

inn as one passes through the last Vale. Adieu! Yours ever.

(369) "The History and Antiquities of Gloucestershire; comprising

the Topography, Antiquities, Curiosities, Produce, Trade, and

Manufactures of that County:" by Samuel Rudder, printer,

Cirencester, folio.-E.

Letter 182 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Berkeley Square, Dec. 1779. (page 236)

I have two good reasons against writing: nothing to say and a

lame muffled hand; and therefore I choose to write to you, for it

shows remembrance. For these six weeks almost I have been a

prisoner with the gout, but begin to creep about my room. How

have you borne the late deluge and the present frost? How do you

like an earl-bishop?(370) Had not we one before in ancient days?

I have not a book in town; but was not there Anthony Beck, or a

Hubert de Burgh, that was Bishop of Durham and Earl of Kent, or

have I confounded them?

Have you seen Rudder's new History of Gloucestershire? His

additions to Sir Robert Atkyns make it the most sensible history

of a county that we have had yet; for his descriptions of the

scite, soil, products, and prospects of each parish are extremely

good and picturesque; and he treats fanciful prejudices, and

Saxon etymologies, when unfounded, and traditions, with due

contempt.

I will not spin this note any further, but shall be glad of a

line to tell me you are well. I have not seen Mr. Lort since he

roosted under the metropolitan Wings of his grace of Lambeth.

Yours ever.

(370) The Hon. and Rev, Frederick Hervey, bishop of Derry, had

just succeeded to the earldom of Bristol, as fifth Earl, by the

death of his brother. Hardy, in his memoirs of Lord Charlemont

gives the following account of this singular man:--"His family

was famous for talents, equally so for eccentricity; and the

eccentricity of the whole race shone out and seemed to be

concentrated in him. In one respect he was not unlike Villiers

Duke of Buckingham, 'every thing by starts, and nothing long!'

Generous, but uncertain; splendid, but fantastical; an admirer of

the fine arts, without any just selection: engaging, often

licentious in conversation- extremely polite, extremely violent.

His distribution of church livings, chiefly, as I have been

informed, among the older and respectable clergy in his own

diocese, must always be mentioned with that warm approbation

which it is justly entitled to. His progress from his diocese to

the metropolis, and his entrance into it, were perfectly

correspondent to the rest of his conduct. Through every town on

the road, he seemed to court, and was received with, all warlike

honours; and I remember seeing him pass by the Parliament-house

in Dublin (Lords and Commons were then both sitting), escorted by

a body of dragoons, full of spirits and talk, apparently enjoying

the eager gaze of the surrounding multitude, and displaying

altogether the self-complacency of a favourite marshal of France

on his way to Versailles, rather than the grave deportment of a

prelate of the Church of England." He died in 1803.-E.

Letter 183 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Berkeley Square, Jan. 5, 1780. (page 237)

When you said that you feared that your particular account of

your very providential escape would deter me from writing to you

again, I am sure, dear Sir, that you spoke only from modesty, and

not from thinking me capable of being so criminally indifferent

to any thing, much less under such danger as you have run, that

regards so old a friend, and one to whom I owe so many

obligations. I am but too apt to write letters on trifling or no

occasion's: and should certainly have told you the interest I

take in your accident, and how happy I am that it had no

consequences of any sort. It is hard that temperance itself,

which you are, should be punished for a good-natured

transgression of your own rules, and where the excess was only

staying out beyond your usual hour. I am heartily glad you did

not jump out of your chaise; it has often been a much worse

precaution than any consequences from risking to remain in it; as

you are lame too, might have been very fatal. Thank God! all

ended so well. Mr. Masters seems to have been more frightened,

with not greater reason. What an absurd man to be impatient to

notify a disagreeable event to you, and in so boisterous a

manner, and which he could not know was true, since it was not!

I shall take extremely kind your sending me your picture in

glass. I have carefully preserved the slight outline of yourself

in a gown and nightcap, which you once was' so good as to give

me, because there was some likeness to your features. though it

is too old even now. For a portrait of me in return you might

have it by sending the painter to the anatomical school, and

bidding him draw the first skeleton he sees. I should expect any

limner would laugh in my face if I offered it to him to be

copied.

I thought I had confounded the ancient count-bishops, as I had,

and YOU have set me right. The new temporal-ecclesiastical peers

estate is more than twelve thousand a Year, though I can scarce

believe it is eighteen, as the last lord said.

