"Despairing, beside a clear stream
A shepherd forsaken was laid;"--
not very close to the stream, but within doors in sight of it;
for in this damp weather a lame old Colin cannot lie and despair
with any comfort on a wet bank: but I smile against the grain,
and am seriously alarmed at Thursday being come, and no letter!
I dread one of you being ill. Mr. Batt(635) and the Abb`e
Nicholls(636) dined with me to-day, and I could talk of you en
pais de connoissance. They tried to persuade me that I have no
cause to be in a fright about you; but I have such perfect faith
in the kindness of both of you, as I have in your possessing
every other virtue, that I cannot believe but some sinister
accident must have prevented my hearing from you. I wish Friday
was come! I cannot write about any thing else till I have a
letter.
(632) A dog of Miss Berry's left in Walpole's care during their
absence in Yorkshire.-M.B.
(633) The dog which had been bequeathed to Mr. Walpole by Madame
du Deffand at her death, and which was likewise called Tonton.
See ant`e, p. 275, letter 217.-M.B.
(634) on the night of the 17th, the Opera-house was entirely
consumed by fire.-E.
(635) Thomas Batt, Esq. then one of the commissioners for public
accounts.-E.
(636) The Rev. Norton Nicholls, rector of Lound and Bradwell in
the county of Suffolk; one of the most elegant scholars and
accomplished gentlemen of the day. He died in November 1809, in
his sixty-eighth year. " It was his singular good fortune," says
Mr. Dawson Turner, , to have been distinguished in his early life
by the friendship of Gray the poet; while the close of his days
was cheered and enlivened and dignified by the friendship, and
almost constant society, of a Man scarcely inferior to Gray in
talent and acquirements Mr. Mathias; who has embalmed his memory
in an Italian Ode and a biographical Memoir; which latter is a
beautiful specimen of that kind of composition.,, They will both
be found in the fifth volume of Nicholls's Illustrations of
Literature.-E.
Letter 330 To Miss Hannah More.
Strawberry Hill, June 23, 1789. (PAGE 418)
Madam Hannah,
You are an errant reprobate, and grow wickeder and wickeder every
day. You deserve to be treated like a negre; and your favourite
Sunday, to which you are so partial that you treat the other poor
six days of the week as if they had no souls to be saved, should,
if I could have my will, "shine no Sabbath-day for you." Now,
don't simper, and look as innocent as if virtue would not melt in
your mouth. Can you deny the following charges?--I lent you "The
Botanic Garden," and you returned it without writing a syllable,
or saying, -where you were or whither you was going; I suppose
for fear I should know how to direct to you. Why, if I did send
a letter after you, could not you keep it three months without an
answer, as you did last year?
In the next place, you and your nine accomplices, who, by the
way, are too good in keeping you company, have clubbed the
prettiest poem imaginable,(637) and communicated it to Mrs.
Boscawen, with injunctions not to give a copy of it; I suppose,
because you are ashamed of having written a panegyric. Whenever
you do compose a satire, you are ready enough to publish it; at
least, whenever you do, you will din one to death with it. But
now, mind your perverseness: that very pretty novel poem, and I
must own it is charming, have you gone and spoiled, flying in the
faces of your best friends the Muses, and keeping no measures
with them. I'll be shot if they dictated two of the best lines
with two syllables too much in each--nay, you have weakened one
of them,
"Ev'n Gardiner's mind"
is far more expressive than steadfast Gardiner's; and, as Mrs.
Boscawen says, whoever knows any thing of Gardiner, could not
want that superfluous epithet; and whoever does not, would not be
the wiser for your foolish insertion--Mrs. Boscawen did not call
it foolish, but I do. The second line, as Mesdemoiselles the
Muses handed it to you, Miss, was,
"Have all be free and saved--"
not, "All be free and all be saved:" the second all be is a most
unnecessary tautology. The poem was perfect and faultless, if
you could have let it alone. I wonder how your mischievous
flippancy could help maiming that most new and beautiful
expression, "sponge Of sins;" I should not have been surprised,
as you love verses too full of feet, if you have changed it to
"that scrubbing-brush of sins."
