The difficult one:--

"Charades of all things are the worst,

But my best have been my first.

Who with my second are concern'd,

Will to despise my whole have learn'd."

This sounds like a good one, and therefore I will not tell you my

solution; for, if it is wrong, it might lead you astray; and if

it is right, it would prove the charade is not a good one. Had I

any thing better, I would not send you charades, unless for the

name of the author.

I have had a letter from your brother, who tells me that he has

his grandson Stewart(578) with him, who is a prodigy. I say to

myself, Prodigies are grown so frequent,

That they have lost their name.

I have seen prodigies in plenty of late, ah, and formerly too;

but, divine as they have all been, each has had a mortal heel,

and has trodden back a vast deal of their celestial path 1 1 beg

to be excused from any more credulity.

I am sorry you have lost your fac-totum Stokes. I suppose he had

discovered that he was too necessary to you. Every day cures one

of reliance on others; And we acquire a prodigious stock of

experience, by the time that we shall cease to have occasion for

any. Well! I am not clear but making or solving charades is as

wise as any thing we can do. I should pardon professed

philosophers if they would allow that their wisdom is only

trifling, instead of calling their trifling wisdom. Adieu!

(578) Robert, eldest son of Robert Stewart, by Lady Sarah-Frances

Seymour, second daughter of Francis, first Marquis of Hertford;

afterwards so distinguished in the Political world as Viscount

Castlereagh. In 1821, he succeeded his father as second Marquis

of Londonderry, and died at his seat at North Cray, in August,

1822; at which time he was secretary of state for foreign

affairs.-E.

Letter 305 To The Right Hon. Lady Craven.(579)

Berkeley Square, Nov. 27, 1786. (page 387)

To my extreme surprise, Madam, when I knew not in what quarter of

the known or unknown world you was resident or existent, my maid

in Berkeley-square sent me to Strawberry-hill a note from your

ladyship, offering to call on me for a moment,-for a whirlwind, I

suppose, was waiting at your door to carry you to Japan; and, as

balloons have not yet settled any post-offices in the air, you

could not, at least did not, give me any direction where to

address you, though you did kindly reproach me with my silence.

I must enter into a little justification before I proceed. I

heard from you from Venice, then from Poland, and then, having

whisked through Tartary, from Petersburgh; but still with no

directions. I said to myself, "I will write to Grand Cairo,

which, probably, will be her next stage." Nor was I totally in

the wrong, for there came a letter from Constantinople, with a

design mentioned of going to the Greek islands, and orders to

write to you at Vienna; but with no banker or other address

specified.

For a great while I had even stronger reasons than these for

silence. For several months I was disabled by the gout from

holding a pen; and you must know, Madam, that one can't write

when one cannot write. Then, how write to la Fianc`ee du Roi de

Garbe? You had been in the tent of the Cham of Tartary, and in

the harem of the Captain Pacha, and, during your navigation of

the AEgean, were possibly fallen into the terrible power of a

corsair. How could I suppose that so many despotic infidels

would part with your charms? I never expected you again on

Christian ground. I did not doubt your having a talisman to make

people in love with you; but antitalismans are quite a new

specific.

Well, while I was in this quandary, I received a delightful

drawing Of the Castle of Otranto; but still provokingly without

any address. However, my gratitude for so very agreeable. and

obliging a present could not rest till I found you out. I wrote

to the Duchess of Richmond, to beg, she would ask your brother

Captain Berkeley for a direction to you; and he has this very day

been so good as to send me one, and I do not lose a moment in

making use of it.

I give your ladyship a million of thanks for the drawing, which

was really a very valuable gift to me. I did not even know that

there was a Castle of Otranto. When the story was finished, I

looked into the map of the kingdom of Naples for a well-sounding

name, and that of Otranto was very sonorous. Nay, but the

drawing is so satisfactory, that there are two small windows, one

over another, and looking into the country, that suit exactly to

the small chambers from one of which Matilda heard the young

peasant singing beneath her. Judge how welcome this must be to

the author; and thence judge, Madam, how much you must have

obliged him.

When you take another flight towards the bounds of the western

ocean, remember to leave a direction. One cannot always shoot

flying. Lord Chesterfield directed a letter to the late Lord

Pembroke, who was always swimming, "To the Earl of Pembroke in

the Thames, over against Whitehall." That was sure of finding

him within a certain number of fathom; but your ladyship's

longitude varies so rapidly, that one must be a good bowler

indeed, to take one's ground so judiciously that by casting wide

of the mark one may come in near to the jack.

(579) This celebrated lady was the daughter of Augustus, fourth

Earl of Berkeley. In 1767, she was married to William, who, in

1769, succeeded his uncle as sixth Lord Craven: she had seven

children by him; but, after a union of thirteen years, a

separation taking place, she left England for France, and

travelled in Italy, Austria, Poland, Russia, Turkey, and Greece.

In 1789, she published her "Journey through the Crimea to

England." Subsequently, she settled at Anspach, and, becoming a

widow in September, 1791, was united in the following month to

the Margrave of Anspach; who, having sold his principality to the

King of Prussia, settled in England; where he died in 1806. In

1825, the Margravine published her Memoirs, She died at Naples in

1828-E.

Letter 306 To Miss Hannah More.

Berkeley Square, Jan. 1, 1787. (page 388)

Do not imagine, dear Madam, that I pretend in the most distant

manner to pay you for charming poetry with insipid prose; much

less that I acquit a debt of gratitude for flattering kindness

and friendship, by a meagre tale that does not even aim at

celebrating you. No; I have but two motives for offering you the

accompanying trifle;(580) the first, to prove that the moment I

have finished any thing you are of the earliest in my thoughts:

the second, that, Coming from my press, I wish it may be added to

your Strawberry editions. It is so far from being designed for

the public, that I have printed but forty copies; which I do not

mention to raise its value, though it will with mere collectors,

but lest you should lend it and lose it, when I may not be able

to supply its place.

Christina, indeed, has some title to connexion with you, both

from her learning and her moral writings; as you are justly

entitled to a lodging in her "C it`e des Dames," where I am sure

her three patronesses would place you, as a favourite `el`eve of

some of their still more amiable sisters, who must at this moment

be condoling With their unfortunate sister Gratitude, whose

vagabond foundling has so basely disgraced her and herself. You

fancied that Mrs. Yearsley was a spurious issue of a muse; and to

be sure, with all their immortal virginity, the parish of

Parnassus has been sadly charged with their bantlings; and, as

nobody knows the fathers, no wonder some of the misses have

turned out woful reprobates!

(580) Christine de Pise.

Letter 307 To The Right Hon. Lady Craven.

Berkeley Square, Jan. 2, 1787. (page 389)

Your ladyship tells me, that you have kept a journal of your

travels: you know not when your friends at Paris will give you

time to put it au net; that is, I conclude and hope, prepare it

for the press. I do not wonder that those friends, whether

talismanic or others, are so assiduous, if you indulge them -

but, unless they are of the former description, they are

unpardonable, if they know what they interrupt; and deserve much

more that you should wish they had fallen into a ditch, than the

poor gentlemen who sigh more to see you in sheets of holland than

of paper. To me the mischief is enormous. How proud I should be

to register a noble authoress of my own country, who has

travelled over more regions and farther than any female in print!

Your ladyship has visited those islands and shores whence

formerly issued those travelling sages and legislators who sought

and imported wisdom, laws, and religion into Greece; and though

we are so perfect as to want none Of those commodities, the fame

of those philosophers is certainly diminished when a fair lady

has gone so far in quest of knowledge. You have gone in an age

when travels are brought to a juster standard, by narrations

being limited to truth. Formerly the performers of the longest

voyages destroyed half the merit of their expeditions by

relating, not what they had, but had not seen; a sort of

communication that they might have imparted without stirring a

foot from home. Such exaggerations drew discredit on travels,

till people would not believe that there existed in other

countries any thing very different from- what they saw in their

own; and because no Patagonians, or gentry seven or eight feet

high, were really discovered, they would not believe that there

were Laplanders or pigmies of three and four. Incredulity went

so far, that at last it Was doubted whether China so much as

existed; and our countryman Sir John Mandeville(581) got an ill

name, because, though he gave an account of it, he had not

brought back its right name:(582) at least

if I do not mistake, this was the case; but it is long since I

read any thing about the matter, and I am willing to begin my

travels again under your ladyship's auspices. I am sorry to

hear, Madam, that by your account Lady Mary Wortley was not so

accurate and faithful as modern travellers. The invaluable art

of inoculation, which she brought from Constantinople, so dear to

all admirers of beauty, and to which we owe, perhaps, the

preservation of yours, stamps her an universal benefactress; and

as you rival her in poetic talents, I had rather you would employ

them to celebrate her for her nostrum, than detect her for

romancing. However, genuine accounts of the interior of

seraglios would be precious; and I was in hopes would become the

greater rarities, as I flattered myself that your friends the

Empress of Russia and

the Emperor were determined to level Ottoman tyranny. His

Imperial Majesty, who has demolished the prison bars of so many

nunneries, would perform a stilt more Christian act in setting

free so many useless sultanas; and her Czarish Majesty, I trust,

would be as great a benefactress to our sex, by ,abolishing The

barbarous practice that reduces us to be of none. Your

ladyship's indefatigable peregrinations should have such great

objects in view, when you have the ear of sovereigns.

Peter the Hermit conjured up the first crusadoes against the

infidels by running about from monarch to monarch. Lady Craven

should ,be as zealous and as renowned; and every fair Circassian

would acknowledge, that one English lady had repaid their country

for the secret which another had given to Europe from their

practice.

(581) As an instance of the monstrous exaggerations of this

ancient Munchausen, take the following:--"I am a liar if I have

not seen in Java, a single shell in which three men might

completely hide themselves, and all white!" He also states

himself to have met with whole nations of giants, twenty-fie feet

high; and of pigmies, as many inches.-E.