The picture found near the altar in Westminster-Abbey, about

three years ago, was of King Sebert; I saw it, and it was well

preserved, with some others worse--but they have foolishly buried

it again behind their new altar-piece; and so they have a very

fine tomb of Ann of Cleve, close to the altar, which they did not

know till I told them whose it was, though her arms are upon it,

and though there is an exact plate of it in Sandford. They might

at least have cut out the portraits, and removed them to a

conspicuous situation; but though this age is grown so

antiquarian, it has not gained a grain more of sense in that

walk--witness as you instance in Mr. Grose's Legends, and in the

dean and chapter reburying the crown, robes, and sceptre of

Edward I.--there would surely have been as much piety in

preserving them in their treasury, as in consigning them again to

decay. I did not know that the salvation of robes and crowns

depended on receiving Christian burial. At the same time, the

chapter transgress that prince's will, like all their

antecessors; for he ordered his tomb to be opened every year or

two years, and receive a new cerecloth or pall; but they boast

now of having enclosed him so substantially that his ashes cannot

be violated again.

It was the present Bishop Dean who showed me the pictures and

Ann's tomb, and consulted me on the new altar-piece. I advised

him to have a light octangular canopy, like the cross at

Chichester, placed over the table or altar itself, which would

have given dignity to it, especially if elevated by a flight of

steps; and from the side arches of the octacon, I would have had

a semicircle of open arches that should have advanced quite to

the seats of the prebends, which would have discovered the

pictures; and through the octagon itself you would have perceived

the shrine of Edward the Confessor, which is much higher than the

level of the choir--but men who ask advice seldom follow it, if

you do not happen to light on the same ideas with themselves.

P. S. The Houghton pictures are not lost-but to Houghton and

England!(371)

(371) They had been sold to the Empress of Russia in the

preceding September, and immediately transferred to that

country.-E.

Letter 184 To Robert Jephson, Esq.(372)

Berkeley Square, January 25, 1780. (page 238)

It was but yesterday, Sir, that I received the favour of your

letter, and this morning I sent, according to your permission, to

Mr. Sheridan the elder, to desire the manuscript of your

tragedy;(373) for as I am but just recovering of a fit of the

gout, which I had severely for above two months, I was not able

to bear the fatigue of company at home; nor could I have had the

pleasure of attending to the piece so much as I wished to do, if

I had invited ladies to hear it, to whom I must have been doing

the honours.

I have read your play once, Sir, rapidly, though alone, and

therefore cannot be very particular on the details; but I can say

already, with great truth, that you have made a great deal more

than I thought possible out of the skeleton of a story.; and have

arranged it so artfully, that unless I am deceived by being too

familiar with it, it will be -very intelligible to the audience,

even if they have not read the original fable; and you have had

the address to make it coherent, without the marvellous, though

so much depended on that part. In short, you have put my

extravagant materials in an alembic, and drawn off only what was

rational.

Your diction is very beautiful, often poetic, and yet what I

admire, very simple and natural; and when necessary, rapid,

concise, and sublime.

If I did not distrust my own self-love, I should say that I think

it must be a very interesting piece: and yet I might say so

without vanity, so much of the disposition of the scenes is your

own. I do not yet know, Sir, what alterations you propose to

make; nor do I perceive where the second and fourth acts want

amendment. The first in your manuscript is imperfect. If I

wished for any correction, it would be to shorten the scene in

the fourth act between the Countess, Adelaide, and Austin, which

rather delays the impatience of the audience for the catastrophe,

and does not contribute to it, but by the mother's orders to the

daughter at the end of the scene to repair to the great church.

In the last scene I should wish to have Theordore fall into a

transport of rage and despair immediately on the death of

Adelaide, and be carried off by Austin's orders; for I doubt the

interval is too long for him to faint after Narbonne's speech.

The fainting, fit, I think, might be better applied to the

Countess; it does not seem requisite that she should die, but the

audience might be left in suspense about her.

My last observations will be very trifling indeed, Sir; but I

think you use nobleness, niceness, etc. too often, which I doubt

are not classic terminations for nobility, nicety, etc. though I

allow that nobility will not always express nobleness. My

children's timeless deaths can scarce be said for untimely; nor

should I choose to employ children's as a plural genitive case,

which I think the s at the end cannot imply. "Hearted

preference" is very bold for preference taken to heart. Raymond,

in the last scene says--

"Show me thy wound--oh, hell! 'tis through her heart!"

This line is quite unnecessary, and infers an obedience in

displaying her wound which would be shocking; besides, as there

is often a buffoon in an audience at a new tragedy, it might be

received dangerously. The word "Jehovah" will certainly not be

suffered on the stage.