Well! I will say no more now: but if you do not order me a copy
of "Bonner's Ghost" incontinently, never dare to look my printing
house in the face again. Or come, I'll tell you what; I will
forgive all your enormities, if you will let me print your poem.
I like to filch a little immortality out of others, and the
Strawberry press could never have a better opportunity. I will
not haggle for the public will be content with printing only two
hundred copies, of which you shall have half, and I half. It
shall cost you nothing but a yes, I only propose this, in case
you do not mean to print it yourself. Tell me sincerely which
you like. But as to not printing it at all, charming and
unexceptionable as it is, you cannot be so preposterous.(638) I
by no means have a thought of detracting from your own share in
your own poem; but, as I do suspect that it caught some
inspiration from your perusal of "The Botanic Garden," so I hope
you will discover that my style is much improved by having lately
studied Bruce's travels. There I dipped, and not in St. Giles's
pound, where one would think this author had been educated.
Adieu! Your friend, or mortal foe, as you behave on the present
occasion.
(637) "Bishop Bonner's Ghost;" to which was prefixed the
following argument:--"In the garden of the palace at Fulham is a
dark recess; at the end of this stands a chair which once
belonged to Bishop Bonner. A certain Bishop of London more than
two hundred years after the death of the aforesaid -Bonner just
as the clock of the Gothic chapel had struck six undertook to cut
with his own hand a narrow walk through this thicket, which is
since called 'The Monk's Walk.' He had no sooner begun to clear
the way, than lo! suddenly up started from the chair the Ghost of
Bonner; who, in a tone of just and bitter indignation, uttered
the following verses."-E.
(638) Miss More, in her reply, says--"I send this under cover to
the Bishop of London, to whom I write your emendations, and
desire they may be considered as the true reading. What is odd
enough, I did write both the lines so at first but must go
a-tinkering them afterwards. I do not pretend that I am 'lot
flattered by your obliging proposal of printing these slight
verses at the Strawberry press. YOU must do as you please, I
believe. What business have I to think meanly of verses You have
commended?" Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 159.-E.
Letter 331 To Miss Berry.
Strawberry Hill, June 30, 1789. (PAGE 419)
Were there any such thing as sympathy at the distance of two
hundred miles, you would have been in a mightier panic than I
was; for, on Saturday se'nnight, going to open the glass case in
the Tribune, my foot caught in the carpet, and I fell with my
whole (si weight y a) weight against the corner of the marble
altar, on my side, and bruised the muscles so badly, that for two
days I could not move without screaming.(639) I am convinced I
should have broken a rib, but that I fell on the cavity whence
two of my ribs were removed, that are gone to Yorkshire. I am
much better both of my bruise and of my lameness, and shall be
ready to dance at my own wedding when my wives return. And now
to answer your letter. If you grow tired of the Arabian Nights,
you have no more taste than Bishop Atterbury,(640) who huffed
Pope for sending him them or the Persian Tales, and fancied he
liked Virgil better, who had no more imagination than Dr.
Akenside. Read Sinbad the Sailor's Voyages, and you will be sick
of AEneas's. What woful invention were the nasty poultry that
dunged on his dinner, and ships on fire turned into Nereids! a
barn metamorphosed into a cascade in a pantomime is full as
sublime an effort of genius. I do not know whether the Arabian
Nights are of Oriental origin or not:(641) I should think not,
because I never saw any other Oriental composition that was not
bombast without genius, and figurative without nature; like an
Indian screen, where you see little men on the foreground, and
larger men hunting tigers above in the air, which they take for
perspective. I do not think the Sultaness's narratives very
natural or very probable, but there is a wildness in them that
captivates. However, if you could wade through two octavos(642)
of Dame Piozzi's thoughts and so's and I trow's, and cannot
listen to seven volumes of Scheherezade's narrations, I will sue
for a divorce infibro Parnassi, and Boccalini shall be my
proctor. The cause will be a counterpart to the sentence of the
Lacedoemonian, who was condemned for breach of the peace, by
saying in three words what he might have said in two.