(582) In a conversation with Mr. Windham, Dr. Johnson, a few days

before his death, recommended, for an account of China, Sir John

Mandeville's Travels." See Boswell's Johnson, vol. ix. p. 317,

ed. 1835.-E.

Letter 308 To Miss Hannah More.

Berkeley Square, Feb. 8, 1787. (page 390)

Dear madam,

I not only send you "La Cit`e des Dames," but Christina's Life of

Charles the Fifth, which will entertain you more; and which, when

I wrote my brief history of her, I did not know she had actually

composed. Mr. Dutens told me of it very lately, and actually

borrowed it for me; and but yesterday my French bookseller sent

me three-and-twenty other volumes of those M`emoires

Historiques,(583) which I had ordered him to get for me, and

which will keep my eyes to the oar for some time, whenever I have

leisure to sail through such an ocean; and yet I shall embark

with pleasure, late as it is for me to undertake such a hugeous

voyage: but a crew of old gossips are no improper company, and we

shall sit in a warm cabin, and hear and tell old stories of past

times.

Pray keep the volume as long as you please, and borrow as many

more as you please, for each volume is a detached piece. Yet I

do not suppose your friends will allow you much time for reading;

and I hope I shall often be the better for their hindering

you.(584) Yours most sincerely.

(583) "Collection des meilleurs Ouvrages Francais compos`es par

des Femmes." by Mademoiselle Keralio.

(584) Miss More, in a letter written a few days after, says--"Mr.

Walpole is remarkably well: yesterday he sent me a very agreeable

letter, with some very thick volumes of curious French M`emoires,

desiring me, if I like them, to send for the other twenty-three

volumes; a pretty light undertaking, in this mad town and this

sort of life." memoirs, vol. ii. p. 49.-E.

Letter 309 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.(585)

Berkeley Square, March 13, 1787. (page 391)

It is very true, Sir, as Lord Strafford told you, that I have

taken care that letters of living persons to me shall be restored

to the writers when I die. I have burnt a great many, and, as

you desire it, would do so by yours; but, having received a like

intimation some time ago, I put yours into a separate paper, with

a particular direction that they should be delivered to you: and,

therefore, I imagine it will be more satisfaction to you, as it

will be to me too, that you should receive them yourself; and

therefore if you please to let me know how I shall convey them, I

will bring them from Strawberry Hill, where they are, the first

time I go thither. I hope you enjoy your health, and I have the

honour to be, Sir, etc.

(585) Now first printed.

Letter 310 To Miss Hannah More.(596)

Strawberry Hill, June 15, 1787. (page 391)

In your note, on going out of town, you desired me to remember

you; but as I do not like the mere servile merit of obedience, I

took time, my dear Madam, to try to forget you; and, having

failed as to my wish, I have the free-born pleasure of thinking

of you in spite of my teeth, and without any regard to your

injunction. No queen upon earth, as fond as royal persons are of

their prerogative, but would prefer being loved for herself

rather than for her power; and I hope you have not more majesty

"Than the whole race of queens!"

Perhaps the spirit of your command did not mean that I should

give you such manual proof of' my remembrance; and you may not

know what to make of a subject who avows a mutinous spirit, and

at the same time exceeds the measure of his duty. It is, I own,

a kind of Irish loyalty; and, to keep up the Irish character, I

will confess that I never was disposed to be so loyal to any

sovereign that was not a subject. if you collect from all this

galai-Datias that I am cordially your humble servant, I shall be

content. The Irish have the best hearts in the three kingdoms,

and they never blunder more than when they attempt to express

their zeal and affection: the reason, I suppose, is, that cool

sense never thinks of attempting impossibilities; but a warm

heart feels itself ready to do more than is possible for those it

loves. I am sure our poor friend in Clarges-street(597) would

subscribe to this last sentence. What English heart ever

excelled hers? I should have almost said equalled, if I were not

writing to one that rivals her.

The last time I saw her before I left London, Miss Burney(598)

passed the evening there, looking quite recovered and well, and

so cheerful and agreeable, that the court seems only to have

improved the ease of her manner, instead of stamping more reserve

on it, as I feared: but what slight graces it can give, will not

compensate to us and the world for the loss of her company and

her writings. Not but that some young ladies who can write, can

stifle their talent as much as if they were under lock and key in

the royal library. I do not see but a cottage is as pernicious

to genius as the Queen's waiting-room. Why should one remember

people that forget themselves? Oh! I am sorry I used that

expression, as it is commonly applied to such self-oblivion as

Mrs. -; and light and darkness are not more opposite than the

forgetfulness to which I alluded, and hers. The former

forgetfulness can forget its own powers and the injuries of

others; the latter can forget its own defects, and the

obligations and services it has received. How poor is that

language which has not distinct terms for modesty and virtue, and

for excess of vanity and ingratitude! The Arabic tongue, I

suppose, has specific words for all the shades of oblivion,

which, you see, has its extremes. I think I have heard that

there are some score of different terms for a lion in Arabic,

each expressive of a different quality; and consequently its

generosity and its appetite for blood are not confounded in one

general word. but if an Arabian vocabulary were as numerous in

proportion for all the qualities that can enter into a human

composition, it would be more difficult to be learned therein,

than to master all the characters of the Chinese.

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

for your library at Cowslip Green. May I, as a printer, rather

than as an author, beg leave to furnish part of a shelf there?

and as I must fetch some of the books from Strawberry Hill, will

you wait till I can send them all together? And will you be so

good as to tell me whither I shall send them, or how direct and

convey them to you at Bristol? I shall have a satisfaction in

thinking that they will remain in your rising cottage (in which,

I hope, you will enjoy a long series of happy hours); and that

they will sometimes, when they and I shall be forgotten in other

places, recall to Miss More's memory her very sincere humble

servant.

(596) Now first collected.

(597) In a letter to Walpole, written at this time from Cowslip

Green, Miss More says, "When I sit in a little hermitage I have

built in my garden,-not to be melancholy in, but to think upon my

friends, and to read their works and letters,-Mr. Walpole

seldomer presents himself to my mind as the man of wit than as

the tender-hearted and humane friend of my dear infirm,

broken-spirited Mrs. Vesey. One only admires talents, and

admiration is a cold sentiment, with which affection has commonly

nothing to do; but one does more than admire them when they are

devoted to such gentle purposes. My very heart is softened when

I consider that she is now out of the way of your kind

attentions' and I fear that nothing else on earth gives her the

smallest pleasure." Memoirs, VOL ii, p. 72-E.

(598) This highly-gifted young lady had, in the preceding year,

been appointed keeper of the robes to the Queen.-E.

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

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

I have very little to tell you since we met but disappointments,

and those of no great consequence. On Friday night Lady Pembroke

wrote to me that Princess Lubomirski was to dine with her the

next day, and desired to come in the morning to see Strawberry.

Well, my castle put on its robes, breakfast was prepared, and I

shoved another company out of the house, who had a ticket for

seeing it. The sun shone, my hay was cocked, we looked divinely;

and at half an hour after two, nobody came but a servant to Lady

Pembroke, to say her Polish altitude had sent her word she had

another engagement in town that would keep her too late:-so Lady

Pembroke's dinner was addled; and we had nothing to do, but, like

good Christians, if we chose it, to compel every body on the

road, whether they chose it or not, to come in and eat our soup

and biscuits. Methinks this liberum veto was rather impertinent,

and I begin to think that the partition of Poland was very right.

Your brother has sent me a card for a ball on Monday, but I have

excused myself. I have not yet compassed the whole circuit of my

own garden, and I have had an inflammation in one of my eyes, and

don't think I look as well as my house and my verdure; and had

rather see my haycocks, than the Duchess of Polignac and Madame

Lubomirski. "The Way to Keep Him" had the way to get me, and I

could crawl to it because I had an inclination; but I have a

great command of myself when I have no mind to do any thing.

Lady Constant was worth an hundred ars and irskis. Let me hear

of you when you have nothing else to do; though I suppose you

have as little to tell as you see I had.

Letter 312 To The Earl Of Strafford.

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

St. Swithun is no friend to correspondence, my dear lord. There

is not only a great sameness in his own proceedings, but he makes

every body else dull-I mean in the country, where one frets at

its raining every day and all day. In town he is no more minded

than the proclamation against vice and immorality. Still, though

he has all the honours of the quarantine, I believe it often

rained for forty days long before St. Swithun was born, if ever

born he was; and the proverb was coined and put under his

patronage, because people observed that it frequently does rain

for forty days together at this season. I remember Lady Suffolk

telling me, that Lord Dysart's great meadow had never been mowed

but once in forty years without rain. I said, "All that that

proved was, that rain was good for hay," as I am persuaded the

climate of a country and its productions are suited to each

other. Nay, rain is good for haymakers too, who get more

employment the oftener the hay is made over again. I do not know

who is the saint that presides over thunder; but he has made an

unusual quantity in this chill summer, and done a great deal of

serious mischief, though not a fiftieth part of what Lord George

Gordon did seven years ago, and happily he is fled.

Our little part of the world has been quiet as usual. The Duke

of Queensberry has given a sumptuous dinner to the Princess de

Lamballe(599)--et voil`a tout. I never saw her, not even in

France. I have no particular penchant for sterling princes and

princesses, much less for those of French plate.

The only entertaining thing I can tell your lordship from our

district is, that old Madam French, who lives close by the bridge

at Hampton-court, where, between her and the Thames, she had

nothing but one grass-plot of the width of her house, has paved

that whole plot with black and white marble in diamonds, exactly

like the floor of a church; and this curious metamorphosis of a

garden into a pavement has cost her three hundred and forty

pounds:-a tarpaulin she might have had for some shillings, which

would have looked as well, and might easily have been removed.