In casting the parts I conclude Mrs. Yates, as women never cease

to like acting young parts, would prefer that of Adelaide, though

the Countess is more suitable to her age; and it is foolish to

see her representing the daughter of women fifteen or twenty

years younger. As my bad health seldom allows of my going to the

theatre, I never saw Mr. Henderson but once. His person and

style should recommend him to the parts of Raymond or Austin.

Smith, I suppose, would expect to be Theodore; but Lewis is

younger, handsomer, and, I think, a better actor; but you are in

the right, Sir, in having no favourable idea of our stage at

present.

I am sorry, Sir, that neither my talents nor health allow me to

offer to supply you with Prologue and Epilogue. Poetry never was

my natural turn; and what little propensity I had to it, is

totally extinguished by age and pain. It is honour enough to me

to have furnished the canons of your tragedy; I should disgrace

it by attempting to supply adventitious ornaments. The

clumsiness of the seams would betray my gouty fingers. I shall

take the liberty of reading your play once more before I return

it. It will be extraordinary indeed if it is not accepted, but I

cannot doubt but it will be, and very successful; though it will

be great pity but you should have some zealous friend to attend

to it, and who is able to bustle, and see justice done to it by

the managers. I lament that such a superannuated being as myself

is not only totally incapable Of that office, but that I am

utterly' unacquainted -with the managers, and now too retired to

form new Connexions. I was still more concerned, Sir, to hear of

your unhappy accident, though the bad consequences are past.

(372) now first published.

(373) Mr. Jephson's tragedy of The Count of Narbonne, founded on

Walpole's Gothic story of the Castle of Otranto. It will be

seen, that it was brought out, in the following year, With

considerable success, at Covent Garden theatre. "On Friday

evening" says Hannah More, in a letter to one of her sisters, "I

went to Mr. Tighe's to hear him read Jephson's tragedy.

'Praise,' says Dr. Johnson, 'is a tribute which every man is

expected to pay for the grant of perusing a manuscript;' and

indeed I could praise without hurting my Conscience, for The

Count of Narbonne has considerable merit; the language is very

Poetical, and parts of the fable very interesting; the plot

managed with art, and the characters well drawn. The love scenes

I think are the worst: they are prettily written, and full of

flowers, but are rather cold; they have more poetry than passion.

I do not mean to detract from Mr. Jephson's merit by this remark;

for it does not lessen a poet's fame to say he excels more in

Painting the terrible, than the tender passions."-Memoirs, vol.

i, P, 206.-E.

Letter 185 To Robert Jephson, Esq.(374)

Berkeley Square, Jan. 27, 1780. (page 240)

I have returned Your tragedy, Sir, to Mr. Sheridan, after having

read it again, and without wishing any more alterations than the

few I hinted before. There may be some few incorrectnesses, but

none of much consequence. I must -again applaud your art and

judgment, Sir, in having made so rational a play out of my wild

tale - and where you have changed the arrangement of the

incidents, you have applied them to great advantage The

Characters of the mother and daughter you have rendered more

natural by giving jealousy to the mother, and more passion to the

daughter. In short, you have both honoured and improved my

outlines: my vanity is content, and truth enjoins me to do

justice. Bishop Warburton, in his additional notes to Pope's

works, which I saw in print in his bookseller's hands, though

they have not yet been published, observed that the plan of The

Castle of Otranto was regularly a drama(375) (an intention I am

sure I do not pretend to have conceived; nor, indeed, can I

venture to affirm that I had any intention at all but to amuse

myself--no, not even a plan, till some pages were written). You,

Sir, have realized his idea, and yet I believe the Bishop would

be surprised to see how well you have succeeded. One cannot be

quite ashamed of one's follies, if genius condescends to adopt,

and put them to a sensible use. Miss Aikin flattered me even by

stooping to tread in my eccentric steps. Her " Fragment," though

but a specimen, showed her talent for imprinting terror. I

cannot compliment the author of the " Old English Baron,"

professedly written in imitation, but as a corrective of The

Castle of Otranto. It was totally void of imagination and

interest, had scarce 'any incidents, and, though it condemned the

marvellous, admitted a ghost. I suppose the author thought a

tame ghost might come within the laws of probability. You alone,

Sir, have kept within nature, and made superstition supply the

place of phenomenon, yet acting as the agent of divine justice--a

beautiful use of bigotry.

I was mistaken in thinking the end of the first act deficient.

The leaves stuck together, and, there intervening two or three

blank pages between the first and second acts, I examined no

farther, but concluded the former imperfect, which on the second

reading I found it was not.