You are not the first Eurydice that has sent her husband to the
devil, as you have kindly proposed to me; but I will not
undertake the jaunt, for if old Nicholas Pluto should enjoin me
not to look back to you, I should certainly forget the
prohibition like my predecessor. Besides, I am a little too
close to take a voyage twice which I am so soon to repeat; and
should be laughed at by the good folks on the other side of the
water, if I proposed coming back for a twinkling Only. No; I
choose as long as I can
"Still with my fav'rite Berrys to remain."(643)
So you was not quite satisfied, though you ought to have been
transported, with King's College Chapel, because it has no
aisles, like every common cathedral. I suppose you would object
to a bird of paradise, because it has no legs, but shoots to
heaven in a trait, and does not rest on earth. Criticism and
comparison spoil many tastes. You should admire all bold and
unique essays that resemble nothing else; the Botanic Garden, the
Arabian Nights, and King's Chapel are above all rules: and how
preferable is what no one can imitate, to all that is imitated
even from the best models! Your partiality to the pageantry of
popery I do not approve, and I doubt whether the world will not
be a loser (in its visionary enjoyments) by the extinction of
that religion, as it was by the decay of chivalry and the
proscription of the heathen deities. Reason has no invention;
and as plain sense will never be the legislator of human affairs,
it is fortunate when taste happens to be regent.
(639) Miss More, in a letter written at this time to Walpole,
says, "How you do scold me! but I don't care for your scolding;
and I don't care for your wit neither, that I don't. half as
much as I care for a blow which I hear you have given yourself
against a table. I have known such very serious consequences
arise from such accidents, that I beg of you to drown yourself in
the "Veritable Arquebusade." Memoirs, vol. ii. P. 158.-E.
(640) The following are the Bishop's expressions:--"And now, Sir,
for your Arabian Tales. Ill as I have been, almost ever since
they came to hand, I have read as much of them as I shall read
while I live. indeed, they do not please my taste; they are writ
with so romantic an air, and are of so wild and absurd a
contrivance, that I have not only no pleasure, but no patience in
reading them. I cannot help thinking them the production of some
woman's imagination." The Honourable Charles Yorke, in a letter
to his brother, the second Earl of Hardwicke written in June
1740, states that Pope and Warburton both agreed in condemning
the bishop's judgment on the Arabian Tales and that Warburton
added, that from those tales the completest notion might be
gather,d of the Eastern ceremonies and manners.-E.
(641) The work entitled "Mille et Une Nuits," was translated from
an original Arabic manuscript, in the King of France's library by
M. Galland, professor of Arabic in the University of Paris. It
appeared in 1704-8: in twelve volumes.-E.
(642) Her "Observations and Reflections in the course of a
Journey through France, Italy, and Germany," honoured with a
couplet in the Baviad--
See Thrale's gray widow with a satchel roam,
And bring in Pomp laborious nothings home."-E.
(643) A line from some verses that he had received.-M.B.
Letter 332 To Miss Hannah More.
Strawberry Hill, July 2, 1789. (PAGE 421)
I almost think I shall never abuse you again; nay, I would not,
did not it prove so extremely good for you. No walnut tree is
better for being threshed than you are; and, though you have won
my heart by your compliance, I don't know whether my conscience
will not insist on my using YOU ill now and then; for is there
any precedent for gratitude not giving way to every other duty?
Gratitude like an earl's eldest son, is but titular, and has no
place upon trials. But I fear I punning sillily, instead of
thanking you seriously, as I do, for allowing me to print your
lovely verses. My press can confer no honour; but, when I offer
it, it is a certain mark Of My sincerity and esteem. It has been
dedicated to friendship, to charity-too often to worthless
self-love; sometimes to the rarity of the pieces, and sometimes
to the merit of them; now it will unite the first motive and the
last.