To be sure, this exploit, and Lord Dudley's obelisk below a

hedge, with his canal at right angles with the Thames, and a sham

bridge no broader than that of a violin, and parallel to the

river, are not preferable to the monsters in clipt yews of our

ancestors;

Bad taste expellas fursa tamen usque recurret.

On the contrary, Mrs. Walsingham is making her house at Ditton

(now baptized Boyle-farm) very orthodox. Her daughter Miss

Boyle(600) who has real genius, has carved three tablets in

marble with buoys, designed by herself. Those sculptures are for

a chimney-piece; and she is painting panels in grotesque for the

library, with pilasters of glass in black and gold. Miss Crewe,

who has taste too, has decorated a room for her mother's house at

Richmond, which was Lady Margaret Compton's in a very pretty

manner. How much more amiable the old women of the next age will

be, than most of those we remember, who used to tumble at once

from gallantry to devout scandal and cards! and revenge on the

young of their own sex the desertion of ours. Now they are

ingenious, they will not want amusement. Adieu, my dear lord!

(599) Sister to the Prince de Carignan, of the royal house of

Sardinia, and wife of the Prince de Lamballe, only son to the Duc

de Penthi`evre. She was sur-intendante de la maison de la Reine,

and, from her attachment to Marie Antoinette, was one of the

first females who fell a victim to the fury of the French

revolution. The peculiar circumstances of horror which attended

her death, and the indignities offered to her remains, are in the

memory of every one who has read the accounts of that

heart.rending event.-E.

(600) Afterwards married to Lord Henry Fitzgerald.

Letter 313 To Miss Hannah More.

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

My dear Madam,

I am shocked for human nature at the repeated malevolence of this

woman!(601) The rank soil of riches we are accustomed to see

overrun with weeds and thistles; but who could expect that the

kindest seeds sown on poverty and dire misfortunes should meet

with nothing but a rock at bottom? Catherine de' Medici, suckled

by popes. and transplanted to a throne, seems more excusable.

Thank heaven, Madam, for giving you so excellent a heart; ay, and

so good a head. You are not only benevolence itself: but, with

fifty times the genius of a Yearsley, you are void of vanity.

How strange that vanity should expel gratitude! Does not the

wretched woman owe her fame to you, as well as her affluence? I

can testify your labours for both. Dame Yearsley reminds me of

the Troubadours, those vagrants whom I used to admire till I knew

their history; and who used to pour out trumpery verses, and

flatter or abuse accordingly as they were housed and clothed, or

dismissed to the next parish. Yet you did not set this person in

the stocks, after procuring an annuity for her! I beg your pardon

for renewing so disgusting a subject, and will never mention it

again. You have better amusement; you love good works, a temper

superior to revenge.(602)

I have again seen our poor friend in Clarges-street: her

faculties decay rapidly, and of course she suffers less. She has

not an acquaintance in town; and yet told me the town was very

full, and that she had had a good deal of company. Her health is

re-established, and we must now be content that her mind is not

restless. My pity now feels most for Mrs. Hancock,(603) whose

patience is inexhaustible, though not insensible.

Mrs. Piozzi, I hear, has two volumes of Dr. Johnson's Letters

ready for publication.(604) Bruce is printing his Travels; which

I suppose will prove that his narratives were fabulous, as he

will scarce repeat them by the press. These and two more volumes

of Mr. Gibbon's History, are all the literary news I know.

France seems sunk indeed in all respects. What stuff are their

theatrical goods, their Richards, Ninas, and Tarares! But when

their Figaro could run threescore nights, how despicable must

their taste be grown!(605) I rejoice that the political

intrigues are not more creditable. I do not dislike the French

from the vulgar antipathy between neighbouring nations, but for

their insolent and unfounded airs of superiority. In arms we

have almost always outshone them: and till they have excelled

Newton, and come near to Shakspeare, pre-eminence in genius must

remain with us. I think they are most entitled to triumph over

the Italians; as, with the most meagre and inharmonious of all

languages, the French have made more of that poverty in tragedy

and eloquence, than the Italians have done with the language the

most capable of both. But I did not mean to send you a

dissertation. I hope it will not be long before you remove to

Hampton.--Yet why should I wish that'! You will only be

geographically nearer to London till February. Cannot you now

and then sleep at the Adelphi on a visit to poor Vesey and your

friends, and let one know if you do?

(601) Walpole had recently received a letter from Miss More, in

which she had said--"MY old friend the milk-woman has just

brought out another book, to which she has prefixed my original

preface to her first book, and twenty pages of the scurrility

published against me in her second. To all this she has added

the deed which I got drawn up by an eminent lawyer to secure her

money in the funds, and which she asserts I made Mrs. Montagu

sign without reading." Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 80.

(602) Mrs. Yearsley was a woman of strong masculine

understanding, and of a powerful independent mind, which could

not brook any thing in the nature of dictation or interference.

Whether she then was a widow, or separated from her husband, I

know not; but, in 1793, she kept a bookseller and stationer's

shop, under the name of Ann Yearsley, at Bristol Hot-wells,

assisted by her son, and there all sorts of literary discussion

used to take place daily amongst those who frequented it; and

Mrs. Yearsley being somewhat free, both in her political and

religious opinions, as well as not a little indignant at Mrs.

More's attempt at holding a control over her proceedings, it is

not matter of wonder, that a very unreasonable asperity should

have been exhibited on both sides.-G.

(603) "What a blessing for Mrs. Vesey, that Mrs. Hancock is alive

and well! I do venerate that woman beyond words; her faithful,

quiet, patient attachment makes all showy qualities and shining

talents appear little in my eyes. Such characters are what Mr.

Burke calls I the soft quiet green, on which the soul loves to

rest!"' Hannah More's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 80.-E.

(604) In speaking of these Letters, which appeared shortly after,

Hannah More says--:They are such as ought to have been written,

but ought not to have been printed: a few of them are very good:

sometimes he is moral, and sometimes he is kind. The imprudence

of editors and executors is an additional reason why men of parts

should be afraid to die. Burke said to me the other day, in

allusion to the innumerable lives, anecdotes, remains, etc. of

this great man, 'How many maggots have crawled out of that great

body!'" Memoirs, vol. ii-P. 101-E.

(605) Mr. Walpole had never seen Figaro acted, nor had he been at

Paris for many years before it appeared: he was not, therefore,

aware of the bold, witty, and continued allusions of almost every

scene and of almost every incident of that comedy, to the most

popular topics and the most distinguished characters of the day.

The freedom with which it treated arbitrary government and all

its establishments, while they all yet continued in unwelcome

force- in France, and the moral conduct of each individual of the

piece exactly suiting the no-morality of the audience, joined to

the admirable manner in which it was acted, certainly must be

allowed to have given it its greatest vogue. But even now, when

most of these temporary advantages no longer exist, whoever was

well acquainted with the manners, habits, and anecdotes of Paris

at the time of the first appearance of Figaro, will always admire

in it a combination of keen and pointed satire, easy wit, and

laughable incident.-B.

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

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

>From violent contrary winds,(606) and by your letter going to

Strawberry Hill, whence I was 'come, I have but just received it,

and perhaps shall Only be able to answer it by snatches, being up

to the chin in nephews and nieces.

I find you knew nothing of the pacification when you wrote, When

I saw your letter, I hoped it would tell me you was coming back,

as your island is as safe as if it was situated in the Pacific

Ocean, or at least as islands there used to be, till Sir Joseph

Banks chose to put them up. I sent you the good news on the very

day before you wrote, though I imagined you would learn it by

earlier intelligence. Well, I enjoy both your safety and your

great success, which is enhanced by its being owing to your

character and abilities. I hope the latter will be allowed to

operate by those who have not quite so much of either. I shall

be wonderful glad to see little Master Stonehenge(607) at Park-

place; it will look in character there: but your own bridge is so

stupendous in comparison, that hereafter the latter will be

thought to have been a work of the Romans. Dr. Stukeley will

burst his cerements to offer mistletoe in your temple; and Mason,

on the contrary, will die of vexation and spite that he cannot

have Caractacus acted on the spot. Peace to all such!

--But were there one whose fires

True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires,

he would immortalize you, for all you have been carrying on in

Jersey, and for all you shall carry off. Inigo Jones, or

Charlton,- or somebody, I forget who, called Stonehenge "Chorea

Gigantum:" this will be the chorea of the pigmies; and, as I

forget too what is Latin for Lilliputians, I will make a bad pun,

and say,

----Portantur avari

Pygmalionis opes.--

Pygmalion is as well-sounding a name for such a monarch as

Oberon. Pray do not disappoint me, but transport the

cathedral(608) of your island to your domain on our continent. I

figure unborn antiquaries making pilgrimages to visit your

bridge, your daughter's bridge,(609) and the Druidic temple; and

if I were not too old to have any imagination left, I would add a

sequel to Mi Li.(610) Adieu!

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

(607) Mr. Walpole thus calls the small Druidic temple discovered

in Jersey, which the States of that island had presented to

General Conway, to be transported to and erected at Park-place.

Dr. Walter Charlton published a dissertation on Stonehenge in

1663, entitled "Chorea Gigantum." it was reprinted in 1715.-E.

(608) The Druidic temple.

(609) The keystones of the centre arch of the bridge at Henley

are ornamented with heads of the Thames and Isis, designed by the

Hon. Mrs. Damer, and executed by her in Portland stone.

(610) One of the Hieroglyphic tales, containing a description of

Park-place. it will be found in Walpole's works.