I imagine, Sir, that the theatres of Dublin cannot have fewer

good Performers than those of London; may I ask why you prefer

ours? Your own directions and instructions would be of great

advantage to your play; especially if you suspect antitragic

prejudices in the managers. You, too, would be the best judge of

the rehearsal of what might be improvements. Managers will take

liberties, and often curtail necessary speeches, so as to produce

nonsense. Methinks it is unkind to send a child, of which you

have so much reason to be proud, to a Foundling Hospital.

(374) NOW first printed.

(375) Bishop Warburton's panegyric on the Castle of Otranto

appears in a note to the following lines in Pope's imitation of

one of Horace's epistles:--

"Then peers grew proud in horsemanship t'excel,

Newmarket's glory rose as Britain's fell'

The soldier breathed the gallantries of France,

And ev'ry flow'ry courtier Writ Romance."

"Amidst all this nonsense," says the Bishop, "when things were at

the worst, we have been lately entertained with what I will

venture to call, a masterpiece in the Fable; and of a new species

likewise. The piece I mean is, The Castle of Otranto. The scene

is laid in Gothic chivalry; where a beautiful imagination,

supported by strength of judgment, has enabled the author to go

beyond his Subject, and effect the full purpose of the ancient

tragedy; that is, to purge the passions by Pity and terror, in

colouring as great and harmonious as in any of the best dramatic

writers."-E.

Letter 186 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Berkeley Square, Feb. 5, 1780. (PAGE 242)

I have been turning over the new second volume of the Biographia,

and find the additions very poor and lean performances. The

lives entirely new are partial and flattering, being

contributions of the friends of those whose lives are recorded.

This publication made at a time when I have lived to see several

of my contemporaries deposited in this national temple of fame

has made me smile, and reflect that many preceding authors, who

have been installed there with much respect, may have been as

trifling personages as those we have l(nown and now behold

consecrated to memory. Three or four have struck me

particularly, as Dr. Birch,(376) who was a worthy, good-natured

soul, full of industry and activity, and running about like a

young setting-dog in quest of any thing, new or old, and with no

parts, taste, or judgment. Then there is Dr. Blackwell,(377) the

most impertinent literary coxcomb upon earth--but the editor has

been so just as to insert a very merited satire on his Court of

Augustus.

The third is Dr. Brown, that mountebank, who for a little time

made as much noise by his Estimate, as ever quack did by a

nostrum. I do not know if I ever told you how much I was struck

the only time I ever saw him. You know one object, and the

anathemas of his Estimate was the Italian Opera; yet did I find

him one evening, in Passion Week, accompanying some of the

Italian singers, at a concert at Lady Carlisle's. A clergyman,

no doubt, is not obliged to be on his knees the whole week before

Easter, and music and a concert are harmless amusements; but when

Cato or Calvin are out of character, reformation becomes

ridiculous--but poor Dr. Brown was mad,(378) and therefore might

be in earnest, whether he played the fool or the reformer.

You recollect, perhaps, the threat of Dr. Kippis to me, which is

to be executed on my father, for my calling the first edition of

the Biographia the Vindicatio Britannica--but observe how truth

emerges at last! In his new volume he confesses that the article

of Lord Arlington, which I had specified as one of the most

censurable, is the one most deserving that censure, and that the

character of Lord Arlington is palliated beyond all truth and

reason"-words stronger than mine--yet mine deserved to draw

vengeance on my father! so a Presbyterian divine inverts divine

judgment, and visits the sins of the children on the parents!

Cardinal Beaton's character, softened in the first edition,

gentle Dr. Kippis pronounces "extremely detestable"--yet was I to

blame for hinting such defects in that work!--and yet my words

are quoted to show that Lord Orrery's poetry was ridiculously

bad. In like manner Mr. Cumberland, who assumes the whole honour

of publishing his grandfather's Lucan, and does not deign to

mention its being published at Strawberry Hill, (though by the

way I believe it will be oftener purchased for having been

printed there, than for wearing Mr. Cumberland's name to the

dedication,) and yet he quotes me for having praised his ancestor

in one of my publications. These little instances of pride and

spleen divert me, and then make me reflect sadly on human

weaknesses. I am very apt myself to like what flatters my

opinions or passions, and to reject scornfully what thwarts them,

even in the same persons. The more one lives, the more one

discovers one's uglinesses in the features of others! Adieu! dear

Sir; I hope you do not suffer by this severe season.