My fall, for which you so kindly concern yourself, was not worth
mentioning; for as I only bruised the muscles of my side, instead
of breaking a rib, camphire infused in arquebusade took off the
pain and all consequences in five or six days: and one has no
right to draw on the compassion of others for what one has
suffered and is past. Some love to be pitied on that score; but
forget that they only excite, in the best-natured, joy on their
deliverance. You commend me too for not complaining of my
chronical evil; but, my dear Madam, I should be blamable for the
reverse. If I would live to seventy-two, ought I not to compound
for the encumbrances of old age? And who has fewer? And who has
more cause to be thankful to Providence for his lot? The gout,
it is true, comes frequently, but the fits are short, and very
tolerable; the intervals are full health. My eyes are perfect,
my hearing but little impaired, chiefly to whispers, for which I
certainly have little occasion: my spirits never fail; and though
my hands and feet are crippled, I can use both, and do not wish
to box, wrestle, or dance a hornpipe. In short, I am just infirm
enough to enjoy all the prerogatives of old age, and to plead
them against any thing I have not a mind to do. Young men must
conform to every folly in fashion - drink when they had rather be
sober; fight a duel if somebody else is wrong-headed; marry to
please their fathers, not themselves; and shiver in a white
waistcoat, because ancient almanacks, copying the Arabian, placed
the month of June after May; though, when the style was reformed,
it ought to have been intercalated between December and January.
Indeed, I have been so childish as to cut my hay for the same
reason, and am now weeping over it by the fireside. But to come
to business.
You must suffer me to print two hundred copies; and if you
approve it, I will send thirty to the Bishop of London out of
your quota. You may afterwards give him more, if you please. I
do not propose putting your name, unless you desire it; as I
think it would swear with the air of ancientry you have adopted
in the signature and notes. The authoress will be no secret; and
as It will certainly get into magazines, why should not you deal
privately beforehand with some bookseller, and have a second
edition ready to appear soon after mine is finished? The
difficulty of getting my edition at first, from the paucity of
the number and from being only given as presents, will make the
second edition eagerly sought for; and I do not see why my
anticipating the publication should deprive you of the profit.
Rather than do that, I would print a smaller number. I wish to
raise an additional appetite to that which every body has for
your writings; I am sure I did not mean to injure you. Pray
think of this; there 'Is time enough; I cannot begin to print
under a week: my press has lain fallow for some time, and my
printer must prepare ink, balls, etc.; and as I have but one man,
he cannot be expeditious. I seriously do advise you to have a
second edition ready; why should covetous booksellers run away
with all the advantages of your genius? They get enough by their
ample share of the sale.
I will say no more, but to repeat my thanks for your consent,
which truly obliges me; and I am happy to have been the
instrument of' preserving what your modesty would have sunk. My
esteem could not increase: but one likes to be connected by
favours to those one highly values.
Letter 333 To Miss Berry.
Strawberry Hill, July 9, 1789. (PAGE 422)
You are so good and punctual, that I will complain no more of
your silence, unless you are silent. You must not relax,
especially until you can give me better accounts of your health
and spirits. I was peevish before with the weather; but, now it
prevents your riding, I forget hay and roses, and all the
comforts that are washed away, and shall only watch the
weathercock for an east wind in Yorkshire. What a shame that I
should recover from the gout and from bruises, as I assure you I
am entirely, and that you should have a complaint left! One would
think that it was I was grown young again; for while just now, as
I was reading your letter in my bedchamber, while some of my
customers(644) are seeing the house, I heard a gentleman in the
armoury ask the housekeeper as he looked at the bows and arrows,
"Pray, does Mr. Walpole shoot?" No, nor with pistols neither. I
leave all weapons to Lady Salisbury(645) and Mr. Lenox;(646) and,
since my double marriage, have suspended my quiver in the Temple
of Hymen. Hygeia shall be my goddess, if she will send you back
blooming to this region.
I wish I had preserved any correspondence in France, as you are
curious about their present history; which I believe very
momentous indeed. What little I have accidentally heard, I will
relate, and will learn what more I can. On the King,'s being
advised to put out his talons, Necker desired leave to resign, as
not having been consulted, and as the measure violated his plan.
The people, hearing his intention, thronged to Versailles; and he
was forced to assure them from a balcony, that he was not to
retire. I am not accurate in dates, nor warrant my intelligence,
and therefore pretend only to send you detached scraps. Force
being still in request, the Duc du Chatelet acquainted the King
that he could not answer for the French guards. Chatelet, who,
from his hot arrogant temper, I should have thought would have
been One of the proudest opposers of the people, is suspected to
lean to them. In short, Marshal Broglio is appointed
commander-in-chief, and is said to have sworn on his sword, that
he will not sheathe it till he has plunged it into the heart of
ce gros banquier Genevois. I cannot reconcile this with Necker's
stay at Versailles. That he is playing a deep game is certain.