Letter 315 To Thomas Barrett, Esq.(611)

Berkeley Square, June 5, 1788. (page 398)

I wish I could charge myself with any merit, which I always wish

to have towards you, dear Sir, in letting Mr. Matthew see

Strawberry; but in truth he has so much merit and modesty and

taste himself, that I gave him the ticket with pleasure, which it

seldom happens to me to do; for most of those who go thither, go

because it is the fashion, and because a party is a prevailing

custom too; and my tranquillity is disturbed, because nobody

likes to stay at home. If Mr. Matthew was really entertained I

am glad; but Mr. Wyatt has made him too correct a Goth not to

have seen all the imperfections and bad execution of my attempts;

for neither Mr. Bentley nor my workmen had studied the science,

and I was always too desultory and impatient to consider that I

should please myself more by allowing time, than by hurrying my

plans into execution before they were ripe. My house therefore

is but a sketch by beginners, yours is finished by a great

master; and if Mr. Matthew liked mine, it was en virtuose, who

loves the dawnings of an art, or the glimmerings of its

restoration.

I finished Mr. Gibbon a full fortnight ago, and was extremely

pleased. It is a most wonderful mass of information, not only of

history, but almost on all the ingredients of history, as war,

government, commerce, coin, and what not. If it has a fault, it

is in embracing too much, and consequently in not detailing

enough, and it, striding backwards and forwards from one set of

princes to another, and from one subject to another; so that,

without much historic knowledge, and without much memory, and

much method in one's memory, it is almost impossible not to be

sometimes bewildered: nay, his own impatience to tell what he

knows, makes the author, though commonly so explicit, not

perfectly clear in his expressions. The last chapter of the

fourth Volume, I own, made me recoil, and I could scarcely push

through it. So far from being Catholic or heretic, I wished Mr.

Gibbon had never heard of Monophysites, Nestorians, or any such

fools! But the sixth volume made ample amends; Mahomet and the

Popes were gentlemen and good company. I abominate fractions of

theology and reformation.

Mr. Sheridan, I hear, did not quite satisfy the passionate

expectation that had been raised;(612) but it was impossible he

could, when people had worked themselves into an enthusiasm of

offering fifty, ay, fifty guineas for a ticket to hear him.

Well! we are sunk and deplorable in many points, yet not

absolutely gone, when history and eloquence throw out such

shoots! I thought I had outlived my country; I am glad not to

leave it desperate. Adieu, dear Sir!

(611) OF Lee, in East Kent; Whose seat was built by Mr. Wyatt,

and greatly admired by Walpole.-E.

(612) Of his speech in Westminster-hall, on bringing forward the

Begum charge against Mr. Hastings; upon which Mr. Burke

pronounced the high ealogium, that "all the various species of

oratory that had been heard, either in ancient or modern

times-whatever the acuteness of the bar, the dignity of the

senate, or the morality of the pulpit; could furnish--had not

been equal to what the House had that day heard." Gibbon, who

was present, thus describes it, in a letter to Lord Sheffield:--

"Yesterday the august scene was closed for this year. Sheridan

surpassed himself; and, though I am far from considering him a

perfect orator, there were many beautiful passages in his speech-

-on justice, filial love, etc.; one of the closest chains of

argument I ever heard, to prove that Hastings was responsible for

the acts of Middleton; and a compliment, much admired to a

certain historian of your acquaintance. Sheridan, on the close

of his speech, sunk into Burke's arms--a good actor: but I called

this morning; he is perfectly well."-E.

Letter 316 To The Earl Of Strafford.

Strawberry Hill, Tuesday night, June 17, 1788. (page 399)

I guess, my dear lord, and only guess, that you are arrived at

Wentworth Castle. If you are not, my letter will lose none of

its bloom by waiting for you; for I have nothing fresh to tell

you, and only write because you enjoined it. I settled in my

Lilliputian towers but this morning. I wish people would come

into the country on May-day, and fix in town on the first of

November. But as they will not, I have made up my mind; and

having so little time left, I prefer London, when my friends and

society are in it, to living here alone, or with the weird

sisters of Richmond and Hampton. I had additional reason now,

for the streets are as green as the fields: we are burnt to the

bone, and have not a lock of bay to cover our nakedness: oats are

so dear, that I suppose they will soon be eaten at Brooks's and

fashionable tables as a rarity. The drought has lasted so long,

that for this fortnight I have been foretelling haymaking and

winter, which June generally produces; but to-day is sultry, and

I am not a prophet worth a straw. Though not resident till now,

I have flitted backwards and forwards, and last Friday came

hither to look for a minute at a ball at Mrs. Walsingham's at

Ditton which would have been pretty, for she had stuck coloured

lamps in the hair of all her trees and bushes, if the east wind

had not danced a reel all the time by the side of the river. Mr.

Conway's play,(613) of which your lordship has seen some account

in the papers, has succeeded delightfully, both in representation

and applause. The language is most genteel, though translated

from verse; and both prologue and epilogue are charming. The

former was delivered most Justly and admirably by Lord Derby, and

the latter with inimitable spirit and grace by Mrs. Damer. Mr.

Merry and Mrs. Bruce played excellently too. But General Conway,

Mrs. Damer, and every body else are drowned by Mr. Sheridan,

whose renown has engrossed all Fame's tongues and trumpets. Lord

Townshend said he should be sorry were he forced to give a vote

directly on Hastings, before he had time to cool; and one of the

peers saying the speech had not made the same impression on him,

the Marquis replied, a seal might be finely cut, and yet not be

in fault for making a bad impression.

I have, you see, been forced to send your lordship what scraps I

brought from town: the next four months, I doubt will reduce me

to my old sterility; for I cannot retail French gazettes, though

as a good Englishman bound to hope they will contain a civil war.

I care still less about the double imperial campaign, only hoping

that the poor dear Turks will heartily beat both Emperor and

Empress. If the first Ottomans could be punished, they deserved

it, but present possessors have as good a prescription 'on their

side as any People in Europe. We ourselves are Saxons, Danes,

Normans; our neighbours are Franks, not Gauls; who the rest are,

Goths, Gepidae, Heruli, Mr. Gibbon knows; and the Dutch usurped

the estates of herrings, turbots, and other marine indigenae.

Still, though I do not wish the hair of a Turk's beard to be

hurt, I do not say that it would not be amusing to have

Constantinople taken, merely as a lusty event; for neither could

I live to see Athens revive, nor have I much faith in two such

bloody-minded vultures, cock and hen, as Catherine and Joseph,

conquering for the benefit of humanity; nor does my Christianity

admire the propagation of the Gospel by the mouth of cannon.

What desolation of peasants and their families by the episodes of

forage and quarters! Oh! I wish Catherine and Joseph were

brought to Westminster-hall and worried by Sheridan! I hope,

too, that the poor Begums are alive to hear of his speech; it

will be some comfort, though I doubt nobody thinks of restoring

them a quarter of a lac!

(613) A comedy, called "False Appearances" translated from

L'Homme du Jour of Boissy. It was first acted at the private

theatre at Richmond.house, and afterwards at Drury-lane.-E.

Letter 317 To Miss Hannah More.

Strawberry Hill, July 4, 1788. (page 401)

I am soundly rejoiced, my dear Madam, that the present summer is

more favourable to me than the last: , and that, instead of not

answering my letters in three months, you open the campaign. May

not I flatter myself' that it is a symptom of your being in

better health? I wish, however, you had told me so in positive

words, and that all your complaints have left you. Welcome as is

your letter, it would have been ten times more welcome bringing

me that assurance; for don't think I forget how ill you was last

winter. As letters, you say, now keep their coaches, I hope

those from Bristol will call often at my door.(614) I promise

you I will never be denied to them.

No botanist am I; nor wished to learn from you, of all the Muses,

that piping has a new signification. I had rather that you

handled an oaten pipe than a carnation one; yet setting layers, I

own, is preferable to reading newspapers, one of the chronical

maladies of this age. Every body reads them, nay quotes them,

though every body knows they are stuffed with lies or blunders.

How should it be otherwise? If any extraordinary event happens,

who but must hear it before it descends through a coffee-house to

the runner of a daily paper? They who are always wanting news,

are wanting to hear they don't know what. A lower species,

indeed, is that of the scribes you mention, who every night

compose a journal for the satisfaction of such illiterati, and

feed them with all the vices and misfortunes of every private

family; nay, they now call it a duty to publish all those

calamities which decency to wretched relations used in compassion

to suppress, I mean self-murder in particular. Mr. -Is was

detailed at length; and to-day that of Lord - and -. The

pretence is, in terrorem, like the absurd stake and highway of

our ancestors; as if there were a precautionary potion for

madness, or the stigma of a newspaper were more dreadful than

death. Daily journalists, to be sure, are most respectable

magistrates! Yes, much like the cobblers that Cromwell made

peers.

I do lament your not going to Mr. Conway's play: both the author

and actors deserved such an auditor as you, and you deserved to

hear them. However, I do not pity good people who out of virtue

lose or miss any pleasures. Those pastimes fleet as fast as

those of the wicked; but when gone, you saints can sit down and

feast on your self-denial, and drink bumpers of satisfaction to

the health of your own merit. So truly I don't pity you.

You say you hear no news, yet you quote Mr. Topham;(615)

therefore why should I tell you that the King is going to

Cheltenham? Or that the Baccelli lately danced at the opera at

Paris with a blue bandeau on her forehead, inscribed, "Honi soit

qui mal y pense." Now who can doubt but she is as pure as the

Countess of Salisbury! Was not it ingenious? and was not the

ambassador so to allow it? No doubt he took it for a compliment

to his own knee.

Well! would we committed nothing but follies! What do we not

commit when the abolition of slavery hitches! Adieu!

Though Cato died, though Tully spoke,

Though Brutus dealt the godlike stroke,

Yet perish'd fated Rome.

You have written; and I fear that even if Mr. Sheridan speaks,

trade, the modern religion, will predominate. Adieu!