P. S. I remember two other instances, where my impartiality, or

at least sincerity, have exposed me to double censure. You

perhaps condemned my severity on Charles the First; yet the late

Mr. Hollis wrote against me in the newspapers, for condemning the

republicans for their destruction of ancient monuments. Some

blamed me for undervaluing the Flemish and Dutch pictures in my

preface to the Aedes Walpolianae. Barry the painter, because I

laughed at his extravagances, says, in his rejection of that

school, "But I leave them to be admired by the Hon. Horace

Walpole, and such judges."

Would not one think I had been their champion!

(376) See vol. i. p. 434, letter 177.-E.

(377) Dr. Thomas Blackwell, principal of the Marischal College in

Aberdeen. Besides the above work, he wrote "An Enquiry into the

Life and Writings of Homer," and "Letters concerning Mythology."

He died in 1757.

(378) In September, 1766, he destroyed himself in a fit of

insanity. See vol. ii. p. 232, letter 119, note 234.-E.

Letter 187 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Berkeley Square, Feb. 27, 1780. (PAGE 243)

Unapt as you are to inquire after news, dear Sir, you wish to

have Admiral Rodney's victory confirmed.(379) I can now assure

you, that he has had a considerable advantage, and took at least

four Spanish men-of-war, and an admiral, who they say is since

dead of his wounds. We must be glad of these deplorable

successes--but I heartily wish we had no longer occasion to hope

for the destruction of any of our species but, alas! it looks as

if devastation would still open new fields of blood! The

prospect darkens even at home--but, however you and I may differ

in our political principles, it would be happy. if every body

would pursue others with as little rancour. How seldom does it

happen in political contests, that any side can count any thing

but its wounds! your habitudes seclude you from meddling in our

divisions; so do my age and my illnesses me. Sixty-two is not a

season for bustling among young partisans. Indeed, if the times

grow perfectly serious, I shall not wish to reach sixty-three.

Even a superannuated spectator is then a miserable being; for

though insensibility is one of the softenings of old age, neither

one's feelings nor enjoyments can be accompanied with

tranquillity. We veterans must hide ourselves in inglorious

security, and lament what we cannot prevent; nor shall be

listened to, till misfortunes have brought the actors to their

senses; and then it will be too late, or they will calm

themselves faster than they could preach--but I hope the

experience of the last century will have some operation and check

our animosities. Surely, too, we shall recollect the ruin a

civil war would bring on, when accompanied by such collaterals as

French and Spanish wars. Providence alone can steer us amidst

all these rocks. I shall watch the interposition of its aegis

with anxiety and humility. It saved us this last summer, and

nothing else I am sure did; but often the mutual follies of

enemies are the instruments Of Heaven. If it pleases not to

inspire wisdom, I shall be content if it extricates us by the

reciprocal blunders and oversights of all parties--of which, at

least, we ought never to despair. It is almost my systematic

belief, that as cunning and penetration are seldom exerted for

good ends, it is the absurdity of mankind that often acts as a

succedaneum, and carries on and maintains the equilibrium that

Heaven designed should subsist. Adieu, dear Sir! Shall we live

to lay down our heads in peace? Yours ever.

28th.--A second volume of Sir George Rodney's exploits arrived

to-day. I do not know the authentic circumstances, for I have

not been abroad yet, but they say he has taken four more Spanish

ships of the line and five frigates; of the former, one of ninety

guns. Spain was sick of the war before--how fortunate if she

would renounce it!

I have just got a new History of Leicester, in six small volumes.

It seems to be superficial; but the author is young, and talks

modestly which, if it Will not serve instead of merit, makes one

at least hope he will improve, and not grow insolent on age and

more knowledge. I have also received from Paris a copy of an

illumination from La Cit`e des Dames of Christina of Pisa, in the

French King's library. There is her own portrait with three

allegoric figures. I have learnt much more about her, and of

her amour with an English peer;(380) but I have not time to say

more at present.

(379) Admiral Sir George Rodney, who had been despatched to the

relief of Gibraltar, the garrison of which was much distressed

for provisions, after taking a convoy of Spanish ships bound to

the Caraccas, fell in, on the 16th of February off Cape St.

Vincent, with the Spanish fleet, commanded

by Don Juan Langara, which he defeated, and captured

four sail of the line.-E.

(380) John Montacute, Earl of Salisbury; who arriving in Paris,

as ambassador from Richard II. to demand in marriage the Princess

Isabel, daughter of Charles V., soon after the death of Castel,

the husband of Christine, was so struck with her beauty and

accomplishments as to offer her his hand. This Christine

respectfully declined; upon which the Earl bade adieu to love,

renounced marriage, and, with her consent, brought her eldest son

with him to England, to educate and protect.-E.

Letter 188 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.