It is reported that Madame Necker tastes previously every thing
he swallows.(647) A vast camp is forming round Paris; but the
army is mutinous--the tragedy may begin on the other side. They
do talk of an engagement at Metz, where the French troops,
espousing the popular cause, were attacked by two German
regiments, whom the former cut to pieces. The Duke and Duchess
of Devonshire, who were at Paris, have thought it prudent to
leave it; and My Cousin, Mr. Thomas Walpole, who is near it, has
just written to his daughters, that he is glad to be Out of the
town, that he may Make his retreat easily.
Thus, you see the crisis is advanced far beyond orations, and
wears all the aspect of civil war. For can one imagine that the
whole nation is converted at once, and in some measure without
provocation from the King, who, far from enforcing the
prerogative like Charles the First, Cancelled the despotism
obtained for his grandfather by the Chancellor Maupeou, has
exercised no tyranny, and has shown a disposition to let the
constitution be amended. It did want it indeed; but I fear the
present want of temper grasps at so much, that they defeat their
own purposes; and where loyalty has for ages been the predominant
characteristic of a nation, it cannot be eradicated at once.
Pity will soften the tone of the moment; and the nobility and
clergy have more interest in wearing a royal than a popular yoke;
for great lords and high-priests think the rights of mankind a
defalcation of-their privileges. No man living is more devoted
to liberty than I am; yet blood is a terrible price to pay for
it! A martyr to liberty is the noblest of characters; but to
sacrifice the lives of others, though for the benefit of all, is
a strain of heroism that I could never ambition.
I have just been reading Voltaire's Correspondence,--one of those
heroes who liked better to excite martyrs, than to be one. How
vain would he be, if alive now! I was struck with one of his
letters to La Chalotais, who was a true upright patriot and
martyr too. In the 221 st Letter of the sixth volume, Voltaire
says to him, "Vous avez jett`e des germes qui produiront un jour
plus qu'on ne pense." It was lucky for me that you inquired about
France; I had not a halfpennyworth more of news in my wallet.
A person who was very apt to call on you every morning for a
Minute, and stay three hours, was with me the other day, and his
grievance from the rain was the swarms of gnats. I said, I
supposed I have very bad blood, for gnats never bite me. He
replied, "I believe I have bad blood, too, for dull people, who
would tire me to death, never Come Dear me." Shall I beg a
pallet-full of that repellent for you, to set in your window as
barbers do?
I believe you will make me grow a little of a newsmonger, though
you are none; but I know that at a distance, in the country,
letters of news are a regale. I am not wont to listen to the
batteries on each side of me at Hampton-court and Richmond; but
in your absence I shall turn a less deaf ear to them, in hopes of
gleaning something that may amuse you: though I shall leave their
manufactures of scandal for their own home consumption; you
happily do not deal in such wares. Adieu! I used to think the
month of September the dullest of the whole set; now I shall be
impatient for it.
(644) The name given by Mr. Walpole to parties coming to view his
house.-M.B.
(645) Lady Mary-Amelia, daughter of Wills, first Marquis of
Downshire; married, in 1773, to James seventh Earl of Salisbury,
advanced, in August 1789, to the title of Marquis. Her ladyship
was a warm patroness of the art of archery, and a first-rate
equestrian. In November 1835, at the age of eighty-four, she was
burnt to death at Hatfield-house.-E.
(646) In consequence of a dispute, concerning words said to have
been spoken at Daubiny's club, a duel took place at Wimbledon, on
the 26th of May, between the Duke of York and Colonel Lenox,
afterwards Duke of Richmond. Neither of the parties was wounded;
and the seconds, Lords Rawdon and Winchilsea, certified, that
both behaved with the utmost coolness and intrepidity.-E.
(647) On the 11th of July, two days after the date of this
letter, Necker received his dismission and a formal demand to
quit the kingdom. It was accompanied by a note from the King,
praying him to depart in a private manner, for fear of exciting
disturbances. Necker received this intimation just as he was
dressing for dinner-, after which, without divulging his
intention to any one, he set out in the evening, with Madame
Necker, for Basle. See Mignet, tom. i. p. 47.-E.
Letter 334 To Miss Hannah More.