(614) Miss More, in her last letter, had said--"Mail-coaches,

which come to others, come not to me: letters and newspapers, now

that they travel In coaches, like gentlemen and ladies, come not

within ten miles of my hermitage: and while other fortunate

provincials are studying the world and its ways, and are feasting

upon elopement, divorces, and suicides, tricked out in all the

elegancies of Mr. Topham's phraseology, I am obliged to be

contented with village vices, petty iniquities, and vulgar sins,"

Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 77.-E.

(615) Major Topham was the proprietor of the fashionable morning

paper entitled The World. "In this paper," says Mr. Gifford, in

his preface to the Baviad, "were given the earliest specimens of

those unqualified and audacious attacks on all private character,

and which the town first smiled at for their quaintness then

tolerated for their absurdity; now--that other papers equally

wicked and more intelligible, have ventured to imitate it--will

have to lament to the last hour of British liberty." In 1791,

Major Topham published the Life of John Elwes the miser; which

Walpole considered one of the most amusing anecdotical books in

the English language.-E.

(616) While the Duke of Dorset, who kept her was ambassador at

Paris. The Countess of Salisbury, to the fall OF whose garter

has been attributed the foundation of the order of the Garter.

Letter 318 To Miss Hannah More.

Strawberry Hill, July 12, 1788. (page 402)

Won't you repent of having opened the correspondence, my dear

Madam, when you find my letters come so thick upon you? In this

instance, however, I am only to blame in part, for being too

ready to take advice, for the sole reason for which advice ever

is taken, 'because it fell in with my inclination. You said in

your last that you feared you took up time of mine to the

prejudice of the public; implying, I imagine, that I might employ

it in composing. Waving both your compliment, and my own vanity,

I will speak very seriously to you on that subject, and with

exact truth. My simple writings have had better fortune than

they had any reason to expect; and I fairly believe, in a great

degree, because gentlemen-writers, who do not write for interest,

are treated with some civility if they do not write absolute

nonsense. I think so, because I have not unfrequently known much

better works than mine much more neglected, if the name, fortune,

and situation of the authors were below mine. I wrote early,

from youth, spirits, and vanity; and from both the last when the

first no longer existed. I now shudder when I reflect on my own

boldness; and with mortification, when I compare my own writings

with those of any great authors. This is So true, that I

question"Whether it would be possible for me to summon up courage

to publish any thing I have written, if I could recall the past,

and should yet think as I think at present. So much for what is

over and out of my power. As to writing now, I have totally

forsworn the profession, for two solid reasons. One I have

already told you; and it is, that I know my own writings are

trifling and of no depth. The other is, that, light and futile

as they were, I am sensible they are better than I could compose

now. I am aware of the decay of the middling parts I had, and

others may be still more sensible of it. How do I know but I am

superannuated? nobody will be so coarse as to tell me so; but if

I published dotage all the world would tell me so. And who but

runs that risk who is an author after severity? What happened to

the greatest author of this age, and who certainly retained a

very considerable portion of his abilities for ten years after my

age Voltaire, at eighty-four, I think, Went to Paris to receive

the incense, in person, of his countrymen, and to be witness of

their admiration of a tragedy he had written at that Methusalem

age. Incense he did receive till it choked him; and at the

exhibition of his play he was actually crowned with laurel in the

box where he sat. But what became of his poor play? It died as

soon as he did--was buried with him; and no mortal, I dare to

say, has ever read a line of it since, it was so bad.(617)

As I am neither by a thousandth part so great, nor a quarter so

little, I will herewith send you a fragment that an accidental

rencontre set me upon writing,, and which I found so flat, that I

would not finish it. Don't believe that I am either begging

praise by the stale artifice of' hoping to be contradicted; or

that I think there is any occasion to make you discover my

caducity. No; but the fragment contains a curiosity--English

verses written by a French prince of the blood, and which at

first I had a mind to add to my Royal and Noble Authors, but as

he was not a royal author of ours, and as I could not please

myself with an account of him, I shall revert to my old

resolution of not exposing my pen's gray hairs.(618)

Of one passage I must take notice; it is a little indirect sneer

at our crowd of authoresses. My choosing to send this to you is

a proof that I think you an author, that is, a classic. But in

truth I am nauseated by the Madams Piozzi, etc. and the host of

novel-writers in petticoats, who think they imitate what is

inimitable, Evelina and Cecilia. Your candour I know will not

agree with me, when I tell you I am not at all charmed with Miss

Seward and Mr. Hayley piping to one another: but you I exhort,

and would encourage to write; and flatter myself you will never

be royally gagged and promoted to fold Muslins, as has been

lately wittily said on Miss Burney, in the list of five hundred

living authors. Your writings promote virtues; and their

increasing editions prove their worth and utility. If you

question my sincerity, can you doubt my admiring you, when you

have gratified my self-love so amply in your Bas Bleu? Still, as

much as I love your writings, I respect yet more your heart and

your goodness. You are so good, that I believe you would go to

heaven, even though there were no Sunday, and only six working

days in the week. Adieu, my best Madam!

(617) Madame du Deffand, in a letter to Walpole of the 8th of

March 1778, says--"Voltaire se Porte bien: il est uniquement

occup`e de sa tragedie d'Ir`ene; on assure qu'on la jouera de

demain en huit: si elle n'a pas de succ`es, il en mourra." On the

18th, she again writes--"Le succ`es de la pi`ece a `et`e tr`es

mediocre; il y eut cependant beaucouP de claquemens de mains,

mais C'`etait Plus Voltaire qui en `etait l'objet que la Pi`ece."

He died in the May following.-E.

(618) The French prince of the blood here spoken of, was Charles

Duke of Orleans, who being a prisoner at the battle of Agincourt,

was brought to England and detained here for twenty.five years.

For a copy of the verses, see Walpole's works, vol. i. p. 564.-E.

Letter 319 To The Earl Of Strafford.

Strawberry Hill, August 2, 1788. (page 404)

Matter for a letter, alas! my dear lord, I have none; but about

letters I have great news to tell your lordship, only may the

goddess of post-offices grant it be true! A Miss Sayer, of

Richmond, who is at Paris, writes to Mrs. Boscawen, that a Baron

de ]a Garde (I am sorry there are so many as in the genealogy of

my story.) has found in a vieille armoire five hundred more

letters of Madame de S`evign`e, and that they will be printed if

the expense is not too great. I am in a taking, lest they should

not appear before I set out for the Elysian fields for, though

the writer is one of the first personages I should inquire after

on my arrival, I question whether St. Peter has taste enough to

know where she lodges, she is more likely to be acquainted with

St. Catherine of Sienna and St. Undecimillia; and therefore I had

rather see the letters themselves. It is true I have no small

doubt of the authenticity of the legend; and nothing will

persuade me of its truth so much as the non-appearance of the

letters-a melancholy kind of conviction. But I vehemently

suspect some new coinage, like the letters of Ninon de l'Enclos,

Pope Ganganelli, and the Princess Palatine. I have lately been

reading some fragments of letters of the Duchess of Orleans,

which are certainly genuine, and contain some curious

circumstances; for though she was a simple gossiping old

gentlewoman, yet many little facts she could not help learning:

and, to give her her due, she was ready to tell all she knew. To

our late Queen she certainly did write often; and her Majesty,

then only Princess, was full as ready to pay her in her own coin,

and a pretty considerable treaty of commerce for the exchange of

scandal was faithfully executed between them; insomuch that I

remember to have heard forty years ago, that our gracious

sovereign entrusted her Royal Highness of Orleans with an

intrigue of one of her women of the bedchamber. Mrs. Selwyn to

wit; and the good Duchess entrusted it to so many other dear

friends that at last it got into the Utrecht Gazette, and came

over hither, to the signal edification of the court of Leicester-

fields. This is an additional reason, besides the internal

evidence, for my believing the letters genuine. This old dame

was mother of the Regent; and when she died, somebody wrote on

her tomb, Cy gist l'Oisivet`e. This came over too; and nobody

could expound It, till our then third Princess, Caroline,

unravelled it,--Idleness is the mother of all vice.

I wish well enough to posterity to hope that dowager highnesses

will Imitate the practice, and write all the trifles that occupy

their royal brains; for the world so at least learns some true

history, which their husbands never divulge, especially if they

are privy to their own history, which their ministers keep from

them as much as possible. I do not believe the present King of

France knows much more of what he, or rather his Queen, is

actually doing, than I do. I rather pity him; for I believe he

means well, which is not a common article of my faith.

I shall go about the end of this week to Park-place, where I

expect to find the Druidic temple from Jersey erected. How dull

will the world be, if constant pilgrimages are not made thither!

where, besides the delight of the scenes, that temple, the rude

great arch, Lady Ailesbury's needle-works, and Mrs. Damer's

Thames and Isis on Henley-bridge, with other of her sculptures,

make it one of the most curious spots in the island, and unique.

I want to have Mr. Conway's comedy acted there; and then the

father, mother, and daughter would exhibit a theatre of arts as

uncommon. How I regret your lordship did not hear Mrs. Damer

speak the epilogue!

Letter 320To John Pinkerton, Esq.(619)

Arlington Street, Aug. 14, 1788. (page 405)

Your intelligence of the jubilees to be celebrated in Scotland in

honour of the Revolution was welcomed indeed. It is a favourable

symptom of an age when its festivals are founded on good sense

and liberality of sentiment, and not to perpetuate superstition

and slavery. Your countrymen, Sir, have proved their good sense

too in their choice of a poet. Your writings breathe the noble

generous spirit congenial to the institution. Give me leave to

say that it is very flattering to me to have the ode communicated

to me; I will not say, to be consulted, for of that distinction I

am not worthy: I am not a poet, and am Sure I cannot improve your

ideas, which you have expressed with propriety and clearness, the

necessary ingredients of an address to a populous meeting; for I

doubt our numerous audiences are not arrived at Olympic taste

enough to seize with enthusiasm the eccentric flights of Pindar.

You have taken a more rational road to inspiration,'-by adhering

to the genuine topics of the occasion; and you speak in so manly

a Style, that I do not believe a more competent judge could amend

your poetry.

I will tell you how more than occasionally the mention of Pindar

slipped into my pen. I have frequently, and even yesterday,

wished that some attempt were made to ennoble our horse-races,

particularly at Newmarket, by associating better arts with the

courses; as, by contributing for odes, the best of which should

be rewarded by medals. Our nobility would find their vanity

gratified; for, as the pedigrees of their steeds would soon grow

tiresome, their own genealogies would replace them; and, in the

mean time, poetry and medals would be improved. Their lordships

would have judgment enough to know if their horse (which should

be the impression on one side) were not well executed; and, as I

hold that there is no being more difficult to draw well than a

horse, no bad artist could be employed. Such a beginning would

lead farther; and the cup or plate for the prize might rise into

beautiful vases. But this is a vision; and I may as well go to

bed and dream of any thing else.

(619) Now first collected.

Letter 321 To Miss Hannah More.(620)

Strawberry Hill, August 17, 1788. (page 406)

Dear Madam,

In this great discovery of a new mine of Madame de S`evign`e's

letters, my faith, I confess, is not quite firm. Do people sell

houses wholesale, without opening their cupboards? This age,

too, deals so much in false coinage, that booksellers and

Birmingham give equal vent to what is not sterling; with the only

difference, that the shillings of the latter pretend that the

names are effaced, while the wares Of the former pass under

borrowed names. Have we not seen, besides all the Testamens

Politiques, the spurious letters of Ninon de l'Enclos, of Pope

Ganganelli, and the Memoirs of the Princess Palatine? This is a

little mortifying, while we know that there actually exists at

Naples a whole library of genuine Greek and Latin authors; most

of whom probably, have never been in print: and where it is not

unnatural to suppose the work of some classics, yet lost, may be

in being, and the remainder of some of the best. Yet, at the

'rate in which they proceed to unroll, it would take as many

centuries to bring them to light, as have elapsed since they were

overwhelmed. Nay, another eruption of Vesuvius may return all

the volumes to chaos! Omar is stigmatized for burning the library

of Alexandria. Is the King of Naples less a Turk? IS not it

almost as unconscientious to keep a seraglio of virgin authors

under the custody of nurses, as of blooming Circassians?

Consider, my dear Madam, I am past seventy; or I should not be SO

Ungallant as to make the smallest comparison between the contents

of the two harems. Your picture, which hangs near my elbow,

would frown, I am sure, if I had any light meaning.

(620) Now first collected.

Letter 322 To The Earl Of Strafford.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 12, 1788. (page 407)

My late fit of gout, though very short, was a very authentic one,

my dear lord, and the third I have had since Christmas. Still,

of late years, I have suffered so little pain, that I can justly

complain of nothing but the confinement, and the debility of my

hands and feet, which, however, I can still use to a certain

degree; and as I enjoy such good spirits and health in the

intervals, I look upon the gout as no enemy; yet I know it is

like the compacts said to be made with the devil, (no kind

comparison to a friend!) who showers his favours on the

Contractors, but is sure to seize and carry them off at last.

I would not say so much of myself, but in return to your

lordship's obliging concern for me: Yet, insignificant as the

subject, I have no better in bank; and if I plume myself on the

tolerable state of my out-ward man, I doubt your lordship finds

that age does not treat my interior so mildly as the gout does

the other. If my letters, as you are pleased to say, used to

amuse you, you must perceive how insipid they are grown, both

from my decays and the little intercourse I have with the world.

Nay, I take care not to aim at false vivacity: what do the

attempts of age at liveliness prove but its weakness? What the

Spectator said wittily, ought to be practised in sober sadness by

old folks: when he was dull, he declared it was by design. So

far, to be sure, we ought to observe it, as not to affect more

spirits than we possess. To be purposely stupid, would be

forbidding our correspondents to continue the intercourse; and I

am so happy in enjoying the honour of your lordship's friendship,

that I will be content (if you can be so) with my natural

inanity, without studying to increment it.

I have been at Park-place, and assure your lordship that the

Druidic temple vastly more than answers my expectation. Small it

is, no doubt, when you are within the enclosure, and but a chapel

of ease to Stonehenge; but Mr. Conway has placed it with so much

judgment, that it has a lofty effect, and infinitely more than it

could have had if he had yielded to Mrs. Damer's and my opinion,

who earnestly begged to have it placed within the enclosure of

the home grounds. It now stands on the ridge of the high hill

without, backed by the horizon, and with a grove on each side at

a little distance; and, being exalted beyond and above the range

of firs that climb up the sides of the hill from the valley,

wears all the appearance of an ancient castle, whose towers are

only shattered, not destroyed; and devout as I am to old castles,

and small taste as I have for the ruins of ages absolutely

barbarous, it is impossible not to be pleased with so very rare

an antiquity so absolutely perfect, and it is difficult to

prevent visionary ideas from improving a prospect.

If, as Lady Anne Conolly told your lordship, I have had a great

deal of company, you must understand it of my house, not of me;

for I have very little. Indeed, last Monday both my house and I

were included. The Duke of York sent me word the night before,

that he would come and see it, and of course I had the honour of

showing it myself. He said, and indeed it seemed so, that he was

much pleased; at least, I had every reason to be satisfied; for I

never saw any prince more gracious and obliging, nor heard one

utter more personally kind speeches.

I do not find that her grace the Countess of Bristol's(621) will

is really known yet. They talk of two wills--to be sure, in her

double capacity; and they say she has made three coheiresses to

her jewels, the Empress of Russia, Lady Salisbury, and the whore

of Babylon.(622) The first of those legatees, I am not sorry, is

in a piteous scrape: I like the King of Sweden no better than I

do her and the Emperor; but it is good that two destroyers should

be punished by a third, and that two crocodiles should be gnawed

by an insect. Thank God! we are not only at peace, but in full

plenty--nay, and in full beauty too. Still better; though we

have had rivers of rain, it has not, contrary to all precedent,

washed away our warm weather. September, a month I generally

dislike for its irresolute mixture of warm and cold, has hitherto

been peremptorily fine. The apple and walnut-trees bend down

with fruit, as in a poetic description of Paradise.

(621) The Duchess of Kingston, who died at Paris in August.-E.

(622) The newspapers had circulated a report that the Duchess had

bequeathed her diamonds to the Empress of Russia and his Holiness

the Pope.-E.

Letter 323 To Miss Hannah More.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 22, 1788. (page 408)

I don't like to defraud you of your compassion, my good friend,

profuse as you are of it. I really suffered scarce any pain at

all from my last fit of gout. I have known several persons who

think there is a dignity in complaining; and, if you ask how they

do, reply, "Why, I am pretty well to-day; but if you knew what I

suffered yesterday!" Now methinks nobody has a right to tax

another for pity on what is past; and besides, complaint of what

is over can only make the hearer glad you are in pain no longer.

Yes, yes, my dear Madam, you generally place your pity so

profitably, that YOU shall not waste a drop upon me, who ought

rather to be congratulated on being so well at my age.

Much less shall I allow you to make apologies for your admirable

and proper conduct towards your Poor prot`eg`ee(623) And now you

have told me the behaviour of a certain great dame, I will

confess to you that I have known it some months by accident-nay,

and tried to repair it. I prevailed on Lady * * * * *, who as

readily undertook the commission, and told the Countess of her

treatment of you. Alas! the answer was, "It is too late; I have

no money." No! but she has, if she has a diamond left. I am

indignant; yet, do you know, not at this duchess, or that

countess, but at the invention of ranks, and titles, and

pre-eminence. I used to hate that king and t'other prince; but,

alas! on reflection I find the censure ought to fall on human

nature in general. They are made of the same stuff as we, and

dare we say what we should be in their situation? Poor creatures!

think how they are educated, or rather corrupted, early, how

flattered! To be educated properly, they should be led through

hovels, and hospitals, and prisons. Instead of being reprimanded

(and perhaps immediately after sugar-plum'd) for not learning

their Latin or French grammar, they now and then should be kept

fasting; and, if they cut their finger, should have no plaister

till it festered. No part of a royal brat's memory, which is

good enough, should be burthened but with the remembrance of

human sufferings. In short, I fear our nature is so liable to be

corrupted and perverted by greatness, rank, power, and wealth,

that I am inclined to think that virtue is the compensation to

the poor for the want of riches: nay, I am disposed to believe

that the first footpad or highwayman has been a man of quality,

or a prince, who could not bear having wasted his fortune, and

was too lazy to work; for a beggar-born would think labour a more

natural way of getting a livelihood than venturing his life. I

have something a similar opinion about common women. No modest

girl thinks of many men, till she has been in love with one, been

ruined by him, and abandoned. But to return to my theme, and it

will fall heavy on yourself. Could the milkwoman have been so

bad, if you had merely kept her from starving, instead of giving

her opulence? The soil, I doubt, was bad; but it could not have

produced the rank weed of ingratitude, if you had not dunged it

with gold, which rises from rock, and seems to meet with a

congenial bed when it falls on the human heart.

And so Dr. Warton imagines I m writing "Walpoliana!" No, in

truth, nor any thing else; nor shall-nor will I go out in a

jest-book. Age has not only made me prudent, but, luckily, lazy;

and, without the latter extinguisher, I do not know but that

farthing candle my discretion would let my snuff of life flit to

the last sparkle of folly, like what children call. the parson

and clerk in a bit of burnt paper. You see by my writability in

pressing my letters on you, that my pen has still a colt's tooth

left, but I never indulge the poor old child with more paper than

this small-sized sheet, I do not give it enough to make a paper

kite and fly abroad on wings of booksellers. You ought to

continue writing, for you do good your writings, or at least mean

it; and if a virtuous intention fails, it is a sort of coin,

which, though thrown away, still makes the donor worth more than

he was before he gave it away. I delight too in the temperature

of your piety, and that you would not see the enthusiastic

exorcist. How shocking to suppose that the Omnipotent Creator of

worlds delegates his power to a momentary insect to eject

supernatural spirits that he had permitted to infest another

insect, and had permitted to vomit blasphemies against himself!

Pray do not call that enthusiasm, but delirium. I pity real

enthusiasts, but I would shave their heads and take away some

blood. The exorcist's associates are in a worse predicament, I

doubt, and hope to make enthusiasts. If such abominable

impostors were not rather a subject of indignation, I could smile

at the rivalship between them and the animal magnetists, who are

inveigling fools into their different pales. And alas! while

folly has a shilling left, there will be enthusiasts and quack

doctors; and there will be slaves while there are kings or

sugar-planters.(624) I have remarked, that though Jesuits, etc.

travel to distant East and West to propagate their religion and

traffic, I never heard of one that made a journey into Asia or

Africa to preach the doctrines of liberty, though those regions

are so deplorably oppressed. Nay, I much doubt whether ever any

chaplain of the regiments we have sent to India has once

whispered to a native of Bengal, that there are milder forms of

government than those of his country. No; security of property

is not a wholesome doctrine to be inculcated in a land where the

soil produces diamonds and gold! In short, if your Bristol

exorcist believes he can cast out devils, why does he not go to

Leadenhallstreet? There is a company whose name is legion.

By your gambols, as you call them, after the most ungambolling

peeress in Christendom, and by your jaunts, I conclude, to my

great satisfaction, that you are quite well. Change of scene and

air are good for your spirits; and September, like all our old

ladies, has given itself May airs, and must have made your

journey very pleasant. Yet you will be glad to get back to your

Cowslip-green, though it may offer you nothing but Michaelmas

daisies. When you do leave it, I wish you could persuade Mrs.

Garrick to settle sooner in London. There is full as good hay to

be made in town at Christmas at Hampton, and some hay-makers that

will wish for you particularly. Your most sincere friend.

(623) Ann Yearsley. See ant`e, p. 395, letter 313.-E.

(624) In the letter to which this is a reply, Miss More had

said-- "in vain do we boast of the enlightened eighteenth

century, and conceitedly talk as if human reason had not a

manacle left about her, but that philosophy had broken down all

the strongholds of prejudice, ignorance, and superstition: and

yet at this very time Mesmer has got an hundred thousand pounds

by animal magnetism in Paris, and Mainanduc is getting as much in

London. There is a fortune-teller in Westminster who is making

little less. Lavater's Physiognomy-books sell at fifteen guineas

a set. The divining-rod is still considered as oracular in many

places. Devils are cast out by seven ministers; and, to complete

the disgraceful catalogue, slavery is vindicated in print, and

defended in the House of Peers." Memoirs, vol. ii. P. 120.-E.

Letter 324 To The Right Hon. Lady Craven.

Berkeley Square, Dec. 11, 1788. (page 411)

It is agreeable to your ladyship's usual goodness to honour me

with another letter; and I may say, to your equity too, after I

had proved to Monsieur Mercier, by the list of dates of my

letters, that it was not mine, but the post's fault, that you did

not receive one that I had the honour of writing to you above a

year ago. Not, Madam, that I could wonder if you had the

prudence to drop a correspondence with an old superannuated man;

who, conscious of his decay, has had the decency of not

troubling, with his dotages persons of not near your ladyship's

youth and vivacity. I have been of opinion that few persons know

when to die; I am not so English as to mean when to despatch

themselves--no, but when to go out of the world. I have usually

applied this opinion to those who have made a considerable

figure; and, consequently, it was not adapted to myself. Yet

even we ciphers ought not to fatigue the public scene when we are

become lumber. Thus, being quite out of the question, I will

explain my maxim, which is the more wholesome, the higher it is

addressed. My opinion,

then, is, that when any personage has shone as much as is

possible in his or her best walk, (and, not to repeat both

genders every minute, I will use the male as the common of the

two,) he should take up his Strulbrugism, and be heard of no

more. Instances will be still more explanatory. Voltaire ought

to have pretended to die after Alzire, Mahomet, and Semiramis,

and not have produced his wretched last pieces: Lord Chatham

should have closed his political career with his immortal war:

and how weak was Garrick, when he had quitted the stage, to limp

after the tatters of fame by writing and reading pitiful poems;

and even by sitting to read plays which he had acted with such

fire and energy! We have another example in Mr. Anstey; who, if

he had a friend upon earth, would have been obliged to him for

being knocked on the head, the moment he had published the first

edition of the Bath Guide; for, even in the second, he had

exhausted his whole stock of inspiration, and has never written

any thing tolerable since. When Such unequal authors print their

works together, one man may apply in a new light the old hacked

simile of Mezentius, who tied together the living and the dead.

We have just received the works of an author, from whom I find I

am to receive much less entertainment than I expected, because I

shall have much less to read than I intended. His Memoirs, I am

told, are almost wholly military; which, therefore, I shall not

read: and his poetry, I am sure, I shall not look at, because I

should not understand it. What I saw of it formerly, convinced

me that he would not have been a poet, even if he had written in

his own language: and, though I do not understand German, I am

told it is a fine language - and I can easily believe that any

tongue (not excepting our old barbarous Saxon, which, a bit of an

antiquary

as I am, I abhor,) is more harmonious than French. It was

curious absurdity, therefore, to pitch on the most unpoetic

language in Europe, the most barren, and the most clogged with

difficulties. I have heard Russian and Polish sung, and both

sounded musical; but, to abandon one's own tongue, and not adopt

Italian, that is even sweeter, and softer, and more copious, than

the Latin, was a want of taste that I should think could not be

applauded even by a Frenchman born in Provence. But what a

language is the French, which measures verses by feet that never

are to be pronounced; which is the case wherever the mute e is

found! What poverty of various sounds for rhyme, when, lest

similar cadences should too often occur, their mechanic bards are

obliged to marry masculine and feminine terminations as

alternately as the black and white squares of a chessboard? Nay,

will you believe me, Madam,--yes, you will, for you may convince

your own eyes,-that a scene of Zaire begins with three of the

most nasal adverbs that ever snorted together in a breath?

Enfin, donc, desormais, are the culprits in question. Enfin

donc, need I tell your ladyship, that the author I alluded to at

the beginning of' this long tirade is the late King of Prussia?

I am conscious that I have taken a little liberty when I

excommunicate a tongue in which your ladyship has condescended to

write;(625) but I only condemn it for verse and pieces of

eloquence, of which I thought it alike incapable, till I read

Rousseau of Geneva. It is a most sociable language, and charming

for narrative and epistles. Yet, write as well as you will in

it, you must be liable to express yourself better in the speech

natural to you and your own country has a right to understand all

your works, and is jealous of their not being as perfect as you

could make them. Is it not more creditable to be translated into

a foreign language than into your own? and will it not vex you to

hear the translation taken for the original, and to find

vulgarisms that you could not have committed yourself? But I have

done, and will release you, Madam; only observing, that you

flatter me with a vain hope, when you tell me you shall return to

England, some time or other. Where will that time be for me! and

when it arrives, shall I not be somewhere else?

I do not pretend to send your ladyship English news, nor to tell

you of English literature. You must before this time have heard

of the dismal state into which our chief personage is fallen!

That consideration absorbs all others. The two houses are going

to settle some intermediate succedaneum; and the obvious one, no

doubt, will be fixed on.

(625) Besides writing a comedy in French, called "Nourjahad,"

Lady Craven had translated into that language Cibber's play of

"She would and She would not."-E.

Letter 325 \To The Miss Berrys.(626)

February 2, 17-71(627) [1789.) (page 413)

I am sorry, in the sense of that word before it meant, like a

Hebrew word, glad or sorry, that I am engaged this evening; and I

am at your command on Tuesday, as it is always my inclination to

be. It is a misfortune that words are become so much the current

coin of society, that, like King William's shillings, they have

no impression left; they are so smooth, that they mark no more to

whom they first belonged than to whom they do belong, and are not

worth even the twelvepence into which they may be changed: but if

they mean too little, they may seem to mean too much too,

especially when an old man (who is often synonymous for a miser)

parts with them. I am afraid of protesting how much I delight in

your society, lest I should seem to affect being gallant; but if

two negatives make an affirmative, why may not two ridicules

compose one piece of sense? and therefore, as I am in love with

you both, I trust it is a proof of the good sense of your devoted

H. WALPOLE.

(626) This is the first of a series of letters addressed by Mr

Walpole to Miss Mary and Miss Agnes Berry, and now first

published from the original in their possession.-E.

(627) The date is thus put, alluding to his age, which, in'1789

was seventy-one.-M. B.

letter 326 To The Miss Berrys.

Berkeley Square, March 20, 1789. (page 413)

Mrs. Damer had lent her Madame de la Motte,(628) and I have but

this moment recovered it; so, you see, I had not forgotten it any

more than my engagements to you: nay, were it not ridiculous at

my age to use a term so almost run out as never, I would add,

that you may find I never can forget you. I hope you are not

engaged this day sevennight, but will allow me to wait on you to

Lady Ailesbury, which I will settle with her when I have your

answer. I did mention it to her in general, but have no day free

before Friday next, except Thursday; when, if there is another

illumination, as is threatened, we should neither get thither nor

thence; especially not the latter, if the former is

impracticable.

"Quicquid delirant Reges, plectuntur Achivi."(629)

P. S. I have got a few hairs of Edward the Fourth's head, not

beard; they are of a darkish brown, not auburn.

(628) The M`emoire Justificatif of Madame de la Motte, relative

to her conduct in the far-famed affair of the necklace.-E.

(629) Alluding to the public rejoicings on the recovery of George

the Third from his first illness in 1788. In a letter to her

sister of the 9th of March, Miss More relates the following

particulars:--"A day or two ago I dined at the Bishop of

London's, with Dr. Willis. As we had nobody else at dinner but

the Master of the Rolls, I was indulged in asking the doctor all

manner of impertinent questions. He never saw, he said, so much

natural sweetness and goodness of mind, united to so much piety,

as in the King. During his illness, he many time shed tears for

Lord North's blindness. The Bishop had been to him that morning:

he told him that he wished to return his thanks to Almighty God

in the most public manner, and hoped the Bishop would not refuse

him a sermon. He proposed going to St. Paul's to do it. He

himself has named one of the Psalms for the thanksgiving-day, and

the twelfth of Isaiah for the lesson."

On the 17th, she again writes--"The Queen and Princesses came to

see the illuminations, and did not get back to Kew till after one

O'clock. When the coach stopped, the Queen took notice of a fine

gentleman who came to the coach-door without his hat. This was

the King, who came to hand her out. She scolded him for being up

and out so late; but he gallantly replied, 'he could not Possibly

go to bed and sleep till he knew she was safe.' There never was

so joyous, so innocent, and so orderly a mob." Memoirs, vol. ii.

Pp. 144- 155-E.

Letter 327 To Miss Hannah More.

Berkeley Square, April 22, 1789. (page 414)

Dear Madam,

As perhaps you have not yet seen the "Botanic Garden" (which I

believe I mentioned to you), I lend it you to read. The poetry,

I think, you will allow most admirable; and difficult it was, no

doubt. If you are not a naturalist, as well as a poetess,

perhaps you will lament that so powerful a talent has been wasted

to so little purpose; for where is the use of describing in verse

what nobody can understand without a long prosaic explanation of

every article? It is still more unfortunate that there is not a

symptom of plan in the whole poem. The lady-flowers and their

lovers enter in pairs or trios, or etc. as often as the couples

in Cassandra. and you are not a whit more interested about one

heroine and her swain than about another. The similes are

beautiful, fine, and sometimes sublime: and thus the episodes

will be better remembered than the mass of the poem itself, which

one cannot call the subject; for could one call it a subject, if

any body had composed a poem on the matches formerly made in the

Fleet, where, as Waitwell says, in "The Way of the World," they

stood like couples in rows ready to begin a country-dance?

Still, I flatter myself you will agree with me that the author is

a great poet, and could raise the passions, and possesses all the

requisites of the art. I found but a single bad verse; in the

last canto one line ends e'er long. You will perhaps be

surprised at meeting a truffle converted into a nymph, and

inhabiting a palace studded with emeralds and rubies like a

saloon in the Arabian Nights! I had a more particular motive for

sending this poem to you: you will find the bard espousing your

poor Africans. There is besides, which will please you too, a

handsome panegyric on the apostle of humanity, Mr. Howard.(630)

Mrs. Garrick, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in her own box

at Mr. Conway's play, gave me a much better account of your

health which delighted me. I am sure, my good friend, you

partake of my joy at the great success of his comedy. The

additional character of the Abb`e pleased much: it was added by

the advice of the players to enliven it; that is, to stretch the

jaws of the pit and galleries. I sighed silently; for it was

originally so genteel and of a piece, that I was sorry to have it

tumbled by coarse applauses. But this is a secret. I am going

to Twickenham for two days on an assignation with the spring, and

to avoid the riotous devotion of to-morrow.

A gentleman essayist has printed what he calls some strictures on

my Royal and Noble Authors, in revenge for my having spoken

irreverently (on Bishop Burnet's authority) of the Earl of

Anglesey, who had the honour, it seems, of being the gentleman's

grandfather. He asks me, by the way, why it was more ridiculous

in the Duke of Newcastle to write his two comedies, than in the

Duke of Buckingham to write "The Rehearsal?" Alas! I know but

one reason; which is, that it is less ridiculous to write one

excellent comedy, than two very bad ones. Peace be with such

answerers! Adieu, my dear Madam! Yours most cordially.

(630) "I did not feel," says Miss More, in her reply, "so much

gratified in reading the poem, marvellous as I think it, as I did

at the kindness which led you to think of me when you met with

any thing that you imagined would give me pleasure. Your

strictures, which are as true as if they had no wit in them,

served to embellish every page as I went on, and were more

intelligible and delightful to me than the scientific annotations

in the margin. The author is, indeed, a poet; and I wish, with

you, that he had devoted his exuberant fancy, his opulence of

imagery, and his correct and melodious versification. to

subjects more congenial to human feelings than the intrigues of a

flower-garden. I feel, like the most passionate ]over, the

beauty of the cyclamen, or honeysuckle; but am as indifferent as

the most fashionable husband to their amours, their pleasures, or

their unhappiness." Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 149.-E.

Letter 328 To The Miss Berrys.

April 28, at night, 1789. (page 415)

By my not saying no to Thursday, you, I trust, understood that I

meant yes; and so I do. In the mean time, I send you the most

delicious poem upon earth. If you don't know what it is all

about, or why; at least you will find glorious similes about

every thing in the world, and I defy you to discover three bad

verses in the whole stack. Dryden was but the prototype of the

Botanic Garden in his charming Flower and Leaf; and if he had

less meaning, it is true he had more plan: and I must own, that

his white velvets and green velvets, and rubies and emeralds,

were much more virtuous gentlefolks than most of the flowers of

the creation, who seem to have no fear of Doctors' Commons before

their eyes. This is only the Second Part; for, like my 'king's

eldest daughter' in the Hieroglyphic Tales, the First Part is not

born yet:--no matter. I can read this over and over again for

ever; for though it is so excellent, it is impossible to remember

any thing so disjointed, except you consider it as a collection

of short enchanting poems,--as the Circe at her tremendous

devilries in a church; the intrigue of the dear nightingale and

rose; and the description of Medea; the episode of Mr. Howard,

which ends with the most sublime of lines--in short, all, all;

all is the most lovely poetry. And then one sighs, that such

profusion of poetry, magnificent and tender, should be thrown

away on what neither interests nor instructs, and, with all the

pains the notes take to explain, is scarce intelligible.'

How strange it is, that a man should have been inspired with such

enthusiasm of poetry by poring through a microscope, and peeping

through the keyholes of all the seraglios of all the flowers in

the universe I hope his discoveries may leave any impression but

of the universal polygamy going on in the vegetable world, where,

however, it is more gallant than amongst the human race; for you

will find that they are the botanic ladies who keep harams, and

not the gentlemen. Still, I will maintain that it is much better

that we should have two wives than your sex two husbands. So

pray don't mind Linnaeus and Dr. Darwin: Dr. Madan had ten times

more sense. Adieu! Your doubly constant Telypthorus.

(631) "Modern ears," says Mr. Matthias, in the Pursuits of

Literature, "are absolutely debauched by such poetry as Dr.

Darwin's, which marks the decline of simplicity and true taste in

this country. It is to England what Seneca's prose was to Rome:

abundat dulcibus vitiis. Dryden and Pope are the standards of

excellence in this species of writing in our language; and when

young minds are rightly instituted in their works, they may,

without much danger, read such glittering verses as Dr. Darwin's.

They will then perceive the distortion of the sentiment, and the

harlotry of the ornaments." To the short-lived popularity of Dr.

Darwin, the admirable poem of "The Loves of the Triangles'" the

joint production of Mr. Canning and Mr. Frere, in no small degree

contributed.-E.

Letter 329 To The Miss Berrys.

Strawberry Hill, Tuesday, June 23, 1789. (PAGE 416)

I am not a little disappointed and mortified at the post bringing

me no letter from you to-day; you promised to write on the road.

I reckon you arrived at your station on Sunday evening: if you do

not write till next day, I shall have no letter till Thursday!

I am not at all consoled for my double loss: my only comfort is,

that I flatter myself the journey and air will be of service to

you both. The latter has been of use to me, though the part of

the element of air has been chiefly acted by the element of

water, as my poor haycocks feel! Tonton (632) does not miss you

so much as I do, not having so good a taste; for he is grown very

fond of me, and I return it for your sakes, though he deserves it

too, for he is perfectly good-natured and tractable; but he is

not beautiful, like his " god-dog,(633) as Mr. Selwyn, who dined

here on Saturday, called my poor late favourite; especially as I

have had him clipped. The shearing has brought to light a nose

an ell long; an as he has now nasum rhinocerotis, I do not doubt

but he will be a better critic in poetry than Dr. Johnson, who

judged of harmony by the principles of an author, and fancied, or

wished to make others believe, that no Jacobite could write bad

verses, nor a Whig good.

Have you shed a tear over the Opera-house?(634) or do you agree

with me, that there is no occasion to rebuild it? The nation has

long been tired of operas, and has now a good opportunity of

dropping them. Dancing protracted their existence for some time;

but the room after. was the real support of both, and was like

what has been said of your sex, that they never speak their true

meaning but in the postscript of their letters. Would not it be

sufficient to build an after-room on the whole emplacement, to

which people might resort from all assemblies? It should be a

codicil to all the diversions of London; and the greater the

concourse, the more excuse there would be for staying all night,

from the impossibility of ladies getting their coaches to drive

up. To be crowded to death in a waiting-room, at the end of an

entertainment, is the whole joy; for who goes to any diversion

till the last minute of it? I am persuaded that, instead if

retrenching St. Athanasius's Creed, as the Duke of Grafton

proposed, in order to draw good company to church, it would be

more efficacious if the Congregation were to be indulged with an

After-room in the vestry; and, instead of two or three being

gathered together, there would be all the world, before the

prayers would be quite over.